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grondficLast year, I kinda imported The Chronicles of Guy of Gisburne from my arthurrat LJ site, for reasons explained here -
https://grondfic.dreamwidth.org/34000.html
The link also includes an episode from the Chronicles that is set in Outremer. I'm now continuing this storyline with a new episode, wherein Guy entertains a rather unusual guest in Nasir's absence.
THE BADROULBADOUR OPTION
I couldn’t remember this lamp. There it sat in an obscure niche in the pierced stonework that separated our sleeping quarters from the living space, reproaching me with its shabbiness.
I’d filled every possible surface of our living quarters with lamps. Translucent alabaster glowed in mellow pearlescence; latticed metal wrought into fantastic shapes broke golden light into shimmering columns; facetted panes of real glass refracted jewel-bright colours. I loved them all, and added to the collection each time we visited Acre. My extravagance raised an occasional eyebrow from Nasir, but since it was my own allowance that I was squandering, he never made any verbal comment.
I stared at the little lamp in puzzlement. It didn’t even have a proper flame-guard; merely a tear-drop-shaped body in dulled and unpolished metal, the wick poking out of a spout at one end. I would never willingly have spent money on it. I might be a spendthrift; but I’d learned the value of things over ten hard years as steward to the Sheriff of Nottingham.
I found myself wondering what the dismal-hued metal of the lamp might be. In Nottingham I’d have classed it as pewter or even lead, and thrown it at the head of the nearest servant. Taking a cleaning rag from the small-arms chest in the corner, I spat into it and began to clear one side of the lamp.
The damn thing wouldn’t take a shine. I rubbed harder, cursing, in stubborn determination to make the thing conform to my will. I had an insane urge to take it down into the stableyard below, and flog it into submission.
“Ai! Ai! Enough! I’m coming!”
The lamp vibrated violently with a booming voice. I grasped it firmly, but it appeared to wriggle out of my clutch. It landed on the expensive Persian carpet that was Nasir’s particular favourite and proceeded to disgorge its translucent golden oil in an irregular-shaped spill.
“Shit! Now look what you’ve made me do!” I was so angry that I spoke to it as I would to a defaulting guard.
“Well, but you rubbed loud enough to wake the dead,” replied the oil-slick defensively as it rose up before me into an attenuated, vaguely human-form column. It coughed suddenly, “Hrrm. What is your desire, oh Master?” it added, opening an astonishing pair of ice-emerald eyes somewhere near its top.
“What?” I asked blankly.
“Oh, Allah preserve us! Another idiot! Listen, boy, do you know who I am? Never heard of the Genie of the Lamp, I suppose?”
“Genie? Like the desert Djinns, you mean?”
“Poor relations,” replied the golden column loftily, “fit only to raise the odd sandstorm, and keep the camels remembering the Hundredth Name of God. Now I ... I am of a different order. Gift-bringer, wish-fulfiller, happily-ever-after-granter; I am subject only to the Master of the Lamp. Which,” it sniffed “is you just now. How did you come by me, may I ask?”
“I wish I knew.” I replied, sinking down onto Nasir’s divan, “You just turned up in my collection.” I gestured round the room.
The Genie swivelled its eyes completely around the top of its column and gave another mighty sniff.
“Trashy!” it pronounced ineffably.
I sweated my temper as Nasir had taught me to do in a fight. After all, I loved each and every one of those lamps!
“But having a certain air of naive sincerity, don’t you think?” I offered sarcastically.
The golden column snorted, causing it to quiver all down its length.
“I could get you a lantern panelled in diamonds of unexampled purity; or an open lamp in rose-alabaster carved in the shape of a woman’s supplicating hands, the models for which were cut from the wrists of Jamshid’s chief concubine after she was surprised in bed with her chief eunuch.”
“What?” I said unbelievingly.
“Heh! You’d be surprised at the skills of some of those eunuchs,” cackled the column.
“The hands sound like fun,” I conceded, “Alright,” I resolved to test the thing’s boast, “get me that!”
“Your wish,” it mumbled, as it reabsorbed itself into the spout of the lamp, “is my coo - mm - aand. Oh Master.” it concluded, popping out again.
This time it had acquired appendages which grasped at their tips a pair of alabaster hands, raised like a double lotus in open supplication. A soft light emanated from between them. The total effect was unnerving in the extreme.
