Raider and the Lost Lamp
by Mythical Traveller

CHAPTER VIII


It was almost nine when Clara left the mansion to go on her morning run. This time, 
she deliberately slowed her pace. Clara loathed doing anything half-hearted, but it was 
only by sheer luck that nobody had noticed her running at super-human speeds last 
time. She couldn't risk anyone discovering her secret, and besides, she had a lot to 
think about.

Surprisingly, the location of the amulet played very little on her mind during her run, 
despite the recent revelations as to where it could be. It was events of the previous 
night and earlier that morning that dominated her thoughts. She was not replaying 
memories or reliving the ecstasy. Rather, she was repeatedly asking herself how it all 
could have happened. Clara was not a promiscuous woman. She had only given her 
body on three previous occasions, to men that she'd known for years at the time. Clara 
had always attributed those encounters to a mix of bad judgement, confusion and in 
one instance, ego, after being accused of "Being afraid to..."

She had scarcely known Jeff a week and they'd had sex twice! Granted, it had been a 
very intense and emotional week, but something was just not right about it. Clara was 
still at a loss to explain why she had first kissed Jeff the night before. She had never 
done anything like it before.

Then she began to think about the twist Jeff had added to their early morning 
fornication. The entrapment spell of the lamp had allowed Jeff to place her in a trance, 
making her incredibly suggestible. So suggestible, in fact, that he could remove any 
memory of her ever being entranced. Granted, he had arranged things so that the 
memory loss was only temporary, but what if he had entranced her another time, and 
erased the experience from her mind permanently? She would never know. Jeff had 
shown a seamless ability to pretend like he had done nothing to her. Her heart sunk at 
these thoughts.

Unable to stop herself, Clara began to consider the implications of this. Could Jeff 
have discovered that he could entrance her before last night? It was certainly 
plausible. Clara had already found him to be quite handsome, and he certainly 
appeared to be very nice and generous. If he could get her into a suggestive state, he 
could've turned her admiration of his merits into full-blown lust, and then made her 
forget that he'd ever done it.

She remembered reading in Zhiasa's journal that the one thing she couldn't be 
commanded to do was give away her body. It was how Zhiasa managed to maintain 
her virginity until she met Hal'hadin.

But none of Zhiasa's masters appeared to be as smart as Jeff. Suppose he had 
inadvertently found a loophole that allowed him to have his way with her. Suppose he 
had never ordered her to sleep with him against her will, but ordered her to enter a 
suggestive state, then made her think that she did want to have sex with him.

Amid all these awful possibilities circling her mind, Clara reminded herself that she 
could not recall a single instance of Jeff being anything but kind and decent. But the 
fact of the matter was that he certainly had the ability to secretly coerce her into 
sleeping with him, and that meant that she could no longer trust him.

A determined scowl washed over her face as she powered over the large hill in front 
of her. To hell with risk of being seen! If she had to deal with pain, it might as well 
come from the track. By the time she had reached the bottom of the hill, Clara had 
calmed down somewhat and common sense took the reins once again. She reduced 
her speed to a more human one and continued on. She spent the remainder of her jog 
mulling over what the phrase peak where the two suns join as one could be referring 
to, but did not deduce a solution.

As she reached the home stretch, she saw Warwick standing on the manor's back 
terrace, apparently waiting for her. She picked up the pace, sprinting the last few 
hundred feet and then up the steps to the top of the terrace.

"Is everything all right, Lady Roft?" the butler asked with an air of concern as she 
approached him.

"Yes, of course it is, Warwick, why?" Clara panted.

"Well your run has taken half an hour longer today than it normally does," Warwick 
stated. Clara smirked, amused at her own inability to get it right.

"I haven't been doing much running in the last two years. I thought it'd be better for 
me to pace myself..." Clara said, technically not lying to her old friend.

"Very wise, Lady Roft," Warwick replied with a nod. " His Lordship asks that you 
join him in his study at your earliest convenience."

"Very good, Warwick. Tell him I'll be along as soon as I've tidied myself up," Clara 
replied.

