Chapter 15: Tricked

Jasmine realized that they were in no clear way of avoiding the monster that chased them, the screams and roars getting louder with every turn of the passage they ran through. Soon she and Aladdin would have to get through the worst of the traps they'd managed to avoid before. It was hard to know what would end them first - the monster, or the traps they'd spent so much time avoiding near the front part of the passage.

"Have an idea; it's a tricky one," Aladdin said. "If I'm thinking of the trap in the path ahead of us, it should be the reverse of what it was from the other direction. Be ready to jump when I tell you."

Jasmine was not sure what Aladdin's plan involved, but she knew that the monster chasing them was large, covered with dark fur, and had definitely targeted them in their sprint for safety. In all too short a time, Aladdin's warning came through.

"Jump! Now!"

She was ready and did so, as the floor opened up beneath them. It was a trap that she'd forgotten she'd avoided. The monster, however, couldn't stop its momentum and dropped into the trap floor, the rocky platform sliding back into place as Aladdin and Jasmine landed hard on the other side of it.

Both Jasmine and Aladdin recovered their breaths for a long moment after. The quiet settled in the passage, sand and kicked up dirt settling around them. To Jasmine, it felt strange in the quiet just after the chaotic moments just before.

"That was a little too close. If we'd been a breath off for timing we would've fallen in. Or that monster would have caught us." Aladdin said, still breathing hard. "You okay?"

Jasmine groaned. "Would be better if we weren't in a passage with all of these death traps waiting for us. Whatever treasure that was in here, I don't know if it was worth all of this."

Aladdin half smiled. "Inclined to agree, especially since..." He trailed off as his breath hitched, his hand held against the side of his head.

"Aladdin?" She heard his breaths heavy as he closed his eyes. He'd caught her when they nearly collided with each other in the cave earlier, but she saw the moment his legs gave way from under him. She reached his side in time, but could only help him enough to slide to the ground, his back resting against the curved wall of the passage.

Jasmine knew Aladdin was getting worse. He spoke through his teeth when he did manage to find words. She knelt beside him as the wall behind him was the only thing keeping him sitting up.

"Headache...spell...Nefir..."

Jasmine nodded. "I know. Don't try to talk, just breathe. Were you able to get the flower you needed for the cure?"

Aladdin didn't speak when he looked at her, damp strands of his hair falling over his eyes. He seemed surprised. She watched him move his hand, enough to point in the direction of the inner pocket of his vest. She saw the beautiful flowers as she lifted up part of his vest, finding the inner pocket. The flowers were only slightly crushed.

Jasmine found her mind racing in the moment as she took one of the flowers in her hands, studying it carefully. Which was it for the cure? Petals or leaves? How many would I need for it to work? If I give him too many, what happens then?

"Jasmine, look at me."

She met his eyes then, realizing that she'd gone silent for a while. Aladdin was definitely seeing her panic. She was worried about him, but he was worried about her too.

"You know the cure?" At least he seemed to pick up on that much. They hadn't had a chance to say much of anything at all, and Jasmine had so much to tell him. But that wouldn't be a possibility if she messed this up. One wrong move, and Jasmine's intent to help him could end up killing him. It would be exactly what Nefir wanted.

She nodded. "Think I know, but I don't want to hurt you."

"Breathe." His own way of telling her the same words she told him only moments before, but the words he said, along with him putting one of his hands over hers, made her heart surge. " What happens, happens. I trust you. Okay?"

Jasmine's shoulders relaxed. She nodded slowly, closed her eyes, and tried to steady both her breaths and thoughts. Her memory came back to her. The leaves, definitely the leaves are the cure, she thought. I never figured out how many I'm supposed to give him, but at least I know I can start with one. Then we can see what happens.

Several moments passed after Jasmine placed one of the leaves under Aladdin's tongue. He didn't object. After a few coughing fits Aladdin had, the prince's breaths returned to normal. Jasmine only started to relax when she saw Aladdin do the same.