“Could you please take on a more decent form?” I asked with some asperity.
“This is a decent form,” it replied huffily, “But, Iblis take it, I’ll pander to your limited human prejudices. Your wish is, after all, my command. Hmm. Let’s see ..... “
It focussed its eyes on me, then looked straight into me. I felt the gaze penetrate like a sword and gave a shout of protest.
“Calm down,” said its voice, now echoing inside my skull, “Heh, heh, let’s try this one.”
It spun like a viscous dust-devil, waving its rapidly-solidifying arms, kicking out the odd leg, and setting a face around its unchanging eyes.
Movement ceased gradually, and I found myself staring into the chunky, manic features of Will Scarlet, who held the alabaster lamp high over his head, and enquired -
“Which hand’s your favourite, the right or the left?”
“No!” I exploded.
“Oh, have it your way,” Will gave an uncharacteristic pout and began to deliquesce. “What a lot of enemies you have,” it went on as it whirled, “Maybe safer ... “ the voice went suddenly from gluey to bell-toned soprano, “to settle for the Badroulbadour Option. It’ll save time later, too. Now don’t start saying “what?” again. I’ll explain, oh my ignorant Master. You’ve never heard of Ala’al Din, I take it?”
“No.”
“Well, he was the first human to gain mastery of the lamp. Badroulbadour was his princess. He set the pattern for all the others in what he asked me for. First of all, he tested my claims with a silly request.”
The being had acquired a different mouth now, which smiled enchantingly, the hands holding out the alabaster lamp to me.
“Just like you did,” it said gently.
“You manoeuvred me into that!” I protested.
“Nowadays I like to get the preliminaries through quickly. Next, you ask for immeasurable wealth,” it paused expectantly, taking the opportunity to refashion its arms and legs.
“No point in wealth unless you can measure it - particularly against other people,” I replied, “But let me think about that one. Whilst I do, can you get me a goblet of iced rose-water, a plate of stuffed dates, and - ah yes - a genuine Sherwood pork sausage?”
“Not fair!” pouted the Genie, “You’ve jumped onto the second request already,” it paused, and then added with extreme distaste, “Are you quite sure about the sausage?”
“Of course. Here in Outremer pork’s the one thing I can’t have. It would outrage Nasir, so get to it fast, will you? Oh - yes - “ I recalled something about being precise in what one wished for, “Make sure it’s well cooked before you bring it here.”
Whilst the Genie disappeared back into its lamp, I had time to think about other requests that most men would make. And one or two private heart’s-desires that I’d experienced during my years in Nottingham.
It reappeared soon enough bearing a covered tray. It had now finalised its - her - new form. I admired it covertly. It was a great improvement on the Scarlet Option.
“Is this the form of .. who did you say? - Badroulbadour?” I asked, mouth full of sausage.
“I’m your Badroulbadour,” she replied enigmatically.
I gazed at her over the rim of the jewel-encrusted goblet she’d supplied with the rose-water.
“I’ve never seen anyone like you before,” I told her truthfully.
“Look again, oh Master!” she suggested.
I did so with no reluctance at all. She was built petite with high, tiny breasts, slender hands and feet, pale luminous skin faintly flushed from within, and a fine cloud of frosted-gilt hair. The eyes of silver-green were the Genie’s, unchanged in the piquant, heart-shaped face.
“Well?” she parted pale-coral lips to show a healthy set of teeth in another enchanting smile.
She was right. I’d seen those eyes and teeth before. I slapped the goblet down on the low table beside the divan, leaned forward and took her chin in my fingers, raising her face to mine.
“Fenris!” I said unbelievingly, “You’re my wolf in human shape.”
“Correct, oh Master. Now - have you thought any more about wealth, or do we move on to Request number three?”
“Oh,” I said, firming my grip on her chin as she moved to pull back, “I think I’ll jump several requests, which will probably involve the fifty most beautiful women in the world; and a different concubine for each day of the year. After all - let’s be reasonable about this. I’m partnered by an ex-assassin with a possessive temperament and unpredictable reactions. I can’t help feeling he might .. er ... notice if there was a different woman in my bed every night.”
“So? You return to Request three, only instead of installing your aged Mother in a sumptuous palace of her own, some distance from yours, you install your assassin. Then you proceed to Requests four and five in the usual way.”
