The Enemy Within
Characters (c) are owned by Walt Disney Corp.
In the Land of the Black Sand, the overarching darkness of the black night sky seemed to glower above the ebony ground with a rancid enmity, projecting wrath and anger upon everything on the earth below it. It was no accident that the atmosphere of this infamously gloomy, darksome land was even more foreboding than usual. For at this moment, the evil sorcerer who ruled the region was conducting a nefarious magical spell so outstanding in its audacity that the heavens above seemed to react with menacing disapproval.
Within the stone citadel located at the top of a gray cliff in the middle of the ominous area, the young sorcerer Mozenrath stood over a large cauldron which was brimming with strange multicolored fluids and mists. The wizard, bedecked in his customary blue and black clothing, watched as the mysterious mists swirled and writhed near the brim of the cauldron and created flashes of incandescent light.
Mozenrath was still seething over his previous defeats at the hands of Aladdin, the hero of Agrabah, and his band of companions. Time after time, the sorcerer's attempts to become master of all the kingdoms of the Seven Deserts had come to naught, and the supreme power he craved remained beyond his grasp.
But now things would be different. Mozenrath was sure he had found the perfect way to vanquish Aladdin and conquer the Seven Deserts. He knew that he needed new magical assistance from some great otherworldly power, and now he had found it. One of his books of magic spells had revealed to him an enchantment that would allow him to harness the power of the world beyond the grave. Using the evil spirits inhabiting the mystical realms of the long dead, he could finally acquire enough power to fuel his long-delayed campaign of conquest.
And so he had gone about preparing the magic spell, and now it was nearly complete. The cauldron now bubbled with the magical energies needed to unlock the mystical doors to the world of the dead, and to summon the souls of the dead to do his bidding. Moments from now, Mozenrath's spell would grant him an army of deathly spirits to command.
A small creature – an airborne brown eel that could float and hover through the air – flew over to Mozenrath's side as he looked over the luminescent cauldron.
"You see, Xerxes?" Mozenrath said to the eel. "Soon this latest spell will grant me the power of the realm of the dead, and I will finally be able to conquer the Seven Deserts."
"Yes, yes," the eel hissed in reply.
Mozenrath raised his magical gauntlet – which covered one hand that had been eaten away to the bone by the corrupting power of the leather glove – and cast a blue beam of mystical energy from the gauntlet into the cauldron. In response, the cauldron churned and rumbled.
"Yes! It's working!" shouted Mozenrath. "I knew this magic spell would work. Now I will possess unearthly power from the world of the dead, and I will command an army of spirits that will bring me victory over all the kingdoms! Not even Aladdin can stop me this time!"
As Mozenrath was still speaking, the cauldron suddenly began to shake violently, and a burst of brilliant light exploded from its interior. Shocked, Mozenrath stepped back, and his eyes widened at the unexpected display.
"What's happening?!" he said.
The cauldron burst forth with another explosion of light, and the floor of the room quaked and trembled from the force of the blast. Mozenrath and Xerxes shielded their eyes from the blinding light as they backed away from the tempestuous cauldron.
As the blast of light gradually faded away, Mozenrath tried to see what had happened. Peering through the cloud of dust and smoke that had arisen from the explosion, he could see some sort of shimmering mass taking shape.
"What's going on?" he said aloud, more to himself than to Xerxes. "Where are those spirits of the dead the spell promised me? I need their power!"
The dust and smoke gradually cleared away, and Mozenrath and Xerxes drew closer to the strange mass of bright light that had appeared near the cauldron. Upon closer examination, the mass of light resembled a doorway of some kind, and a shadow far inside of it was coming closer to the threshold, seemingly intent on exiting through the doorway.
"Something's coming!" Mozenrath said. "Something's emerging from another world!"
The shadow drew closer and closer to the threshold. Its full form could not be seen clearly at first because the shimmering light around the doorway was too blinding. But gradually, the shape of the shadowy figure began to reveal itself as it approached the interdimensional threshold separating one world from another. The figure soon reached the threshold and began to come into full view as it passed through the waves of glittering light.
The figure that exited the doorway was a gray-skinned, decrepit-looking humanoid creature clad in purple robes. It wore a dull gold-colored Egyptian-style flat-topped crown on its head, and it walked with a notably hunched posture. The bizarre visitor had a freakish, frightful face exhibiting a jagged mouth with oversized teeth; a small, dark beard protruding from the chin; and a pair of crazed, deathly eyes. The overall appearance of the stranger suggested a fearsome, insidious nature.
