Author's Note: I really like writing Lindsey. I think I do better on his pieces than the others.


He was famous in his field (Wasn't everyone?), and there were times when he had to stop and wonder why. True, he seemed to go specifically to areas where the natives (They could be civilized as Europe or China, but they were always natives to Lindsey) were at war, or in revolution, or when a sickness broke out, or any number of tragedies that would make any sane man (You weren't sane even before then, were you?) turn aside and choose an area that would allow them to keep their blood where it belonged. "A distinct aversion to good health." as one of his peers put it. It was a simple reason for renown, if not the preferred one.

But there was something to the taste of terror, something to knowing that at any moment, the tables could shift and you could be pitched from the peace of observation to the frenzy of combat. There was something in the taste that intoxicated the archeologist, that drove him to seek out the pariah digging sites, to travel in dangerous lands and risk his neck in thankless, often fruitless pursuits. It was the purest form of high, sweeter than any hazy inhalation of smoke or needle-prick drug, and trust me, he had tried them.

When he emerged from Mantorok's Tomb, his first, gasping thought of relief, even as he clutched the cloth-bundled for of Mantorok's heart, was "This must be what it feels like to overdose."

And it seemed, for a while, that he had quit. He felt no urge, no craving for high falutin adventure. He took up the pen and immersed himself in a book built on the all too clear memories of his last great journey. And, upon delivering the still-beating (he had never even questioned how- some scientist he turned out to be) heart to Rhode Island, he thought, at last, he could rest.

In three weeks he found himself laden with the gear he'd need to survive, glaring into sand swept desert, daring it to rise and challenge him.

And a whispering voice, too much like the voice of the Rotting God, hissed in the back of his brain You will never outrun your addiction.