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Gulf's eyes slowly opened, the lids as heavy as if they'd been glued together. A bright light flarred inside his head and he blinked painfully.
He groaned. Where was he? What had happened?
Gulf pressed his fingers to his temples and looked around at his surroundings, trying to piece together what was going on. It took his brain a moment to process what it was he saw.
He obviously wasn't in his hotel room, since the hotel bed didn't have a canopy. His eyes drifted from the gold and scarlet roses delicately embroidered overhead to the pure white satin curtains, whose golden fringe whispered beguilingly whenever it moved.
A blanket brushed his skin, it was of such superb quality and softness that he wished he could stay wrapped up in it forever. But a sweet scent caught his attention and, entranced, he followed it out of bed. He got his first good look at the room when he stood up. It took his breath away.
"I...I don't believe this," he whispered.
An elaborate pattern of interwoven flowers and leaves was sprawled across the ceiling of the room in a swirl of vermillion and cobalt blue. Magnificent ceramics and sculptures were displayed on decoratively carved daises, too valuable for Gulf to even guess at their prices. It was all so far beyond the experience of his ordinary life.
Expertly cut glass crystals had been inlaid on each of the pillars scattered across the room. And along each had been set vases of marigolds. That seemed to be the source of the uniquely powerful fragrance.
A writing desk was set beside the room's window, two overstuffed easy chairs on either side of it. Gulf tip-toed across the carpet that covered the floor to the window.
What he saw outside gave him another shock.
He caught sight of an extravagant fountain, spilling water over its edges of sparkling mist. The arrow-straight promenade running past it, bounded on both sides by lush date trees, and the cloudless sky above made for a glaring contrast.
But it wasn't the garden that caused Gulf such dismay. It was what lay beyond the garden---nothing. Nothing interrupted the sweeping line of the horizon, nor the desert stretching out endlessly in all directions.
How did he get to a place like this? He searched his sluggish mind, trying to remember what had happened to him.
TBC