Mozenrath and Xerxes stared across the room as the gray-skinned stranger emerged from the light and stepped into the room.
"Ha ha ha!" the stranger cackled in a grating, raspy voice. "At last! Ayam Aghoul is free once more! Free to once again plague the living world!"
The stranger examined his surroundings as Mozenrath looked on with surprise, not quite sure of what to do next. Eyeing the intruder suspiciously, he decided to find out more about this visitor before doing anything.
"This is my citadel, stranger," Mozenrath declared. "I demand that you tell me your reason for being here."
"Ah, a citadel, is it?" the gray-skinned stranger drawled, his frenzied eyes darting about the room. "Very interesting. So you must be the magic-maker who conjured that spell which released me from my prison. This is certainly a fortunate day for Ayam Aghoul."
Now Mozenrath suddenly recognized the name uttered by the stranger. It was a name he had come across before in one of his magic books.
"Ayam Aghoul!" he said. "I've heard of you. You are the undead sorcerer who often tormented humans, but who became trapped in the Netherworld, the realm of the dead."
"The same," Aghoul said with a grin. "And there's nothing like having a helpless living world at my mercy to cheer me up after being locked away in that cursed Netherworld."
"I was expecting to summon spirits from the realm of the dead to do my will," Mozenrath said, the frustration in his voice growing more readily apparent. "The magic spell was supposed to give me the power of the Netherworld!"
"Well, life is full of surprises," Aghoul said. "And so is un-life." He laughed at his own joke with a rather sloppy, slavering guffaw.
"Now that you're free, what do you plan to do?" Mozenrath queried.
"Well, a little kidnapping, tormenting, and conquering here and there will suit me just fine," Aghoul said. "But my first order of business is especially important: I'm going to get revenge on the one who constantly imprisoned me in the Netherworld whenever I tried to escape! A miserable, infuriating peasant boy called Aladdin!"
Mozenrath raised his eyebrows. "Aladdin!" he said. "You're seeking revenge on Aladdin?!"
"Yes I am," snarled the undead wizard. "And when I get Aladdin, he is going to pay a thousand times for trapping me in the Netherworld!"
Mozenrath frowned for a moment, then pulled himself together and continued the conversation in a more equable manner.
"Listen, Aghoul, you're not the only one who wants to destroy Aladdin," he said. "He has interfered with my plans countless times, and I've never been able to stop him on my own. But together, we could finally defeat him!"
"Nice try, wizard boy," Aghoul rasped. "But I know your kind too well. You would betray me at your first opportunity. Besides, I share my power with no one!"
Mozenrath cursed under his breath. That was exactly what he had been planning to do! He had intended to use Aghoul for his own purposes, and then betray him and get rid of him for good as soon as his usefulness had ended. But now that was no longer an option.
"This is unacceptable!" he suddenly shouted. "Aladdin is mine to kill! Mine! No one else is allowed to do it! And no one is allowed to conquer the Seven Deserts except me! The kingdoms of the Seven Deserts are mine alone!"
"Don't you dare give orders to me, human!" Aghoul growled. "I'll make you regret taking that tone of voice with me!"
Aghoul lunged forward with a burst of power emanating from his hands, firing a purple blast of lightning at Mozenrath. The lightning blast took Mozenrath by surprise and knocked him backward across the floor. Mozenrath staggered and stumbled, trying to shake off the impact of the powerful force blast before spinning around back toward Aghoul.
"How dare you attack me?!" he sputtered in rage. "How dare you strike the ruler of the Land of the Black Sand in his own home!"
"The Land of the Black Sand, eh?" Aghoul said curiously. "So this is the land you have claimed as your personal kingdom?"
"Of course it is!" Mozenrath replied. "I am Mozenrath, the greatest sorcerer of our age!"
"I wouldn't award yourself titles of greatness just yet, wizard boy," Aghoul hissed. "You failed to reckon with the true power of the undead. The otherworldly magic of the deathly realm flows through me, as you are about to learn firsthand!"
Aghoul advanced menacingly upon Mozenrath. Mozenrath, in turn, started to threateningly circle around Aghoul, trying to find some kind of weakness in the undead scoundrel that he could exploit.