"Bitter, but it's working, I can tell," he said. "How did you know?"

"Nefir said it himself. He was planning to trick you into taking the wrong part of the flower." She explained the whole situation as best she could, how she'd managed to elude them and follow him up to the point they met. When she finished, Aladdin closed his eyes, groaned at the situation that had gone from bad to worse.

"Too focused on getting the stone and cure to think that Nefir had a way to betray me. Then again, kind of hard to focus while you're trying to push off the worst headaches you ever had in your life." He looked over to her, his expression full of relief. "Thank you, Jasmine. Really glad you followed me."

She tapped a finger against the bridge of his nose. "I've been married to you long enough to know when something's bothering you. And when you need help, even when you're reluctant to ask. Call it being a little stubborn."

"Something I know all too well," Aladdin said with a small smile.

She pushed away some strands of Aladdin's hair away from his face. "So what now? You have the stone and you're on the mend, but still not there yet. We're not far from Getzistan, so we could go that direction if we need to. Can we leave? I came in through the secret entrance, so we could escape from there."

Aladdin shook his head. "Not yet. If Nefir or the others suspect I've left, they'll do whatever they can to get the bracelets back from Abu and the others. They have the tome, the real one. If Nefir was able to put that spell on me, I don't wanna think what he could do to the others. Speaking the spells perfectly or not, they can still do a lot of damage."

Aladdin pulled the stone from his vest pocket, holding it up for her to see. Jasmine hadn't noticed anything else there but the flowers, but she gazed at the beautiful stone that Aladdin flipped between his fingers. "But I might've learned a few things about how to use this stone. It has the ability to amplify or destroy depending on the spell and timing. There's only one thing that definitely needs destroying."

"The tome?"

He nodded. "Think I might need a little help pulling it off." He gave her a knowing look. "You in for it, Princess?"

She grinned. "What's the plan?"

Abu stood at the top of one of the highest buildings in Getzistan. Being this high up and looking over the towering buildings of the city kind of reminded him of being in Agrabah at their usual hiding place. But it was a very different view, especially when the desert outskirts to the city weren't far away. Still, he kept his cloak around him. Not just from the rush of breeze, but to hide his identity.

"Can we please do somethin' else other than hide out here? I'm bored." Iago folded his arms across his chest.

Abu narrowed his eyes at the former parrot. "Not until Carpet gets back. And besides, I know exactly what you would do to keep yourself from being bored. Which is not what we need right now." Abu was referring to the fact that Iago, if they separated, would go right to the gambling dens to waste coins he didn't have.

"Oh don't worry," Rajah's low voice rumbled like a steady boom of thunder. "Iago wouldn't try to go in that direction as long as we're around here to keep watch. And we are staying together to not waste time or opportunity to help Aladdin and Jasmine."

Iago scoffed, but Abu could tell that Iago knew he'd been called out. "I still don't understand why we couldn't have gone out to the desert with Rug Boy, though."

"We've been over this," Abu rolled his eyes and sighed. "Carpet's the fastest one of all of us and he has a better vantage point to search compared to us. It would be easier for him to take us along if he were in his actual rug form. But as a kid who can only 'lend' some of his power to us, it would be too much work for him to keep track of us and try to find Al and Jas. This isn't up for debate."

"You don't need to keep saying it, Abu," Rajah said, giving an angry glare at Iago before giving a sympathetic look to the former monkey. "I'm sure Carpet will get back to us if he sees them. Though I do worry if he may be subjected to any further episodes like the one before when you and Aladdin were chasing Nefir."

"That was before we had the bracelets," Abu said. "He should be fine as long as he keeps his bracelet on. You two haven't had any side-effects since we put them on, right?"

Both Rajah and Iago shook their heads.

"Neither have I. Nefir may be wrong on a lot of things, but I think he was telling the truth. The problem is that he tricked Aladdin into doing something that's probably really dangerous for our sake." Abu punched a fist into his other hand's open palm. "I really can't wait to give that imp payback for everything he put us through. Being human was the least worrisome thing about all of this."

