A Thirst for Life

by Geremy Carnes

As her birthday approaches, Lara is asked to help solve the murder of an archaeologist.

A Thirst for Life

By Geremy Carnes

geremyc@angelfire.com

Lara Croft and Tomb Raider are the property of Core Design and EIDOS Interactive.  This is an unsanctioned work of fiction and is not a challenge to these copyrights.

This story contains violence, adult language, and other material that may be considered offensive.  If you find this objectionable, please read no further.

            Clink.  Clink.

            The noise was close.  Very close.  The vibrations traveled through the ground and into the place where the power had slumbered for time immeasurable.  The power within slept on in the darkness of the vessel.  It had not noticed the disturbance.

            Something brushed against the container, against the place where the power rested.  Still, the power took no heed of the sound.  The brushing continued, but the power remained unmoving.  Perhaps it had slept so long that it could no longer remember how to awaken.

            Then the container shook.  The place where the power had slept so peacefully for so long was being lifted, being carried, being set down again, very, very gently.  The shaking lasted only a short time, but it had been enough.  The force deep within the container stirred.  Slowly, it became more and more aware, and as its awareness grew, so did its consciousness.

            More noise came from outside, echoed within the power's container.  Voices.  How long had it been since the power had sensed voices?  It could not remember.

            "...marvelous..." " ...look at this..." " ...get the chisel..."  The voices reverberated within the small vessel.  The power, now awake, listened with interest.

            Then came a new noise.  Tink.  Tink.  Tink.  The power, had it had a tangible form, would have trembled with excitement.  It had given up hope of ever being released from its imprisonment, but now escape was at hand.  And this time it would not be stopped.

            Crack.  The container resonated with that final blow.  Now there was silence.  For a long time, the power lay quietly in the darkness of its vessel. 

            Then there came a hissing noise as the seal on the container broke.  The ancient air that had been trapped in the vessel for thousands of years was forced out, and fresh air moved in to take its place.

            The power sensed the lid of its prison being lifted away, and felt the sunlight stream in to strike the physical structure that it dwelled within.  Then a shadow fell across it, and a pair of hands grasped the object.  The hands lifted the object out of the container and held it out into the light.

            The power within the object pulsed with ecstasy.  It was free.

*          *            *

            Professor Henry Carlton gently scraped the dried mud off the floor of the room, one thin layer at a time.  He had been an archaeologist long enough to know that patience was the most valuable attribute someone in his field could possess.  Better to spend a week cleaning the dirt off of the ruined foundation of an ancient temple than to accidentally break a priceless artifact.

            Carlton placed his tools on the ground.  Then he slowly stood up, unfolding his tall, thin frame, and stretched.  He had been crouching on the floor for over an hour, and he needed the break.  He gingerly extended his right leg, being careful not to agitate the bullet wound he had sustained in his knee in the war so many years ago.  He brushed some of the dust from his wrinkled khaki pants and sweaty T-shirt, the standard uniform of an archaeologist.  He tilted his head back and let the sunlight bathe his narrow face, his beak-like nose jutting out sharply into the sky.  It was February, and the air was cool, but it wasn't too cold.

            Hell, after that expedition in the Himalayas, this weather seems balmy.  Carlton looked around the excavation site.  Each member of the team had been assigned a room to dig through.  Several of the rooms were buried deep, and some of the archaeologists worked in pits almost two meters deep, slowly removing layer after layer of earth, searching for treasures.  The Phoenician Temple that had once stood on this site had been immense, and it would take at least a month to unearth its entire foundation.  Jonathan Gill, the archaeologist heading this excavation, expected to make some incredible finds.

            Carlton crouched down again and resumed his work.  When Gill had asked him to join an excavation in Lebanon three weeks ago, Carlton had been unenthusiastic, to say the least.  He knew little about the Phoenician civilization and had just gotten back from another expedition a couple of months before.  But Gill needed an expert in hieroglyphics, and Carlton owed him a few favors, so he relented.  Now he was glad he had come.  The archaeologists on Gill's team were good company, and Carlton had enjoyed deciphering the cuneiform tablets that the team had recovered so far.

            Carlton's musings came to an abrupt end when his trowel scraped against something harder than the mud he had been digging through.  He studied the ground in front of him.  Carefully, he tapped the ground with the trowel, trying to find the spot again.  Clink.  Clink.

            There, he thought, hearing the sound.  He pulled a brush from his pocket and swept the dirt off the object.

            It's probably just a rock, he thought.  Nothing to get excited about.  But he was excited.  Somehow, he knew that this was going to be a big find.  Forcing himself to move slowly, he continued to brush the dirt away.

            Slowly, over the course of an hour, the object in the earth began to reveal itself to him.  His heart pounded with excitement as he realized what it was.  The top of a large urn made of blue glass now protruded from the ground in front of him.

            Carlton's excitement finally prevailed over his patience and he began to dig furiously, throwing dirt carelessly to the side as he exposed more and more of the large glass urn.

            When at last he had finished clearing the dirt out from around the urn, he sat back on his heels, panting.  He glanced quickly at his watch, then looked again, astonished to see that he had been digging for almost three hours.  He stood up very carefully, expecting his cramped muscles to scream their disapproval at him, but was surprised to find that he felt fine.

            It's been a long time since I've been this excited over a find, he thought happily.  For a moment there, I felt young again.

            The urn sat in the hole he had dug around it, its brilliant blue glass shining in the sunlight.  It stood over half a meter tall and thirty centimeters in diameter.  The urn's lid was twenty centimeters across and had a seal locking it in place.

            He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted to his laboring colleagues to stop whatever they were doing and take a look at his find.

            The other archaeologists and archaeology students quickly surrounded the hole that Carlton and the urn were in and let out their gasps of astonishment.  Gill pushed his way through the crowd, took one look at the urn, and ordered some of the younger men to carry it into the main tent.

            "This is an incredible find, Henry," Gill said as three young men, all archaeology students, carefully lifted the urn out of the hole.  "A perfectly preserved Phoenician glass urn.  I don't know if one this large has every been found completely intact before."  He struggled to maintain a calm demeanor, but Carlton could tell that Gill was as excited about the find as he was.

            "How old do you suppose it is?" asked Carlton, looking down at his gray-haired friend.  They were now following the men carrying the urn to the main tent, which was set apart from the private tents by about a hundred meters.  The glass urn appeared to be awfully heavy.  The students were grunting with effort.  Carlton would have lent them a hand, but ever since he had taken that bullet in his knee he had walked with a slight limp.  He was afraid his leg might give out under the weight of the urn.

            "This temple was burned to the ground almost three thousand years ago, so the urn had to have been made earlier than that," commented Gill.  They had reached the main tent.  Carlton pulled back the flap and the men carried the urn into the room.  They set it down on the floor of the tent as gently as possible.

            Gill maneuvered his short scrawny frame around the litter of artifacts and tools on the tent floor to squat down next to the urn.  "Marvelous, absolutely marvelous," he breathed as he ran his hands up and down the smooth exterior of the urn.  His face's many wrinkles deepened as he squinted at the dark blue glass.  "Look at this marking here," he said.  Carlton bent down to see what he was pointing at.

            "An eight-pointed star," said Gill.  "The symbol of the Phoenician goddess Astarte."  The outline of a small star had been carved into the glass on one side of the urn.  "This temple was probably built in her honor," Gill said as he continued to probe the urn's exterior.  "The urn may contain an offering to her."

            Satisfied that there was nothing else of interest on the outside of the urn, Gill turned his attention to the urn's lid.  He picked a hammer up off the floor.  "Dan, get the chisel.  The lid has been sealed with burnt clay.  We'll have to break the seal to open it."

            Dan, one of the young men who had helped carry the urn, hurried over to the workbench to get the chisel.  After combing through the mess on the table for a couple of minutes, he realized that the chisel wasn't there.  He began searching through the room for it.

            "Help him out," Gill ordered the other two men.  They quickly joined the hunt.

            "Father?" a voice called from outside the tent.  "Can I come in?"

            "Yes, Susan," answered Gill.  "And leave the tent flap open.  I need more light in here."

            The tent flap was pulled back and a woman's slender figure stood silhouetted against the sunlight for a moment.  Then Susan Gill stepped into the tent.  Carlton smiled as he watched the three young men try to divide their attention between their search and their boss's daughter.  Carlton couldn't blame them.  Susan Gill was twenty-two years old and had inherited her father's blond hair and blue eyes and her mother's voluptuous body.

            "It's wonderful, Father!" she said brightly.  "Is that the sign of Astarte on its side?"

            "Yes, it is," her father answered.  "I think it may contain an offering to her."

            "That would make sense," Susan responded, nodding her head.  "The temple was probably burned to the ground during a war with the Egyptians around 1000 BC.  Several offerings would have been made to Astarte for success in the battles."  Susan had gone with her father on all of his expeditions since she was five years old.  She knew almost as much about the Phoenicians as he did.

            "I found it!" cried Dan.  He held the chisel over his head in victory.  He made his way over to the urn and held it out to Gill.

            "Thank you," said Susan, taking the chisel from him.

            "Umm... you're welcome," Dan stuttered.  He backed away, blushing profusely.  Carlton grinned.  Dan was a good kid, but he was really awkward around girls.  Especially around Susan.

            "All right, everyone, let's see what's inside."  Gill placed the chisel against the seal of hardened clay.  He tapped it lightly with the hammer.  Tink.  Tink.  Tink.  A small rift appeared in the seal.  With each successive tap of the hammer, the rift grew a little wider.

            Crack.  The clay seal split in half and fell to the floor.  Silence filled the tent.  All eyes were on Gill as he examined the urn's lid for damage.  Finally he seemed satisfied, and placed his tools on the floor.  His grasped the urn's lid with one hand and held the urn's base with the other.  He gritted his teeth and pulled.

            At first, nothing happened.  But then the gap between the lid and the base began to widen.  A hissing noise came from the urn as fresh air rushed into it for the first time in millennia.

            The lid pulled free of the base.  Gill carefully set the lid on the floor.  Then he looked down into the urn.

            For a moment that seemed to stretch on for eternity for everyone else in the tent, Gill stared into the open urn, his face expressionless.  Then he reached his hands deep into the urn.  He lifted out an object and held it up into the sunlight.

            Gasps came from several mouths, Carlton's included.  The artifact was incredible.  It was a dragon about fifteen centimeters long made completely of crystal clear glass.  The detail was incredible.  The dragon's head rose from its body on a long thin neck, the mouth of its fearsome head open in a roar.  Its bat-like wings were folded back along its sides.  Each foot had four tiny claws, and spikes ran down its tail.  As he looked at it, Carlton could almost see the dragon's scales.

            The sunlight streaming in through the open tent flap made the glass dragon sparkle.  For a moment, Carlton would almost have sworn that the dragon was pulsing with a light of its own, but the next instant the flicker was gone, and he assumed that the light had been playing tricks on him.

            "Oh, Father," Susan said breathlessly, "it's magnificent!  It's... It's..."  Words failed her, and she fell silent.

            Gill caressed the dragon in his hands.  Carlton could see that he was trembling.  "In all of my years as an archaeologist, this is the most beautiful treasure I have ever found," he whispered.

            "I knew the Phoenicians were masters of glass blowing, but I had no idea that they were capable of such an exquisite work of art," said Carlton.  He found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the dragon.

            "I wonder what it was used for," mused Susan.  "Do you think it was merely decoration?"

            "It's a ceremonial chalice," Gill answered.  Noticing everyone's surprise, he tilted the dragon so they could all see the top of it.  Where its back should have bulged up, there was a depression instead.  "You see, the priest would have poured a liquid into the bowl here," he said, pointing to the depression.  "When he was ready to drink from it, he would tilt the dragon so that the liquid would flow into the dragon's hollow neck, out through the dragon's mouth, and into his own mouth.  This Dragon Chalice was probably used in many of the temple's ceremonies."

            "What kind of liquid?" asked Dan.

            "Maybe water.  Probably wine.  Possibly blood."

            "Blood?" Dan asked, shocked.  "Whose blood?"

            "The blood of a first born child," Gill answered as he turned the Dragon Chalice, as he now called it, over in his hands.  "It was common practice for a Phoenician to sacrifice his first child to Astarte.  It was believed to increase future fertility.  It may sound shocking to you, Dan, but to the Phoenicians it was common practice.  They were brought up believing—"

            Gill let out a cry of pain and pressed one of his hands to his head.  His other hand held the Dragon Chalice.  As Carlton watched, the chalice slipped from his fingers and fell.

            Carlton threw himself forward.  He caught the chalice in his hands when it was mere centimeters above the floor.  Then Carlton smashed into the floor himself, hurting his ribs.  A groan passed through his lips.

            Meanwhile, Susan was panicking over her father.  She gripped him by the shoulders and shook him.  "Father, are you all right?  Dan, somebody, go get the doctor!  Father, what happened?"

            "I'm fine, Susan, I'm fine," Gill assured her.  He patted her shoulder comfortingly.  He still had one hand pressed against his forehead.  "I just have a bad headache, that's all, Love."

            Susan was visibly relieved.  Her words quickly went from concerned to reproachful.  "Well, that's what you get for standing outside in the bloody sun all day.  I've told you before that you need to wear a hat when you're outside.  You're going to get sun stroke if you don't take care of yourself."

            "Yes, Love, I know.  I'm getting too old to keep treating myself this roughly."  Suddenly, his face paled.  "The chalice!  I dropped it!"

            "It's fine, old chap," said Carlton as he pushed himself to his feet.  He cradled the Dragon Chalice in one arm.  "It's much better off than I am in fact," he said, wincing at the pain in his side.

            "I'm so sorry, Henry.  I could never have forgiven myself if I had broken that chalice."  Gill's face wore a look of distress.

            "Don't worry about it, Jonathan.  All's well that ends well, I say."

            A huge shadow fell across everyone in the room.  They all turned to look at the tent entrance.

            One of the other archaeology students was standing in the entrance way.  "Professor Gill, we've been doing some more digging where Professor Carlton found the urn, and we've found a few more things."

            While the student spoke, Carlton began to feel nauseous.  Sweat beaded up on his brow as the pain became more intense.  Great, I'm coming down with the flu, he thought.

            "What kinds of  'things' have you found?" asked Gill, oblivious to Carlton's discomfort.

            Now Carlton's head was throbbing.  His hands began to shake and he became worried that he might drop the chalice.  He set the chalice down on the work bench with unsteady hands.

            "We think they're a bunch of cuneiform tablets," the student answered.  "Do you want us to pull them up?"

            "Wait for Professor Carlton and me to get over there," said Gill.  The student left and Gill turned to Carlton.  "Well, Henry, it looks like you have a few more translations to—Henry?  What's wrong?" Gill asked, noticing Carlton's ashen face.

            "Nothing, Jonathan.  I'm fine," said Carlton, and he was surprised to realize that he was fine.  The nausea and headache had subsided in just a few seconds.  "I think it may be a good idea if I wear a hat outdoors from now on, too," he said, chuckling.

            Carlton followed Gill and the four archaeology students out to the excavation.  His surprise over his sudden nausea had made him forget the pain in his ribs completely.  Had he remembered, he would have been surprised again to realize that the pain was gone.

*          *            *

            Carlton sipped a cup of tea as he studied his notes in the light of the fire.  He had discovered many unknown cuneiform symbols on this expedition, and had determined the meanings of many of them.  However, some still eluded his grasp.  Carlton could never let go of a puzzle until he had found his answer, so while the rest of the excavation team danced around him, he continued to sift through his drawings of symbols and carvings.

