At first, Dondi does not know where she is. Then come sights, smells, sounds. The bright sun, blazing down like a furnace; the odour of spices, human and animal sweat, and dung. Excited jabberings in Farsi and Arabic as the commerce of daily life swirls about her. Then she remembers: this is the souk, the Agrabah marketplace. But she cannot remember why she is here.

She feels the weight in her hand, and looks down to see Eden's bottle held comfortably in her tiny fist. Kind, gentle, Eden. Dondi suspects the female genie is the mother or sister she has never been fortunate enough to know in her daily life. An inadvertent, accidentally voiced wish, has turned out to be one of the best things that has happened to either of them. She's never told Eden about this, but strongly suspects she feels the same way.

Abruptly, the place she stands in goes dark, as if a cloud has passed over the sun's face. The temperature feels like it has dropped twenty degrees, and incredibly, it has begun to snow. She clutches herself, shivers, and looks around for Eden. The djinniyeh is nowhere in sight.

A quick rub on the bottle produces nothing, not even a message. Dondi begins to feel the slow fingers of panic creeping up her spine.

Abruptly, she feels as though someone is watching her. Breaking free of a feeling of paralysis, she turns her head and directs her gaze across the souk. At the opposite side of the marketplace, a man stands watching her, and he is dark. Black. Ebony. She cannot tell if it is because he wears dark clothing, or because he is somehow literally black, as if he casts no light. He is standing full in the sunshine, and the light is beating down directly on him, but there are no features visible. In fact, the sex of the person is concealed, but Dondi finds herself thinking this person must be a man. Her gaze travels from his crown to his feet, and she stifles a gulp of unease and horror.

Despite the light, despite the time of day, despite its directness and bright glare....

The man casts no shadow.

Abruptly he smiles at her. A split opens in the blackness and she can see a row of perfect, very white teeth. He is grinning at her, she is looking at him, and the two of them are alone in the world. She is oblivious, even to the light dusting of snow now settling on her shoulders and hair, on her sun-browned, bare and toughened feet. The only thing that exists for her is that smile.

'Hello, little one.' The sound floats across the square like a snake side-winding itself across a sand dune, coiling itself around her. It is a whisper, but carries to Dondi's ears as though it is the loudest sound in the world. 'I'm glad to have finally met you at last. So young, and you find yourself the master of a djinniyeh at your tender age. Such power, such responsibility.'

You're wrong, Dondi tries to say. I'm not Eden's master, she's my friend. We help each other. We look after each other. But her mouth won't form the words. She stays mute. She stays silent. The man continues, still speaking in that soft, urgent, whisper.

'I need your help, you see. Something of mine is missing. I need you to help me find it.' And he raises his hand. Dondi cries out.

The man has no hand. The swatch of blackness that looks like an arm terminates in the stump of a wrist. The lack of blood or any fluid terrifies her. This time, Dondi screams. She feels arms around her, holding her, and begins to kick and struggle frantically. Another voice, soft, but not a venomous whisper like the man's is saying:

'Angel face, angel face, it's all right. Wake up, you're dreaming!'

Dondi opens her eyes.

THE DREAM (II): EDEN

Eden has no such sense of disorientation. She is on a barren mountainside, blinded by flashing lightning, deafened by thunder, and all but drenched with rain. She is looking for Dondi.

'Dondi!' Even assisted by magic, her voice refuses to carry. The syllables are tattered and wrenched to pieces by the wind. 'Angel face, where are you?'

She feels ridiculous and clumsy, with the gale whipping her harem pants round her ankles, and her long black hair fluttering out behind her like a flag. Ridiculous, and not more than a little angry. Beings of semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic power do not enjoy being toyed with. 'DONDI!'

Dee, dee, dee... Only echoes reach her through the rain.

The path she has been following abruptly ends. In front of her is only a vast gulf, but the genie seems to notice something else aside from the empty space. A humanoid figure, barely visible in the darkness, appears to be hanging in midair. A flash of lightning causes her to throw up an arm, and as the light dies, Eden sees she is not mistaken. The following crack of thunder seems to drive the point into her brain with overwhelming force. Against the whiteness of the
lightning there is indeed a figure seated on the wind, calmly ignoring the battering elements, seemingly oblivious to everything. The lightning reveals nothing else: the figure is completely, utterly, black. There is no indication of sex, but for some reason, Eden thinks it is male. Abruptly, the darkness is split by a brilliant white crescent. The figure grins at her.

'I'm so glad.' A whisper, yet it cuts through the storm like a scythe. 'I was beginning to think you wouldn't make it, genie. This storm is frightful, isn't it? Even for a woman of your considerable powers.' The lips close, and the darkness returns. Eden has a sensation of unseen eyes staring at her.

Abruptly frustrated, she clenches her fists. A slab of granite from the mountain splinters into fragments and rains down on the seated form. The figure seems to take no notice. The crescent of teeth returns, and the head slowly swings back and forth.

'No, no, no, my lovely djinniyeh. That will get you absolutely nowhere with me. Can't we have a civilised discussion?'

'I'm not discussing anything with you, unless you tell me where Dondi is, you jackal's whelp!' Eden snarls. Her face begins to elongate, and her teeth lengthen and sharpen. The figure is unperturbed, and continues to grin at her.

'Shape-shifting is no more impressive than your last display,' it whispers calmly. 'Parlour tricks are beneath you. Sit, and we will talk.' Suddenly, the genie finds the two of them are encased in a bubble of silence. They can communicate perfectly with each other, but the storm that continues raging is eerily without sound. Exhaling a loud breath in disgust, Eden reluctantly sits.