"Speak for yourself," Iago muttered.

"Oh come on, Iago - you had fun, admit it!" Abu turned from looking out towards the desert to face the former parrot. "Everything we did when Al and Jas were trying to help us get used to our bodies? Doing fun things wasn't so bad when we weren't faced with either it being permanent or us permanently dead, am I right?"

"It was not all bad." To both Abu's and Iago's surprise, Rajah had been the one to speak. "It admittedly was a pleasant experience playing street ball with the kids in the Marketplace."

Abu grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. "See? Told ya. And if we had more time to spend without worrying about it, hanging out with them and everyone at the Palace as humans would have been cool."

"You only say that because all the time you've spent with Al, you were closer to being human than either me or furball over here for the usual experience," Iago said. When Rajah gave Iago a side eye glance, the former bird winced. "Like I said before, I mean 'furball' in the most complimentary way."

"You already had human qualities before we turned, Iago. Not just me. You're the only one whose voice among all four of us hasn't changed. Including your ability to imitate people." Abu folded his arms across his chest, his expression stern.

"Hey, the Rug didn't speak to begin with, so you forgot him for one. And you bein' able to screech and Rajah growling didn't prevent me from understandin' you. You just talk too fast and too much."

Abu's mouth dropped open. He was silent for several moments before he spoke again. "What?! Do you wanna fight?"

That's when Iago got to his feet. "Oh, bring it on, monkey. I can take you on even better now that I have hands over wings!"

"YOU TWO!" Rajah's voice wasn't that far from his tiger growl, with the same power and demand. The effect was immediate as both Iago and Abu froze mid-step between each other, their attention turning to Rajah with equally cringing expressions.

Rajah realized that he might have scared them a little too much. He cleared his throat and spoke in a low voice. But his expression remained mildly annoyed. "If I might remind you, we are supposed to be hiding and watching for Carpet's signal. We cannot do that if you are busy fighting over petty things."

Abu groaned, his shoulders sinking and anger fading as quickly as it came. "Yeah, you're right, Rajah. Sorry."

"We wouldn't have chosen a rooftop to hide on if a certain person wasn't taller than the average human in the seven deserts and could fit in a conspicuous place," Iago muttered.

"Regardless, we need to not draw extraneous attention to ourselves," Rajah said. In a rare moment of lightness, Rajah snorted as a thought came to him. "Though I suppose if we were bringing Iago around, we should have expected not to find an easy place to hide. I'm certain his squabbles can be heard from Agrabah itself."

Iago's mouth dropped open, while Abu had to cover his mouth to keep his laughs from being too loud.

It took a while for Iago to have a response. While he wasn't upset, Iago was definitely annoyed. "Not you tryin' to follow the monkey's footsteps and tease me. Didn't know ya had it in ya."

"Nice comeback." But Abu's humor was shortlived as he saw Rajah's own smile fade really quickly, turning to a more concerned expression as his attention shifted to whatever was behind Abu. Abu turned to see a figure flying frantically in their direction over the skyline.

"Looks like Carpet's back, but he's flyin' way too fast not to have found something," Iago said, his own tone more serious than it had been before. Abu could tell he was worried also.

"He must have found them, but the fact that they're not with him means something's wrong," Abu said. "Let's hear what he has to say, then go from there."

Nefir paced in a circle, growing impatient. "He should have already been out of there by now. Unless..." Nefir flipped through the pages of the tome, looking for the detector spell. He wasn't going to chance following Aladdin into the lair and risk the spirit kicking him out again (or worse). Had Aladdin actually...failed?

The other imps watched Nefir eagerly as he rattled off the spell quickly. It didn't take long to realize something had happened. Nothing visible in the cave to their eyes, but Nefir's expression turned from one of apprehension to anger.

"It's GONE!" Nefir snapped angrily. "Aladdin must have retrieved the stone in order for that spirit's essence to completely have vanished from here. And the passage closes at daybreak, which means it won't open up again until another full moon happens. So where could he be unless..."