            Gill had declared that a celebration was in order after the discovery of the urn, the Dragon Chalice, and six more cuneiform tablets that had been in the same room as the urn.  A small bonfire had been lit near the excavation site, and one of the archaeology students had agreed to lend them his stereo system to play music.  Now, all of the students and most of the archaeologists were dancing by the fire to the music that blared from the stereo's speakers.

            If you can call that noise 'music', thought Carlton.  He would never get used to the screeching and screaming that most of his students listened to.

            "Mind if I sit down?"  Carlton looked up from his notes to see Susan standing next to him, her hair lit up like a golden halo by the fire.  "Not at all," he replied.  He slid a little ways down the bench of the picnic table that he had pulled close to the fire.

            Susan sat down next to him.  For a few minutes she sat silently, watching the others dance in the firelight.  She, like the other team members, had dressed up for the impromptu dance.  Of course, on an archaeological dig, 'dressing up' meant putting on a clean T-shirt and pair of jeans.  Carlton glanced over at her a couple of times.  He had known Susan since she was in diapers, and she was like a daughter to him.  He could tell when something was troubling her.  It was obvious to him that something was on her mind now, but he knew better than to ask her what it was.  She would tell him when she was ready.

            Susan saw Carlton glance at her, and smiled.  She dropped her gaze to his notes.  She pulled a few of the papers toward her and squinted down at them.  "What do these symbols mean?" she asked.

            "I don't know yet.  That's what I'm trying to figure out.  I'm comparing them to the cuneiform carvings found at Sumerian and Babylonian sites to see if I can find any correlation between them."

            "I don't know why you find these silly hieroglyphics so interesting," Susan said teasingly.

            "Cuneiform writing is not the same as hieroglyphics, young lady," Carlton said in a stern voice.  "Cuneiform is older than Egyptian hieroglyphics and is identifiable by its..."  He let the sentence dangle.

            "By its wedge-shaped symbols," Susan finished.  "I know, Professor."  She grinned at him, displaying her perfect white teeth.  "I still think it's quite boring."

            "Boring or not, we can learn more about ancient cultures through their writings than by the tools and pottery shards they leave behind.  Those things only show us how they lived.  Their writings can tell us their dreams, fears, and aspirations."

            Susan smiled softly and looked back at the fire.  She held one of Carlton's sketches in her hands.  For several minutes she sat quietly and watched the dancers while her fingers fidgeted with the paper.  Carlton returned to studying his notes and waited for Susan to say whatever it was that she had come to say.

            At last, Susan turned back to him.  "Henry?" she said quietly.  "I was wondering..."  She trailed off.

            "Yes?" prompted Carlton as he set his notes aside.

            Susan took a deep breath and looked up into Carlton's eyes.  "I was wondering...  do you think that there was anything strange about the Dragon Chalice?" she asked in a rush.

            "Strange?  What do you mean by 'strange?'"

            "Well..." Susan frowned.  "I'm not quite sure myself, but... Remember when Father held the chalice in the air after he pulled it out of the urn?  Didn't it look like it was... um.... glowing?" she asked.  She quickly dropped her gaze and laughed, embarrassed.  "I know, I know, it's silly, but—"

            "No, it's not silly," Carlton said quietly.  Susan looked up at him again.  "I thought the chalice looked like it glowed for a moment, too."

            "I knew it!" Susan cried.  Several of the dancers turned to look at her.  She stared back at them until they looked away.  She lowered voice and went on.  "Something about that chalice doesn't feel right to me," she told Carlton.  "The moment Father opened the urn, I could almost swear that... that..."  She searched for the right words.  "...an oppressive force filled the tent.  I felt like something was trying to probe its way inside of me, and the feeling didn't go away until we headed back to the excavation."

            Carlton held up his hands.  "Now, wait a minute, Susan.  I said that the chalice looked like it glowed for a moment.  But the tent flap was open, and the sun was shining in.  I'm sure Jonathan just happened to tilt the dragon in a direction that caught the sun's light.  Nothing supernatural about that."

            "Yes, but what about the feeling I had?" Susan argued.

            "I'm sure it was just excitement, dear.  Everyone in the room was eager to see what was inside the urn, and we all became even more excited when we saw the chalice.  I'm sure that oppressive feeling you had was just your nervousness manifesting itself."

            Susan frowned down at the table, but nodded her head.  "I'm sure you're right, Henry.  It was just that... oh, never mind."  She smiled up at him.  "I wonder how you can never tire of listening to a silly girl's fancies."

            "Well, I don't," said Carlton, smiling back at her.  "I'm always willing to hear another one."

            "You're always helping me out when I have a problem," said Susan.  "I wish there was something I could do for you."

            "Well," said Carlton, "you could start by getting me another cup of tea."  He tipped his cup, showing her its empty bottom.

            Susan laughed and picked the cup up.  "I suppose I can handle that," she said.  She got up and walked into the dark night, heading for the mess tent.

            Carlton chuckled as he returned his attention to his notes.  He had just found the place where he had left off when Dan sat down in the spot Susan had just vacated.

            "Professor, you'll never believe what I found out about those cuneiform tablets," said Dan.

            Carlton lifted his head to scrutinize the young archaeology student.  Dan's long brown hair nearly covered his hazel eyes, but the from the glimpses Carlton caught of his face through his tangled locks, he could see that he was very excited.

            "Well, out with it already," commanded Carlton.

            "Well, the tablets aren't written in cuneiform.  They're written in the Phoenician alphabet!"

            "What!"  Carlton's mouth hung open in astonishment.  "Are you sure?"

            Dan nodded.  Carlton almost didn't believe him, but he had confidence in Dan.  That was why he had given the tablets to him to clean.  When they had been pulled from the ground, the ancient clay tablets had been covered in dirt and mud, making the writing on them almost indiscernible.  Carlton had given Dan the important assignment of cleaning them.  It was a delicate job; a small scratch could leave a glyph eternally illegible.  But Dan, even at his young age, had already proven himself to be a competent archaeologist.  He was Carlton's star pupil.

            "This is incredible," Carlton said, shaking his head.  "The Phoenicians had only just invented the alphabet a century or so before this temple burned to the ground.  That makes these tablets some of the oldest inscriptions written in an alphabet.  Perhaps the oldest ever."

            "Should I call the museum and tell them about it?" asked Dan.  Carlton had had Dan call the British Museum of Anthropology, their primary sponsor, earlier that day to tell them about the Dragon Chalice.

            Carlton shook his head.  "Let's wait a few days.  The discovery of the chalice has already stirred things up back in England.  We'll let things calm down a bit, then throw this piece of news at them.  Maybe make the headlines again."

            Dan grinned.  "You should have been a bloody politician."

            "Why is that?" asked Susan.  Dan jumped up and backed a few steps away from the table.  Susan stood next to him, holding a steaming cup of tea in her hand.

            "Uh... because... I don't know," Dan muttered.  "I'll, uh, let you know when I finish cleaning the tablets," he said to Carlton.  He hurried away from the table, his face red and his eyes on the ground.

            Susan giggled as she reclaimed her seat next to Carlton.  "I love the way he blushes when I'm around.  I think it's so cute."

            "Don't tell him that," Carlton said with a grin.  "He'd probably faint."

            Susan giggled again.  She looked out into the crowd of dancers, and her smile quickly changed to a frown.

            "Father is still dancing.  He knows better than to overexert himself like that.  Especially after that sun stroke he had this morning."

            "Jonathan is dancing?" Carlton exclaimed, astonished.  He followed Susan's gaze to her father.  Unbelievably, Gill was dancing next to one of the young archaeology students.  Carlton recognized the girl, who was one of the shyest students he had had in a long time.  He had been working with her for weeks, and still hadn't learned her name.  Gill was obviously trying to convince her to join the dance.  She reluctantly agreed.  Carlton watched in growing amazement as Gill proceeded to dance with her through three straight songs.  By the end of the third song, the student was laughing and talking along with everyone else.  But what stunned Carlton was that Gill seemed as lively as ever.  Carlton had known Gill for years, and he hadn't seen him this energetic since before his wife died.  Gill saw Carlton and his daughter staring at him.  He excused himself to the girl, and made his way through the crowd to the picnic table.

            "Jonathan, have you been possessed?" asked Carlton.  "I would never have believed that you could make it through an single dance without wheezing.  What's gotten in to you?"

            "I don't know, Henry.  I feel like I'm in my thirties again."  He ran his hands through his silver hair.  "I think I'm burning off the excitement of finding that chalice."

            "You're going to hurt yourself, Father," Susan said, frowning at him.

            "I know, Love, I know.  I'll pay dearly for those dances in the morning," he said.  "I just feel so alive.  Today will probably be the pinnacle of my career."

            "It will be the pinnacle of the your career if you die of a heart attack tonight," Susan scolded.  "I thought you said that you were going to stop being so rough on yourself."

            "I am, I am," Gill said in an attempt to placate her.  "No more dances for me tonight."

            "Good.  Now, get to bed.  You need to get a lot of rest to recuperate from your heat exhaustion this morning."

            Gill shook his head.  "I going to be up for a while examining the Dragon Chalice."

            "Father!"

            "Sorry, Susan, but I need to study it.  I'm going to compare it to other Phoenician works to try find out just when it was created.  Also, I think there is some writing carved into the bottom of the chalice, and I want to try to translate it.  I'll probably be up all night."

            "Fine, go ahead and get yourself killed," Susan said angrily.

            Gill chuckled.  "I love you, too, Susan.  Good night, Love.  Good night, Henry."

            "Good night, Jonathan," Carlton responded.  "If you need help with the translation, just let me know."  Susan pouted silently as Gill disappeared into the dark night.

            "Don't worry about him, Susan," Carlton said gently.  "He's been doing this almost as long as I have.  He knows his limits."

            "He knows them, all right, but that doesn't stop him from pushing them."  Susan sighed and forced a smile.  "Good night, Henry.  And thanks again for listening to me."

            "I'm always happy to, Susan.  Good night."

            Susan stood and walked back to her tent.  Carlton, alone at last, returned to studying his notes.  He tried to concentrate on them, but gave up after a while.  He had too much on his mind.  He stacked his papers into a pile and tucked them under his arm.  He left the circle of dancers and headed for his own tent.

            His heart jumped as a scream shattered the peaceful night.  Carlton's head snapped around, trying to locate the source.  He saw a light burning off to his left, the direction he believed the scream had come from.  Only one tent lay in that direction—the main tent, the tent containing the Dragon Chalice.  The tent Gill was in.

            Carlton's notes scattered on the ground as he ran to the tent.  Somehow, his old legs still had some speed left in them, and he reached the tent in just a few seconds.  He flung open the tent flap and halted just inside the tent, horrified by what he saw.

            Gill's small body lay sprawled on the floor.  Blood flowed steadily from a huge gash in his chest.  A gurgling sound that came whenever he sucked in a breath informed Carlton that his lung had been punctured.

            Breaking out of his petrifying terror, Carlton knelt by Gill's side.  He tore off his own shirt and pressed it to Gill's wound.  Gill let out a slight moan, but remained unconscious.

            "Professor!  Professor, what's wrong?" Dan called from outside the tent.  He stepped inside and paled at the sight.

            "Get the doctor!" shouted Carlton.  "Hurry!"  Dan nodded and raced away, gagging.  It wouldn't matter how fast the boy ran, though.  Carlton had served in the military for nearly a decade.  He knew a mortal wound when he saw one.

            More students ran up to the tent.  Cries of horror filled the air.

            "Search around the tents!" he ordered them.  "Stop anyone who isn't part of the team."  Most of the students quickly dispersed throughout the camp.  Carlton immediately regretted having told them to do that.  If they ran into the killer, the killer would stop them.

            One of the young men who had remained in the tent spoke up suddenly.  "The chalice is gone!" he cried.

            Of course it is, Carlton thought angrily.  He hadn't looked for it, but as soon as he had seen Gill's body, he had known that it would be.  Some bloody bastard heard about it on the radio and decided he had to have it.  And when he found Gill in his way...  Carlton trembled in rage.  You had better run fast, he thought to the killer, because if I ever catch you, I'll make you feel pain you never would have thought possible on this side of Hell.

            Carlton's train of thought was broken at the sight of Gill's eyelids fluttering open.  Gill's eyes slowly focused on Carlton.

            "Take it easy, Gill, old chap," Carlton said, trying to comfort him.  "Everything will be all right.  Just take it easy."

            Gill's lips opened and closed.  It took Carlton a moment to realize that he was trying to say something.

            Carlton tilted his head and put his ear next to Gill's mouth.  Gill spoke again in a voice as quiet as a whisper.  "Gilgamesh," he hissed.  "Gilgamesh," he said again.  A moment later his body went limp as Gill passed out of this life.

            Carlton straightened up and stared down at Gill in shock.  Maybe he hadn't heard him correctly.  He had barely been able to make out his voice.  He had to have mistaken what he had said.  Gilgamesh?  That didn't make sense.

            "Father!"  Carlton cringed as Susan's shriek tore through the tent.  She flew across the room and flung herself onto her father's corpse.  She buried her face in her father's blood-soaked chest as sobs racked her body.

            Carlton watched the tormented young woman clutch her lifeless father.  His knees suddenly felt very weak, and he slowly lowered himself to the floor.  The shock of his good friend's death and the sorrow he felt for Susan had left him feeling very frail.  But the worst shock was yet to come.

            As he sat on the tent floor, Carlton looked upon the face of his old companion.  He felt himself go cold.  In the midst of all of the earlier confusion he had not noticed the startling change Gill had undergone.  Gill was fifty-seven years old.  But as Carlton looked at him now, he would not have believed he was a day over thirty.

            Gill's silver hair was once again the golden mane of blond hair that he had possessed in his youth.  His deeply-etched wrinkles had been smoothed.  The man Carlton saw now was definitely his friend and colleague, Jonathan Gill.  But he was Jonathan Gill as he had been nearly thirty years ago, a man in his prime.

            The doctor burst into the tent along with several of the others.  Working together, they managed to pull Susan away from her father and out of the tent.  The doctor demanded that everyone get out so that he could work, even though they all knew that Gill was beyond help.

            Carlton got to his feet and walked out of the tent.  He stared dumbly at the crowd of students that stood outside the tent.  He said something to them that he was unable to remember later, but it succeeded in getting to return to their own tents.

            Carlton stood there for a long time, unable to think or act.  He stood there until light began to show in the east, until the sun began to rise over the Mediterranean Sea.  The light of dawn seemed to chase away the clouds that were muddling his brain.  An idea formed in his head, and it gave him a ray of hope.  He finally moved.  His strides were long and purposeful.  He did not know the answer to this enigma that had forced itself upon him, but he knew someone who might be able to help him find it.

*          *            *

            A pair of boots slammed against the mountainside, dislodging a cluster of loose rocks.  The rocks clattered down the mountain, striking other rocks as they fell.  They picked up speed as they traveled down the steep slope, finally shattering as they crashed into the ground below.

            The boots that had sent the rocks to their destruction were pressed against the mountain by a pair of slender legs.  The legs bent, then straightened quickly, causing the body to which they were attached to swing away from the mountainside.  The grip of the climber's hands on the rope relaxed, allowing her to slide down several meters.  Gravity pulled the climber back to the mountain slope, and once again the pair of boots slammed into the wall of rock, setting off another miniature avalanche.

