Building A Mystery, Part One.

(The lyrics are from Sarah McLachlan's song "Building A Mystery". The
religious opinions expressed in this chapter may or may not be mine. I mean,
its just a story…)

Aladdin awoke with an ungraceful sprawl, springing up in a very unwise
manner as sore and stiff muscles complained loudly, abused from being bent
and twisted in unnatural positions all night long.
Well, that's what one gets when one sleeps in a closet.
He muttered darkly, something along the lines of "Screw this", and stumbled
out of the dark, dusty little room.
Hell, Mozenrath had to be asleep by now.
He stretched, cocking an ear to the still raging storm noise outside,
beating upon the stone with an indignant fury, a gravely and totally
unpleasant clamor. Cursing his luck as he would not be able to crawl back
into his own bed any time soon.
It was still dark, which fails to surprise him, but what does is the
ever-present, yet impossible glow of moonlight from nowhere that seems to
ghost the halls as he searches for better lodging.
As he walked, feet padding noiselessly upon the marble and chilling him in a
numbing fashion upward, he started to realize he might be the only person
who could get lost indoors.
Damn, how does Mozenrath navigate around this place? Everything looks the
same.
Note to self: Start recommending Mozenrath get a decorator.
That's when he felt a shucking feeling.
He did a double take and stepped back into the open doorway of a room he
just passed.
It felt like something sucked at him, a fleeting cold feeling that burned at
the edges.
Not able to resist the curiosity, he ducked into the entryway.
The room had a smooth, satin feel, although the shady blue velvet canopy was
thick and elegant, exposing eye-popping black linen sheets. Empty sheets. He
looked around suspiciously; someone was here.

"You come out at night
That's when the energy comes

He looked past the only furniture in the room, to a familiar, tall looming
figure.
"Cripes" he whispered to himself.
He started to back out when he stopped, now fully and actually looking at
the sorcerer, perched out on the room's open balcony, sweeping himself over
the city below.
Something was happening.
He got closer so that the serpentine blue wafts became clear, and their odd
sparks audible.
They danced around Mozenrath, whose head tipped back seemed almost
incoherent to Aladdin's presence, levitating almost lazily.
A subtle whistle started to grow and Aladdin could only look on in awe as
the sparks flying around Mozenrath became ferocious and vicious, attacking
their host with fervor.
Suddenly, Aladdin took an alarmed step back as the oncoming, bullet fast
threat of a wisped bolt, shooting up from the unseen city below headed
straight for Mozenrath.
"Mozenrath! Look out!"
Startled out of his almost trance like state, Mozenrath whipped his head
around, shooting a scandalized and bewildered stare down at Aladdin,
disbelieving.
"Ala-?"
He was cut off as the target hit his mark.
Mozenrath gasped, wide eyed as the shot speared him through the chest, but
several more followed to finish the job that Aladdin sure was malcontent.
Aladdin reached up to yank Mozenrath down from his invisible pedestal, and
yelped when his body was engulfed with a cutting burn, sending him barreling
into the nearest barrier, Mozenrath's barrier, to slump down, unconscious.
Mozenrath gave a slight jerk as the bolts and magic passed, leaving him just
as he is, feeling the same familiar diluted buzz any time he did this.

"And the dark side's light
And the vampires roam
You strut your Rasta wear
And your suicide poem"

The magic called to him on dark moon nights.
He laughed shortly, wondering if the feeling of spilling yourself out onto
the tile was like dying, so close.
But he wiped the small smile of nostalgia off his face as he turned to the
concern at hand.
He looked at first disdained with Aladdin's attendance. Why did he always
have to show up? He was like some sort of distressing shadow. He looked down
at the descended hero, a small smirk developing as he realized how easy it
would be, how sweepingly simple it would be to merely chuck Aladdin over the
edge of the balcony behind him. His smirk matured as he further concluded
just a simple flexing of his gauntlet's magic could complete a clean murder.
Easy. Simple.
Impossible.
He collapsed to his knees in front of the youth a year or so his junior.
"Why wont you die Aladdin?"
He knew he wouldn't get an answer, but paused for one anyway.
He ran a defeated hand through his hair and sighed.
"You know I cant kill you so why do you torture me with thinking I can? But
I guess you don't know, nothing gets through that thick head does it?"
He laughed to himself.
" I guess it must have been a real shock, a real rose tinted glass breaker
for you to see my world. The world's a lot more ugly than what you thought,
isn't it Aladdin? Hate to spoil your fairy tale." He sneered angrily.
He impulsively grabbed Aladdin's chin in a vice grip, turning his face to
him, gauntlet growing venomous of its own accord.
"You just can't leave well enough alone, can you?"
The question sounded odd on his tongue, and he realized it was the peculiar
taste of irony.
Since when was the golden hero boy the aggressor?
He scoffed, rising to depart, cocking an ear as the storm still ranted and
raved outside, perhaps mocking his inhibitions.

