The streets of the city are tiered thoroughfares that snake up between the clustered houses to the palace at the top of the hill. As you ascend the steps of one such street, you are shouldered aside by a patrol of stern-faced soldiers. Affronted at their rudeness, you give them a glowering look as they descend towards the docks.
A passing barber notices the incident and says to you: ‘The palace guards are looking for a thief who stole a ruby from the treasury. The Sultan is furious, and he has decreed that if the thief is not caught by the time the moon rises tonight, the captain of the palace guard will be crucified.’
Your pride is still ruffled. ‘I can understand their urgency, then. All the same, there is no excuse for manhandling an honest traveller in that way.’
He peers at you in the dusk. ‘Ah, you are a stranger to the city?’
‘Yes,’ you say, nodding. ‘What of it?’
He suddenly leaps back and cries: ‘Here is the thief! Here!’ Before you can react, the soldiers turn and race back up the street. As you start to raise your hands, the barber leaps on your back, bearing you to the ground.
The soldiers grab you. ‘Well done, friend,’ their officer says to the barber. ‘You’ll be rewarded for this.’
‘My reward awaits me in heaven,’ he says.
‘I’ll give it to you myself,’ you growl at him, ‘once I’ve explained there’s been a mistake.’
Despite your protests, you are dragged in front of the palace gates. The Sultan’s executioner was already preparing to execute the captain of the guard, who is relieved to see his men arriving in the nick of time.
The Sultan looks down from his palanquin. ‘Is this the thief?’
The captain barely glances at you. ‘Yes, O master of justice,’ he says.
The Sultan orders you to be thrown into prison while he decides your eventual punishment. You are too stunned by the sudden wretched twist of fate to react. Hauled away by guards, you are stripped of your bow if you have one. They also take any money you are carrying, although they leave your other belongings.
They lower you into an oubliette. The grating drops into place with a harsh clang. You listen in shock as the heavy iron padlock is sealed. You can hear rats rustling through the dank straw carpeting the cell. ‘So you’re the jewel thief, then,’ says a voice in the gloom. ‘Doesn’t look like much to us, eh, Shahrazad?’
As your eyes adjust, you make out a figure crouching beside you. He is an old man with limbs as thin and gnarled as twigs. On his lap he has a mangy cat which he is cosseting as though it were a princess.
Talk to him?✓
Ignore him and sit in silence?
You explain to the old man that there has been a mistake. You are not the one who stole the Sultan’s ruby.
Surprisingly, his answer to this is a thin wheeze of laughter. ‘Not the Shadow, eh? I thought not. I doubt they’ll ever catch that one.’
‘Who is the Shadow?’
‘The most daring of knaves. The rogue who purloined the jinn ring of Ala al-Din and the flying rug once owned by the Emir of Cordoba, as well as the crown of the infidel ruler Shah al Ma’in. He – or she, for the Shadow is a figure veiled in mystery – has vowed next to steal the diamond egg of the rokh.’ (D'Arcy does not have the codeword
Kismet.)
You cannot help grinning at the old man. ‘Well, you certainly seem to have a fund of strange stories.’
‘You doubt them?’ he leaps to his scrawny feet, eyes flashing. ‘Watch, as I prove the truth of all I’ve said. You see my cat, Shahrazad? She has heard my words, yet you’ll note her tail is not an inch longer than before.’
You bite your lip and take half a step backwards. The old man is undeniably mad. ‘Incontrovertible proof,’ you say to humour him. ‘I no longer doubt you at all.’
‘Don’t talk to me like I’m daft, you young sprat. Now watch the cat’s tail while I tell her a few lies. Shahrazad, it’s my birthday today and I’m just ten years old. This morning the gaoler gave me a fine confection of dates, saffron rice, spiced mutton and buttermilk for breakfast. I ate so much my belly ached! The Caliph is my second cousin and I myself heard the Prophet’s last sermon, peace be upon him.’
You blink and rub your eyes, but there can be no doubt. With each lie, the cat’s tail grows a couple of inches, then after a few seconds it returns to its normal length.
‘What a miraculous animal,’ is all you can say.
‘She’s a sure indicator of when people are telling the truth,’ agrees the old man. (D'Arcy does not possess a coil of
Indian rope, but she does possess a pair of
magic slippers.)