'You're Mozenrath, aren't you?' she says, suddenly convinced of that. Her only response is the maddening, sardonic, grin, which does not change in the slightest.

'Perhaps.' That maddening whisper is beginning to infuriate her. 'Perhaps not. Who I am is unimportant. What I know, however, is.'

'What do you know?' Eden suddenly finds herself interested, against her better judgment.

'You are looking for something.' There is no doubt whatsoever in the voice; it is simply stating a fact. Eden pounces, like the wolf she was half-way to becoming. 'Dondi! You know where Dondi is, don't you?'

'The child,' the voice says, 'is safe. She is, in fact, sleeping. Surely you know this is only a dream, don't you?' And Eden realises she does know this.

'What am I looking for then?' she asks.

The figure raises what must be a limb. At the terminus of its wrist, there is nothing but empty air. Eden puzzles over this, and suddenly, it comes to her.

Just as she is about to ask, to make sure, she is roused from her sleep by Dondi's screams.

WAKING

Upon hearing Eden's voice, Dondi immediately calmed down, and her breathing slowed to more normal levels. She opened her eyes to find the genie looking at her, face moderately worried.

'Are you all right now, Angel face?'

Dondi gradually felt her self-control come back to her. 'Yeah. That was some dream, though.' The genie hugged her, and gently kissed her on the forehead.

'But that's all it was, sweetie. And now, you're awake.' She gently placed Dondi on the floor. The girl looked around in wonderment. 'Where are we?'

This was the oddest place that Dondi had ever seen. The walls curved upwards, rather like the minaret of a mosque, if seen from the inside. The floor was covered with large, plump cushions of watered silk, in a rainbow of various colours. Eden, Dondi noticed, looked almost apologetic.

'Inside my bottle. When I heard you scream, I thought I should put you in a safe place. I was panicked myself, so I popped out and took you in here with me. It was the safest place I could think of.' The genie frowned, until her mouth almost dropped off the bottom of her face. 'My first, and only houseguest in centuries, and look at this! My place is a mess!' She winked, and Dondi burst out giggling. 'Thanks, Eden. I feel much better now.'

'My pleasure.' Eden morphed into the guise of a French chef, and conjured a table and chairs in the middle of the room. 'Now,' she said mock-sternly, wagging her finger at Dondi, 'a growing girl like you needs to eat something.'

Over a large pile of flapjacks, covered in butter and syrup, Dondi asked, 'You said you were nervous too, Eden. Did you have a strange dream?'

Eden had not bothered to sit in the second chair, and was hovering slightly above the table, resting her head on her hands. 'Yes, I did.'

'What was it about?' Dondi abandoned her food and leant forward. She looked like a child at story-time. Eden was about to speak when Dondi suddenly said, 'Did you see a dark man?' The genie almost fell out of the air in surprise. Recovering, she floated forward until she was almost touching noses with Dondi.

'Did you say, " a dark man," angel face?'

'Yeah!' Dondi seemed suddenly excited. 'He whispers, and smiles all the time, and it looks like he's missing a hand, or
something.'

There was a solid thump, and Dondi blinked in surprise. Eden's torso had separated completely from its vapour trail and landed on the table top. It was a moment until she recovered, shaking her head slowly. Then, sounding dazed, the djinniyeh said, 'I dreamed about him too.'

'That must mean something important!' Dondi was positively bubbling now. 'He said I had to find something for him. That means we should try to find this person. Let's go! Where should we start?' She was about to turn to the flapjacks and bolt her food, when Eden drifted close and put a hand gently on her arm. 'Wait, Dondi. I agree. Maybe we should try to find this person. But you're young, and none of my former masters were particularly adventurous.'

Dondi's face fell. 'You mean we shouldn't go?'

'Of course not. I just meant, when it comes to adventuring, we should talk to people who are experienced in these matters.'

NOWHERE, ANYWHERE (I)

Mozenrath kicked at the shackles, and was not surprised when they refused to yield. Experimental tugs with his arms proved they were equally anchored to the rock face. The pins holding them there seemed luminous in the cavern's dim light, and his fatigued eyes made them into smiley faces, grinning sadistically at his pathetic attempts to win freedom.

This, he thought sourly, happens to other people! He sagged against the wall, chest heaving as he fought to recover his breath.

'Such an impetuous young man,' the old party shackled near him said calmly. He too was bound by wrists and ankles, but they did not cause him discomfort; he was not even bothering to fight them.

'Shut up old man,' Mozenrath growled. He just wished Xerxes were here, the scaly coward. He wanted something he could grab and strangle to relieve tension. He turned his head to the right, and saw the bones of his hand gleaming starkly against the grey granite. That was the worst. It was not the shackles, or the awkwardness of the position that pained him, it was being separated from the gauntlet that caused discomfort. His stomach was roiling and he felt nauseated. Blobs of colour would swim in front of his eyes, and he would shake his head to clear them. If his head dropped, he suffered from vertigo; raise it, and there was a throbbing in his temples. He turned his head stiffly to the left, and pressed his cheek against the gritty stone of the cavern wall. Dirty though it was, the stone was cool, and it helped soothe the agonies in his head and heart. But there were other problems. The place was not only cool, it was damp. When he breathed, there were wet susurrations in his lungs. As he had feared, he seemed to be contracting pneumonia. Without his gauntlet, he couldn't heal himself, much less free himself. He briefly considered bashing his skull against the rock, spreading his brains like fish paste as an act of defiance, but rejected it instantly. It would be a momentary triumph, but he couldn't enjoy it, and the sweeter savour of getting even would be forever lost to him. He abruptly rumbled, and hawked up phlegm, spat quickly, and raised his head before it could feel swimmy.