"Yes, milady," Warwick said, with his trademark head bow, before turning and re-
entering the mansion. Clara walked over to the nearby patio table where she'd left a 
bottle of water before taking off on her run. Twisting the cap off in a single motion, 
she took several big gulps before looking over the estate's vast grounds once more and 
then entering the mansion to go have a shower.


----------------

Clara stepped lively into her father's study, hesitating briefly when she discovered that 
Jeff was already in there. He and Lord Roft were leaning over a large document on 
the main desk, deeply engrossed in discussion.

"...but I think that we can safely rule out these territories over here, and here," His 
Lordship said as he pointed to the chart, leading Clara to realise that it was a map. 
Having apparently seen her out of the corner of his eye, Lord Roft turned his attention 
to the doorway. "Ah, Clara! I'm glad you're here!" he smiled.

"Hi!" Jeff said in an extra-friendly tone as he walked towards her.

"Hello," Clara responded coldly as she walked right past him, wiping the smile right 
off Jeff's face. Her demeanour had warmed right up again, though, by the time she'd 
gotten to her father, smiling as they embraced. "Warwick implied that you'd 
discovered something?" She said when the hug ended.

"Indeed. I was just telling young master... Oh! Sorry!" The lord quickly apologised 
for his gaffe, upon remembering that his daughter was now an enslaved genie.

"It's okay, father," Clara said, warmly.

"I was just telling Jeff here that I believe we can deduce the region where Princess 
Zhiasa's kingdom was located. If you look here..." Lord Roft directed his daughter to 
the large map on the table. It was a detailed map of the area ancient Mesopotamia 
once occupied, complete with all the current cities and national borders. "Now, as you 
know, our knowledge of the culture so far back is quite limited," the lord continued. 
"But the dialect the princess used, as you've described it, was one used in the north, so 
I think we can assume that she was from somewhere in this area... Lord Roft 
explained, tracing a large, rough circle around the top of the map with his finger. 
"Now, if we take the journal as a reliable historical account, then we know that the 
kingdom we're looking for became a major military power once Princess Tukanni 
assumed the throne. And it bought a great many other kingdoms in the region under 
her dominion," the old archaeologist said with a gleam in his eye.

"That's right..." Jeff commented.

"A campaign on that scale would have surely left a great deal of evidence behind," 
Clara stated.

"...And it most certainly did!" Lord Roft said with a hint of excitement, "You see back 
then, what was to become ancient Mesopotamia was just a collection of independent 
cities and kingdoms, most of which had unstable relationships with their neighbors, if 
they had relationships with them at all. Wars were a regular occurrence. In most 
cases, the defeated kingdom usually went back to living as they had before, perhaps 
with a new ruler. Victorious kings didn't much care for holding on to conquered 
territories. Having to permanently station a portion of their army in the foreign land 
made occupation seem like more trouble than it was worth. Essentially, wars back 
then were just one king's way of telling another, 'I told you so...'" Clara and Jeff both 
smiled as the old archaeologist continued.

 "I've been in touch with some of my old colleagues who are experts in pre-ubaid 
period Mesopotamia, and they've sent me some very interesting information," his 
Lordship revealed, as he flipped a transparent overlay onto the map. The overlay was 
riddled with many little red spots and one large one. "In all of these locations," he 
said, indicating the spots on the map, "various artefacts; helmets, coins, statues, 
etcetera, have been found that are foreign to the areas in which they were discovered, 
but are congruent to each other. They indicate that about nine thousand years ago one 
kingdom invaded all the other kingdoms in this area, imposing a massive culture 
change on all conquered territories. Whoever controlled this army intended to keep 
the lands they conquered. Now, over here," Lord Roft tapped his finger on the large 
red dot, which sat in south-eastern Turkey, "a small cluster of ruins have been 
unearthed. The artefacts discovered there indicate that this is the place where that 
culture evolved naturally."

"Zhiasa's home..." Clara said with a broad smile. "Father, you found it! Jeff's 
enthusiasm was less apparent.

