In a crowded city of white walls and market awnings, Aladdin lived with his mother in a small house behind the dyers' street. Their bread was thin, and their lamp smoked when the oil ran low. One afternoon, as Aladdin tossed date stones into a broken jar in the yard, a stranger in a dark red robe stopped at the gate and called him by name.
"My brother's son," said the man, opening his arms as if he had known Aladdin since he was a small boy. He spoke kindly to Aladdin's mother, set gold coins on her table, and said he had come from far away at last to care for his kin. Aladdin's mother looked at the coins, then at the man. She said little, but she baked him flat bread and poured tea. By evening the stranger had won a place by their lamp, and Aladdin began to call him uncle.
The next morning, the sorcerer took Aladdin beyond the gardens and the olive ground to a lonely patch of earth ringed with pale stones. He scattered a powder into a small fire, and as the air stirred, the ground opened into a round black mouth. Stone steps showed themselves, going down. "At the bottom," said the sorcerer, "there is a garden where fruits shine like glass. Pass through it and bring me an old lamp from a shelf in the last chamber. Touch nothing else. The lamp first, and quickly."
He placed a ring on Aladdin's …
6 chapters