Xerxes purred, or at least as close to a purr as a floating eel could,
nestled in his customary and rightful place at his master's shoulder, fully
content that he was back.
He had been beyond frenzied as Aladdin, that intruder, that source of all
problems for Mozenrath, took his master away! But it worked out, master was
back and the hero was probably dead. Xerxes laughed, a snicker really, and
settled contentedly into routine.
Mozenrath didn't even look up as Aladdin came stumbling into the kitchen,
rubbing his head and looking sheepish at best. But when Aladdin caught site
of Mozenrath sitting almost languidly at the table, he stepped back in what
he hoped was out of sight.
"Don't you think were a little old for hide and seek games, Aladdin?"
Mozenrath asked smoothly.
Aladdin winced, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously.
"Yeah, I guess so…" he trailed off uncomfortably.
Mozenrath just let the silence, unconcerned and self-preserved, hang to make
Aladdin squirm.
He deserved it.
"Well, maybe you could-"
"Care you explain as to why you're skirting around my Citadel like some
damned cockroach."
Damn.
"Well, its storming outside and…" he started lamely.
"And you came to the brilliant conclusion that my home suddenly became a
motel?"
"Geez Mozenrath, you don't let up do you?" Aladdin countered with his own
question, exasperated.
But he quickly bit back any continuance as Mozenrath sent him one of his
patented "Death unto you" looks.
It was enough.
It was always enough.
Something breaks the hefty silence again, rudely comical.
Aladdin's stomach rumbles.
Loudly.
Mozenrath laughed, and it almost sounded like genuine amusement.
Aladdin's shoulders relaxed, if even for a bit.
Some sort of tension broke, and the air sagged, relieved that the two rivals
weren't going to rip out each others throat anytime soon.
Mozenrath stood up with a less than menacing smirk on his face, beckoning
without the need of a gesture for Aladdin to follow as he rose and headed
further into the kitchen.
Aladdin gave him an obviously astounded expression, and then it turned into
a cautious curiosity as he followed, unwittingly looking like a dutiful pup.
But he stepped back abruptly as he was two hairs breath from colliding into
a stock still Mozenrath, looking down at him in a studying manner.
"What are you doing here?"
He asked like it was the final question he'd ever have need to ask.
Aladdin reared back, alarmed at the quiet intensity, but answered with the
same tone of finality.
"Waiting out the storm".
"Fine"
And he turned.
Aladdin looked after him, honestly confused, but shrugged it off.
Mozenrath, after a minute of still and quiet searching in his cold, inhaling
black kitchen, found what he was looking for.
"Catch".
Aladdin yelped as a shiny red apple projectile came flying at him fueled by
a little burst of magic.
It hit his shoulder, and the motion easily flowed into rolling down his arm
and bouncing it back at Mozenrath, a quirk all his own.
Mozenrath caught it easily, and looked at the thing caught between his
fingers in a moment of appreciation, like he were seeing it for the first
time.
He looked up and laughed.
"Don't expect me to give this back" he said with a smirk, biting into it.
Aladdin looked at him in an oddly considering manner.
Was that just a real laugh?
Moreover,
Did he cause it?
"Can I ask you a question?"
Mozenrath turned to look at Aladdin in the face, but it was blocked by a
curtain of bangs as Aladdin was reaching next to him for his own apple.
"I don't know, how well are you trained?" he said listlessly.
Aladdin gave him a blaringly confused look.
"What?"
Mozenrath heaved a sigh, dramatic and over-exaggerated.
"Of course you can ask a question Aladdin, but may you?"
Aladdin rolled his eyes.
Mozenrath smirked up innocently through his bangs.
"All right Mozenrath, may I ask you a question?" he said.
"Fire away." Mozenrath answered, tossing his ravaged apple core into the air
and blasting it.
Aladdin stared, mumbling something along the lines of "needing a new hobby",
and asked.
"What…what was last night? What was going on with you?"
Mozenrath may have internally twitched, but his answer was smooth as
crumpled satin.
"There was nothing "going on" with me, Aladdin."
"But you were getting….attacked by those things, it looked like you were
having some kind of fit or something!"
Why does he care?
"As touched as I am by your concern, Aladdin, I can assure you I'm not about
to blow up…" Mozenrath said in an end-of-discussion kind of way, irked
either by himself or the situation, he didn't know. He did know, however, he
was feeling uncomfortable under the reserved scrutiny of Aladdin's look, and
so brushed past him on his way to wherever, a familiar adrift place.
Aladdin followed after, intent on not letting the matter die, when a flash
of silver caught his eye, swinging and slipping free of Mozenrath's shirt
collar
"What's that?"

