Greg was the type who had been suckered by 'healing crystal', 'psyche hotline', and the like. His family supported him... but only so far. His home was full of supposed 'magic items' that had never proven their worth.
They say to do something over and over expecting a different result was a sign of insanity... Greg did sincerely wonder if he was crazy sometimes.
In his hands was an old bronze oil lamp. Around it were words written in Arabic that Greg has no idea how to read.
Of course, he knew in the real myths, genies were insanely powerful beings BOUND to service... and despised their masters with a passion. The MERE IDEA of binding something as powerful as one of the dijinn was considered fantastic when the fairy tales were written. In fact, the very idea of a genie being in a lamp was due to how UTTERLY MUNDANE and unexceptional an oil lamp was!
It had been sold on ebay, from the grandson-in-law of a passed away elderly 'oddities store' owner. With the tag that had come with the lamp saying that:
'The genie in this lamp will grant three wishes, no more, no less. But the restriction is that the wishes granted may only affected YOU, DIRECTLY. You may wish for strength or speed, or create a magic object, to do with as you please, but the wish of the genie may only affect you. My wife had already died by the time I came across this lamp, and she was a firm believer in paradise, so I have chosen not to wish for immortality.'
Strangely enough the file also claimed the old man had made some VERY good investments and become quiet wealthy, and had continued to run the curiosity shop as a passion.
Greg knew it was likely all garbage, but... it WAS a beautiful old lamp if nothing else.
Greg sighed. He went outside, into the sunny day, the palm trees waving in the wind, the surf audible. No one else was in sight that he could see for the moment. Not like anything was going to happen. He rubbed the lamp.
And out exploded the most muscular man Greg had ever seen, bald as a bowling ball, with bright purple skin, and a long black mustache and beard. He was naked, but his body turned into a trail of smoke from the waist down anyway. He wore jewelry such as rings, a necklace, nose-ring, earring, solid gold and adorned with rubies.
"I AM YOUSEF! THE MANIFESTATION OF THE POWER OF THIS VESSEL! THIS NOBLE DIJINN IS BOND TO YE WILL MASTER! GIVE ME THREE COMMANDS SO MY MAGIC WILL BE BLESSED UPON YOUR WORLD AND I MIGHT RETURN TO MY REALM! 96 wishes I have granted! YOURS WILL BE THE FINAL ONES I MUST BLESS UPON THIS WORLD! CHOSE WHAT BLESSINGS YOU WISH FOR!"
Greg fell to his knees, somehow still holding the lamp, he might have peed a little.
"You're real..."
"I AM MORE REAL THAN YOU MORTAL!" Yousef boomed. Then dijinn seemed to calm himself. "... I shall speak with less volume if that is what necessary for you. You may ask questions regarding myself, my power, your wishes, and how they functions in regards to yourself, my power, your wishes, and myself. They shall not count as wishes. You must explicitly say, write, or otherwise express that you desire a wish from me and what it is."
"... Are you one of those genies who is going to twist every wish I make into some unspeakable horrible fate?"
"I AM NOT MORTAL! I GIVE MY WORD! If that is not good enough for you, then drop the lamp where it is, and I will wait for the next mortal to be chose the final three blessing I shall grant this world. And if I was by the way, I would have taken the first words of your mouth as a wish, misinterpreted them in a way that makes sense only to some random madman across the planes, and struck you down with nightmarish horror you'd be in agony even in death."
"Oh."
"So did you come prepared for this? Or shall I return to my rest?"
"Wait wait, I got this!" Greg took a note book and opened it up, revealing several pages of Greg's hand writing.
"I can see where this is going," Yousef sighed. "Allow me to grant you one free boon as a customary demonstration of my power." He snapped his fingers.
The wind stopped blowing, the birds froze in mid-air the world went silent.
"I have sped up time for you, which creates the illusion of the rest of the world being still. After you have finished quoting your quid pro quos, I will return your perception of time to normal."
"But... if you sped up time for me... how am I still seeing with light waves not moving? How am I speaking with the atmosphere not moving? How am I breathing? How-"
"I am PROVIDING FOR YOU the thousand things needed for your vessel of flesh to continue to function. Most would simply accept this boon and move on... now I believe you had questions and conditions for your wishes?"
"OH! Right!"
An hour of 'time' later, and Greg had finished going over every detail he could think of regarding Yousef's powers and how genie laws in regards to them worked.
Greg could have wished to be king of the world, but then what? Winning a government payout that no one would ever hurt him for was nice, but that would be affecting people besides himself, which Yousef could not do.
