“Go on,” Djinni prodded. “Name your desire, and it will be reality.”
“Alright, I wish for – wait.” The stranger hesitated. “I need to ask you something else first.”
“Oh? What knowledge do you require, Master?”
“What are the rules?”
She blinked. “Rules?”
“You know: what can you do? What can’t you do? What counts as a wish? How do wishes work? What sort of wishes are banned?”
“Ah.” She nodded. “To answer your questions, the only real limit on what can be done is how much power I can bring to bear on something. The sun is the source of all my magic, and so anything that it lacks the power to achieve is also outside of my power. For example, if you asked me to create a new star, I am afraid that it would be quite beyond me. But anything I can do, I will have to do if you wish for it. I have already told you what words you need to say to make a wish. As to how they work, you name what it is you want, and I grant it. Anything that you do not specify is up to me to decide how to handle in the granting. And, as I said before, no wishes that I can accomplish are actually banned in any manner.”
“I see,” he said, mulling her words over.
“Unofficially, Master,” she continued. “May I give you some advice?”
“Of course.”
“Wise,” she said. “I advise you not to make any wish that might endanger the world’s safety. Elsewise I shall feel compelled to sabotage it in any manner possible. And perhaps kill you in the process.”
The stranger blanched. The threat had been delivered with utter nonchalance – there was not even the slightest change in her tone.
“For example, though you do not seem the type, should you ask me to boil the seas I might make them boil for an insignificant fraction of a second and then restore normal temperature before anything can be affected. Should you specify a duration I might reinterpret the word “seas” or “mistake” it for a homophone.” She shrugged. “I am very old and very knowledgeable. I am happy to serve, but I will not allow anyone to destroy life on this planet. But beyond that, I will do all I can to faithfully grant your wishes in the best manner possible.”
The stallion swallowed. He would never make a wish like that, but all the same the knowledge that this spirit might try to kill him if she disapproved enough was unnerving.
“I thought you said that you couldn’t harm me?” he said, after a moment. “Was that a lie?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I cannot hurt you.”
And then she was instantly above him. By way of demonstration she pulled back a hoof as if to strike, only for the bracelets to shine and the limb to lock itself in place. Djinni visibly struggled, pulling against the shining jewelry, but absolutely nothing she did made her leg move even a fraction of an inch.
“You see?” she said, reappearing where she had been sitting just as casually. “I have no power to harm you. I can only… give you what you ask for.”
The stranger was beginning to wonder if perhaps the ancient thief had had the right idea after all. This mare seemed dangerous and more than a little prone to mood swings. It was possible that all her time cooped up alone had left her utterly insane, or perhaps just extremely spiteful. She claimed that those days were behind her and that the fall of this city had been an accident, but how did he know that? Perhaps all her subservient demeanor was simply an act designed to make him let down his guard for a lethal setup. It was, after all, how he would go about killing a master from her position.
But then… if that were her intent, why warn him? Why tell him of killing her first master, when it would only put him on his guard? Why not simply act the part of a docile and always-obedient servant until he had already made a wish she could twist to kill him? Perhaps she was simply insane after all. Or maybe she was clever enough to anticipate his having this line of thought in advance, and take measures to head it off. By framing the threat exclusively in terms of dangers to the world, was she trying to lower his guard when making other types of wishes?
He shook his head. If he thought like that, he could attribute any number of conspiracies and reverse psychological games to her. He could not hope to prove it one way or the other, save by plunging into the dangerous waters headfirst.
“Master?” Djinni’s voice cut into his thoughts. He looked up.
The spirit’s expression had softened. “You need not be afraid, Master. I am not out to hurt you. I do not wish to make you miserable. I hope to leave you with a prosperous and joyful life ahead of you. I sought not to terrify you, only to warn you that you might think carefully. Nothing would please me more than to give you happiness.”
“Why?” he asked, deciding the direct approach might yield results. “You are a slave, imprisoned unjustly for uncounted years. I am merely the latest to stumble on you by chance. What is my happiness to you?”
“Mine,” she answered.
Seconds passed, but the mare declined to offer further comment. The stranger decided not to push it, for reasons of conscience and pragmatism.
So this was it, was it? Make a wish or don’t. Waiting was pointless – he knew full well what he wanted. The only question was whether he would get it. And whether he would survive the experience, of course. He could play cautious and take her on the long journey back home, and then maybe he might find some information giving him a better idea of whether to trust her or not. He could play it really safe and order her back to her lamp, toss it back into the rubble or bury it in the sand, and leave having lost nothing further. Alternatively, he could take her at her word, make his wish, and reap the results. Play it safe on the off-chance of better odds, or take a risk to get what he wanted? He let out a sigh, and made a decision.
He could only pray that it was the right one.
“Djinni?” he said.
Her ears perked up. “Yes, Master?”
“Djinni, I wish for you to show me a wonder never beheld by mortal eyes.”
She nodded slowly, then smiled.
“Done.”
