Death's Daughter: A Disney's Descendants Story

Oh, the Wonder of it All

    The room was suddenly filled with the deafening sound of metal colliding with the stone.
Just as suddenly as before, they were bathed in the brightest light, a glow that burst from every corner of the room. The golden brilliance filled their eyes—and before they knew what was happening, the room was suddenly filling with sand.
     Sand was everywhere. And they were falling into it, covered in it.
     Evie screamed. Mal started to thrash. Hesper was looking around the room frantically. Carlos lost hold of his box. Only Jay stood perfectly still.
     Amongst the sand was what appeared to be a king's ransom of jewels. Mound upon mound of gold coins shimmered as far as the eye could see. There were crowns and coronets, jeweled scepters and goblets, emeralds the size of a fist, diamonds as brilliant as the stars, thousands of gold doubloons and silver coins. There were larger things too: great obelisks, and coffins, lamps and urns, a pharaoh's head, a winged staff, a chalice, and a sphinx made of gold.
     Evie pushed the sand away and sat up, wearing a new crown on her head, quite by accident.  "What is this? Where are we?"
     "I can assure you this is not part of my mother's castle," said Mal wryly. She stood up and brushed the sand off her leather jacket.
     "Do you think its more residue from the hole in the dome?" Hesper asked, combing some sand grains out of her hair.
     Carlos nodded. "It has to be. There's no other explanation."
     "Wait a minute, where's the scepter?" Mal asked Carlos, looking around. She sounded nervous. "It has to be here, right? Has anyone seen it?"
     Carlos removed a golden bucket that had fallen on his head and picked up his box from where it was balanced on what looked like an ancient golden sarcophagus. He blew sand form the drive and checked the machine again. "It's still working, but I don't know. It's not beeping anymore. It's like it lost the signal, or something."
     "Well, find it again!" Mal barked.
     "I will, I will...Give me a second, here. You have no idea what sand can do to a motherboard..."
     Meanwhile, Jay was stuffing as much loot as possible into his pockets. This was the answer to his dreams...the stuff he had been longing for...heaven on earth...the Biggest Score of his life, and his father's!
     It was...it was...
     It dawned on him that he knew exactly where they were.
    "The Cave of Wonders!" he cried.
    "Come again?" asked Mal.
    "This is the place—where my father found the lamp."
    "I thought Aladdin found the lamp," said Carlos.
    "Yes, but who sent him there?" asked Jay with a superior smile. "If it wasn't for Jafar, Aladdin would have never found it. Hence it was my fathers lamp all along." He looked annoyed. "But nobody ever mentions that part, do they?"
     "Fine. Cave of Wonders. More like Basement of Sand." Said Mal.
     "I'm going to ask the important question now," Hesper piped up. "How do we get out of here?"
     "You don't," said a deep voice.
     "Excuse me?" said Hesper.
     "I didn't say anything," said Jay, who was now wearing numerous gold chains around his neck and stacking diamond bracelets up his arm.
    "Who was that?" asked Evie nervously. They all looked around. Nobody seemed to be there.
     "It's nothing. Now let's find that door," said Mal.
     "You won't," said the booming voice again. "And you will be trapped here forever if you don't answer me correctly!"
     "Great," Jay groaned.
     "Is this another riddle? This whole fortress is, like booby-trapped or something," Evie grumbled.
     "Multiple defenses—I told you," said Carlos.
     "Cave? Should I call you Cave?" asked Mal.
    "Mouth of Wonders will do," said the voice.
    Evie made a face. "That's a terrible name."
    Mal nodded. "Okay, Mouth, what's the question?"
    The booming voice spoke in a somber tone, "What is the golden rule?"
   "The golden rule?" Mal asked, scratching her head. She looked at her team. "Is that some kind of jewelry thing? Jay?"
    Jay didn't respond, he was much too busy grabbing as much gold as he could, and didn't seem to hear the question.
     Carlos was frantically reciting all the mathematical rules he knew. "Rules of logarithms? Rule of three? Rules expressed in symbols? Order of operations?"
    "Is it maybe something about being nice to each other?" asked Evie tentatively. "Do unto others what you want done unto yourself?"
