A/N: a little note for future chapters. When the letters has a italic shape it means that the characters talks another language. I will of course be my best so it wouldn't be confusing :)

It was hot. Very hot. The sun glared from a cloud free sky and the air was very dry. Elizabeth's hair was braided into two pieces, one on each shoulder and she had a hat on for protection against the barbarian sun. She had on a pair of beige pants, a white t-shirt, a silver necklace with a little cross as a pendent and some small earrings. She sat in a car with three other men and they were on their way up the mountain side when one of them broke silence.

"Mrs. Hamilton?" the man next to Elizabeth asked. He had been the one who had picked Elizabeth up in the airport. He wasn't really tall but very thin and had a very baby expressed face. He too was wearing very simple clothes.

"Yes?" responded Elizabeth.

"I heard that you had to change the day of your wedding. I'm sorry to hear that." His strong Arabic accent made it a bit difficult to understand him.

She gave the man a little grin. "To be honest, it was a kind of relief to get away."

"Oh… how come?" asked the man in the passenger's seat next to the driver. He was robust, had long hair and a French beard who he properly hoped to score some ladies with.

"My fiancé… is very demanding about the whole thing. I´m a protestant and he is a catholic. I take things a lot easier than him. You should have seen a list of his relatives he wanted in the church. I could have died on the spot. It was like he had invited the half of England but the rest would just show up anyway." All three men laughed.

"So you need some time to think?" asked the driver. He had a cigarette in his mouth and beautiful sun classes that complimented his facial feature. However his white T-shirt which had the words: 'Where do we sleep tonight?' was a little bit over the top for Elizabeth´s taste.

"Not really. I want to marry him, but… I just want to say yes and be done with it." The car stopped. "Are we there?" Elizabeth asked and the driver with the T-shirt nodded. She stepped out of the car and the heat took her by a surprise. In a few seconds she looked like a dog with her tongue out of her mouth. She took her bag and started to look for her sun glasses when a man came towards her.

"Mrs. Hamilton I assume?" the man asked and Elizabeth looked up. Putting her new sun glasses on (which she had bought in the airport) made she feel like a true tourist. She nodded and looked at the man. He looked normal at first but then she saw his nose. It reminded her of Michael Jackson. She shocked her head so she could return to reality. "I´m Ali Zada." He said at last.

"Hello there. Is everything set up?" Elizabeth asked like a character from the TV series Sex and the City, twitching her fingers in her braids.

"Yes Mrs. Hamilton. However we are nervous about the whole thing falling into pieces. That would be terrible." Ali said with a bit of nervousness in his voice.

"Yeah. If it falls into pieces," Elizabeth started and looked at the excavation through her sun glasses. "It would be like using the word 'unfortunate' to describe world war two." She said with her lady like English accent and the man looked at her with a strange look. She turned her head from side to side. "Come on, we can't stand here in the middle of the sun. We will get fried like a chicken in a pan." They went to a tent standing in the middle of nowhere. There were a lot of men, most of them with Arabic roots. "Good afternoon gentlemen." She started and took her hat of as she went under the tent. "We have a long day ahead of us."

Most of them nodded. One man pointed in the direction where the cars were packed. "What is it?" Elizabeth asked and turned around. She saw a group of journalist stepping out of a car. The reporter was a fine constructed woman with a light blue 'typical BBC broadcast' skirt and jacket. Her hair was bright as the dirty on the ground and she was wearing high heels that would make Lady Gaga faint on the spot. She had very little make-up on but her nails were from the nearest cosmetic store… and blue. Some of the men behind Elizabeth laughed a little bit when the reporter stepped out of the car and Elizabeth couldn't blame them. It was hilarious to watch. It was like seeing America's funniest home videos on TV and expecting and happy ending. She turned around again however, she didn´t want to get distracted. She opened her bag and pulled a rather big ring binder up and placed it on the table. She sighed as she opened it and said to the men: "This excavation is still much unknown to us. We don't know what to expect, but no matter what…"

"Excuse me!" a woman´s voice interrupted. Elizabeth bit her teeth together and made an 'I already wish you were dead lady' expression on her face and some of the men took a step back. She collected herself, placed two fingers on her sun glasses, turned around and took of her sun glasses as she greeted the reporter that was coming towards her. It was a true movie scene, with the wind in her hair and a smile to die for.

"Hello there. How can I help you?" Elizabeth asked with the best poker face you only learn at the university´s lecture hall from situations where the teacher´s wants to ask you something.

"Yes please." The reporter started, followed by her camera man. A sudden the crack her poker face came as the camera man came closer. He was very ordinary except the fact that it would be a lot easier to jump over him then to walk passed him. "We would like an interview with the one in charts of this excavation and please as soon as possible before the sun kills us." She sighed, very diva like.

