The Librarians and the Lost Lamp (25 page)

“You've got to hand it to them,” Flynn said with grudging admiration. “Where better to hide a lamp than in a hoard of lamps?”

Khoja was less amused by the ploy. “I've had enough of puzzles.” He shoved Flynn toward the daunting cornucopia of lamps. “Pick out
the
Lamp, Carsen, and don't try to tell me you can't. You've more than proven that you're up for the job.”

Possibly a mistake on my part,
Flynn thought. “Thanks, I guess.”

This was it. His last chance to deprive the Forty of the Lamp, if his agile brain could make one more leap—and stick the landing.

Taking his time, while sweating profusely beneath his soggy attire, he paced back and forth before the lamps, looking them all over. Polished metal and ceramic glazes gleamed beneath the flickering light of the torches. He started to reach for a simple bowl-shaped lamp to examine it more closely, but guns cocked in protest. Marjanah flashed her knife once more.

“Hands off, Librarian,” she warned. “You even try to rub a lamp and you lose a hand, got it?” She watched him suspiciously. “You can look but not touch.”

“Heard that before,” Flynn muttered, withdrawing his hand. Acutely aware of Marjanah's scrutiny, not to mention her simmering lust for revenge, he contented himself with simply inspecting the lamps visually for the time being. His gaze lingered on a burnished brass lamp of Arabic design that looked just like the magic lamp in the storybooks. Feigning disinterest, he quickly averted his eyes from the lamp and stepped past it, only to spin around abruptly and grab for it.

“Not so fast, Librarian!”

Springing forward like a panther, Marjanah slashed at Flynn's outstretched hands with her knife. He yanked them back barely in time to avoid being nicknamed Stumpy.

“Okay, okay! I got the message!” Flynn retreated from the lamp. “It's all yours.”

“At last!” Khoja shoved past Flynn to claim the brass lamp for himself. He held it up to the light, admiring it, while his minions looked on expectantly. “After centuries of striving, Aladdin's Lamp is in our possession, and with it, the power to reshape the world!”

“One more time,” Flynn attempted. “I wouldn't rub that if I were you.”

“Save your scare tactics for more timid souls.” Khoja gazed greedily at the lamp. His muffled voice rang with triumph. “From this moment on, the Genie—and destiny itself—are ours to command!”

Flynn shrugged. “Don't say I didn't warn you.”

Heedless of the Librarian's advice, Khoja cradled the lamp against his chest and caressed it with his bare right hand. The brass relic responded at once; a preternatural golden glow seemed to light up the lamp from the inside even as thick green smoke billowed from the lamp's upturned nozzle. The smoke had a harsh, unpleasant odor, but Khoja didn't seem to care.

“Yes!” he exulted. “It's working!” He held the smoking lamp out before him. “Arise, Genie, to greet your master!”

“Master
s
,” Marjanah added, gazing raptly at the spectacle. “Plural, you mean.”

For the first time in what felt like hours, all eyes were on the lamp instead of Flynn and Shirin. He sidled up to her and whispered in her ear.

“Wait for it.”

Dark green smoke gushed from the lamp, which grew brighter and brighter by the moment, its golden radiance shifting to a fiery red. Whimpers of pain and discomfort supplanted Khoja's victory speeches. Sweat beaded on his brow. His face contorted behind the scarves concealing his mouth.

“Something's wrong,” he gasped. “It's becoming too hot to handle.”

“Let go of it.” Marjanah held out her hands. “Pass it to me.”

“Never! Not after all I've—”

A scream tore itself from his lungs, cutting off his refusal, as the glow of the lamp escalated from a hellish red to a blinding, white-hot incandescence that blazed like a beacon even through the stifling green smoke fogging the grotto. He shook his arm wildly, trying to fling the blazing lamp away from him, but it was seared to his flesh. His hand started sizzling, and a stomach-turning odor competed with the acrid aroma of the smoke from the lamp.

“It burns!” he shrieked. “It's burning me!”

Marjanah backed away from him, visibly freaked out and uncertain what to do. She held out her knife like a talisman to ward off evil. “Don't just stand there, Badar!” she barked at her final henchman. “Do something!”