     In answer, the cave began to fill with sand again. The Mouth of Wonders was not happy, that much was clear. Sand appeared from everywhere, filling the room, filling the spaces between the stacks of coins, rising like water filling a sinking ship. They would soon suffocate if they did not give the Mouth the correct answer.
    Hesper froze, watching the sand pour in. She always imagined drowning in water; never had she pictured sand, not once.
    "It's the Cave of Wonders, not the Fairy Godmother!" shrieked Carlos. "The Cave doesn't care about being kind!"
    The cave continued to fill with sand. Carlos saw Hesper just standing there and called out to her. "Hesper! What are doing? Move!"
     But she didn't move. She was paralyzed. Carlos ran to her side, and the first thing he noticed was how unormaly pale she was; even more then her normal fair complexion. He quickly grabbed her hand, dragging her along with him.
     "Come on—this way!" Mal tried to climb the stacks of gold coins, but they only collapsed beneath her. She kept trying, until Evie gave her a push from behind, so that she was able to grab on to the tall statue of a sphinx.
     She mounted the creature's back and reached to pull Evie up beside her, but the sand was still rising, already engulfing her leg, threatening to keep her down.
     "I can't make it!" Evie shouted.
    "You have to!" Mal yelled back.
    But Evie had disappeared under the flood of sand.
    Jay couldn't believe it when he watched her go under. "Evie—"
    "Come on—" Carlos said, feeling beneath the sand for her. "She has to be down here. Help me find her."
    Hesper gazed down at the spot where Evie had just been with horror.
    "I can't find her," Jay shouted after searching for awhile.
     Evie popped back up, spluttering, spitting coins out of her mouth. Mal, Jay, Hesper, and Carlos looked relived.
    "Here—" Now Mal offered Carlos a hand to pull him up, but the sand was already at his chest.  "C'mon," she cried, "climb the sphinx!"
    "I can't," he said.
     "What?"
    "My leg is caught."
     Evie climbed up on the sphinx and tugged at his arm on one side, and Mal from the other, but no matter what they did Carlos didn't budge an inch.
    "I know!" Hesper cried as an idea popped in her head. "If I can get down a little deeper, then I can get your leg unstuck."
     Carlos looked at her like she had three heads. "What?! No! You can't, it's too dangerous. You might never come up again!"
     "But I might," Hesper replied. That was the last thing she said before disappearing underneath the sand.
     Mal and Evie couldn't even believe their own eyes. As much as they wanted to stop her, they couldn't. Hesper had made her choice.
     Suddenly, Carlos felt it. His leg loosening.
    "Pull now!" He shouted. Mal and Evie pulled as hard as they could. Mal pulled him so hard, that he lost his grip on Evie and she went tumbling into an ever-growing mound of sand.
     The sand covered her: first up to her knees, then her shoulders...
    Carlos reached for her, and the held hands as the sand kept rising.
    "JAY! WHERE'S JAY?" yelled Mal, looking around, coughing up sand as she frantically held Carlos by the arm.
    "JAY!"
     Jay was flailing in the sand; it was in his hair, in his eyes. He was also covered with gold doubloons. He'd never seen so much gold in his life. He had all the gold in the world, it felt like.
     He would die buried in gold...
     The golden rule...
     What is the golden rule?
     Why, he knew the answer to that.
     He could almost hear his father whispering the answer in his ear.
     Meanwhile, Carlos and Evie had disappeared beneath the sand, like Hesper had already been. And Mal herself was about to go under.
     The sand was nearly at the ceiling. Soon there were would be nowhere to escape to—no way to avoid the sand, and no air in the chamber. They were running out of time.
     But Jay knew the answer. Jay knew he could save them.
    "WHOEVER HAS THE MOST GOLD MAKES THE RULES! THAT'S THE GOLDEN RULE!" Jay cried triumphantly.
     There was a great booming chuckle, and the sand slowly started to melt into the drains. Soon, the five of them were standing right back in the fortress, out of the dungeons altogether.
     The Cave of Wonders had disappeared, but then so had all its treasure.

***     Carlos watched Hesper as they continued walking. Like Jay said, she was most definitely an intriguing mystery. He wanted to ask her so badly why she had saved him, when she could have saved herself.

    They were villains after all. And villains weren't supposed to care about anyone else but themselves.

    Right?