The stranger hit something liquid. A purple gaseous cloud in the unending blackness of the void. The icy substance chilled him to the bone in an instant. A wave the size of ten mountains smashed into a bleak, lifeless land with towers of stone. He realized he was up to his waist in the viscous substance. A swirling super-storm in an endless cloud of red. He could not feel the bottom. Blue gas lit an alien sky, stars shining around three other planets. He was sinking deeper. An insect skittered across the black earth of a dense jungle. Towering citadels of blue and silver stretched across the horizon. The fluid was enveloping the top of his back, pushing him along. Twin suns set over a scene of endless desert. Mountains black and sharp as daggers pierced the frozen landscape of endless ice. He could not keep his place, could not swim through the distraction. A cratered rock flowed endlessly through inky blackness. A many-legged alien titan swam through a sea of green. Even now he continued to sink in. Explosions shook a rocky land of canyons and cliffs. Twisting spires of the deep dark rose through a cavern floor. It was up to his neck, lapping the bottom of his chin. A dark, armored pony screamed as she was enveloped by a twisting rainbow. A flare blazed off of an endless sea of fire. He clamped his mouth shut as the substance threatened to enter. Wind blew through an ancient and fertile valley. Twisted, simian creatures swung from thick vines on a dank, dark jungle night. He held his nose up as high as he could, kicking desperately, but still he sank. Purple slime gleamed on cracked grey rocks. Water poured from islands floating miles over the earth. A bestial howl echoed through an unending plain of ice. He couldn’t hold it any more, he was going–
“My apologies.”
The stallion was ripped from the thick, icy substance by a force of great magnitude. It was firm, yet warm and comfortable. A featherless creature soared above a great blue-pink sea. As he rose higher and higher, the substance, which he now recognized for silvery-looking, seemed to flow off with unnatural ease. As if it were eager to return to the pool below. The stranger coughed and sputtered, making certain that none of it had gotten in his mouth.
The stranger’s rise halted a good distance above the pool. No… not a pool. From here he could perceive that it was a tide. A great flow of silver poured in from every direction, flowing both up and down to reach the largest, most impossible vortex that he had ever seen. It was a whirlpool a continent wide and more, and yet somehow he could clearly perceive the other side, witness the endless flow of the silver into that edge as well. And from the center of this great vortex burst another whirlpool, this one seemingly widest at the bottom of the first, thinning out as it swirled upwards. The stranger looked many miles into the air, saw the endpoint. It touched another sea of silver suspended impossibly upside down, this one flowing in just the opposite direction, out and away from the vortex. He followed the seas as far as his eyes could perceive, yet he could see no end to it all. Indeed, at a great distance the silver currents bent, eventually reaching the point that he could not tell one from the other. Such was his stupefaction that he did not even notice his jaw hanging limply.
“Does this please you, Master?”
The stranger jumped to hear Djinni’s voice, and would undoubtedly have fallen had he been supporting himself. When he turned his head, there she was, floating there as though she had been in this place forever. She did not even use her wings.
“Where… where are we?” he managed.
“The Wellspring of Eternity,” she answered. “It is said to be the first place that the Creator ever touched. From here all time flows, and to here all time must flow. It has, to the best of my knowledge, never before been witnessed by mortal eyes.”
“What was all that?” he asked.
“That?” She raised an eyebrow.
“The… you know...” He waved a hoof around. “Flow of images. The visions I saw. All that… weird… stuff!” he threw up his hooves.
“Those would be the moments you touched, Master.”
“The moments I touched?”
“As I said, all time flows here. You caught a glimpse of a few moments in time as they flowed here. Past, present, or future… ordinary perceptions of time have little meaning here.” She paused. “I tried to pick an interesting section for you. Most of them are just scenes of nothing much happening in the cold depths of space. I hope that you found them enjoyable.”
“You threw me in there?!” He had almost drowned, for heaven’s sake.
She blinked. “Well, yes. I assumed that you wanted the full experience. You can’t fully see this place until you had a time in the time stream.”
“I almost drowned!”
“You were in no danger of drowning, Master. You simply slipped in slightly faster than I anticipated. But you would never have run out of air.”
The stranger raised an eyebrow.
“Who do you think is now filling your lungs? Or did you suppose that places such as this simply happen to have air of perfect atmospheric ratio for your species’ health for no particular reason?” She shrugged. “I just assumed that you wished to survive this experience.”
The stranger made a mental note then and there not to get on this spirit’s bad side. There were so many ways that he could see to have killed him with this wish – or make him wish that she had. But she had proven herself honest after all. His gamble had paid off.
Take that, caution!
“So,” Djinni asked after some time had passed. “Does this please you, Master?”
“Very much so.” He nodded.
“I am pleased.” She smiled. “Do you care to go back, or would you stay longer?”
“I want to see more,” he answered immediately. “Lower me into the flow, just a little bit. I want to see more of the time stream.”
And so he did. With a single hoof stuck gently into the silvery flow, the stranger beheld snatches of time from across the universe. Past, present, and future all blended together in one indeterminate mess as he witnessed things that nopony had ever seen before, from the dawn of their race to alien vistas to the birth of stars and even more exotic scenes. Hours and hours passed while he scarcely noticed, caught up in wondrous discovery and utter amazement. He might well have stayed in that place forever, exploring the infinite depths of time, had his own body not betrayed him at the last. For he eventually grew tired and hungry, and his mind began to be overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of the knowledge he was acquiring. In the end, it forced his hoof.
“Please,” he whispered to Djinni, eyes half-shut and voice weak. “Take us back.”
The spirit smiled knowingly. “Done.”
The two appeared right back in the tomb, exactly where they had been hours ago. The conjured carpet was still in place, cushions and all. Everything, down to their very positions and posture, was just as how it had been. The stranger, already worn down to nothing, wasted no time in rolling over onto one of the pillows and falling asleep.
For her part, the mare simply looked on and smiled.