Raider and the Lost Lamp
by Mythical Traveller

CHAPTER IX


It took Clara a couple of seconds to get her bearings as she stood on the small sandy 
beach on the edge of the lake. The early morning light was still quite dim and Clara 
suspected that the sun had not quite risen yet. Even if it had, they would still be in the 
shadow of the large mountain looming just east of them.

"Ah, nuts!" Jeff complained, grabbing Clara's attention. He quickly ran out of the 
freezing-cold ankle-deep water in which he'd reappeared and on to the dry bank. Clara 
smirked. She had not intended to transport Jeff into the water. Precision long-distance 
travel just happened to be one aspect of her powers that she hadn't quite gotten the 
hang of yet.

"Sorry about that," she said flatly.

"Nah, it's okay. I didn't have time for a bath before we left, anyway," Jeff facetiously 
replied. "Where... where..." Jeff trailed off, suddenly seeming very unsteady.

"Are you okay?" Clara asked with concern. Jeff fell backwards onto his ass and Clara 
ran over to him. He was sitting up, but still seeming quite unsteady about it.

"I'm okay..." he said in groggy speech that seemed to suggest the exact opposite. "I 
just... just tripped. It's so dark."

"Not really," Clara disagreed. "It's the sudden drop in air pressure. You'll be all right. 
Just rest there until you feel better. Don't try to get up."

"Can do," Jeff softly replied. Clara watched over him vigilantly until she was satisfied 
that the worst was over. She was quite grateful now that she hadn't attempted to 
transport them directly onto the peak of one of the mountains, as she had been 
tempted to do the previous afternoon. Clara shuddered at the thought of what 
condition Jeff might have wound up in if she had.

As Jeff's strength seemed to return to him, Clara took in her surroundings more 
thoroughly. On a raised area a couple hundred feet from the lake's edge Clara could 
see what appeared to be a road sign of some sort. "If that's the road, then we can 
follow it into the town." She thought. Her intention had been to transport Jeff and 
herself to the edge of a lakeside town conveniently close to all four of the mountains 
they were interested in. The town had a vehicle rental agency and Clara had had the 
foresight to phone the agency the previous afternoon and arrange for a four wheel 
drive to be ready for them by the morning. Clara looked down at Jeff once again. As 
soon as he had recovered, they would set out.


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

As it turned out, Clara had transported them three kilometers away from the town. 
Even after the long walk, however, they still managed to arrive in the town well 
before the rental agency opened. Fortunately, there were no problems with the 
vehicle. The dealer had managed to secure for them a top-of-the-line Mercedes four 
wheel drive, more than capable of getting anywhere on the mountains that a vehicle 
could possibly go. Clara quietly groaned when Jeff took the keys and made for the 
driver's side door. Jeff smiled and playfully told Clara that she could drive on the way 
back. Clara climbed into the passenger side, silently thinking to herself that it would 
be Christmas before they arrived at the mountaintop.

Within an hour, however, Clara and Jeff had made their way to the end of the trail that 
lead up the first mountain they planned to explore. Since the capital of her empire was 
located far to the south, the plan was to begin the search for Tukanni's tomb on the 
southernmost mountain and work their way north.

Exploring the mountaintops was easier said than done, especially for Jeff, with steep 
inclines and rocky dead-ends limiting where he could go. The treacherous terrain did 
not pose such a problem to Clara, however, who managed to climb around any 
obstacle she found with sure-footedness that would shame any mountain goat. Jeff 
found himself watching her admiringly, wondering just how much of what he saw 
was genie, and how much was pure Clara Roft.

Jeff would follow Clara along the mountain trails as far as he could, and although she 
easily could have, Clara never allowed herself to get more than a few feet ahead of 
him. When they struck an obstacle that Jeff simply couldn't navigate around, Jeff 
would wait while Clara went on ahead to "Just have a look." Sometimes she would 
leave him for over an hour while she continued to explore solo. In many ways, she 
preferred it when she was alone, there was still something about Jeff's presence that 
Clara found disconcerting. But on the other hand, she also worried about him 
wandering off and getting into trouble while she was gone. If he was to die whilst she 
was still his slave, it would devastate her quest for freedom. Had it been an option, 
Clara would have preferred to leave Jeff back in England while she explored the 
Turkish mountains alone. But the spell she was under bound her to stay within a 
certain distance of the lamp, and it also forbade her from transporting the lamp out of 
the reach of it's owner.

