Ur discount fan: Thanks! I certainly do intend to continue. The internet certainly does have a terrible lack of Mozenrath fics, but TheRedLass and I are working to remedy that. You can find her in my favorites section.
rollingbell: I love humorous stories with Mozenrath in them. He always seems so... comically out of place.
Mozenrath flexed his hands. They were securely enveloped in his own invention, which would give him a nasty backlash disproportional to the actual amount of magic he had tried to use. He was devastatingly low on power at the moment due to a persistent problem he was having with his Gauntlet, which was trying to usurp control of his body. Destain's journal was helping formulate a plan to counteract this but the going was slow trying to decipher his codes. Mozenrath certainly had neither the strength to escape nor the courage to try just yet with Aladdin in the sort of mood that would result in him being carved into bits before he had the proper potions prepared to deal with it. If his gauntlet was determined to get control of his body and then he suddenly didn't have one anymore, he could only imagine what horrors would await his very vulnerable spirit, as it still had a claim on his spirit.
He really had no choice but to carry on for the moment and, regardless, he was getting rather interested in seeing how far the normally quite fair Aladdin was going to let his temper go. This could prove to be entertaining.
When prompted for a map, he motioned lazily in the direction of one of his bookshelves. Aladdin snatched the scroll from the indicated place and opened it, then gaped.
"Are you serious?" Aladdin demanded in shock. "There's no way this is a map of the Citadel!"
"It is, and an accurate one for the most part aside from those pesky places only accessible during certain times of the year or phases of the moon, or the one room that can't decide what door it wants to belong to. I think that last one is due to a previous Lord trying to create a shortcut, though where he was trying to get to exactly is beyond me since whenever I find that room it leads back into the room I started out in," Mozenrath shrugged. "The very stones here are saturated with magic like sponges, Aladdin. What did you expect?'
Not THIS, Aladdin thought as he looked in dismay at the scroll that folded out in many places from the center. From the outside the Citadel looked like a perfectly ordinary building all things considered, but when Aladdin thought of the staircase that led to Mozenrath's living quarters he winced. The entire structure was off in that particularly frustrating way, it would seem.
The outline of the rooms within the place looked, on paper, very much like a feather-duster two tenths of a second into the act of being blown apart by lightning. It wouldn't be quite as bad, Aladdin admitted, if the main source of direction wasn't looking out of windows for Astrological references in a place where only one fifth of the rooms had windows. You just had to keep opening doors and hope you eventually found a room that looked outside and given the look of the map that would be much less often than every five rooms since a lot of doors led to multiple destinations. Not only did the shape of the inside not match what the outer walls should have been able to contain, but the size was way more than what the boundary of the surrounding city should have been able to accommodate. Forget architecture; this place was nothing more or less than a confused spatial anomaly with a terminal case of the hiccups.
"How did you not get lost in this training with Destain?"
Mozenrath scoffed. "First: I did. A LOT. That's how I learned my way around the essential areas. Second; training? Making a lot of assumptions, Aladdin. His main method of teaching was handing me a book and telling me to go away while he eviscerated something. If I was lucky he'd let me try to put it back together when he was done."
"That's terrible!"
Mozenrath sighed. "I know. I never did figure out where he was getting so many fairies."
Iago shuddered, then looked curiously at the map. "Wait, I've seen one of these. Jafar had one of the Palace, complete with all the secret passages and stuff. It's supposed to have a marker telling us where we are."
Genie looked over Aladdin's shoulder. "I don't see a marker."
"That's because it isn't our map," Iago said triumphantly. He snatched the scroll in his claws and flew over to lay it over Mozenrath's lap.
They watched as the oblong shapes suddenly started to behave themselves and form into something moderately navigable, along with a little blue dot appearing at their current location, or, more accurately, Mozenrath's location. Much like the damned tower would react differently depending on who was walking up the steps, so too did every room seem to contain entirely different things and be in different locations depending on whether anyone but the Lord was there. For the rightful Lord, it didn't look like more than half of the rooms the Citadel technically contained even existed.
Mozenrath frowned in disappointment. "I was hoping you'd get lost for a while before figuring that out," he said petulantly.
"Is this place specifically designed to keep anyone it doesn't like lost?" Genie wondered aloud.
"Yes," the sorcerer agreed evenly. "Until they die, at which point the bodies are deposited in a dry room in the dungeon for-"
"We don't want to know what for!" Iago squawked quickly.
"And the room with the man-eating plant?" Genie asked levelly, as it had disappeared once Mozenrath had the map back.
