Aladdin Fan Fiction ❯ Antiphony ❯ Chapter 13 ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter 13

 

The boy stumbled and fell in the sand, and Jasmine immediately rushed to his side. And then she saw that he had fallen on purpose, to gather sand in his still-manacled hands and cast the spell he had attempted in the courtyard. The sorcerer appeared not to notice, merely looking into the distance at the dead city and the Citadel on the high cliffs above it.

 

“I always enjoy peace and quiet here. Those things are rather nonexistent amidst the squalor of the eastern cities, hm?” he said conversationally, not looking back at the boy.

 

Mozenrath suddenly disappeared from sight, leaving only the imprint of his body in the sand. Jasmine felt a surge of pride that he had managed to cast his spell successfully this time, but she turned her attention to the sorcerer. Surely he had noticed…?

 

The man turned around casually, his tone still even. “You didn't answer my question, boy.”

 

He snapped his fingers, and Mozenrath appeared again, dangling in midair by his shackles. He did not struggle, acknowledging he was caught.

 

“Simple teleportation spells don't work on my land,” the sorcerer said. “And it is best that you don't try using the sand, as it has quite a life of its own. In another few seconds your body would have been trapped in interspatial no man's land forever.”

 

He finally drew back his hood, revealing a startlingly handsome face with aristocratic features—strong cheekbones, defined jaw, straight nose, carefully groomed hair. He must have been in his fifties, as his close-cropped hair was mostly gray. The smooth, unmarred skin around his mouth creased in a smile that did not touch his clear blue eyes. Jasmine looked into them and shuddered; despite his refined appearance, something in his gaze was unnatural, almost inhuman.

 

“Not what you imagined the nasty evil sorcerer Destane to look like?” the man questioned in amusement, seeing Mozenrath's surprise. “Were you expecting an unhygienic, arthritic old man with only half his sanity left?”

 

He laughed. “Rest assured, young Morathai; Lord Destane of the Black Sand is indeed not what most imagine him to be. But I suppose the conventional image of me does work wonders in striking fear across the land.”

 

With another snap of his fingers, Mozenrath tumbled unceremoniously to the ground. He quickly scrambled to his feet and glared at the sorcerer.

 

“What do you want with me?”

 

“I was thinking that having an apprentice would be nice, but a slave would be just as fitting, considering the attitude problem all you royal brats seem to have,” Destane said lightly.

 

Jasmine was glad to see the young boy display more emotion than the blank slate he had been while he had lived on the streets. She silently cheered him on as he boldly confronted the sorcerer who had destroyed his home city. It seemed his dislike of being underestimated had not gone away.

 

“I won't be your apprentice or slave,” he said firmly. “Ever.”

 

It was bizarre. In Destane's cold sarcasm, she could hear shadows of the refined, scornful voice of the future Mozenrath. But at this age, Mozenrath sounded more like herself or Aladdin.

 

Destane merely laughed. “Let us continue this discussion in a more suitable environment, brave prince.”

 

In an instant they were standing on the stone floor of a vast library, its walls high and expansive. Even the ceiling was filled with books that did not fall from their shelves, most likely suspended there by magic. Destane reclined comfortably in a large cushioned chair, and made a quick motion toward Mozenrath. The boy forcefully sat down on a wooden chair that had just appeared out of thin air.

 

“Welcome to my Citadel. When you are better behaved, I might allow you proper entry by the front door,” Destane said, a flask appearing in his hand. He took a sip from it and smiled. “I imagine with your superior intellect which I have heard so much about, you must have guessed what this room's function is. And this serves as a nice lead-in to the discussion I had in mind.”

 

Mozenrath opened his mouth to protest but was promptly silenced by a spell. He appeared unable to move more than a few inches on either side of his chair.

 

“This library houses knowledge of magic from the age of the Eight Deserts until the present day. Only here may you find the secrets of Athirias the Divine and Sonera the Whisperer, the forbidden magic harbored by renegade spirits, and gateways into worlds beyond this one. And this is but one room of my Citadel, child.” He stopped at Mozenrath's unchanging scowl. He propped his chin on his knuckles, considering the boy. “Well, I suppose such things mean nothing to a self-righteous eight year-old acolyte of Helios. I will start again, then, by hearing you first. I can see that you will not listen to a word I say otherwise.”

 

The silencing spell was broken, and Mozenrath immediately spoke. “Where are my parents?”

 

Destane's eyes widened mildly in surprise before settling back into their customary gaze of cold amusement. “You need a reconfirmation of what you already know? They're dead.”

 

Mozenrath's face flushed in anger, but Jasmine could see the deep current of grief just beneath the surface; it must have been festering for months. “Why…how could you…”

 

“Because they were weak and in the way,” Destane said with indifference. “What would I do, leave them alive so they could pester me on my land? I destroyed them for the same reason I destroyed your entire city—to eliminate the possibility of future inconvenience.”

 

“But we didn't do anything to you!” he shouted.

 

“Morathai, regain your wits before I have to silence you again,” Destane said, his annoyance now noticeable. “I never said you did anything. I wanted the power of the temple, and the best way was to take it by force. I was able to get what I wanted because I was powerful enough. If your parents and all their subjects had been stronger, then they would still be alive and well, and I would be dead or imprisoned. Simple.”

 

“You had no right to come in and take the power of Helios,” Mozenrath gritted out.

 

“You puzzle me, boy. Half of you remains a loyal son to parents who demoted you from the throne to a temple seat, and the other half remains a faithful acolyte of a god who has abandoned you. I'd thought that living on the streets for enough time would lead you to adopt a more practical mindset.”

 

“No one abandoned me. You took it all away!”

 

“But if you clear your head for a minute, you will see that what I have to offer you is more than enough to make up for your losses.” Destane said smoothly, continuing to speak as if he were dealing with an adult instead of a child.

 

“I don't want anything but to kill you,” the boy said flatly, surprising Jasmine with his forceful words.

 

“That is quite a natural urge, but not quite wise to attempt,” Destane responded, unfazed. “Of course, given time and tutelage, you might try your hand at it. But as I am the most powerful sorcerer in the land, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone to help you grow strong enough to fulfill that desire.”

 

Mozenrath narrowed his eyes and said nothing, not having expected this twisted line of thought.