Before long, the sun began to get low in the sky. The pair continued traversing the 
mountain for as long as they safely could before they returned to the four wheel drive 
and returned to the town. True to his word, Jeff let Clara drive on the return trip.


Getting a motel room for the night resulted in an awkward moment for Clara. When 
the desk clerk asked Jeff if they wanted a double, Jeff turned to Clara, silently asking 
what she wanted.

"Very well," she replied straightforwardly. Jeff's delighted smile betrayed his thoughts 
as he signed them in. Clara loathed having to give him such a mixed signal, but 
ultimately she thought it was the simplest and safest way of handling the situation. 
Once they were in the room, Clara made her way to the phone. She ran her eye 
quickly over the nearby instructions on how to dial out of the motel, and proceeded to 
dial the number for Croft Manor. Clara spent ten minutes talking to first her father and 
then her mother, mostly assuring them that both her and Jeff were safe and that she 
remained optimistic of finding the tomb, despite the day not having yielded any 
results. Meanwhile, Jeff had stripped down and made his way into the shower. He was 
still in there when Clara entered the bathroom.

Clara excused herself from Jeff's presence, telling him that she wished to return to the 
lamp, carefully choosing her words to make it sound like she planned to study 
Zhiasa's journal. Jeff gently protested, saying he had hoped they could spend the night 
together, perhaps finding a restaurant in the town in which to dine, but in the end he 
did not forbid Clara from returning to the lamp.

Seeking sanctuary within the lamp allowed Clara to avoid any further advances from 
Jeff, but contrary to what she'd implied to her master, there was nothing else for her to 
learn from Zhiasa's journal. With nothing else to do Clara layed down on the elegant 
bed within the lamp chamber and fell asleep, knowing that she would awake when 
Jeff rubbed the lamp in the morning.

The following three days progressed much the same as the first. Clara and Jeff 
combed the surface of the mountain, Clara often going off to explore on her own, but 
finding nothing of interest. At night, Clara would fulfil her promise to call her parents, 
and then quickly excuse herself into the lamp. 

By the afternoon of their second day in Turkey, Jeff was getting severely bored with 
being left alone on the mountainside for extended periods of time. He used the sat-
phone to order the most expensive portable DVD player that could be shipped to their 
motel by that evening, and took it with him on the following days, playing movies in 
blocks whenever Clara left him to go off on her own. Jeff seemed quite proud of 
himself for his first instance of frivolous spending since he became a billionaire. Clara 
did not share his excitement.

By the end of their third day in Turkey, both Clara and Jeff decided that it was time 
that they move on to the next mountain on their list. On it's first day, the second 
mountain seemed no more promising than it's predecessor. But just after ten o'clock 
the following morning, Clara's keen eyes spotted a small cavern in the mountain face, 
on top of a seven-foot-tall mound of earth. The opening was small, but the mound 
beneath it offered the possibility that it was just the top of a tunnel entrance that had 
been partially buried. The pair immediately made their way over to the cavern. Clara 
kneeled in front of the dark opening and shone her torch into it, revealing that the 
passage went deep into the mountain.

"See anything?" Jeff asked as he squatted down beside her.

"No. But the passage runs deep. This could be it!" Clara smiled, looking over at him 
from behind her shades.

"It's a tight squeeze," Jeff noted. The entrance to the cave was very short, but it 
appeared to be just large enough for a person to crawl through.

"Yes," Clara agreed. "We won't be able to take these," she said as she began to 
remove her backpack. Jeff followed her lead, removing his own pack, taking out his 
own torch and, as an afterthought, the lamp as well. Even though there was nobody 
else around, he wasn't going to let it out of his sight. Finally, he removed his broad 
akubra hat and placed it on the ground, sitting his pack on top of the brim so that the 
wind could not blow it away. Clara pressed her body to the ground and wormed her 
way into the cavern in a manner not unlike the one Jeff had seen soldiers using in 
stock footage of army training. She was still grasping her torch, ensuring that she was 
not moving completely blind. Once she was completely inside of the cavern, Jeff 
followed her in, his torch in one hand, the lamp in the other.

The two explorers slowly moved into the depths of the mountain. The passage didn't 
seem to get any more spacious as it progressed, but neither did it become tighter. 
After moving into the tunnel just a few feet, Jeff could scarcely see anything other 
than the soles of Clara's boots, illuminated by his torchlight, shifting to and fro just in 
front of him. Clara could see little more than the next few feet of passage ahead of 
her, however she had observed that the roof of the passage was far too consistent for it 
to have formed naturally. A confidant smile grew on her face as she realised she had 
almost certainly achieved her goal. Ahead, she could see the ground level begin to 
descend.

