Which, according to Judson, would be a very bad thing.
“SPEAK!” the Genie exhorted Flynn. “WHAT IS THY DESIRE, O LEARNED ONE?”
After all he and Shirin had been through, Flynn was sorely tempted to use the Djinn’s power to make all their problems go away, but that was a slippery slope that might just put the entire world at the mercy of the vindictive genie. At best, Flynn decided, he could risk only a single wish.
“May you and the Lamp be lost forever!”
“NOOOOO!” the Genie raged, dissolving back into smoke from the bottom up. “MY CURSE UPON THEE, LIBRARIAN, AND ALL WHO FOLLOW IN THY FOOTSTEPS, FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF DAYS!”
The Lamp sucked the vaporizing Djinn in like a shiny jade vacuum cleaner. He clawed frantically at the air, vainly seeking purchase, until his head and shoulders and upper extremities also dissolved and disappeared into the Lamp. Spinning to face the brink of the ledge, Flynn hurled the Lamp (and its furious resident) toward the distant bay. Ordinarily, he could never have thrown it that far, but the power of his wish caused it to arc above the wooded slopes and sandy beaches below before splashing down into the bay, where it disappeared beneath the waves, never to be found again.
Or so Flynn had wished.
“Well, that’s that.” He washed his hands of the Lamp, which was apparently not going to be added to the Library’s collection. “Aladdin’s Lamp is lost forever.”
“Probably just as well,” Shirin said. “All things considered, I think I prefer reading about genies to actually meeting them. Ditto for ghouls, rocs, and the Forty Thieves.”
Flynn knew how she felt, even if he would have liked to have claimed the Lamp for the Library. Still, he had kept the Lamp from falling into the wrong hands, which was what really mattered, as Judson would surely agree.
I’m going to call this a win, he thought.
Shirin leaned against him, favoring her injured ankle. She gazed over the enchanted island and the vast sea beyond. “Just one thing,” she said. “How exactly are we going to get home?”
Flynn already had an idea about that, lifted straight from the pages of One Thousand and One Nights. They just needed to ask themselves what Sinbad would do.
“How do you feel about trying to hitch a ride on a roc?”
20
2016
A vintage candlestick phone from the 1900s, complete with a rotary dial, rang in the Annex. Jenkins picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.
“Mr. Stone?” he said into the transmitter, knowing already who was calling. “How may I help you?”
“We’ve got this all wrong,” Stone replied. “It’s not about the penny at all.”
“Yes, we’ve already determined that. I’m afraid you’re behind the times there. Do you have any new information to impart?”
“You bet I do. Dunphy and I just had a run-in with some seriously brutal competition. They are looking for some kind of lamp.”
“A lamp?” A chill ran down Jenkins’s spine. Surely it couldn’t be. Not after all this time.
Although he was a fine one to talk like that. Some might say the same of him.
“Tell me everything,” he said gravely. “Omitting no detail.”
* * *
Baird was relieved to find both Cassandra and Ezekiel waiting for her in the hotel lobby. Approaching them, she caught the tail end of a whispered conversation.
“You ‘borrowed’ what?” Cassandra said, in a low voice, visibly appalled.
“The world’s largest gold nugget,” Ezekiel bragged. “All 875 ounces, on display at a local casino.” He shrugged off Cassandra’s shocked reaction. “Come on. Like I seriously wasn’t going to take a run at that?”
“But you are going to put it back where it belongs at some point, aren’t you?” Cassandra asked hopefully. “This was just all about the challenge, right?”
He hedged. “Well…”
Baird looked to the heavens for strength, but saw only the lobby’s opulent trompe l’oeil ceiling, which simulated a bright Arabian sky. This was absolutely the last thing she needed at the moment. She wondered briefly where Ezekiel had stowed the stolen nugget before deciding that she didn’t want to know.
“Drop it, both of you,” she said. “We can sort this out later, after we figure out what we’re actually supposed to be looking for here.” She looked at Ezekiel. “Cassandra told you about the penny?”