"And a cross from a faith that died
Before Jesus came
You're building a mystery"

Mozenrath looked at Aladdin, and said with sigh,
"Its rude to point Aladdin…"
Mozenrath froze, however, as Aladdin reached up and took into his hand the
silver ornament hanging from a simple black string around Mozenrath's neck.
Too close.
"Is this the Christian cross? I've seen it before…Missionaries came to
Agrabah a couple times…" He said, rambling off nostalgically.
Only a couple of words registered.
Too close.
Aladdin looked up inquiringly, not having the thought to alter the closeness
of him and his rival, a hand width from one another.
"Are you Christian?"
Mozenrath jerked away from the innocent curiosity, the frustratingly
searching question.
"No, just…"
But he was cut off as they both shot their attention to an emerald and hot
pink deity, hurtling straight for them.
Mozenrath cried out his enragement as Genie's girlfriend collided with him
with an inhuman war cry, sending him crashing to the ground.
"Run Al! I got him!"
"Get off me you chittering she-wench!" Mozenrath demanded, his gauntlet
growing flames.
Aladdin rushed to intervene.
"Eden? What are you doing here?"
Thankfully, she rose up off Mozenrath, changing back from her comically
army-ish impersonation, camouflage changing into the normal Jasmine-like
outfit.
"What does it look like Aladdin, I'm rescuing you!"
"From what?"
She reared up to her full height, finger at the ready, a barrage of reasons
ready to bombard him with a triumphant expression on her face. And…
Pfft.
She was quickly deflated.
"What do you mean, "from what"?"
"I don't need rescuing!"
She, not missing a beat, quickly morphed into a mad scientist impersonation,
white coat and poofy hair alike.
She clutched him to her and started ruthlessly poking him.
"It is obvious the patient is traumatized beyond rational thought…"
"I am not traumatized!" he yelled, batting her hands away.
Mozenrath watched the two, a twisting, rusting expression upon his face.
She was taking him.
So be it.
"You may have forgotten," he began in a voice loud enough to draw their
attention, "That you are still in my Citadel, and as such, you are fair
game"
Aladdin watched Eden and Mozenrath rev up for a battle not so royal.
Something scrabbled for purchase in Aladdin, something scrabbled for a
couple minutes ago.
Mozenrath turned again, letting the blue-black blast in his hand sputter out
at the softly spoken request for his notice.
Aladdin didn't look mad at the chaotic comings, just…frustrated.
"Give me a minute, ok?"
Without checking to see if Mozenrath responded at all, Aladdin nabbed Eden
and dragged her away to what he hoped was a private corridor.
Eden had seen the odd exchange between Mozenrath and Aladdin, but decided
not to say anything, having a good feeling Aladdin probably wouldn't
appreciate it.
"Everyone has been worried about you!! C'mon, we got to get you back…"
"No!"
She spun, bewildered at the outburst.
Aladdin looked put-on-the spot.
"Just tell them, tell them I'm ok. Tell them I'm doing recon-…reconi-?"
"Reconnaissance?" Eden quipped.
"Yeah, that." he said, obviously distracted.
"Eden, just reassure them Ok? I'm fine, really. I don't want them to worry."
She gave him a slow, calculating look.
" I will Aladdin, but let me share with you something."
She knelt down next to him, taking his shoulders into her slender hands.
They are green, not fluttering white doves, Aladdin thought in a moment of
uncharacteristic poetry.
"It took all of us, Genie, the Sultan, to convince Jasmine that going and
getting herself killed in a sandstorm was not going to do anybody any good,
and certainly wouldn't have been what you wanted. She's been worried sick.
Just thought you'd need to know."
He nodded in a world-weary way, and watched as she clapped his shoulder,
turning to leave.
Suddenly an image popped into Aladdin's head, a question, and a doubt.
He remembered the cross he saw swinging from Mozenrath's neck. How could
someone who has been through all he has believe in anything?
"Eden?"
She turned.
"What do Christians believe?"
She looked at him strangely, brow knitting.
Where in the world…?
Aladdin thought his question wasn't clear enough.
" I mean, what do they believe in?"
Eden rummaged around through her ample supply of century old memories.
"Well, they believe in a savior, a greater being who makes sure that
everything turns all right in the end thanks to that being's love."
That sounded about right.
"Like our Allah?" The Muslim bred boy answered.
She smiled.
"Yes. They believe in a nameless God who made everything, that made them,
us."
Aladdin may not be the most religious person under the dessert sun, but
something did click, producing a blurting question, hesitant, steady.
"Wait, if their God is all loving and made everything, doesn't that mean he
made evil? Why would they believe in a God that lets people suffer?"
Eden looked down at him in awe, almost seeing a born-into mold crashing to
the floor.
She thought for a moment.
Then she had it.
"Let me ask you something in return."
"Ok."
"Is there such thing as cold?"
"Yeah, obviously." He replied, shivering a bit, hoping up and down.
"Actually Aladdin, cold doesn't exist. What we consider to be cold is really
an absence of heat. Absolute zero is when there is absolutely no heat, but
cold does not really exist. We have only created that term to describe how
we feel when heat is not there."
Well that floored him.
"Is there such thing as dark?"
"Yeah…"
"In truth, darkness does not exist. Darkness is really only the absence of
light. Darkness is only a term developed to describe what happens when there
is no light present."
"I never-"
"Aladdin, does evil exist?"
His resolve snapped back with an angry snap.
"Of course." He snarled without meaning to.
"Well, if you were to ask a Christian, they would tell you no. They believe
evil is just an absence of God. Evil is a term developed to describe the
absence of God. God did not create evil. It isn't like truth, or love which
exist as virtues like heat or light. Evil is simply the state where God is
not present, like cold without heat, or darkness without light."
Aladdin had nothing to say, unconsciously mulling over what she said even
before the last syllable was completed.
She watched him think, and then smiled, patting him on the shoulder.
"I'll see you"
He waved goodbye, distracted, where was Mozen-
"You should have gone with her."