"We're looking for the 'peak where the two suns join as one', are there any mountains 
in that area?" he asked the lord.

"Hundreds, unfortunately," Lord Roft replied.

"Okay... Any that have a strong cultural link to the sun?" Jeff inquired.

"Not that I am aware of, but once again, I have colleagues with a more thorough 
knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia than myself. I should ask them," His Lordship 
answered, already walking towards the phone on the other desk.

"At the very least, we've narrowed down the search area considerably," Clara said 
with optimism as her father began to dial the phone.


--------------

Lord Roft made three phone calls in the presence of Clara and Jeff. The results of 
which, he didn't need to explain to them, his disappointed face said it all.

Jeff, however, was more concerned by what seemed to be a deliberate effort by Clara 
not to look at him. That, as well as her icy greeting earlier. It almost seemed like she 
had become a different person since breakfast. He reminded himself that before 
breakfast they had agreed to keep the development of their relationship just between 
themselves for the time being, but he didn't expect her to treat him like this!

The trio spent the day together working in Lord Roft's study, examining more and 
more detailed maps of the area once occupied by Tukanni's kingdom, and all the 
records and photos of archaeological discoveries made in the area. The situation 
became more and more frustrating for Jeff as the day went on. He wanted to talk to 
Clara in private but had little opportunity to do so. He invited Clara to join him on a 
couple of occasions when he went to the library to fetch books and charts they 
required, but Clara turned him down both times. He didn't dare order her to 
accompany him in Lord Roft's presence. Anything else they required, including lunch, 
was brought to them by Warwick. Oddly enough, Clara even timed her bathroom 
breaks to coincide with her father's. Jeff quietly reminded her that as a genie, she had 
no need to use the toilet, but she flatly told him she thought it best that the staff see 
her entering the facilities a few times. By dinnertime, they had not been left alone 
once, largely by Clara's engineering and Jeff was becoming quite concerned.

After the Roft family and Jeff had finished dining together, Clara seemed to 
disappear. Jeff searched all the places he knew her to frequent, twice in fact. 
Eventually he found her sitting cross-legged on the hard wooden floor in a quiet 
hidden corner of the mansion's library, reading some document containing pictures of 
mountains on her laptop.

"You're not fooling anyone with that educational-looking webpage, Clara Roft, I'm 
sure that two seconds before you heard me coming you had minesweeper on that 
screen," he said in a playful tone.

"Is there something you want?" she asked, unemotionally, turning her head slightly, 
but once again not looking at him.

"Well, actually... I was wondering... Your mother mentioned to me that she has a nice 
case of Cesanese di Affile in the cellar. Doesn't mean anything to me, although it 
sounds quite nice. She told me to help myself to a bottle if I was interested. And I was 
thinking... It has been a long day for both of us, and I thought perhaps you might like 
to... I dunno, take a break and join me for a drink?" Jeff comically rambled, 
mimicking the awkwardness of a teenager asking someone on a date for the first time.

"Not particularly, but you go ahead," she replied in that same empty tone, as she 
scrolled down the page she was viewing.

"Oh come on, don't tell me my amazing charm has worn off already?" he said in a 
once again playful voice. Clara finally looked at him, her unreadable expression 
masterfully hiding the incredible rage that had just flared up inside her. Was he 
actually flaunting his mind control over her right to her face?

"There's a great deal of information on that region that could help in locating the 
tomb. I'd like to get through as much of it as I can," she said, still exhibiting no more 
emotion with her voice than she was with her face.

"You've been working non-stop all day. C'mon, Clara, you deserve to take a break, 
whatever angle you're working will still be there tomorrow," Jeff argued. His tone was 
still friendly, but inside he becoming quite concerned, not to mention confused at 
Clara's distant attitude.

"If it's all the same to you, Jeff," Clara replied, a hint of frustration creeping into her 
voice, "I'd rather continue my research."

"Clara, what's wr..."

