The bottle, which was about 12 inches tall, had a very distinctive shape to it, designed for the specific purpose of piquing the curiosity of potential masters. Its wide, bulging base quickly tapered into a long, thin neck that flared out slightly near the top, where a tight-fitting stopper plugged the sole opening. It seemed to be made of an opaque ceramic of some sort, painted blue and decorated with ornate geometric patterns of silver and gold, with lines of heavily stylized calligraphy surrounding the base (even though the genies weren’t quite certain what language was written on their new home, to their mild surprise they had no problem understanding its meaning, which essentially amounted to a variation of “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it”).
That, however, was the outside—as the three genies were pulled into the bottle, what they found was something totally different. When Ahmed had said that bottles tended to have more room than other vessels, he hadn’t been kidding: the room they found themselves in was absolutely huge. The room was in the shape of a flat cylinder, its diameter approximately the width of a basketball court, with a circular shaft in the very center which gave the room the shape of a very large donut. As might have been expected, it was decorated very much like a stereotypical Middle Eastern “harem” room, complete with veils and copious amounts of floor pillows, but it also included some rather modern amenities, such as a huge flat-screen monitor which sat in front of the room’s sole piece of furniture, a plush leather sofa that ran along the outer edge of the donut for nearly 90°. Also unlike the stereotypes was the magenta carpeting, which, while not quite long enough to be considered “shag” carpeting, was still long and soft enough to allow one to feel comfortable by simply lying on the floor. The magenta from the carpet continued with the colors of the walls and ceiling, where several lights had been strategically place to provide the best illumination of the room.
The purpose of the central column became clear when the genies looked at the side opposite of the television: a door there opened to reveal a spiral staircase going in both directions. Ranma, her consternation at having her gender temporarily locked in momentarily forgotten, immediately raced upwards to find out how many floors the bottle had—and soon found herself arriving at her starting floor from the stairs below. After some confusion, the three genies eventually realized that their home had only four floors, but that rather than having a top or bottom floor, they instead looped back on themselves ad nauseum in both directions.
A quick investigation of the other floors revealed them to be just as spacious as the starting floor, though furnished differently. The first floor above turned out to be a huge bathroom/spa; essentially, the genies had been given their own personal sento, though where the heating came from was anybody’s guess (though Mihoshi’s explanation that it was “probably just magic” seemed as good as anything). In addition to the ridiculously huge hot tub, the bathroom also included three large shower stalls and three individual sinks, with mirrors—but conspicuously missing from these was a toilet. Again, Mihoshi was able to explain this relatively easily: since genies didn’t actually have digestive systems, they didn’t really need to go to the bathroom, a notion that was backed up by the fact that neither Ranma nor Nabiki had required such facilities since becoming genies, even though they’d both eaten a rather large meal from Kasumi on the first evening.
The floor immediately above that one was partitioned off into three areas, each of which was obviously a bedroom for each genie, and each furnished in a different color—who got what room was decided immediately: Ranma took the red one, Nabiki the green, and Mihoshi the white one. No arguments were necessary, because each room seemed to fit its owner’s personality perfectly.
The floor above this one (which was also the floor directly below the “living room” where they first came into) was surprisingly bare: wooden floors, drab walls and ceilings, and absolutely no furnishings whatsoever. “What’s this supposed to be?” Nabiki asked. “Some kind of storage room?”
“I don’t know,” Mihoshi admitted. “I never had anything like this in my lamp.”
“Maybe it’s a trainin’ room,” Ranma said.
“Does this look like a dojo?” Nabiki asked sarcastically.
“Actually, yeah.”
“What?”
“Nabiki…” Mihoshi said with a tap on the mercenary girl’s shoulders. “Look.”
Nabiki then noticed that the formerly bare room now resembled a traditional dojo, albeit one with an extremely bizarre donut-shaped layout, complete with tatami mats and sliding doors—which, a quick check revealed, didn’t lead anywhere, even though there seemed to be a light source behind them. “How did that happen?”
“I think it changed when ya mentioned a dojo,” Ranma said. “Maybe this is s’posed ta be all the other rooms we’re gonna need. Try somethin’ else.”
“Okay… how about a library?”
For a moment, nothing happened, but then it suddenly seemed that the dojo revolved around the central column, disappearing as a fully stocked Victorian library slid into its place.” Similar experiments with a kitchen, an art gallery, and a recording studio revealed that this was a multi-purpose room in a very literal sense.
“Well, that was interesting,” Nabiki said as they climbed up the stairs to return to the living room. “So, now what? Do we wait until some master comes along and rubs the bottle to let us out?”
“Actually, genies are released from bottles when the stopper is pulled—rubbing is only required for wishes,” came a familiar voice from behind the column.
“Ahmed?” Mihoshi asked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here on official business from the Council of Djinn, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to physically enter without your permission. It seems that the three of you are going to need a crash course in the basics of being a genie sooner than expected—that’s why I’m here.”
“Sooner than expected? What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say that things have happened that require you to have a certain degree of knowledge right now. Since we’re a little pressed for time, why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll get started.”
