Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews :) I've kinda got writer's block on this story right now. Grr. I have a few more chapters written after this one (two, I think), but after that I'm kind of...stuck.

No clue why I'm telling you this. You guys just get to listen to me whine.

Ah, the beauty of author's notes.

:)

Chapter Two: The Rogue Mountain Man

"I won't stand for this," Jonathan announced the next morning, slamming his fist onto the kitchen table and practically causing my coffee to spill all over my favorite white blouse.

"Be careful!" I scolded, lifting the mug and taking a tentative sip.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologized. "But I won't! Think of all the treasure, Evy...I could be rich! Richer than rich! They would have to invent a new word for how rich I was!"

He let out a miserable moan of regretful yearning.

"And that fat old bastard burnt it! He burnt it!"

"Jonathan!" I snapped.

"Never did like him much," he continued angrily. "But really! He calls himself a scholar? Ha! Who goes burning four thousand year old maps?? WHO??"

"Jonathan, calm down," I ordered, vaguely alarmed at his fury. "Calm down. I'm angry about it too, but what can we do?"

Jonathan paused a moment.

"Oh dear," I muttered.

Any second now, his eyes would get The Glint. And then The Smile would blossom on his face. From my inductions drawn from past experiences, I'd learned that The Glint and The Smile could both lead to disaster.

And when together, chaos.

They both came, right on schedule.

"Jonathan, please don't get another far-fetched idea!" I begged. "I barely survived the last one!"

"This is different," he informed me.

"That's what you said last time," I felt compelled to remind him, even though I was nearly positive that it wouldn't do any good.

It didn't.

"Get ready," he instructed me. "We're leaving the house in half an hour."

"To go where, might I ask??"

Jonathan turned to face me, and I got hit full-force with The Glint/Smile.

"Prison."

~ * ~

"This is disgusting," I hissed to Jonathan as we entered the Cairo Prison. "The foulest thing I've ever seen."

"You don't get out much, do you?" Jonathan deadpanned.

"Oh, hush up," I ordered angrily.

The warden made his way over to us, and I couldn't help but wrinkle my nose as I laid eyes on him. He matched the awful prison perfectly, and seemed the type that one could smell before they could see.

With a big grin exposing yellowed, crooked teeth, he proclaimed, "Come, come, step over the threshold!"

No thank you.

"Welcome to Cairo Prison, my humble home!"

His 'humble home' could easily be summed up in one word.

Ugh.

The warden escorted us across the courtyard, a rickety old gallows standing in the middle of it.

How pleasant.

"You told me you found it on a dig in Thebes!" I hissed.

"I was mistaken," Jonathan responded innocently.

"You lied to me!" I accused, angry.

"I lie to everybody," he said defensively. "What makes you so special?"

"I am your sister," I reminded him in a huff.

"That just makes you all the more gullible."

Why, I wondered, Can't I have a nice, normal, respectable brother?

"You stole it from a drunk at the local Casbah??" I asked incredulously.

"Picked his pocket, actually," Jonathan corrected me.

I didn't even make an attempt at surprise.

"What exactly is this man in prison for?" I asked the warden, giving up the idea of attempting to converse with my brother in fear that my head would explode.

"This I do not know. When I heard you were coming, I asked him that myself," the warden answered.

"And what did he say??"

The warden scoffed. "He said he was just looking for a good time."

At that moment, the door seemed to explode open in a flurry of struggling and thrown punches. Surrounded by a bustle of guards was a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties. He was wretchedly disheveled, and struck me as some sort of rogue mountain man, with light brown hair that hung down past his shoulders and a beard to match. His greenish eyes shone with a sort of animal malice, and he struggled with violent strength to free himself of his captors.

My heart sped up the split-second I saw him, and I felt my cheeks grow warm.

Oh, Evy, quit being foolish! logic screamed at once. He's some sort of animal, and not the least bit attractive! He's disgusting and foul and you don't like him. You don't like him a bit.

Yes. Right.

"This is...this is the man that you stole it from?" I asked Jonathan weakly, struggling to stay collected.

I ordered myself to look away from the man; he'd surely notice I was staring in a moment, and then it would be too humiliating to bear.

And yet my gaze couldn't waver.

Foolish, stupid, idiotic, moronic-

"Who's the broad?" the man asked, his voice smooth and confident.

"Broad?!" I repeated incredulously.

I'd been right about the rogue mountain man part, apparently.

Of all the rude, sexist, inconsiderate-

"She's my sister, actually," Jonathan responded casually.

"Yeah?" the man asked, studying me once more. His eyes seemed to pierce into me, sending shivers up and down my spine. "Well, I guess she's not a total loss."

"I beg your pardon?!?!" I cried, infuriated. Now, that was going too far! There was a fine line between witty repartee and pure audacity, and he'd certainly crossed it! I had half a mind to leave right then and there!

But then I remembered that we were there for a reason, not just so I could be looked over and sexually harassed by some idiot who strongly resembled a Sasquatch.

I had to find out about the map.

Choking back fierce comments, I started, "Um...hello...excuse me?"

He had been studying something else entirely, as though he'd forgotten that we were there.

Humph.

It was obvious he hadn't had much experience in the presence of ladies.

"We...we found your puzzle box, and we've come to ask you about it-"

"No."

He cut me off at once, strong and confident with the slightest sprinkle of amusement.

"No?" I repeated, puzzled.

"No," he confirmed. "You came to ask me about Hamunaptra."