"I'm fine!" Clara loudly asserted, cutting Jeff off before he could ask her any 
questions that she'd be compelled to truthfully answer. She sat there silently for a 
second, considering the situation and looking for a way to avoid any other close calls. 
She was coming off too hostile. If Jeff realised that she'd figured out his little mind 
control game, then all he would have to do is order her into another trance, and she 
would be his little puppet once again. Her mind would be open and vulnerable and he 
would be free to remove all the realisations she'd had about him. She had to avoid that 
situation at all costs. "...I just... I really want to keep working on this," she continued 
in a much calmer tone.

"Well, if you're sure that's what you want..." Jeff conceded in a dejected voice after an 
awkward silence. "I'll be in my room if you want... uh... He did not finish his 
sentence. Clara had already turned her attention back to her computer. Jeff turned 
around and quietly walked away. He had only moved maybe fifteen feet closer to the 
library's exit when he stopped and turned back to face Clara. "We will find that 
amulet, Clara. You know that, right?" he said in a re-assuring tone.

"Goodnight," Clara responded unemotionally, turning her gaze slightly away from the 
laptop. She listened as his footsteps became more and more distant. When she was 
sure that he was out of earshot, she let out a frustrated huff. Regardless of whether she 
was right about Jeff, or had made some terrible mistake, Jeff's proclivity for kind 
words was perhaps the worst part of this whole situation.

With a determined shake of her head, Clara cast any further thoughts of Jeff from her 
mind and resumed her research.


--------------

Jeff stretched his arms as he awoke and lazily blinked a few times to clear the sleep 
from his eyes. He looked the large mattress over and let out a disappointed sigh. 
Twenty-four hours ago, he would never have guessed that he'd be waking up alone 
this morning. After lying there under the thick doona for a few more minutes, Jeff 
finally summoned the willpower to get out of bed. He staggered over to the bathroom, 
made the mandatory stop at the toilet, and then stepped into the shower. Jeff did not 
rush his shower. To some extent, he dreaded having to sit down to breakfast with 
Clara and her family if she was going to be as cold to him as she was yesterday, but 
he was also cautiously optimistic that her mood would improve with the new day.

Jeff towelled himself down and slipped into a bathrobe that had been hanging on a 
nearby hook. He walked over to the counter and grabbed the can of shaving cream, 
proceeding to rub a lather over his face. He grabbed the razor from the holder and had 
almost bought it to his cheek, just like he did every morning, when he abruptly 
stopped. His brow furrowed and a thoughtful look grew on his face as he moved the 
razor back into his field of view. He looked at it intently for a moment, and then 
looked beyond the razor, to it's reflection in the mirror. Two razors. He could see two 
razors, one real, one a reflection.

By the time the razor had hit the sink, Jeff was already out the door. He dashed 
through the bedroom, into the hallway and down to the door of Clara's bedroom.

"Clara! Clara!" he called loudly, as he rapped on the door. Too excited to wait for an 
invitation, Jeff opened the door and ran in to the familiar bedroom after only a couple 
of seconds of knocking. Jeff was initially surprised to find the room empty and the 
bed unslept in. "Idiot!" he quietly chastised himself, already turning to leave the room, 
"Of course she's not here! he said, remembering that Clara had no need of sleep as a 
genie. "...Unless someone really tires her out," he thought to himself with a smirk.

Jeff tore through the chambers and halls of the manor, still in his bathrobe, his face 
covered in shaving cream, getting some odd looks from a couple of maids whom he 
crossed paths with, but not really noticing. He soon reached his destination, finding 
Clara precisely where he expected her to be; sitting at a table in the library, 
surrounded by documents, charts and open books, only a few feet from where he'd left 
her the night before.

"Clara!" he called out, grabbing her full attention, "I've figured it out!" he proudly 
declared. A look of horror washed over Clara's face, but Jeff was too preoccupied to 
notice. "The name doesn't make any sense does it? '...Peak where two suns join as 
one' How can two suns join as one? There aren't two suns! There's only one sun!" Jeff 
excitedly rambled, as he paced back and forth, like he was unsure where to go. 
"Unless you're talking about the real sun and it's reflection! So... so... so... You'd need 
a reflective surface, right?" he continued to babble, apparently still developing his 
theory as he explained it. "Water. The sea! You watch the sun setting into a water 
horizon on a calm day, it'd look an awful lot like there were two suns coming 
together. THAT'S where we need to be looking! The seaside! We're looking for a 
mountain on the western coastline!" Jeff declared with a proud grin.