"Doesn't literally exist for the Lord of the Citadel, no." he confirmed. "And I'm relatively certain the attacks aren't gender-specific, so you should call it a flesh-eating -"
"Fine," Aladdin snapped. "Lead on."
"You'll need to be more precise -"
"The potions laboratory!"
"Yes, but which one, Aladdin?" the sorcerer droned.
Genie groaned and put a hand on his forehead. It was going to be a long night. Over the next couple of minutes they carefully described Jasmine's symptoms and the things she had been in contact with in the past few days. Mozenrath mulled over it for a while before he came up with a possible solution.
"Pick one and lead on," Aladdin stated and shoved Mozenrath foreword. His irritation only got worse when they were at the bottom of the tower in only two flights of gently coiled stairs.
Mozenrath turned left.
Aladdin had been a hero long enough to figure out a few things most people couldn't discuss in polite conversation, one of which was this; about ninety-nine percent of archenemies knew each other better than their friends or even spouses did. After a certain amount of time hating each other familiarity is inevitable, and the threat of death is substantially more of an effective motivation to remember minute details than pleasing an acquaintance. For this reason it was vitally important to keep track of your enemies' interests.
Mozenrath had once had a fleeting interest in botany, as evidenced by the greenery Genie had encountered when visiting the Citadel with Muktar. It was more of a hobby than anything else and didn't last very long but Mozenrath never did anything in little bits and his learning capability bordered on unreal. Aladdin wouldn't have remembered that little detail in any other situation than this one, but whenever he saw a plant in this place his internal alarms would start wailing at him like ghouls trying to get out of his head.
Thus, when they came to a hallway flanked by 'decorative' and innocent looking mauve flowers that were almost invisible in the shadows, Aladdin snatched the back of the sorcerer's shirt and abruptly turned the other way.
Mozenrath audibly sighed after the initial surprised gag died away due to the sudden increase of pressure on his neck. "I'm not certain which is more aggravating; that you're beginning to show signs of intelligence or that I'm mildly impressed by it."
"They would have caught you too," Aladdin pointed out.
"Yes, but I know how to get out of them. You don't." Six turns and two flights later Mozenrath belatedly realized they had gone through one of those doors and he was not where he expected to be. "Damnation..."
"Which way?" Aladdin demanded.
Mozenrath peered down the dark cul-de-sac that spawned five corridors warily. "I don't know."
"You live here!" Iago protested.
"I've lived here free of Distain for only two years, Aladdin. That's not a lot of time to memorize the interior of a structure the size of Getzistan's Red-Light District while putting in up to seventy hours of study weekly." He said so sensibly that Aladdin found himself unable to argue the point. "Xerxes might know. He's been here longer than the surrounding city has."
"I thought each Sorcerer had his own familiar? Did you inherit him or something?"
"Xerxes belonged to the original Lord of this Citadel, before it was much more than a glorified manor house and magic began to warp it into the structure you see today. It's fairer to say he inherited me," Mozenrath said darkly.
Aladdin ran frustrated hands through his hair roughly. "Look at the map, then."
Mozenrath huffed. "How am I to do that if I can't hold it and it only obeys me?"
Genie scoffed. "Well, we're not taking the manacles off."
"You didn't let me get dressed either," Mozenrath complained. "I say we let Aladdin pick."
Aladdin balked. "Why me?"
"Having a favorite of Fate with me will increase my chances of success," the wizard shrugged. "Out of all of us, I trust Fate will lead you down the right way."
"You're using me as a lucky charm?" Aladdin demanded in an offended tone.
Mozenrath frowned and indicated the map. "You're using me as an antidote dispenser," he said accusingly. "If you get to treat people like things without being evil, why can't I?"
Aladdin opened his mouth to argue and, to his horror, found his mind blank. Was that was he was doing? He looked to Genie and gave him a somewhat pleading stare. The way Mozenrath had said it sounded so wrong, but it was entirely accurate in a way that made Aladdin feel like he'd been kneed in the gut by Rhazoul.
"…unfortunately the Wiz-kid has a point, Al," Genie admitted hesitantly.
Seething but out of options, Aladdin picked a tunnel and walked purposefully toward the nearest door.
"Don't you say a word," Iago sniped at the smiling wizard when they walked directly into a laboratory.
"What is this?" Aladdin demanded, picking up the first thing he saw, which happened to be the tar-like substance Mozenrath had trapped Aladdin in during their little kidnapping adventure at Dagger Rock.