"Mind the incline," she warned.

"Righto," Jeff acknowledged with a frustrated huff. Eager to get off his belly, Jeff 
pushed himself forward with newfound gusto when he began to feel the passage 
widening. Unfortunately, Clara's warning had failed to convey how quickly the 
ground turned downwards into a fairly steep angle. It was only when he put his hand 
forward that he realised that the ground was much lower than he expected it to be. He 
stumbled forward and began to slide down the loose earth of the cavern base, 
collecting Clara on his way down. The two explorers careened down the passage 
together like a runaway train, coming to an abrupt stop only a few seconds later. Clara 
grunted as she hit solid ground, the impact knocking the torch out of her hand. She 
grunted again a split second later, in unison with Jeff, as he landed on top of her.

"I did say 'mind the incline'," she said with a slight hint of annoyance.

"Yeah... Sorry about that," Jeff responded sheepishly, "I didn't expect it to be that 
much of an incline..."

"Would you mind?" Clara asked, referring to Jeff getting off of her. She had quickly 
changed the subject to avoid succumbing to a burning urge to berate his carelessness.

"Sure," he answered, climbing off of her as quickly as he could in the pitch blackness. 
Unable to see much of anything, Jeff slowly lifted his body. Upon discovering that he 
could now stand upright he cautiously walked over to his glowing torch, which (along 
with the lamp) had been knocked out of his hand, much like Clara's, when he landed 
on top of her. He picked it up, and walked over to Clara's torch. As he bent down to 
fetch it, Clara pulled it quickly into her hand with her magic. His attempt at a 
courteous gesture foiled, Jeff shrugged and began panning his torchlight around the 
nearby floor, searching for the lamp.

Clara, meanwhile, was examining the slope of earth that they had just ridden down. 
From the bottom, it didn't seem as steep or tall as it had on the way down. Climbing 
back up to the small tunnel opening at the top would not be a major problem. She 
moved her torchlight upwards, revealing that the roof of the cavern they were in was 
quite high, perhaps twenty feet above them. Astonishingly, it appeared to be 
completely smooth, and even arched. There was no question now that this was a man-
made chamber.

It didn't take Jeff long to find and retrieve the lamp, only a few feet away from where 
they'd landed. He crammed it as best he could in one of the deep pockets of his shorts 
and began to move his torchlight further afield. All of a sudden something in the beam 
caught his eye and his hand froze. "Clara!" he called, as a look of awe grew on his 
face.

"Yes, what is..." She began in an incurious tone, silencing herself as she turned to see 
what Jeff had discovered. In the light before them were dozens of objects. Dull grey 
pots and vases made of clay, hunks of rotting pale timber that appeared to be the 
remains of decayed boxes or chests, the rare hint of severely corroded bronze, and a 
three-foot-tall statue of what appeared to be a soldier. Clara walked over to Jeff's side 
as she shone her own, more powerful torch in the same direction as Jeff's, 
illuminating even more parafinalia. As the two archaeologists began to slowly pan 
their torches around in opposite directions, they began to realise that the entire 
opposite wall of the large chamber was lined with ancient artefacts.

"I think we're in the right place..." Jeff mused with a sarcastic hint of doubt. Clara had 
moved her torchlight around to discover that the chamber appeared to be rectangular 
in shape, with a short vestibule, in which they were still standing, connecting the main 
area of the chamber to the entrance passage. Clara noticed that there seemed to be a 
couple of short steps down from the vestibule to the chamber proper. The artefacts 
seemed to line all the walls of the chamber, right up to the edge of the vestibule. It 
reminded Clara of photos she'd seen of Tutankhamun's tomb in the state it was first 
discovered.

"Clara!" Jeff called again, as he made another, even more interesting discovery. Clara 
quickly turned her gaze to the area illuminated Jeff's torch beam and her lips parted in 
silent amazement.  There in the light was a large stone box; quite obviously, a 
sarcophagus. "Definitely in the right place," Jeff asserted.

The box itself was relatively plain. It was a simple rectangle prism in shape, except 
for a rounded cornice extending around the edge of the top of the box. The lid was 
still upon the sarcophagus in it's rightful position. The box looked strong, despite it's 
probable age. On the visible long side, a simple pattern of vertical stripes had been 
carved into the stone, but apart from that, the only other notable feature on the box 
were some inconsistent markings carved into the nearest short side, probably writing.