 

“The facts of your situation are simple. Your home city is gone; your parents and temple priests and all its citizens are dead. Your god is apparently deaf or completely indifferent, since he did nothing as his city was destroyed and the power in his temple was taken by a sorcerer of dark magic. And I imagine whatever prayers you might have prayed in the past several months have gone unanswered, given the pitiful condition in which I found you. Your old purpose in life is gone, boy; you will only be wasting your time trying to follow it. Why waste your life living for a past that is no longer there?”

 

“I was destined to serve Helios,” Mozenrath said. “It was prophesied in my mother's dream.”

 

“A prophetic dream. How quaint,” the sorcerer replied. Once again the resemblance between Destane's voice and that of the adult Mozenrath was simply unnerving. “So because of a single dream, your parents gave you over to a temple when you could have ascended the throne instead. Had you been able to reason coherently as an infant, you probably would have chosen the latter, no? But by the time you were old enough to think, the idea of your miraculously revealed destiny had already been drilled into your head.”

 

Destane shook his head in pity. “It always pains me to see brilliant minds brainwashed in such a way. They taught you that there was nothing better in life than to serve a vague unseen god, hm? Do you understand yet what I see about your life?”

 

“It is an honor to serve the Light.”

 

“Morathai. Abandon the indoctrinated part of your mind for a moment and see things logically. It is the only way you can survive in this world whether you decide to accept my offer or not,” Destane said patiently. “The truth is that the `Light' or Helios or whatever you want to call it doesn't care for your service. If it did, then it would have saved you by now, wouldn't it? It would have protected the only city that worshipped it and it would have stopped its temple's power from falling into my hands. Can you offer a logical reason for its lack of intervention?”

 

Mozenrath stayed silent.

 

“I know you have doubted your god for a while, boy. Anyone with a shred of intelligence would. There is no shame in abandoning a ship that no longer floats. The longer you stay, the lower you'll sink. I'd say it's time for you to find your own way.

 

“And when I say this, I realize that it really is your first time finding a path for yourself, isn't it? Your life before now was always determined by the will of others, whether it was your parents, the high priest, your brothers in the order, or the slave traders from whom I purchased you. You were led along as a naïve, trusting child who knew no better. You are still a child, but now you know better. Sider told me—” Destane paused at the look on Mozenrath's face. “Oh, I suppose I should inform you that I disposed of him a while ago. He was no longer useful, and I was rather annoyed that he failed to capture you. Don't look so shocked, I have already told you that I value efficiency—or perhaps you are disappointed that you will not be able to kill him yourself? No matter. Where was I? Ah, yes. He told me that you were rather remarkable, quick to learn and master spells that students twice your age would have trouble performing. Your talents were wasted for the first few years of your life in that temple, but now you have the chance to develop them to their fullest potential.”

 

Mozenrath was listening more calmly now; Jasmine could see him digesting Destane's words in methodical deliberation.

 

“You see, what really matters in life is power. With it, you may live and enjoy life and never fear that others will harm you or cause you any sort of inconvenience. Without it, you are nothing, a mere infant buffeted about by the waves. You are fortunate to learn this lesson so early in life. It will enable you to set your priorities properly. Your city is gone because I am more powerful and clever than all who lived there. You escaped only because you were fortunate, but there is the potential in you for unsurpassed greatness. I am willing to teach you, boy, and make you the most powerful sorcerer of your generation,” Destane said. He leaned forward in his chair. “You can feel the magic in the very air of this place, can't you? You could feel it in the sand when you cast that teleportation spell, how easily it reacts to those of magic blood. It beckoned to you, did it not?”

 

Mozenrath shifted in seeming discomfort at the pointed question. The sorcerer smiled and leaned back once more. “Of course you heard its voice. There is no one of our kind who is immune to its call. There is only one place in this world that harbors such strong magic in its sands, and that is here. If you stay, you may learn to master it. Imagine an entire desert under your command, boy. A living desert full of sorcerous energy at your disposal.

 

“I am offering you the chance to learn from me as my apprentice and reach your potential. Or you may leave. It is your choice; an unwilling student is useless to me. If you do decide to leave, though, give careful thought to your probable fate. Your family and your kingdom are gone. The priest named Taral is dead along with all your brothers in the order. You will likely live on the streets scrounging and stealing as you have been since you escaped Helinth. A miserable life, isn't it? A powerless, wasted existence. Still, it is your choice.”

 

He gestured with his hand, and a portal appeared beside them. It was the marketplace of the city they had just left, crowded with merchants and customers who were completely unaware of the onlookers at the Citadel.

 

“If you choose to walk through, I will not seek you out again. Perhaps you can look for the man whom I outbid at the auction. Judging from the fact that he saved you from the whip, I imagine he would treat you well and at least provide you with food and a roof over your head. Perhaps he'll even help you plot your revenge against me.”

 

Jasmine trembled at the icy tone of his laughter. The whole situation grated mercilessly at her heart. She dreaded the moment Mozenrath would accept Destane's offer. It made it all the worse that Destane had actually mentioned Thanon. How different his life could have been…

 

“Why would you let me go free? Wouldn't it be easier to just kill me like you killed Sider?” Mozenrath asked warily.

 

“Ah, you are thinking at last. Good,” Destane said in approval. “As I said before, I have no use for an unwilling student. Having to decide between apprenticeship and death isn't much of a choice, is it? I must ensure that if you decide to stay, it is because you truly want to. Otherwise it would be impossible to teach you.”

 

“And what will you get out of teaching me?”

 

“You will undoubtedly be very useful to me, boy, with your unique strain of magic and the level of power you will attain in the future, along with the intellect you're finally displaying now. And I would enjoy a bit of company around here, as it is rather dull and lifeless in these parts.”

 

He laughed almost functionally then, his eyes still mirthless. “Well? What will it be?”

 

“Don't say yes. Please don't,” Jasmine whispered. She was actively in denial of what she knew to be true; Mozenrath would say yes and start on the path to his current state. But she wanted to imagine that Destane had forced him into a life of dark magic and a constant thirst for power. It would be so much easier to forgive him that way.

 

“My purpose won't be to serve you,” Mozenrath said adamantly. “I won't let you use me.”

 

“But that doesn't change the fact that my purpose is to use you,” Destane said. “In any case, why does it matter if you are able to grow powerful? Your purpose is to gain as much power and knowledge as you can as my apprentice.”

 

“My purpose is to kill you.”

 

Destane's laughter was genuine this time. He did not speak for a good ten seconds as he tried to calm himself. “Such bold, violent words from a child! What is society coming to?”

