Raider and the Lost Lamp Ch. 08

With a conceding sigh, after many tensely silent seconds, Jeff turned to Clara and offered her the amulet. "I bet this is a sight for sore eyes?" he said. Clara's jaw dropped. She began to shake her head softly in disbelief as she stared at him. Only seconds ago she was afraid that she had made a colossal mistake in leading Jeff to the amulet. Now she realised that she had made a much more terrible one by not trusting him. All of those horrible suspicions she'd had about him since that morning after they'd first made love, they were all wrong! From the day they first met, all he had ever shown her was kindness, and now this man, this wonderful man was sacrificing virtual omnipotence for the sake of her freedom! If this was not someone she could trust, then no one was. All at once Clara felt more touched than she ever had been before, and yet so ashamed for her mistrust and cruel spurning of Jeff, who clearly had feelings for her.

Jeff did not look at her, his gaze was focused on the amulet. Eventually, Clara reached forward with both hands and cupped them gently around Jeff's hand and the amulet. "Thank you," she said in a quiet, heartfelt voice. Then Clara pulled her hands slowly away from Jeff's, taking the amulet with them. She stared at Jeff for a few seconds, and it was only now that Jeff looked up at her with a smile. Clara smiled back.

"Not at all, milady," Jeff said quietly, in a warm tone. Clara simply continued to smile at him. They stared at each other for a few more seconds before Clara spoke.

"I might be a few minutes. There's something I need to take care of, " she said.

"Okay," Jeff responded, as Clara slowly began to dissolve into smoke, starting with her feet and moving upward. "Clara wait!" Jeff suddenly interrupted. Clara instantly paused her transformation, everything above and including her hips was still a solid human form, whilst below there was only a cloud of smoke that lead into the pocket in Jeff's shorts containing the lamp. "I wish..." Jeff began, falling silent as he pondered how to finish the sentence. "I wish... I wish I knew why your father called you 'Nugget'," he finally said with an air of genuine curiosity, clearly making the impulsive third wish only so that it would not have been forfeited. Clara chuckled at the triviality of the request.

"It's what he used to call me as a baby. He always used to say that I was his 'little treasure'," she replied with a smile. After granting her master's third and final wish, Clara was forcibly transformed into a smokey cloud and drawn back into the lamp, with the magic amulet still in her hands.

Once again in the familiar lamp chamber, Clara immediately headed for the writing desk. With what she hoped would be her final magical act as a genie, She conjured several blank sheets of paper on to the desk, as well as a fountain pen. Clara then sat down at the desk and began to write the following message:

"I regret to inform you that you have been caught in an ancient, magical boobytrap. Don't waste your time searching for a way out of this chamber. The only way you can be released is if another person rubs the lamp as you have just done. When that happens, they will be your master and you will be their slave. You will have to grant any three wishes that they make, and then wait once again, until someone else rubs the lamp, making them your new master. But do not despair, for there is hope. There is an amulet that can free you."

Clara then gave detailed directions to Tukanni's tomb.

"...You will find the amulet in the stone sarcophagus. Once you have the amulet, return to this chamber and place it in the niche in the wall with the writing on it. Be very careful whom you share this knowledge with, for the amulet can also allow your master to make infinite wishes, potentially making your enslavement eternal. I have been lucky, my first and only master is a man with a good heart..." Clara smiled as she wrote those words, "...but You may not be so.

Take heart, and don't give up. I wish you luck.

- A Previous Resident."

Clara then wrote the same message on seven more pieces of paper, until she had written a copy in each of the eight modern languages in which she was fluent. She picked up the sheets, along with the amulet and placed the sheets on the ground, at the foot of the taunting message carved into the wall. Then Clara took a deep breath, and slid the amulet into the small enclave in the wall. The amulet fit into the space snugly. As soon as it had been pushed home, the amulet began to glow with an orangey-golden light. Clara could hear the faint sound of wind blowing, and looked around to see where it could be coming from. She looked down at her feet, half expecting another cloud of smoke to begin swallowing her up, but there was nothing there. The sound was getting louder.

