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Chapter 9: Let Me Fall
Apart from following behind Amin upon the trail, Dhandi had spent twenty minutes trying to scratch the black lines off her hand. This endeavor reaped only peeling skin and sore fingers with absolutely no effect upon the mehandi. The girl looked up towards the horizon, the center of the maze growing closer in view. She glanced at the hourglass, the precious sand nearly spent.
He lied to me, Dhandi thought bitterly as she looked at her hand, AGAIN! I can't believe I fell for it. She sighed as she lowered it. Her cleverness had failed her the second time Mozenrath had invaded her dreams.
But why? She asked herself. Why did he take up the guise of Amir again? He had even admitted to me that he loathed being him.
She recalled their reunion, that uncomfortable moment in the cavern where he had felt her up. Was it just an excuse for him to make her quiver, remind her of how much she hated him? But why did he take Halim then? She scoffed at this question. He also hated Aladdin and Jasmine and, from what she had heard from Eden and Genie, took onto himself to make them miserable, so how could he resist taking the one person they both loved?
Halim, she sighed despondently. Why couldn't I've done more to keep him safe? Me and Halim wouldn't be in this mess if I'd just zapped those stupid hands with a fireball or something...No. No, it still wouldn't have made a difference even if I still used magic.
She looked up and saw the massive gate, adorned in gargoyles in a shiny black metal, and Amin pulling at the enormous doorknockers, in the form of a pair of grotesque gargoyles, no less. She suddenly wore an expression of resolve. No. No, I have to finish this. Halim and Amin will be let down if I don't.
Dhandi approached Amin, placing her hand on his shoulder. The thief let out a yelp and turned to her.
"Dhandi," Amin said, "I'm sorry for what I...you have to understand my-"
"Amin," Dhandi interrupted, "I know and understand, but I'm not mad." She pauses, rubbing her toe against the stone of the path. "If anything, I should be thankful that you came back, but right now, I seriously need your help."
Amin shuddered as he turned away from her.
"Amin," Dhandi followed him, pleading, "You know more about him than I do." Amin whined, trying to avoid her. "How did he get here from the other world? Was it a portal?"
"I don't want to get involved anymore," Amin whined. "He won't let any of us go."
"Don't say that!" Dhandi retorted. She paused and looked at Amin. "You're right. Mozenrath is gonna make it hard for us, but he took somebody from me."
"Who?" Amin inquired.
"Halim," Dhandi replied, "a baby and he's probably so scared, being away from his mom and dad." Amin's lip began to tremble. "I don't want to leave him with that creep. But if I fail, well, I would practically be giving him away to Mozenrath."
Dhandi stopped when she heard the bawling of the thief. She stared at him, confusion evident in her expression. Apparently, whatever she had said had an effect on him. Shaking her head, she tapped his shoulder and he looked at her with tear-soaked eyes.
"Amin, anything about him would be useful."
Amin, wiping his nose with his sleeve, snorted. "I remember him taking out a crystal from his pouch and saying 'Chaotic Plains' and the next thing I know...I'm here."
Dhandi took a moment to digest this. "A crystal...he has that pouch on his belt. He took probably took that doorknob from that." Amin cocked his head in curiosity as he looked at the doorknocker and pressed down upon its tusk. "So, that's-"
Suddenly, the ground rumbled as the gate doors slowly parted revealing the twisting passages of this sanctum. Dhandi turned to Amin, who was attempting to whistle nonchalantly to no avail.
"Let's move."
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"Master! Master!" Xerxes shrieked as he swam up to the upper chamber. He found his master curled up on the divan, snoring inaudibly. The eel hovered closer, an inch away from the sorcerer's face. He had a serene look upon his face, the expression of satisfaction one gets when they've done something that actually worked. Mozenrath had it for the first time in years.
"Master!" Xerxes hissed and, as if rehearsed, the sorcerer's eyes shot wide open. Sitting up, Mozenrath turned to his familiar and grabbed him by the throat.
"I was having a good dream," he scowled. "Aladdin's head was on a lance. Why won't you let me savor that moment? "
"They-she's-" Xerxes strained, his eyes bulging, "she's here..."
"Really?" Mozenrath answered, releasing his familiar, the eel plopping down upon the floor. The sorcerer got off the divan and headed towards the stairs. "Time to roll out the welcome wagon."
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Dhandi looked around, lightly touching the walls as she walked. She looked up, seeing the edifice rising above the inner maze.
"It must be the center-most point," she said to herself. She squinted, eye upon the windows that adorned the structure. Suddenly, she saw him, the man in dark blue walking by in the window. She clenched her fist, motivation renewed by anger. "Amin, let's try this way!"
Amin turned to the girl, who pointed to the passage on her right. The pair went down that way, only to encounter a dead-end. Back tracking, they then took to the left. The path winded, the pair glancing up to keep the edifice in sight. They turned at a corner and came upon passage littered with corpses, green, slumped against the wall, and still clutching their scimitars.