 

Then his expression lost all traces of humor. His inhuman gaze flashed dangerously. “It is good for you to have that goal. You will learn all the faster because of it. But if you want to kill me, make sure you can succeed before you try. Because if you fail, I will have no qualms about killing a student. Or rather, keeping you alive while you beg for death.”

 

A hollow smile spread easily across his handsome face. “What is your choice, then, boy?”

 

Mozenrath raised his hand to the side and closed the portal to the marketplace with his own spell. “I'll fulfill my purpose,” he said simply.

 

Destane's smile did not twitch at the child's cold words, as if he had fully expected everything to play out this way. “Well then, welcome to your new home. Oh, and one more thing: I was thinking of a new name for you, as `Keeper of His power' no longer seems fitting. Why not simply `Keeper of power'?”

 

“Mozenrath,” the boy said, testing out the name. Hearing it from his lips for the first time chilled the blood in Jasmine's veins.

 

“It has a suitably sinister ring to it,” Destane remarked. “Now, I imagine you are quite in need of nourishment…”

 

His voice faded as the sands began to swirl around her. She hung her head, quietly mourning the loss of the boy named Morathai. From now on he would be Destane's understudy, though he would never stop hating the man. He would even adopt his mentor's manner of speech. Jasmine still pitied him, but a thorn had embedded itself in her side. It had been his choice to stay, to learn from Destane and to grow powerful. Even though he had only been eight years of age then, he had been smart enough to know the implications of his decision. He wasn't just a product of his circumstances; he had free will, and had exercised it for the worse.

 

But if she had been in his place, would she have done any differently? If Destane had destroyed her entire kingdom and killed everyone she had loved, wouldn't she have sought revenge also? At least at this point Mozenrath was seeking power not for the sake of power itself, but in order to avenge his parents and city.

 

Revenge was always self-destructive, but he was too young to know that. She wondered when his desire for it would bleed into the thirst for world domination. He would eventually become just like Destane, the object of his hatred.

 

She entered her own memory still thinking heavily about Mozenrath's choice.

 

“Jasmine. Jasmine, open the door.”

 

She was in her bedroom again, and her younger self was sitting in bed with Rajah curled beside her. In the moonlight Jasmine could see the glistening trails of tears on her face.

 

“No,” she said, her voice cracking as she continued to cry. “Go away!”

 

Jasmine had to shake her head at herself. In all other kingdoms it was unheard of for a sultan to have to ask for permission to enter his own child's room. But her father had spoiled her to no end and was far more likely to give in to her demands than to demand anything of her.

 

“Don't cry, daughter. You can talk to me about what's wrong,” came the sultan's voice from the hall.

 

“I don't want to talk to you!” she shouted. “Why don't you just go talk to Queen Cirra?”

 

There was a pregnant pause. “I have talked with the queen already, Jasmine. She would like to speak with you too. She's a very nice lady and cares for you. She would be a wonderful mother.”

 

“I don't want her to be my mother! I want my own mother!”

 

Another lengthy silence. Jasmine shifted uncomfortably at the way the conversation was going. This had been the first time her father had tried to take a wife after Jasmine's mother had died. He had fallen in love with a queen from a distant land, and had traveled far to court her. But Jasmine had hated the idea of her father marrying another woman, even though she had never met her own mother.

 

“This doesn't mean I have forgotten your mother, dearest. But she's moved on to another place, and she wants us all to be happy. She would not be angry if I married Queen Cirra.”

 

“You are forgetting her, Father! If you really loved her then you wouldn't marry anyone else! That's what love is!”

 

Jasmine moved away from the bed, greatly bothered by the immaturity of her younger self. She sat down quietly by the door so she could be closer to her father, whom she knew would soon acquiesce to his daughter's wishes.

 

The wood of the door muffled her father's sigh of resignation. “We'll talk more later, then. Sleep well, dearest.”

 

As soon as she heard his footsteps retreating, the young princess climbed down from her bed and hurried to the door, opening it a crack to look outside. Jasmine followed her as she tiptoed down the hall in her nightclothes, sparing only one look backward to tell Rajah to stay in her room. The sultan was walking slowly a distance away with noticeably less poise than usual, the burden on his spirit seeming to age him by another ten years.

 

The girl followed him into the courtyard and hid behind a low wall. A beautiful woman was waiting for him at the fountain. She was decked in the royal finery of her city, gold mixed with warm earthy hues that complemented her bronze skin. She watched her father approach with concern in her deep brown eyes. The sultan met her gaze with sadness.

 

“I am sorry, my love. My daughter still will not see you tonight,” he said. He paused and drew in a breath. “Nor any other time.”

 

The elegant queen sat down quietly on the edge of the fountain and brushed the surface of the water with her fingers. “Never?”

 

“My daughter is a stubborn child, Cirra. But I love her very much,” the sultan said, sitting beside her.

 

“I know.”

 

Jasmine wondered which statement the queen was agreeing to.

 

“So now what?” she asked softly, not lifting her eyes from the water.

 

Her father's expression was clearly pained. “This does not change my love for you. But I…I cannot ask for your hand. It would do too much harm to my daughter.”

 

The queen nodded slowly, still swirling the water with her hand. Her beautiful features remained blank. “So then it ends here. Because of your daughter.”

 

“I am sorry, Cirra—”

 

“I would bear you sons. Heirs to defend and strengthen your kingdom, to allow you to rest secure regarding the future of Agrabah. Your daughter will not rule the kingdom, nor will she continue your legacy. Why do you bow to her every whim? She is a mere child, and I am a woman.” The queen's voice was hard, her bitterness beginning to surface.

 

The sultan had no answer. It pained Jasmine to see him stutter and plead for his beloved's forgiveness. The proud queen stood and walked out of his reach when he tried to take her hand.

 

“For the past year I have seen that you are a good man with a kind heart. But now I see that you cannot be a good ruler because your heart is too soft. I fear for you if you do not change, especially with a daughter such as yours. I myself am a strong-willed woman, but my strength is for the wellbeing of my country. The strength of your daughter's will, if you continue to dote on her so, will destroy your kingdom one day. I am merely warning you before I take my leave.”

 

She left her father in the courtyard, and she had never returned to Agrabah after that. The little girl crouched behind the wall stole a peek at her father, who was now sitting alone at the fountain. He sat there for a long time, not moving, only watching the ripples in the water.

