The cave was dark. What made the darkness worse, Aladin thought as he felt tears roll down his cheeks, was the fact that he was going to die in it.

He screamed once, and when he heard it echoed from what must have been an even deeper darkness within the cave, he screamed again. He called out to the magician, the one who had trapped him in here, and apologised at the top of his voice and said he could have his lamp and that all he wanted now was to be free.

When there was no response, a voice within Aladin said that the magician was punishing him for his defiance and that he was going to be back in the morning to get his lamp. Another voice chided him for being a greedy coward.

Then, as the fear shrank back for a moment and gave way to rage, Aladin pulled the lamp out from his pocket and flung it as hard as he could against what he imagined to be the wall in front of him.

A scrape, a clang, and some clattering later, there was silence. But this silence gave way to a humming. It was a metallic sound - as if thousands of tiny bells had been rung at once. Aladin, thankful for something to focus on other than the darkness, listened to it and noted after some time, that he was hearing whispers.

As the whispering grew louder, he could make out words. They did not belong to any language he spoke, or had heard, or had picked up at the port from merchants he was about to steal from, but they were words nevertheless. They had meaning and music and even a kind of urgency.