            Lara grunted as she pushed off the cliff face once more, her long brown ponytail whipping around wildly behind her.  When she connected with the mountain slope again, she paused for a minute to rest.  Her green tank top was drenched with sweat, and her brown shorts were damp as well.  On her back hung her brown pack, heavy with the weight of mountain climbing equipment and a small Greek statuette.

            Let's go, Lara, she urged herself.  A couple of years ago you could have gone all the way to the bottom of this slope without stopping to catch your breath.  You're not going to start slowing down now.

            With an effort, she pushed off the mountain face and continued to rappel down the mountain.  Several minutes later, her feet touched the rocky, but much gentler slope at the base of the cliff.

            Lara leaned against the cliff face, breathing hard.  When she could breathe normally again, she readjusted the straps on her pack so they weren't digging into her skin so much.  Then she set off on her hike back to camp.

            All in all, a successful day, she thought happily.  Those ruins will have archaeologists jumping up and down for a month.  She patted her pack, feeling the statue inside of it that she had lifted from the crumbling tomb.  The body of the Greek king who had been buried there had long since rotted away, but the statue would allow his image to live on forever.

            It's a kind of immortality, Lara mused as she breathed in the cool mountain air.  Ancient leaders knew they had to die, but they didn't have to be forgotten.  Even thousands of years after they were buried, we can still learn about them from what they have left behind.  They perpetuated their short lives with the legacies they created.

            Lara's camp in the valley below came into view, and she quickened her pace.  When she neared the small cluster of tents, the chief archaeologist on the expedition, Leland Moss, came out of his tent and greeted her with a scowl.

            "Lara, I told you there would be no solo explorations on this trip," he said in an accusatory tone.

            "I know, Leland.  That's why I left before anyone else woke up," Lara said with a smirk.

            Moss struggled to maintain his angry expression, but a smile finally managed to break through his mask.  He laughed, shaking his head.  "Lara, I don't know why I put up with you."

            "Because you need me," Lara told him, grinning.

            And Moss knew that he did.  Moss was a relative newcomer to the archaeological field.  Trying to pull in the money for an expensive expedition like this was difficult unless you were a prominent figure in the scientific community.  Moss only raised enough money to go on the trip by convincing the well-known archaeologist Stanley Mitchell to join the expedition.  And when Mitchell had pulled out of the expedition at the last minute, Moss's financial backers had pulled out as well.  Desperate, Moss had asked Lara for help.

            Moss had been to some of Lara's lectures when he had been a student in a university in London.  They didn't really know each other, but Moss needed a respectable archaeologist and figured it wouldn't hurt to ask her.  He arranged a meeting with her and explained his problem.

            "...so I was wondering if you would be willing to join the expedition," he had finished.

            "I don't know, Leland," Lara had responded.  "I don't generally work with large groups of archaeologists.  I tend to do most of my work on my own."

            Moss nodded glumly.  "So I've heard.  It's just that without Stanley Mitchell, my supporters—"

            "Stanley Mitchell?  He was the person who backed out at the last minute?"

            "Yes.  Didn't I tell you?"

            Lara had leaned back in her seat and stared down at the restaurant table.  Stanley Mitchell had always been one of her idols.  When she had just been starting out in the field of archaeology, Stanley Mitchell had been one of the field's most respected explorers.  She had read stories about him in magazines and newspapers all the time.  She basically modeled her career after his.  And to take his place on an expedition... well, it meant that she had achieved the same level of notoriety as her hero.

            It hadn't taken much more convincing to get her to join the expedition.

            And now Moss was reaping the benefits.

            Moss rubbed his hands together.  "What have you got for us?" he asked eagerly.              With great ceremony, Lara slipped her pack from her shoulders, opened it, and removed the statuette from it.  She presented it to him with a flourish.  "Leland Moss, I present you with King Paklos of Mycenae."

            Moss let out a shout of triumph that brought the other men on the expedition stumbling out of their tents to see what all of the fuss was about.  Moss gripped the statue in his hands and beamed at Lara.  "Where did you find this?" he asked.

            "There are some underground ruins on the summit of this mountain.  Most of them have collapsed, but part of the king's tomb is still standing.  I've left markers to show you the way there."  She closed her pack and strapped it back on.  "Well, gentlemen, I was glad I could help you out.  Now, I'm afraid I must be getting back to England.  I've been wanting to go on an expedition into Russia for quite a while, and I need to start my preparations.  Good-bye to you all."  She started to make her way down the path that led out of the valley.

            "Lara, wait a moment!" Moss called out to her.  Lara turned to see him jogging down the path towards her.  He was waving a small slip of paper in his hand.  "I almost forgot!  A man came up from the village this morning with a telegram for you."

            "A telegram?" Lara asked, puzzled.  "From who?"

            "It doesn't say," Moss panted.  He held out the paper to her.  Lara took it from him.

            "Oh, and by the way, Lara, since I won't be seeing you for a while, I wanted to wish you an early Happy Birthday," he said.

            Lara forced a smile.  "Thanks, Leland, that's just what I needed.  Another reminder of death's inevitable approach."

            Moss laughed.  "Lara, when you're fifty years old, you'll still probably be the most physically fit person I know.  You may be slowing down by your standards, but trust me, you still have plenty of years of adventuring ahead of you.  Assuming you don't get yourself killed first, that is."

            Lara chuckled.  "And on that happy note, I bid you farewell," she said with mock cheerfulness.

            "Good-bye, Lara," Moss called after her as she continued down the path.  Lara waved at him over her shoulder.

            Two more days and you'll be thirty-three, she thought to herself.  Wouldn't it be ironic if after all of my recklessness and constant disregard for my own safety I might end up dying an old lady in my bed?

            And, as always, her birthday brought Valentine's Day with it.  Once a year she got to think about how time was slipping by, and how she slipping through it alone.

            She dropped the dismal train of thought and examined the slip of paper she had been handed.  She stopped walking as she read it.

LARA COME TO BEIRUT IMMEDIATELY STOP JONATHAN GILL WAS MURDERED STOP PHOENICIAN ARTIFACT STOLEN STOP NEED YOUR HELP STOP

            Jonathan Gill is dead?  Lara was shocked.  Jonathan Gill was such a nice, quiet man.  Why would anyone want to kill him?  And what's this about a Phoenician artifact?  What has happened?

            Lara knew that the message was from her old friend, Professor Carlton.  He was the only person she knew who was in Lebanon right now.  Well, him and Professor Gill, but the message obviously couldn't be from him.

            Well, I guess Russia is just going to have to wait a little longer, Lara thought grimly.  She started to run down the path.

*          *            *

            The last rays of sunlight cast a reddish hue on the western sky as Lara disembarked from the cargo ship that had carried her from Greece to Lebanon.  The air was filled with the smell of salt and fish, and the noise of hundreds of sailors shouting greetings and orders to each other.  Voices called out from all directions in Arabic, French, and English.  Lara wove her way through the crowd of people and shipping crates that filled the docks.  Beirut's seaport, which had closed during the country's long civil war, was quickly returning to its former existence as a bustling and important port of trade.

            Lara had changed on the ship and was now wearing a dark sweater and black jeans.  She felt the dark outfit was appropriate, given the circumstances of her visit.

            After she had gotten through customs, Lara had intended to find a bus that would take her to the British excavation in Jubail, but she was saved the effort when she heard a familiar voice call out to her.

            "Lara!  Lara, over here!"

            "Professor!" Lara cried out happily when she finally managed to pick him out of the crowds of people that lined the streets.  She pushed her way through the throng in order to get to her former teacher.  As soon as she reached him, she pulled him into hug.  When she released him, she took a small step back and studied him.

            "Professor Carlton, you dyed your hair!" she exclaimed with a grin.  "I always thought you would just let go gray."  For an instant after she spoke those words, she was certain that Carlton's smile had faltered.  It came back immediately, but she thought it seemed a little forced.

            "It's good to see you, too, Lara," said Carlton.  "I'm sorry that we have to see each other under such dreadful circumstances."

            Lara sobered instantly.  "Yes, Doctor Gill's death.  Your telegram said he had been murdered.  What happened?"

            "We aren't totally sure," Carlton told her grimly.  "I was hoping that you might be able to help us figure that out."

            "I'll do whatever I can," Lara promised him.

            "I know you will."  Carlton paused for a moment, noticing the deepening gloom that was covering the dockyards.  "We should get going.  I'd like to be back at the excavation before dark.  It's only about twenty miles north of here."

            Lara followed Carlton for a few blocks to his car.  Carlton pressed a button on his key ring to deactivate the alarm and unlock the doors.  Lara paused for a moment, her fingers resting on the handle of the passenger door, as she watched Carlton walk around to the other side of the car and slip into the driver's seat.  Something didn't seem right.

            Lara opened the car door and climbed inside.  She struggled to identify what was bothering her as Carlton started the car.

            "Carlton," she said with sudden realization, "didn't you used to walk with a limp?  I thought you took a round in your knee when you were in the service."

            Carlton's hands froze on the steering wheel.  "Yes, I did, but...  I had surgery.  The doctors fixed it."  The whole time he spoke he continued to look straight forward through the windshield of the car.

            "Oh, well... that's wonderful," Lara said cheerfully, hiding her feeling that something was amiss.

            "Yes.  Wonderful."  Carlton put the car into gear and pulled out into the Beirut traffic.

            Neither archaeologist spoke for the rest of the trip to the camp.

*          *            *

            "This is where I found him," Carlton said, indicating the spot on the floor of the main tent where Gill had died.  "He was still alive when I got here, but he died a few minutes later."

            Lara's gaze fixed upon the red stain on the floor.  She had not known Gill very well, but she had spoken with him a couple of times.  Enough to know that he hadn't deserved to be killed over one artifact.  She felt the slow burn of anger heating up inside of her body.  She would find the person who had done this.

            "The killer was gone by the time I arrived, and so was the Dragon Chalice," Carlton continued.  He gestured at the workbench.  "Gill was probably studying the chalice over there when the killer entered the tent.  He barely had a chance to stand up before the intruder stabbed him."

            "How could anyone have known about the chalice if you had only just discovered it that morning?" Lara asked.

            "We radioed London with the news of the discovery in the afternoon.  Anyone with a scanner could have intercepted the signal."

            "It's still an awfully quick response," Lara said with a frown.  "It's as if the killer had been monitoring your signals, expecting you to find something."

            "I know.  That's what we don't understand."

            "Well, Professor, is there—"

            "Lara," Carlton said, smiling, "We've been colleagues for a decade now.  I think you can start calling me by my first name."

            Lara laughed.  "Old habits die hard, Henry."

            "That's better," said Carlton.

            At that moment, Susan pulled aside the tent flap and stepped into the room.  All of the levity in the room vanished instantaneously.  Susan's eyes were puffy and red, her hair was a mess, and she was wearing the same clothes she had had on the night before.  A reddish smear remained on her shirt from when she had held her dead father in her arms.

            "Lara Croft, this is Susan Gill, Jonathan's daughter," Carlton introduced them.  "Susan, this is Lara."

            Susan nodded at Lara, not even noticing her outstretched hand.  She turned to Carlton.  "Have the police learned anything yet?" she asked him.

            "No," he said apologetically.  "They're still trying to turn up leads."

            Susan nodded again and turned to leave.  Carlton grabbed her arm.

            "Wait a minute, Susan, I need your help," Carlton told her, pulling her back.  "I don't think you were paying attention when I told you that this is Lara Croft."  Susan stared at him with blank eyes.  "Lara Croft, the world-famous explorer and adventurer," he said, trying to jog her memory.

            Susan continued to stare at him for a moment, his words failing to register in her mind.  Her head jerked when she finally realized what he was saying.  "Lara Croft?" she asked him.  She looked over to Lara.  "You're Lara Croft?"

            "At your service," Lara responded.

            "Are you here to find the son of a bitch who killed my father?" she asked hopefully.  The dead look in her eyes was gone.  Now they burned with excitement, and the hope of retribution.  Her whole body seemed to glow with her desire for revenge.

            "Yes, she is," Carlton answered for her.  "And that's why I need your help.  Lara isn't very familiar with Phoenician history, and neither am I.  Lara thinks that having some background on the artifact we found might help her figure out who might be interested in it.  She needs you to give her a crash course on the Phoenicians."

            "All right," Susan said.  "Where do I begin?  Well, the Phoenicians—"

            "Professor Carlton," Dan called as he threw the flap aside and entered the tent, "I'm almost finished cleaning the tablets.  I've tried to decipher some of the words and—"

            Dan finally noticed the other people occupying the tent.  "Oh, uh, I'm sorry," he stammered as he looked back and forth between Lara and Susan.  "I didn't know you were, um, busy."

            "That's all right, Dan," Carlton told him.  "I want to know about everything that's on those tablets.  Lara, this Dan Culver, one of our students."

            "What tablets?" Lara asked Dan.

            "Well, we found them in the, uh—"

            "Do they say anything about the chalice?" Susan demanded.  "Is there any reason why someone might want it?"

            "Uh, yes, well, sort of... they, uh, uh..."

            Dan's face held the expression of a gazelle trapped between two lions.  Carlton decided to rescue the poor boy.  "Dan, go ahead and finish cleaning the tablets.  I'll come over to your tent when we're finished here to see what you've found."

            "All right," he squeaked.  He exited the tent as quickly as he could.

            "Who was that again?" Lara asked Carlton.  "Should he really be handling fragile artifacts?"

            "Dan Culver can be trusted with anything," he answered her.  "He may be awfully shy around beautiful young ladies like yourselves, but he'll make a fine archaeologist.  He's my star pupil.  In fact, he's the best student I've had since you graduated, Lara."

            "Thank you for the compliment, Henry, but let's get down to business, shall we?"

            "Of course.  Susan...?"

            Susan nodded and lowered herself onto a folding chair.  "All right," she said, letting out a deep breath.  "The Phoenicians..."

*          *            *

            Dan hurried through the camp back to his tent.  The air was getting cold, and he only had a T-shirt and jeans on.

            I'll have to add Lara Croft to the list of people who think I'm a total idiot, he thought as he tramped along.  Pretty soon I'm going to have every girl in England laughing at me.

            He arrived at his tent and hurriedly unzipped the flap and entered.  A small kerosene heater stood in one corner of the tent, and it kept the tiny space quite warm.  Dan zipped the flap up again before crawling over to his workspace.

            There was barely enough room in the tent for a person to sleep, let alone store belongings and set aside room to work.  Yet, somehow, Dan managed to do all of that.  Along one side of his tent he kept his clothes and other personal items, and along the other he had spread out the tablets and the tools he used to clean them.  Sandwiched in between the two areas was his sleeping bag.  He was forced to sleep in such an awkward position that he awoke every morning with terrible back pains, but he didn't care.  He loved what he was doing.

            Sitting cross-legged in front of the tablets, Dan picked up his tools and began to carefully scrape away the mud that still encrusted part of the last tablet.  The patience it took to work at a task like this was mind-boggling to most people.  To Dan, it was an innate attribute.  It would take him hours to finish this last tablet, but he would not notice the passing of a single minute.  The work totally engrossed him.

            I wonder if Lara ever did archaeological work like this? he thought as he chipped away at the mud.  I can't imagine the world's greatest explorer sitting down for hours on end, cleaning off an artifact.  But then again, if she was Carlton's student, he would have made her do some of the dirty work.

            He paused to rub a cramp in his hand.  I know that I will never be able to do what she does, he thought gloomily.  I could never just storm into ancient ruins and hunt down an artifact.  Not without getting killed, anyway.  I'll end up spending the next fifty years scraping dirt off the ground, looking for potsherds.