“Yes.” A frown replaced his cocky expression. “I can’t believe I wasted my time and talent on an ordinary copper penny.”
“Actually, it’s 97.5 percent zinc,” Cassandra volunteered. “Just to be accurate.”
“Not really the point now,” Baird said, trying to keep the discussion on track. “The Clipping Book sent us here for a reason, and we need to find out what that is.”
Cassandra pondered the issue. “You said Stone was hanging out with Dunphy. Maybe he’s learned something that might steer us in the right direction?”
“Couldn’t hurt to ask.” Baird took out her phone, but before she could contact Stone, she received a call from the Library, which she chose to pick up instead. She couldn’t help hoping that Jenkins was calling to say that he’d missed something before and that the penny really was magical after all. “Baird here. What’s up?”
“I’m afraid I have some rather disturbing news to impart,” he said dolefully. “Is the remainder of the team with you?”
“All but Stone.” Baird switched to speakerphone and beckoned Cassandra and Ezekiel to draw nearer. Passing tourists, intent on their own diversions, ignored the huddled conclave. “He’s with Dunphy, enjoying a nice steak dinner, last I heard.”
“Would that were the case,” Jenkins said, “but I just heard from Mr. Stone, whose dinner expedition proved to be much more eventful than anticipated … in a way that raises a profoundly troubling possibility.”
Baird could tell from his voice that this was serious. “Tell us.”
She shared a worried look with the others as Jenkins proceeded to inform them of Stone and Dunphy’s narrow escape from unknown assailants intent on a certain lamp.
“A lamp?” Baird asked. “What sort of lamp?”
“Aladdin’s Lamp,” Jenkins said. “If my suspicions are correct, and I very much fear they are, we are in pursuit of the fabled magic lamp … and the Djinn bound to it.”
“But you told us once that it was never the Genie’s Lamp,” Cassandra protested. “When we were investigating all that fairy-tale weirdness last year.”
“So I did,” he admitted, “because I had every reason to believe that the Lamp had been lost forever, thanks to the ingenuity of Mr. Carsen some years ago.”
“Flynn?” Baird asked. “What’s he got to do with this?”
“A good deal, as it happens, although that was before your time, back when he was the sole Librarian.”
Going into briefing mode, as was his wont, Jenkins informed them of an old adventure of Flynn’s involving Aladdin’s Lamp, a fearsome genie, and … the Forty Thieves?
“A flying carpet?” Cassandra was unable to control her excitement. “I’m sooo jealous!”
“Sounds like he could’ve used me back then,” Ezekiel said. “A bunch of so-called thieves from the olden days would have been no match for the likes of Ezekiel Jones. I would have stolen that Lamp so fast their turbans would have spun.”
“Do not underestimate the Forty,” Jenkins said. “We’re talking a ruthless criminal organization that has endured for nearly thirteen centuries … and it will stop at nothing to obtain the Lamp at long last.”
Baird struggled to process all this new intel. “I’ve never heard of any of this before. Flynn never said a word to me about it.”
“With all due respect, Colonel, Mr. Carsen was flying solo as it were long before you were recruited by the Library. Indeed, he has survived as a Librarian longer than any individual on record. I imagine there are quite a few incidents that he has not had occasion to mention to you.”
/> “Possibly because he never sticks around long enough to do so,” Baird said a bit testily. Despite the severity of the present situation, she couldn’t help wondering what became of this Shirin Masri woman and how close she and Flynn might have been back in the day. There was still a lot she didn’t know about his past exploits, romantic or otherwise—although, to be fair, it was not as though she had told him all her old war stories, either. “But … point taken.”
She forced herself to stay on mission.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “If Flynn wished for the Lamp to never again be found, how has it turned up in Vegas ten years later? Hypothetically, that is.”
“An excellent question, Colonel,” Jenkins replied, “worthy of further investigation. For now, I can only speculate that the release of wild magic back into the world somehow caused the Lamp to surface again after all these years … with potentially dire consequences.”