After staring silently at the casket for a few seconds, Jeff began to walk towards it. 
Clara soon followed. Jeff stumbled down the steps from the vestibule, not realising 
they were there, and turned his torch back to see what had made him stumble.

"Sorry. I was going to warn you about those, but then I thought if I did, you wouldn't 
have expected them to be that much of a step," Clara flatly remarked. "ARGH!" she 
winced, as she pressed her hand against her suddenly aching forehead.

"Is it that insult punishment thing again?" Jeff asked her.

"Yes," Clara replied in a strained voice.

"Don't do that. I had it coming," Jeff conceded in an easy-going tone, as her continued 
walking towards the sarcophagus. Clara agreed with his statement but said nothing.

"I appreciate the thought," Clara responded as the migraine left her and she resumed 
following Jeff to the casket, "but it's not exactly something I have control over."

"Right. Sorry," Jeff said, looking back at her with a sympathetic expression.

"Never mind," Clara grumbled, tired of discussing the matter. As Jeff began to slowly 
circle the sarcophagus, Clara carefully studied what she could now clearly tell was 
writing, carved into the nearest side of the box. "My God!" Clara suddenly exclaimed 
in astonishment. "I was so wrong about her."

"Who? Tukanni?" Jeff asked, lifting his eyes from the sarcophagus to look in Clara's 
direction, even though the glare from her torch made it impossible to actually see her.

"No, Zhiasa," Clara said. "This first line of text is written in the same dialect as the 
journal, nine thousand year old Mesopotamian. It says, 'Entombed within is Queen 
Tukanni'."

"But?" Jeff asked, knowing there must've been more to the story.

"But the line below it is written in medieval Persian; Hal'hadin's language. It says, 
'...The Forgiven.' Zhiasa forgave her!" Clara said staring at Jeff in wonderment. 
Thanks to her heightened genie senses, Clara could actually see his dumbstruck 
expression, despite the extreme darkness and torch glare.

"Jesus! After eight thousand years of being enslaved..." Jeff responded in 
wonderment. "Who said, 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'?" he said in a 
lighter tone.

"Some misguided fellow who tried to steal the Illakri Sceptre from me, Van Skaal, his 
name was..." Clara replied without missing a beat. Jeff chuckled and Clara smirked. 
"Tukanni indirectly introduced Zhiasa to the love of her life," Clara said, her tone 
serious once again. "Regardless of her intentions, Tukanni had given her something 
wonderful that she would never have otherwise had, something that Zhiasa obviously 
felt outweighed all the hardships she'd encountered along the way... I guess in that 
light, Zhiasa felt that she could no longer bear a grudge," Clara suggested. The 
chamber fell solemnly silent as the two explorers pondered such an extraordinary 
gesture of compassion.

"Well... We've come all this way. I think it's time we found out if the amulet is here or 
not," Jeff said. Clara nodded. Jeff placed his torch on the flat top of the sarcophagus 
lid and pressed his palms against the lid's side. He groaned as he pushed hard against 
the heavy stone slab. Clara, still standing several feet away, summoned a strong burst 
of magical energy to move the lid with a smooth wave of her hand. Jeff was startled 
as the lid suddenly shifted halfway across the sarcophagus. "Wow! That was easier 
than I thought it would be," he said in surprise. "I don't know my own strength." Clara 
smirked at the ironic truth in his statement.

Jeff grabbed his torch from atop the lid while Clara strolled over to the open side of 
the casket. They both shone their torches into the box and examined it's contents. 
After nine thousand years there was no body to be seen, nor skeleton. There were only 
scant fragments of bone, severely corroded hunks of metal (which Clara presumed 
was once part of the queen's funerary attire), and an awful lot of dust.

"Bingo!" Jeff said in a triumphant tone, as he reached in to the sarcophagus to grab an 
eye-catching metallic object, with what appeared to be two emeralds embedded in it, 
resting in the dust where Tukanni's torso would once have layed. Jeff blew the dust 
off the object as he held it in his own torchlight, and sure enough, it was shaped in the 
form of a lotus flower, with two emerald buds on the stem.