"Unless I'm dead? Is that what you want to say?"

The voice startled all of the imps, not just from the unexpected answer, but coming from the outside desert behind them where the entrance was. Aladdin confirmed it when he spoke next.

"Out here, Nefir. We need to talk."

The imps began to laugh, but Nefir's expression silenced them as he looked over his shoulder. The imp angrily marched ahead to where he saw Aladdin standing near a large sand dune. The moon still shone high in the sky. Clear enough to see Aladdin's stern expression. But Nefir was far more angry than the prince was.

Nefir threw the tome into the hands of two of the imps. "Hold that for me while I have a little chat with the Prince of Agrabah." He turned to Aladdin, eyes flashing. "How did you get out of the passage? We had eyes on the entrance this entire time!"

Aladdin shrugged, his arms folded across his chest. "There was another exit. Found it not too far away. Didn't take me long to circle back to this one. Would've been nice for you to tell me the reason why I had to get this done before dawn, though. Heard that much. If I'd been in there for a longer time, I would have been trapped there until the next full moon!"

Thief's luck, Nefir thought. Aladdin had always been clever in maneuvering through traps. It wouldn't have taken him long to find an alternate route. Still, it seemed like things remained in the imp's favor. Aladdin, by all accounts, didn't look like he felt well at all, from the sight of his torn clothes and hair damp with sweat. No doubt the headaches were taking their due toll, despite the brave front he put up.

"At any rate," Nefir rubbed his hands together, grinning widely. "I believe there's something you have for me."

Aladdin raised a brow. "You mean this?" Aladdin held up the smooth summoning stone in his hand. It caught enough of the moonlight to let all of the imps know exactly what it was. Nefir's comrades "ooh"ed and "ahh"ed at the sight of it. Nefir was quick to hush them.

"I believe we had a deal. You hand over the stone, I give you the cure to your annoyingly painful headaches."

"Don't you think there's a bit more to it than that?"

Nefir frowned. "What do you mean?" The imp found his gut twist with the way Aladdin's tone shifted, almost as if the prince dared to mock him.

"Turns out that the spirit was way more helpful to me than he was to you. Gave me tips on how to use it. Betcha you don't know how to use the stone properly, do ya?"

Nefir was at a loss. He had only been aware of one way to use the stone formerly. Had Sufyan told Aladdin something else? "What did he tell you about the stone?"

Aladdin clicked his tongue and shook his head. The prince's grin was sly. "Oh no, you don't. You don't get to ask anything for free. If you want me to tell you, you'll have to agree with my terms first."

"I'm not agreeing to any game you're trying with me!" Nefir snapped, his face turning red. The other imps were watching this exchange with curious glances between both Aladdin and Nefir, unaware of anything else in the seemingly empty desert around them. It's certain that they would not have noticed if they were being watched, if even from a distance away.

"Let's recap on the deals we made," Aladdin continued, counting on his fingers. "You told me that you would leave Abu, Carpet, Iago, and Rajah alone, and by extension Agrabah, if I agreed to come with you. And do whatever task you had for me. That's also keeping in mind you told me not to bring anyone with me or tell anyone aside from Abu and Carpet, in exchange for giving us the bracelets. You also told me you would give me the cure for the headache spell you cast in exchange for getting the stone. At this point, after all of that, it's my turn to set some rules. At least if you want to know how to use the stone."

Nefir was quiet a long moment. Aladdin was definitely planning something sneaky, but he wasn't sure what. And it wasn't as if the boy knew anything about Nefir's plan to trick him. If Aladdin wanted a last wish before his death, so be it. "Fine. Name your price."

"You hand over the tome, and I'll give you the stone and tell you how to use it. Fair trade."

"WHAT?! No! That makes no sense!" Nefir snapped.

Aladdin grinned. "Sure it does! You wanted the stone and the tome actually belongs to Agrabah, so I'm taking it back. You can keep the stone since you wanted to go through that passage and failed."