            He glanced over at a magazine that was lying on the tent floor among his papers.  It was a copy of Archaeology Magazine, his main source of reading material.  It was an old issue; he had gotten it when he was nine.  The pages were smudged and wrinkled from years of rereading.  On the cover was a photo of his hero, Stanley Mitchell.  Mitchell was posing for the camera, offering a smile full of white teeth that contrasted sharply with his deeply tanned skin and jet black hair.  His wide nose and sharp cheek bones would keep him from being called handsome, but somehow his features all came together in a way that make him quite attractive to members of the opposite sex.  He was wearing a tight T-shirt that accentuated his muscular upper body and a pair of jeans that were covered with dust.  The magazine had a lengthy article on the man, who had been one of archaeology's biggest public figures in the seventies and eighties.  Dan had grown up wanting to be just like him.  He was a daring explorer, a brilliant historian, and a charming speaker.  Now Dan knew that he would never be the giant of a man that Stanley Mitchell was.  No matter how hard Dan might try, he would never be able to match the commanding presence that Mitchell had been born with.

            Dan shook his head to clear the dismal thoughts from his mind.  He got back to work, and within a few minutes he was totally absorbed with his project.  So he did not hear anything when someone slowly unzipped the flap of his tent.  He kept working diligently until something came between him and his lantern, casting a shadow over him and the tablets.  He looked up, alarmed, but it was too late.

*          *            *

            "The Phoenicians are best known for inventing the alphabet," Susan told Lara.  "The Greeks later borrowed their alphabet and made it their own, and the Romans did the same to them.  We got our current alphabet from the Romans.

            "Besides the alphabet, the Phoenicians also invented a purple dye and glassware.  Those two inventions made Phoenicia a very rich country, and its sailors soon became the best of the ancient world.

            "Unfortunately, good sailors don't necessarily make a good army, and Phoenicia spent most of its existence under the control of various foreign powers—Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, and Persia, to name a few.  Since Phoenicia was under the control of other civilizations so often, it inherited bits and pieces of their cultures.  Its large pantheon of gods was the result of the mixing of the gods of other empires.  Eventually, the Phoenicians made Astarte their most important goddess."

            Susan pointed at the glass urn.  "That eight-pointed star carved into the side of the urn is her symbol.  Astarte was the Phoenician goddess of love, war, fertility, and lust.  We think that the Dragon Chalice may have been a ceremonial chalice used during the sacrifices that were often made in Astarte's honor."  Lara walked over to the urn and ran her hand over the engraved star.  Something about it seemed familiar to her.

            "I thought the eight-pointed star was a symbol of the Sumerian goddess, Ishtar," Lara said to Susan.

            "It is," Susan told her.  "The Phoenician goddess Astarte is really just a copy of the Sumerian goddess Ishtar.  She was one of the goddesses that the Phoenicians borrowed from the different civilizations that periodically controlled it."

            Lara stared down into the empty urn.  "Didn't you say that the lid was sealed?" she asked without moving her eyes from the urn.

            "Yes, it was," Carlton answered her.

            "Well, if this chalice was used during ceremonies, why would the Phoenicians have sealed it inside of an urn?"

            Carlton looked at Susan.  Susan stared at the urn, frowning.  "I don't know.  I guess it must not have been for ceremonial purposes.  But why would they make such a beautiful treasure and never use it?"

            Lara rubbed her head.  "Trying to second-guess ancient peoples is never easy.  They always had reasons for what they did, even if they aren't obvious to us.  If they sealed that chalice inside of this urn and stuck it in the corner of a room in the basement of a temple, they had to have done it for a purpose.  Now, what was that purpose?"

            "Maybe they were afraid of it," Susan suggested.

            Lara turned away from the urn to look at her.  "Why would they be afraid of a glass chalice that they had made?"

            "I don't know," Susan said, uncertainly.  She squirmed in her chair and looked at Carlton.  "Remember what I told you last night?"

            "You said that you felt odd when Jonathan pulled out the chalice."

            "Yes, and that the chalice had appeared to glow for a moment.  Maybe..."  Susan trailed off, looking at Lara.

            "Maybe the chalice is more than just an old piece of glass," Lara finished for her.

            "I've heard stories about some of your adventures," Susan said to Lara.  "If some of them are even half-true, then there is a real possibility that this artifact may have had some sort of power."

            "In the past, I have come across things that people have believed held mystical powers," Lara told her, "but artifacts like those are extremely rare.  Let's not jump to conclusions just yet."  She thought for a moment.  "Carlton?" she asked.  "You were there when the urn was opened, weren't you?  Did you notice anything?"

            Carlton was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the floor.  "No, nothing," he said at last.  He refused to meet her eyes.  Lara knew that Carlton was not a bashful person.  Something was definitely wrong.

            Susan, still caught up in her desire for revenge, was completely unaware of Carlton's odd behavior.  "But that still doesn't explain how someone could have been waiting for it to be discovered," she said.  "No one alive today could possibly have known about the chalice until we radioed the museum about it.  How could someone have reacted fast enough to plan a theft the very night of its discovery?"

            "There are just too many questions we don't have answers for yet," Carlton stated.  "Maybe something written on those tablets will help clear things up."

            "What tablets?" asked Lara.  "The tablets that Dan is cleaning?"

            "Yes," answered Carlton.  "We found them in the same room of the temple that we found the chalice.  We're hoping that they may be about the chalice's background."

            Lara chewed her lip for a moment as she thought.  Suddenly, she looked up.  "If this thief is so well-informed, why didn't he steal the tablets last night along with the chalice?" she asked.

            "Dan had the tablets in his tent.  Besides, I didn't inform the museum that we had discovered them.  I thought we would hold that information back for a few days so we could 'wow' them again later.  Dan claims that they're written in the Phoenician alphabet, and that would make them some of the oldest examples of alphabetic writing ever found."

            "So you never talked about the tablets over the radio?" Lara demanded.

            "Not yesterday, but after Jonathan's death I thought that it would be best if I informed the museum of everything that had occurred over the past week.  I was talking on the radio all morning."  Carlton finally saw what Lara was getting at, and his face paled.

            Susan realized it, too.  "That means someone may come back for the tablets tonight!" she cried.

            "Where is Dan's tent?" Lara asked, but Susan had already torn open the tent flap and was running off into the night.  Lara and Carlton took off after her.

            A thick cloud cover made the night nearly pitch black, and a slight breeze washed freezing air across Lara's body.  After leaving the well-lit tent, she was having trouble seeing.  But she could make out Susan's shadowy form ahead of her, and she focused on following it.

            This is all happening too fast, Lara thought.  I know we could figure this all out if we could just had time to think it through.

            But that chance wasn't going to come anytime soon.   Lara could see that Susan had stopped in front of a tent that was lit up brightly from within.  She could also see that the tent's flap, which should have been zipped up to keep out the night's chill, was flapping softly in the breeze.  The whispery sound of the fabric rubbing against itself sent a shiver down Lara's spine.  Lara sensed Susan's scream even before she had stuck her head inside the tent, but it still made her blood run cold.

            Lara finally reached the tent herself.  Susan stood frozen in the doorway, and Lara shoved her roughly to the side.  What she saw was exactly what she had expected, but the sight unsettled her nonetheless.

            Dan lay sprawled face down on the tent floor.  His shirt and sleeping bag were stained red by the blood that had poured from the stab wounds in his back.  His papers were in disarray, scattered around the tent and spotted with blood.  There was no sign of the tablets.

            Carlton reached the tent a moment later and yelled for the doctor.  Upon hearing his cry, the other members of the dig team started to stagger out of their tents, realizing that the horrible events of the previous night had been merely a prelude of things to come.  Carlton forced his way past the two women to kneel at the boy's side so he could check for signs of life, despite the odds against finding any.

            A strange, anguished, animal-like cry emitted from Susan's throat.  She forced her way out of the tent, pushing Lara so hard that she fell to ground.  Susan sprinted away, quickly disappearing into the dark night.

            "Stop her!" Carlton commanded Lara.  The fear in his eyes told her that losing Susan would be an unbearable loss for him.  Lara nodded and was on her feet instantly.  She exited the tent, breathing deeply the crisp winter air, untainted by the smell of blood.  She dashed off in the direction Susan had gone.  She was certain that Susan intended to find the murderer, and she was determined to catch up with her before she caught up with the killer.

            Foolish girl, Lara thought angrily.  If she finds him before I find her, we'll have another corpse on our hands.  But even as the thought entered her head, she knew she would be doing the same thing if she were in Susan's place.  First her father and now a close friend had fallen victim to this assassin, and she would not rest until she had obtained her revenge.

            Lara had now left the camp behind and was nearing the excavation.  She worried that Susan had changed course and she was heading in the wrong direction.  But if that were the case she would never find her, so she ran on.

            Lara stumbled as her feet caught on something in the darkness, no doubt a part of the temple's foundation.  She managed to maintain her balance, and quickly picked up her pace again.

            Finally, Lara saw a glint of light ahead of her.  She sprinted towards it.  She soon could see Susan's dark form running through the night, her golden hair reflecting the distant lights of the campsite.  Susan's pace had slowed considerably, and she was breathing hard.  She was in good shape, but she didn't have Lara's stamina.

            "Susan!" Lara called out to her.  "Susan, stop!"  But Susan ran on.

            Lara put on a burst of speed.  As soon as she was within reach, Lara grabbed Susan and forced her to stop.

            "Susan, calm down!" Lara commanded to no avail.  Susan struggled to release herself from Lara's grasp.  Lara hung on to her desperately, but she was losing the battle.  Lara may have been physically stronger than Susan, but Susan's emotional thunderstorm was giving her the advantage.

            "Susan, please, I—"  Her plea was cut off when Susan buried her elbow in Lara's stomach.  Lara collapsed to the ground, unable to breathe.  Susan pulled away from her weakened grip and limped away.

            Lara sucked at the cold air, attempting feel her lungs with the delicious oxygen.  When her breath returned she stood up, swaying unsteadily, and started after Susan again.              Susan hadn't gotten very far.  She, too, was gasping for air, due to her exertion.  Lara caught her quickly.  This time, she didn't try to be gentle.  She tackled Susan, slamming her into the ground viciously.  Susan cried out, but Lara couldn't tell whether it was in pain or anguish.  Still, she fought Lara fiercely, flailing at her with her feet and clawing at her with her hands.

            "Let go of me!" she screeched.  "I have to kill him!  I have to kill him!"

            "Susan, stop it!" Lara yelled back at her.  She pushed down on Susan's chest, keeping her pressed against the ground.  "He's gone, Susan!  You're not going to find him!"

            "Yes, I will!" Susan screamed, sobbing now.  "I have to!"  Her voice fell to a pitiful whisper.  "I have to!"  Tears streamed down her face, leaving muddy tracks in the coat of dust that covered it.

            "We'll find him, Susan," Lara promised her.  "We'll find him.  But we have to be careful.  We need to make a plan, Susan.  Then we can catch him."

            "Kill him," Susan whispered.

            As Lara stared down at her, she had the sudden feeling that she had known her somewhere before, even though she was certain that they had never met until Carlton had introduced them that evening.  In fact, it seemed unlikely that Lara had ever seen someone as disheveled as Susan was right now.  Her blond hair was a mass of dirty tangles, her face and clothes covered with grime from wrestling with Lara on the ground.  A thin stream of blood trickled down the side of her head from a gash she had received when Lara had slammed her into the ground.  Her wild eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles, and her face wore an expression of unimaginable grief.

            And then Lara did know where she had seen her before.  She had seen her in the reflection of her own image...

*          *            *

            Almost twelve years ago, Lara had been returning from a ski trip when her plane had crashed in the Himalayan Mountains.  She had been the only survivor.

            But 'survivor' would not have been a very good description of her in the first few hours after the crash.  She was alive, yes, but her spirit was dead.

            She wandered around the wreckage for hours, trying not to think, trying not to feel.  She believed that she was supposed to be dead already, that Death had missed her when he had taken the other passengers on the plane and would be back for her as soon as he realized she had been left behind.  Therefore, there was no reason to try to save herself.

            Deep down, she knew that that was just an excuse to relieve herself from being responsible for her life.  She had always had someone else looking out for her, and now she couldn't cope with having to take care of herself.  But she buried that realization under her pain and fear, and continued to wait for her death.

            She moved, not with her natural, purposeful stride, but instead by pathetically shuffling her feet, cutting a path through the foot-deep snow.  Her head was bent toward the ground, as if she could no longer bear to see the beauty and freedom of the sky.  Snow lightly fell, sticking to her hair and clothes.  She made no attempt to brush it off.

            Abruptly, she stumbled, her dragging feet catching a piece of the airplane hidden under a light coating of snow.  She fell, not even bothering to put her hands in front of her to cushion her fall.  She hit the ground hard, and probably would have injured herself even more if the snow had not softened the impact.

            She lay there, unmoving, for several minutes.  The lightly falling snow landed on her cheek, at first melting quickly, but then, as her skin became colder, sticking to her face in wet clumps.  She felt the coldness of the snow around her creeping into her body, chilling her body's outer layers, then slowing working its way in, seeking to freeze the warm blood in her heart.  She let her body relax, satisfied to be dying.  She had been proven right.  Death had never intended for her to get away.

            As she let her body fall limp, her hand brushed against something buried just beneath the surface of the snow.  The weight of her hand tilted it, forcing it up.  The dusting of snow that had covered it fell away.

            Lara could see now what it was.  It was a large shard of glass, probably part of the cockpit window.  When the cockpit window had shattered, this piece must have broken off and then been blown clear by the explosion.

            As Lara stared at the piece of glass she was filled by horror.  In the glass, she could see her reflection, and the face that stared back at her was hideous.  She doubted any of her friends back home would recognize this horrid creature she had become.  Gone were the smooth, unblemished cheeks that were the envy of all her acne-spotted friends.  Now they were dark and red, covered by the congealing blood that flowed from the wound on her forehead.  The right side of her face was swollen with ugly purple bruises.  Her beautiful brown eyes now swam in a sea of blood, and beneath those eyes her face was puffy and red from crying.  And her brown hair, which usually shone as if it were lit from within, was now a dark, lusterless mass of tangles.

            If she had not brushed her hand against that piece of glass, if she had not seen her reflection within it, she may have continued to lie there until the cold, probing tendrils of the approaching night reached far enough into her body to stop her heart.  But her hand had brushed the glass, and she had seen her reflection, and the horrible reality of her situation had finally struck her.  She was still alive.  But she was in terrible danger.

            Sick with fear and repulsed by the sight of her own face, Lara forced her shivering body off the ground.  Brushing the snow from her clothes and face, she staggered on.  She still expected to die, but, for the moment, she was still alive...

*          *            *

            Lara looked with pity on this young woman before her now.  Susan had succumbed to her fear and grief and was now sobbing openly.

            When I was in that plane crash, I thought I had lost everything I loved, Lara thought.  My friends, my family, everything that mattered was gone.  I managed to get them back, but Susan will never be able to get her father back.  How do you tell a person that the only way to overcome such grief is to accept the fate you have been dealt and continue to live your life?  As she looked down at the bereaved woman, Lara decided that she couldn't.  Susan would have to figure that out for herself, as she had.

            A sudden clattering sound coming from her right broke Lara out of her reverie.  Something had knocked dirt into one of the excavation's pits.  Lara released Susan had hurried toward the source of the noise.

            The sound of scurrying feet reached her ears and spurred her on.  She could hear labored breathing ahead of her.  She ran toward the noise and struggled to see through the gloom of the dark night.