“Like what?” The man was equally at a loss, as he stared with a horrified expression on his face. “What do you want me to do, Second of Forty?”

“I don't know, you idiot! Something!”

The disarray among their captors was not lost on Shirin. “This is our chance,” she whispered to Flynn before grabbing a random bronze lamp off a shelf and braining Badar with it. The walloped thief staggered and fell to his knees, clutching his head, as Shirin grabbed Flynn by his arm and started to drag him toward the exit. “Come on, Flynn! Let's get out of here!”

“Just a second,” he said.

Pulling away from her, much to her consternation, he plunged back into the smoke, letting the unearthly glow of the lamp guide him back to the ornate jade lamp, of Chinese extraction, that he had spotted earlier. He snatched the lamp from its shelf and sprinted back to an understandably confused and frantic Shirin. “Flynn!”

“Okay,” he informed her. “
Now
we can go.”

Chaos, along with smoke, continued to fill the cave of lamps. Khoja flailed about wildly, screaming in pain and knocking scores of lamps onto the floor, while Marjanah appeared paralyzed with shock and confusion. A seemingly infinite amount of smoke kept spewing from the lamp, but nothing resembling a genie manifested. Tremors began to shake the grotto, spilling more lamps onto the floor. Metal lamps clattered loudly. Glass and ceramic lamps shattered.

“Help!” Khoja shrieked above the tumult. “Somebody help me!”

He lunged toward Marjanah, who panicked and kicked his legs out from under him, so that he tumbled onto the floor along with the other lamps. Seeing Flynn and Shirin make a break for it, she hesitated momentarily, visibly torn between staying with her leader and pursuing the escapees. Still reeling from the blow to his head, Badar looked to her for guidance.

“Second?”

Marjanah made up her mind. “After them! Don't let them get away!”

So much for honor among thieves,
Flynn thought.
Figures.

He and Shirin dashed out of the grotto into the tunnel beyond them, pursued by Marjanah and Badar as well as by the spreading green smoke. He clutched the jade lamp to his chest as they raced back up the stairs toward the cave of jars. No way was he leaving that behind. Tremors rocked the stone steps.

“I don't understand,” Shirin said. “What's happening?”

“It's a funny thing,” he explained on the run. “The earliest known versions of the Aladdin story have him finding the magic lamp in the exotic, far-off land of
China.
Modern retellings tend to overlook that part since one naturally expects an Arabian Nights story to take place in, well, Arabia, not the Far East, but if you go by the original story, Aladdin's Lamp should be Chinese in appearance. As it happens, the Zhou Dynasty, to which this lamp dates back, was roughly contemporaneous with the reign of King Solomon, who is said to have confined the Djinn in the first place.”

“Right! I should have thought of that.” Shirin stumbled on the shaking steps, almost losing her balance. “And that other lamp, the one Khoja grabbed…?”

“Another booby trap, apparently, which I may have deliberately led Khoja to believe was the genuine article.” He recalled faking a grab for the brass lamp, then flinched at the memory of Khoja's flesh sizzling before their eyes. “To be fair, I warned him not to rub it.”

He held on tightly to the
real
Lamp as the tremors increased in intensity. Dust and debris began to rain down on them, raising the dire possibility of a cave-in, as they scrambled up the steps into the cave of jars. Flynn heard Marjanah and her accomplice chasing after them, shouting in anger as they abandoned Khoja to his fate.

“Run all you want, Librarian!” she shouted. “You're not getting away from me!”

Flynn wasn't sure if she was after the jade lamp or just revenge, but he had no intention of granting her either. Or letting her getting anywhere near Shirin.

Stalactites fell from the ceiling, barely missing Flynn and Shirin. They smashed into the ceramic jars, spilling sesame oil onto the quaking floor. Slipping on the unsteady surface, Shirin tumbled and cried out. Flynn hastily helped her to her feet, only to see her wincing in pain.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“My ankle,” she explained. “I think I twisted it.”

“Can you walk?”

“I think so … maybe.”

Holding onto the Lamp, he threw his other arm around her to help support her weight as they limped awkwardly out of the cave and onto the perilous stone bridge beyond. Shirin's injury slowed them down, decreasing their odds of making it across the bridge before it collapsed—or before Marjanah and Badar caught up with them.