"You live in a church
Where you sleep with voodoo dolls"

Mozenrath was standing there, like he had always been standing there.
Two mamlucks flanked his side, two or more.
His arms were crossed over his chest, looking accusing and tight-lipped.
"What?"
"You should have gone with her Aladdin. You're running out of exits and
options."
Aladdin gave a half-hearted, grinning shrug.
"Guess you'll just have to zap me back home"
Mozenrath snorted.
"Fat chance."
He turned, suddenly giving up on accomplishing anything productive in the
conversation.
Besides, it was kind of nice to know even with out hearing the soft padding
of feet that Aladdin was following.

"And you won't give up the search
For the ghosts in the halls"

But something corrupted the sense of another person, the feel of company.
It was a cold beyond cold.
And it lashed out at him, striking him so he stood stock still for a moment,
staring at the walls.
The growing shadows.
Aladdin watched the odd passing, and looked the same point Mozenrath was
desperately trying to ignore as he hurried in silence to nowhere, shoulder
hunched.
There was nothing there.
Mozenrath suddenly spun on Aladdin, rearing up in a desperately searching
question, loud, brash.
"What are you doing here?!?"
Dammit, why couldn't he just tell him to leave?
"There's nothing there, you know." Aladdin answered simply.
Mozenrath raucously showed his exasperation on his expression.
"What?!?!"
"There's nothing there." Aladdin gestured back at the hall they just passed
through.
Mozenrath stared at him for a moment.
Then laughed, a rough, empty sound.
"Yeah, I suppose your right."