"…lodestone, mostly." Mozenrath admitted. "Magnetite makes an excellent magical conductor."
"Why is it sticky, then, if it's just powdered stone?"
"Because I mixed it with oils and resins so that it would form better," Mozenrath explained easily. "Didn't you wonder why it smelled like perfume despite looking and feeling like tar?"
"This isn't the sand from outside?" Aladdin asked in slight disappointment.
"No, that's primarily composed of basalt. You're standing in the remains of a long-dead volcano."
Iago scoffed. "Basalt eventually turns red! Why hasn't the sand turned red if-"
"Do you think it ever rains here?" Mozenrath sighed. "Enough to oxidize anything?"
"Er… I thought the sand was black from-"
"-the decaying remains of my many victims," Mozenrath finished for him robotically. "That would be a marvelous trick considering I've only been here for seven years, five of which under tutelage if you can even call it that, and the Land of the Black Sand has been here for eons. The spire underneath the Citadel isn't man-made either; its columnar basalt. It only looks like carefully-carved hexagonal spires because that's a naturally occurring formation when lava cools slowly, you idiot."
"So all this black sand is…" Aladdin began in mild disappointment.
"Neither magical nor unusual; it's just black sand because it is composed of ordinary black rock." Mozenrath finished for him. "Sort of destroys the mystique of the place, doesn't it?"
Aladdin turned away from the pebbles of compressed tar with a frustrated scowl and looked around the lab.
Mozenrath lifted a brow and watched in detached fascination. It always amazed him that people like Aladdin, when not favored by Fate in an entirely literal fashion, managed to live to adulthood. The idiot was in a Sorcerer's home, walking through a room packed at the very edges with thousands of volatile potions, and he was touching things like a child in a china shop. He was sorely tempted to handle this situation in two entirely opposite ways; the first of which was just to let the idiot do it until he triggered a domino effect that would reduce the land for miles around to a very smooth crater of black glass. It wouldn't particularly irk Mozenrath too much because, being a necromancer, he would simply have to find another body to inhabit. Aladdin on the other hand, would be toast.
Fun as it might be to consider, though, Mozenrath didn't want Xerxes to suffer the same fate and was rather fond of his kingdom, and in addition the Gauntlet would still be latched onto his spirit regardless. Having to find a new body and deal with the insufferable glove would be too much at once. He sighed and went with his second option, which was stopping him. Mozenrath cleared his throat to get the fool's attention. "You do realize that it's very likely the last thing your friends will hear before vanishing in a vortex of mellifluous fire will be you saying something like, 'what does this one do'?"
Aladdin blinked and turned to him. "What?'
"Leave the pretty bottles alone before one of them hurts you," Mozenrath said darkly, ", and everyone else."
"Which one is the antidote, then?"
Mozenrath sighed and looked around. "I don't recognize this laboratory, and Distain wasn't exactly known for organization or labeling. Even if the right antidote is here I wouldn't be able to identify it."
"I don't get why you don't just brew it already if you know what it is," Iago snapped hotly. "We're in the place for it, aren't we?"
Mozenrath momentarily looked sheepish and didn't answer.
"Well?" Aladdin demanded.
"...I'm not very good at Alchemy," the wizard admitted blankly.
Genie's eyes narrowed. "No, no, no, no, I remember distantly that you made the Philosopher's Stone!"
"Yes," Mozenrath said acidly, "Under the constant direction and advisement of Khartoum. That's a wholly different situation. I had to choose between Alchemy and Astral studies due to time constraints while plotting my mentor's demise and the fact that I was able to summon a Thestral proves what my decision was. If I tried to make the antidote you need I'd be more likely to create a demonic summons than something that would actually-" At this thought Mozenrath perked up and said brightly, "You know what? I changed my mind. I'm excellent at Alchemy. I'd be happy to brew the antidote for you, Aladdin. Of course you'll have to take the manacles off..."
Both Aladdin and Iago palmed their faces. "Next lab?" the parrot groaned sufferingly.
"Yeah," Aladdin agreed and yanked Mozenrath out by his nightshirt and back into the hallway.
Three hallways, fourteen rooms, one staircase, and several small explosions later found them in a hallway that Genie didn't recognize until seconds too late.
Iago was the first to spot it. "Kid, look out!"