Baird contemplated the lobby’s exotic decor. “Aladdin’s Lamp? A casino with an Arabian Nights theme? Could there be a connection there, or is it just a coincidence?”
“In our line of work,” Jenkins said, “coincidence is often merely a failure to recognize invisible forces at work. I suspect we can attribute Mr. Dunphy’s current accommodations to the Djinn. Genies are not by nature very imaginative, so where else would he whisk his new master but to a lavish Middle Eastern palace straight out of the Thousand and One Nights … or a nearby facsimile thereof.”
“Makes sense,” Baird said. “This place would be smack in a genie’s comfort zone.”
“Hey!” Cassandra blurted, struck by an idea. “Along those lines, you don’t suppose Morgan le Fay has booked herself into the Excalibur, for old time’s sake?”
“Do not even jest about that, Miss Cillian,” Jenkins said sternly. Arthurian matters struck far too close to home for him, for reasons Baird well understood. “We face grievous enough hazards without invoking that duplicitous enchantress.”
“Really?” Ezekiel said skeptically. “Some sad-sack loser is using a magic lamp to turn his luck around. How bad can things get?”
“Were you not listening before?” Jenkins said. “Beyond the obvious necessity of keeping the Lamp away from the latest incarnation of the Forty, there is the even more dreadful threat posed by the Djinn himself.”
Ezekiel still looked dubious. “So not a friendly genie, then?”
“Make no mistake, all of you,” Jenkins said, so gravely that you could practically hear him frowning over the phone. “This Djinn is no cheerful cartoon character who sings show tunes while showering you with undeserved riches. He’s a malevolent magical menace who has been stuck in solitary confinement inside a lamp for untold ages. Don’t expect him to be in a good mood. He’s been waiting a long time to get his revenge on the world … and the Library, in particular.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Baird said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied. “Anytime.”
21
2016
The crystal scrying bowl had once belonged to the god-kings of ancient Persepolis. Seven rings of archaic cuneiform were inscribed along the outer surface of the bowl, which Jenkins had retrieved from the Divination wing of the Library. Now it rested on the conference table in the Annex, where he filled it with ordinary tap water, before proceeding with a streamlined version of a traditional Bronze Age summoning spell. There was a certain personage he needed to consult at once, and he had neither the time nor the patience to stand on ceremony.
“In the name of Enlil and Astarte and the Eternal Flame, yadda yadda yadda, so on and so forth, et cetera, I summon he who speaks for the Court of Smoke.” He waved a perfectly preserved green feather, plucked from the Bird of Paradise, over the bowl in a desultory fashion and blew upon the still, clear water. “Paging the Envoy, ASAP.”
To his annoyance, nothing happened at first. Sighing impatiently, he ran his index finger along the rim of the bowl, producing a high-pitched ringing tone that grated on his ears.
“I can keep this up for as long as I have to,” he warned the bowl. “Rely on it.”
That did the trick. A luminous aura traced the markings on the bowl. The water rippled and Jenkins’s reflection was replaced by the visage of another, whose bristling black beard and mustache compensated for a hairless cranium. A single golden earring made the reflection look like that of a stereotypical pirate or, more accurately, a genie. The face on the water bore a distinctly aggrieved expression, just as Jenkins had anticipated.
“Galeas?” the water spoke, addressing Jenkins by a name he had not employed since the fall of Camelot. “How dare you disturb the repose of Dobra of the City of Bronze? Were I not in a merciful mood, I would drown the world in blood for such presumption!”
“Spare me the usual histrionics,” Jenkins replied, unimpressed. He knew from experience that this genie’s bluster was usually just that. “I require information on a matter of some urgency.”
Dobra currently represented the Djinn when it came to dealing with the Library and other mystical realms and factions. Jenkins had last encountered him at a recent high-level Conclave regarding an incipient war between two rival clans of dragons. Dobra had been just as difficult and full of himself then.
