Sourcery

'I suppose a quick anecdote is out of the question?' he croaked.

Conina sighed. 'There's more to life than narrative, you know.'

'Sorry. I lost control a little, there.'

Now that the sun was well up the crushed-shell beach glowed like a salt flat. The sea didn't look any better by daylight. It moved like thin oil.

Away on either side the beach stretched in long, excruciatingly flat curves, supporting nothing but a few clumps of withered dune grass which lived off the moisture in the spray. There was no sign of any shade.

'The way I see it,' said Conina, 'this is a beach, and that means sooner or later we'll come to a river, so all we have to do is keep walking in one direction.'

'And yet, delightful snow on the slopes of Mount Eritor, we do not know which one.'

Nijel sighed, and reached into his bag.

'Erm,' he said, 'excuse me. Would this be any good? I stole it. Sorry.'

He held out the lamp that had been in the treasury.

'It's magic, isn't it?' he said hopefully. 'I've heard about them, isn't it worth a try?'

Creosote shook his head.

'But you said your grandfather used it to make his fortune!' said Conina.

'A lamp,' said the Seriph, 'he used a lamp. Not this lamp. No, the real lamp was a battered old thing, and one day this wicked pedlar came round offering new lamps for old and my greatgrandmother gave it to him for this one. The family kept it in the vault as a sort of memorial to her. A truly stupid woman. It doesn't work, of course.'

'You tried it?'

'No, but he wouldn't have given it away if it was any good, would he?'

'Give it a rub,' said Conina. 'It can't do any harm.'

'I wouldn't,' warned Creosote.

Nijel held the lamp gingerly. It had a strangely sleek look, as if someone had set out to make a lamp that could go fast.

He rubbed it.

The effects were curiously unimpressive. There was a half-hearted pop and a puff of wispy smoke near Nijel's feet. A line appeared in the beach several feet away from the smoke. It spread quickly to outline a square of sand, which vanished.

A figure barrelled out of the beach, jerked to a stop, and groaned.

It was wearing a turban, an expensive tan, a small gold medallion, shiny shorts and advanced running shoes with curly toes.

It said, 'I want to get this absolutely straight. Where am I?'

Conina recovered first.

'It's a beach,' she said.

'Yah,' said the genie. 'What I mean was, which lamp? What world?'

'Don't you know?'

The creature took the lamp out of Nijel's unresisting grasp.