Amin gulped, Dhandi following suite, as they treaded carefully on the path.
"I hate dead bodies, I hate dead bodies," Amin whined repeatedly. Suddenly, something juicy squished beneath the sole of his shoe. He looked down and let out a long "ewwwwwww."
"Ugh," Dhandi groaned, but then glanced back at their guide, the edifice. "On the bright side, we're almost there."
Amin ignored this, his focus set on scrapping the purple gunk off his shoe. He lifted his foot and shook it, the ooze staying put. That method failing, he scrapped it across the wall, leaving a long, dripping streak upon the stone. Suddenly, he heard a rattling. He darted back to Dhandi's side, gripping her arm and huddling uncomfortably close to her.
"Uh, Amin," Dhandi asked the thief, uneasily due to both claustrophobia and the unsettling aura that their surroundings emitted, "how many people were here before me?"
"Uh, why?" Amin's eyes darted about.
"Well, dead people just lying there, armed...somehow this just feels a bit-"
"What?" Amin clung closer.
"-like a trap." No sooner did Dhandi said those words, Amin turned and let out a piercing shriek. Dhandi turned and her eyes widen as she saw a troop of mamluks standing behind she and Amin. Dhandi and Amin exchanged looks and both screamed-
"Run!"
The pair darted, the army of mamluks limping after them, swinging their scimitars.
"This way!" Dhandi shouted as she and Amin rounded a corner, only to be met with more mamluks. Backing away slowly, Dhandi glanced up at the structure. It was so much closer; all they had to do was go around a corner. However, that corner was being guarded by shambling half-dead soldiers/slaves. She grabbed Amin's hand and turned to him. "Amin, on the count of three, we run."
Amin nodded his head quickly. Dhandi mouthed "one", Amin bracing himself to run away. "Two" came after, the thief clenching his fist. When "three" was reached, however, Amin found himself being dragged along side Dhandi, not away from the mamluk army, but squarely into the stomach of one of the undead soldiers. Dhandi had head butted a mamluk in half and was leaping over its remains. Amin, still gripping her hand, knocked down four more as he was swung around like a mace. Using a move that she had often seen Eden used, the girl kicked one in the stomach. Mamluk parts strewn about the passage soon after, the pair bended over and panted heavily.
"Eden made this look so easy," Dhandi wheezed. "It's like kicking, what, ten pounds of flour, each?"
Amin nodded, very flushed in the face. However, the ruddiness of his cheeks faded to white soon enough when he glanced behind his back. Disembodied mamluk parts began to crawl towards them like oversize spiders. Amin and Dhandi darted, though acutely sluggish from the previous battle. They leapt over mamluk parts, tramping on them as the gruesome appendages attempted to grasp.
They turned the corner and they beheld a large door of dull obsidian. Holding up the hourglass (a thin layer of sand still in the top bulb), Dhandi turned to Amin.
"Thank you again for helping me," she said, thoughtfully. "But there's one more thing I want you to do if the all of us are going to be free."
Amin cocked his head at a margin as Dhandi leaned towards him and whispered into his ear. His face contorted into various befuddled expressions until the girl pulled away.
"You got it?"
Amin nodded slowly. Dhandi then turned to the door and pushed it with all the strength that an exhausted fifteen-year old girl could fathom. The heavy door moaned as it opened. A long dimly lit hallway laid before them.
"Amin, stay hidden."
The thief nodded affirmatively as they both stepped inside. As Dhandi walked down the hall of ebony pilasters, Amin broke away and stepped behind the row. Dhandi was now alone. The lone light source ahead, she continued to walk towards it. Her heart was pounding against her ribs. Her journey in this strange land was about to end, but she could find no relief in that sentiment. She stared at her henna-ed hand. A thousand questions formed incoherently out of those curving lines, the most blatant came from "Amir".
A wail halted these questions in their tracks, a baby's wail coming from the room up ahead.
"Halim," Dhandi mouthed, her walking dissolving to a canter and, soon after, a run. Her heart pounded harder and faster, the light growing brighter.
She had entered the throne room.
"Dhandi." Hearing that unenthusiastic voice, she turned to Mozenrath who was sitting upon his throne, one leg idly over its armrest. "You made it and, oh, with time to spare." He pointed to the hourglass. Dhandi looked at it. Indeed, the thin layer of sand had changed little from the time she passed through the inner sanctum's door.
"Where's Halim?" Dhandi demanded.
"Halim," the sorcerer placed his index finger upon his smooth chin in mock contemplation. "Ah, yes. He's over there in that cradle." He pointed to the black cradle four feet away from his throne. "All you have to do is pick him up."
Dhandi glanced at Mozenrath, suspiciously. The corners of his mouth were slowly forming a smirk. What was he thinking? Surely, something was brewing under those black curls. However, her thought-process was interrupted by a shriek from Halim, who was being molested by Xerxes who was gnashing maliciously at the infant.