            A cry rang out ahead of her, followed quickly by a heavy thud.  Whoever she was chasing had just fallen into one of the excavation pits.

            Lara slowed down, not wanting the same fate to befall her.  She didn't see the pit until she was only a few meters away from it.  A groan rose up from the hole.  Lara crept toward it cautiously, wishing she had her pistols with her.

            She peeked over the edge of the pit and caught her first sight of their mysterious visitor.  He was, to the say the least, not what she had expected.

            Staring up at her from the floor of the pit almost two meters below her was a short old man.  The wrinkles that crisscrossed his face were like deep canyons cutting through a desert plain.  His long, snow white hair was tied back in a sloppy ponytail.  He was wearing jeans and a sweater that hung loosely on him, indicating that beneath the clothes was a body that was little more than skin wrapped tightly around bones.  Everything about him made him look like a harmless old man.  Everything, that is, except his eyes.

            His slate-colored eyes peered up at Lara with a power that made Lara feel insignificant.  It was completely irrational, but for some reason, Lara felt those eyes had seen more than any human had right to see, that there was a wisdom in them that no human could ever be expected to obtain.  The feeling passed quickly, and Lara dismissed it to her frazzled state of mind.  She had only one thing to worry about right now, and that was finding out who this man was and what he was doing here.  She decided that she would take the direct approach to answering those questions.

            "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" she demanded.

            "My name is... John.  John Nash," he responded in English.  "Could you please help me out of here?  I think I might have hurt my hip."

            Lara wavered for a moment.  She had sensed a slight hesitation before he gave her his name, but that might just have been because he was frightened.  And although most of the Lebanese people spoke Arabic or French, the well-educated were often taught English as well.  She relented and crouched down, extending her hand down to him.  "Get up slowly," she commanded him.

            "As if I could get up any other way," the man muttered, pushing himself off the ground with an obvious effort.  He accepted Lara's proffered hand and carefully climbed out of the hole.  While it took a considerable effort on his part, he did not seem to be injured by the fall in any way.

            When he finally stood on level ground he released Lara's hand and brushed himself off.  "Thank you for your kindness, dear lady," he said to her.  "If you hadn't come along, I might have been trapped down there until morning."

            "If I hadn't come along?" Lara repeated, incredulous.  "I was the person who chased you into the pit."

            "That was you?" he asked, surprised.  A grin cracked his face and he started making a wheezing sound that Lara finally realized was laughter.  "Oh, I am such an old fool," he managed to croak.

            "I don't understand."

            "I was merely out walking when I heard someone running towards me.  There are a lot of criminals and terrorists in this city, and I assumed someone was trying to mug me.  I'm too old to defend myself, so I ran.  Not that I'm much good at that either, of course."  He continued to chuckle.  "Maybe next time I should call out first, eh?"

            Lara wasn't convinced yet.  "You just happened to be out walking through an archaeological dig in the middle of the night?  I find that a little hard to believe."

            The old man stopped laughing and looked at the ground sheepishly.  "Well, I didn't just happen to be walking by.  I've always been something of a history buff, and I recently heard about this excavation of a Phoenician Temple.  I wanted to have a look around.  I'm sorry if I've broken some sort of law."

            "I'm trying to figure out if you have," Lara told him.  "Two men have been murdered here, one less than an hour ago.  Do know anything about that?"

            "A murder?"  The man's eyes widened in shock.  "No, I had no idea!"

            "You didn't hear about last night's attack?" Lara asked, her eyes narrowing.  "It's been all over the news."

            "I... I... just got into Jubail this afternoon.  I didn't have time read a newspaper," he stammered.

            "And you know nothing about a missing artifact?" Lara asked, more forcefully this time.

            Despite the darkness of the night, Lara was certain that the old man's wrinkled face paled, and she almost thought that his bony hands were trembling.

            "What artifact?" the man asked hoarsely.

            Lara was struggling to decide whether or not she should tell him when the sound of many footsteps alerted her to the approach of a large group of people.  She spun around and was blinded by the glare of several high-power flashlights.

            "Lara?  Are you all right?" Carlton called to her.

            "Yes, I'm fine," Lara answered, trying to shield her eyes from the lights.  As they came closer, she could see that Carlton was leading about a dozen of the students, most of whom were carrying shovels and hammers in case they ran into trouble.  If they had been carrying lanterns instead of flashlights their group would have looked like an old-fashioned peasant uprising.

            Susan was walking next to Carlton, one of her hands clutching his arm.  They had found her still crying where Lara had left her.

            "What are you doing over here, Lara?" Carlton asked.

            "I've been interrogating this old man," Lara said, turning to gesture towards him.  Her hand pointed at nothing but thin air.

            Lara and Carlton quickly organized a search of the area.  When the police arrived, they conducted their own search.  But by the time the eastern sky was growing bright once more, Lara had to accept the truth.

            The old man was gone.

*          *            *

            I need rest, Lara thought as she rubbed her eyes.  She had woken up early to go hunting for that tomb in Greece yesterday, and had not gotten any sleep since then.  She knew, though, that she would have to wait a little longer before she could get some rest.  First she had questions that she needed answers to.

            The zipper on her tent flap was pulled up quickly, startling her.  Carlton stepped through the opening, followed quickly by Susan, who pulled the zipper back down.

            Carlton had had a spare tent set up for her before she had arrived the previous night.  It was outfitted with the bare essentials—a sleeping bag, a lantern, and a small electric heater.  Lara had had her luggage delivered from the ship, and her two suitcases now sat in one corner of the tent.  She had not had time to change yet, though.

            Carlton and Susan managed to find room to sit down in the small tent.  Carlton had not showered or changed yet, either, but at some point in the night he must have convinced Susan to, as she was now wearing a clean set of clothes and looked quite refreshed.  The strain of the past couple of nights was beginning to show on Carlton, but Susan appeared to be almost rested.  She had to be exhausted, but the burning light in her eyes told Lara that her desire for vengeance would sustain her until her father's killer was hunted down.

            They sat without speaking for several minutes. Lara had asked them to come to her tent, had told them that she needed answers to her questions.  But now that they were here, Lara was not sure where to begin.  She knew that if she pulled the right thread the knot would unravel, but she had no idea which thread to start with.

            "How is Dan?" she finally asked.  That certainly wasn't a question she had needed an answer to, but it was a start.

            "The same," Carlton answered simply.

            Last night after Lara had taken off after Susan, the dig's doctor had arrived at Dan's tent and discovered that he was, miraculously, still alive.  He had done as much for him as he could until the ambulance arrived and Dan was taken to a nearby hospital.  The doctors had not held much hope that he would make it through the night, but he had.  He was still barely clinging to life, but now the doctors believed he had fighting chance.

            Lara glanced at Susan.  Carlton had told her that when they had found Susan, she was still lying on the ground sobbing.  He wasn't able to get her to move until he told her that Dan was alive.  That little shred of hope seemed to have given her back the courage to continue the hunt for her father's killer.  Lara wondered how Susan would hold up if Dan didn't make it.

            Lara sighed.  It was time to get down to business.

            "Did you find anything in Dan's notes?" Lara asked Carlton.

            Carlton pulled a few papers from his pocket and unfolded them.  Lara tried to ignore the spots of blood that covered them.

            Carlton cleared his throat.  "Dan copied a few sections of the tablets down on these papers.  He must have studied them for a while, because he already has a rough translation of some parts of it."

            "Anything that might be useful?" Lara asked.

            "Well, according to this translation, the Phoenicians didn't make the Dragon Chalice."

            "What?" Susan asked, astonished.  "But the Phoenicians were the only people who knew how to make glass in that time period."

            "I know, but according to the tablets, the Phoenicians didn't make it.  They found it among the treasures of one of the neighboring empires when they were fighting a war with them.  The Phoenician army returned with it to Phoenicia with the rest of their spoils of war.  Then the chalice was sealed in this urn and placed in one of Astarte's temples."

            "But why did they seal it up and hide it away?" Susan asked.

            "These papers don't say why.  I guess Dan didn't have a chance to copy that part down."

            "Well, it's an intriguing mystery, but it isn't enough to help us," Lara complained.  "If we knew why the Phoenicians thought it was necessary to hide it away, then we might be able to figure out why someone would be after it today.  Maybe we should wait for Dan to regain consciousness before we do anything else."

            "That might not be a good idea," Carlton told her.  "The doctors say it could days or even weeks before he regains consciousness, and that's only if he—ah, I mean... well, it could take weeks," he finished, refusing to meet Susan's gaze.

            Lara started talking again, trying to dispel the awkward silence that had just fallen over the tent.  "Well, if we can't find out anything else about the chalice, let's see if we can figure out anything about the murderer.  Think back to the night Jonathan was killed.  Do either of you remember anything odd that happened that night that you have forgotten to tell me about?"

            Carlton squirmed.  "Well, there is one thing..."

            "What?" Lara and Susan asked simultaneously. 

            "When I found Jonathan, he was still alive.  Before he died, he whispered something to me.  A name.  Gilgamesh."

            "Gilgamesh?  Are you sure?"  Lara could see that Susan was as stunned as she was.

            "No, I'm not completely sure.  He was having trouble breathing, and he was probably delirious from blood loss.  But I think he said, 'Gilgamesh.'"

            Lara rubbed her eyes again.  Things were just getting more and more confusing.

            "Isn't Gilgamesh the great Sumerian king?" Susan asked.  Lara nodded.  Since Susan didn't seem to know much about him, Lara slipped into her teacher role and told her about the adventures of Gilgamesh.

            "Gilgamesh was a king of the Sumerians, a people who lived in present day Iraq.  They were one of the first civilizations on earth.  Gilgamesh was so great that an intricate legend grew up around him.  Archaeologists have unearthed several versions of his adventures, but the story is still basically the same.  Gilgamesh was a great king who was two thirds god and one third man.  Since he was part man, he was mortal, and he could not come to grips with his mortality.  So he and his friend Enkidu went about making great names for themselves by slaying all sorts of magical beasts.  That way, even though they would die, they would be remembered for their deeds.

            "Unfortunately for them, Ishtar, the Sumerian goddess of love, fell in love with Gilgamesh.  Gilgamesh knew that Ishtar was a very unfaithful woman, so he refused her advances.  This angered her so much that she had Enkidu killed.  After his best friend died, Gilgamesh was completely terrified of dying himself, so he went on a quest to find the only man who was ever granted immortality, Utnapishtim."

            "Why was Utnapishtim granted immortality?" Susan asked.

            "Utnapishtim was like a Sumerian Noah.  Years before Gilgamesh was supposed to have lived, the gods had warned Utnapishtim that they would flood the earth, drowning all people and animals, so he built a huge ship and placed two of every species of animal on board.  Only his family and the animals survived.  After the flood subsided, the gods realized that they had been wrong to try to destroy mankind, so they granted Utnapishtim immortality to make amends.

            "When Gilgamesh finally found Utnapishtim, he was told that he would not be able to gain immortality.  Gilgamesh begged for help, and Utnapishtim finally relented and told him about a plant that had the power to rejuvenate a man.  Gilgamesh managed to find the plant, but it was stolen from him by a serpent.  So Gilgamesh returned to his kingdom a mortal man, and eventually died.

            "Now, there's a lot more to the story than that, but I don't see how any of it can possibly have anything to do with the chalice or Jonathan's killer," Lara finished.

            "It has to mean something or my father wouldn't have mentioned his name," Susan said obstinately.

            "The last time we saw Jonathan, he said there was writing carved into the bottom of the chalice," Carlton said, breaking into the conversation.  "He had intended to try to translate it that night.  Maybe something written there connected the chalice to Gilgamesh."

            "So once again, we have nothing," Lara muttered, the frustration in her voice quite clear.  "We don't have the tablets or the chalice, so we can't test any theories.  And the more we learn, the more confusing the whole matter becomes.  We have a man who was murdered over a Phoenician chalice that wasn't really made by the Phoenicians, a reference to a legendary Sumerian king, a killer who seemed to be expecting us to find the chalice, and I have a gut feeling that John Nash is mixed up in all of this somehow as well.  There must be a connecting thread here that we are missing, and I'm willing to bet that this missing link is the reason the Phoenicians hid this chalice in the basement of a temple, and is also the reason that someone is willing to kill for it today.  And I think you know what it is, Henry."

            Carlton jerked as if she had slapped him in the face.  "Me?  How could I possibly know why the Phoenicians hid it?" he asked.

            "You've been hiding something from me ever since I got here, Carlton.  I know you too well.  Something has been bothering you and I want to know what it is."

            "That's not true," he denied, but his face betrayed him.  Lara knew he was lying.

            "Henry," Susan said softly, "if you know something that can help, please tell us."

            Those words seemed to break Carlton.  Lara watched in amazement as Carlton's entire body began to tremble.  Carlton hid his face in his shaking hands and was quiet for several minutes.  In all the time Lara had known him, she had never seen him lose his control like this.  Something had him absolutely terrified.

            Carlton finally raised his face from his hands.  He swallowed twice before attempting to speak.  When he did, he spoke only four words.

            "It made me younger," he said.

            For a moment Lara thought she had misunderstood him, but the fear in Carlton's eyes told her that she had not.  And things began to make sense.

            "Your limp..." she began, and he nodded his head.

            "It disappeared right after I held the chalice," he said quietly.  "I haven't dyed my hair.  It went from gray to black in a few hours."  His body continued to shake.  "I'm scared, Lara.  I just held that chalice for a few seconds, and it moved my life backwards by twenty years.  How is that possible?"

            "Did the same thing happen to Jonathan?" Lara asked.

            Carlton nodded and looked over at Susan.  "You had such a shock that you didn't even notice," he told her.  "His hair was blond again, and the wrinkles were gone from his face.  He could have passed for a man in his twenties."  Susan just stared back at him with wide eyes.

            "That's why the Phoenicians hid the chalice away from the rest of the world," Carlton said to Lara.  "They realized what its powers were, and they had the presence of mind to lock it away where no one would find it."

            "But somehow someone in our time found out about it," Lara said.  "He stole the chalice, and then he stole the tablets because he was afraid that they might hold a clue as to the chalice's real powers.  And now that 'someone' has the power of eternal youth."

            Eternal youth, Lara thought.  The idea sent chills down her spine.  It was repulsive and attractive at the same time.  Lara thought about her thirty-third birthday coming the next day.  What if she never had to reach it?  What if she could stop herself from aging, from growing old and weak?  What an incredible gift that would be...

            Lara shook herself.  She shouldn't be thinking about that, not now.  She had to catch this killer first.

            Susan shared her sentiments.  "We can't let him get with it!" she said furiously.  "I won't let the man who killed my father live forever!"

            "Don't worry, Susan, he won't," Lara told her.  "We'll trap him when he comes back tonight."

            "Why would he come back tonight?" asked Carlton.

            "Why, to get the last tablet, of course."

            "What tab—oh," said Carlton.  His trembling began to subside as a smile spread across his face.

            "Get on the radio, Henry.  Tell the museum that you just dug up another tablet.  I think that should bring a third appearance from our killer."  Lara pulled one of her suitcases to herself and opened it.  She rummaged around in the clothes for a moment before pulling two 9mm pistols out.

            "This time we'll be ready."

*          *            *

            Lara crouched in a dark corner of the main tent, her pistols in her hands and her body clothed in her usual attire.  All around her, tools, artifacts, and stacks of supplies cast haunting shadows in the meager moonlight that filtered in through the fabric of the tent.  Outside, the night was silent, as if it too were holding its breath in anticipation of the arrival of Jonathan Gill's killer.

