Loretta of the Lamp

Hikari

Hikari was a city quite unlike Rama. Where Rama had been bursting at the seams with life, a sanctuary in the middle of a dead and dry land on the rim of the lamp, Hikari was in stark contrast a city that was just far too big for the inhabitants. Loretta noticed as they approached that there were portions of the city wall that were largely unkempt, beginning to decay and crumble away. She was also quick to notice that this surprised Akil. He frowned with uncertainty as the city came into view over the plain, but said nothing of it.

The previous day they had left the strongest holds of the desert behind. The white sand had slowly darkened in colour, the bleaching of age and time giving way to patches of yellow stone and pebble until finally the first tufts of wild grass began to appear. They were yellow and just as dry as the land around them, but they continued to grow, surviving on the moisture in the air.

Loretta's trainers were falling apart on her feet by the time the land began to turn in a gentle incline. Her body had become accustomed to the constant walking over the six day long haul.

Six days, because Akil had definitely lied that the journey to Hikari would only take three. Up until the fifth day Loretta said nothing of the length of the journey because she worried it was her pace that was slowing them down. By the end of the fifth day she had let Akil know several times how unimpressed she was with his ability to calculate travel times and distance. She knew quite well he could have argued that being asleep for several thousand years had clouded his memory of the world, but instead he chose to entertain himself by throwing smart remarks about her pace and how he felt she would not have begun the journey had she known how long it would take. About the last point, she knew he was right. As it was, she was fast losing motivation and beginning to wonder what point there was to life at all.

The gradual incline and change of terrain had brought them to the plain that the city of Hikari stood on and right to the gates, hung on giant iron hinges embedded in its crumbling walls. The gate was ajar when they came to it.

Akil said nothing to Loretta regarding her attire this time, because the guard barely even looked at them when they slipped through the crack in the gate. Akil greeted him, and he nodded in reply before he turned back to his own business.

They wandered for a while through the almost empty streets of Hikari, with Loretta scuffing her broken shoes through the brown sand and dust on the road. Spiralling ever closer to the heart of the city, she noticed that every road they walked down had at least one, if not several houses that were derelict and crumbling to ruin.

"Why is this place so empty? Compared to Rama, I mean."

"Rama is a much smaller city," Akil said slowly, like he was trying to formulate answers in his own mind also. "Before the Djin King united all the Jinni, each city within the lamp was ruled by a prince," he said, as though that were a satisfactory explanation in itself.

Loretta was adapting, albeit slowly, to Akil's manner of speech and interaction. She no longer felt the need to prompt him to continue, because she knew he would eventually get around to it.

The town centre had a market like Rama, but it was smaller and thinner, there was less available to buy or trade, and what was available was not of the same quality Loretta had seen in Rama. Or at least that was how she saw it now. She had been so hungry and so deprived of interaction by the time she arrived in Rama that everything had seemed so bright and wonderful to her senses.

They found a public house near the market in the centre of Hikari, a tavern with a low roof of wooden beams soldered into the mud brick, earthy floors covered in well used rugs and a long wooden counter where food and drink was served from. Loretta was glad there were no snails on the menu, but the kid goat stew which they finally settled for still left something to be desired.

It was while Loretta was processing her third mouthful of stew, chewing at least ten times to soften it into a palatable slop, that Akil chose to pick up his tale.

"There was never war between the cities. There were disputes over trade agreements, and treaties were broken and re-made often, but there was a balance. At least that is how I remember it, how my parents knew it. But I've learned that much has changed."

"When? When did you learn this?" Loretta's mind was constantly racing to catch up and place what was going on around her, all the while secretly looking for signs that she may still be dreaming and may be able to hope against hope for an escape.

"Does it matter?"

"Actually it does, you said you have been sleeping for thousands of years."

"I did, and I have. I went to the baths in Rama purely for information and knowledge."

"The baths?"

"Yes. Loretta, does it really matter where?"

Startled by his use of her name, she murmured, "A little."

"Just like women gossip in a kitchen over steam from a pot, men gossip in the baths over steam also."

"Is that like a proverb?" Loretta couldn't help but smile for a moment.

Akil shrugged, "Something like it."

She returned to chewing her chunks of goat, regretting that she had interrupted his flow and caused him to fall silent again. But it didn't last for long.

"The five outer territories had smaller cities and were rich in minerals, stone, and crafts, all things much needed in the bigger cities. The inner four provinces of the lamp were rich in produce, with orchards, and fields and flocks, and they were always richer in wealth and opulence more visibly than the outer cities, Misbah more than any other, in the very centre of the Lamp. Misbah the golden city. The mountain of smoke presides over it, and the Djin king holds court there, overseeing the relationships and trade agreements between all the cities of the lamp."

"The golden city? Gah." One man at the end of the table muttered under his breath.

Loretta could tell from Akil's face that he was startled they had been overheard. He looked up at Loretta and pursed his lips at their eye contact. He did not want anything more said.
Despite her instant dislike and irritation with the genie, she trusted him because she had to, and so she said nothing.

"What of it, brother?" Akil said, in a voice as soft and low as the muttered remark the man had made.