[Tuesday 12:30 PM – North Africa]
Aimee brushed away the sandy debris. Small, orange-red clumps were swept out of her way, revealing more detail. A bead of sweat dripped from the center of her eyebrows, landing scant inches from the outline of something large, hard, and straight. The bead moistened the exposed packed sand and quickly evaporated.
“It's not only hot today, but it feels as if the humidity is rising,” Aimee murmured. There was little chance of precipitation, but sometimes a shift in the winds would draw humidity from the Mediterranean Sea in the north.
There was no one in her area to speak to, even if she wanted to, as she was assigned a location deemed least likely to contain anything by the dig foreman. Besides, most of the others around her spoke little, if any, English, and the rest of her group had been assigned to the other side of the dig. Those who spoke some English were likely plants from the local crime syndicates. They were here to ensure that anything of value was either taken or noted so that the proper “tribute” could be extracted before whatever was found was taken out of their reach. Aimee had come to learn that crime was a major industry here, but after this morning's conversation with her mother, her understanding of what that meant had changed.
Aimee, the daughter of the two lead archaeologists on this project, was only seventeen – well, eighteen as of today, she corrected herself. However, the so-called "professionals" considered her more of a hazard than a help. She scoffed at the term "professional," as those the foreman referred to were merely local workers willing to endure the desert heat for minimal pay, or were planted there. These "professionals" were given basic instructions on how to dig without causing damage, when to report to a superior, and were then assigned to a supervisor, whose main duty was to minimize artifact theft. If anything valuable were to be discovered, everyone would be forced to leave the area and University personnel would take over.
Aimee was remarkably gifted. She had accompanied her parents on archaeological digs around the world from birth. Observing two of the most respected archaeologists in the world work throughout her entire life, she had gained a wealth of knowledge. It wasn't just her natural intelligence and skills that enabled her to find several rare pieces; it was her genuine passion and care for the work. Aimee firmly believed that she was providing the world with valuable, irreplaceable knowledge, and this meant more to her than any pay that the foreman could offer his cronies.
A strong breeze brought with it the smell of the foreman's cheap cigar, alerting her that he was approaching her area. She stood up and began walking toward the direction from which the foreman would appear. After she climbed out of the depression, she pulled down her paper dust mask and removed the scarf from her head, letting her bobbed hair fall unkempt wherever gravity and the sticky grit allowed. She realized that the foreman was further away than she had anticipated. While waiting, she contemplated why she had been so wrong about his location. She concluded spitefully that it was a combination of the unusually strong wind and the exceptionally foul cigar.
She plopped onto the ground with a groan that bordered on a huff. Using her scarf, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and face, inadvertently creating a dark smear from the dirt and sand that had accumulated there. With her tanned complexion now bearing a resemblance to a coal miner exiting a mine, rather than a young lady searching for antiquities, she squinted in the afternoon sun and surveyed the area.
“How do you like our environment, Miss Eye-may?” he called out in his heavy accent, the cigar bobbing in his mouth making his speech even more garbled than normal. He was a skinny, piebald local man with leathery, wrinkled skin from too much exposure to the sun. His clothes were several sizes too large and hung from him much like a wraith's tatters described in legend. “It is a bit much for a young girl like yourself, no?” He chuckled derisively, leering at her as he spoke. The smoke billowed from between his rotting and stained teeth as he laughed. Combined with the disgusting expression, it made him resemble some smoking horror from a story. Despite the heat of the day, a chill ran the length of her spine.
“No, actually, I quite like it. It isn't as wet as the jungles of South America, and there aren't the insects always wanting your blood. It also isn't as dangerous as Thailand or India where the snakes and leeches are always a danger. All there is here is the sun... and the scorpions,” she said as dismissively as possible.
She did not want him to examine her area and see her finds. Without her parents around, she was certain that she would be forced to move and his cronies would destroy whatever it was that she was starting to uncover.
He snorted at her insult, a large cloud of foul smoke gushing from his mouth. He glared at her for a moment, as if formulating a retort, then he smiled wryly— a greasy and discomforting expression. He turned and walked away.