            Lara was beginning to worry that her legs would have cramps by the time the killer returned.  Already her legs were aching from the strain of trying to remain motionless.

            As she awaited the arrival of the killer, she considered the events of the day.  After her discussion with Susan and Carlton, Lara had gone to sleep, knowing that it would probably be her last chance for rest in a while.  Carlton had used the radio to inform the museum (and hopefully the killer) that another tablet had been discovered, and that he would place it in the small safe in the main tent.  Then he had told the students and other archaeologists to stay inside their tents as much as possible for the remainder of the day.  He didn't want anyone to run into the killer.  Two Lebanese police officers would wander throughout the camp all night, but Lara didn't think they would mess up her plans.  The killer had already proven that he was skilled at avoiding detection.

            Lara would wait for the killer to enter the tent and approach the safe that sat on one side of the room.  Then she would rise from her hiding place and force him to surrender.  Or, if he refused, kill him.

            Carlton had wanted to join her in the tent, but Lara had said no, more people would only increase the chances of someone getting hurt.  Their best bet was to keep things simple.

            Oddly, Susan had not requested that she join Lara.  Lara had expected her to demand to be allowed to help bring her father's killer to justice, but instead she had just listened as Lara outlined her plan and muttered her approval.  Which was just as well, because Lara would have refused if she had asked to be part of the ambush.  Lara was afraid Susan might let her emotions get out of hand if she came face to face with her father's killer.

            Susan had retired to her tent for some much-needed rest.  Carlton was sitting in the tent nearest the main tent, about a hundred meters away.  He would be within shouting distance if Lara needed him.

            And now it was just a matter of waiting.  If Lara's assumptions were correct, the killer, believing that another tablet existed, would return for it.  It wasn't exactly a sure thing, but the killer had been willing to return once, and Lara was betting that he would return again.

            So Lara crouched in the murky shadows of the tent, as the minutes and hours slowly slipped by.

            Lara had no idea how much time had passed before she heard the soft thuds of footsteps approaching the tent.  The thumping continued right up to the tent flap, then stopped.  Lara could imagine the figure on the other side furtively looking around to see if he had been spotted.  Her fingers tensed on the triggers of her guns.

            With a soft whispering sound, the tent flap was pushed aside.  A dark figure carrying a large bundle across his shoulder quickly stepped inside the tent and pulled the flap back across the opening.  After making sure that the tent opening was completely shut, he turned around and surveyed the room.

            It was too dark to see any of the man's features.  All Lara could tell was that he was tall and well built.  She could just make out the quick, ragged sound of his breathing from her hiding place.

            The man set the large bundle down near the entrance of the tent.  Then the tall figure started to move through the tent cautiously, carefully stepping around the various tools and other paraphernalia that littered the tent floor.  He paused for a moment and Lara could hear him fumbling with something.  Suddenly a narrow beam of light cut through the darkness.  The man had turned on a small flashlight to help him navigate the hazardous tent floor.  The man shielded the small flashlight with one hand to reduce the risk of the light being spotted by anyone outside.  Under the guidance of the flashlight's weak illumination, the man continued to walk through the tent.

            Lara ground her teeth in frustration.  The flashlight was aimed almost straight at her, which caused several problems.  First of all, the light's glare made it impossible for her to see the man's face.  Second, the sudden brightness had caused her to lose her night vision.  And worst of all, the man might spot her without the protective shield of shadows wrapped around her.

            The man continued his slow walk through the tent.  His light bobbed up and down and swung back and forth as he made his search.  The beam swept over the broken pots and jars the team had dug up, casting frightening shadows upon the floor, and then quickly moved on, allowing the darkness to settle over the ancient objects once more.

            Upon reaching the pole that held up the center of the tent, the man stopped and pointed his flashlight down at his feet.  He stood there, motionless, for several minutes.

            Lara kept expecting him to start searching again.  He had to know that the longer he stayed here, the greater was the chance that he might be discovered.  As time dragged on, Lara began to get nervous.  She had been prepared to deal with a stealthy thief, and she had been prepared to deal with a blood-thirsty killer, but she had no idea how she should combat this odd behavior.  The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity.  Her nerves were on edge.  She wished desperately that he would just do something.

            Lara jerked involuntarily when the man spoke.

            "Come out from there, Lara.  It's time we finish this."

            Lara's heart thudded in her chest.  Her fingers tightened on the triggers of her guns.  She struggled to decide what she should do.  The man might only be guessing that someone was in the room, and if she remained hidden he would assume that no one was there after all.  But if he did know she was there, he might shoot her if she didn't comply with his order.  She couldn't even tell whether or not he was carrying a weapon.

            Maybe I should just shoot him, she thought, but she immediately ruled that idea out.  She needed answers from him, and had to keep him alive if at all possible.  She realized that the only course of action that was available to her was to expose herself.  But she didn't have to be defenseless.

            Lara rose from her crouch quickly, ignoring the agony in her legs.  She brought her pistols to bear on the dark form standing near the tent's center pole.

            "Don't move," she ordered.

            A chuckle emanated from the black figure.  "Don't worry, Lara.  I'm not going to do anything stupid.  Not when I'm this close to succeeding."

            The man's self-assured attitude was worrisome.  He behaved as if he she wasn't a threat to him.  As if he had the upper hand.

            "Who are you?" Lara asked, trying to maintain control over the situation.

            "Come a little closer and you'll see," the man said in a playful tone.  Lara sensed that the man was grinning at her.

            I can't let this guy think he can manipulate me, Lara thought angrily.  But at the same time, her curiosity compelled her to get close enough to see him.

            Her curiosity won out.

            Lara stepped carefully around the objects that cluttered the floor and approached the man.  The man still aimed the flashlight at the floor.  His face was shrouded in the shadows.

            "Close enough," the man said, bringing Lara's advance to a halt less than two meters away from him.

            "Are you ready to discover the identity of your dark killer?" he asked teasingly.

            "Yes, I am, and if you make one wrong move I'll blow your brains out the back of your head," Lara said in an attempt to sound threatening.  But the words had sounded empty to even to her own ears, and she was sure that the man had sensed it as well.

            "All right," he said, slowly raising the flashlight.  "It's time for you to see the light."

            Faster than Lara could think, the man jerked the flashlight up so that it shone straight into her eyes.  Lara flinched and stepped back instinctively, but she tripped on something and fell backwards.  Before she even hit the ground, the man had his hands wrapped around her pistols.  One jerk, and the guns tore free from her grip.  She heard a clatter in a corner of the tent where she assumed he had thrown her guns.

            "If I yell, two police officers are going to hear me," Lara told the black figure from her position on the floor.  She had to regain some control.

            "Lara, I'm not going to hurt you.  In fact, I'm going to give you the best birthday present you have ever received.  And the last birthday present you will ever receive.  Trust me, everything will make sense soon."  Then the man pointed the flashlight back at himself, illuminating his features for the first time.

            Lara's breath caught.  She tried to tell herself that what she was seeing wasn't true, she didn't want it to be true, but there was no mistaking the man who stood over her now.  The dark hair, the wide noise, the sharp cheek bones, the tanned skin.  She had never met the man before, but she knew him well.  Or thought she had.  The man was the great archaeologist, Stanley Mitchell.

            "It's an honor to meet you, Lara," Stanley said.  A faint smile hovered on his lips, as if he found the situation amusing.  "I dare say that you are honored to meet me as well."

            "You killed Jonathan Gill?" Lara asked, struggling to make sense of this unexpected twist in the mystery.  "But... I don't understand.  Why?"

            "Calm down, Lara.  I'll explain everything.  Just relax.  This is going to be the most important night of your life."  Stanley extended a hand down to her.

            Lara hesitated only a moment before excepting it.  He would have killed her already if he had wanted to.  For the time being, she decided to play along.

            Once she was on her feet, Stanley leaned back against the center tent pole.  He appeared to be quite relaxed.

            "Where should I begin, Lara?" he asked.

            "Why don't you start with whatever made you go from a world-renowned archaeologist to a cold-blooded killer," she said icily.

            "Ah, a good question, and one with a very simple answer," Mitchell spoke in his gravelly voice.  "In fact, I can sum it all up in a single word."

            He paused for a moment and stared straight into her eyes.  "Time," he said as if the word was acid on his tongue.

            "What is that supposed to mean?" Lara asked.  Even as she spoke, she sensed his answer, and dreaded hearing it.

            "I grew old, Lara," Mitchell explained.  "A little over a decade ago I was the best-known archaeologist in the world.  I traveled to some of the most remote places on earth in search of lost civilizations and ancient artifacts.  I could do anything."

            Lara had the sudden sensation that Mitchell was talking about her, not himself.

            "Then things began to change.  Little things at first.  I started to sleep more than I used to.  I would get winded halfway through a workout that I used to be able to get through without breaking a sweat.  When I got hurt, it took longer for me to heal.  It all just sneaked up on me, and before I knew what had happened, I was old."

            Lara took a second look at the man who had stormed into her life just moments before.  As she studied him again, this time more carefully, she realized that Stanley Mitchell, her hero, her idol, was no longer in the prime of his life.  His tanned skin had always had a leathery appearance, but the lines had deepened, and increased in number.  His jet black hair was now heavily mixed with gray.  Stanley Mitchell had become an old man.

            "Suddenly, I was no longer the archaeological celebrity that I had once been," Mitchell continued.  "Newspapers stopped taking my photograph, magazines stopped writing articles about me, television producers stopped approaching with ideas about documentaries.  In less than a year, I had become a nobody.  Now Lara, I have always believed in actively solving my own problems, and I intended to solve this one.  I wasn't going to let death take me without a fight.  That's why I started my search for the chalice."

            "How did you know about it?" Lara asked.  "It was buried in the ruins of this temple."

            "My knowledge of it came about by an incredible stroke of luck," Mitchell answered her.  He was grinning now, pleased that she was taking an interest in his story.  "In 1985, I sneaked into Iraq to do a little bit of unauthorized exploring in the desert.  I was trying to track down the temple of an ancient Sumerian king.  I'm sure you've heard of him."

            "Gilgamesh," Lara said.

            "Gilgamesh," Mitchell confirmed, nodding his head.  "While I never managed to find his tomb, I did come across something interesting in the desert.  I found a large fragment of a Sumerian obelisk.  Part of it was above ground, and had been so weathered by the wind that the cuneiform writing carved into it was illegible.  However, I dug around it and found part of the legend of Gilgamesh written on one of its sides.  This story was unique, though.  While several versions of the legend have been uncovered, I have never seen one that matches the one on this obelisk.

            "According to this version of the story, after Gilgamesh visited Utnapishtim and failed to gain immortality, he began his return journey to his kingdom.  However, instead of going straight home as he does in the accepted legend, in this version he encounters the goddess Ishtar on the return trip.  Ishtar is still in love with Gilgamesh and wants to know what she must do to make him love her in return.  Gilgamesh tells her that the only thing he desires is immortality.  So Ishtar picks up a handful of sand and melts it with the heat of her passion.  Then she molds the molten sand into a chalice in the shape of a dragon.  When the sand cools, it becomes glass.  She gives it to him and tells him that he can use it to make himself immortal.  Then Ishtar takes her essence and places it inside the chalice.  The rest of the story was on a part of the obelisk that had been destroyed, so I never knew how it ended."

            "So you decided to start looking for the chalice?" Lara asked.

            "No, not immediately.  I thought the story was just another fanciful legend.  I soon left Iraq and set off on another expedition.  I never reported my find because I had been in Iraq illegally.  I didn't think about it again for many years.  Not until my popularity had faded and I could no longer go on the daring adventures of my youth.  Then I realized that this chalice, if it existed, would be the solution to my problems.  I could be immortal.  I could stop aging and live for eternity.  If it existed.

            "I started spending all of my free time looking for vague references to the chalice in the writings of the Sumerians, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Phoenicians.  Over the years, I managed to track the chalice's movement from one owner to another.  The last mention of it I found said that the Phoenicians had recovered it during a war with the Assyrians.  I finally came to the conclusion that the chalice had either been destroyed or was buried in the ruins of some Phoenician tomb or temple.  I refused to give up hope, so I began pay close attention to all excavations taking place in Phoenician territory.  Whenever a group started to make some promising finds, I would travel to the dig site and listen in on all radio and cellular phone conversations to see if they had discovered anything.  A couple weeks ago I learned that an excavation under the leadership of Jonathan Gill was underway in Lebanon.  I had agreed to be part of an expedition in Greece, but I pulled out of it and came here.  And it later came to my attention that you took my place on that trip."

            Mitchell seemed to find this last fact immensely amusing.  Lara remembered how she had felt when she had been offered Mitchell's spot on the expedition.  She had thought it was a great honor to be on the same level as her idol.  It didn't seem as important to her anymore, though.

            "Anyway, I got a motel room a short distance from this camp and started monitoring all of the broadcasts originating here.  And two days ago I intercepted the message stating the discovery of the chalice.  I had my doubts about the powers of the chalice until I sneaked into this tent that night.  Jonathan Gill was studying the inscription on the bottom of the chalice.  I had met him before.  When I had seen him last, he was a silver-haired old man.  But now he was a man in his prime.  The chalice had transformed him without him even realizing it.  Unfortunately for him, he had never been much of a fighter.  I overcame him quickly and took the chalice.  I don't think he even had time to recognize me."

            "When Henry found him, he whispered the name 'Gilgamesh' before he died," Lara stated, trying to clear up that little mystery.

            Gill nodded.  "I looked at the inscription on the bottom of the chalice later.  It says, 'I give this gift so that my love, Gilgamesh, may live with me for all eternity.'  Jonathan may have deciphered most of it before I arrived.  He must have tried to relay his discovery to Professor Carlton."

            "And you felt no guilt over killing one of your colleagues?" Lara asked, incredulous.

            "As far as I'm concerned, I killed him in self-defense.  If I hadn't gotten that chalice, time would have killed me.  I had to protect myself from death, and Gill was going to try to stop me."

            Lara didn't bother to argue with him.  The man was so deluded that any thing she said against his actions would be ignored, or worse, prompt him to attack her as well.

            "After I escaped with the chalice, I realized I had another problem.  I didn't know exactly how the chalice worked.  I didn't want to do anything wrong, so I wrapped it up in a towel and continued to monitor the camp's broadcasts.  That's when I found out about the tablets.  I thought they might contain the key to using the chalice, so I returned for them the next night.  That was even easier than the previous night's excursion.  I had spent much of my time over the past few years studying Phoenician writings, so I was able to decipher most of what was written on the tablets that night in my motel room.  At last, I had the key to using the chalice."

            "And how does John Nash fit into all of this?" Lara demanded.

            "Who?" Mitchell asked, confused.

            "Last night I ran into an old man who called himself John Nash.  He disappeared before I had a chance to question him in depth."

            "I have no idea who you're talking about," Mitchell told her honestly.

            So he really was just out for a walk, Lara thought.  The poor guy must have been scared to death.

            Mitchell seemed to be annoyed by the interruption, so Lara let him go on.  "As I listened to police broadcasts that night, I learned that you were at the site.  By the time I had finished translating the tablets, I had decided to include you in my plans.  When I heard about the discovery of a 'seventh tablet,' I knew you were setting up a trap.  So I came here tonight so I could talk to you, and let you join me in immortality.  We will live together, forever!"

            Lara let that go by as well.  "So just how does the Dragon Chalice work?"

