The Queen's Admiral

Chapter 42: The Sultan and the Snow Queen

"A golden lamp?" my aunt asked. "I don't understand. What does the lamp do?"

I knew from the stories of the Thousand and One Nights, lamps were magical vessels and I proceeded to explain it. "It's not what the lamp does. It's what the lamp contains: a genie with almost omnipotent powers that can grant three wishes to whoever rubs it and becomes his master."

"But wait, Belle told me that story," Albert said. "The genie was freed after his kind master Aladdin wished him free. So if that's the same lamp it wouldn't contain anything."

"Yes," replied Admiral Westergard. "That's a possibility and I'm hoping that's the case here. But there is another story that takes off from where Aladdin's story ends. I found it in one of the books in the Southern Isles library and Belle told me she had a similar one in her old library in France."

We all sat down around him for we had a feeling this was something that needs to be heard in a more comfortable position.

"There was this old Arabian manuscript that contained something of a different kind of fairy tale," Admiral Westergard related. "It briefly told how a sultan of Agrabah suffered a mortal wound in the prime of his youth. He had a friend who was a magical being that traded his freedom for a potion that can extend the sultan's life. The potion did work and the sultan lived to a good old age and he kept his magical friend safe for decades. But as a mortal, the sultan eventually died. And when he did the lamp passed on to other hands and the magical being was forced to serve other masters that used his powers that caused so much destruction on the land. The magical being was so dismayed at the sorrows he inadvertently caused that he prayed for a way to end it. A powerful fairy came to his aid and she imprisoned him in a cell that can only be opened by one that was touched by her magic. Belle and I discussed this at length when I was a child and we both came to believed that the sultan and Aladdin are one and the same and that the magical being is in fact the genie of the lamp."

"So if this story is true," I said. "My powers and Aunt Elsa's came from this fairy's magic?"

"Yes, that's a possibility," replied Admiral Westergard before he turned to my aunt. "So how did you get your powers, your majesty?"

My aunt looked away from him and I could tell she was uncomfortable with the question. It struck me as odd now that I never really thoroughly questioned where we got our powers. Mama and Aunt Elsa said they were just God's gifts. We were born into it, not cursed or granted powers through wishing spells like in fairy tales and I never really asked them further about it. I just accepted it as natural just as the rest of the kingdom did. But now as I eyed my aunt, I wasn't so sure. Something told me in her manner that this was another secret she had kept from me.

Finally she spoke carefully. "What I am about to tell you is something that is strictly confidential. Can I have your word that you will not reveal anything of what I will say to any other person?"

We all swore solemnly to her that we will keep her secret and it was only then that my aunt spoke again.

"Are you familiar with the legend of the Snow Queen?" she asked.

"Yes," Lt. Andersen replied as we all nodded. Everyone knew about that fairy tale about a wicked sorceress who kidnaps young men and freezes their hearts until they were nothing more than her slaves. It was such a popular folklore of my people that until now even the ice harvesters still sang about it as they went about their daily tasks. I even learned the same song from Papa:

Born of cold and winter air
and mountain rain combining.
This icy force both foul and fair
has a frozen heart worth mining.

So cut through the heart, cold and clear.
Strike for love and strike for fear.
See the beauty, sharp and sheer
Split the ice apart
And break the frozen heart