Chapter 8: His Answer
"You have until sunrise," the king of the underworld announced from his throne with a grin.
The god and the sorcerer both knew time was a mere suggestion down here. Sunrise could be days from now or minutes.
Jafar went over to stare at the green pool once again. Witnessing the moaning souls whirling around in the basin did not improve his mood. He could not deny that this unknown time limit was worrisome. Jafar had always been more of a strategist than a tactician and after decades of using magic to get all the time he could want to mull over any pressing problem, he was wholly unused to quick-thinking of any kind.
Now, however, was not the time for such ruminations. "I'm so close," the sorcerer said to himself, for that was what mattered to him. Then he went about searching his robes and his mind for a solution.
None of his research had prepared him to do this without a spell. He had used up his carefully selected artifacts. All he had was his clothes, the bag of silver for the return trip, his staff, the lamp, her bracelet, and his mission. Reconsidering his remaining tools, the sorcerer hatched a new scheme.
It began by confirming what he knew. The sorcerer tried dropping a silver coin into the pool.
As expected, the souls attacked it like the coin was the last bite of food in a famine and it was soon lost under the piles of inconsolable creatures.
His second attempt was aimed right at her.
She snatched the coin out of the air. Even in death, she was not one to be bested by the petty mob.
Encouraged, the sorcerer dipped his staff into the pool next. The tip of the rod instantly began to boil with heat.
Gritting his teeth, Jafar yanked his staff out as fast as he could.
Relieved that it was undamaged, the sorcerer put his precious staff down and moved onto the lamp. Unlike with his staff, the lamp turned frigid upon submersion and the souls actively avoided it. This was no surprise to the sorcerer.
It was all as he had predicted.
"Time is ticking," Hades jeered.
The sorcerer tried to ignore him and took out her bracelet. It had been badly bent out of shape and soiled when he had recovered it from that two-bit witch. Now it looked as it ought:
A serpentine coil decorated with delicate gold scales and studded with two amethyst eyes.
When Jafar whispered its name, the head of the bracelet tilted in question with those amethyst eyes completely focused on his.
Jafar's research had never found an answer to whether this animate object was truly sentient or simply a great mimic. Habit had him swallowing hard before he asked it to do his bidding.
After the bracelet held his gaze for a moment more than was comfortable, it obediently tied itself to the head of his staff and then dangled off of it, more than ready to reunite with its true master.
"Going fishing, are we?" Hades asked.
Something in the god's voice made Jafar pause and turn.
Hades was still smiling, but there was a hint of wariness in his eyes that the sorcerer had not seen before.
"I hear that the gods do not give impossible tasks, only…incredibly difficult ones," Jafar said in as neutral a tone as he could manage.
Hades scoffed. "That totally depends on who's on the chopping block. Just look at old sissy-boy up north and his ongoing rock collection."
Off to the side, the genie let out another whimper. Jafar's first wish forbade it from returning to its lamp, so it had taken to muttering to itself and pacing a moat into the ground filled with its own sweat and tears. The sorcerer let its fear and anxiety feed his confidence.
Even Hades with his flame blue hair and deadly eyes looked almost human in his uncertainty.
"We shall see," the sorcerer said before he took out the lamp again. He used it to push away the grasping souls until she floated by.
Once she drew near enough, he thrust his staff into her path and let the bracelet snake do the rest.
The snake found its master, but when Jafar lifted his staff, things went awry.
Her soul refused to rise!
Her bracelet stretched to three, six, a dozen times its original length as Jafar pulled fruitlessly.
Then the bracelet, at its limit, detached from the staff with a snap!
The recoil threw Jafar off his feet. His staff flew out of his hands as he crashed to the ground.
"Damnation!" he swore.
"But Jaffy, you're already here!" Hades laughed uproariously as Jafar tried to right himself.
His staff.
Where was his sorcerer's staff?
Jafar's eyes searched the grimy floor, but it wasn't there.
"It's gone, Jaffy. Out the window like all bad ideas," Hades mocked, jabbing a finger at one of the twin oval sockets in the wall.
Jafar raced over to the opening to scour the River Styx below.
It was no use. There was nothing to see but more souls and despair. The sorcerer's most prized possession was indeed gone.
Before Jafar could begin to comprehend the loss, Hades's unwelcome voice invaded his space with, "Tick-tock, Jaffy. I can feel—"
"Do you think I care!" Jafar snarled. He whirled on Hades and then, froze.
All traces of humanity and weakness were gone from the unamused god. Blue flames had shifted to red. The god's eyes now promised a death filled with agony and regret. "You should. Or has the most powerful sorcerer in the Seven Deserts and longest-lived Grand Vizier of Agrabah given up already?"
There was a stretch of silence that spoke for itself.