“Am I a dog to speak at your command? You overstep yourself, mortal.”
“I am anything but mortal, as you well know. And I would not call upon you unless I had good reason to do so.”
“Easy for you to say, you monkish relic. I have seven wives to attend to, not to mention assorted concubines.”
“All of whom can certainly survive without your attentions for the time it takes to provide me with the answers I seek.”
Dobra scoffed. “And why should I comply with your request?”
“The Electrum Covenant. Article twelve, clause b-thirty-two, subsection five-hundred and sixty-seven.” Jenkins paused in his citation. “Need I go on?”
The reflection rippled in irritation, but was bound by the terms of the treaty.
“Very well. Make your inquiry, but be swift about it.”
Jenkins got straight to the point. “The Lamp of Aladdin. Is it in play again?”
“Oh, that.” Dobra suddenly looked more uncomfortable than irritated. He tugged nervously on his beard. “I’m afraid I can neither confirm nor deny anything regarding that topic.”
Jenkins was vexed by the evasion. “Come now, Dobra. If the Lamp is back, this is no time for diplomatic persiflage. We can’t afford to waste time on games.”
Dobra winced at that inconvenient truth. Looking about cautiously, he lowered his voice and appeared to lean forward, so that his reflection in the water acquired a fisheye effect.
“Well, strictly off the record, even if, hypothetically, a certain lamp were once more abroad in your world, we of the Djinn would not readily acknowledge such a fact.”
“And why is that?” Jenkins asked. “One would think this would fall squarely under your jurisdiction, or have you no interest in policing your own?”
“It is not that simple. The Genie of the Lamp, whose very name none dare utter, has never bowed to the authority of the Court of Smoke. He is a rogue, an outlaw, and a most formidable one at that. We lack the power to constrain him … and can take no responsibility for his deeds.”
“I see,” Jenkins said, as a clearer picture emerged. “In other words, you’re all scared to death of this particular black sheep and don’t have the nerve to challenge him.” He didn’t bother to keep the scorn out of his voice. “Have I got that right?”
Dobra got all defensive. “You don’t grasp the delicacy of our position.”
“Oh, I think I grasp it just fine. I take it then that the Court is wiping its hands of the situation and that we can expect no assistance from you or your fellow Djinn when it comes to coping with your wayward kinsman?”
“Sadly not … hypothetically.” Dobra raised his voice in a pathetically transparent attempt to save face. “Let it be known, howeve
r, that were my hands not tied in this affair, the Nameless One would most assuredly feel the full force of my wrath. A thousand mighty blows would I rain down upon him, so that he would rue the day he crossed Dobra of the City of Bronze. He would plead for mercy, lest I snuff out his divine fire and cast his substance to the four winds. Greatly would he be punished for his transgressions, and well would he tremble before—”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure that’s exactly how it would go down,” Jenkins said sarcastically. “Anyway, this has been very helpful, but I’m afraid that some of us have actual business to attend to.”
He poked the feather in the water and stirred Dobra’s image away, brusquely dismissing the useless genie without any of the customary formalities. Carefully picking up the bowl, so as to avoid slopping the water onto the table, Jenkins carried it across the Library to the actual Black Hole of Calcutta, where he dumped the water into the abyss with a degree of satisfaction.
Still, he reflected, his aggravating tête–à–tête with Dobra had not been entirely a waste of time. He had managed to confirm two things: that the Genie’s Lamp was no longer lost forever, and that the Librarians and their Guardian were on their own where the Forty—and the rogue Djinn—were concerned.
Same old, same old, he thought.
* * *
The Pissaro Gallery of Art was one of the few attractions in Las Vegas that didn’t come complete with slot machines. Too few tourists knew that the city was home to many fine art galleries and museums and not just to casinos, a regrettable fact that Stone nevertheless hoped to take advantage of. He and Dunphy practically had the gallery to themselves, not that Gus seemed to appreciate the outstanding collection of Neo-Impressionist paintings and drawings currently on display.