This made me roar with laughter, and the Genie took the opportunity of removing herself from within the range of my arm.
“Hey! Come back here!” I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and regarded her rather reserved expression, “Or do you want me to rephrase that as a wish?” I concluded softly.
“Be very sure what you wish for.”
“Oh, I’m an expert at that. I’ve always had very precise wishes all my life. As I child my dearest wish - apart from wanting my father to stop what he was doing to me - was to be as great a knight as William Marshall. Once I found out that my mother’s man wasn’t in fact my father, I wished that Marshall was. And later, I desperately wished I’d been the man to bring Loxley down. Even now, sometimes, I have the odd desire to dismember Will Scarlet - although please don’t mention that to Nasir if ever you meet him.”
“And what did you wish when you found out who your father was?”
“Oh, what you’d expect - to be the legitimate heir. Could you arrange that for me even now?”
“I could, of course.”
I thought deeply about this. Perhaps later - when I’d made my fortune here in Outremer. But then - I could wish for immeasurable wealth anytime I wanted it. Networks of wishes were complicated, I discovered. Best keep it simple.
“I’ve decided.” I announced. “I want you to fill my empty goblet to the brim with sapphires. Then get a jar of iced sherbet and two more goblets. And after we’ve had some - once you’ve ensured that Nasir gets a little delayed in his return (nothing dangerous, mind) - I very much desire to go to bed with you, oh Badroulbadour, or Fenris, or whatever name you choose.”
“Be very sure ... “
“What happened to `my wish is your command’?” I interrupted irritably.
“Alright, alright. Let me do the sapphires, and then I’ll explain about matings between your kind and mine.”
She snapped her fingers, and to my utter delight a flashing cascade of precious stones arched from her fingertips and rattled into the goblet.
“Do that again!” I ordered as the last one settled.
She gave me a quick sideways glance, and shifted position. I saw why a moment later. As the stones skipped back from the goblet to her cupped hands, they now passed through the beam from the alabaster lamp. She carefully flicked her fingers a second time, and they returned in slow-motion to the goblet, one by one, each turning and twisting over the light-beam like a mote in sunlight. I watched their dance, enthralled.
“Oh, I wish I could do that!” I exclaimed unguardedly.
“As you command. Telekinesis.”
“What?”
“The ability to lift and move objects by thought alone,” she replied with a withering look, “You can use it for more important things than childish play.”
“If you were really my Wolf,” I replied, hurt, “You’d know that it was you yourself who taught me to play, in the snowfields when you claimed me.”
She looked at me for a long moment from her wolf’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said unexpectedly, “Who am I, the least of Allah’s servants, to judge a child of God? And I’m not,” she added hastily, “Venturing on which god.”
I hesitated, unsure how to proceed. The fact was, I’d reminded myself that this was a formless being, and not in truth my Wolf in girl’s clothing.
She stepped lightly into my indecision, placing slim fingers on my temples. I felt something shift in my head, and knew she’d granted my incautious wish to make diamonds dance. Even under Nasir’s disciplined tutelage, I’d never managed to rid myself of the habit of acting before thinking. So I carefully didn’t think as I caught her by the waist and pulled her down across me.
Mercifully she came willingly, and I was not treated to any explanation after all. I had enough confusion in my life, between partnering Nasir and running with the wolves each full-moon.
If this really were the human form of my own wolf-guide, then what else would one do but mate with it - especially since the human form was exquisite. Blissfully I realised that I really had no choice in the matter, and settled to the task in hand with a philosophical resignation worthy of Nasir himself.
* * * *
When I next awoke it was dusk, and only one lamp was lit in the room. I stared blearily at the flame, aware for the moment only of my dishevelled state and Nasir’s continued absence. I got up clumsily, barking my shins on the low table and sending a cascade of spillage from an overturning goblet.
Shit! I’d been dreaming. There was something about a lamp and a girl. Will Scarlet had featured too - how did he get in there? I groaned. A black cloud hovered behind my eyes, and there was an extremely nasty taste in my mouth. Maybe Nasir - or someone - had been right about pork sausages...
The door opened silently and Nasir slipped in, a shadow from the shadows. His tracker’s eye took in the state of the room - the stain on the carpet; the unlit and disarranged lamps, the goblet on the table overturned and disgorging sapphires onto the floor. Then he looked at me and showed his teeth in a rare smile.