 

Her younger self could not move either since she didn't want to risk being caught, so she stayed in her hiding place, ignorant of the gravity of the conversation that had just taken place. She was frowning crossly. Jasmine remembered what she had felt. She had focused only on how the queen had insulted her in the end, saying she would bring about Agrabah's destruction or something like that. How dare the queen say that about her! She was glad her father wasn't marrying a woman like that. She would have made a horrible mother.

 

Jasmine walked down to the fountain to sit beside her father. She had never seen him look so sad.

 

“I'm sorry,” she said to deaf ears. “I'm sorry I was so selfish. I'm sorry for complaining so much against you. You're the best father I could ever ask for.”

 

She tried to embrace him but again could feel only air. He stood wearily, oblivious to her presence, and walked back inside.

 

A moment later, her younger self crept out from her hiding place and stole back to her room, still ignorant of how fortunate she was to have a father who loved her more than he loved anyone else.

 

Jasmine stood alone in the courtyard as she began to lose the memory. Tears flowed down her cheeks only to be swallowed up by the sand. She did not want to forget this. Though it was painful to see, she needed it as a reminder of how ungrateful of a daughter she had been. Her father had given up so much for her. Had she ever made a sacrifice like that? Would she ever be willing to?

 

She lifted her face as the sand began to pull her downward, trying to blink back her tears.

 

I'm sorry, Father. I won't forget what you've done for me.

 

The memory was siphoned away, but she was left with a feeling of indebtedness to her father. She didn't know why, but surmised she had just lost a memory involving him.

 

She blinked and felt tears trickle down her face. The memory must have been a very sad one. She could not recall many sad memories of her father; he had always had such an upbeat personality and had seldom been angry with her. Perhaps it was a good thing that the Mirror had taken a sad memory away, as it saved her the pain of remembering whatever had happened.

 

Her new surroundings were rather foreboding. She was in a small, dark room lit only by a few torches on the walls. The air was cold and stagnant, leaving her with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

 

A green spark lit the room for a brief second and then faded. She was standing beside Mozenrath, who was sitting at a desk covered with books and parchment. He seemed to have gained an inch or so of height, but not nearly enough weight. His naturally fair skin now had an unhealthy pallor to it, and his curly black hair had grown long, covering his shoulders.

 

She peered over his shoulder at the text he was reading, but found it to be totally unintelligible to her. The rest of the books were also written in languages she had never seen. She wondered abruptly just how intelligent Mozenrath was, if at this age he had had to master many different languages in addition to learning magic.

 

To her shock, he cut the back of his hand with a knife and quickly touched two fingers to the bleeding incision. His face betrayed no pain, merely an intense degree of concentration as he attempted a spell once again. Stretching out his bleeding hand, he chanted something in another language, pointing his two bloody fingers at his open palm.

 

A feeble green light formed in his hand, not nearly as strong as the earlier spark Jasmine had seen. He continued to chant, perhaps trying to strengthen it, but it waned and vanished. With a growl of frustration he slammed the book shut and stood from his chair. He touched the cut on his hand again, this time surrounding it with the soft yellow glow of a spell. The broken skin closed quickly, leaving behind a faint scar. He dipped his hands in a bowl of water to wash off the dried blood.

 

In two steps he reached his bed, a mattress covered by a plain gray sheet and blanket. His living conditions were indeed sparse considering the Citadel's vast size and Destane's apparent wealth.

 

He pulled his shirt over his head and folded it neatly before crawling tiredly into bed. Jasmine gasped in shock at the faded scars on his bare arms. The pale skin was covered with dozens of small lacerations.

 

If anything, she had expected him to bear scars from punishment inflicted by Destane. But apparently these scars were from his own practice. It was obvious he was very serious about his studies, too serious for his own health.

 

Without warning the torches went out, and Jasmine was left in the dark. She took several tentative steps forward until she reached the bed, and sat down on the mattress beside the boy. He was facing away from her, his breaths already long and even. She sat still for a long time, her eyes adjusting to the darkness and her mind wandering through the possibilities of his life since the last memory.

 

She tried to imagine the magnitude of the losses he had sustained thus far, and found she could not. She had never lost anyone close to her and thus had no concept of grief over a loved one's passing. Nor had she left her home city for any extended period of time; she had spent almost her entire life within the comfort of the palace walls. To see her entire city destroyed and her people wiped out, and to lose her father, all before the age of ten, and then to have to live on the streets without anyone to turn to…

 

She watched the boy sleep, wondering if she should keep dwelling on his early childhood like this when he was already well into another phase of his life. Did she pity him too much? At what age would he be considered accountable for his decisions and actions? She surely could not excuse all his evil deeds as an adult on the basis of his childhood. She just didn't know where the line was.

 

It was unclear how long she sat there in silence, absently stroking his hair as he slept. Again, the passage of time within the Mirror was hard to gauge.

 

At some point he awoke, and Jasmine watched him begin his day in an extremely systematic fashion. She turned away self-consciously as he dressed and went into another room for more private business, returning quickly to tidy his bed and rearrange the desk he had left in a haphazard clutter the night before. She smiled for the first time in a long while as he ran a comb through his hair; it was both funny and unsettling that she could observe his life at such a personal level. It would be interesting to know if this impressive degree of orderliness was an innate part of his character or if it was imposed by his master. Somehow she suspected the former. As an adult he always seemed quite obsessed with perfection in every area, including his appearance and his plans for conquest.

 

She followed him down the winding staircase leading away from his room and through several hallways and doors before losing all sense of direction in the vastness of the Citadel. Perhaps he had not learned to teleport without sand yet, or perhaps it took too much of his energy. She would not be surprised if the second were true, as he appeared rather malnourished. But Destane seemed to provide for him well enough in terms of attire. He was dressed in a neatly pressed dark blue tunic and pants, and his feet were covered in cloth shoes.

 

It was quite a bizarre experience to sit at a dining table with Mozenrath and Destane and watch them have breakfast. Destane still spoke with the same refined, aloof tone of voice and did not seem at all unpleasant, asking if the boy had slept well and whether there was anything he did not understand about the previous day's lesson. The whole scene was out of sync with Mozenrath's sickly appearance and Destane's record of atrocities.

 

“How much did you sleep?” Destane said nonchalantly. It was strange; it seemed he had already asked enough about Mozenrath's night. But Jasmine saw in his eyes a purposeful sharpness which had not been there before, and she knew that the question was somehow of importance this time around.

