The fury materialized from a cloud of swirling black tendrils. Its lean, slender body pirouetted into existence. Long, sturdy legs spun out. Her lean, slender body pirouetted into existence. Her eyes shimmered like a beetle’s back under the midnight moon.
The guard standing on Navid’s left opened his eyes wide in confusion, unaware that his leg had been cleanly severed at the kneecap. Only when his hands darted out for support and found nothing in the air did he topple to the sand, unleashing a pain-filled shriek.
The sand fury was already gone.
Navid and the other guards spun about in search of the whirling dervish, their scimitars raised.
Sand furies were a type of dervish that had been known to be the spirits of slaughtered desert dwellers and nomads who had been granted the power of resurrection by a force unknown to the living world. According to legends told by Ja’far’s Mystic, sand furies were said to live in cities both on and beneath the sand, in a realm invisible and unreachable to the living. In their spirit world, they exhibited wild ecstatic movements, dancing to enhance their agility in battle and executing flips and dives faster than the human eye could follow. Combat with sand furies was a swift ballet, accompanied by mocking laughter between strikes. In death, they were granted protectors of possessions and loved ones that had been wrongfully taken from them in life. Being reincarnated as a sand fury offered the opportunity to deliver justice. To the living, they were fatal nuisances. For Ja’far, it signified that his long-awaited treasure was within reach. What he had been searching for since a dozen years ago could only be located at his feet, beneath the sand. A place where he could not reach, no matter how many men he recruited.
From six inky vortices, six furies appeared. Male and female, their black-as-night naked bodies spun from the depths of the netherworld to pierce the men’s flesh with their blades. They were vicious, otherworldly things, their bodies made of neither solid nor gas. The men wore only turbans on their heads adorned with ibex horns, symbolic of the treasure god, and the women wore veils across their mouths to hide their serrated teeth.
They spun and danced a vicious ballet of teeth and swords as they sliced the neck arteries of the sultan’s guards, bleeding them until the desert turned red. Ja’far witnessed the gruesome demise of each man, one after another. One guard even dragged his scimitar across his own throat to avoid disembowelment.
Iago darted towards his horse, beckoning Ja’far to follow suit in haste.
Uncertainty clouded Ja’far's mind, his hand trembling as he contemplated his next move. Despite commanding the mightiest army in the realm, Ja’far stood aghast as these formidable warriors were swiftly turned into dismembered corpses before his eyes. He watched in awe until Navid enveloped Ja’far's slender frame in his muscular embrace, lifting him onto the horse with ease, like a fragile puppet. Navid held the reins and gave the horse a hard kick as Ja’far held on tightly.
Navid shouted for Ja’far to take the reins.
Ja’far stretched both arms around Navid, grabbing the reins to guide the horse, while Navid turned to face him, bringing them eye to eye. With the reins relinquished, Navid seized the opportunity to wield his sword and drive it into the advancing fury’s head. The fury dissipated in a swirling black wisp, vanishing into the night.
Ja’far let out a bitter, defeated growl as he yanked at the reins, and together they sped off into the night, the weight of defeat heavy on their shoulders.
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The following night, Ja’far stood in mourning beneath a colorless crescent moon while waiting for the boat to arrive.
A faint, ghostly light bathed the river Tigris, while a warm southern breeze whispered through the cattails and papyrus lining the sandy banks. Across the Arabian Empire, Ja’far could see the flickering glow of homes lit by candlelight. Homes with families inside. Wives who’ll lay awake in tears for many dawns to come and children who’ll never know their father.
"Deliver generous financial compensations and resources to the families of our men," Ja’far commanded Iago as he pulled the boat from the reeds. “Ensure they understand that their service to the kingdom of Agrabah and its citizens was invaluable. Make sure they know they are heroes.”
On the opposite banks of the palace resided the enigmatic Seer of the Sands. Ja’far had ordered Iago to guide a boat made of reeds woven with palm fronds for his journey across the river Tigris. Black snakes slithered through the water with them, moving sinuously like silent river guides. Their shiny bodies broke the surface, then slipped back under. Cats and ferrets hidden in the reeds perked up when they heard them approach, their watchful eyes catching the glow of the moon.
Once , Ja’far stood where the reeds thinned and the sand extended far into the night, blurring the line between land and sky.
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Iago joined him after securing the boat, and together they traveled on foot to an isolated hut made of sandstone that had been built against the protection of steep, rolling hills.
The interior of the hut appeared blue beneath the moon, and stars and shadows stretched across the austere single room. From inside, they appeared larger, built deep into the hills with a tall roof where petrified animals and bones, including ibex horns, hung from rope. A threadbare rug adorned the floor with three faded pillows. The only other piece of furniture was a large marble slab on which the seer had been resting.
The elderly Seer was neither male nor female and didn’t own a spec of clothing. The Seer, only to be identified as ‘the Seer,’ had a pair of breasts where breasts usually sag at such an age and, between the legs, a penis and set of flocculent testicles, also sagging low where testicles usually sag at such an age. A specific age was yet to be determined.
In the years Ja’far had known the Seer, the Seer had never aged or grew younger.