"That's what I thought. Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," Hades followed Jafar as he stalked over to the pool. "I can feel the sun nearing the horizon and my patience waning, so what next, Jaffy? Hmm? What shall you do now that your enchanted sleeves are…empty?" The god tugged on one of them for emphasis.
Jafar felt the taunt. Time was slipping away. His options were dwindling as were his chances of success. He had to do something. He had to act.
Returning to an idea he had briefly considered earlier, Jafar snatched his turban off his head.
Hades snickered something that sounded like, "Baldy." Then his smoky essence seeped back from whence it came. An entertained corporeal lounger upon his throne once more, the only difference between before and now was that when the god smoothed his blue flame hair back, it was out of a delighted spite.
Jafar just clutched his turban and tried to think. Could it and his robes save her?
Their formulation had been a special project, started decades ago. It had begun by acquiring a unique variety of fae clothing from a bumbling creature who was to this day far too…preoccupied to miss it. A single rip to this otherworldly fabric would render the turban and robes mundane, so Jafar had been careful to maintain and imbue both garments with durability, persuasion, acuity, laving, vitality, and illusion magics while he had risen through the ranks of the Agrabah court.
Of the two, the turban had been the greater triumph. Its enlarged parrot feather and enchanted ruby gemstone had their own magical properties that could work in tandem with his robes, staff, and ring to magnify his passive enchantments and other spellwork. However, with his ring and staff both gone, Jafar no longer had a concrete reason to not try dropping the turban into the pool.
He held the garment over the edge, his fingers tight upon the fabric, history, and magic. Then he let it go.
The turban fell. Upon touching the green waters, it flared a coal red from the force of Jafar's sorcery. Power from decades of work turned the walls as violet as her magic and then the priceless turban disintegrated along with his robes.
Hades's howling cachinnations surrounded Jafar as the thwarted mortal watched the horde of souls fight over the ruby that remained, seeing himself in place of the gemstone.
He was a fool.
Hadn't he known that wouldn't work? That none of it would work.
Hadn't he been warned countless times by all that knew his wish?
Hadn't he heard of the Grecians' and their gods' love of hubris and hamartias?
He'd definitely seen the trap Hades had lain for him.
But no.
The great and powerful sorcerer of the Seven Deserts had persisted despite it all. He had tried to escape, to outwit, to outlive death itself.
And it was to no avail. What could he do now with a lamp that had a genie he was unable to command, a bag of coins to call a horde he was unable to control, empty hands, a dearth of overclothes, and…his mission?
The ruby gemstone disappeared from sight and green filled Jafar's vision, his mind seeing only one course left to him. It was the obvious answer, simple, harrowing, and crude, the grand finale to Hades's little game of life and death, and the option Jafar had been studiously avoiding:
He had to reach for her, but if he did, she would drag him into the pool to join her and the rest of the damned.
No mortal, sorcerer or otherwise, could survive that horrid fate.
One way or another, this marked the end of Jafar's quest.
He knew it.
The god knew it.
Even the genie was smiling.
Jafar closed his eyes and breathed in the despair. The world around him faded. His many years of experience were stripped away. He was no sorcerer. He was barely a magician. He was a novice, a nobody. He was a young man and she was there. He saw her smirking face before him with perfect clarity.
What ails you, Jafar?
"I don't know what to do," he whispered.
Those sound like the words of a dithering coward. Take what you want, Jafar. Life is too short to bow to fear. Why can you not learn that simple lesson?
He could.
He had.
Jafar opened his eyes. He tore a strip of fabric from his loincloth and grabbed a drachma. Then he tied the coin to his palm. He held it over the pool and waited.
Like a snake striking its prey, at the right moment, his arm shot out and he grabbed her outstretched hand.
Jafar screamed.
Her touch was flame and ice together. First his hand, then his arm, and soon his whole body was engulfed in decay. He could feel himself aging, his hair going white, skin spotting, muscles thinning, bones rattling. He was dying.
He pulled.
Her soul was heavier than sin. She was dragging him toward the pool's surface. "Nasira," he hissed through the pain.
Jafar fell onto his stomach and nearly blacked out from the impact. Still, he refused to let go.
"Nasira," he growled.
You're a sniffling snake of a man. Do you not know anything?
"I..."
You're a spineless fool
"I..."
You'll never admit to your cowardice, but we both know what you are…
"Nasira…"
Jafar
"I love you."
Jafar felt like he was being pulled in two. He felt like he was being pushed into one. He was drowning and flying, heavy and light. His mind couldn't comprehend it.
Through it all, he pulled.
He pulled until he was falling without a direction.
He pulled until he could not feel anymore.
He pulled until the world was a blur of green and blue.
"I'm sorry," he thought and at last, he pulled no more.