"Whoa, what a dump."
Those were the first words uttered by the blue-skinned djinn when he and his traveling companions, the green-skinned djinn Eden and her young mistress Dhandi, appeared in the rather morose-looking burial ground. Its chipped and moss-infested Grecian grave markings had seen better days as did the pitiful and limp olive trees amidst the brambles and unkempt grass growing haphazardly along the jagged ledge overseeing a ragged ravine. However, as the arrivals looked further towards a cavern off in the distance, no grass grew in the pale, sickly soil near its monstrous mouth.
"Well, this dump is where Amir said to be," Eden pointed out, the sarcophagus and the jars appearing behind them with a wave of her hand. She turned to Dhandi, the child mouthing words in rehearsal. "Are you ready to do it?"
Dhandi blinked, her train of thought derailed momentarily. "I'm might be," she said, turning to her djinn. "It's a little confusing, but…"
"Me or Amir will help you through it if you get stuck."
"I think I can do it now. Thank you."
Eden smiled and zapped a white smock on Dhandi. The child looked at it and, getting the gist of the djinn's intent, beamed approvingly.
"Go ahead, Babes," Eden urged her on, warmly. "Go."
Breathing in and out, Dhandi approached the sarcophagus, though tripping on the tip of a crystalline rock poking out on the way there, and, with a bit of exertion, she threw open the lid. Pressing her hands together, she took a bow.
"Merciful Allah, keep my purity intact," she prayed aloud. "Blessed Merciful Father, for he made the earth and sky, I humble myself. Keep my purpose as pure as your blessed sand, your merciful water, your cleansing fire, and your divine wind."
Sniffing, Genie wiped away a tear. "That was beautiful."
Eden nudged him gently as the child walked to the jars of clay. She picked up one and carried it towards the sarcophagus. Dhandi pulled the stopper off, revealing it to be filled with clay dust. Straining, she picked it up again and poured the contents into the sarcophagus. She coughed as the dust rose from the enormous mound.
"Blessed Allah, keep me pure as this clay, refined and ground." Dhandi bowed once again and turned to the jars. She picked up the jar of ashes, carrying it to the sarcophagus.
"Blessed Allah, cleanse my soul of impurities as has fire to these ashes." She dumped the ashes into the mound and turned to the djinns, soot-faced. Genie held back snickers whilst Eden stared at her beau, like a tiger to a mouse. Genie ceased, giving a thumbs up to the child.
Wiping her face with the sleeve of her smock, Dhandi came to the large jar and dragged it towards the sarcophagus. She pulled off the stopper, the contents splashing against its walls.
"Blessed Allah," she said as she cupped her hands into the water and poured it into the massive mounds of clay and dust, "Bind purity into my purpose as the water binds ash and clay together."
The water streamed down the mounds like rivers down a mountain with every cup full. The child, seeing the water pool into the crevices of the mound, reached in and began mashing the soaked sludge into the still dry mixture of powder.
The massive mounds slowly became rolls of supple clay, Dhandi began rolling them into slender and long shapes, recalling times she had seen bakers roll their dough in various shapes.
"I'm the baker now," she thought, hands mired with her work and tiny fingers working her own bit of magic into that clay, now taking form. Genie hovered towards her, looking at her handiwork.
"I vould call it, 'Rhapsody in Orange, no.1'," the blue skinned-djinn said, scratched his chin as a white-beard art critic with an Austrian accent.
"I would call it...weird," Dhandi replied, looking at the misshapen form with over-elongated left arm that hung down past the kneecap like a gorilla's arm. "I hope Amir's right about the flower fixing it when it's done. I think he'd be unhappy if his knuckles dragged."
"Cool," Genie said, "I'll get ready to go."
"Wait," Dhandi spoke up, Eden suddenly grabbing Genie by the sash, "I still got to do one more thing."
"Okay," Eden replied, letting Genie go, who slingshot into one of the olive trees, "go ahead."
Wiping her hands on the smock, Dhandi went to the water jar and dipped her hands in. Wandering back to the sarcophagus, water dripping through her cupped hands, she flew her hands open, the water splashing upon the golem.
