Xerxes swam through the empty black halls of his master's keep, imitating that one would construe as pacing. For the past week, he chipped one of his fangs on bathroom tile, had to struggle out of a muzzle, fought off the more feral beasts that kept on snapping at him during feeding time in the dungeons below, and squirming through the piles of mamluks that had fallen into disrepair and collapsed upon him. But it was not in vain to keep the Citadel up and running.
Master was coming back.
A massive puff of light blue smoke and the shriek of an eel appeared. Coughing, Xerxes saw that the smoke revealed two genies and a little human clinging to a pink glass bottle.
"Thank you for flying the friendly skies with Genie Travels" Genie announced as a pilot in a smart navy blue uniform, "We have arrived at 1503 hours, roundtrip from Agrabah to scenic Land of Black Sand, known for its export of terror and general ickyness."
Dhandi looked around, scooting closer to Eden.
Eden glanced down at her charge, smiling reassuringly. "Don't worry, babe. Remember what we talked about?"
Dhandi nodded.
"Good girl."
Dhandi suddenly pointed Xerxes as the smoke finally cleared. "It's that worm thing."
Xerxes gurgled indignantly, hearing the child's comment. His pilot uniform dissolving into air, Genie turned to Dhandi.
"We've gotten this far," he said to her. "What else does Amir say?"
Dhandi scratched her head in thought. "He said to look in the lab for a...an esophagus."
"Sarcophagus," Amir corrected her.
"Sarcophagus," she repeated. "Look for a sarcophagus...that has, um, a hole in its mouth...in the dungeon."
"And we need to collect the ash from the bath into a jar," Amir continued, "dried clay and water, too."
"Ash...from the bath and dried clay and water too."
"Okay," Genie saluted, before turning to Eden, "We'll get the dry stuff and the basket case."
"And I'll get the water," Dhandi added, eagerly.
"No," Amir replied, firmly. "No, you have to go to the library to study."
Upon hearing Amir, Dhandi frowned. Eden hovered over to her mistress. "What's wrong?"
"Amir wants me to study, but I want to help you guys. Not fair for you guys to do all the work."
"Don't worry. We got it. Besides, you've got some work of your own."
"Yeah, but it's kinda like school and I just got away from it an hour ago."
"Well, if it all gets too much, you can ask for a recess."
"Thanks, but I don't really trust that...uh, flying worm thing-"
"If it tries to bite you, you can stuff a sock into its mouth."
Dhandi smiled as Eden patted her shoulder and dissipated with Genie, leaving Dhandi and Xerxes alone in the hallway. The girl looked around, becoming overwhelmed by the claustrophobic surroundings despite its vast size. She turned to the familiar.
"Uh, which way's the library?"
----
"She probably knows something is up," Eden said, turning into a vacuum cleaner, "the way we keep leaving her alone."
"Yeah, but we can't risk Mozy eavesdroppin' on us," Genie explained, watching Eden suck up the ashes in the still charred bath. "My guess's he's up to something else. Evil teen wizard is not exactly known for his altruism. Dhandi's about as safe in his hands as a teen heartthrob at a Pasadena Mary Sue convention."
"Amen," Eden agreed, morphing into her normal appearance with a stone jar in her hand, "but...argh, he's still got us by the tail, Suga. We can't do anything while he's still in her body."
"But what's to stop us from foiling him when he's out and in the open?" Genie morphed into Jack Nicholson. "Alls we gotta do is to keep him from the one thing he'll be gunning for, his Achilles heel possibly, Doll."
"And what would that be?" Eden inquired, getting the gist of what he meant.
----
"A glove?" Dhandi asked, staring at the gauntlet lying upon the table in the center of the library.
"No," Amir said, "it's much more than that."
Crawling on top of a chair, Dhandi reached towards it, Xerxes swimming beside her, grinning approvingly. Spotting Xerxes, she pulled back, apprehensively.
He's looking at me funny, she thought. I wished I had that sock Eden was talking about.
"He won't bite," Amir said, "as long as you show him who the boss is."
Dhandi stared back at the gauntlet and reached towards it, still keeping a wary eye on Xerxes. She grabbed the gauntlet and slunk back into the chair, sitting down on the cushion. She gazed at the great leather thing in her tiny hand, curious.
"That guy wore this," she stated, "when he made me drink that gross stuff."
"It was his source of power," Amir explained, a tint of longing in his tone, "the thing he let devour his hand until it was nothing but bone."