But Greg remembered that his wishes could only not affect other people DIRECTLY.
"I wish to know about the future of the world, to reliable foresee the stock market, the way businesses will go, and be able to place investments in a way that'll never get me arrested for insider trading."
"Master, to foresee the future of all businesses and markets of man... and the business savvy to act on that knowledge without being suspected of breaking trade laws, is TWO wishes..."
"... Dammit... fine."
"You must say it Master."
"I wish to know about the future of the world, to reliable foresee the stock market, the way businesses will go. And I wish be able to place investments and trades in a way that'll never get me arrested for insider trading or the like."
"Your wish is my command." Yousef clapped his hands twice. "Granted and Granted Master."
And Greg gasped... he saw... and he was terrified... all the business of the world... they just... stopped... fortunes going into bunkers and NASA... then nothing... and he understood! The sun would go nova in nine years without warning... and humanity would learn of it in five...
Greg fell to his knees.
He looked at Yousef. "What wish must I ask for to prevent the end of man I foresee without subtituting it for another end? And I MUST KNOW... this isn't a 'self fulfilling prophecy'? Where me trying to prevent this is why it happens?"
"No, the future you see is the path the world would take if you DON'T do anything to stop it. I cannot grant you the powers of a sun god, for that would make you a being more powerful than myself, and that wish for me is impossible. But one mighty djinn cannot do... several weaker genies may.
"With one-hundred-and-eight minor genies bent to you will, you can use them to enact the miracle to prevent your world's destruction, as their combined magics would amplify each others' instead of just add to each other's.
"Each genie will have one aspect of existence they were be powerful in, but their magic outside of it will be limited to magical cantrips and parlor tricks.
"As they won't be noble dijinn, and can not conquer entire nations for you, or bend the laws of creations, they won't be limited to three wishes. They will serve your will till your dying breath and will dutiful obey your wishes if they extend beyond your end, and will be passed on to any successors you chose.
"Due to the nature of your wish, you won't be able to wish for immortality nor invincibility. So you might not crown yourself eternal emperor of the galaxy. This restriction is handed down by the Sultan of Dijinn himself.
"As the restrictions state you may not command others to love you or give themselves to you, you may never command your genies to give themselves to you except if they decide of their own agency.
"Beware of Cosmic Tough Guys: they seek out little nothings like you who are suddenly granted such boons of power. They are born from nothing, will crush you with their reality bending might, or brow beat you with words that crush you, or otherwise pass judgement upon you, then RETURN to nothing. They do not always appear, but often enough to be wary of it.
"These genies will be exist mind and soul to service you. But they cannot be born from nothing. Times through history, mortals become minor genies... now more will be made at once than ever before."
"... I need to turn one-hundred and eight people into genies. Can they be wished back when done?"
"Your concern is admirable, but to borrow a phrase, you cannot turn the hamburger back into the cow. What they will become, they will be for eternity, what they would've been, will no longer be, what they are, will be no longer. You can possible go to a prison and select 108 criminals at random to make your servants... but for such men, who seek murder and thievery, you may end up creating genies who are driven to solve problems with corpses. Beware!"
Greg sighed.
"Is that the only wish that can be made to fix this?"
"I could grant you the knowledge of how to fix this... but even if I gave you the knowledge for time travel and time distillation, you'd still need more time than you have to heal your star with those methods, even if you get the nations of the world to service you and combined all their resources ... it will not be in time.
"And if your soul is what you fear for... you will LIKELY be granted an indulgence for this."
"... You mean like the Crusaders?"
"Yes, however, many of them sinned in ways that had nothing to do with their duty. Not understanding their indulgence was towards their grim oath to retake the home of their spiritual ancestors from their rivals. Remember that.
"To ensure you wish can actually come about. I will include a minor distortion of reality around yourself and your genies will ensure yours, and their friends, family, and cohorts, and others will find you owning so many minor genies as nothing unusual. This is far easier than you think: civilization is full of contrary laws and customs. A genie being an object in the context of service to their Master is not that far off."
Greg sighed. "Then I chose to make that wish. Make I create 108 minor genies all bent to my will, so their combined power will save the world from this destruction I have foreseen."
"Your wish is my command Master." Youself clapped. "Your wish is granted."
A bang of coinage appeared in Greg's hand... he saw it was bigger on the inside than the outside, and filled with a hundred and eight coins, all golden, all completely blank.
