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“Shut up,” Evie said tensely. They had all seen the same thing, which couldn’t be good. That was probably why nobody wanted to talk about it.
The four of them walked inside. The room was impossibly dark. There was not even a hint of light, not a glow from a distant window or a torch. Jay reached out, looking for a wall, something to touch.
“Maybe we should find a flashlight or something in Jay’s pockets, before we touch any—” Carlos warned, but it was too late.
Jay struck something with his hand, and the room was suddenly filled with the deafening sounds of metal and stone colliding and grinding and tinkling all around them.
And just as suddenly, 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, sand everywhere…and they were falling into it, covered in it.
Evie screamed. Mal started to thrash. Carlos lost hold of his box. Only Jay stood perfectly still.
It wasn’t a dungeon, it was a cave.
A cave filled with sand…and, from what Jay could barely make out amid the massive dunes now surrounding him…treasure.
He looked around at the king’s ransom of jewels that glittered in between the dunes. Mound upon mound of gold coins shimmered in the distance, while hills of gold coins stretched as far as the eye could see. There were crowns and coronets, jeweled scepters and goblets, emeralds the size of his 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.
A king’s ransom, he thought. That’s what this is.
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, as she spat out some sand and blew her purple bangs out of her eyes. She stood up, brushing sand off her leather jacket. “More residue from the hole in the dome?” she asked.
Carlos nodded. “It has to be. There’s no other explanation.”
“Wait a minute, where’s the scepter?” she 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 from 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 every pocket he had with as much of the marvelous loot as he could carry.
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 father’s lamp all along.” He looked annoyed. “But nobody ever mentions that part, do they? And my dad said he thought there might be other things hidden in the mist—he must have suspected this might be here too.”
“Fine. Cave of Wonders. More like Basement of Sand,” said Mal. “More important, how do we get out of here?”
“You don’t,” said a deep voice.
“Excuse me?” said Mal.