As if holding a handful of cow dung, Dhandi threw the gauntlet back on the table. "Ew."
Xerxes swam towards it and nudged it closer to the child. The child recoiled, scooting the chair backwards.
"Oh, it won't hurt you now," Amir chuckled, slightly amused. "It only begins to feed on you when you promise your very flesh in exchange for the power it possesses within its being."
"Uh, yeah," Dhandi replied, a bit uneasy when she picked it back up.
Not gonna do that anytime soon, she thought.
"Put it on." Dhandi glanced at the gauntlet with a "you have got to kidding me" expression, but, without thinking, slid her hand in, her skin brushing against the rather abrasive lining. She held it up to the light. It didn't felt like it, but the gauntlet seem to have swallowed up more than half of her arm like a giant tan fish with an enormous mouth.
"Now what?" she asked, moving her fingers around in the great, long leather digits.
"Concentrate on making a mage light," Amir instructed. "Use your hand."
Dhandi stretched forth her gloved finger and squinting, thought of her light.
Orange and bright, that's how she knew it.
The tip of her finger glowed that same color, growing brighter as it formed a little ball.
"Good, very good."
"Good," the eel gurgled, "boy do good."
"I'm not a boy," Dhandi said to the eel. "I'm a girl. Girl."
"Boy," Xerxes smirked obstinately.
"Girrrrrl," Dhandi enunciated.
"Booooooy." The eel chuckled as Dhandi shook her head and returned to her mage light which had grown to the size of a kickball to her shock. She shook it off and it hovered in place a few inches in front of her.
"Wow, that's huge," she said, in awe, "Nobody bump into it."
Swimming, Xerxes looked at the mage light. He sniffed it, embers suddenly flying up into his nostrils. He shrieked in pain, writhing and coiling until he plopped down on the floor of the library. Kneeling down, Dhandi stared at him for a while, poking him. The familiar shivered nervously.
"Are you okay?" the girl asked, picking him up.
He gurgled as she cradled him in her arms like a baby.
"Silly...uh, bo-...er...baby, you shouldn't be sniffing stuff you shouldn't be near."
Coming to, Xerxes hissed as he slithered out of Dhandi's arms.
"Grouch," she said, stumbling a bit. She clung to the table for support. "Feeling a bit woozy, Amir."
"The gauntlet takes a lot out of you," Amir said. "Meditate for a while and we'll get started on reading."
Dhandi nodded as she sat down on the floor, but not without taking the gauntlet. She wasn't very comfortable with the idea of having an arm of nothing but bone and she wasn't going to let it have a nibble behind her back. She crossed her legs in the lotus position that Eden taught her one day and closed her eyes, her breath slowing down and becoming more relaxed until...
Xerxes swam back into the library and sniffed the child's hair. "Master? Master here?"
"In the flesh," Mozenrath chuckled as "he" opened "his" eyes. "Well, not quite, but getting closer as we speak."
"He" stood up, picking up the gauntlet off the ground. "He" gazed longingly at it and began rubbing it against "his" cheek like one would do with the hand of a beloved while sighing softly.
"Soon, my precious." "He" placed it back on the table and then turned to Xerxes.
"Ah, my faithful familiar," "he" cooed as "he" stroked the eel, but then wrapped a tiny hand around its neck and squeezed tightly as "his" adoring tone turned hostile, "you couldn't tell the difference between a boy and a girl?!"
"Sor-ry, Mas-ster," Xerxes gasped.
"Still," Mozenrath released "his" grip, "I can't blame you, considering how homely this kid is. Not to mention her choices in clothes." "He" posed in the familiar orange dress and brown coat combo. "Probably covered with lice, knowing those street rats. Still, she has come such a long way."
"Genies here," Xerxes snickered.
"I know," Mozenrath smirked, "Isn't it marvelous. The stupid kid's actually more useful to me than any boy."
Xerxes cackled. Mozenrath chortled along as "he" walked towards one of the massive bookcases, pulled out an atlas and flipped over to a page.
"Still, we have so much to do. Xerxes, round up some mamluks and meet us here." "He" pointed to a spot on the map. "You know what to bring."
"Yes, Master." Xerxes swam out of the library, Mozenrath standing alone and smiling.
"If all goes to plan, I might get more than just a new body."
A/N: Oh, the plot thickens further. Thanks for hanging on with me. Now, on to the next chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.