 Jeff stared at the amulet, a contemplative look on his face with a suspicious-looking 
smirk. Then Clara felt her stomach sink as it all dawned on her. In her desperation to 
obtain the means to her freedom, she'd lead her master right to the means of keeping 
her in his service forever. All he had to do was marry that amulet with the lamp in his 
pocket and there would be no limit to the amount of wishes he could make her grant. 
Everything he would ever desire would be his, every obstacle that ever came in his 
way would disappear. Even her body would be at his beck and call, as the amulet 
would give him permanent access to her subconscious mind, and therefore, her sexual 
desires. Clara could only look on in alarm as he continued to gaze at the amulet. Jeff 
was a very intelligent man, there was no way in hell that he did not realise the 
potential of what he held in his hand.

With a conceding sigh, after many tensely silent seconds, Jeff turned to Clara and 
offered her the amulet. "I bet this is a sight for sore eyes?" he said. Clara's jaw 
dropped. She began to shake her head softly in disbelief as she stared at him. Only 
seconds ago she was afraid that she had made a colossal mistake in leading Jeff to the 
amulet. Now she realised that she had made a much more terrible one by not trusting 
him. All of those horrible suspicions she'd had about him since that morning after 
they'd first made love, they were all wrong! From the day they first met, all he had 
ever shown her was kindness, and now this man, this wonderful man was sacrificing 
virtual omnipotence for the sake of her freedom! If this was not someone she could 
trust, then no one was. All at once Clara felt more touched than she ever had been 
before, and yet so ashamed for her mistrust and cruel spurning of Jeff, who clearly 
had feelings for her.

Jeff did not look at her, his gaze was focused on the amulet. Eventually, Clara reached 
forward with both hands and cupped them gently around Jeff's hand and the amulet. 
"Thank you," she said in a quiet, heartfelt voice. Then Clara pulled her hands slowly 
away from Jeff's, taking the amulet with them. She stared at Jeff for a few seconds, 
and it was only now that Jeff looked up at her with a smile. Clara smiled back.

"Not at all, milady," Jeff said quietly, in a warm tone. Clara simply continued to smile 
at him. They stared at each other for a few more seconds before Clara spoke.

"I might be a few minutes. There's something I need to take care of, " she said.

"Okay," Jeff responded, as Clara slowly began to dissolve into smoke, starting with 
her feet and moving upward. "Clara wait!" Jeff suddenly interrupted. Clara instantly 
paused her transformation, everything above and including her hips was still a solid 
human form, whilst below there was only a cloud of smoke that lead into the pocket 
in Jeff's shorts containing the lamp. "I wish..." Jeff began, falling silent as he 
pondered how to finish the sentence. "I wish... I wish I knew why your father called 
you 'Nugget'," he finally said with an air of genuine curiosity, clearly making the 
impulsive third wish only so that it would not have been forfeited. Clara chuckled at 
the triviality of the request.

"It's what he used to call me as a baby. He always used to say that I was his 'little 
treasure'," she replied with a smile. After granting her master's third and final wish, 
Clara was forcibly transformed into a smokey cloud and drawn back into the lamp, 
with the magic amulet still in her hands.

Once again in the familiar lamp chamber, Clara immediately headed for the writing 
desk. With what she hoped would be her final magical act as a genie, She conjured 
several blank sheets of paper on to the desk, as well as a fountain pen. Clara then sat 
down at the desk and began to write the following message:

"I regret to inform you that you have been caught in an ancient, magical boobytrap. 
Don't waste your time searching for a way out of this chamber. The only way you can 
be released is if another person rubs the lamp as you have just done. When that 
happens, they will be your master and you will be their slave. You will have to grant 
any three wishes that they make, and then wait once again, until someone else rubs 
the lamp, making them your new master. But do not despair, for there is hope. There 
is an amulet that can free you."

Clara then gave detailed directions to Tukanni's tomb.

"...You will find the amulet in the stone sarcophagus. Once you have the amulet, 
return to this chamber and place it in the niche in the wall with the writing on it. Be 
very careful whom you share this knowledge with, for the amulet can also allow your 
master to make infinite wishes, potentially making your enslavement eternal. I have 
been lucky, my first and only master is a man with a good heart..." Clara smiled as 
she wrote those words, "...but You may not be so.

Take heart, and don't give up. I wish you luck.


- A Previous Resident."