"Blessed Allah, may I succeed," she prayed, "with your aid and a pure soul." She bowed, sliding the smock off and revealing her dark blue outfit. She turned to the djinns. "I'm ready."
Eden beamed until she noticed the gauntlet tucked in her master's sash.
"Baby," her voice lowered, growing concerned, "where did you get this?"
"Get what?" Dhandi asked. Eden pointed to the gauntlet as if it was a spider. "Oh, Amir said I could use it."
"ARE YOU CRAZY?" Genie shrieked. "That is a tool of EEEEEEVI-" Eden clasped his lips and he sputtered like a deflating balloon.
"Did Amir say that it make you crave for it, until there's nothing left?" Eden adopted a worried scowl upon her face.
"But I'm not gonna offer my flesh to it," Dhandi explained, "and I'm just gonna use it for emergencies."
"Babe," the green-skinned djinn knelt down to the girl, "its old owner, it drove him to insanity. I'm frightened that it might happen to you."
"Eden, I'm not gonna let that happen."
"You might say that now," Genie added, in a high pitched voice, "but then you can't sleep, soon your mind is not your own, and soon, you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to glove."
Glaring at Genie, Eden sighed. "Just be careful. With all this weird stuff happening, I'm surprised you're not scarred for life."
"Oh, Eden."
-
Hades frowned as he fingered his little chess piece upon the game board. The Lord of the Underworld had enough reason to mope; repeatedly being foiled by that bone-headed demigod in his attempts for a hostile take-over the most desirable piece of mythological real estate, Mount Olympus. However, he suffered not for failed plans. It was something more dire, more agonizing than twenty Hercules.
The wife was home.
"Hade-poo," the rather shrill calling of the Spring Goddess Persephone made him squirm in his seat, "I was thinking."
"Really?" Hades grumbled, "What a stretch."
"I was thinking we should spend more time with each other," Persephone entered into the room, blonde hair shining. "I mean we're married, but we hardly see each other."
"Good thing."
Persephone shot an icy glare at him. "What I'm thinking is maybe," her tone became warm and bubbly, "we can go on a picnic, maybe in the Elysian Fields. Wouldn't that sound super!"
"Yeah, super," Hade clenched a tiny figure of Persephone, very tightly as if trying to crush into powder but to no avail. Persephone giggled buoyantly as she skipped out of the room.
"I'll get the ambrosia and a basket. See you in an Athens minute!"
Hunched over his game board, Hade's hair flamed up as he growled.
"Abduct a broad and she won't give you a moment's peace!"
-
The dark light glowed blue in the black shores of the River Styx. From the glowing mouth of the cave, a small form with a small bag upon her back climbed down the steps into the blue. Dhandi watched as a multitude of wispy apparitions congregated towards the shore, diving into the dark depths of the river. Dhandi winced. She didn't know how to swim.
However, as she scanned it further, she noticed the longboat and certainly the line that was forming towards it. The boatman, a being of bleached bones, was letting them on. What made them so different from those who just dived in, Dhandi wondered.
Something glittered in the boatman's skeletal hand. It was a gold coin.
"Eden," she whispered to the bag, "I don't have any money."
"Don't worry, bug!" Genie poofed into her hand, transfiguring into a gold coin. "I'm in the money!"
Dhandi smiled. "You'll catch up, right?"
"Yep, just gonna be a distraction for a while. Now hurry up and don't rock the boat."
The girl clenched the Genie-coin in her small hand and rushed to the line, getting behind a translucent little girl, about five years-old. She looked at the child, wondering.
"She's half my age," Dhandi said to herself.
"Death is not discriminatory," Amir spoke up. "It doesn't care if you were five or twenty-five. It's ultimately everybody's end."
"Except for genies," Dhandi replied. "Eden once told me that she wouldn't know what to do if I died. I told her that she would be able to be with Genie, but she said she didn't want it at that cost."
"She really cares for you," Amir said.
"Yes. Maybe it's because I wished it, but she has been the only one who stayed with me in a very long time and I never ever wanted it to end."
"You wished you two would be together?"
"Forever." Dhandi felt her back getting wet. "Eden, are you okay?"
"Yeah," Eden from inside the bag sniffed, "I'm fine. Just got something in my eye."
Dhandi then looked at her hand, also dripping with tears. "Are you crying too?"
