Chapter 9 (YES!): The Genie

A/N: I have nothing to say to excuse myself. I am truly sorry. I apologize to each and every one of you I have left hanging, and I hope these two chapters will make up for it.

Calvin and Hobbes floated through the immense caves on the flying carpet. All around them immense stalagmites and stalactites loomed in the darkness, looking like gigantic teeth of some huge monsters. Calvin really hoped that this whole cave wasn't just some giant beast's mouth.

"I don't get it," said Hobbes suddenly. "I mean, a few minutes ago we were flying a time machine, and suddenly we're on a magic carpet? Doesn't it all seem a bit...I don't know, contradictory?"

"Not really," said Calvin, shrugging. "I've always felt that science and magic weren't mutually exclusive."

Hobbes gave Calvin a weird look. "How did you work that one out?" he asked in surprise.

"Simple," said Calvin, beginning to explain. "At their most level, neither magic nor science has any specific kind of definition, except in that they are fundamentally opposite to each other. Therefore, you can only define each one as a power or ability to contradict the other. Therefore, anything that falls outside of what we call science must be known as magic, even if it has a logical explanation."

There was an awkward pause.

"Somehow I think these adventures are going to abuse the heck out of that argument," Calvin added.

"Yep," said Hobbes.

Suddenly, an immense ledge loomed out of the gloom. Calvin and Hobbes leapt up, which somehow didn't flip the carpet. The carpet reached the ledge and the friends stepped off the carpet, gazing up where they had arrived. The carpet slid away back into the darkness, but neither was looking at it anymore. They were staring at the sight which lay before them.

The ledge they were standing on was a bridge of stone which crossed the gap between the cave walls, a distance of about a quarter of a mile. The bridge was approximately 30 feet long and five feet deep. Beyond the bridge was a huge waterfall, one of those Niagara-type waterfalls which forms an immense semicircle.

"Whoa," breathed Calvin.

"Yeah," agreed Hobbes.

But it was what was floating in-between the waterfall and the bridge that was truly impressive.

In the gap between the falls and the bridge floated so many floating rocks it was impossible to count them. These rocks were of varying sizes- the smallest were no more than pebbles, while the largest were the size of cars. The drifting rocks formed a sort of loose sphere that seemed to revolve around a second carpet, with a figure standing on it.

"What's that up there?" asked Hobbes, squinting to try and make out the figure.

"I'll check," said Calvin. He pulled his plastic pair of binoculars from his back pocket and looked through them.

...and don't ask me how he managed to fit a whole pair of binoculars into a pocket.

Calvin focused the binoculars, trying to get a close-up on the figure. He frowned. The figure always seemed to be too close up based on the background...unless...

Calvin's eyes widened. "Holy #$%," he whispered. "Hobbes, you might want to see this."

Hobbes grabbed the binoculars, put them to his eyes... and gasped in astonishment.

The figure on the carpet was a man. He was wearing a turban, silken pants, and no shirt whatsoever. The thing that shocked Calvin and Hobbes was his height: judging from a few rocks nearby, he was a good ten feet tall! He seemed to be meditating, with one hand held up. In his hand was some kind of orb of purple smoke, around which all of the stones seemed to be revolving. There was only a single word that Hobbes could think of to describe the man.

"He's a genie," he said.

"Yeah," agreed Calvin. "And that's not it. Look at the thing in front of him."

Hobbes shifted the binoculars...and his eyes widened. And since he had already widened his eyes upon seeing the genie, this was quite a sight. His eyes were now a diameter rarely seen other than the times when Hobbes pounced on Calvin when the boy came home from school.

Sitting on the carpet in front of the genie was another pillar.

"Well," said Calvin, "looks like we've got some work to do."

"NO," said Hobbes flatly, turning around quickly and throwing the binoculars back to Calvin. "No way. That old priest was one thing, but we are NOT going to rob a genie! That guy could just zap us and...do pretty much anything he wanted! And how would we even get there?"

"Like this," said Calvin. He pulled out a piece of paper and pencil- again from his seemingly infinite back pocket- and started to draw. As he drew, he explained his plan. As he finished, he looked up at Hobbes.

"Got it," he said, grinning. "Now, are we ready to do it yet, or should I go over it again?"

"Wait," said Hobbes. "Isn't this...incredibly risky? If we don't do this right..."

"We will," said Calvin. "So, let's go over the plan one more time. First, we'll hop up the columns and wait for the Big Carpet to come into position. Then, once it comes into position, we'll jump on. I'll go left, you go right, and we'll converge in front of him."

"And what if he attacks?" asked Hobbes in concern.

"Run," said Calvin simply. "Duck left and right. It will be exactly like a game of Spleef in Minecraft. Eventually, if we play our cards right, he'll either have stop the attacks or else risk falling himself."

"But in Spleef, your player can respawn," Hobbes said in objected. "We don't respawn if we die."

"Don't worry," said Calvin. "We just have to grab the pillar and jump back onto the platforms. Then we climb up into the box, keep the pillar the heck away from the symbol on the floor, and boom! We're home-free!"

"I don't know," said Hobbes slowly. "There's so many parts of this plan that could go wrong."

"I, for one, think we can do it," said Calvin. "Listen, if we don't do this, that pillar may vanish forever, and there's a good chance we'll never find out what this whole quest is all about."

"Quest?" repeated Hobbes.

"Yeah," said Calvin defensively. "We're going on this big adventure to find stuff and return home. It's a quest."

"Uh-huh," said Hobbes, nodding slowly.

"Well, are you in or out?" snapped Calvin. "Because in a few seconds, I'm going to activate the plan whether or not you're in."

"I'm in," said Hobbes.

"Really?" asked Calvin in surprise. "Why?"

"You're my ride home," said Hobbes simply. "I can't work the time machine. If you get killed, I'm stuck here."

"Alright then," said Calvin with a grin. "Then why are we waiting here? We've got a genie to rob!"