The Hall of Screams

" 'The Sitting Sun'," she mumbled with both joy and relief. " We've just gone through the golden gate of The Sitting Sun."

" Quite the easy hint it turned out," Ali Baba mentioned as he approached. " But there is nothing here for us. Nor even an exit."

Zarqa glanced around and about before something got her attention. It was the same symbol, though this time engraved on a large double door right down the path. " Maybe passing through it isn't enough."

She laid them down to the said door, which she realized belonged to the largest structure in the whole city. The castle, with its golden domes and great pillars, loomed before them, almost menacingly. The three kids climbed up the stairs and gulped in fear while Morjana shook uneasily as they stood before it, breath caught in their throats. Ali Baba gave his crow a pat to calm her down.

" Are we sure it's fine to… enter just like that? It's trespassing," Jamal pointed out, fear palpable in his tone.

" If we don't, we might be stuck here until we become like our bony friend whom we left behind." Ali Baba's point was worth taking as well.

" On it's then." Zarqa placed both hands on the double door and pushed. It opened with ease, wasn't even locked, and swung inside almost automatically, like it was welcoming them in.

That didn't settle well with them.

Zarqa and the rest stepped in, mouths hanging open at the large foyer they were met with, full of statues in every kind of priceless material and precious gems they could name. All of them were of men and women recoiling back and shrinking away in fear from something that could only be terrible, faces frozen in a scream and eyes wide in horror.

The whole place glistened and gleamed from the floor to the pillar and the ceiling as if it had been dipped in gold and polished to become a mirror. Across the foyer was an even larger door, with a decorative golden semi-circle above it depicting the same symbol of the sitting sun.

The three kids walked around the entrance with awe in their eyes. " I wish I could live here," Ali Baba blurted absentmindedly and it seemed that his words snapped Zarqa out of her reverie.

" We should find our way out, this city is playing with our minds!" She shook her head, looking for any hint or sign, anything that could provide them with a way out before they succumbed to the city's temptation.

" Interesting…" Jamal murmured, barely audible. He feverishly fumbled with the buckle of his bag and took out a brown leather book with a frayed string wound tightly around it. He hastily and clumsily undone the tie and began leafing the book, eyes flicking from the statues to the pages, a hungry look apparent on his face.

Zarqa and Ali Baba exchanged worried looks as they watched the boy walk back and forth between the pillars and statues as if he had lost his head. Ali Baba even pointed a spinning finger at his own. " He has gone nuts."

" It's all like father said..." Jamal's eyes were wide as he ran his hand on an engraving on a pillar's base. " This is where King Jamshid punished those who went against his wish. The hall of screams."

" What are you talking about?" Zarqa placed a hand on his shoulder, concerned about him. Jamal turned around with the largest smile he had ever shown his face could have split.

" Don't you understand it? The hall of screams!"

" Pretty sure repeating that awful name wouldn't ring any bells for either of us," Ali Baba stated, pulling Zarqa away from him as if he were sick with a contagious disease.

" We're close to the heart of Zamradad! Past this hall is where King Jamshid was said to have lost his most precious treasure!" He seemed disappointed that they didn't know that.

" King who? I'm sorry, I don't care! We just want to get out of here!" Ali Baba pointed crossly and Jamal lost half of his enthusiasm.

" Right… You're right…" His hand holding the book dropped to his side. It was then that Zarqa took notice of the drawing on its cover, the setting sun.

" No… maybe we should look for this lost treasure…"

" What?!" Ali Baba and Jamal questioned her, the former in disbelief while the other was more eager.

" There is a reason we've been led to this hall, don't you agree? If it's as Jamal said, maybe the lost treasure is a crucial key." There was little controversy against her logic. " Then we must find it. And in order to do so…" The girl fixed Jamal with a cold piercing look it almost sucked all the warmth from the air surrounding them. " I need you to share everything you know about this place."

" In the first place, how came that he's knowledgeable of this unknown city that is said to be lost?" Ali Baba questioned him, eyebrow raised in doubt.

Jamal's eyes traveled between the two before heaving a sigh. " Promise… you won't think bad of me…"

" That depends on what you plan to tell u- OUCH!" He cried out as Zarqa elbowed him in the ribs.

" We won't, I swear." Her expression was solemn, giving no room to doubt.

Jamal sucked in a deep breath as he held his book closer to his chest. " My father used to work with Majid and the others."

" Wha-!" He was cut once again as an elbow jabbed his ribs.

" They were treasure hunters, roaming the desert to unearth what our ancestors left hidden and forgotten. They worked well together until…" Jamal sucked in another deep breath, the words stuck in his throat while he pushed, trying to sound them out. " Until he came across this book in one of the treasure rooms they found… Father you see, he was the one studying maps and finding treasures while the others dealt with nosy intruders. So when he landed his hands on this book, he realized at once it held a map to a great treasure. And he made the mistake of telling Majid and the others…"

His breathing hitched and his body broke with the effort to speak. " For years, father worked day and night to figure out the whereabouts of the treasure and how to get to it while Majid and his brothers wasted the money they got from the treasures. One day, father grabbed me by the shoulders and told me in a desperate voice that Majid and the others should never go seek it, that they would never appreciate it for what it is. And that I was never to help them reach it… That was the last day I saw father. The next day, Majid and the other two told me that he fell down a cliff and was never to be found, probably found and eaten by the hyenas."

" That…" Ali Baba didn't need to voice his thoughts at all, neither Jamal nor Zarqa were so thick not to catch on to the implication.

" I was left my father's work, and since Majid and the others were illiterate, it had fallen upon me to read the maps and lead them to the lost city of gold, also known as Zamradad." He handed them the book, allowing them to see what it had within its yellowish frail pages. Zarqa almost devoured it with her eyes while Ali Baba watched Jamal as he walked to the statues, hand tracing over their curves.

" Maybe, you've heard of the king who gained the power to turn anything he touches into gold?" Jamal asked them, not taking his eyes from his reflection on the polished gold.

" The one who ended up turning himself to gold?" Ali Baba asked, making Zarqa jerk her head towards her.

" Wait, it was his daughter that he had turned to gold and lived the rest of his life in regret and sorrow," she corrected.

" Nope, pretty sure he turned himself into gold by mistake when he was inspecting how thin and famished he became in front of the mirror," he insisted.

" There were many versions, but none of them was true." Jamal tried to hold back his laugh as best as they almost started bickering over whose version was right.

" None of them?"

The boy shook his head. " The truth is that the king of Zamradad was of such greed that he never stopped asking for more wealth despite the piles of gold and silver he had stacked up in his castle. He was a tyrant who demanded so much of his people. He was said to lock the door to his throne and spend days and nights counting his fortune. If he found it one coin short, a harsh punishment would befall his attendants. One day, a man came to his court with the promise of granting him three wishes with no price. King Jamshid, driven by his unquenched thirst for gold, asked that every corner of Zamradad be turned to it, as a test for him, or he would be punished. The man then smirked and agreed, revealing himself to be a powerful Jinn. And in the blink of an eye, everything in Zamradad was made of gleaming gold. Jamshid was fascinated and wanted to make Zamradad into a never-ending treasure trove. The viziers advised the king against that but he wouldn't listen, using his second wish to order the Jinn to turn them as well into the statues you now see. Their screams were said to fill this very hall as each one of them was transformed into gold while they scrambled to run away."

They could almost hear them, just looking at the way the statues were desperate to get away made the voices vivid in their minds...