"Yeah, just a little farklempt," the Genie-coin replied, "also, you're cutting off my circulation." The girl unclenched her hand and wiped it against her skirt. Then a skeleton hand shot out in front of her, palm open.
"My turn, I guess." Dhandi dropped the Genie-coin into the boatman's hand. The boatman looked at it, clenched it tightly, Genie going great lengths not to make a sound, and motioned Dhandi to get into the boat.
"Thank you," Dhandi bowed as she hopped into the boat, taking a seat next to the five-year old's ghost. The boatman, seeing that the boat was loaded full enough, pushed off and drove the boat down the River Styx.
"Keep your eye out for Cerberus," Amir advised. "He'll be guarding Hades' personal domain."
"Who is Cerberus?" Dhandi asked.
"That would be Cerberus," Eden pointed to the gargantuan three-headed Hell hound, snarling at the boat as it passed by a massive and intimidating gate. Taken back by the ferocious sight, Dhandi squirmed in her seat as she felt little hands squeezing her arm. She looked at the corner of her eye at the little soul, clinging to her arm.
"It'll be okay," Dhandi stroked the girl's pale head, "...I think."
-
The boat docked and its passengers flocked the shores into an unnaturally warm light. The sight Dhandi beheld standing at the dock was a vast field, flowers of the likes she has never seen in her Arabian home, aglow with that warm light not present in the rest of the Underworld. People basked in the warm glow, cheerful and in a kind of peace that they had never known in living.
Then Dhandi saw him.
A smiling broad figure with a face of unadulterated joy stood there in that patch of violets, waving to her. She reached out her hand into the light, the warmth spreading through her body, even at just that point. Dhandi smiled, giggling as every happy thought rushed into existence once again: the first time she saw her mother dance, the first sunrise and sunset she'd ever saw, the first curry she ate made by her Dad, meeting Eden and Genie...
"DHANDI!"
Dhandi pulled away from the light. "Eden?"
"Dhandi, don't go into the light! We still have a lot to do, Sweetheart."
"But I saw my dad..." Dhandi sighed, taking one more look at him once again. Her dad waved at her once more and she waved back despondently. "Maybe one day..."
She looked towards the dock. The boat had already left.
"How are we gonna get to the gate?" Dhandi asked. Suddenly, from the bag, a green streak shot out and landed on the water, as a green inflated life raft.
"All aboard!" the raft gurgled as souls reached and tried to grasp on to it. "Hey, no touchy!"
Dhandi stretched her leg over, watching for those souls and their clenching hands. She did not want to be dragged down into that disgusting water. Then she felt pressure around her ankle as she was halfway on the raft. She yelped as they jerked at her and pulled her foot into the river.
"Oh, no ya don't!" Green oars reached out and whacked the souls, releasing their grip on the girl. Dhandi scampered on to the raft as the souls sank back down. She panted when she saw her foot. A terrified look on her face revealed her shock at her pale, shriveled foot as it swelled back to its healthy plumpness.
"That's why this is a no swim zone," Eden explained. "Are you okay?"
The girl nodded.
"You need to be careful down here. Not exactly the safest place for you right now."
"I will," Dhandi nodded. The djinn sprouted a propeller and the raft sped atop the surface of the River Styx. Dhandi held tight as they turned the twisting corners until one of the heads of Cerberus could be seen.
"There it is!" Dhandi pointed as Eden beached them upon the black shore. Leaning against the wall, the girl gazed at the Hell hound and the gate. "How are we gonna get past it?"
"We may not have to," Eden replied, morphing back into her curvaceous form. "We'll climb up and over." The djinn pointed up the wall. The girl smiled as Eden took her into her arms and extended her legs, going up. Once they reached the apex of the wall, the djinn set Dhandi down, held on to the wall, and, pressing her nose, retracted her legs rapidly like a Venetian blind.
Dhandi peered over the massive grounds, her mouth gapping in awe. Bizarre flora of unknown genii blossomed amidst the jagged ebony, all in full bloom despite absent sunlight. However, her focus shifted a patch of pale yellow, oddly enough, glowing.
"Hey, I think I see them!" Dhandi pointed to the patch. Eden looked, summoning a pair of binoculars.