"No..." Clara replied quietly with a blank look, as her mind quickly processed this 
new theory. "The Mediterranean, the Black, the Caspian... they're all too far from the 
area we've determined the kingdom was located... But Lake Van... It's still quite far... 
but if we were somewhat mistaken about where the kingdom's northern border was, 
and if the mountain had particular significance... They might well have travelled that 
far to bury her!" Clara explained, pointing the lake out on a nearby map, as a level of 
enthusiasm to rival Jeff's visibly built within her.

"A lake? Are you sure? The analogy doesn't work as well without a water horizon," 
Jeff argued.

"Lake Van is huge! It does form it's own horizon at certain points," Clara assured him, 
"What's more, there are dozens of mountains along it's shoreline!"

"So it's yet another haystack, then?" Jeff said with smile and lighthearted sense of 
exasperation.

"I think we might have the right one this time," Clara said with a hopeful smile. The 
humour of the situation did not escape Clara as she sat staring up at Jeff, who was 
blissfully unaware that he was dripping shaving cream all over the floor of the historic 
mansion's library. And for a second, she could almost feel that same unspoken 
connection she made with him a couple of nights earlier, when they'd deduced the 
location of Caesar's tomb. But it didn't take Clara long to remind herself to remain 
wary of him.


-------------

Jeff, Clara and His Lordship spent the next two days gathering all the information 
they could about the mountains around Lake Van. They calculated which mountains 
had a view of a sunset over water, then they used geological data to rule several 
mountains out, based on the assumption that certain types of rock would've been too 
hard for a culture that ancient to burrow in to. Once they had done this, four 
mountains remained as possible sites for the tomb. Unfortunately, none of the 
information they had gathered made any of these mountains stand out as the tomb's 
probable location.

It soon became apparent that they had narrowed down the tomb's location as much as 
possible from England. All they could do now was go to Turkey and explore each of 
the mountains in person, searching for some sign of the tomb's entrance.

By the time they had decided upon this course of action it was already mid afternoon. 
At Lake Van, two timezones ahead of them, there were only been a few more hours of 
daylight left. Jeff suggested that if Clara transported them onto one of the mountains 
instantaneously, they could get at least some exploring done. But Clara argued that 
instantaneously raising a person's elevation by over two kilometers had never been 
attempted before. While she, as a genie, would be safe, the dramatic drop in air 
pressure could quite likely give any human companion the bends. The lakes shore, 
although still several hundred meters above them, offered a much safer destination for 
Clara to transport them to.

However, it was far too late in the day to make the trip and then climb a mountain. It 
was decided that Clara and Jeff would make the trip early the next morning, just as 
day was breaking in eastern Turkey. Lord Roft implored his daughter to take him as 
well and allow him to assist her further in her search, but Clara firmly denied his 
persistent requests. She was not about to have him risking his tenuous health by 
trudging up and down steep mountain trails. Clara was more than capable of 
navigating rough terrain and she was no stranger to the subtleties of searching for 
hidden tombs.

The Roft family and Jeff all sat down to dinner together at the usual time. Despite the 
amazing progress that they had made in the past couple of days, the mood at the table 
was somewhat sombre. Jeff surmised that Lord and Lady Roft, to a large extent, had 
still not gotten over what happened the last time they farewelled their daughter as she 
took off on one of her adventures. The fact that he and Clara would be departing the 
next morning to explore the mountains of Turkey was strangely not discussed in the 
dinner conversation that night.