Aimee watched him leave for a while, then made her way back down to her discovery. She ran her foot along the edge, trying to determine the approximate size of the item. After a few minutes, she surmised that it was an underground cellar or crypt of some sort. The possibilities excited her imagination, but not so much that her stomach couldn't remind her that she hadn't eaten yet.
She walked over to her cooler and extracted her packed water, snack, and electrolyte pill from a plastic bag. It was mid-afternoon, and she needed to stay hydrated as the hottest part of the day was still to come. The water had gotten warm because the chemical ice packs had long since given out. She had taken too much time opening the bottle after putting the salty-tasting pill in her mouth.
“Yech! I hate the way those things taste! Nasty, nasty, nasty, and even more nasty!” She sat on the ground, and using the top of the cooler as a table, started eating her lunch.
Aimee threw her scarf next to the cooler and grabbed a woven straw hat lying nearby. She felt more confident that she would sweat less wearing this hat than that scarf. She rummaged through her equipment bag, grabbed a few more tools— most of them designed to allow her to dig around the item — and went back to work. After about a half hour, she cleared away enough dirt to see that there was a door or covered entrance a few feet from the edge she had found.
Aimee stood looking at the enigma. She was tempted to pry to open the entrance, even though she knew she shouldn't. It dawned on her that in her excitement, she had uncovered too much of the structure to effectively hide it until her father returned to oversee a proper examination. Carefully, she walked to the edge of her pit and peered over, hoping to see the foreman or any of his favorites. However, no one was in sight, which was unusual, but convenient for her at the moment.
She hurriedly slid down the depression and grabbed a headband-mounted flashlight, her heavy elbow-length leather gloves, and her spade from her pack. She ran over to the entrance and put on the gloves. Using her newly protected fingers and the spade, she probed the outline of the entrance to look for some sort of latch or catch that would open the door. When she couldn't find anything, she resorted to the universal fallback – push it open.
Aimee sat at the edge of the entrance and pressed the heels of her boots into the line that she assumed was the edge between the door and the wall. With all of her might, she pushed. Nothing happened. She pushed a second time and thought she heard the sounds of the sand grating. She readjusted her position and gave a great heave. Suddenly, the slab gave and slid a couple of inches. After a few more attempts, she had created enough of a gap that she felt that she could worm her way through.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She once again climbed the hill to make sure that no one was in the area and made up her mind to enter the chamber. Although she knew it was dangerous, she had a gut feeling that it was now or never. She gathered all of her equipment and positioned it so that it could stop the slab from closing, or at least she hoped it would. She put on the headlamp and opened her cell phone. She quickly sent herself an email explaining what she was about to do and included the coordinates of the entrance. She also scheduled a calendar event to send another one to her mother in 90 minutes in case she got trapped. She would set it up so that if she did get out, she could cancel the action before it caused her unnecessary grief. “At least someone could come and retrieve my bones if I get trapped,” she said as she pressed 'Accept.'
Breathing a sigh, Aimee started squeezing her way into the hole. She put her head in and turned on a light to check for any obstructions. She found that aside from a few rocks on the floor, the chamber was clear. As she descended the stone stairs at the front of the chamber, she encountered a small problem when her butt got stuck in a gap. After a few moments of intense effort, she managed to push past the challenge, but not without grumbling in annoyance. She continued her crawl down the stairs and upon reaching the floor, she stood up. Taking a moment to pull up her shorts, which had been pulled down to her knees during her struggle, she surveyed her immediate surroundings. The chamber was large, tall enough for a man and wide enough for several people to walk side by side. It sloped deeper into the earth and was long enough that the light from her headlamp couldn't reach the far end.
A rush of excitement ran through Aimee. She was exploring a real dungeon! Suppressing an impulse to squeal, she pulled out her cell phone to check for signal. Nothing. The surrounding material was too thick or mineral-rich. Putting the phone away, she slowly continued forward.
The walls were of fitted stone without mortar, with the occasional stone support ribs, but Aimee saw no indication that there were ever wooden supports holding up the ceiling. As her sense of giddiness decreased, her sense of unease grew. The construction of this “chamber” was not what she was trained to recognize as a type used in this area. Although she didn't have the equipment to know for sure, the age of the stones seemed far older than the time period of the construction found in other parts of the dig. To her knowledge, all of the other constructions found were of finished stone, similar to the construction found all over North Africa, and made famous in ancient Egyptian construction.