Clara then wrote the same message on seven more pieces of paper, until she had 
written a copy in each of the eight modern languages in which she was fluent. She 
picked up the sheets, along with the amulet and placed the sheets on the ground, at the 
foot of the taunting message carved into the wall. Then Clara took a deep breath, and 
slid the amulet into the small enclave in the wall. The amulet fit into the space snugly. 
As soon as it had been pushed home, the amulet began to glow with an orangey-
golden light. Clara could hear the faint sound of wind blowing, and looked around to 
see where it could be coming from. She looked down at her feet, half expecting 
another cloud of smoke to begin swallowing her up, but there was nothing there. The 
sound was getting louder.

All of a sudden the wall in front of her disappeared and she found herself in the 
middle of the fiercest sandstorm she had ever been in. It was so thick she could not 
see a thing, and the howling wind was so deafening, she could not even hear her own 
shouting. As she shielded her face with her left arm, Clara held her right arm out in 
front of her, searching for some sort of reference point. All the while, a barrage of 
sand grains assaulted her, front-on, with incredible force. Then, after only a few 
seconds, the storm ended as quickly as it had begun. When Clara looked up from 
behind her arm, she discovered that she was somewhere very dark, so dark in fact that 
she could not see a thing. She also became aware that somehow the amulet was back 
in her right hand again. Without warning, Clara was caught in a bright light, which 
hurt her eyes, and she once again lifted her arm to shield them.

"There you are!" Jeff said, moving his torch beam slightly away from Clara when he 
realised that her eyes needed time to adjust to the light. "So you wanted to change, 
eh? Looks nice," he complimented in an overly conversational tone. Clara looked 
down over her body and noticed that she was indeed dressed in a different outfit. She 
smiled in delight when she realised how she'd been redressed. Jeff was not to know, 
but the clothes she was now wearing were the same ones that she had on when she 
first discovered the lamp. For Clara, that was all the proof she needed that her 
imprisonment was over. She looked back up at Jeff, beaming. "I don't know about the 
guns, though..." Jeff continued. "I don't think theyre necessary on an expedition like 
this. See, the thing about tombs is, their owners have usually already been... well, 
'capped'."

Without a word, Clara began to quickly march over towards Jeff's torchlight. "So is 
that it?" he asked seriously. "Are you..." Before he could finish, Clara lunged forward 
and pushed her lips hard against Jeff's, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing 
him as tightly as she could. Jeff did not hesitate to return her affections, his torchlight 
danced happily around on the chamber ceiling as he threw his arms around Clara's 
back and embraced her as they kissed long and passionately.

Becoming a genie via powerful ancient magics, only to be set free by a man her gut 
told her to be wary of threw everything Clara believed in into question. Mythology, 
history and her own instincts, she didn't know what to believe about any of them any 
more. The only thing that she could be sure of right now was that the best place in the 
world that she could possibly be was right here, in Jeff's arms. 

"Wait..." Clara said with a hint of regret as she broke the kiss off, "...there's one more 
thing I need to do. Do you have my torch?" Jeff reached into a pouch on his belt and 
produced Clara's torch.

"Here," he said as he handed it to her. Clara turned the torch on and shone it around 
the room, quickly locating the sarcophagus a few feet away. She walked over to it, 
with Jeff soon following her. Then Clara leaned into the ancient box and carefully 
placed the magic amulet upon the disintegrated remains of the lamp's cruel forger. 
Without a word, Jeff and Clara walked around to the other side of the sarcophagus 
together to push the lid back and seal the casket once more. With a great deal of 
grunting and groaning from both of the explorers, and the occasional curse word from 
Jeff, the lid was eventually restored to it's original position.

"It's done," Clara said as she ran her torch over the ancient box one last time.

"Let's hope nobody ever has to come looking for it..." Jeff said.

"Indeed," Clara agreed. She looked over at Jeff with a smile and kissed him tenderly 
as she wrapped one arm around the back of his waist. "Come on, we'd best be out of 
here. The longer I stand in this tomb, the more I'm tempted to take some artefacts 
back for study," she said, gently slapping Jeff on the butt.

"Alright," Jeff responded in a compliant tone. "So, is this compulsion to Raid Tombs 
a normal thing for you?" he asked facetiously.

"Hmm... I must admit, I honestly can't recall the last time I found a nine thousand year 
old royal tomb and then left it without any evidence of it's existence," was Clara's 
droll reply.

"Really?" Jeff asked with mock surprise, "I do that all the time. But then I dropped out 
of archaeology before they told us what you're supposed to do after you discover a 
tomb..." Clara chuckled as she made her way up the mound of loose earth leading to 
the small entrance passage.