"Get away from him!" Dhandi rushed to the cradle's side to rescue the babe from the eel's harassment. However, the moment she reached her hand, she flew- or rather, was thrown- from the cradle and crashed onto the black marble floor, like a rag doll by an invisible hand. Bewildered, Dhandi attempted to get up, but getting up proved a struggle unto itself for her body felt as heavy as lead. Her eyes turned to Mozenrath who was smiling quite haughtily as he rose to his feet.
"Honestly," he drawled as he walked towards her, "you should know by now that you can't trust anything, especially your dreams."
Dhandi panicked in her helplessness. He was right, but why did he have such power over her? Suddenly, her stomach felt sick as she realized what she had dreaded.
"You know now," Mozenrath oozed, looking down at Dhandi. "Well, thanks to you, I now hold you in the palm of my hand." He laughed with a sort of perverse giddiness as he held up his left hand, decorated in mehandi with Dhandi's name in the middle of it.With that action, Dhandi limply rose to her feet, like a marionette. Mozenrath leaned forward at her chest, eying the hourglass, sand still trickling down. He smirked slyly as he looked at Dhandi, who was standing there powerlessly.
"You still owe me a kiss," he drawled as his elegant hand began to move, his two middle fingers touching his palm. Something began to burn in her head. Her eyes began to shift in and out of focus, the sorcerer's rigid body becoming softer in her mind's eye. Her heart began to beat quicker. She tilted her head, gazing with curious longing.
Suddenly, a crash was heard and Mozenrath turned away, searching for the cause. Dhandi, breaking away that mindset, mouthed "Amin". From a corner of her eye, she saw the thief, clumsily trying to hide behind the pillars of the throne room, and, unfortunately, the sorcerer, who was an inch away from discovering Amin's hiding place.
"My Lord." Mozenrath turned to Dhandi, oblivious to Amin behind him. "I have never realized how...exceptionally beautiful you are."
Mozenrath met this with a very, very slimy grin. "And how do you find me as such, little Rabbit?"
Dhandi slinked towards him, an eye still on Amin.
Good, good, keep him distracted, she said to herself. Amin, get Halim.
"You're so tall," Dhandi purred, "your skin is like, uh, cream!" She raised her voice at the end of the sentence when she caught Mozenrath peering over his shoulder. She strode quickly up to him and rested her head against his chest. His focus rested back on her as he uneasily allowed her to reach her hands upon his shoulders. She accomplished this by standing on her tiptoes. She wasn't lying when she said he was tall. "I-I look at you and I look back on how...how much you affected me. You gave me a taste and...I want some more."
Mozenrath raised an eyebrow as Dhandi rubbed her face against his tabard and tugged at his belt. "Well, now," he grinned, "you've certainly changed your tune."
Behind his smile hid a different objective, however. For five years, starting on the night of when he came back to his Citadel after his rebirth, a spark had ignited in his brain. He blamed it on the week his spirit had spent in the ten year-old's mind, but every night to that day, he fostered a vision of her, dancing in upon the sand. She enticed him, despite her lack of mature feminine curves. No, it was because in his mind she felt...soft, like the fur of a young doe. However, he would then wake up and attempt to scrub his sin off, but it would still linger, even if he would tear his own hide to be rid of it. To say that he had never been a godly man would be the understatement of this millennium and possibly the next, but even he felt his own soul was damned because of her.
Within his sleeve, he hid a knife and his hand was twitching to unsheathe it.
"I've been a child so long," Dhandi moaned quietly, as she twirled a lock of his curly hair around her finger. "I need some one to make me a woman." It would scare her later on of how much of her seduction wasn't made up on the spot. Whether it had been all her or just Mozenrath's spell working upon her, it would forever be a mystery to both of them. However, it was no mystery to Dhandi when Xerxes began to shriek, as well as Halim. Fearing that Amin's cover was about to be blown, Dhandi grabbed Mozenrath's face and pressed her lips to his.
The noise of the outside became mute to the sorcerer's ears; the resounding beat of his own heart became deafening. His twitching hand became placid as he rested it upon the girl's back, clenching the fabric of her modest dress. Dhandi gripped on to his tabard, this strange ecstasy rising within her as well. Not even the screaming plead for resistance in her head could make her part.
However, what finally made them was Xerxes who had collided into the back of Mozenrath's head. The sorcerer spun around and snarled at his familiar when his eyes met with Amin's as the thief picked up Halim from the cradle. His black eyes glared mercilessly as he bared his teeth like a rabid jackal.
"YOU!"
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A/N: Longer chapter than I expected myself to write in one and a half days, but it seems worth it. For those who reviewed, Megan and Xanatos' Lady Morwen, thank you. For those who haven't, but managed to track me down at the Aladdin Central messageboard and prodded me to continue, thank you but sure to leave a review when you're done.
Disclaimer: I don't own "Aladdin" or "Labyrinth".