His captor knew the cliches well, he realised. As well as, or better than he did. And nothing infuriated him more than being beaten at his own game, especially after he'd taken time to make the rules up as he went along.

He closed his eyes, and let his mind drift. He made his filling lungs work, trying the meditative breathing that Destane had taught him. Sorcerers and martial artists, Destane said, were similar. While anything a martial artist did was certainly not magic, their focus and dedication to breath control was important. Breath was the source of their power. Proper breathing oxygenated the blood, giving power to the muscles and clearing the mind. It was where they got the power to smash boards and stones with their hands, feet, and even their heads.

Sorcerers needed a calm mindset too. While it was easier to break a board with an energy bolt, or transmute it into air molecules, conjuring up a Greater Demon Lord, for example, Destane said, required as much concentration as smashing ice. For the martial artist, improper technique was an injured limb. For the sorcerer, an improper pentagram or misspelled name meant death, eternal torment, damnation, and servitude at the hands of the thing you'd tried to control, not necessarily in that order.

Mozenrath let his mind relax, let his body and lungs work. He visualised a pinprick of light behind his eyelids, and watched the light, while he listened to the sound of his breathing. His diaphragm, conditioned by many hours of breathing practice, pulled the air into his lungs. Destane had spent three hours every day on meditation and breathing, and Mozenrath had hated every bit of it. Towards the end of his pupilage, near the time when Mozenrath had had the pleasure of transforming Destane to a Mamluk, the man had tested his diaphragm strength by standing on
his stomach and rib cage, letting the breath move him up and down. Destane wasn't just a magical powerhouse, he was no physical lightweight either, Mozenrath thought wryly. But I won.

'I bet your mother found you a handful, didn't she, young man?' The soft voice, so like a whisper, cut into Mozenrath's meditation, and angered him. His calm broken, he wheeled his head round, ignoring the wave of sickness that swept him, and glared at the old man. The black cloth that covered the man's eyes infuriated the sorcerer. He hated not being able to look a person in the eyes. They told you so much, and it was true: they were the windows to the soul.

'Shut up about my mother, old man,' he grated. 'What would you know about her, anyway? You don't even know me!'

'Nor do you know me,' the man said, unruffled. It seemed he had effortlessly attained the calm Mozenrath was straining desperately to reach. That made him even more angry. 'Based on that fact, how can you presume I do not know your mother, Mozenrath?' Upon hearing his name, the sorcerer went silent. 'I know--and knew--your mother very well indeed.'

Past tense, Mozenrath thought. What is he talking about? And how does he know my name? He remained silent, and listened. Knowledge was power too, if you knew how to use it. He'd known that even before Destane.

'Yes, I knew Mirage,' the old man said, and there was a note of deep sadness in his voice. The mention of his mother's name, however, had sent icy fingers spidering up the sorcerer's back. Who in the name of Darkness was this man, and how did he know -- 'I knew her very well, in the old days...you might have been the child I wished to have, but it seems it was not to be.'

The sorcerer's voice came out as a dry croak. 'Are you... my father?' he whispered, feeling like a little boy frightened of the dark. How odd, in all his twenty-three years of life, memories of mother were constant, but he'd never really known who his father was. But this, this --

The seamed face, blindfold inscrutable over the eyes, slowly shook from side to side. 'No, that was far before your time, Mozenrath. I am your father, in spirit, I suppose, but your real father was another. If I had been, you would have been a far different man from the way you are now.'

'Who was he?' The little child, hiding under the bedclothes, could not stop peeping over the edge.

'I know, I saw, but that is not for me to say,' the old man said. 'If you wish that knowledge, you must find it on your own.'

Mozenrath wished the chains weren't there. He wanted to reach out and shake the old man until the hairs dropped from his head, until he told him who his father was. As it was, he could only fill his voice with invective and scorn. 'Tell me, damn you!'

There was a soft rustling sound, as if something large and heavy were being dragged across the floor. A soft hissing.

'She comes,' the old man said. Mozenrath felt his rage and anger slip away like water in a drain. The young boy was pulling the bedclothes around his head, curling fetally, placing his thumb in his mouth. He heard the chains jinkle-jink as his body involuntarily shuddered.

He heard the rustle of her scales slipping across the floor, felt her tail loosen the pins on his bonds, began the boneless fall into the spiral of her coils, which locked around his knees and forced him upright. He stared into the eyes with their slit pupils -- so like his mother's, he thought -- and saw the slow spirals begin to form in them. The world was swimming away... He barely felt the soft skin of her arms and torso above the scales as she embraced him, her soft palms framing his cheeks. Her fingers tangled themselves in his dark hair, and her forked tongue feathered lightly across his face.

'Mozenrath, I have missed you; and I wanted so desperately to hug you again.' Her arms coming away, the coils winding upwards around his chest and shoulders, gently. Steel hidden in feathers. 'Now, be a good boy, and come tell me. Where have you hidden the gauntlet?'

The sound of the retreat was much louder and slower, as if something heavy were being dragged away.

THE DREAM (III)/THE AUDIENCE: ALADDIN AND JASMINE

Aladdin looked at the arm. It was a stump: the place that looked like a wrist abruptly ended, and there was blankness there.

'You want me to find your hand?' he asked. The dark figure did not frighten him: something about the rhythms of its speech struck him as familiar. He was certain he knew this person, but right now, he felt as if he were playing charades. 'Hand. Glove. Paw. Appendage. What?'

