Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger by John Ryder Hall

seating. They heard the footsteps of Sinbad and the others fading into the distance within. Hassan stepped out into the sun and gave another searching look around, memorizing the landmarks. If anything were to be changed or move, he would have a mental picture to compare it to and could instantly sound the alarm. But he knew, in his heart, that the important events were going to happen within the bowels of the temple.

CHAPTER 10
    T hey lighted torches and proceeded through the dusty passages to the cooler interior. Sinbad eyed the old man as they walked. He appeared to be harmless, with the wise but somewhat eccentric look of an old scholar, as so often happened with men who spent their lives away from others, alone and self-involved. There was an impish smile beginning on the old man’s lips, and men who smiled without Sinbad knowing the reason or sharing the humor made him nervous. He looked at the girl, whom he found infinitely more pleasing. She was beautiful and young, with an innocent air, one of unworldliness, as though she had grown up far from men and their ways. Although ripe of figure and fair of face, she did not flaunt it, either overtly or covertly, as many others would have.
    “It is cooler here,” Farah said. “More comfortable.”
    Melanthius gestured at the high-walled passage and the just visible carved murals. “Welcome,” he said. “Welcome to my poor hovel.”
    Sinbad snorted a laugh and gestured around them with his free hand. “Hovel? This valley of splendid temples and great tombs? Why it must be the eighth wonder of the world!”
    The old magician smiled faintly. “Welcome to Casgar in any case,” he said.
    “We came a long way to find you,” Farah said, “but we did not expect to discover you in a wonder of wonders!”
    The old man shrugged expressively. “But like all wonders, in time abandoned and forgotten.” He smiled his impish smile. “Except by me . . . and my daughter.” He gestured forward the girl, who had hung back, her wide eyes going from face to face, but spending most of her time looking at Princess Farah.
    “It is not much further,” Melanthius said.
    Melanthius adjusted the bright lamp over the table. On the table, strapped down, was the baboon, with Dione, Farah, and Sinbad on the opposite side from the old man.
    The laboratory of the old Greek was a vast cluttered cave, hewn out of the living rock, or perhaps an ancient cave that had been enlarged, the walls and floor smoothed and made more useful. It was crammed with extraordinary devices, both crude and complicated apparatus for the Greek’s experiments. There were tables and benches piled high with retorts, beakers, stoppered vials, geological specimens, and mortars filled with crushed rock. There were mounds of parchment scrolls, some new, some old, some very old, and some fallen to the floor. There were skulls, bones, and lead-glass bottles of ground bone. Some of the skulls were whole, others had their tops sawn off, and still others showed signs of crude surgery.
    Against the wall were a few amphoras, some sealed with wax and showing the ring-seal impressions of long-dead kings. Others were open, but stoppered. Tucked here and there, under benches and in an untidy stack against one wall, were chests, boxes, lacquered cabinets, a brass-bound coffer with a curious design in silver, and leather cases of various sizes. A sarcophagus of ancient design was under one bench and was partially filled with a collection of glass eyes, dried insects, and polished stones.
    There was a basket on one bench, filled with horns of various sorts. Sinbad recognized a rhino’s hard dark spear among them. Another chest, open and dusty, contained teeth, great curving predators’ fangs. A canister of gold dust stood next to a bag of dried bats. On one table were cages and jars buzzing with Melanthius’s entomological collections. Nearby the unborn fetus of some creature lay in silent suspension within a yellowish, murky jar