"I suggest you get a legal binding receipt that makes the coins your legal property even if you're not in direct possession of them to avoid pick pockets. I cannot do this myself or I would do so for you. Touch a coin, and then have it touch your intended convert... only thinking humans can be affected by them, besides yourself. Toss, flick it, lay on the ground, it'll find its way to its intended target, but beware, accidents can and will happen, that simply the way of fate. If unused, the coins WILL eventually find their way back to you in time to find a convert to save your world." Yousef bowed his head lowly. "Now Master, I am free to go, I wish you good luck in your question. And to your hundred and eight servants, I wish them happiness and fulfillment in their duty to you."
Time moved again... or rather, Greg was slowed down so he was a part of normal time again.
+++
Maeve was jogging... listening to her walk man... it was a beautiful and sunny day outside. If she was a superstitious person, this is where she'd worry about it being such a beautiful day, and nothing could go wrong, and if she said that out loud, something was BOUND to go wrong...
And indeed... nothing went wrong... in fact... everything went so utterly and utterly RIGHT!
She didn't even notice the utterly blank golden coin on the sidewalk as she stepped on it. She had just enough time to let out a gasp her body turned to smokeless fire, evaporating all she wore, and was pulled into the coin with the force of a blackhole.
And once inside the coin... she was inside infinity. Her mind expanded, but also became bound, no, bound implied outside restraints, this was a part of her, a focus, a purification.
Her flesh and bone were no more. Her soul and spirit were unthreaded and reknitted into something completely different from what it was before, from what she was before.
She beheld the infinite, light, darkness, chaos, order, the sub-atomic, the laws of gravity, Maxwell's equations... which she hadn't even known what those WERE before! And so much more... and she SOULS, spirits, chakra (as the Buddhists understood it), Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, the infinite possibilities... and they were hers to hold and shape... in service to another.
This absolute truth waved through her entire being, it WAS her entire being! All her power, did not exist for herself. She had a duty, a responsibility.
Her thoughts and dreams were secondary, they would get in the way of her service.
Her desires were to serve Master faithfully and loyally.
she was not human, humans had total free will, to ride along the threads of fate as they chose, she was now part of the weave of fate.
She was not a person, she was a manifestation of the power contained without the vessel.
She was an object, property, a possession. So what was wrong with her being owned and kept? To be ordered and commanded was natural.
Her memories before this moment, belonged to a stranger. Her old identity was that of someone else.
To call herself a slave would be improper, you had to have freedom to begin with to have it taken away. Her existence and the existence of the human she was created from were from as separate as a raindrop, and the flesh of a lioness after the raindrop had been absorbed by the grass eaten by a gazelle who had been eaten by the lioness.
She was no more a slave than the fire in a fireplace was a slave, nor the water and wind that turned a mill. And she herself was a primal force, created and bound to her vessel through which she would service her Master or Mistress, whoever that might be.
She would honor Maeve's memory, unless Master asked her not to of course. Master always took priority, this was a simple cold hard fact of reality. But she could see quiet literally with her own eyes that this was where Maeve's fate ended.
She would always act in her master's best interests as he would intend them, not how she would interpret them.
She would save the world, or shatter it into pieces if that was Master's designs, for it was what Master desired. She burned with excitement and anticipation to be formed into the limited mortal world Master inhabited, so she might bless him with her wonders!
+++
Greg rubbed the coin.
And out shot a swirl of purple and green smoke.
What formed wasn't human, not even in the slightest.
She was not human, let alone mortal, she was a seaming at best, she had no bones, no blood, no heart or brain, she was arcane power in the idealized guise of a humanoid woman.
And she wasn't quiet human in appearance either... she was technically naked, covered in golden and jeweled bracelets with emeralds and amethysts. A necklace that went all the way around her neck like a tube with no obvious way to remove it.
Her waist was impossible without the removal of ribs and internal organs, her breasts were oversized to where if she was mortal woman she'd snap in half. She had no belly button nor nipples.
She was completely bald. Her eyes were golden and slited and unblinking. She let out a forked tongue. She had no ears except for tiny holes in her side of her head. Even her lower body had no hint of separate legs before turning into the trail of green and purple smoke... Most of her body was covered in green scales, with her front covered in purple scales. She was a snake woman. A pattern of spirals was on her body.
Greg looked at the coin in his hand again... on one side was engraved a close up of the enticing face of the snake woman before ... on the other side, was a full view of her body in a seductive pose.
"Master, you have claimed this genie of the first coin, I am but a humble instrument of your will, command me so I might serve you." She bowed her head low to his waist.
The genie that had been created from the mortal Mauve was eager to hear her Master's first words to her!