"You wear sandals in the snow
And a smile that won't wash away"

Somewhere between mortal enemies and acquaintances, Aladdin had found
himself here.
Where was here, he thought groggily?
Ahh yes, he thought, a couch or chair, thingy in Mozenrath's Citadel.
And there's Mozenrath, sitting across from him, or is that diagonal?
Whatever the case, Aladdin was feeling almost overly warm, but pleasantly
so, and he had a constant grin on his face.
Mozenrath laughed in the same manner.
Did he say something funny?
I suppose he must have.
He propped his feet on the piece of furniture in front of him, one of two
nearly empty glasses tumbling to the floor.
"Opps" he said without really caring.
Mozenrath rolled his eyes.
"I knew you shouldn't be allowed near anything breakable, klutz."
Aladdin snorted.
"I'm the klutz? Weren't you the one who ran into a wall not too long ago?"
He laughed as Mozenrath blushed an angry pink.
"I'm just kidding Moze"
"I don't think I've told you this Aladdin, but I utterly loathe and detest
that infatuatingly sick nickname you picked out for me."
"Really? I didn't know that." Aladdin said with a laugh.
"I've told you before" Mozenrath scoffed.
"But you just said…"
Oh forget it.
They were having a conversation, and it was actually bearable.
Maybe it was whatever Mozenrath had brought out in those glasses, but
Aladdin found that maybe being this way was even enjoyable.
"You know the dream team is probably going to come bursting through the door
at any moment, right?"
"But the storm,"
"It stopped" Mozenrath gestured at the ceiling that no longer echoed with
the noise of it.
That's strange.
Why didn't he notice?
Mozenrath cocked his ear to an invisible noise.
"C'mon"

"Can you look out the window
Without your shadow getting in the way?"

They came to Mozenrath's balcony; on the way Aladdin discovering walking was
suddenly more fluid.
"There"
And Aladdin saw it, the glowing light blue hue of the magic sensing crystals
dotting a now calm landscape below.
Genie must be setting them off.
Aladdin turned to say something to Mozenrath, but found himself studying him
for a moment, the sorcerer oblivious as he looked down over the railing with
a cynical shadow crossing a lightly smiled face.
Mozenrath looked younger when he smiled, Aladdin noted.
But it was a sad smile, almost tinged with smooth recognition.
Mozenrath wasn't as much pale as he was white, an almost frosted cream, a
tone smattering across high cheekbones and a Roman-ish brow.
Somewhere along the lines, Mozenrath's turban had come and gone.
Aladdin may have gasped if he was a little bit more coherent when he saw
what Mozenrath's hair really looked like.
Aladdin may have also heard the tell tale sounds of his friend slowly coming
arrival.
But that wasn't the point.
What was the point was that the spare bangs that sometimes came loose from
Mozenrath's turban was actually part of a head of black, jet black, curls,
thin, almost silky looking.
Almost pretty.

"You're so beautiful
With an edge and charm"

As soon as the thought registered, a slower process, he found, than normal,
he did a series of mental back flips and jaw drops.
Did he just…
"Little Buddy, I'm coming for ya!"
Aladdin only had that exuberant warning before he was assaulted by an
hysterical Jasmine, clutching him to her like the world depended upon it.
He turned, discovering a battling Mozenrath and Genie.
"Wha?"
"Oh, I've missed you!" Jasmine declared, smoothing his sweating bangs from
his face tenderly.
Somewhere on his shoulder, Abu tittered.
"What did he do to you?" she asked, distracting him as she watched Mozenrath
fight, drawn to the observation that Mozenrath almost seemed desperate when
he fought.
Why didn't he notice it before?
He was jolted from his feet and into the wall as a loud crash was heard.
The walls shook.
Genie said somewhere, sheepish.
"Opps"
Aladdin suddenly realized a loud source of falling ceiling pieces above him.
Something was breaking loose.

"But so careful
when I'm in your arms"

Jasmine screamed.
"Aladdin, Move!"
Somehow he knew his limbs weren't going to keep up with the command.
He watched the marble fall down towards him.
He heard a loud crash, and series of them that followed.
And he had to open his eyes and see why wasn't he dead yet.
He gasped.
Mozenrath was braced over him, shielding him under him, a magic screen
thrown up.
He could hear screams, shouts, Genie and Jasmine.
Bits of dust and stone fell from a torrential sky.
But all he could do was try and catch the eye of the man who took them for
him.
"Mozenrath?"

To Be Continued In "Building A Mystery", Part Two.

Dean