After traveling an undetermined distance, her light shone on a door ahead of her. Her heart leaped and fell simultaneously. The thought that she had discovered a complex instead of a chamber or crypt elated her, but the realization that all of this would soon be beyond her reach saddened her. She knew that as soon as she reported this, it would be labeled far above her level and she'd be kept from it. This could be the find of a century.
Aimee carefully examined the doors, for she now saw that there were two as she traced the fused separation with her fingers. They appeared to be straight out of some fantasy novel, and a sense of unease returned. As an avid reader of fantasy fiction, she was not eager to encounter any traps reminiscent of the novels she loved. After all, not many people get to experience something like this.
Despite her unease, she pulled out her phone and used the dim light from her headlamp to take pictures of the door. The images turned out to be low quality and dim, but the details were visible. She carefully examined the doors in every possible way, but couldn't find any secret traps – or at least none that she could find. Throwing caution to the wind, she pushed hard against the doors. They were jammed or possibly locked, and she was no locksmith.
Giving up on the doors for the moment, she spied something shiny on the floor to her right. She bent down to take a closer look. The item appeared to be crafted from an exotic stone with gold accents, and had a scale-like pattern. Such items were common in this region. Her father used to say that things with serpents on them were as common as fleas on a hound-dog. The object was cylindrical and about three to four inches tall, roughly the width of her arm. She carefully picked it up with her gloved hands and examined it. The top and bottom seemed to be broken off from a larger piece. She surmised that this was likely a piece of a statue, or, she shuddered, a petrified person. Scolding herself for letting her imagination run wild, she attempted to wipe away some dust, but her thick leather gloves restricted her fingers' movement. She blew on it to remove the dust, and to her surprise, the stone started rapidly crumbling away.
In just a few moments what had been solid stone disappeared, revealing a golden armlet in the shape of a wingless dragon or lizard. The armlet was designed to wrap around the wearer's arm in a spiral pattern. The head of the dragon had two emeralds for eyes, and a ruby in the shape of a heart was located on the back between the front legs. The armlet was made of plain gold with intricate details, and both the front and hind legs were slightly offset from the body.
Aimee was mesmerized. She imagined that queens or highly placed nobles had once worn pieces like this one. Although she knew that she shouldn't, she decided that she wanted to see what such a wonderful thing would look like on her. She was in a place no one would see her, and no one but her would ever know. Besides, she had never owned any jewelry before, and she knew that once she turned this into the asset tent, she'd probably never see it again.
Slowly and gently, she slid her left arm into the armlet. As it reached the highest point on her upper arm, she thought she saw the eyes glint.
"Just a play of the light. Nothing to worry about," she reassured herself.
Suddenly, the armlet started to glow and seemed to come to life. Where before it had been loose enough to fall off her arm, it suddenly constricted her arm. The head of the dragon reared back and bared its teeth. With a hiss, it bit down into her bicep. The legs spread their claws and clamped down with the talons burying deep into her arm. The wounds bled profusely where it had bit her. She screamed in pain, but there was no one around to hear.
The shock made her feel faint and she sat hard on the ground, hitting the back of her head on an outcropping of stone. For a moment, through the stars in her eyes, she thought she saw a deeper shadow shift in the alcove.
The armlet continued to shine with a golden light. The pain in her arm was lessening as the seconds passed and the bleeding had somehow stopped. However, the pain from hitting her head continued pulsing.
The armlet’s light flared and dissipated. She noticed that she was feeling no pain at all anymore, and the blood on her arm had disappeared without a trace.
With a cold realization, Aimee scrabbled and pulled at the thing on her arm, but it wouldn't budge. The headlamp flickered and was starting to dim. Taking a precious moment of battery life, she glanced at the armlet in the failing light. It had embedded itself so deeply that it would probably take a doctor to remove it.
Just her luck – the first time in her life that she had broken the rules, it turned out to be a cursed item! This was not good, not good at all. She sullenly stood up and walked toward the entrance. She took one last look down into the dark. She thought she heard the sound of a falling pebble or a shuffling sound from in the darkness, but she dismissed it as her imagination. She sighed toward the doors and crawled out into the blistering sun.