“I observe,” he said “That you found the Lamp.”
arthurrat LJ site, for reasons explained here -https://grondfic.dreamwidth.org/34000.html
The link also includes an episode from the Chronicles that is set in Outremer. I'm now continuing this storyline with a new episode, wherein Guy entertains a rather unusual guest in Nasir's absence.
THE BADROULBADOUR OPTION
I couldn’t remember this lamp. There it sat in an obscure niche in the pierced stonework that separated our sleeping quarters from the living space, reproaching me with its shabbiness.
I’d filled every possible surface of our living quarters with lamps. Translucent alabaster glowed in mellow pearlescence; latticed metal wrought into fantastic shapes broke golden light into shimmering columns; facetted panes of real glass refracted jewel-bright colours. I loved them all, and added to the collection each time we visited Acre. My extravagance raised an occasional eyebrow from Nasir, but since it was my own allowance that I was squandering, he never made any verbal comment.
I stared at the little lamp in puzzlement. It didn’t even have a proper flame-guard; merely a tear-drop-shaped body in dulled and unpolished metal, the wick poking out of a spout at one end. I would never willingly have spent money on it. I might be a spendthrift; but I’d learned the value of things over ten hard years as steward to the Sheriff of Nottingham.
I found myself wondering what the dismal-hued metal of the lamp might be. In Nottingham I’d have classed it as pewter or even lead, and thrown it at the head of the nearest servant. Taking a cleaning rag from the small-arms chest in the corner, I spat into it and began to clear one side of the lamp.
The damn thing wouldn’t take a shine. I rubbed harder, cursing, in stubborn determination to make the thing conform to my will. I had an insane urge to take it down into the stableyard below, and flog it into submission.
“Ai! Ai! Enough! I’m coming!”
The lamp vibrated violently with a booming voice. I grasped it firmly, but it appeared to wriggle out of my clutch. It landed on the expensive Persian carpet that was Nasir’s particular favourite and proceeded to disgorge its translucent golden oil in an irregular-shaped spill.
“Shit! Now look what you’ve made me do!” I was so angry that I spoke to it as I would to a defaulting guard.
“Well, but you rubbed loud enough to wake the dead,” replied the oil-slick defensively as it rose up before me into an attenuated, vaguely human-form column. It coughed suddenly, “Hrrm. What is your desire, oh Master?” it added, opening an astonishing pair of ice-emerald eyes somewhere near its top.
“What?” I asked blankly.
“Oh, Allah preserve us! Another idiot! Listen, boy, do you know who I am? Never heard of the Genie of the Lamp, I suppose?”
“Genie? Like the desert Djinns, you mean?”
“Poor relations,” replied the golden column loftily, “fit only to raise the odd sandstorm, and keep the camels remembering the Hundredth Name of God. Now I ... I am of a different order. Gift-bringer, wish-fulfiller, happily-ever-after-granter; I am subject only to the Master of the Lamp. Which,” it sniffed “is you just now. How did you come by me, may I ask?”
“I wish I knew.” I replied, sinking down onto Nasir’s divan, “You just turned up in my collection.” I gestured round the room.
The Genie swivelled its eyes completely around the top of its column and gave another mighty sniff.
“Trashy!” it pronounced ineffably.
I sweated my temper as Nasir had taught me to do in a fight. After all, I loved each and every one of those lamps!
“But having a certain air of naive sincerity, don’t you think?” I offered sarcastically.
The golden column snorted, causing it to quiver all down its length.
“I could get you a lantern panelled in diamonds of unexampled purity; or an open lamp in rose-alabaster carved in the shape of a woman’s supplicating hands, the models for which were cut from the wrists of Jamshid’s chief concubine after she was surprised in bed with her chief eunuch.”
“What?” I said unbelievingly.
“Heh! You’d be surprised at the skills of some of those eunuchs,” cackled the column.
“The hands sound like fun,” I conceded, “Alright,” I resolved to test the thing’s boast, “get me that!”
“Your wish,” it mumbled, as it reabsorbed itself into the spout of the lamp, “is my coo - mm - aand. Oh Master.” it concluded, popping out again.
This time it had acquired appendages which grasped at their tips a pair of alabaster hands, raised like a double lotus in open supplication. A soft light emanated from between them. The total effect was unnerving in the extreme.
“Could you please take on a more decent form?” I asked with some asperity.