 

The boy did not flinch under that piercing gaze. “Eight hours.”

 

She was unable to measure the passing of time in these memories, but it was obvious even to her that Mozenrath was lying. The sorcerer's agreeable countenance seemed false all of a sudden, though none of his physical features had changed. “Oh really?”

 

Jasmine braced herself, expecting the real Destane to reveal himself any second—a malicious, domineering master who liked to punish his student for oversleeping and not working hard enough. But Destane knew that the boy actually hadn't overslept; why would he punish him? Or rather, why would Mozenrath push the number upward instead of downward?

 

“Three filling meals a day mean nothing if you do not sleep, boy,” the sorcerer said tensely. “How many times must I tell you?”

 

Mozenrath did not answer. To his credit, he did not break his gaze from his master's.

 

“I had arranged an important assignment for you today. But it seems you will be too weak to handle it. Your obstinacy is a detriment to my work as well, young fool,” Destane snapped.

 

Mozenrath's indifferent attitude had disappeared with the first sentence his mentor had spoken. “What assignment?”

 

“It is pointless to tell you because you are too weak to accomplish it. I doubt you can channel any more power through your body in the pathetic state you're in. For all your intelligence, do you still not grasp the law of physical medium?”

 

“I understand it,” Mozenrath said.

 

“Then why do you keep trying to break it? Do you want to die?” Destane said curtly. “You must be patient in order to grow strong. A healthy physical state is of absolute importance for a sorcerer. Your body is the only channel you have for the energy from your soul.”

 

This was truly bizarre. Destane was the one trying to persuade Mozenrath to take care of himself, while Mozenrath was causing his own suffering. He had engrossed himself in his studies beyond what his mentor expected or wanted.

 

“What is the assignment?” Mozenrath asked again.

 

Destane shook his head, a cruel smile spreading across his face. “What am I to do with you, boy? In the beginning I thought I might test out my torture spells on you for misbehaving, but it seems now that you'd suffer more if I isolated you from magic altogether. How about I seal you away in a magicproof room for a week? You will only be able to eat and sleep, nothing else. Would that teach you to listen to me, insolent brat?”

 

The slow clenching and unclenching of his jaw made Mozenrath's annoyance obvious. But he did not provoke his teacher further. “I apologize. I will listen from now on.”

 

“You will be forgiven when you follow through with that assertion. Now, if you have the strength and the stomach for it, we will go to the dungeons for your assignment.”

 

In another instant they were suddenly in a very dark place. A horrible stench assaulted Jasmine's nostrils, making her gag. Destane and Mozenrath seemed unaffected, though the boy's frown had grown more severe. She followed them down a corridor dimly lit by torches that burned blue. The stone walls were damp and musty, adding to the feel of decay that permeated the air.

 

They reached a thick wooden door that creaked open at Destane's touch. Beyond it was one of the most disturbing scenes Jasmine had ever laid eyes upon.

 

There had to be at least two hundred prisoners locked in the cells that lined the walls as far as she could see. Most of them were near death, lying prostrate on the stone floor, the chains around their skeletal wrists no longer necessary to restrain them. Their bodies had been reduced to skin stretched thinly over bones, their hollow, ghostly faces gazing silently in the direction of the Lord of the Black Sand and his apprentice.

 

Destane was a monster. There was no questioning that.

 

She had seen him kill the citizens of Helinth without mercy. But now she was seeing the other side of the horrors he was capable of—keeping people alive in this wretched state.

 

“Mozenrath,” she pleaded quietly, uselessly. “You have to leave. You can't stay here with him. You can't…”

 

She watched the boy, desperately hoping that he would show some inkling of compassion toward the masses of prisoners. But she found that he was not looking at them at all. His gaze was focused straight ahead at his master's back as they walked past dozens of cells of dying men.

 

“Water…please…” rasped a voice on their right. Bony fingers reached through the bars and tugged at Mozenrath's tunic. Jasmine held her breath as the boy paused and turned toward the man who had dared to speak while Destane continued on, completely ignoring the interruption. Mozenrath's eyes flickered with some unreadable emotion, and she prayed he would show the prisoner some degree of mercy. Or was he already too far gone under Destane's tutelage?

 

“Please…” the man begged, his hand trembling, hardly able to keep his grip on Mozenrath's clothing. The boy still did not meet the man's eyes, stealing a glance instead in his master's direction.

 

“Mozenrath,” Destane called calmly over his shoulder. He had stopped but did not turn around, patiently waiting for his student.

 

The boy gave his tunic a sharp tug, breaking the man's feeble grip, and continued forward without looking back.

 

“A prisoner requested water,” the sorcerer said, turning around just enough to see his student's face. “Aren't you going to answer him?”

 

Jasmine felt a wave of utter hatred rise within her as she glared at the tall, arrogant man standing with total indifference in the midst of the many victims suffering under his hand. It wasn't enough for him to enjoy torture, but he had to pass his sick fancies on to his pupil.

 

Mozenrath looked pained for a second, then turned and raised one hand toward the middle of the corridor. Jasmine saw his lips move and his face grow paler as he silently cast some sort of spell.

 

A pail of water appeared exactly in the center of the corridor. Immediately the prisoners in the surrounding cells clawed their way forward, pressing their emaciated faces against the bars as they tried in vain to reach the pail with outstretched hands. It stood at least a foot out of reach on either side. Their collective groans and cries of thirst cut deep into Jasmine's heart.

 

Mozenrath's face was expressionless as Destane gave him a smile of approval. “You are most delightfully inventive. Very good.”

 

Mozenrath said nothing as they walked on. Jasmine stared at him. But she had no time to think on what he had just done as they entered a room that was pitch-black and reeked even more strongly of death. Destane closed the door behind them and snapped his fingers. The room lit up instantly, though Jasmine could not see where the light was coming from.

 

She felt her blood run cold. The floor before them was lined with corpses.

 

Mozenrath's face twitched slightly, but otherwise he betrayed no emotion.

 

“I'm not practicing torture again,” he said calmly.

 

Destane chuckled. “Right. It seems you are capable of torturing live subjects at this point. But that is not the purpose of your assignment today.”

 

Before she could even think over that sickening revelation, she had to shield her eyes from the bright light suddenly issuing forth from Destane's hand. It was a small bottle containing some type of energy.