"Yeah, it looks like it," the djinn agreed, banishing the binoculars into thin air. "Hold on to me."
The girl obliged, clinging to Eden's waist as the djinn swan dived off the wall. Dhandi shut her eyes as the pair fell. Suddenly, Eden summoned a pack upon her back, pulled the ripcord, and let open a parachute. Not feeling a crash but a gentle landing, Dhandi opened her eyes and slid off Eden.
"Come on, Babe," Eden urged her charge on. "We don't know how long Genie can distract them."
-
Leaning against his pole, the boatman counted the fares. Twenty-seven went into the Elysian Fields that day, fewer people as the coins jingled in his bony hands. Lord Hades didn't care much for the fields, as he was told. Frankly, the Underworld would be more fitting if everyone went to the same place, regardless of what they done or haven't done whilst alive. Then again Charon wouldn't get the kickbacks of ferrying those whose living families actually bothered to ensure a place in the Fields.
Suddenly, a coin chuckled.
With empty eye sockets, Charon the boatman watched as a sky blue djinn poofed from his hand and shuddered.
"You know, my emaciated chum," Genie placed his chubby hands upon Charon's shoulder blade, transforming into a blond, large-breasted makeup consultant in a pink apron, "a little bit of cocoa butter will soften those hands right up."
The skeletal boatman growled and, whooping ala Curly, Genie sped away, wig and apron left behind in the dust.
"Great," Charon fumed. "That's going out of my paycheck."
-
No longer seeing the boatman in site, Genie ran triumphantly until he bumped his face into the body of a snarling Cerberus.
-
Approaching the patch of Persephone's Dawn, Eden suddenly gripped the shoulder of Dhandi's shoulder before the child could make another step.
"What is it?" Dhandi asked.
"You might want to be careful," Eden explained. "There might be a trap or something."
"We haven't encountered anything since we got over the wall," Dhandi said, undaunted.
"She has good reason to be concerned," Amir said. "The Persephone's Dawn, while it can restore life, it can take it away."
"Take it away?" Dhandi repeated. Eden looked at the girl, confused.
"Without the restraints by the ritual," Amir continued, "the concentrated scent of the flowers here can cause your soul or mine or even both of ours to detach from your body without warning."
"Take what away?" Eden asked Dhandi. The girl turned to Eden.
"Amir was warning me," Dhandi explained. "We can't breathe in the flowers' scent; otherwise we'll lose our souls."
Eden considered this, suspicious.
"Mozenrath wouldn't or would he?" she thought. She waved her finger and a diving mask appeared on Dhandi who appeared bewildered.
"Something to keep you from breathing it in," the djinn explained. "Now, let's do some gardening." With that, she morphed into a trowel in Dhandi's hand. Dhandi, clutching the trowel, ran down the path and towards the patch.
The almost light cream trumpets of the blossoms seemed to exude an aura of their own, almost like the magic sparkles of a genie's tail. Dhandi set down her bag and knelt down to the bulbs. She drove the green trowel into the dirt, Eden chuckling.
"It kinda tickles," the trowel replied, the girl smiling as the sounds of dirt brushing against metal continued. As the bulb was uncovered, Dhandi carefully pushed the trowel just beneath it, to uproot it.
"Amir," Dhandi asked as Eden popped the flower up into the air and in to the bag, "how many do we need?"
"Two," Amir replied. "One to be burnt and the other to lead my soul into the golem."
Dhandi nodded as she began to dig up another one. The roots slid out as she applied leverage.
"We got 'em," Dhandi smiled as she packed up the last narcissus. Suddenly, the sounds of whooping and hellish howling could be heard in the garden.
"Time to exit stage left, kinder-ley," Eden announced, morphing into coat-and-tails. Grabbing Dhandi's hand, the pair hoofed towards the wall, surprisingly with a piano accompaniment.
-
"WHAT IS THAT RACKET!" Hades roared, obviously very perturbed. "WHO DO I HAVE MAIM TO SHUT THE DOGS UP?"
Hades flew open the door to find a strange blue...dog trainer?