“This is a decent form,” it replied huffily, “But, Iblis take it, I’ll pander to your limited human prejudices. Your wish is, after all, my command. Hmm. Let’s see ..... “
It focussed its eyes on me, then looked straight into me. I felt the gaze penetrate like a sword and gave a shout of protest.
“Calm down,” said its voice, now echoing inside my skull, “Heh, heh, let’s try this one.”
It spun like a viscous dust-devil, waving its rapidly-solidifying arms, kicking out the odd leg, and setting a face around its unchanging eyes.
Movement ceased gradually, and I found myself staring into the chunky, manic features of Will Scarlet, who held the alabaster lamp high over his head, and enquired -
“Which hand’s your favourite, the right or the left?”
“No!” I exploded.
“Oh, have it your way,” Will gave an uncharacteristic pout and began to deliquesce. “What a lot of enemies you have,” it went on as it whirled, “Maybe safer ... “ the voice went suddenly from gluey to bell-toned soprano, “to settle for the Badroulbadour Option. It’ll save time later, too. Now don’t start saying “what?” again. I’ll explain, oh my ignorant Master. You’ve never heard of Ala’al Din, I take it?”
“No.”
“Well, he was the first human to gain mastery of the lamp. Badroulbadour was his princess. He set the pattern for all the others in what he asked me for. First of all, he tested my claims with a silly request.”
The being had acquired a different mouth now, which smiled enchantingly, the hands holding out the alabaster lamp to me.
“Just like you did,” it said gently.
“You manoeuvred me into that!” I protested.
“Nowadays I like to get the preliminaries through quickly. Next, you ask for immeasurable wealth,” it paused expectantly, taking the opportunity to refashion its arms and legs.
“No point in wealth unless you can measure it - particularly against other people,” I replied, “But let me think about that one. Whilst I do, can you get me a goblet of iced rose-water, a plate of stuffed dates, and - ah yes - a genuine Sherwood pork sausage?”
“Not fair!” pouted the Genie, “You’ve jumped onto the second request already,” it paused, and then added with extreme distaste, “Are you quite sure about the sausage?”
“Of course. Here in Outremer pork’s the one thing I can’t have. It would outrage Nasir, so get to it fast, will you? Oh - yes - “ I recalled something about being precise in what one wished for, “Make sure it’s well cooked before you bring it here.”
Whilst the Genie disappeared back into its lamp, I had time to think about other requests that most men would make. And one or two private heart’s-desires that I’d experienced during my years in Nottingham.
It reappeared soon enough bearing a covered tray. It had now finalised its - her - new form. I admired it covertly. It was a great improvement on the Scarlet Option.
“Is this the form of .. who did you say? - Badroulbadour?” I asked, mouth full of sausage.
“I’m your Badroulbadour,” she replied enigmatically.
I gazed at her over the rim of the jewel-encrusted goblet she’d supplied with the rose-water.
“I’ve never seen anyone like you before,” I told her truthfully.
“Look again, oh Master!” she suggested.
I did so with no reluctance at all. She was built petite with high, tiny breasts, slender hands and feet, pale luminous skin faintly flushed from within, and a fine cloud of frosted-gilt hair. The eyes of silver-green were the Genie’s, unchanged in the piquant, heart-shaped face.
“Well?” she parted pale-coral lips to show a healthy set of teeth in another enchanting smile.
She was right. I’d seen those eyes and teeth before. I slapped the goblet down on the low table beside the divan, leaned forward and took her chin in my fingers, raising her face to mine.
“Fenris!” I said unbelievingly, “You’re my wolf in human shape.”
“Correct, oh Master. Now - have you thought any more about wealth, or do we move on to Request number three?”
“Oh,” I said, firming my grip on her chin as she moved to pull back, “I think I’ll jump several requests, which will probably involve the fifty most beautiful women in the world; and a different concubine for each day of the year. After all - let’s be reasonable about this. I’m partnered by an ex-assassin with a possessive temperament and unpredictable reactions. I can’t help feeling he might .. er ... notice if there was a different woman in my bed every night.”
“So? You return to Request three, only instead of installing your aged Mother in a sumptuous palace of her own, some distance from yours, you install your assassin. Then you proceed to Requests four and five in the usual way.”
This made me roar with laughter, and the Genie took the opportunity of removing herself from within the range of my arm.