Instead, he was given a new series of images: a dirt rut, looking like it had been gouged in the earth by a large sort of animal: a track, with regular ridge patterns, and a cave of some sort. Then the dismembered limb again. The dream was beginning to rush together for him, when an ear-splitting sound blew the remnants away like cobwebs.

'AL! JASMINE! WAKE UP!' It was followed
by the sound of a brass band playing 'Hail to the Chief' at top volume. Aladdin groaned and rolled over, trying to bury himself in his pillow. No mercy. A blue hand pried his eye open, and he found himself staring helplessly into Genie's blue, concerned face.

'Al! Eden and Dondi are here, and they want to see you!' A brief smile flickered over Genie's face at the mention of Eden's name, but the concerned look dropped back almost immediately. 'Rasuul was coming down the corridor to tell you, but I thought I should get you up.' A finger pointed, and Aladdin found himself wide awake, and dressed in the clothes he wore as acting Sultan. Genie began to push him towards the door, hurriedly. 'Out, out, out! I'll take care of Jas! Go, go, go!'

'Great,' Iago groused, forcing himself awake, and yawning. 'I'm sure all they want to do is play Bezique.'

Rasuul hadn't been too happy about letting them in for the audience; he wasn't too keen on street rats and genies anyway, and being a male in a predominantly male profession, was somewhat sexist. But he let them in eventually, due to a combination of Aladdin and Eden's insistence. Aladdin privately thought Eden's insistence had bothered the Captain a good deal more. Jasmine entered a few minutes later. Genie had briefed her, and she knew the situation. Since she'd never met Eden or Dondi formally, Aladdin made the introductions. She had to fight to stop smiling at how Genie tried to look as though he weren't hanging off Eden at every given moment.

'So,' Aladdin said, ticking off the points on his fingers. 'We've all four of us dreamed about a dark man. Um, are we all in agreement that he's a man?'

'Oh for Heaven's sake!' Eden interjected. 'Let's ditch the political correctness and get on with it!'

'I for one,' said Iago, perched on the back of the throne, 'vote we ditch the whole thing. I have a feeling this'll be hazardous to my health.' Jasmine and Eden glared at him and he subsided. 'Once again the voice of reason is o'erwhelmed by the flames of passion,' he muttered.

'What was that?' Eden said sweetly. Iago noticed the genie had suddenly sprouted rabbit ears. 'Nothing,' he said.

'I thought that's what you said.' Eden reached out and chucked the parrot under the chin.

'OK,' Aladdin said. 'This man, whoever he is, wants us to find something. He appears to be missing a hand. Any ideas?'

There were none.

Then Aladdin asked: 'Anyone dream about animal tracks, like a giant snake? Or a cave somewhere?'

At the mention of 'snake', Iago lost control and flew around the room. 'It's Malcho! I knew it, it's gotta be Malcho!' he screamed hysterically. 'Count me out! I don't wanna die!' Eden sighed in disgust, and formed her hand into a large butterfly net. Iago, seeing this, tried to fly higher and get away, but the genie stretched her arm like rubber to match his height. Iago quickly found himself in the net, which instantly became a birdcage. Even then, he grabbed onto the bars with his wings and shook them, crying, 'Al, I don't wanna die!'

Eden said sharply, 'Oh stop it,' and kissed the parrot on top of his head. Iago was instantly rendered speechless. He stared at the djinniyeh through the bars of the cage, a dazed expression on his face.

'Now, are you going to behave?' Eden said quietly. Iago, still stunned, nodded his head. The birdcage became a hand, and Iago fluttered to Dondi's shoulder, thinking this would be a safer vantage point. He was the only one who saw Eden reproduce the butterfly net, grin mischievously, and mime the actions of someone turning a spit. He got the message.

'Iago,' Genie said, to put an end to the subject; inwardly he was still chuckling at Eden's handling of the situation, 'why would a snake trail instantly mean Malcho? He's a winged serpent, remember? He flies.'

'ANYway,' Aladdin said, more exasperated than usual with Iago's antics, 'did anyone else dream about these things?'

'I dreamt about a mountainside, if that's any help,' Eden said.

'It could be, it could be.' Aladdin turned to Jasmine. 'Could we look at your father's maps?'

Aladdin rubbed his eyes, and yawned. 'Nothing.' Genie and Eden released themselves from their magnifying-glass morphs, shifting back to their normal shapes. Dondi and Jasmine yawned and stretched. 'I think we'd better sleep on it. Besides,' he said to Jasmine, 'tomorrow your father comes back, and that'll mean a lot less on my shoulders.' He grinned. 'I can concentrate on the hero stuff, then.' He frowned suddenly. 'What are we going to do about Dondi?' Genie spoke up.

'I'll handle that, Al. And Eden and I can look after ourselves.' A sly wink passed between the two djinn.

'OK. Good-night then.'

THE DREAM (IV): CARPET

Magic rugs are imbued with a certain life and sentience of their own. Carpets do not sleep in the usual sense, but they do sleep, after their own fashion. And just as they sleep, they dreamed after their own fashion, too.

Carpet
dreamed.

He saw a large mountain peak, or rather, he perceived a dark series of strands that looked like a peak. If people's dreams are like movies or television, Carpet's dream was the unfolding of a large, rich, and ornate tapestry. As the mountain came closer, he saw a large cave in the side of it. As the tapestry unwound, and he passed through the cave mouth, and down a long passage, he saw the texture of the floor was changing from rock into a regimented pattern that looked like the scales of a reptile.

Further and further the tapestry unwound. Now the scales were changing again: the pattern was the torso and shoulders of a young woman with long dark hair. Her eyes were serpentine: bright yellow with vertical slits for pupils. Above her body was a pattern of things that looked like what the humans called letters. Carpet concentrated, worked, strained to ingrain these patterns he'd seen into his fibres, his woof, his being.