Elizabeth grinned a little bit. "You want to talk to the one who has the most potential here?" The reporter had just revealed herself. Elizabeth was the one woman there (except the reporter), and it stood in every newspaper that it was Elizabeth who was in the highest authority. The reporter tried to dust off some of dirt from country roads. They were again: in the middle of nowhere.

"Off course, but as you can see the leader is holding a meeting."

"Argh!" she started and hit the camera in his upper arm. "I told you that we should have left early!" Elizabeth widened her eyes and turned to Ali.

"Please keep her away from me." Elizabeth whispered in Arabic to Ali. The man looked surprised at her.

"But it is you she wants to talk to…" Ali answered back, but Elizabeth shocked her head.

"What am I going to talk to her about? I arrived 10 minutes ago. I have nothing to talk to her about. You are from the Syria government. Say something about what you expect to find or how important this find could be to you. I´m not a political figure or spokesperson." After that she walked passed Ali and into the tent again. Ali did his job well and he and Elizabeth agreed with the crew to go into the ruins the following day.

The same night Elizabeth talked with Robert on the phone. He was furious that Elizabeth had gone to Syria two weeks before their weeding. Elizabeth sighed and she explained that the excavation couldn't wait. That this was her job and that he had no reason to be mad. He hung up on her when their conversation reached a dramatic climax. The next day Elizabeth and her crew went the sight. She was overwhelmed by the work moral the people had. Every little item was beautiful collected and maintained for. It made her forget about her phone call with Robert. She smiled to everyone and said good morning as often as she could. She went into the ruins after lunch to get a survey of the area. It was huge, a lot of hills, valleys and rocks, but still very hot. After some weeks of securing the area they went inside the ruins. Elizabeth had packed a bag of rations, personal stuff, books to take notes in and some other stuff.

"Why do you the bag with you?" asked one of the men.

"Well, we never know if God wants to play with dices, so it would be best to be ready for it if he does." Elizabeth said with a grin, knowing that she could be trapped inside for days. As the first Elizabeth went into a cave shaped hole in the earth. She swallowed her saliva and with very nervous steps she walked into the unknown. She turned on the flash light when the daylight disappeared, still determined to walk this unknown path.

"Watch your steps ma'am," one of the men started. "The walls are maybe stable but the ground…"

"I know, but thank you." Elizabeth smiled in the dark. It had started to become a bit cold and their path was narrowing. She took small steps, slowly and with great caution, but suddenly the ground under her disappeared. "Argh!" she screamed. She went through the ground and landed in a very moist and yucky place. "Oww…" she mumbled to herself and grabbed her extra flash light when sitting in some cold water. She tried to stand, but she couldn't. She turned on the flash light and yelled for help, but no one answered. She looked down her leg and she had an open wound, bleeding from her waist to her knee. She sighed and remembered that this was not the time for panic. Suddenly she heard a voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

"Let me go." A young and masculine voice demanded.

"Ohh Altaïr, I hear the hatred in your voice. Feel its heat. Let you go? That would be unwise." This was the voice of an older man.

"Who´s there?" Elizabeth yelled, but the voices didn't answer. By the guidelines of her flash light she crawled through a little hole in the rocks and the voice became clearer.

"Why are you doing this?" the young one asked.

"I found proof." The old man said in a victory kind of voice. It was clear that they knew each other. Both voices made echoes. Elizabeth stopped, concentrated and she realized that there were two voices and they were speaking Arabic. But people here? Hiding so deep into the earth?

"Proof of what?" the younger asked.

"That nothing is true and everything is permitted." And the voices faded away.

Elizabeth stood in a circle of rocks with light coming from above. She turned off her flash light off and walked around. In the middle of the circle stood a sculpture, shaped like a man with long robes and a hood over his head. In his left arm a blade showed from his wrist and in his right he held a ball. But the ball was not part of the original sculpture. It was silver and had a special design to it. Elizabeth then started to study the details and craftsmanship of the statue. She looked at the ball and tried to take it, but she couldn't. The ball was held to tight and she sighed. "Great, just great! Come let me see what you are holding Mr. Statue."

"Face me! Or are you afraid?" The young said with a little sign of rage in his voice. Elizabeth didn't know better, she was sure that for a second it was the statue who spoke.

"I have stood before a thousand men, all of them superior to you and all of them dead. By my hand! I'm not afraid." The older voice almost laughed.

"Prove it." the other one demanded. Elizabeth lifted her hand from the ball, looked around and suddenly saw two figures in a garden.

"What could I possible fear? Look at the power I command." A man in black robes said and he… multiplied? A sword fight began between the two men and Elizabeth turned and hide herself behind the statue. She closed her eyes, much afraid she almost forgot that they weren't here or were they?

To be continued.

A/N: Thank you for your alerts and reviews (and help with some words) it really warms my heart . BTW, this story is dedicated to Beki 3 (She asked me to translate it).