After dinner, Clara asked Jeff to try and get an early night's rest, so that they could be 
ready to leave by three-thirty AM. Jeff agreed, once again inviting Clara to share a 
bottle of wine with him in his room before bedtime. Clara flatly refused, telling him 
that she would much rather spend her last few hours at Roft Manor double-checking 
their research. Jeff did not pursue the matter any further. With much chagrin Jeff 
climbed into bed, alone (again), just after nine o'clock. It took him over an hour to get 
off to sleep. The next thing Jeff knew, the lights had been turned back on and Clara 
was standing over him calling his name.

"It's time," she told him, when his drowsy eyes eventually opened.

"I thought I was supposed to be the one who gives the orders..." he grumbled as he 
slowly lifted the covers and sat up. Clara wandered over to the far side of the room, 
acting as if she didn't even hear the remark. Jeff looked her over and noticed that she 
was fully dressed in outdoors gear, complete with climbing boots and a small 
backpack. With a grunt he lifted himself off the mattress and began lumbering over 
towards the bathroom.

"Where are you going?" an obviously anxious Clara snapped at him after he'd taken 
no more than two steps. Jeff stared at her with a perplexed expression, as if she'd just 
asked the dumbest question he'd ever heard. "Oh, very well!" she responded, a little 
embarrassed by her own ignorance as she turned her back on him. "The sooner we 
find that amulet, the better," Clara thought to herself. "I'm starting to forget about 
bodily functions, for god's sake!"

Clara turned around again when she heard the toilet flushing in the bathroom. A few 
seconds later, Jeff wandered out of the bathroom. Without a word of warning, Clara 
summoned a cloud of smoke to surround his feet and make it's way up his body, 
clothing him in an adventuring ensemble as it went, complete with the same akubra 
hat he was wearing when they first met. Jeff was clearly a little disoriented by this 
bizarre new method of getting dressed, but he quickly adjusted. Clara waved her hand 
in his direction and his backpack, still containing the lamp, teleported onto his back, 
from under his bed.

"Are you ready?" Clara asked him in the same unreadable tone she'd that been giving 
him for the past couple of days.

"I guess so..." Jeff shrugged. Clara led him out into the hallway, and down to her own 
bedroom. Lord and Lady Roft were waiting inside, still in their dressing gowns. Lady 
Roft seemed very apprehensive.

"Well... we're ready," Clara announced, as she and Jeff approached her parents.

"Very well, dear. Good luck!" Lady Roft said as she tightly embraced her daughter, 
trying very hard to conceal her worry. She held Clara for many seconds, before 
forcing herself to let go.

"You needn't worry, Mother," Clara said with a confidant smile. "We're going 
properly equipped this time. I have my sat-phone in my pack, and I'll be sure to call at 
least once every day."

"Good-bye, Nugget," Lord Roft said quietly as he hugged Clara goodbye. Jeff had 
never heard His Lordship use this pet name for her before, and had to struggle to keep 
a straight face. "If there's anything you need, any further research you need done..." 
Lord Roft continued.

"I know, Father. I won't hesitate to call. And thank you!" Clara interrupted. Lord Roft 
let his daughter go and stepped towards Jeff, extending his hand, which Jeff 
proceeded to shake. 

"It's been... interesting, Master Rourke. I wish you luck..." His Lordship said.

"As do I," Lady Roft interjected.

"...I'm sure I don't need to tell you how important it is to my wife and I to see you 
both return safe and sound, preferably with Clara restored to her human form," The 
lord continued.

"Don't worry, Your Lordship, I'll take good care of her," Jeff smiled. Clara shot him a 
suspicious glance, but nobody seemed to notice.

"We'd better be off," Clara declared after a brief silence, "Good bye, Mother, Father."

"Good-bye," Lord Roft replied solemnly.

"Godspeed," said his wife. Then in a poof of dark smoke Jeff and Clara had 
disappeared. Lady Roft closed her eyes tightly, and took a deep breath, mustering all 
her resolve to hold back her tears. Within seconds her willpower had won the 
struggle. Without a word she lead her husband back to the main bedchamber of the 
mansion to get what sleep they could and though her proud noble face clearly 
displayed unease, it was unmarred by tears.