N-A-G-A-I-N-A

NOWHERE, ANYWHERE (II)

The voice was soft, but there was an undercurrent of rage in it.

'Damn you, old man. You've done something to him, haven't you? He tells me nothing.' The tail was at work, fastening the pins to the shackles. Mozenrath hung there limply, breathing easily, despite the pneumonia forming in his lungs, under no strain. And yet, there was a light patterning of snake scales across his bare, pale flesh. Something had wrapped him very tightly, and would not now let go. It had left its mark on him.

'I have done nothing. I see what will happen. I report what has been written. These failings are yours, Nagaina, not anything of mine.' The man's voice was as calm and serene as ever. 'This is Destiny.'

'Fashir,' the Nagaina sneered, using the old man's name for the first time. 'You may see the future, but you are not omnipotent. You have only one eye, you lack depth perception. What you see may be clouded.' The coloured swirls began to dance in her eyes, and she slithered closer to the wall. 'I know that cloth does not prevent your sight old man. It will not save you from mine!' The eyes glared at the cloth band, straining, as if they could pierce through the fabric to the eye beneath.

Fashir was the sound of wind in reeds, heard in a distant room. 'Your mesmerism is useless, Nagaina. I see further than you, and you cannot master me. Accept your destiny and embrace it. You may yet be saved.'

The Nagaina lowered her head briefly. When she raised it again, there was a cold smile playing on her lips. 'Maybe you should try my embrace, old man. I can have you shouting in pleasure, or trying to scream for mercy without air in your lungs. My coils have broken men far stronger and younger than you. I tickled their fancies till they laughed, then when I showed him them the strength of my affection, they broke like matchsticks. But he' -- a hiss of disgust, and the great tail flicked in the comatose Mozenrath's direction -- 'he mocked my embrace, and spat on my affection. While my eyes enslaved him, he did this. And he has the gauntlet, it is not right!' Her eyes suddenly blazed with anger. 'What does a whimpering pup, a prancing poodle, know of evil? I have studied evil for seven times seven of his lifetimes! His mother, Evil Incarnate -- hah!' She spit, forked tongue flickering from her mouth. 'I showed her affection too; he now knows this. And she repaid me in kind.' Fashir did not have to look: he knew there were the pale scars of three claw slashes on her left cheek-bone, and the brilliant scales of her snake's body cross-hatched halfway down with clawmarks.

'You tell me nothing I do not already know,' he said quietly. 'Prevarication is useless; it changes nothing. Accept what is.'

'I AM THE TRUE HEIR OF EVIL! THE GAUNTLET IS MINE BY RIGHT!' The Nagaina raged, tail lashing and coiling like a whip. Flakes of stone broke from the walls. 'TELL ME, FASHIR! YOU KNOW WHERE THE PUERILE FOOL THREW THE GAUNTLET BEFORE I TOOK HIM! I TALK SWEETLY TO HIM, I SOOTHE HIM IN MY EMBRACE, AND HE TELLS ME NOTHING! YOU KNOW! TELL ME!' Her tail flicked out and wrapped around the old man's shins. A slight tug would be enough to tear his legs off. But Fashir remained silent. The air escaped the Nagaina's lungs in a frustrated whine, and the coils relaxed and slid limply from his legs.

'Damn you, old man,' she said again. 'I will break you, regardless of your precious destiny. I WILL break BOTH of you, and you very slowly. Count the seconds until your grave is dug.'

There was silence. Finally it was broken by the heavy rustling and dragging sound. Silence again.

Mozenrath’s breath was beginning to bubble in his lungs, and he was coughing wetly on his secondary exhalations. The pneumonia was getting worse. Fashir smiled at him, sightless, yet not sightless, in the dark.

'Have faith,' he said. 'Your path is dark, but you may know you and your mother are not the worst things in the world.'

THE AUDIENCE (II)

Aladdin sighed, rubbed his eyes,
and began to roll up the map for the second time, when he felt Abu tug his pants leg. The monkey was chittering excitedly, and pointing at Carpet. Aladdin watched, stunned.

His tasseled friend was gently placing scrolls to one side, and sorting through the racks that had not yet been studied. Despite the care and gentleness, Aladdin felt Carpet was tremendously excited about something. When the rug held a particularly old scroll aloft, and began waving it excitedly, Aladdin felt the old heroic stirrings in him again.

Genie gently spread the scroll out on the table, while Eden conjured a pair of clamps to hold it still. Dondi looked absolutely fascinated. Genie beckoned Carpet forward.

'OK, Rug Man, show us what you've got.'

Carpet's tassel pointed at a mountain that occupied the entire centre of the map. The legend next to it proclaimed:

BEWARE, FOR HEER THERE BEE SERPENTES...THE NAGAINA DWELLETH HEER...A SORCERESSE OF GREATE POWERE. They all heard Iago's sharp intake of breath. Instantly all eyes turned to the parrot, and he began backing up defensively.

'Hey, why are you all looking at me that way?' he sputtered, sounding as though he was playing for time.

'Iago,' Aladdin said sternly. Eden and Jasmine's feet were tapping out countertime on the floor. The djinniyeh was also softly humming, and making turning motions in the air. Even young Dondi, the parrot thought, looked suspiciously hostile. 'Every time one of these ancient legends come up, it always seems you know something about them. Give!' Iago looked frantically towards Abu for support. 'C'mon, Monkey Boy. You know this just means we're going to be put in the front lines. You know that, don't you?' Abu's little face might have been made of stone. He crossed his arms over his chest and harrumphed at the parrot. Then, for good measure, he stuck out his tongue.

