More passages, more rooms, more torches, and more doors that opened at his request. Aladdin knew he descended deeper into the earth at each step, but he'd seen no sign of treasure, lamps or otherwise.
If he wanted to hide a pile of untouchable gold in this maze of a city, where would he put it? Aladdin considered this for a moment, before he had his answer. He'd put it either in the very centre of the city, or in the furthest depths from the entrance. Whichever was easier to defend if the city were attacked.
Aladdin laughed, the sound echoing through the empty tunnels. What would he know about defending or attacking a city? He should be safely home in his. All he had to do was find the benighted lamp, hand it to the madman outside, and he could go home.
Deeper he went, taking the tunnels that led down until he could go no further, for his way was barred by a bigger door than any he'd seen yet. This was the one, he was certain of it.
"Open, please," he breathed.
The door rolled open. Aladdin took a deep breath and thrust his torch inside.
At first, it didn't look too different from the store rooms he'd passed, with dusty casks, boxes and sacks piled up on either side of a narrow aisle. But something glowed at the end, as though he'd arrived at the surface and not the depths of the city.
Aladdin crept forward, suddenly glad he was so thin, for a bigger man wouldn't have fitted so easily between the chests piled up to the ceiling. The hem of his tunic dragged along the top of a chest, revealing costly polished wood under the dust. This was the treasury, all right. What had Gwandoya told him to watch out for? Not to touch the gold, or let his clothing touch it. Pulling his tunic tight around him, Aladdin proceeded forward into...the light.
The second chamber didn't look any different from the first, at first, for whoever owned the contents of this place preferred to keep it safely locked in chests, instead of piled up all over the floor, as Aladdin might have expected. Someone with countless wealth would surely be careless with their coins. But the first glimpse he got of gold was in a chest that someone had pried open so roughly it no longer closed. Bugra would not have had the strength to do this – and nor did Aladdin. How many men had Gwandoya brought here? And why had they all failed?
Aladdin rounded the corner and found his answer. A lit lamp sat in an alcove on the wall, so blackened from use it was hard to tell it was brass. But the flame was as bright as ever, illuminating a chest full of riches that surely belonged to a king or a sultan. Gold jewellery snaked around a collection of gold lamps, so shiny they hurt his eyes. Aladdin squinted, and looked again. The chest was not full – it was barely half full, and some rings and a necklace lay on the ground in front of it, as if dropped by someone in a hurry to cram as much treasure as they could into a sack to take with them.
Automatically, Aladdin stooped to return the treasures to their chest.
"I thought you were brighter than the others," a strange voice said.
Aladdin jerked upright. "Who said that?"
A blue glow appeared on Aladdin's right, atop a barrel. The light grew until it took the shape of a man. A man who was as lanky as Aladdin himself, though his clothes were far finer than anything Aladdin owned. "That would be me," the bluish man drawled, snapping his fingers. The blue light vanished, leaving the magic man looking as normal as Aladdin, or as normal as any man who hadn't appeared from a ball of light.
"Who are you?"
The man bent double without rising from the barrel. "Kaveh, servant of the ring you wear on your finger." He nodded at Aladdin's hand. "And you?
"Aladdin." He didn't know what else to say. Unemployed street rat? Minion to the madman outside? Son of a spinner? His heart lurched at the thought of what would happen to his mother if he died here. It would break her heart. "I need to grab that lamp and get it out of here." He reached for the alcove.
Kaveh whistled. "So you are brighter than the others. You're the first one who went for the right lamp."
Aladdin's hand closed around it, a moment before he realised that a lit lamp would be hot to the touch. To his surprise, the metal was as cold as the stone underfoot. "Must be magic," he muttered.
"Sure is. Why do you think that madman wants it so much?"
Aladdin hefted the lamp in his hand. It was such a small thing – his mother had two such at home, both in much better state than this. "What does it do?"
Kaveh grinned. "Give it a rub and find out."
Aladdin almost obeyed, then stopped himself. Something had killed the other men Gwandoya had sent here. He'd survived this long, but who knew what Kaveh's motives were? Perhaps he'd killed them, or tricked them into doing something that had.
"No," Aladdin said. "I have a job to do. I must fetch this lamp from the city and bring it back to Gwandoya. Then I get paid." Not enough to let him see Maram again, though, Aladdin realised with a sinking heart. A man who ate bugs wouldn't have a princess's bride price to spare. Why hadn't Aladdin thought of that before?
"The only repayment he'll give you is a slit throat. He can't risk you telling anyone what you found in here," Kaveh said, as though reading Aladdin's thoughts.
Aladdin sank onto a chest, his head in his hands. "What will I do? I have to get home. I need that money." Funny, Gwandoya had never mentioned just how much Aladdin's payment would be. Now he knew why.
"In debt, are you?"
Aladdin shook his head. "Who would lend money to someone like me? Even I know I'll never be able to repay them. No, it's...there's this girl..."
Kaveh's eyes lit up with an unearthly glow. "A girl? Is she as glorious as the moon?"
Aladdin's mind cast up a vision of Maram bathing naked in the bathhouse. The image from his dreams. "The moon herself would weep to see her, she is so beautiful."
"So you want a gift to win her affections?"
Aladdin laughed. "I would need a whole kingdom before I had a chance of that. She's the Sultan's daughter, you see, and I am no prince."
Kaveh nodded thoughtfully. "So you need a gift fit for a princess. You know, I think I can help you."
Help never came for free. "What will you want in return?" Aladdin asked.
"Don't give the madman back his ring, and I'll show you the perfect thing to win your princess's heart, and her father's, too."
Aladdin stared at Kaveh for a moment. "What do you want me to do with the ring?"
Kaveh shrugged. "Keep it. I'd like to meet this princess of yours."
"She's not mine, and she never will be," Aladdin said steadily.
Kaveh grinned. "Never say never. Women fall in love with their heart's desire, not with whoever their father wants them to marry."
Aladdin didn't bother arguing this time. Judging by his clothes, Kaveh was highborn, maybe even as highborn as Maram herself. He had no idea what it was not to be able to remember when he'd last eaten – or wonder when he might eat again.
"We'd better get this lamp up to the surface. I said I would, and my word is all I have left." Aladdin rose.
"You're a fool," Kaveh said.