"Oh, darling," Genie announced with a Katherine Hepburn inflection, (when you think about it, he even looked like Katherine Hepburn, down to the riding pants and tweed jacket) wrapped an arm around Hades, "I can't simply work with them. Of course, with that breed, a violent temperament is expected, but-"
Before he could continue, Hades grabbed Genie by the shirt collar. "Where's my dog!"
Genie pointed to his left. Hades turned and his sickly pale gray skin burned red. Whimpering, Cerberus was hunched over, a plethora of horrendous pink bows tied to its six ears and various tufts of black fur. The flame atop the god's head roared furiously as anger swelled inside him.
Genie looked over his shoulder to his right, watching as Eden and Dhandi scaled down the wall. He mouthed instructions such as "hurry and get out, don't let him see you" as Hades' grip burned Genie's disguise off.
"Are you completely meshugeh!" Hades roared. "DID SOMEONE SENT YOU! IS...EVERYBODY...OUT...TO...SCREW...WITH...MEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Hades snarled, turning into a flaming pillar. Fire went all directions.
However, one was heading towards Eden and Dhandi. Dhandi watched as a stream of fire was shooting towards her and the Djinn.
"EDEN!" Dhandi shrieked, pointing at the fire.
Genie, panicking, poofed and reappeared in front of them. He then transformed into a shield and stood, back towards the flames.
"Boy, it's getting' hot in here!" he said to the pair, the intensity of the flames pounding against his back. A sudden spurt of the flame's power pushed the trio back on the narrow strip of black land, Dhandi losing her balance. The girl shrieked, Eden turning her head and making her swift attempt to catch her before she splashes into the stagnant Styx.
Then Eden's eyes widen in amazement. Dhandi was hovering just inches above the skin of the water.
However, the djinn's reaction was not shared by the girl, judging by the alarmed look on her face and it was not because she was floating.
No, because Dhandi found out why she wasn't supposed to look in a mirror. A shriveled and green face looked back at her.
"Dhandi!" The girl is pulled back to the shore, aided by a stretched out Eden. Dhandi's lip trembled as she looked at Eden.
"I'll look that when I'm dead?" she whispered. The sounds of flames letting up and Genie wheezing with exhausting entering her elfin ears, Eden wrapped her arms around her charge and sprouted a jet-back.
"Babe, we need to get out and quick!" Eden shouted to Genie. The ash covered djinn turned and coughed an affirmation. Shaking himself off, Genie revealed a tuxedo and jet-back.
"Come on, Octopussy," he drawled in a Scottish brogue, "let's motor."
The roar of anachronistic jet-engines echoed in the cavernous Underworld as the djinns sped through, swerving past mammoth stalactites and stalagmites. The dim light of the world above flickered ahead. Suddenly, rubble flew at their tails as fireballs exploded into the stalactites. Shards of black rock showered on them as Eden, Genie, and Dhandi approached closer to the mouth.
Then the engines sputtered. There was that dreaded pause when one stops in mid-air and looks down for a moment before plummeting down with a crash and a tiny mushroom cloud of dust. They sure enough fell, but not without Genie transforming into a mattress and cushioning Eden's and Dhandi's fall. The djinn and her charge shook, regaining their equilibrium. Dhandi squinted as she turned to the lone source of natural light.
"There's the entrance!" Dhandi pointed out as she grabbed Eden's hand. However, the ground shook and the trio gaped in horror as the mouth of the cavern was closing, light waning between its massive teeth. Eden looked at the narrowing gap and then at Dhandi. She nodded her head at Genie and picked Dhandi up.
"Babe," she said, hesitantly, "we'll catch up. I promise."
Before the perplexed child could answer, Eden turned into a baseball pitcher and, winding Dhandi up, threw her. The child sped towards the teeth, frozen in body and speech. Genie and Eden gape, minds on edge, as the child passed through the teeth. As they clamped shut, the djinns find themselves surrounded by shambling skeletons in armor, pointing spears at them.
"Uh, Avon calling?" Genie let out, meekly.
A/N: Whoa, long chapter. Hang in there, we're almost done. About three more chapters, I think. Oh, and about Persephone, those who ever read the Classical Greek Myth in school would know about what Hades was grumbling. Yes, she wasn't in the Disney version of "Hercules", but I felt it seemed appropriate in this minor crossover.