Nefir growled. "You are NOT getting the tome."

Aladdin shrugged. "Fine. I'll keep the stone and you keep the tome."

"But what good would that do?! I need to know how to use the stone!"

"I could just use it in your place, based on what the spirit told me."

Nefir was about to say more, but the imps behind Nefir shrieked with alarm. For once, both Aladdin and Nefir were stunned to silence as a dark cloaked figure snatched up the tome from the imps' hands and flew high in the night sky, speeding off in the direction of Getzistan.

"What is wrong with you fools?!" Nefir snapped at the two imps who stood motionless, mouths agape as they watched the cloaked figure fly away. "I leave you with the tome for one moment..."

But while Nefir was distracted, Aladdin recovered more quickly. The imp was not expecting Aladdin's next command. "Jasmine, NOW!"

Nefir was not expecting that at all. "Princess?!"

Somehow the Princess of Agrabah had set a trap that took advantage of the weakness of the sand in the area, causing a mountain of sand to crash down on the imps, enough to bury them all to the point where they had a hard time getting out of the sand trap.

Nefir snarled. "You tricked us! Deal's off!"

Aladdin shook his head. "Nope, I held up my end of the bargain. If you're going to call off the deal because Jasmine followed me here without either of us being aware, then I'm gonna have to call your bluff on planning to give me the wrong cure. You were trying to kill me."

Nefir's mouth dropped open in surprise. "How did you...?"

"I overheard." Jasmine was quick to confirm as she went to Aladdin's side. "And I already gave Aladdin the cure, which is the reason why he wasn't clamoring for you to give him answers on how to use the flower he got."

Nefir hissed through his teeth as he tried to wiggle his way out of the mounds of sand that trapped most of his body. "Deal is still off. Your friends will be the ones who pay when we deconstruct Agrabah stone by stone!"

To the imp's surprise, Aladdin smiled. "Not if we get that tome before you do. Either that, or let Sultan Al Dente know what you've been planning to do to his and our kingdom. I'm sure he's got a cozy little dungeon for you and your friends once we tell him."

"GET THEM!" Nefir shouted as Jasmine took Aladdin's hand and they ran in the direction of Getzistan.

"That was not great. Understatement," Jasmine said as they ran in the direction of Getzistan. Aladdin's head still spun in the flux of recovering from the headache spell, but it wasn't as bad as before.

"No, we did really well, considering. Won't have to worry if we outrun them. It looks if we keep our pace, we'll make it to Getzistan long enough to put some distance between them."

"That's not what I mean! In case you missed it, we might be able to outrun Nefir and the other imps, but we won't catch up to whoever stole the tome!" Jasmine snapped.

Aladdin was surprised. "You didn't see who took it? Think a moment. Someone who snatched the tome that easily must be able to use or is made of magic. Who do we know that is made of magic and also just so happens to be human right now? I'd know that shadow passing over me, especially considering how mad he made Razoul when he was flying over people in the halls at the Palace. Believe me, I was surprised to see him out here this late."

Jasmine stopped so abruptly that Aladdin almost collided with her, but he couldn't blame her surprise. "Carpet?"

Aladdin nodded. "Yeah. And if he's out here, then that means the others must be close by. I'm not worried about Carpet having the tome right now - at least it's in friendly hands. How they managed to find us is something we can talk about later. But I am worried about Nefir and the other imps catching up with him and the others before we do. Let's try our best to meet with them, wherever they might be. The sooner we let them know what's going on, the sooner we can destroy that tome and stop Nefir's plan."

Jasmine nodded. "I'm with you." Her attention quickly turned to the direction behind them. "Aladdin, we're in trouble."

Aladdin looked over his shoulder, realizing that Nefir and the other imps had gotten free of their sand traps much sooner than they'd expected. And they were quickly closing the gap.

"Great, looks like they're a little more determined than I thought. Especially since they know I have the stone and how to use it." He turned to Jasmine. "Come on, let's go."