 

She saw the utter entrancement in Mozenrath's dark irises, now tinted an unnatural gold by the piercing light from the bottle.

 

“Yes. Here it is, boy. I told you that you'd see it again someday,” Destane said in a self-satisfied tone. “And today you will be able to touch it with your own hands, channel it through your senses, make it your own. The temple elders would never have allowed you to go near it until you came of age. But why hold you back from what you are already capable of mastering?”

 

Mozenrath could not seem to break his gaze from the encapsulated magic of his city, having been separated from it for at least two years, judging from how much older he appeared now. “What are you going to do with it?” he asked softly.

 

“Oh, nothing too outrageous. Just create an army,” Destane said nonchalantly. He grinned at the look of wary puzzlement on his student's face. “We'll start with these eight soldiers here.”

 

Mozenrath glanced at the pallid corpses distastefully. “What are you talking about? They're dead.”

 

“Who said they had to be alive?” the sorcerer said with a chilling gleam in his eye. He held the glowing bottle at arm's length as if to admire it. “The magic of Helinth will raise them in service to me.”

 

Jasmine caught the flash of unadulterated hatred that passed through Mozenrath's eyes at that moment. If Destane had noticed, he didn't care.

 

“Many sorcerers have succeeded in raising the dead, but often with limited benefit, since the bodies rot rather quickly and are poor containers for possessive spirits. Quite a waste of time and energy to make undead servants, as the summoning of spirits from the underworld is quite a painstaking process. But with the power of Helinth, my soldiers will not decay for years. And I need not summon any spirits, as the black sand is enough to give them life.

 

“Your assignment is to channel this magic into these bodies while I perform the more delicate part of the operation. With the sand, I will breathe a consciousness of sorts into their soul cavities, a consciousness wholly subjugated to my will. If all goes smoothly, they will awaken as the first of my army,” Destane said with gleeful anticipation.

 

Mozenrath stood rigid and unmoving, no longer bothering to hide his disgust toward his master. Destane's grin only grew wider.

 

“Got cold feet all of a sudden? I suppose there's still a bit of religion in you; it does tend to linger like the stench of expiry sometimes. Come now, boy, this magic is merely power. It is only as holy as its wielder,” he said with an unsavory laugh.

 

“You can't wield it yourself, is that it?” Mozenrath said levelly. “You need me to do it.”

 

Destane's handsome smile suddenly grew sinister. “My, how adept you are at scouring for my weaknesses. You are right, my vengeful little apprentice. You are essential for this task. Therefore this isn't an optional assignment. It's compulsory.”

 

From the tone of his last two words, it was clear he would brook no disagreement. Though the boy's disgust was still obvious, he also displayed a reluctant respect for what his master could do to him if he refused to obey.

 

“Your old name is dead,” Destane said, seeing that the boy still had made no move to take the proffered bottle. “You have no ties, no obligations to the silent, forgotten god you once served. And I'd say it's a bit too late to turn back now, isn't it, after you've been routinely dishonoring the dead for the past month?”

 

The scorn was plainly audible in his voice as he produced a much larger bottle filled with black sand in his other hand. “But the dead have no honor. They have nothing; they are like piles of rocks or sand, absent of any moral value. They can, however, be of practical use.”

 

“Then the prisoners in the dungeons…” the boy began.

 

“Ah, let's not jump too far ahead. Focus that overactive mind of yours just within this room for now,” Destane said. “This is your most important assignment yet. It is also the most difficult. Listen carefully to my instructions.”

 

Jasmine moved as far away as she could from the corpses as Destane methodically detailed the process the boy would have to follow. She slowly slid down against the wall and sat on the cold floor, hugging her sides and growing more nauseous by the second. Accompanying the revulsion she felt was the mounting fear of seeing the dead rise. No matter how many times she had fought Mamluks, she still shuddered whenever she encountered them. The thought that they were once ordinary people could never dislodge itself from her mind, even in the midst of battle as she and Aladdin dismembered them like poorly sewn rag dolls.

 

Mozenrath knelt by the first corpse and placed his glowing hands on the shriveled skin of its bare chest. The small round bottle of Helinth's magic lay empty on its side next to him. Destane uncorked the bottle of black sand, which immediately flowed outward like a dark vapor. He raised one hand, and the meandering trail of sand began to encircle his wrist.

 

“More,” he commanded. “It's not enough! Work faster, boy!”

 

She could see Mozenrath's hands trembling as he channeled more energy into the corpse, his face tightly screwed in concentration. A faint glow spread across every inch of the cadaver, coloring its pale skin a light shade of yellow.

 

“Hold it. Hold it!” Destane snapped. With a sharp gesture of his arm, the sand uncoiled itself from his hand and rushed downward in a torrent, flowing into the mouth and nostrils of the dead man.

 

Mozenrath's thin shoulders were heaving with exertion now as he struggled to sustain the healing spell. Destane's lip curled in contempt toward his student as he began chanting a long spell in a guttural tongue Jasmine did not recognize. The even glow that covered the corpse seemed to pulsate under the power of his words. To her horror, its limbs began to twitch.

 

“I said hold it!” the sorcerer barked a split-second after Mozenrath began to cringe away. “Don't stop now!”

 

Her blood curdled as the corpse emitted a sound. She had heard it before, the low rasping groan of a Mamluk, but somehow hearing it here was all the more terrifying.

 

Mozenrath collapsed backward in terror and exhaustion as Destane commanded the reanimated corpse to rise to its feet, the glee in his voice bordering on maniacal. Jasmine almost retched at the sight of its half-decayed eyes now blinking, its sallow lips drooping as it faced its master. Mozenrath seemed to have frozen completely, staring up in horrid fascination at the vile thing he had helped bring to life.

 

“The first of my army of Mamluks,” Destane crowed in triumph, stepping back to admire his work. “Above pain, above fear, above death. But you will bring all three upon any who dare to defy me!”

 

The crazed greed in his cackle carried an edge of madness. Jasmine had sometimes questioned Mozenrath's sanity whenever he had gone off on his rants about conquest, but Destane's rants were of a different quality altogether. He was definitely not as sane as he claimed to be.

 

He turned toward his student with a terribly hollow grin. “It is quite disappointing that you are too weak to raise the other seven corpses I had prepared for today. But I've thought of a suitable punishment for you. You have trouble falling asleep, no? This new servant of mine might be able to help you.”

