Loretta of the Lamp - The Fallout

The one who knows how to wake

Light travelled through the mountain in a way that neither Loretta nor Akil could have explained. The mountain was bright inside, though when Loretta considered it, she thought that maybe the world outside had been dark. And then, maybe, the space inside the mountain was also dark. There was no way to make logical sense of it.

Akil led her down the twisting ravines and into the heart of the mountain with confidence. She couldn't see the Djin king ahead of them, though once or twice when she or Akil paused, she was sure she heard the echo of carefully placed steps ahead of them.

The interior of the mountain grew warmer and warmer the deeper they travelled, until it finally opened out into the valley where Loretta had awoken. It seemed different, though Loretta knew she had absorbed limited details before she ran from there the first time. Everything she had experienced between her waking moments and her escape from the mountain seemed like a dream that she'd pushed through, a swamp of memories that wasn't quite defined.

Now everything was too clear.

There were nine tombs in the heart of the mountain. At the deepest point of the valley lay a central tomb, and it was before this that the Djin king stood. These nine biers of stone were the only man made objects within the mountain. The one nearest them caused Loretta to gasp, clutching Akil tighter when she looked into the face of the sleeper. Long black hair framed a rounded child's face set with wide eyes that were covered peacefully by waxen lids and thick, dark lashes.

Everything about her screamed of familiarity, even her deep olive skin, unaffected by the lack of sunlight. There was no doubt that she was Hess' sister. Her time trapped in sleep had aged her, for she was not the tiny, frail girl that Hess had described, but Loretta was confident of the young woman's identity.

She tore her eyes away as they moved on, down into the valley toward the waiting Djin king. He had his back to them, preoccupied with the sleeper on the slab he stood before.

"Who is she?" Loretta asked when they reached him.

The body that lay on the bier was wrapped in a beautiful chemise with a matching shawl around her narrow face. The shawl wound into her hair, and her hair wound around the slab and flowed onto the floor of the cavern. The pucker in her lips was kissed with the pinky fullness of life, and her ebony skin and long elegant features were so alive that when, in her sleep, her eyelids fluttered momentarily, Loretta thought she would wake. But she did not.

She was set apart from the other sleepers by her place in the centre of the cavern, by the crown woven into the coils of her hair, the jewels encrusted over her fingers and toes and over her heart, a ruby set in a golden chest piece.

Akil touched a finger to her lips to warn Loretta to keep quiet. "Her name is Misbah," he whispered.

Loretta looked up at him accusingly, "So you knew all along Hess' stories were real."

He shrugged.

"Will she wake?"

Akil shook his head. "No, never, she has had enough of the world. She is how we all should be. They say her life was long and beautiful, and her soul fed the lamp without need for any other life to consume. She was free to live in the lamp, and she ruled the Jinni from Misbah for over a thousand years before she grew tired of the world and went to sleep."

The Djin King looked up, only now acknowledging that Akil and Loretta were standing there. He nodded as Akil finished. "I came after her. Before she slept, she divided the rule of the Lamp between the princes of the eight outer provinces. In accepting our duty, we were all bound to the mountain of smoke." He sighed, and Loretta could not have guessed what he was thinking. "Misbah guided a democracy. She was never a sovereign leader, although she held sovereign power. This was her weakness, letting the people lead themselves. Letting them set out from Misbah in the first place to create the nine outer principalities, and then allowing them to trade goods back. The riches of the lamp were created to pay tribute to the Golden City, not make money from it. When she left us to rule we were all unaware of the burden she had bonded us to. We fought to gain control of the principalities but our power was weakened by her departure, and nothing would wake her. By day we struggled to lead in the way we saw right, and when we finally rested in the evening we were plagued by another world, your world. This burden, and the anger at being left without help caused us to fall into eternal sleep much quicker that Misbah had. I realised with each new sleeper that I became more powerful in the lamp, and with the increase of my power, came the increase of my dominion over the lamp." He sighed, "Only, the others did not last. Unlike Misbah, they could not survive the eternal sleep. There were years where darkness fell over the lamp, and I could not control the creatures that my brothers were becoming. The darkness almost fell across the entire lamp before I discovered that they could be replaced, that a new sacrifice could be gifted to the mountain to replace those who burned away into Jin. Misbah's lasting gift to the Jinni was that there must be nine sacrifices at all times, including herself. And here I am, alive and carrying all the power to rule the lamp while the remaining eight are bound in sleep."

"That must have been nice," Loretta said suddenly, before Akil could stop her, "suddenly finding that you controlled the entire world."

He smiled, but said nothing.

"Did you never get bored?" she smirked. "Living forever sounds pretty boring to me."

"I could say that it is tiresome sometimes," he admitted, "but never boring. You've certainly made it more entertaining these past weeks."

Loretta had flattened the last person who told her she was entertaining, but this wasn't a playground battle, and the Djin King was unlikely to take well to a punch in the throat, as nice as it would have felt.

"But now I have grown tired of you," he said, like he was confessing a sin. "You will fall asleep here Loretta. No one stays awake in the space between worlds for long," he turned and smiled at her as he said it.

Loretta shuddered and stepped back from him, but his movement was disjointed from his body, and everything was happening in slow motion through a haze of incense and smoke as he moved toward her.

"Sleep, Loretta."

Sleep is the one opponent no one may win the battle against.

Sleep is relentless, seductive.

The Djin King was on top of her, forcing her down into the marble tomb. His hands tight around her head, clawing at her face. "Sleep without chains to bind you the the lamp, and without magic or knowledge to bring you back," he whispered the sweet incantation, he screamed it, he whispered, he screamed.

His voice traveled through her mind as her head connected with the stone, and though it happened so slowly, the ricochet of pain through her skull told her not everything was as it seemed.

He turned away from her. His battle won. And as she fell asleep she watched the fight between Akil and the Djin king begin. Akil refused to lay down. Despite the blood magic, he was fighting. Despite everything he had told her not to do. Despite his apparent resignation to their fate, he was fighting, and fighting with everything in him.

Hot tears swelled and ran from Loretta's eyes. As she lay there trapped in her own body, Akil wrestled with the king, their arms locked around each other. But his fight fell short as he too succumbed to the spell, collapsing onto the bier. She watched the Djin King fall with him, Akil's arms still tight around him.

She saw the confusion on the king's face as he began to struggle, and Akil gripped him tighter.

On Akil's face she read agony as he fought the blood magic.

The sweet and thick fragrance of incense wrapped around her like a cocoon as her consciousness began to muddle with oblivion.

And then she felt the pain. Akil's pain.

A cold, dark rip in the fabric of who she was.

She screamed out as it rent through her and the darkness of sleep consumed the last words she heard from Akil's lips, "Remember Loretta, you are the one who knows how to wake."