            "It has three powers.  Just being near it will heal any wounds or weariness you may have.  Touching it will rejuvenate you.  And drinking from it will make you immortal."

            "If that's all you need to do, then why didn't you just put some water in it last night and take a sip?"

            Mitchell laughed loudly.  "I'm afraid water isn't strong enough, Lara.  No, for the chalice to work, we need to drink the blood of a first-born child."

            This man is totally insane, Lara thought.  But at least she would be able to buy some time.

            "I guess we'll need to go look for a first-born child then," Lara said.  She would find a way to stop him while they searched for a first born.

            "No, that won't be necessary," Mitchell told her with a crazy grin stretched across his face.  "We have one right here."

            For a moment Lara was afraid that he meant her, but Mitchell spun away from her and headed for the entrance of the tent.  He stopped next to the tent flap and looked down at the bundle he had placed there upon entering.

            "We can use her blood," Mitchell said, shining his flashlight at the bundle, which was not a bundle at all, but was, in fact, Susan Gill.  Susan had been gagged with a handkerchief, and her wrists and ankles were bound with tent rope.  She looked at Mitchell with a burning hatred in her eyes.

            "She attacked me when I was coming to the tent tonight.  She must have been lying in the grass all night waiting for me.  I know Jonathan only had one child, so Susan has to be his first-born.  Susan will be our ticket to eternal life."  Mitchell pulled a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt.

            Lara felt nauseous.  She had barely come to grips with the fact that the man whom she had modeled her career after was a psychotic killer.  Now he was going to kill again.  She had to find her pistols.

            "No, Stanley, don't do this," she said pleadingly, trying to stall for time.  He had thrown the guns into a corner, but it was too dark to see them.  She looked back at Susan's haggard form.  The hatred in her eyes had been displaced by fear.  Finally she was realizing that, despite the loss of her father, she was, indeed, still alive, and with that realization came the fear of death.  And now it might be too late for her to reclaim her life.

Once again, Lara felt a kinship with the woman.  She couldn't let her down.

            "The loss of her life is a small price to pay for immortality," Mitchell told Lara.  "It is the way of nature.  Things must die so that others may live."

            "I won't let you kill her, Stanley."  Lara put as much force into those words as she could muster.  She had to make Mitchell back down.

            "Fine," Mitchell snarled.  "We can kill her after we are immortal.  Perhaps then you will be more open to the idea."  With that, he jerked Susan to her feet.  He used the knife to cut the bonds tying her wrists together.  Then he pulled one of her arms out straight, pressed the knife against the skin of her upper arm, and drew the knife down.

            Susan's scream was muffled by her gag, but Lara could see the terror and pain in her face.  Blood poured freely from the gash in her arm.  It splashed down to the floor of the tent, forming a small puddle of crimson liquid.

            Keeping a firm grip on Susan, Mitchell reached down and picked up a small object off the floor.  It was wrapped in a towel that fell away as Mitchell lifted it.  The Dragon Chalice, which Lara was seeing for the first time, glittered brilliantly, as if it were on a stage flooded by spotlights, rather than in dark tent illuminated only by a dim flashlight and a few glimmers of moonlight.

            It's beautiful, Lara thought, but she also felt a strange pressure, almost as if she were standing neck-deep in water.  She was certain that the beautiful glass sculpture before her was the source of the oppressive force.

            Mitchell gazed with awe upon the chalice for a moment, then moved it beneath Susan's wound to catch the dripping blood.  The chalice's small bowl slowly filled with the thick fluid.

            Lara shifted her gaze from the chalice to the man holding it, and watched in stunned silence as the years slowly lifted from his body.  The gray in his hair darkened to blackness, the hard lines that carved deep patterns in his face disappeared, his skin took on the softer look of a young man.  Mitchell's biological clock ran in reverse, returning him to his youth.

            At last the bowl was full, and Mitchell pushed Susan to floor again.  He looked at the chalice with a hunger that was animal-like.  He tore his eyes away from the chalice and smiled at Lara with a look of total triumph on his face.

            "It's time for us to begin our new life together, Lara," he told her with a voice filled with barely controlled excitement.  He held out the chalice to her.  "Here.  You may have the first drink."

            Lara's stomach clenched at the thought of drinking blood, but at the same time she felt drawn to the chalice.  She could almost hear it calling to her, beckoning her to drink, to be happy, to never fear death again.  She could almost hear its promise of an eternity without pain or weariness.  Its crystalline form shone with an enticing ruby-colored glow.  The eyes of the dragon were looking right at her, finding her weaknesses and shortcomings and giving her a blissful alternative to the life she now led.  If she would just drink...

            Lara tore her eyes away from the chalice.  Her voice trembled as she spoke.  "No, Stanley.  I won't drink from it.  I would never drink from it."

            Mitchell froze for a moment, then his face clouded with an intense fury.  "No?  No!  Lara, this is your only hope, your only salvation!  I decided to share it with you because we are so much alike.  I've heard of your accomplishments over the years, and they make me think of what I used to be capable of."  His voice lowered to a growl.  "You are not immune to old age, Lara Croft.  I fell victim to it, and one day you shall as well.  Don't make yourself go through that hell, Lara.  Drink.  Drink!"

            "No, Stanley, I won't.  I'm human, and I intend to grow old, just like everyone else."  She looked back at Mitchell now.  Behind him, she could see Susan, who Mitchell had completely forgotten, struggling to untie the rope that bound her ankles together.

            Mitchell was shaking with rage now.  Spittle formed at the corners of his mouth, giving him a rabid look.

            "All right, Lara.  Have it your way.  Maybe you'll realize your mistake when you see what immortality can do for a person."

            Mitchell raised the chalice and placed his lips on the mouth of the dragon.  He tipped the chalice up, and blood oozed down through the dragon's neck, into its head, and then into Mitchell's mouth.  Lara couldn't help but think that the archaeologist and the dragon were kissing.

            And then it happened.

*          *            *

            As the towel fell away from the Dragon Chalice, the force within it grew excited.  It would happen soon, now.  It could sense it.  It pulsed brilliantly.

            It was moved, and then (oh, the ecstasy!) it sensed blood pouring into the chalice it dwelled within.  The liquid (yes! the liquid of life! yes!) slowly filled the chalice.

            "...new life together..." "...have the first drink..."  The power shook with anticipation.  It had been so long (so long!) and now it would fulfill its greatest desire.

            The chalice was extended to someone, a woman.  The power sensed that she was hesitant (no! you must! you must!), still undecided.  The power called to her:  Drink!  Be happy!  You will never need to fear death again!  You will be without pain or weariness forever!  Just drink!  Just drink...

            But no, she was turning away, she would not drink.  The power would have screamed, had it had a voice.  So close, but it had been refused.

            "...I won't..." "...I intend to grow old..."  The power was devastated.  It was over.

            But then another voice gave it hope.  "...realize your mistake..." "...see what immortality can do..."  The man holding it would drink!

            The chalice was lifted and pressed to the lips of the man.  The power sensed the blood oozing through the dragon's neck, and it joined the flow.

            Down it went, intertwined with the blood.  Out through the dragon's mouth and into the man's.  Down it went, the power, the Essence of Ishtar, down into the man's body, the man's mind, the man's soul...

*          *            *

            Without warning, the chalice flared up with an intense light.  Lara averted her eyes, unable to look at it.  The entire tent had lit up dazzlingly.  Mitchell clutched the chalice in a death grip, still holding it to his lips, as the last of the blood flowed into his body.  He seemed unaffected by the blinding light that burned just in front of his closed eyelids.

            Lara spun away and searched for her guns.  There, in that corner.  They had landed amid a pile of broken pottery.  Or, more likely, had shattered the pot on impact.

            Lara leaped over the clutter that blocked her path and grabbed the weapons.  As she turned back to face Mitchell, the light was beginning to fade.  Mitchell still held the chalice pressed against his lips.  Beyond him, Lara could see that Susan had just managed to loosen the rope around her ankles and was disentangling herself from it.

            Lara started to make her way over to the entrance of the tent while there was still some light left.  She tried to stay as far away from Mitchell as possible, who still hadn't moved.  That light should have drawn the police officers and Carlton.  If she could just hold out until they arrived, maybe things could be fixed.

            When she had almost worked her way around him, he jerked, as if awakening from a deep sleep.  The light from the chalice had faded completely, returning the tent to darkness.  Mitchell slowly lowered the chalice.  His eyes opened, instantly locking with Lara's.  Lara could see something dangerous in those eyes.

            The chalice dropped from Mitchell's hand and fell to the floor.  Amazingly, it didn't shatter, but merely bounced slightly and then lay still.

            "Now what do you think of immortality... Lara?" Mitchell asked in a resounding voice.  He had hesitated before saying "Lara," as if he couldn't remember who she was.  And, indeed, Lara saw no flicker of recognition in his eyes at all.  It was as if Mitchell's mind had been pushed aside to be used as a reference only, and something else had stepped in to take its place.

            Now I'm even more afraid of it, Stanley, Lara thought back at him.  Where the hell are those two imbecilic policemen?

            Mitchell took a step towards her.  Lara pointed her pistols at his chest.  "Don't move, Mitchell.  I will fire, and that is a promise."

            Mitchell grinned and advanced another step.  The look in his eyes told Lara what he wanted from her, and Lara was not going to let him have it.  She pulled the triggers.

            The muzzle flash lit the room in strobelight-like bursts.  She fired off four rounds from each pistol and watched the bullets bury themselves in Mitchell's chest.  Mitchell flew backwards and crashed back into a work bench, scattering tools and artifacts everywhere, as blood spurted from his chest and from the exit wounds in his back.  He tried to hold himself in an upright position, but his legs gave out, and he slid to the floor.

            Lara's ears rang from the explosive reports of her weapons and her nostrils filled with the scent of gun smoke, but she noticed nothing but the man on the floor in front of her.  The man who should have been dead but was not.

            The gaping holes in Mitchell's chest where his flesh had ripped out and tossed away disappeared as new flesh grew back in to take its place.  Mitchell grinned up at Lara and pushed himself back to his feet.  He advanced toward her, his hands seeking her body.

            Then shouts came from the entrance of the tent.  Both Lara and Mitchell turned to see the two Lebanese policemen rushing through the tent flap, their weapons drawn.  It's about bloody time, Lara thought, relieved.

            Her relief vanished when the officers pointed their weapons at her.  "Don't move!" one shouted.  They had not been told about tonight's ambush, and they assumed that the person holding the guns was the most dangerous person in the room.

            "Not her!" Susan cried.  She had finally freed herself from the rope and was trying to stand up.  "Shoot him!  Shoot—!"

            Susan needn't have bothered.  Mitchell made things clear for the two officers in a hurry.  He let out a roar as he rushed at them.  The two officers aimed at the new target and fired off a round each.  Lara saw the bullets burst out of Mitchell's back in a spray of blood and flesh.  This time, however, the bullets didn't even slow him down.  Mitchell grabbed both officers by their jackets and tossed them onto a crate of kitchen supplies.  He laughed as he charged at them again.

            Lara holstered her useless guns and ran over to Susan.  She knew it was too late to do anything to help the policemen, but she had to get Susan out of there.  Susan was on her feet now, staring in horror at what Mitchell was doing to the officers.  Lara could hear their screams and didn't much care to see what exactly was happening to them, so she didn't look.

            Lara grabbed Susan's bloodied arm, eliciting a shriek from her, then ripped the tent flap aside and threw herself out into the cold night air.  It was a welcome relief to the stench of gunpowder that now filled the tent.  Behind her, one of the officer's screams was cut off with the sound a sickening wet plop.  Lara dared not think about what could have made that sound.

            "Susan!  Lara!" a voice called from ahead of them.  Lara tensed until she recognized the voice.

            Carlton ran up to the two of them.  "What the hell is going on?" he asked with a voice edged in fear.

            "The killer drank from the chalice.  What in the bloody hell took you so long?" Lara demanded.

            Even in the darkness, Lara could see the crimson shade of Carlton's face.  "I, uh, fell asleep," he muttered.

            "Well, never mind that now.  We have to get away from here."

            As if to make her point, several gunshots erupted inside the tent.  Another bloodcurdling scream followed the shots, and then silence.

            "Run!" Lara commanded.  Carlton and Susan needed no further convincing.

            The moonlight made the night much brighter than the previous night had been.  The stars twinkled majestically, unconcerned with the plight of the three small figures running across the ground below them.  As they ran, Lara felt as if the three of them were the only people on the earth.  The three of them, and Mitchell.

            The other archaeologists and students had wisely obeyed Carlton's orders and remained in their tents, even after the gunfight had started.  Lara imagined them trembling in their sleeping bags, too terrified to step outside and see what was happening.  This expedition had become a living nightmare for every one of them.

            Lara was afraid of what Mitchell might do if she led him into the thick of the tents, so she steered her small band away from the camp.  They ran towards the temple excavation, their breath leaving trails of vapor behind them.

            Susan's weakened condition was slowing them down, and Lara knew that Mitchell would catch up with them if they just continued to run.  She intended to hide in the pits out in the excavation and make a final stand, although how they could possibly win was beyond her.

            Lara saw the pits emerge from the darkness ahead of her, and knew they had reached the excavation.  She pulled Susan and Carlton farther into it, searching for one of the deeper pits.

            Susan let out a shrill scream and Lara followed her terrified gaze as she reached for her pistols.  Her hands were on the grips when she saw him, and then she was unsure whether or not she should draw.

            The man who had upset Susan's frayed nerves was none other than John Nash.  He stood a few meters off, looking at the small group of people with a worried expression.

            Now I know he wasn't just out for a walk, Lara thought.  So just who is he?

            It was a good question, so she asked him.  "Who are you, John Nash, and what do you have to do with the chalice?"

            "What has happened?" he asked in return.  He seemed incredibly weary.  His spindly form seemed even frailer than it had been the previous night.

            Lara was itching to just shoot him and be done with it.  But at the same time, she almost felt herself liking the man.  He obviously was far more involved in all of this than he would tell them, but she was sure that he was on their side.  At any rate, he couldn't be any greater a threat to them than the monster that would be upon them any moment.  It was time to take a risk.  It was time to trust this man.

            "The killer is an archaeologist named Stanley Mitchell.  He drank blood from the chalice.  The immortality legend seems to be true."

            Carlton looked at Lara with a confused expression.  He probably thought he hadn't heard her right.  Lara was sure he knew Stanley Mitchell.  Oh well, he would believe her soon enough.

            John Nash, on the other hand, merely nodded his head, as if expecting the news.  He walked past the group to stand between them and the camp, between them and Mitchell.

            "Just stay behind me and you will be safe," he told them without turning around.  He stood ramrod straight and stared into the dark night, waiting for Mitchell, or the thing that was once Mitchell to appear.

            Carlton and Susan looked at Lara, obviously wanting her opinion.  Lara shrugged.  "He seems to know what he is doing.  I have no idea how to stop Mitchell, so we might as well do what he says.  We have nothing to lose."  Besides our lives, of course.

            Carlton and Susan stood on either side of Lara, Susan nursing her bleeding arm, Carlton rubbing his once-damaged knee, as if his body was wondering where the pain he had lived with for so long had gone.  All of them looked out into the night, waiting for Mitchell to arrive.

            They heard him panting before they saw him.  Apparently immortality did not also grant a person unlimited endurance.  Soon they could make out his form approaching them.  Mitchell was dripping with blood, most of which had not come from his body.  His clothes, wet with the blood, clung tightly against his body.  He was still grinning, and his eyes emanated a subhuman hunger.  Or perhaps a superhuman hunger.