'Why you flea-bitten turncoat!' Iago snarled. 'I oughtta belt --'. Then he noticed Eden was wearing a chef's hat, and smiling a peculiar smile at him. She reached for him.

'I'll just start plucking this bird right away,' she said, doing a passable Appalachian twang. 'Southern Fried Parrot, anyone?' Her drawl was so long, you could have hung the washing on it. Iago gulped.

'OK,' he said finally. ' I was --'

'We know,' Jasmine said, and even she sounded irked now. 'You were in Jafar's library, and probably leafing through one of his old reference books; you did that rather a lot, it seems. Now tell us what we want to know, or --' She turned to Eden, and the genie drew a finger across her throat, very, very slowly.

'OK' Iago said. 'Nagaina was a cross-breed. Part human, part snake. Not all that common in this part of the world. Remember Mirage's amazing snakeskin lotion, Princess? It was probably based on something of Nagaina's: her scales, toenail clippings, I don't know. The point is, Mirage and Nagaina actually fought once. Nagaina had been around since dirt was formed, as far as I know, and was put out at this kitten being chosen for Evil Incarnate. So they fought, and Mirage won. But Nagaina, being immortal, is still around, and very badly wants the position. This' -- he pointed at the map -- 'is her home.'

Genie was studying the map carefully. 'And this is the place Eden dreamt about, you think?'

Iago looked at the djinn and puffed out his chest feathers. 'Listen Blue Boy. I'm Greed Incarnate. Every sense I have tells me this Nagaina must be loaded. This is the place, all right, I'd stake my life on it.' He regretted it the moment he said it.

'Good!' Genie said cheerfully. 'Glad you've decided to come with us, Birdman.'

'Why me?' Iago wanted to know.

TRAIL OF THE SERPENT

Iago hated this place. The passageways were too windy, and twisting, for one thing. It looked like -- there was no way around it -- the inside of a snake. The twists and bends gave the place strange acoustics. When the wind blew down a tunnel, it wasn't the low, hollow, moaning you got in most places; instead it was a low, sibilant hissing. Then there was the damp. That made Iago think it was worse than snakes: it was like walking around in a large intestine. Still, he tried to be helpful.

'I really think someone should hang back and watch the entrance,' he tried for the tenth time. 'I volunteer.'

'Button the beak, birdy,' someone hissed, 'or lose it!' Iago would have given betting odds it was Eden. Ever since she'd caged him, the female genie had shown a vindictive streak so wide you could use it for an aqueduct. He remembered, way back when, saying to Abu, 'Make a note, Monkey Boy. NEVER get on that girl's bad side.' Why hadn't he taken his own advice?

As it was, he was flapping sedately along on rear guard duty. When a marcher at the front suddenly stopped, Iago found himself plowing into the one directly in front of him. As luck would have it, it was Eden. Iago withered under a glare that would have melted steel and feebly waved a wing in apology.

'What's up?' someone
else whispered. The effort to keep decibels was so low, it was almost impossible to tell who was speaking from whom.

'Tracks. Big ones. I think we found our snake.'

'Looks like it.'

'She must be at least...'

I don't wanna know, Iago thought. Don't tell me, I don't wanna know.

'Forty, fifty feet long if she's an inch.'

'Big snake.'

'Yes.'

I asked you not to tell me. I really did.

'Look!' This was higher-pitched: a good chance it was Dondi now. 'Footprints. And flecks of --'

Genie knelt, and examined the stuff with a small lens. 'Sand.' There was a long pause. 'Black sand.'

Could this day possibly get any worse? Iago thought.

'Look!' Aladdin was so surprised, he had abandoned all attempts at whispering now. He darted forward, and pulled something out of a small hollow in the ground. It was a smooth leather glove, but there was a sense of power, and evil in it. 'His gauntlet.'

'Whaddya think, he bought gloves from Macy's? What ELSE could it be?' Iago was so frustrated, he'd forgot all about whispering as well. Everyone turned on him.

'IAGO!'

'Why thank you,' said a sibilant voice that seemed to come from everywhere in the room. 'I was looking for that.' Something whickered in the air, Aladdin felt a brief tug at his hand, and the gauntlet was gone. Then there was a flare of blue-black flame, and they saw her. She was wearing the gauntlet on her hand.

The estimates had been right. The Nagaina was at least forty feet long, would have been if stretched out at full length. But several yards of her body now enfolded a still, silent, form that hung slackly in the loops. The witch-light was enough to illuminate his face. Dondi gasped, and put a hand to her mouth. Iago didn't know if it was the Nagaina or Mozenrath that made her gasp like that. Both of them were runners up for People You Didn't Want to Meet In A Dark Place; the two of them combined, even if they weren't exactly partners, would put a crimp in anyone's day.

'This young fool,' the Nagaina went on, 'wouldn't tell me where he put his little toy, no matter how I treated him. And I've been so affectionate, too.' Her coils slid over each other, and everyone heard the sorcerer's bones creaking from the pressure. Dondi began to turn green. The lemon-yellow eyes with their slit pupils slid over the group, and found the child. A smile, a horrible parody of maternal affection, slid over the Nagaina's face.

'Ahhh,' she said slowly, 'a little bird. How lovely.' Colour began to dance across her irises in coruscating swirls. Her body shifted, making a small half-circle of itself. 'Come to Mother, little pigeon.' Dondi began to walk forward stiffly, like a robot, face blank and expressionless. Eden screamed.