 

Mozenrath scrambled to his feet too late as Destane swept his hand in an arc and disappeared in a flash of dark fire, leaving the boy with the cadavers, one of which was steadily advancing on him.

 

Destane's disembodied laughter echoed around the room as Mozenrath backed away cautiously from the Mamluk, almost tripping over one of the corpses on the floor.

 

A test of strength. Or maybe endurance. Depleted of magic, how will you defend yourself? The sorcerer's voice sounded, followed by a curt chuckle. I have commanded it to attack only until you are unconscious. So don't worry about dying just yet.

 

Jasmine ran to the boy's side as the Mamluk stumbled forward, steeling herself against the hollow stare of its bleached face. Mozenrath looked grim, knowing there were no desirable options open to him. He shifted his feet slightly, ready to run.

 

At that moment the sand began to return, steadily pouring between the stones in the surrounding walls and flowing over the cadavers on the floor. It swirled around the shambling undead body and the limp arm it was stretching toward the boy, tendrils of sand washing across her vision and clouding her senses. The last thing she saw was Mozenrath making a futile dash for the door.

 

Her hands curled into fists in impotent fury toward the boy's master. He had certainly done his job in beating weakness out of his student. In the process he had beaten out compassion and conscience as well.

 

It would be easy, just too easy, to blame everything on Destane.

 

Jasmine took a calming breath. Mozenrath had of course survived his first encounter with a Mamluk, even if he had come out of it unconscious and psychologically scarred. That episode was probably a small blip in his long years under the evil sorcerer's tutelage. Destane was indeed to blame for putting the boy beyond what any child, any person should have to go through. But it was all part and parcel of what Mozenrath had agreed to in the very beginning when he had closed the portal to the marketplace and decided on revenge instead of freedom.

 

But he had only been eight years old then.

 

She was thinking in circles and getting nowhere. As the sand finally retreated, she forced herself to focus on her own memory. She was standing inside the palace, in a room where she had often played as a child. Boxes and shelves of her toys and books were arranged neatly against two walls. A large gilded cage hung from the ceiling, full of exotic birds of all shapes and sizes. In the corner there was a pit full of cushions where she had routinely hidden from her tutors and her father.

 

Her younger self was standing alone in a corner with an angry pout. She was upset because her playmates were excluding her. In the opposite corner sat three princesses from other kingdoms, all about her age at the time. They were consciously ignoring her as they played with her extensive collection of dolls.

 

“Oh, I wonder when my prince will come,” a dark-skinned girl said in a singsong voice. Jasmine remembered her—Anah, from the kingdom of Staaris. She was running a small comb delicately through the long hair of the doll she held.

 

“He's my prince, not yours,” another girl said, holding her doll next to Anah's as if the toys were talking to each other. Her name had slipped Jasmine's mind, though her round face and wide hazel eyes were familiar. “I'm more beautiful.”

 

“Now now, we shouldn't fight,” a brown-haired girl who was slightly older than the others said. Ilande from Liri. “It's not princess-like.”

 

Anah sighed huffily. “You're right, princesses don't fight.” She glanced meaningfully at the princess of Agrabah standing by herself near the doorway.

 

It was a deliberate barb, as all three of them thought Jasmine was weird for not wanting to play with dolls anymore. At that age she had been fascinated with the acrobats, fire-eaters, and sword dancers that often performed at the diplomatic functions she was allowed to attend. Most fascinating of all were the martial artists who, in her eyes, truly made an art out of fighting. She had constantly begged her father to let her take lessons, but he was strictly against the idea, fearing for her safety and beginning to worry about how he could marry off a daughter inclined to such unfeminine pursuits.

 

She was about nine at the time, and still without any friends besides Rajah. Her father often invited neighboring rulers to bring their children along with them on official visits with the hope that Jasmine could befriend other princesses. But it always ended up like this; she would be alienated by her playmates, seen as strange and improper, a princess only in name.

 

She hadn't seen these three princesses in years. To her knowledge, they had all been married off in traditional fashion to princes or nobles in neighboring kingdoms and had probably borne two or three children to their husbands already. It was not a route Jasmine had been willing to take.

 

She followed her younger self out of the room and noticed the angry tears still standing in her eyes. It hurt to be left out and misunderstood. She had felt so alone. Her father didn't understand her, though he loved her with all his heart. Her tutors along with the courtiers in the palace were kind to her but always kept an emotional distance as was proper for servants of the royal family. She had no mother to share her feelings with. She only had a tiger to listen to her, but he couldn't talk back.

 

“Princess Jasmine,” a man's voice said behind her. “Where are you going?”

 

She turned and saw the king of Liri. He was a stoutly built man of average height, wearing the traditional leather armor of his city. Her father had said he had once been a champion wrestler in his youth, as athletic prowess was highly prized in his kingdom's culture. His meeting with her father must have just ended. He twirled his dark mustache contemplatively as he watched her blink back her tears and stare boldly back at him.

 

“I'm going to my room,” she said simply. Jasmine had to shake her head at herself for her lack of manners.

 

“Don't you want to play with your friends? Ilande has been excited the whole past week about coming to Agrabah to play with you,” he said, squatting down so he was at her face level.

 

“No she hasn't,” Jasmine said bitterly. “Ilande and the others just want to play with dolls and other boring things. They don't want to try anything different.”

 

The king cocked his head slightly in curiosity. “What do you have in mind instead then, little princess?”

 

“I want to learn magic,” the girl said. Jasmine started in surprise; she hadn't remembered saying that. “Magic like eating fire and spitting it back out without burning your insides. Or maybe acrobatics so I can climb up walls and jump down from my balcony without getting hurt.”

 

The king chuckled in his deep, gruff voice. “You are definitely…different.”

 

He considered her stubborn expression for another second. “Your father must indeed have his hands full with you. Neither of us have sons, and while he is content with that, I am not. Though I love my daughter, I have always wished for a boy whom I could instruct in the arts of war and athletics. I see that you are more like the child I have wished for than most of the young princes I have met.”

 

The girl wrinkled her nose. “But I'm not a boy!”

 

“Of course not, of course not!” the man backtracked hastily. Jasmine had to laugh at the scene. A grown man, a king in fact, who had once beaten men twice his size in wrestling tournaments was treading delicately around this mere slip of a girl. “You're a very beautiful young lady. But you've got spunk. I like it.”