The three genies complied, settling in to their new sofa as the large male genie stood before them. “Well, let’s begin with how wishes are actually granted. It’s essentially a five-step process. First, the wish is made by the master. Second, the genie interprets the wish. Contrary to what you might think, it is this step in the process that is the most important, rather than the first, which is ultimately quite inconsequential. Third, the interpretation is sent to a massive supercomputer that is maintained by the Council of Djinn, about whom I’ll explain more shortly, for approval. The vast majority of these requests are rubber-stamped without much consideration, but if the interpretation is unusually complex, or if it could be in violation of the rules, then we have a small committee of genies who manually decide whether or not to grant the request. Fourth, the approval or disapproval is relayed to the original genie, at which point the genie informs the master as to whether or not the wish will be granted. And finally, assuming approval is received, the appropriate changes prescribed by the genie’s interpretation of the wish are effected using the most efficient means possible, in accordance with the Law Of Conservation Of Magick.”
“Whoa, hold up,” Nabiki said. “So the wisher’s intentions don’t even matter?”
“No, they don’t. The only limitations placed on the interpretation is that it not contradict the original wish’s wording, and that it actually grants what the wish literally asks for. This is how Mihoshi was able to get the three of you together, even though it would have been much less complicated to hitch you and Ranma together for the rest of your lives; ultimately, she was not granting your wish, but her own interpretation of that wish.”
“Still, that interpretation had to be in violation of the rules.”
“It was, but for some reason, it not only managed to make it through the whole process without raising any red flags, but it had the condition that the three of you be made into eternals attached to it by the end. As far as I’m concerned, that means that somebody fucked with the system. In any case, what you should know is that most of the rules that genies are obliged to give their masters can actually be bent with a little lateral thinking.”
“Lateral thinkin’?” Ranma asked. “Whaddya mean by that?”
“Thinking outside the box,” Ahmed replied. “I’d give you an example, but there’s already enough confusion going on without having three inexperienced genies doing advanced rule-bending, and I don’t want to take the blame for ‘inspiring’ you, so to speak. I highly suggest that you keep things simple for now.”
“And when would that be?” Nabiki asked.
“Around the time you gain the authority to grant death and resurrection wishes. The Council of Djinn will tell you when that happens.”
“Great. And what exactly is the Council of Djinn, anyway?”
“Well, let’s start with a basic rundown of how our society is set up,” Ahmed began. “There are basically two types of genies: contracted genies who eventually return to their original form, and eternal genies who remain genies for their entire lives, which by definition means that they can’t die. As you well know, the three of you fall into the latter category.”
“At the moment, you mean,” Nabiki said under her breath.
Ahmed apparently didn’t hear this (or he ignored it) because his lesson continued unabated. “While some of our activities are governed by the nature of the magic we’re made of—of which you’ll find out a lot more later—most of the rules we have in place come from the Council of Djinn, our self-governing body of politicians. There are 120 djinn on the Council: 60 contracted genies and 60 eternals. The contracted genies are elected by their comrades and serve for terms of 250 years, which isn’t that long when you consider that most genies are contracted for millennia at a time. The eternals, on the other hand, are given permanent seats. Are there any questions so far?”
“Yeah,” Ranma said. “Why do we gotta know this? I don’t really care about politics.”
“Many genies don’t, but being apathetic about this is, unfortunately, a luxury you can’t afford, seeing as how you’re a member of the Council yourself.”
“What?! When did that happen?”
“When you became an eternal. As I said, eternals are given permanent seats on the Council of Djinn, thus, when the three of you became eternals, you each became permanently involved in the inner workings of our politics. It’s not so bad, really; it might not always stave off boredom, but at least it gives you something to do other than wish-granting.”
“So... we took the jobs of three regular genies?” Mihoshi asked.
“No, when you became eternals, three additional elected seats were added for the contracted genies in order to keep the balance.”
“Whoa, hold up,” Nabiki said. “Are you telling me that all of the eternals are on this Council?”
“Yes.”
“So that means there’s a grand total of 60 eternal genies in the history of... well, history?”
“Correct.”
“How many contracted genies are there?”
“At the moment? I’d say there are roughly 750,000 currently operating—the multiverse is a huge place, after all.”
There was a pause as the three eternals process this bit of information, after which Nabiki asked the obvious question: “So, how many genies have there been in total?”
“We’re not sure. You see, djinn have been around in one form or another so long that we’re not certain how many beings have been djinn. But a conservative estimate would be at least 5 million.”
“5 million… and only 60 became eternal?”
“Yes. Most of them blundered their way into the post, thinking that they wanted all the bonuses, although a few were tricked into it, and at least one djinn thought becoming eternal would be an appropriate penance for past misdeeds. All of them have lots of clout, simply because they’ve lived so long that they’ve managed to accumulate a lot of favors. That, and they can wait for indefinite periods of time if they want to carry out revenge against a djinn who’s crossed them.”
“Okay, I guess,” Ranma said as she continued to scratch her head. “But I still don’t get why we needed ta know this now. I mean, wouldn’t it be better ta, ya know, let us get some experience before startin’ in with the whole politics thing?”
“Oh, it would be much better if you could do that,” Ahmed replied. “But your sudden ‘promotion’ has created a huge controversy, which is why an emergency meeting of the Council has been called. Even then, we would have left you alone, except that some of the votes are expected to be so close that you three could swing the issues in one direction or another.”
“So... you’re here to take us there?” Mihoshi asked.
“Yes.”
“When are we going?”
“Right now.” And with that, the four genies immediately dissolved into smoke.
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(Posted Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:18)
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