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Shish kebab.Now I was in deep cameldung.
Something hissed in my vicinity. Red mist swarmed all around me. The vapor circled me. Terror clogged my throat.Crap.What was that? It seemed to be coming from my bag. Some poisonous vapor or something? Released when I fell on top of my bag? Had the sultan set up booby traps in his cave to ensure a thief never got away with hisloot?
I don’t know why, but all this excited my monkey, and he jumped up and down,clapping.
The guard blinked and wiped his face. Then he licked his lips, as if tasting my death. He yanked my bag off myshoulder.
My stomach sank, along with my hopes of saving Ali. I shuffled across the jagged ground, trying to get back mysatchel.
A cruel laugh echoed in the cavern as the guard scuttled out of the way of mygrasp.
Coldness spread across my body as the guard emptied the contents of my bag. My breath hitched as I laid eyes on the brass lamp covered in glowing letters. Red steam piped out of itsspout.
“That’s a genie lamp,” he snarled, trying to “Give it tome.”
A genie lamp?What planet was he on? My bag contained jewelry and a teapot that was probably loaded with a poisonous bomb that I accidentally setoff.
Genie lamps only existed in the bedtime tales my mother used to tell Ali and me before she left us. Surely, if such a treasure existed, I’d have heard whispers of them or would have been asked to steal one. If what the guard said was true, where was the genie? I didn’t see any bald, fat-bellied, hairy, old man with a moustache leering over me, ready to blink me back home. A thief like me wasn’t lucky enough to find something so rare. Karma had come back to bite me and leave me in deepcrap.
“What lamp?” I panted, wrestling the guard. No way was he stealing my loot. Even if it was laced with dust, poison, or whatever. “This is mydinner.”
“Sure, it is,thief.” The guard reached out with grubby fingers to snatch up the lamp, but the treasure lurched away, as if sucked by an invisible magnet. It disappeared into the blackness…taking with it any hope I had left of ever seeing my brotheragain.
Karim's screams echoed in the cavern as he raced after thelamp.
A cold shock ran down my spine. Way to go. Abandoning me when I needed him themost.
The guard loomed over me. He sized me up with his cold, pebble-sized eyes, like a lion preparing to kill a gazelle. “What did you do to it,witch?”
He stomped at me, and I scrambled backward, hitting the wall of thecave.
“Nothing.” My throat constricted at the notion of being cornered. Every part of me ached, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could continue to try to fight my way out oftrouble.
An idea came to mind, one I thought might distract him and allow me time to escape. “If you want it so badly, why don’t you go look forit?”
A war of choices waged in the guard’s eyes. Duty to apprehend me and take me to the sultan versus claiming the stupid lamp and never having to work another day in his life. In the end, the later apparently won out, and the creep tookoff.
Yes!I stuffed the jewels back inside my bag and staggered in the direction I had entered. My breaths came hard and fast. It hurt to breathe where my chest had struck the lamp. My flesh there felt tender, telling me a great bruise had formed. A trivial matter compared to the life ahead of me now I had mytreasure.
Where the hell was my rope? I scanned the walls, not finding it. Had I taken a wrong turn? Now I might need to climbout.
Gods.What was I going to do about Karim?He better come back soon.I couldn’t leave there without him. But if waiting around for him meant my death, then I had to make a choice. My brother would hate me for abandoning hispet.
Boots thumping on the rock echoed down the tunnel. Firelight illuminated mypath.
“Hamid, where’d you disappear to?” a man calledout.
Crap. Someone was coming. The other guard. Armed with atorch.
My bowels turned towater.
“You’re not stuffing more coins down your pants, are you?” Helaughed.
My gaze landed on an opening in the ceiling thirty feet to my right. I wasn’t going to reach my rope in time, so I had to change my plan. Climbing the wall was going to hurt like hell but had to be done. I shuffled across to theopening.
“Hey, what are you doing in here?” the guardshouted.
Damn it. I’d been spotted. Firelight bounced everywhere as he sprinted towardme.
