The vessel had always been cursed to move on after a period of time. Our hero had never stayed in one dimension or time for very long, but as the weeks, months, and years passed without incident, he began to truly believe in this man’s power of will.

With the magick symbols of their land, the Sage had placed the ruby red perfume bottle into a chest atop an altar. The chest was adorned with protection symbols, dressed with oils, and fed Holy smoke. The altar was blessed with the protection of many different spirits.

The altar was watched over every hour of the day and night by apprentices appointed to keep the sacred flame on the altar from extinguishing.

The apprentices showed no want or greed for wishes. Their passion for conquering their minds was a matter of pride. It was meant to be a long battle, the goal being to arise from the fight scarred and old, but humbled and wise. This result could not be granted. It must be lived.

All of the men and women of the camp knew him not as Jinni, but as Great Spirit, because that is all that the Sage called him. He was treated with honor and respect, both as an Elder and a god.

He grew more comfortable telling his stories as more people asked him for his ear and his advice, as more healing men and women used his multidimensional scars and disfigurements to practice their healing art.

He grew less dependent on his walking aid. Towards the end, he could manage to walk from the flap of the Sage’s tent to the cushions while leaving his staff outside, but he was slow and needed help to stand back up after hours of sitting.

Despite the man’s old age of seventy-six, young compared to our hero’s eternity, he had many stories to tell: his stories, the stories of others, and the stories of the land and its magick.

Our hero absorbed all the knowledge he could of their magick, and what he learned was this...

Everything had an energetic pulse. This electrical circuit, which existed in all things, could be rerouted to other circuits to affect change. A handful of sand could be electrified into a shard of glass. The passion of hate could be redirected into a passion of love. A symbol of life could be repurposed into a symbol of death.

The lines of symbols and written words, like the ones carved into our hero’s flesh, were pathways for energetic currents. If the intent of the energy was changed, if the pathways were redirected, one could overload the circuit and break the connection.

The old Sage only ever made one wish. He did not wish for a copy of the words originally used to place the curse upon the Jinni’s vessel, but he wished instead for a map of the curse’s circuitry.

When it appeared, this map was filled with interlocking geometric symbols and allegorical imagery. The scroll looked more like a strange pirate map, rather than the modern electrical blueprint our hero had pictured when he had helped the Sage in wording the wish.

The Sage spent most of his days in his tent looking over the map, just trying to understand it, memorize it. He tried to get a feel for the topography, but he saved the nights for telling our hero stories and to listen to the stories our hero told.

They met in the Sage’s tent each time the sun melted over the edge of the world, and they did this for years. The Sage tended to the Jinni’s frail limbs, and the Jinni grew stronger. In return, the Jinni tended to the Sage as he grew older and weaker.

One night after a tale of senseless war, our hero said bitterly, “People just like to watch others suffer. Nothing you can do about it.”

The Sage responded. “Well, despite this, one still must still try to do the right thing...”

“True. But then, good deeds rarely go unpunished.” They both laughed. “If people think they’ll get repaid for doing good, they have been tragically misinformed. There’s a far better payout for doing the wrong thing.”

“But one should do right, not for the payout, as you call it, but because it is right.” The Sage sipped his tea.

The Jinni reflected, “There have been plenty of times I‘ve done all the wrong things for the right reasons, and all the right things for the wrong reasons. I don’t think the right thing to do is always obvious, or cut and dry. I just think it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re willing to pay the consequences.”

“But the ultimate consequence, the afterlife. Paradise. That is what matters and why we should always do what is right.”

The Jinni looked into the face of his friend and asked heavily, “Hypothetically, what if you had to give up your Paradise? Go to hell instead to save somebody else from damnation? Would you do that?”

The Sage laughed. “Paradise is not a place. It is a soul’s state of being. Being at peace within one’s own soul...”

The Jinni thought and said, “But see, If paradise is just a state of mind, then a person who is at peace with their actions, whether they be right or wrong, can achieve Paradise. So, does it even really matter what is right?”

The Sage rebutted, “Let us imagine, though, a person who has committed atrocities with no apparent remorse. Now, they might believe they are settled in their soul, but when the end comes, they will see truth, and they will find no peace, because they have lied to themselves for all of their lives. This is why we seek truth in this plane of existence, for when we enter unto the next, we will know we have not been deceived. Honesty is quintessential, and I pity those who cannot be honest with themselves.”

The Great Spirit replied, “But, this land is simple compared to other worlds I’ve had the pleasure of living in. It’s easy to be honest with yourself here, where the temptations are few and far between. But, there are worlds where life is so complex, untangling the truth of right and wrong is an endless, meaningless agony. In some places, they can’t even buy organic almond milk or a fair trade cotton t-shirt without contributing to global warming, or child labor, or some other evil. Everything they do is a part of a complex chain of events, and they honestly can’t move without indirectly causing harm, so the only option they have is to just deal with the consequences.”

“Well I pity them, and pray for their souls.”

“I’m sorry, friend, but your pity and prayers won’t do them any good.”

The old Sage smiled and clasped the Jinni’s hand. Our hero didn’t flinch. He only smiled back, and the Sage helped him to his feet. Once standing, the old man put his hands on both of the Jinni’s shoulders, which were beginning to gain shape and strength. He held the Jinni at arms length and studied his visage.

His sharp eyes narrowed and he nodded. “You have taught me so many things I did not know, Great Spirit, like the hymns of Aerosmith and Johnny Cash.”