In his studies, Ja’far read stories that the Seer was not human but once a beautiful forest creature from a distant land that was said to have lived since the very first seed was planted by the first kiss of true love. The Seer was a creation by the desert spirit Gaszi, the King of Treasure, who lived in and guarded a cave known to most as the Cave of Wonder.
“You were supposed to help me,” Ja’far said, hurt. “Why would you do such a thing? I trusted you.”
The seer opened its eyes, white as ivory, as they stared up at the ceiling. Though there was not a breeze in the air, the Seer’s hair floated about its head as if submerged in a placid water.
“To see, you must un-see,” said the seer.
Ja’far noticed a body mirror behind a tattered cloth hanging from the stone wall.
Was that always there? Ja’far wondered.
The mirror was a wide, rectangular shape made of beaten brass and polished smooth. When Ja’far peered into his reflection, he saw his face and knew what the seer was asking of him.
To see, you must un-see.
Ja’far stood prepossessing, hirsute beneath his dishdasha and cloak from his angular chest to his naval and around the pendulous appendage between his tall legs. A lustrous raven-colored beard adorned his long, sharp-featured face with hollow cheeks, thick brows, and a prominent nose. The seer wanted something from his body, but it wasn’t his hair, his appendages, or his organs. Ja’far winced.
“To see, you must un-see!” the seer hissed again.
Ja’far took a deep breath, feeling the cool night air on his skin, then raised his left hand and, with a shiver, pushed his fingers into his eye socket. He didn’t scream like he thought he would’ve, or if he did, he didn’t hear it. All he heard was the ringing in his ears. Then screams.
Thousands—hundreds of thousands of citizens and visitors to Agrabah—cried out at once. Like the sound of innumerous souls being torn from innumerous bodies.
As he dug deeper and yanked his eyeball out with his bloody fingertips, the screams faded.
Ja’far gripped his eyeball within his fingertips and let it roll into his palm for the seer to see. The seer took the eyeball and shoved it greedily into his mouth, pressing down with its teeth. The eyeball burst, dripping a glob off the lip onto the breasts.
When the seer swallowed, its ashy hair thickened. The skin around the jawline and neck tightened, the breasts rising up in sumptuous orbs. Between its legs, the penis grew long and thick, riddled with crossing veins as his testicles filled large, tight, and round. The color of its eyes went from a dull hazel to a glossy, sparkling emerald. Its muscles hardened, its torso thinned, and its hair, which Ja’far had always considered an ashy blonde, surprisingly turned an effervescent blue with opalescent swirls of cerulean and turquoise, the color of peacock feathers. The seer swallowed the last of the goey drops of eyeball. “Only one may enter the Cave of Wonders.”
Ja’far’s temper flared. “You may have been so good as to mention this before! Who is it? Who shall enter the Cave of Wonders?”
“The only one who can enter the Cave of Wonders is the one who can destroy it, Agrabah, and the entire realm,” the seer hissed. It caressed its newfound youthful body, taking extra time to admire its perky breasts and erection. “It is the one who will destroy Agrabah.”
“Who is he?” Ja’far demanded, growing impatient.
“A boy of the shadows. A street rat.”
“Who? What is his name?”
“I don’t know his name,” the seer said. “I can see only that he is a street rat with no mother or father, from a poorly populated neighborhood, who had to learn the ways of Agrabah on his own. An orphan. A rat of the street.”
Ja’far glared at the seer. Harder and harder still, until the seer flinched.
“You believe it is Aladdin. Aladdin Baba is the diamond in the rough.”
Ja’far felt a tingle under his hands. He lifted them and saw that Seer's smooth skin had aged a decade. Two decades. Three decades in a moment. Ja’far stumbled back.
The magic had been used. The seer was withered to the bone like a fig in the sun.
“Agrabah will fall.”
“You told me I could reach the lamp!” Ja’far snarled.
“Ah, but you can,” replied the seer, “but only once it is taken.”
Now irate, Ja’far cursed the withered seer. He rose and adjusted his turban before storming from the hut.
Iago, who had been waiting outside, used his stumpy little legs to keep up.
A few seconds later, Ja’far, with Iago’s help, sat in the boat as Iago pushed them off the riverbank. They drifted in the lazy river for several minutes as Iago made use of the reeds and a torn piece of fabric from his shirt to bandage Ja’far’s head wound.
To help sedate Ja’far, Iago had him ingest a medicinal powder made of desert flowers and herbs.
“You’re asking the questions next time,” Ja’far grunted.
“There are too many questions to answer,” Iago replied.
“Then I suggest you choose your words wisely, for the next time it may be your eye she takes. Or better, your tongue.”
Ja’far had learned magic many years ago and knew his sacrifice for knowledge could not be revoked. He’d given his left eye in pursuit of Agrabah’s future, a noble cause, and he had gained enough information from the Seer to find what he was looking for.
“You heard the seer,” Iago said. “You can’t enter the Cave of Wonders, so what are you going to do?”
Ja’far felt something like lightning course through his nerves. He had no choice but to do the unthinkable. “I have to kill Aladdin. It’s the only way to save Agrabah.”