The old man studies your slippers intently. ‘Such intricate embroidery,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I have ever seen finer workmanship. Surely these slippers are no ordinary footwear?’
Tell him about the magic slippers or
not?✓
The oubliette is a bell-shaped chamber lined with muck and straw. There are several other prisoners here. Seeing you pacing around, one of them sighs and points to the grille in the middle of the ceiling. ‘Some of us have been here for years,’ he says. ‘Food is thrown down every day or so, if we’re lucky. Other than that we’re forgotten here. There’s no escape.’
‘What about water?’
‘You must lick what you can off the walls.’ He shows you his tongue – black and covered with sores.
You position yourself directly below the grille and stare up. A distance of almost twenty feet. The walls funnel in towards it, so there is no chance of climbing up.
If you possess either magic slippers or Indian rope and wish to use them now... Staying again.
A week later, the grille is hauled up and another prisoner is lowered into the oubliette. ‘Here is the real Shadow!’ calls down a guard. ‘Now you worthless wretches have got some distinguished company for a change.’
The grille drops back into place with a clang. ‘What about me?’ you shout up. ‘If you’ve got the real Shadow, you must know I’m innocent!’
The guard’s face reappears at the top. He has a broad smirk as he says, ‘Innocent? You can’t be innocent if you’re in gaol, can you? So maybe you didn’t steal the Sultan’s ruby – who cares? No doubt there’s some other crime we can mark down to you.’
‘This is rank injustice!’ you call back, but he has gone.
The newcomer places a hand on your shoulder. ‘I too am the victim of injustice, my friend, for I am not the Shadow. I thought you were. In fact, I got myself caught in order to meet you. My name is Azenomei.’
You turn and look at him: a handsome beardless young man with sparkling gaze. He has a small scar across the bridge of his nose.
‘In that case, you’re in for a big disappointment. And why are you smiling? Don’t you know we’ll probably stay here till we die?’
His grin grows all the wider as he brings out a huge bunch of keys. ‘Here I have the answer to nine hundred and ninety-nine locks. All we need is a way to reach the grille.’ (D'Arcy has a pair of
magic slippers.)
In the still silence of midnight, with everyone else asleep, you crouch beside Azenomei and make your plans for escaping from this dark hole.
‘One of my keys will certainly fit the lock,’ he whispers. ‘Give me your magic slippers so that I can get up there. Once I’m out, I’ll drop them back down.’
Trust him?
Insist on being the one to go first?✓
Azenomei lends you his bunch of keys. Donning the slippers, you rise up to the grille and soon have it unlocked. Perched on the edge of the pit, you take a gulp of clean air – your first in over a week.
‘Come on!’ hisses Azenomei’s voice from the darkness of the pit. ‘Toss the slippers down.’
Do as he asks?✓
Leave him where he is?
The two of you manage to slip out of the city the next morning on the back of an ox-cart. The owner is startled when the sacks of grain on the back of his cart are suddenly thrown aside to reveal two scruffy young vagabonds.
Azenomei gazes back at the city and gives a hearty laugh. ‘A pox on that place. I’ll never go there again, I can tell you.’ He turns to you. ‘And where are you bound now, my friend?’
‘I left Baghdad in search of fame and fortune. But I was accused of being an infamous thief, and now I have no money.’
‘You could do worse than throw in your lot with me,’ declares Azenomei. ‘I’m heading across the desert to rescue my sister. She was spirited away by a jinni who imprisoned her in a bronze citadel. I can promise you as much adventure as you can take.’
If someone had said that to you just a few months ago, you would have assumed they were mad. Now you have seen many marvels with your own eyes. But you have not learned to be careless of risk.
‘A jinni’s citadel, you say? That may be a little more adventure than I can take.’
Azenomei waits for your decision.
Go with him across the desert?✓
Go your own way?
Azenomei leads you into the wasteland, where the hot air rasps your throat and each footstep raises a cloud of acrid dust. For days you travel without seeing any sign of life. From dawn to dusk you feel as though your flesh is being dried on your bones. Night makes the rocks colder than ice.
Lose 2 Life Points unless you have WILDERNESS LORE or a
water bottle. If you use a bottle, note that it is now empty.
If you are still able to go on, you see a gleam of burnished metal in the thickening dusk. ‘It is the jinni’s citadel,’ breathes Azenomei. Taking your arm, he hurries on until you stand below the walls. The battlements and turrets are all of polished bronze, flickering like fire in the red sunset.