“Well-”

“They were wise prophets, and I am wiser because of them, and because of you. You have been both a teacher and a friend, and you should know you were the final key to my enlightenment.” The old man removed a hand from the jinni’s shoulder and placed it over his own heart. “I am truly blessed by having met you.”

The Jinni’s head tilted to the side at the sudden outpour of affection. “Should I be concerned?”

“No. Not at all. You should be excited for a new dawn.”

As he went to leave, the jinni’s peripheral vision caught sight of the scroll on the table at the side of the tent.

That night the Jinni lay awake trying not to think about freedom, a life without fear amongst his new fellows. They hadn’t spoken a word about it, but he knew the Sage thought he had found a way to break the curse. A way to free him from the land of darkness and demons, a land he hadn’t seen since the Sage had summoned him.

He tried very hard not to think about having the freedom to learn their magick. He understood it all in theory, but his magick was still not his own, and try as he may, his own energetic currents were still bound to that accursed bottle. Perhaps, after the sun had set the following day, they would belong only to him.

He tried not to think about belonging to himself, completely, wholly unto himself. To what, or whom, would he devote himself if he had the choice, the free will? Would he ever even want to be devoted to someone else again?

Perhaps in marriage, he thought, and he tried to push the thought out of his mind. He didn’t want to think about how much he might like to be with a woman like some he’d met, the ones with hands graceful enough to paint or play an instrument. He thought about the women he’d met who would talk with him for hours about everything and nothing, and the women who were brave enough to stand alone, and the ones strong enough to command a room. He had met women like that, with long dark hair, and eyes that pierced like daggers, with diamond cut jawlines, and minds as quick as spring traps.

He felt a heat rising inside of him, and his heart skipped a beat. He had found his dream. That’s what he wanted, and he shook his head and tried to squelch the desire. He didn’t want to want to be in love, but there it was.

He was able to push all other thoughts away except that one, and it kept him awake until dawn.

***

The next night, all the Elders and the best of the apprentices met in the Sage’s tent. The Jinni joined the old man in the center of the congregation.

“For the last two solar cycles,” the Sage addressed the men and women, “I have studied the curse of this bottle.”

Two apprentices accompanied an Elder who was carrying the intricate chest containing the ruby red bottle. She brought it to the center of the unfolding ritual while the Sage spoke.

“I now believe I have found the way to break this curse and unbind this Great Spirit from his container.”

The room applauded as the trunk was opened. Nestled inside the trunk, the ruby red, glass bottle cast glimmers around the dimly lit tent. The Jinni shrank from all the eyes he felt staring at him.

The sage continued, “I will, however, require your assistance. I only ask that you hold the space, and lend me whatever energy you can.” An apprentice reverently held the bottle out to him. He took it, moved forward, and set the insidious thing between himself and the Jinni.

He beckoned the Jinni to step forward, but the Jinni didn’t move. The sight of that pretty red prison had him frozen. His brain hazed over, his gut wrenched, and his hands began to shake.

“Do not be afraid, friend.”

He met the eyes of the Sage, who held nothing in his eyes but joy and comfort.

The Jinni stepped forward without fear, as commanded. The Sage took the Jinni’s deformed face in his hands, the bottle between them on the floor.

Our hero felt the vessel’s energy building a wall between himself and his friend, but he felt no fear.

“As the great prophet, Johnny Cash, preached- Now I’ve been out in the desert, just doing my time, searching through the dust, looking for a sign. If there’s a light up ahead, well brother I don’t know, but I got this fever burning in my soul, so let’s take the good times as they go, and I’ll meet you further on up the road.”

The Jinni laughed, and the Sage lowered the Jinni’s face and kissed his forehead.

“It will be alright,” he reassured. He took the Great Spirit’s hands. “Go find your dreams.”

His weathered, but gentle, hands slipped from the Jinni’s like sand.

He waved to the crowd like a conductor, and the choir began to chant and sing. “Everyone…,” he gestured for them to join him. The Sage closed his eyes, and began to meditate.

The tent was still, despite the sheer number of people imbuing it with song. The reverence of the mass filled the tent like steam, and the hairs on our hero’s arms prickled up as a bead of sweat trickled down his face.

Glowing gold symbols appeared on the cut red glass, and he took a step back to see them clearly. They were made of words, thousands of tiny words in rolling script moving down the bottle like binary code on a 1980’s computer screen. The script began to glitch and crack. Full symbols and lines began to flicker and vanish as they twisted around the glass. Then, cracks of light began to splinter and refract from the bottle.

The Jinni looked up at the crowd, wondering if they too were witnessing this phenomenon, but their eyes were closed. The entire room was working towards his freedom, and he realized he had never been in a place like this before, where he felt like he belonged and was loved.

The curse was breaking, and he watched the glowing script move up his own skin, words and phrases and symbols flickering and breaking out into shards of light, like he was breaking out of himself, shattering his connection to that damned bottle.

The wind whipped up, and the tent panels began to bellow and kick. The ropes strained, and seams began to tear.

Sand began to swirl around the room, and the Jinni could feel the energy of the people becoming unsure and distracted. Despite his own uncertainty, the words continued to break on both his flesh and the bottle. Then, the sand stung at his eyes.

He had felt this ripping, dragging feeling before. He had been in this sand storm before, once upon a time, inside a mirage...

“Wait,” he called out. “Wait!”

Magick was warping around him in what sounded like thunder, and his hands were disappearing from sight. The Jinni could barely make out the Sage as he crumpled to his knees in the sand.

Our hero was suspended in darkness.

“No,” he said through the thudding in his heaving chest. “No…”

Yes. Said the Darkness. It’s okay. I’m here for you. I’m here…