“Hey! Come back here!” I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and regarded her rather reserved expression, “Or do you want me to rephrase that as a wish?” I concluded softly.
“Be very sure what you wish for.”
“Oh, I’m an expert at that. I’ve always had very precise wishes all my life. As I child my dearest wish - apart from wanting my father to stop what he was doing to me - was to be as great a knight as William Marshall. Once I found out that my mother’s man wasn’t in fact my father, I wished that Marshall was. And later, I desperately wished I’d been the man to bring Loxley down. Even now, sometimes, I have the odd desire to dismember Will Scarlet - although please don’t mention that to Nasir if ever you meet him.”
“And what did you wish when you found out who your father was?”
“Oh, what you’d expect - to be the legitimate heir. Could you arrange that for me even now?”
“I could, of course.”
I thought deeply about this. Perhaps later - when I’d made my fortune here in Outremer. But then - I could wish for immeasurable wealth anytime I wanted it. Networks of wishes were complicated, I discovered. Best keep it simple.
“I’ve decided.” I announced. “I want you to fill my empty goblet to the brim with sapphires. Then get a jar of iced sherbet and two more goblets. And after we’ve had some - once you’ve ensured that Nasir gets a little delayed in his return (nothing dangerous, mind) - I very much desire to go to bed with you, oh Badroulbadour, or Fenris, or whatever name you choose.”
“Be very sure ... “
“What happened to `my wish is your command’?” I interrupted irritably.
“Alright, alright. Let me do the sapphires, and then I’ll explain about matings between your kind and mine.”
She snapped her fingers, and to my utter delight a flashing cascade of precious stones arched from her fingertips and rattled into the goblet.
“Do that again!” I ordered as the last one settled.
She gave me a quick sideways glance, and shifted position. I saw why a moment later. As the stones skipped back from the goblet to her cupped hands, they now passed through the beam from the alabaster lamp. She carefully flicked her fingers a second time, and they returned in slow-motion to the goblet, one by one, each turning and twisting over the light-beam like a mote in sunlight. I watched their dance, enthralled.
“Oh, I wish I could do that!” I exclaimed unguardedly.
“As you command. Telekinesis.”
“What?”
“The ability to lift and move objects by thought alone,” she replied with a withering look, “You can use it for more important things than childish play.”
“If you were really my Wolf,” I replied, hurt, “You’d know that it was you yourself who taught me to play, in the snowfields when you claimed me.”
She looked at me for a long moment from her wolf’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said unexpectedly, “Who am I, the least of Allah’s servants, to judge a child of God? And I’m not,” she added hastily, “Venturing on which god.”
I hesitated, unsure how to proceed. The fact was, I’d reminded myself that this was a formless being, and not in truth my Wolf in girl’s clothing.
She stepped lightly into my indecision, placing slim fingers on my temples. I felt something shift in my head, and knew she’d granted my incautious wish to make diamonds dance. Even under Nasir’s disciplined tutelage, I’d never managed to rid myself of the habit of acting before thinking. So I carefully didn’t think as I caught her by the waist and pulled her down across me.
Mercifully she came willingly, and I was not treated to any explanation after all. I had enough confusion in my life, between partnering Nasir and running with the wolves each full-moon.
If this really were the human form of my own wolf-guide, then what else would one do but mate with it - especially since the human form was exquisite. Blissfully I realised that I really had no choice in the matter, and settled to the task in hand with a philosophical resignation worthy of Nasir himself.
* * * *
When I next awoke it was dusk, and only one lamp was lit in the room. I stared blearily at the flame, aware for the moment only of my dishevelled state and Nasir’s continued absence. I got up clumsily, barking my shins on the low table and sending a cascade of spillage from an overturning goblet.
Shit! I’d been dreaming. There was something about a lamp and a girl. Will Scarlet had featured too - how did he get in there? I groaned. A black cloud hovered behind my eyes, and there was an extremely nasty taste in my mouth. Maybe Nasir - or someone - had been right about pork sausages...
The door opened silently and Nasir slipped in, a shadow from the shadows. His tracker’s eye took in the state of the room - the stain on the carpet; the unlit and disarranged lamps, the goblet on the table overturned and disgorging sapphires onto the floor. Then he looked at me and showed his teeth in a rare smile.
“I observe,” he said “That you found the Lamp.”