 

He scratched his bearded chin thoughtfully. “What do you think of this idea,” he said slowly. Her younger self perked up at the thought that someone might actually help her fulfill her dreams. “I will approach your father and try to convince him to let you take dance lessons. Don't frown at me until I've finished telling you my plan, dear. I'm not talking about normal dance, but sword dancing. It's a popular art in Liri, and I can send one of the best court performers to Agrabah to be your teacher.”

 

He almost lost his balance as Jasmine threw her arms around his neck. “Hold on now, don't get too excited!” he said, patting her on the back gingerly. “I haven't talked to your father yet!”

 

Jasmine let go of his neck and stared at him sternly. “Don't tell him it's sword dancing! He'd never let me do it!”

“I know. I'll tell him it's just normal dancing, proper for princesses, how about that?” the king said with a conspiratorial grin.

 

“Yes! Thank you!” she exulted.

 

It was strange that the Mirror had selected this memory to filter away. What significance did it have?

 

She had secretly taken lessons in sword dancing for years. Her father had never found out until after the kingdom had been turned upside down by Jafar. The lessons had hardly taught her any combat skills, but she had tried to use the limited knowledge she had about swords against Jafar when he had enslaved the two of them. At the least, she had learned to be comfortable with sharp weapons. That was part of the reason she had been able to pick up hand-to-hand fighting so easily after she had met Aladdin and started taking lessons in martial arts, also in secret. But it had all started with the king of Liri and his kind offer to help her break free of the mold she was expected to conform to.

 

She half-listened to the rest of their conversation. Her younger self wanted to hear all about the king's adventures as a young man and how he had trained hard and practiced every day to become an excellent wrestler. He answered all her questions with a smile of poorly hidden amusement.

 

The other half of her mind was on Mozenrath and the memory she had just seen. She wanted to wring Destane's neck. If she had been in Mozenrath's shoes, she probably would have tried to kill him by then…and would have failed miserably.

 

Mozenrath had more patience than she thought, considering his thin temper as an adult. Or perhaps he was just more pragmatic than she was. Even as a child, he knew his limits and that he had to plan ahead instead of acting rashly.

 

But she still wanted to hurt Destane very, very much. He was kind or cruel as it suited him, in some ways like a father figure to his young apprentice, but in many other ways like an abusive tyrant. Leaving Mozenrath sapped of power at the mercy of an undead soldier was one of the cruelest things he could have thought of as punishment.

 

Or maybe not. Jasmine shuddered, not allowing her imagination to venture further.

 

Nothing else eventful would be happening in this memory. She didn't want to stick around to hear herself babble to the king, so she walked back into the playroom where the other girls were. Anah and the hazel-eyed girl were watching Ilande in mute trepidation, fixated on something she held in her hands. Jasmine moved closer to see what it was.

 

“The sand is coming,” Ilande said in a hushed voice. Jasmine peered into her cupped palms, and a sudden chill spiked through her.

 

The girl was holding black sand.

 

A feeling of utter wrongness hit her like a blast of foul breath. This wasn't even part of her memory; her younger self was still outside the room talking with the king of Liri, unaware of what was going on among the other princesses.

 

Upon second glance, her heart calmed slightly. Ilande was merely holding ordinary soil from a potted plant. Jasmine sat down slowly behind Anah, the hairs on the back of her neck still standing up from the eeriness of the scene.

 

“The sand is coming to eat the little children,” Ilande said in a soft, detached tone, sprinkling the dirt across the button-eyed rag dolls on the floor. “It's hungry.”

 

“How can it be hungry? It's just sand,” Anah retorted, but she could not keep the fear out of her voice.

 

“This sand is special. It's alive,” Ilande replied knowingly. “It eats little princesses like us.”

 

The hazel-eyed girl covered her ears. “Stop it! I'm going to have nightmares!”

 

“How do you know this sand's real, anyway?” Anah asked, still trying to sound brave. “I've never even heard of it. Baril hasn't either. Right, Baril?”

 

Baril—that was her name. The girl shook her head vigorously, her hands still clamped over her ears.

 

“My nanny tells me scary bedtime stories sometimes. She says there's a desert so dark that the sun doesn't dare to shine on it, so it's always night there. And she says the sand is like a living monster, looking for little children to eat. Especially princesses,” Ilande said, her voice dropping lower. Her dark eyes glinted, and she suddenly looked straight at Jasmine.

 

“LIKE YOU!”

 

Jasmine fell backwards, her heart threatening to pound out of her chest as the piercing screams of Baril and Anah cut through the air. Ilande was laughing, pointing at Anah, who had started to cry.

 

It was okay.

 

It was okay; Anah had been the real target of Ilande's cruel joke. Jasmine had simply been sitting too close to the poor girl.

 

Jasmine stood quickly and backed away from the group of girls, deeply disturbed by Ilande's dark sense of humor. And then the color and sound of her surroundings began to fade to the earthy tone of sand.

 

But as the sand returned, pouring over the floor of the playroom and all the toys scattered around it, the tone of the young princess' singsong laughter began to change.

 

It became the androgynous voice of the Mirror, now no longer calm and neutral, but gleefully malevolent.

 

Jasmine wrenched her gaze from Ilande's face as she suddenly seemed a mere puppet of a much greater force. A decidedly sinister force.

 

With a chill she realized she had never questioned the origins of the Mirror, or even the kind of magic that enchanted it. The sense of dread roiling in the pit of her stomach began to spread through the rest of her at a rapid pace. She had been a fool. Eberzin had lost his sanity and wholeness of spirit to dark magic; what had made her think it was safe to listen to him after Thanon had plainly told her he was mad? The historian had also warned her about the dangers of experimenting in such evil arts herself, but she had dismissed his warning with the assertion that she had no interest in pursuing dark magic.

 

But if the Mirror were an instrument of the dark craft as she now suspected, then she was literally in over her head in danger.

 

She had been a fool not to have asked Eberzin more about the Mirror. If it were imbued with dark magic, then she had almost certainly thrown herself into a nightmare the moment she had touched its surface. A nightmare within an endless pit of sand.

 

The now disembodied laughter echoed on as the palace disappeared from sight, the sand wrapping around her body more and more tightly until she could hardly breathe. She desperately anticipated losing the memory this time, wanting to forget the sight of Princess Ilande's pretty face superimposed over the Mirror's malicious laughter as a silk veil over rotten teeth.

 

But there was no mental tear this time as she was dumped once again on the floor of the Citadel.

 

The Mirror didn't want her to forget that memory.