“Forget about me,” she urged him. “Take the Lamp and go.”

“Not going to happen. Librarians always return what they've borrowed.”

They were only halfway across the bridge when Marjanah and Badar emerged from the smoke behind them. She hesitated at the start of the bridge, as though understandably reluctant to venture out onto the narrow span during an earthquake.

“You've gone far enough, Librarian. Bring back that Lamp!”

So she
had
seen him grab the jade lamp on his way out. All the more reason, Flynn reasoned, to get away from her and her hulking henchman if they still could.

“How about we discuss this outside,” he shouted, “before this whole place caves in?”

A huge stalactite fell past the bridge, plummeting into the chasm. Bits and pieces of the bridge began to break away, following the stalactite into the bottomless dark. Marjanah stared at the crumbling structure before nodding.

“Point taken, Librarian.”

Along with Badar, she hurried onto the bridge as quickly as she could under the circumstances. Before she could reach Flynn and Shirin, however, an anguished wail froze her in her tracks.

“Marjanah!”

Incredibly, Khoja staggered out of the cave of jars, the decoy lamp still welded to his palm. His facecloth had come loose, but the swirling green smoke obscured his features nonetheless. Flynn was amazed that the man was still on his feet, let alone that he had managed to come this far on his own. Khoja dropped to his knees in the entrance to the grotto.

“Help me, Marjanah! Don't leave me!”

Her gaze swung back and forth between Khoja and Flynn. Cracks snaked across the pathway ahead of her. Another chunk of bridge plunged into the abyss.

“Second?” Badar asked anxiously.

Her face hardened as she turned her back on her former leader.

“Call me the First.”

The bridge gave way between them and Flynn, creating a four-foot gap between the Forty and their prey. The whole structure tottered on the brink of collapse.

“Jump!” she shouted at Badar. “Jump for your life!”

“NOOO!” Khoja shouted. “Don't you dare leave—!”

Flynn didn't wait to see if the remaining thieves made the leap. Half dragging, half supporting Shirin, he stumbled across what was left of the bridge and down the tunnel onto the ledge outside, where he feared the hungry roc would still be waiting.

Out of the frying pan … into a bird's gullet?

It was still light outside. Compared to the smoky, torchlit gloom of the caverns, the afternoon sun was almost as bright as the infernal glow of the brass lamp. Blinking at the glare, Flynn dared to hope that the roc had been scared away by the tremors shaking the mountain, but then an ominous shadow fell over the ledge, blotting out the sun, and Flynn looked up to see the roc circling high overhead. Earthquake or not, he doubted the winged monster would let him and Shirin make it back down the side of the mountain without being attacked.

And neither would their human foes.

Any hope that Marjanah and her henchman had been left behind at the bridge was dashed when the last two thieves scurried out of the mountain onto the ledge, only seconds before the tunnel entrance collapsed behind them in a rumble of falling rock. Dusty, disheveled, and out of breath, Marjanah was looking less than her best, but Flynn saw with alarm that she'd managed to hang onto her knife through all her travails, and that her murderous gaze looked just as scary as ever.

Badar didn't look too happy, either. Meaty fingers massaged his skull where Shirin had clobbered him. His other hand gripped a gun.

“Hand over the Lamp,” Marjanah ordered, brandishing her favorite weapon. “And maybe I'll only feed one of you to the bird.”

As the roc swooped down from the heights, Flynn swiftly assessed the situation, which struck him as the worst story problem ever. Between the roc, the bloodthirsty thieves, and Shirin's twisted ankle, making a successful run for it was about as unlikely as Charlene forgetting to inquire about his receipts, which meant that the only option left to him was the one thing he had been emphatically warned
never
to do.

“Sorry, Judson.”

Despite his mentor's warning, Flynn rubbed the Lamp.

“No!” Marjanah cried out. “Don't!”

The roc squawked in alarm as well.

Too late,
Flynn thought.
I'm letting this genie out of the bottle.

A plume of luminous azure smoke, which literally shimmered with its own coruscating radiance, erupted from the Lamp's spout, climbing high above their heads. Cawing in fright, the roc aborted its deadly swoop and flapped away from the rising column of smoke as fast as its enormous wings would carry it.