| The dragon mage had only seen such a case of a masterless djinn
one time before throughout his entire long life, but not via a the destruction
of it's genie bottle.......as what he sees via his mystical senses when
he looks at the djinn's and the remains of links to the bottle she carries.
Probe, Astra, and the others soon talk and soon several things become
rather clear. One is that this Astra has no real memory of how she'd
come to be a djinn (the last clear memory had been of yet another dreary
day chained up naked against a wall while the Dragon of the Northern Caverns
gloated over her). Then there was something about her supposed master (a
word that her heart raged against having to have to call anyone that),
but for the life of her she couldn't remember anything about him (or her).
However, she did remember that she'd been developing a friendship with
her master before her change of status. Whatever the case, she had a fragment
of memory (a second or two) of some evil, powerful monster named Randal
Flagg striking him (and a dog?) down before she could even do anything.
She remembered the transformation inside the Lamp of Zolar, but it was
jumbled and muddy.
"But unless my memory's completely at fault, in this case I didn't have
a bottle but a *lamp* (in true Aladdin style)." she finally says, looking
at the fancy (if broken) bottle in her hand, "So for broken bottle
I guess we should see a broken lamp. But this is the Lamp of Zolar....."
Djinns have a thing for knowing things like that.
"Well," Gabriel says, speaking up from the side, "There is one little
extra thing that Dad and Mom told me about the Dark Tower novels and characters
that could make it clear about the bottle/lamp thing."
Susan Delgrado and Astra the Djinn look at Probe's son, then at his
parents in askance.
"See, Randal Flagg might be many of things," Evis 7 began, "but one
thing in particular is that he's got knowledge of late twentieth century
events and such.....including TV pop culture. In other words, in a fit
of humor he transformed Astra's broken lamp into a shattered bottle because
in the American TV show "I Dream of Genie" the female genie lived in a
bottle. Kind of a send up of the show, in his own warped sense of humor."
"In other words," the dragon mage says, "It's just a small, stupid jest
that makes him laugh."
"But I thought you had said that he'd been destroyed by these Rules
and Agents," Susan protested.
"Remember what Roland was able to do with Jake?" Gabriel asks, "Didn't
that
involve a bit of time travel?"
"Ouch," Probe mutters, seeing the point.
His son seemed to have just hit upon the problem. Though Flagg may have
been destroyed already, by the Terra Prime calendar, with a bit of time
travel involved with the Mid-world doors.....Flagg was apparently still
about. That could be a dangerous situation indeed, because....
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Probe." a voice says behind them all,
"While he is able to time travel, when he was killed by beings that were
his peers....his fate got sealed. In other words, he can't turn away from
the path that will lead to his destruction. But in the meantime, things
could be....er....interesting for all the lives he'll touch on the way."
-
 Rule 1 had
this one last stop to make to help this djinn (who was one of the "old
style" Champions), before seeing Two Girls up north from here....
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