Mozenrath's first thought as he watched Aladdin hefted up by the tangle of vines that had lurched out of the clearly labeled door the idiot had just opened was that he had hit a spot of extraordinary luck. If the hero was incapable of following simple directions and got himself killed then it was his own fault and the world would be all the better for removing his chance to procreate and pass on the stupid to future generations. Mozenrath's second thought was that the Djinn was unlikely to handle Aladdin's death well and there wouldn't be much stopping his semi-phenomenal nearly-cosmic rage with his magic still firmly trapped by the manacles.
There was nothing else for it. Mozenrath let out an annoyed growl and clambered up onto a chest along the corridor wall. At the moment Aladdin had been squeezed past the point of retaliation the plant had begun to draw him in through the doorway, at which point Mozenrath leapt toward the vines and let a blast out of his gauntlet. The direction didn't matter, because the backlash hit him AND whatever he was touching with agonizing force. Aladdin was knocked out by the jolt, the startled vines loosed and retreated, and Mozenrath hit the floor with just enough sense left to kick the door shut.
He was unconscious for only a few moments before the sound of astonished conversation woke him.
Aladdin spoke with a familiar air of confusion. "Why did he-"
"I don't know," Iago snapped. "Maybe he didn't want the plant to break his favorite toy."
"That's a good point. He was pretty mad when he thought Muktar managed to-" Genie began, then stopped and scowled when he saw Mozenrath's eyes open.
The parrot's grating squawking was the worst thing possible with a headache this size and Mozenrath could only hope Aladdin had a similarly horrible pounding going on in his skull. "You…" he said through clench teeth as he tried to sit up, ", have the common sense of a mollusk, Aladdin."
Aladdin stood for a moment in mild shock. "Did you just save me?"
Mozenrath rounded on him furiously. "Of course I did! My reputation was at stake!"
"How d'you figure?" Aladdin asked blankly. As if it wasn't bad enough he was still in shock over unexpectedly being alive, he got the feeling they were playing a game and he hadn't been told all the rules yet, nor had he been allowed to see the dice.
Mozenrath pinched the bridge of his nose and began to explain, but as he got further along his rage boiled back up like a geyser preparing to erupt. "I have been actively trying to kill you for years, Aladdin, and failed. Now think for a moment, how much it would humiliate me if you managed to get yourself eaten by one of my houseplants because you're too stupid not to open a door with a sign on it that says 'DO NOT OPEN'! That's the victory equivalent of spending decades trying to siege a city only to finally get through the walls to find out the lot had committed suicide before you got there! It's embarrassing!"
"Nobody would know," Iago said reasonably.
"I would!" Mozenrath persisted. "If you want to know what I saved you for, Aladdin, the answer is 'LATER'!"
"I thought you said I was lucky," Aladdin teased.
Mozenrath scoffed. "Yes, you were lucky I was there, Street Rat."
As the ghostly blue glow from outside signifying the Land of the Black Sand's version of daytime began to float through the windows, they finally found a laboratory Mozenrath recognized. He indicated the correct bottle and held up his wrists. "There, now take these off and get out."
Aladdin held the little vial suspiciously. "That's it? We let you go and you let us leave?"
"Don't worry, I'll pay you back for this later. In the meantime you'd best go and give that to your dear princess or the toxin she's been given will kill her soon."
Aladdin stared suspiciously for a moment, but he had a feeling the potion was the correct one and Mozenrath simply wanted them out. He said a quick thanks and flew out on Carpet, and Genie took the manacles with him.
Once they had gone Mozenrath flopped bonelessly onto a couch that puffed with dust when he impacted. Rather than inhale it and cough he stubbornly held his breath until it settled on and around him. He had to admit that experience had been… interesting. Now he had an appropriate target for his experiment. Originally he had intended to use Getzistan in the hopes that all those bright lights would attract better, but Agrabah would do very nicely. Destain's journal had been very informative on how to free him from the Gauntlet. He needed an appropriate distraction – something else to project its fury at so that he could get away. After all, casting evil worked so much better if you were legitimately furious with your target… and Aladdin had just provided Mozenrath with a whole lot of mad.
As the blue light gained its ghostly dominance over the landscape Mozenrath laughed madly and mirthlessly, the sound reverberating off the walls of the laboratory until even the shadows seemed to draw away from him. There was a lot of pain and preparation ahead of him, he was so enraged he couldn't see straight, and nothing anyone did could stop him from escaping from the source of his torment. Mozenrath thrived in these conditions.
It was going to be a beautiful day.
Alright, so there's the Prequel complete! Sorry it took so long to get up here but I've been very busy plotting and scheming lately for the main story. I plan to start posting that next month. Stay tuned!