Dondi walked into the circle, and it closed on her, the coils swathing her from head to foot. Another loop grabbed Eden around the waist, but the genie became smoke, and billowed from its grasp. She re-formed a short distance away, and swelled to a height of fifteen feet. A massive sword appeared in both her hands.

'Let her go, or I chop you to bits,' she said, teeth gritted together tightly. The Nagaina laughed.

'A creature of your power and stature, bound in servitude to this little flea? This insignificant speck? How amusing. But you won't harm me, genie. You can't. That sword could just as easily hit your little Master, and I will crush the breath and life from her body if you twitch.' Eden's shoulders slumped, and she diminished in stature, until she was her normal height. The Nagaina's eyes then found Aladdin.

'Oh yes,' she said. 'The street rat. Mozenrath talked a lot about you, in mostly unflattering terms, I'm afraid. Says you have a hero complex. You're always messing up his plans, and so forth. Well, come ahead then, hero. Why don't you try and stop me?'

Aladdin's mind was cool and calm. He was remembering his showdown with Jafar, when the Vizier had transformed into a snake. This wasn't so different. The Nagaina was just as powerful (if not more so), just as evil (if not more so), and was threatening his friends. That was something he could understand, and more importantly, something he would not tolerate.

He was ready when the body came sweeping at him, moving with surprising speed for its size and bulk. His knees bent automatically, and he flipped himself forward, easily carrying himself over the onrushing coils. Unfortunately he had miscalculated. Jafar had never had arms in his snake form, nor a magical gauntlet. He realised this mistake as the blue–black fire hammered into his chest, knocking him to the granite floor, and the breath from his body. He managed a clumsy handspring as the coils flicked towards him, and just managed to avoid becoming snared. Then he stumbled as he regained his feet. The very tip of the tail slashed at his chest, knocked him over, and knotted itself about his ribs. Immediately, it tightened like a vice, and the air gushed from Aladdin's lungs. Then it tightened further.
The trapped oxygen was becoming carbon dioxide. Aladdin would pass out and die from the poisons in his system; unless he was squashed first. He saw the Nagaina's face swimming in front of him, and her head shaking mockingly from side to side.

'Some hero,' she commiserated, as she constricted further. 'You're no challenge at all. How he found a nemesis in you, quite escapes me. You, however, are not going to, street rat.' Her lips parted, and the tongue flicked at him, greedily. 'I swallow rats whole.'

His friends tried frantically to rush in and free him, but the Nagaina kept scattering them with blasts from the gauntlet. She was laughing. The darkness inside her mouth as it rushed forward became his whole world. Aladdin tried feebly to raise his arms, but it was useless. Wide, wet, obscene, it was going to swallow him...

'NAGAINA.' The voice was quiet, but it carried like a drum. 'YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT WIN AGAINST DESTINY, JUST AS A MAN KNOWS HE CANNOT TURN THE TIDE WITH HIS HANDS. YOU ARE ONLY PROLONGING THE INEVITABLE.'

The Nagaina turned her head over her shoulder and cackled loudly. 'Too late, Fashir!' she cried. 'The hero of Agrabah is almost dead, and after him falls The Lord of the Black Sands. Then, the little bird, and all Aladdin's friends. Ordained or not, I cannot be stopped now. I WILL NOT BE!' She cackled again, basking in her triumph, and ignoring the tugging sensation somewhere on her arm. She only stopped cackling when a voice quietly said:

'Your plans, I'm afraid, have just been canceled.'

Furious, she whirled to blast the intruder...and found the gauntlet was on another's hand.

Swaying from exhaustion and sickness, blood dripping from a bitten lip, covered in tatters of clothing, pale skin marked with the pattern of her scales, Mozenrath stood atop her coils like St George atop his dragon. There was a gesture, and Dondi reappeared in an eruption of blue-black fire. Genie immediately teleported to her side, snatched her up, and threw her to Eden.

'Genie woman!' he bellowed. A strange hat with a tall crown and wide brim appeared on his head. 'Time to get the heck out of Dodge!'

Eden nodded, and disappeared with Dondi in a swirl of smoke. Aladdin, his lungs afire, found Jasmine cradling his head, and Mozenrath staring at him from atop the Nagaina. The sorcerer's eyes burned into him, a combination of fever and fervour.

'I haven't gone soft, Aladdin,' he said balancing effortlessly as the coils rippled, and tried to shake him to the ground. 'We'll finish the later. On my terms.'

Aladdin, eyes burning equally bright, nodded.

Mozenrath turned back to the battle at hand. 'You'd best get out of here. This whole place is about to go.' He summoned his will, and chunks of stone began to rain down from above, the cavern melting and changing like heating wax. The Nagaina was screaming in fury.

Aladdin never remembered clearly how the escape was managed. None of them did. When they passed through the entrance, there was an almighty eruption, and the mountain simply blew itself to pieces. Eden and Genie shielded them from the chunks of stone, and the cliff face settled back upon itself, a dying juggernaut stumbling and crumbling to its knees. As the dust plumed and settled, and the echoes died away, they thought they heard two things. A great hissing, like a giant steam boiler, slowly fading and dying away. And the voice of Mozenrath, saying passionately, and strangely:

'And THAT was for my mother, you treacherous snake! I may be damned, but you'll go there ahead of me!'

There was another eruption of blue-black fire, a rending of the fabric of time and space. And then, silence.

EPILOGUE

Aladdin looked around dazed, and slowly levered himself to his feet. Everyone present and accounted for. Iago, powdered with rock dust, sneezed violently as he clambered to his feet, and shook out his feathers.

'I count myself lucky to be alive,' he said. He abruptly looked at the flat plain where the Nagaina's home had stood, and simply stared at it. Then, as the realisation hit, the parrot flung himself on the ground and began bawling.