All of a sudden the wall in front of her disappeared and she found herself in the middle of the fiercest sandstorm she had ever been in. It was so thick she could not see a thing, and the howling wind was so deafening, she could not even hear her own shouting. As she shielded her face with her left arm, Clara held her right arm out in front of her, searching for some sort of reference point. All the while, a barrage of sand grains assaulted her, front-on, with incredible force. Then, after only a few seconds, the storm ended as quickly as it had begun. When Clara looked up from behind her arm, she discovered that she was somewhere very dark, so dark in fact that she could not see a thing. She also became aware that somehow the amulet was back in her right hand again. Without warning, Clara was caught in a bright light, which hurt her eyes, and she once again lifted her arm to shield them.

"There you are!" Jeff said, moving his torch beam slightly away from Clara when he realised that her eyes needed time to adjust to the light. "So you wanted to change, eh? Looks nice," he complimented in an overly conversational tone. Clara looked down over her body and noticed that she was indeed dressed in a different outfit. She smiled in delight when she realised how she'd been redressed. Jeff was not to know, but the clothes she was now wearing were the same ones that she had on when she first discovered the lamp. For Clara, that was all the proof she needed that her imprisonment was over. She looked back up at Jeff, beaming. "I don't know about the guns, though..." Jeff continued. "I don't think they're necessary on an expedition like this. See, the thing about tombs is, their owners have usually already been... well, 'capped'."

Without a word, Clara began to quickly march over towards Jeff's torchlight. "So is that it?" he asked seriously. "Are you..." Before he could finish, Clara lunged forward and pushed her lips hard against Jeff's, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him as tightly as she could. Jeff did not hesitate to return her affections, his torchlight danced happily around on the chamber ceiling as he threw his arms around Clara's back and embraced her as they kissed long and passionately.

Becoming a genie via powerful ancient magics, only to be set free by a man her gut told her to be wary of threw everything Clara believed in into question. Mythology, history and her own instincts, she didn't know what to believe about any of them any more. The only thing that she could be sure of right now was that the best place in the world that she could possibly be was right here, in Jeff's arms.

"Wait..." Clara said with a hint of regret as she broke the kiss off, "...there's one more thing I need to do. Do you have my torch?" Jeff reached into a pouch on his belt and produced Clara's torch.

"Here," he said as he handed it to her. Clara turned the torch on and shone it around the room, quickly locating the sarcophagus a few feet away. She walked over to it, with Jeff soon following her. Then Clara leaned into the ancient box and carefully placed the magic amulet upon the disintegrated remains of the lamp's cruel forger. Without a word, Jeff and Clara walked around to the other side of the sarcophagus together to push the lid back and seal the casket once more. With a great deal of grunting and groaning from both of the explorers, and the occasional curse word from Jeff, the lid was eventually restored to it's original position.

"It's done," Clara said as she ran her torch over the ancient box one last time.

"Let's hope nobody ever has to come looking for it..." Jeff said.

"Indeed," Clara agreed. She looked over at Jeff with a smile and kissed him tenderly as she wrapped one arm around the back of his waist. "Come on, we'd best be out of here. The longer I stand in this tomb, the more I'm tempted to take some artefacts back for study," she said, gently slapping Jeff on the butt.

"Alright," Jeff responded in a compliant tone. "So, is this compulsion to Raid Tombs a normal thing for you?" he asked facetiously.

"Hmm... I must admit, I honestly can't recall the last time I found a nine thousand year old royal tomb and then left it without any evidence of it's existence," was Clara's droll reply.

"Really?" Jeff asked with mock surprise, "I do that all the time. But then I dropped out of archaeology before they told us what you're supposed to do after you discover a tomb..." Clara chuckled as she made her way up the mound of loose earth leading to the small entrance passage.