You find the doors – a huge double portal of ebony studded with iron. Putting your shoulders against the doors, you slowly push them open. Beyond lies a great hall with many passages leading off it.
‘Let’s split up and look for my sister,’ says Azenomei. ‘We’ll have to hurry, because the jinni might return at any moment.’
You gaze along the hall. ‘But there may be hundreds of rooms in the citadel. How will we find her?’
‘There are a thousand doors,’ says Azenomei, starting off down one of the passages. ‘Just be sure not to try and open any that are locked.’
Choosing a passage at random, you start to explore. Doorway after doorway leads to empty rooms. At last you find a door that will not open. You thought there was a muffled shout from the other side, but when you press your ear to the door you can hear nothing.
Break the door down?✓
Go looking for Azenomei?
The door frame splinters under the force of a kick, and you step through into a scented chamber curtained with diaphanous silks. A raven-haired girl reclines on a golden couch in the middle of the room. She looks up as you enter, and her expression is a mixture of fear and hope as she says, ‘Have you come to free me?’
You notice that her ankle is chained to the floor, the chain being fixed by a huge padlock. ‘Who are you?’ you ask.
‘Ayisha, the daughter of the Caliph. I was stolen from Baghdad in the middle of the night by a powerful jinni who brought me here to his citadel.’
You go closer and test the strength of the padlock. It is easy to see that you could never hope to break it. ‘Perhaps Azenomei has a key to fit it.’
‘Who is Azenomei?’
‘I am.’ You turn to see your friend standing in the doorway. He slowly runs his hand over the broken wood and then shakes his head regretfully. ‘I did tell you not to open any locked doors.’
‘Azenomei...’ You take a pace towards him. ‘Look, I’ve found your sister.’
His only answer is a soft mocking laugh. After a moment, Ayisha says, ‘He lied to you. He isn’t my brother. This is the jinni who abducted me!’
Get the codeword
Harem.
Note the codeword
Fabric. Azenomei looks different now. His eyes are gold-flecked, and a cast of evil shadows his features. He moves closer with the drowsy menace of a snake. ‘So, here I have you at last,’ he murmurs. ‘The infamous Shadow is more gullible than I’d have thought.’
‘What are you talking about?’ you reply angrily. ‘You know I’m not the Shadow!’
He shakes his head. ‘Of course you are. That’s why I allowed myself to be caught and put in the oubliette with you. I’ve pursued you for more than a year. Ever since you stole the gem from my citadel here.’
‘Gem? What gem? You’re talking nonsense. I’ve never been here before.’
He ignores your protests. ‘The gem – a ruby almost as big as the egg of the rokh that perches in its eyrie atop the Isle of Palms – had been given to me for safekeeping by the King of the Sea. If he learns I have lost it, he will sunder me into atoms and constrain my soul within a sealed copper jar for all time. So, here is your chance to save yourself. Tell me where you hid the ruby.’
‘For the last time,’ you reply between gritted teeth, ‘this is a case of mistaken identity. I never stole anything from you.’
‘You greedy fool,’ hisses Azenomei, raising his hands to weave a spell. ‘Now you will die!’ (D'Arcy does not possess a
black jewel).
Cold tongues of magical flame blast from his fingers. They lick around your limbs and you feel as though shards of ice are being hammered into your bones. Lose 6 Life Points unless you have AGILITY, in which case you dodge the worst of the spell and need lose only 3 Life Points. (D'Arcy has the codeword
Harem.)
Ayisha sings a spell which sends a hail of hard pebbles flying from nowhere into Azenomei’s face. He falls back, dazed, with blood streaming from a dozen wounds.
‘Quickly!’ shrieks Ayisha. ‘Get him while he’s still stunned.’
Attack him?
Run for it while you have the chance?
Adventure Sheet:
Name: D'Arcy Windblade
Gender: Female
Skills: AGILITY, CUNNING, FOLKLORE, LUCK, MAGIC and SWORDPLAY
Life Points: 7
Possessions:
1) Ring
2) Sword
3) Water Bottle (empty)
4) Water Bottle (full)
5) Whistle
6) Gloves
7) Magic Slippers
8) Candle
Money: 0 dinars
Codewords: Fabric, Harem