'THE TREASURE! IT MUST HAVE BEEN IN THERE SOMEWHERE, AND NOW IT'S GONE!' he sobbed. 'WAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! Trust Laughing Boy to plan on total redecoration! WAH-HAH-HAH!'

'It was Destiny,' a soft, but deep voice said. Everyone knew that voice, they turned and looked.

'The dark man,' Dondi said softly. She sounded afraid again. Fashir squatted, and gently laid his hand on the child's forehead. She trembled, but did not back away.

'My child, I am sorry. Dreams make of us what they will. It was not my intention to frighten you.'

Dondi smiled. 'I wasn't scared, exactly. It was just...strange.'

Eden frowned. 'Just what WAS that about, exactly?'

'The Nagaina believed she was the true Evil Incarnate,' Fashir began. 'To achieve this, and defeat Mirage, she needed the power of Mozenrath's gauntlet. So she lured him here and trapped him,
intending to get the gauntlet from him and use it.'

'He must have thrown it aside before she found it,' Aladdin said. The Seer nodded. 'But it was you we saw in the dream.' Another nod. 'So the whole point was to get Mozenrath back his gauntlet?' He felt his voice rising, a mixture of perplexity, disbelief, and anger.

'Of course,' Fashir said softly. 'It was destined to be this way. Mozenrath walks his own road.'

'A real creepy one,' Iago said, disgusted.

'But he has his own role to play in everything. Darkness and light; surely you know the struggle between the two is the basis of the Universe. You know this, not with your minds, but your hearts. Because, you are destined to be heroes.'

'But that can't have been ALL of it,' Aladdin said, feeling he was groping at straws. 'I've seen other examples of Evil, all powerful in their own way. You can't expect me to believe Mozenrath is the linch-pin of the whole thing.'

'Of course not. No one thing can determine the fate of the Universe.'

'Then what was so important about saving him?' Aladdin pressed. Fashir simply stood like a statue, said nothing, seeming to deeply consider the question. At last he said:

'I knew the Nagaina had to be defeated, and that she would be defeated. That was destiny.' A pause. 'But when I realised Mozenrath was the catalyst, I helped events a little.' He seemed almost sheepish; a little boy with his hands in the cookie jar.

'You interfered,' Eden broke in suddenly. 'You enlisted us to help save Mozenrath.'

Fashir nodded, very slowly.

'But WHY?' Aladdin pressed, hopelessly at sea.

'Would you have refused if you had known?' the Seer said, very softly.

'No, but --'

'I see a lonely boy, a flower of genius choked and twisted on the vine. I see the possibility of brightness. I see something I myself might once have had.' Fashir abruptly turned and began to stride away, looking lost in thought. 'Something I could care for...very deeply.' It seemed as though Fashir's composure was cracking. The calm certainty and assurance was not entirely there. He abruptly moved round a rock spur and vanished from sight.

'WAIT!' Aladdin shouted. He jumped up and began to stride after the Seer, his friends following quickly. But when they rounded the spur, there was no one in sight.

Aladdin shut his eyes and let the sun warm his face. He thought of children, lost, abandoned. He thought of his abandonment by his own parents, and how he had become a hero. He thought of Mozenrath, the trials he had endured to reach his own path. Could he honestly say he would have turned out differently, had he been Mozenrath? Or that Mozenrath, in changing places, would have become him?

He opened his eyes. Eden and Genie, Dondi standing between them, were holding hands and looking at him. They were all three smiling. Abu, Iago, and Carpet were looking at him with nothing less than affection.

And coming to him, holding out her hands, the sun shining in her hair and eyes, was Jasmine.

Her smile eclipsed all of them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & NOTES:

Wendyrath and Felis Silvestris, for being there.

Messrs Swenlin, Wiesman, and Seidenberg for 'Some Enchanted Genie', and 'The Book of Khartoum' respectively. Thanks for the wonderful toys!

Messrs Motz & Roth for 'Eye Of The Beholder', which really started the whole thing.

East Indian Hindu/Buddhist mythology for the Nagaina.

This was hard to write. It was my first stab at using established 'Aladdin' characters other than Mozenrath, but a lot of the twists and turns, I hadn't expected. I also knew since the characters were established, there couldn't be the dark atmosphere I strove for in 'The Wandering Mamluk'. I did try, and I think the resulting melange is interesting.

I knew Eden and Dondi would be in it from the beginning; but I had no idea Fashir would turn out to be the Dark Man; I guess it was Destiny.

If some people think I was saying Fashir is somehow Mozenrath's father, I don't know if he is. I just thought of the theory about Mirage being Moze's mother, and Fashir's concluding lines at the end of 'Eye Of The Beholder': 'Love will bring you back to me,' or something like that. I figured Mozenrath had to have a father, and since Fashir and Mirage apparently had something at one point, and no-one else stepped forward in the series, I thought it was at least a possibility...People with problems with time frames, age, etc., I accept your rebukes. That's why I left the issue up in the air.

Despite 'Eye Of The Beholder', the Nagaina was developed independently of that episode. I suppose a connection between my own readings and the 'Aladdin' show had been made, but I didn't consciously set out to make overt references. Iago's remarks went in after I'd realised they'd fit.

Also, Moze was never intended to be the Nagaina's prey, either. Dondi, yes, but not Mozenrath. Hmmm. Well, sometimes characters don't do what you want or expect them to do. I guess credit goes to the
Nagaina...she appears to have been the real writer of this one.

And as for the title, it was the only thing I could think of. Considering the villain, and the way I found the story twisting on itself as I wrote, it seemed the only possibility.