"You arrogant freak!" he barked at Aghoul. "I'll kill you for this insolence!"
"There's no chance of that, my friend," Aghoul grinned broadly. "I'm already dead, remember?"
Mozenrath furiously unleashed a glowing blue beam of power from his magic gauntlet, directing it at his undead foe. Aghoul, in turn, drew a dry skeleton's leg bone from his cloak and brandished it through the air, using the bone to deflect the energy blast. Then Aghoul fired an energy blast of his own from one hand, sending a purple ray hurtling toward Mozenrath. The young wizard used a magical blue force shield to protect himself from the attack.
Now the two evil sorcerers used their energy-projection capabilities to engage in a fearsome magical duel, trading blast for blast as both combatants tried to gain the upper hand with increasingly powerful bolts of power. Blue and purple energy rays flashed across the prodigious room, clashing against each other and bouncing off the marble walls and floor. The two wizards clenched their teeth as they struggled to force the other off balance.
At last, Aghoul launched a spinning disk of magical purple energy in Mozenrath's direction, which completely knocked Mozenrath off his feet and sent him reeling to the floor. Mozenrath started to get up, but another of Aghoul's energy blasts caught him in the chest and pinned him to the ground.
"Well, Mozenrath, it seems that you didn't fully prepare yourself for the coming of the undead," Aghoul observed. "Such a shame. I'm afraid I'll have to banish you from this realm as a lesson about underestimating my powers."
"No! You can't!" Mozenrath protested. "The Land of the Black Sand is mine!"
"Not for long," Aghoul sneered. "As of now, this black country is now the property of Ayam Aghoul! And soon it shall be the perfect base of operations from which I will rain devastation upon all the kingdoms in the Seven Deserts!"
Aghoul used his magic to levitate the now-paralyzed Mozenrath off the floor and into the air leaving him hovering above the ground while surrounded by a glistening purple aura.
"I can't thank you enough for freeing me so that I can take control of the living world," Aghoul said with a slimy leer. "And soon I'll have my long-awaited revenge on that rotten Aladdin and his pesky friends! Unfortunately, this means I have no more use for you. So then, farewell!"
And with a wave of both hands, Aghoul sent Mozenrath flying out one of the windows of the citadel. Mozenrath went hurtling through the air outside, propelled onward by the inexorable force of Aghoul's power. The force carried Mozenrath many miles away from his citadel to the very edges of the Land of the Black Sand. Finally, the force released him, dropping him down to the ground into a mass of ebony sand.
Back in the citadel, Aghoul began to survey his newly acquired property, examining the various magical books, elixirs, and artifacts which comprised Mozenrath's ample collection.
"Ha ha, it's all mine!" Aghoul declared. "Now I am the new ruler of the Land of the Black Sand! And this is my first step towards conquest and revenge!"
The undead wizard paced about the citadel and considered his next move. "It was very nice of Mozenrath to leave me with so many wonderful playthings," he mused as he looked over the numerous magical items. "I think I'll make good use out of them when I start to bring the living world to its knees!"
Aghoul headed for one of the research study rooms to start collecting some of the mystical resources of Mozenrath's trove. "With these resources combined with my own, nothing can prevent me from working my will all across the Seven Deserts," he said to himself. "And when I finally find Aladdin, he will take my place as a prisoner of the Netherworld!"
Miles away from the citadel, on the shadowy outskirts of the Land of the Black Sand, Mozenrath picked himself up off the ground and grimaced. He glanced up and down the dark foothills of the black country and pondered what he must do, clenching his teeth in frustration over the fact that he had been ousted from his own domain.
While he was still looking around, Xerxes suddenly joined him. The floating eel looked half-harried and half-grumpy from the ordeal and glanced quizzically at his master.
"We've had a serious setback, Xerxes," Mozenrath said. "Ayam Aghoul took us by surprise. Now I have to get my kingdom back."
Mozenrath thought for a moment. "We're going to need more assistance than usual," he went on. "Because I was not familiar enough with Aghoul's powers, I was vulnerable. So I am going to need assistance from someone who is very familiar with Aghoul and his magic."
The young wizard turned and looked to the horizon beyond the Land of the Black Sand. "We must go to Agrabah, Xerxes," he said. "As much as I hate to admit it, we must go to Aladdin for help."