            He barely gave Nash a glance.  His eyes fixed on Lara, and he walked straight towards her.

            "Stop, Mitchell!" Nash ordered.  Mitchell didn't even slow down.

            "Stop, Ishtar!" Nash shouted.  Mitchell jerked as if he had been slapped, and looked at the tiny man for the first time, but did not change his course.

            "Mitchell, Ishtar, I, Utnapishtim, order you to stop!" shouted Nash, or rather, if the impossible thing he had just said could be believed, Utnapishtim.

            This brought Mitchell/Ishtar to a standstill.  It stared at Utnapishtim with wide eyes that widened even more as he recognized him.

            "Utnapishtim?" Mitchell/Ishtar gasped in astonishment.  "How did you find me so quickly?"

            "I heard of the discovery of the chalice in the news and came here as quickly as I could," Utnapishtim replied.  "Now its time for both us to move on, Ishtar.  You must leave this man, Mitchell, and take your place on the other plane of existence."

            "Never!" roared Mitchell/Ishtar.  "I have spent the past five thousand years waiting for this moment!  I am free from that wretched chalice at last, and I will never give up this body.  Now go, or I shall destroy you!"

            "No, Ishtar!  You must listen to me!  Don't you remember why you put yourself in that chalice?  Don't you remember what you wanted?  You trapped yourself so that Gilgamesh, your one true love, might be able to live forever.  Don't you remember?"

            "No, no, no!" shouted Mitchell/Ishtar.  It clutched its head in its hands.  "That's not true!"

            "It is true, Ishtar.  You loved Gilgamesh so much that you gave up your existence to live within him for eternity.  But he is dead now, Ishtar.  He died millennia ago.  He has gone on to the next life, and now so must you."

            "Nooooooo!" Mitchell/Ishtar moaned.  It was trembling now, unable to move.  Lara watched as a soft glow began to emanate from the man-goddess's skin.

            "Yes, Ishtar!" shouted Utnapishtim.  "Release this wretched man, goddess, and go to Gilgamesh, your love!"

            Mitchell/Ishtar let out a roar and charged Utnapishtim.  The old man tried to dodge away, but this man-goddess was too fast for him.  Mitchell/Ishtar struck a powerful blow to Utnapishtim's chest.  Lara could hear the crunching of his brittle ribs.

            Utnapishtim fell to the ground, and Mitchell/Ishtar turned its attention to Lara, Susan, and Carlton.  Lara had long ago drawn her weapons, and now she opened fire, despite the obvious uselessness of the act.  Mitchell/Ishtar backhanded Lara across the face, and she fell to the ground.

            Carlton shouted at it and rushed it.  He threw himself at the man-goddess in an attempt to tackle it, but Mitchell/Ishtar easily dodged the attack.  It grabbed Carlton by his neck and hurled him backwards.  He landed hard on the ground.

            Mitchell/Ishtar walked over to where Carlton lay and raised a foot as if he intended to stomp his face into the earth.

            "NOOOOO!" shrieked Susan.  She flung herself down upon Carlton, as if she could shield him from the man-goddess's attack.

            Amazingly, Mitchell/Ishtar hesitated, one of its feet still in the air.  The glow of light coming off of its skin intensified.

            "Yes, Ishtar!" shouted Utnapishtim.  Incredibly, he had already fully recovered from the man-goddess's blow.  "Break free of this man's hold on you!  He wants you only to give himself life!  Leave him, and enjoy your life in the next world.  Gilgamesh awaits you there!"

            The glow became a brilliant light.  Mitchell/Ishtar stumbled backwards, once again clutching its head.

            "No, Ishtar, don't leave me!" cried Mitchell.

            "Let go of me, evil man!" shouted Ishtar.

            Lara watched as the two souls battled each other in Mitchell's body.  Mitchell would not give up Ishtar at the cost of his immortality.  It was like the worst case of schizophrenia in the world.  The two souls struggled, and Mitchell's body was caught in between them, or, rather, around them.

            Lara brought her guns to bear on Mitchell's body for the final time.  She pulled the triggers and fired until the chambers emptied.  The bullets tore through Mitchell's body.

            The white light seemed to explode from Mitchell's body, flaring blindingly, and then it was gone.  Mitchell's body crumpled to the ground, empty of both souls.

            Lara stood up.  Her face felt like it had been hit with sledgehammer.  She had always wondered just how strong Stanley Mitchell, her hero, was.  She just never had expected to find out in this manner.

            Susan was helping Carlton to his feet.  Carlton winced as he stood.  He had injured his right leg when he had hit the ground.

            Utnapishtim was looking at Mitchell's body with a sad smile on his face.  Lara walked over to him to stand beside him.  He turned to look at her.

            "Let's help your two friends get back to camp," he said.  "Afterwards, we can talk."

            Lara nodded.  She had some questions she wanted answers to.

*          *            *

            Ishtar crossed from the first life to the next.  She wandered through this new plane of existence with a mission.

            She could remember everything now.  She had forgotten so much in her thousands of years of slumber.  But now she knew who she was and what she wanted.

            She had thought she had wanted to live a life on earth, but now she remembered something far more valuable to her than life.  And it was here, in this new world, and so this was where she wanted to be as well.

            She was looking for her love.

            She continued to wander... searching... seeking... finding...

            Gilgamesh.

*          *            *

            "Do you know the rest of the story?" Lara asked Utnapishtim.  They were both sitting on the ground outside of Lara's tent.  Valentine's Day had dawned relatively warmly in Lebanon this year, and Lara had decided to enjoy the beautiful weather.  After all, it was her birthday.

            "You mean the rest of the true legend of Gilgamesh?" asked Utnapishtim.  He had his scrawny legs stretched out in front of him.  He seemed to enjoy talking.  It probably wasn't often that he met someone whom he could talk to without being committed in a mental asylum.  "Yes, I know the rest of the story."

            "Mitchell told me that on Gilgamesh's journey home, Ishtar placed her essence in the chalice so that Gilgamesh could have eternal life.  He said the rest of the story had been destroyed."

            Utnapishtim nodded.  "Yes, Ishtar was madly in love with Gilgamesh.  She had been fickle with her lovers since the dawn of time, but she had been willing to forsake all others for Gilgamesh.  Gilgamesh had loved her as well, but he didn't think he could trust her.  That's why Ishtar trapped herself in the chalice.  It was the only way she could prove to Gilgamesh that she would be faithful to him."

            Utnapishtim's eyes gleamed as he spoke.  He was seeing his memories as if they had occurred yesterday, not over five thousand years ago.  "Gilgamesh was incredibly moved by Ishtar's sacrifice.  But he was hesitant to carry through with the ritual, because it required that he drink the blood of a first-born child.  Sacrifices of first-born children were common in those days, but the drinking of the child's blood was not.  So Gilgamesh returned to my home for advice.

            "I told him he mustn't finish the ritual.  He became angry with me, saying that I was just unhappy that someone else might become immortal.  I explained to him that that was not the case.  I would have been more than happy to have an eternal companion to share this burden with.  But my conscience would not allow me let him to go through with this, not without warning him of the drawbacks first.  I proceeded to do just that, and managed to convince Gilgamesh that immortality is not the blessing that it is made out to be.  I told him that one day he would meet up with Ishtar in the next life, and then they could be happy together.  So Gilgamesh returned home, taking the chalice with him as a reminder of Ishtar's love for him."

            "How did the chalice end up in the hands of the Phoenicians?" Lara asked.

            Utnapishtim sighed.  "When Gilgamesh died, a war broke out between his kingdom and a neighboring one.  The other kingdom won, and took the chalice along with other spoils of war.  When I learned of this, I started a long search for the chalice.  It seemed that whenever I would get close to finding the current owner of the chalice, it would be stolen again.

            "Finally, hundreds of years after Gilgamesh's death, I found that the chalice had ended up in the hands of the Phoenicians.  They had already realized that the chalice had the power to make people younger, but did not yet know that they could become immortal as well.  They were debating whether or not the chalice should be destroyed.  They were very wise people, and realized that the power of eternal youth was not something men could be trusted with.

            "I told them the history of the chalice, with a few minor changes.  I told them that the goddess that had created the chalice was their head goddess, Astarte, since they did not believe in the Sumerian goddess, Ishtar.  I told them that the chalice could not be destroyed until 'Astarte's' spirit had passed from this world to the next.  Therefore, their best course of action was to hide the chalice in a place where no one would ever find it.

            "They agreed with me, and had the chalice sealed in one of the glass urns that they had just figured out how to make.  It was placed in the basement of one of their temples.  Later, I learned that the Egyptians burned the temple to the ground.  I made a few inquiries, and learned that they had not looted the temple beforehand.  I decided that the chalice would be safe in the temple's ruins."

            Utnapishtim stopped talking for a while and gazed at the horizon, which the sun had now risen a good distance above.  When he spoke again, he sounded sad.  "I never forgot my promise to Gilgamesh that he would meet up with Ishtar in the next life, though.  I felt guilty for deceiving him.  I'm glad Ishtar was finally sent on.  Maybe now they can find happiness in each other."

            They both sat silently for several minutes, wondering whether Ishtar had finally found her love.  Lara hoped she had.

            "John...," she said hesitantly.  She had to use his alias, in case one of the other archaeologists overheard her.  "What... what did you say to Gilgamesh to convince him not to drink from the chalice?"

            "I told him what it is like to be immortal," he answered her.  His voice was very quiet.

            "And what is it like?" Lara asked.

            "It is horrible," Utnapishtim answered.  He was unable to keep all of the pain out of his voice as he spoke.  "Every day you wake up, knowing that you are going to wake up the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that one.  Every time you meet someone, you realize that one day that person will die, and you will not.  Every time you are hurt, you know that you will be fine, that worrying is a waste of time.  You know that every wonderful thing man will accomplish will eventually be ground to dust by the passing of time, and you will be there to see it.  Eventually, there is no reason to fear, to love, to hate, to think, or to hope.  When it is all over, only memories count.  And you will carry many."  He spoke again, so quietly Lara almost didn't hear him, "So many."

            Again, a silence fell between them.  Lara remembered her yearning to drink from the chalice the previous night.  Now she couldn't remember what she had found so appealing about immortality.  It seemed so pointless.

            Utnapishtim sighed again and stood.  Lara rose as well.

            "I have to be going now, Lara.  I shouldn't be around so many people.  It isn't safe for me.  Thank you for talking to me.  You have no idea how long it has been since I have been able to do this."

            "I enjoyed it, John," she told him.  "Feel free to visit me any time."

            "Thank you, Lara.  You are a truly good person."

            And then the tiny old man walked away.  He quickly disappeared among the other tents and people who were milling about.  Lara was certain that she would never see him again.

            "What are you looking at, Lara?"

            Lara turned to see Susan standing behind her.  The gorgeous young woman had a bandage around her arm where she had been cut, but other than that, she appeared as if she had come through this whole ordeal unhurt.

            "Oh, Susan!  I didn't know you had gotten back from the hospital already," Lara said.  "How is Dan?"

            Early that morning while Lara, Susan, and Carlton had still been trying to give the police a plausible story, someone from the hospital had called to report that Dan had regained consciousness.  As soon as the police would let her, Susan had departed for the hospital.

            "He is going to be all right.  The knife wounds didn't do any irreparable damage.  He'll have some pretty bad scars, but other than that he should come out of all of this as good as new."

            "Was he happy to see you?" Lara asked with a grin.

            Susan giggled.  "When I walked into his room, his heart monitor started beeping like crazy.  The nurse made me leave until he had calmed down."

            Lara laughed, and Susan joined her.

            "That poor boy," Lara said as she wiped tears from her eyes.  "Someone is going to have to teach him to get over his shyness."

            "I think I can handle that," Susan said.

            "Yes, I suppose you can.  Just take it easy on the boy, or you'll give him a heart attack.  Speaking of which, you didn't tell him what happened, did you?"

            "Unfortunately, he recognized Stanley before he was stabbed.  He can't understand why his childhood hero had wanted to kill him.  I told him what we told the police, that Mitchell killed my father and attacked Dan because he wanted to pass the artifact off as his own discovery so he could be back in the limelight again.  Then when he attacked us, you were forced to kill him."

            Lara nodded.  The police had seemed a little suspicious of their story, especially when the students and archaeologists who had remained in their tents told them that they had seen several bright bursts of light.  But the police had other things to do, and since the two of their own had died, they were happy to believe that their killer had died as well.

            And Susan had seemed satisfied with the way the events had turned out as well.  Her father's murderer had been killed, so justice had been served.  And her father would be remembered for his discovery of the Dragon Chalice, the most beautiful Phoenician artifact ever found.  Now it truly was just a pretty piece of glass, but few people would ever know what it had once been.  And that was probably for the best.  And best of all, Dan would be all right.

            "I'll tell him the truth after he gets his strength back," Susan continued.

            "Do you think he'll believe you?"

            "Yes.  He trusts me."

            Susan fidgeted with her hands for a moment, then looked back at Lara.  "Are you all right?" she asked.

            "Me?" Lara asked, surprised by the question.  "Why wouldn't I be all right?"

            "I know you were considering drinking the... um, drinking from the chalice last night," she said.  "Everyone dreams of being immortal and invulnerable.  And you turned it down.  I thought you might feel a little depressed at having lost a chance at immortality."

            "Well, I don't," Lara said, remembering her talk with Utnapishtim.  "Not anymore."

            "If someone offered me immortality, I think I would accept it," Susan said wistfully.

            "There is more than one kind of immortality, Susan," Lara said.  "Living forever is not worth the price it comes with.  But one can still leave an everlasting legacy."  Lara thought back to two days ago when she had been in Greece, helping Moss find Greek ruins.  She had brought him a small statue of a Greek king.  What had his name been?  King Paklos of Mycenae.  He had been dead for thousands of years, but even now he was still remembered.  Just as Gilgamesh was remembered for his adventures.  He had achieved immortality, not through a divine gift, but through his own deeds.  That was the best way to live forever.  Not as a semi-god, but as a memory.  A fond one.

            Lara wanted to tell Susan all of this, but she couldn't find the right words.  So she simply said, "If a person wants to live forever, he just has to do something that no one will ever forget.  And whether a person is remembered as great hero or a horrible villain will depend on the deed he is remembered for.  That is a person's legacy."

            Susan remained silent.  Lara didn't think she understood what she had said completely yet.  Just like overcoming the tragedy of her father's death, only time would give her the experience to understand her own mortality.  If it was good for nothing else, time was an excellent teacher.

            "Well, Susan," Lara said after a moment.  "I'm going to say good-bye to Carlton and then I'm going to head home."  Carlton was in his tent, his right leg surrounded by ice.  The doctors said that his knee had been damaged, but that didn't matter.  He already walked with a limp, didn't?  Well, he did now.

            "Why do you have to leave so soon?"

            "I've been planning an expedition into Russia for a while, and I want to get it started."

            Susan nodded.  Lara started to walk towards Carlton's tent on the other side of the camp.

            "Hey, Lara!" she called after her.

            Lara stopped and looked back over her shoulder.  "Yes?"

            "Are you going to leave a legacy?" Susan asked.

            Lara smiled.  "Yes.  A great one."  Then she turned away and went to find Carlton's tent.

The End

Thank you for reading my story.  I hope you enjoyed it.  I would truly appreciate it if you would write me an email telling me what you thought of it.  That is the only way I can know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.  Thank you again for your time. :)

                                                                        —Geremy Carnes

                                                                            geremyc@angelfire.com