He knew.

Intrigued, I leaned closer.

Adapting a demure tone, I asked, "How do you know the box pertains to Hamunaptra?"

"Because that's where I was when I found it," he responded, with the air of one speaking to a two-year-old. "I was there."

There...he was there.

It existed.

Hamunaptra existed.

It was lucky that Jonathan began to talk, as I'd completely lost the ability of coherent speech.

"How do we know that's not a load of pig swallow?" he questioned suspiciously.

The man prepared to reply, but then paused and studied him for a moment.

"Do I know you?" he asked.

"Um, no, probably not, I've just got one of those faces-" Jonathan started. His false explanation, however, was cut short as the man's fist came flying through the bars and caught Jonathan square in the cheek.

Too intrigued to express any concern, I allowed my brother to writhe in pain as I leaned closer to the bars.

"You were actually at Hamunaptra?" I questioned.

He smiled casually. "Yeah, I was there."

It all seemed so far-fetched, to surreal to comprehend. And yet, if there was truth to what he was saying....

"You swear?" I asked in an awed whisper.

"Every damn day," he shot back easily.

Clever.

I shook my head impatiently. "No, that's not what I meant-"

"I know what you meant," he cut me off. "I was there, all right. Seti's place. The City of the Dead."

"Could you tell me how to get there? I mean, the exact location."

"You wanna know?" he asked, cocky.

"Well...yes," I breathed, leaning in closer.

"You really wanna know?"

Good God, how much assurance did he need?

"Yes," I responded, leaning even closer. Excitement danced through my veins. Any second, any second now I would know...

I was shocked out of my little reverie when, to my utmost surprise, he cupped my chin in his hands and pressed his lips to mine full-force.

ThumpThumpThumpThumpThumpThumpThumpThumpThump.

It felt as though I would suffer a severe heart attack any moment. I had to fight to keep standing. My knees suddenly felt incredibly weak.

"Then get me the hell outta here," he snarled.

The guards returned, flinging at him full-force before he had time to fight back.

"Do it, lady!" he barked, struggling as they dragged him away.

I stared at him, stunned.

In the last minute I'd found out that Hamunaptra indeed did exist, a man had been there, and I'd been given a one-second kiss that had every single cliché effect on me, from the racing heart to the weakened knees.

"Where are they taking him?" I asked the warden, feeling a strange sense of fearful foreboding come over me.

"To be hanged," the warden responded.

The whole world seemed to stop in that instant.

My eyes searched the crowd for him, but he had disappeared. To think that the minutes I'd spent with that mystery man could very possibly be his last...

"Apparently," the warden finished with a nasty smile, "he had a very good time."

Knees shaking, I swiftly followed the warden up to a balcony overlooking the courtyard. Certainly I could bargain with him somehow; come up with some way to save the man's life.

The leering eyes of prisoners watched me as I made my way up the steps. Silence fell among them, and I had no trouble guessing at the reason for their interest.

"They have been here for a very, very long time," the warden informed me, grinning. "A beautiful woman like yourself could drive them mad with lust."

I resisted the urge to slap him and instead held my head high and made my way past the prisoners.

The warden sat down, anticipation written all over his features, as though attending a play or concert.

What a disgusting way to derive amusement.

The man had been led out to the square below, a noose fixed around his neck. He stared up at her, expectant.

"I will give you one hundred pounds to save this man's life," I said at once.

"Madam, I would pay one hundred pounds just to see him hanged," the warden responded, uninterested.

"Two...two hundred pounds!" I exclaimed, panic making its way into my heart.

"Proceed!" the warden called down into the roaring crowd.

"Three hundred pounds!" I offered desperately, glancing down at the man once more. His eyes were still fixed upon me, hopeful.

God, I couldn't let him die.

"Five hundred pounds!" I cried.

"Wait," he called down to the hangman.

He turned to me, a lecherous grin on his face.

"And what else?" he asked, his hand slowly creeping toward my leg. "I'm a very lonely man."

With an insulted gasp, I smacked his hand away with my purse.

Apparently fed up with bargaining, the warden nodded at the anxiously awaiting hangman. With a cruel smile, he pulled the lever.

"No!!" I screamed, terror and disbelief mingling in my heart as I watched the trap door fall open. He fell through, and I winced as the rope grew tight.

Oh God...oh my God...

But as the initial shock began to wear off, I realized that he didn't hang, lifeless as a little girl's rag doll. He was still struggling, kicking his feet madly, hands clasped near his neck as he gagged.

If they cut him down in the next few seconds, he would be all right...

"His neck did not break!" the warden announced, delighted. "Oh, I'm so sorry...now we must watch him strangle to death!"

I stared down at him, pained.

"He knows the location to Hamunaptra!" I cried out at once.

"You lie!" he accused me.

"I would never!"

He stared down in disgust at the man.

"Are you telling me this filthy, godless son of a pig knows where to find The City of the Dead?"

"Yes!"

"Truly?"

"Yes!!" I said quickly. "And if you cut him down, we will give you ten percent!"

"Fifty percent," the warden argued.

"Thirty percent!" I offered frantically.

"Twenty five!" he cried.

Well, if he absolutely insisted...

"Ah!" I cried triumphantly. "Deal!"

The warden yelled an order in Arabic, and the hangman cut the rope.

The man fell to the ground, choking and gasping for breath as he massaged his neck. A wry smile made its way onto his face as he looked up at me.

I grinned back.