A/N: Allrighty, then! Here's the next chapter, where you, my esteemed and valued readers, get to see just what the heck Kyle's up to on the other side of the planet. Relative to some of us, anyway. *wink* This one's a bit late in coming out, sorry... finals week + work + the annoying need for sleep and food = one huge inconvenience.

Penny: Confusion is good? Hmm, okay... in that case, I hope this chapter confuses you even more...?

Skraku: Giant Twizzler of Doom? That's a new one on me. I'll occasionally hear about the Frying Pan of Doom, but never a Twizzler. Good to know a creative mind like yours is reading!

Monica: Matt had no plans for pyramid exploration, as Matt has never visited the pyramids (nor Egypt) and is usually much too lazy to gather information on them, though it would be a simple task. He might take exception, however... he might.

Lumen: *grins* Muchas gracias. Don't worry about it, just as long as I know you're reading, I'm fine with whatever you have to say.

Wolf: Nope, I've decided that my Paladin looks cooler than yours. He's not really all that hunched over, he's just craning his neck. And he's in a battle pose, too. *grins* A thousand points for me!

Okay, enough rambling from me. Enjoy the chapter!

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When they reached the hotel that day, Kyle felt completely and utterly trashed. They had crossed nearly a dozen time zones in their transatlantic flight and now it was daytime much, much earlier than it had a right to be. Jet lag sucks, he thought. So when they finally got their room, Kyle made a show of sprawling out on his bed – which was far more comfortable than he had expected it to be.

His parents, of course, were still enthused to be here, so they had decided to leave Kyle in peace while they gathered brochures and made travel plans to various locations. Three tickets to virtually everything, of course. Kyle had known that would be the case from the start – his parents would find some time when all three of them preferred he not be around to sulk, and then they would gather the tickets to go to every exhibit in existence, three tickets per exhibit, whether Kyle wanted to go or not.

Dad was right about one thing… given the choice, I'd have stayed at home. Figuring that there was nothing he could do about it anyway, Kyle had chosen to simply fall asleep on that nice, comfy bed.

--

His dreams were anything but pleasant. Mostly they seemed to consist of blades and gold and red fluid… he couldn't really make out many specific details, but one that seemed to stand out was an eyeball. A huge one. Staring intently at him. Waiting for something, it seemed.

But for what, he had no idea.

It just stared at him. Hovering above him, colorless… it looked down at him.

There was no measure of emotion in it. Later, he would have to concede that it was sometimes difficult to convey emotion in an eye when there are no eyelids surrounding it, but for now, he could only stare back and wonder why it was there.

The eye didn't frighten him, really. He regarded it as more of a curiosity than anything else. It was an oddity, an anomaly in his dreams, and little more than that. So here, he simply stood there and stared back into it, let its gaze penetrate him and shrink him down to nothing, only to let him re-form and them constantly shift him into bizarre proportions.

As if it wished to undergo the same experience, the eyeball also shifted into bizarre proportions; the effect was something akin to going into the mirrored room of a fun-house. The eye's outline shifted from its spherical shape to an oval, and then on to a light bulb, then a pyramid, then a humanoid, then a dodecahedron, then a carrot, and then a cube.

At the square shape, it abruptly stopped, hovered for another moment, and then slowly spun around several times, as if trying to emphasize the point that it was a white, vein-laced cube with a giant lens protruding from one side.

Kyle awoke from the dream – not abruptly, but rather at the preferred slow, almost torpid rate that most people concede is the way to wake up. His eyes blinked open, and his brow furrowed for a few moments. Hm. That was strange.

Then he got up and went to take a shower.

--

The next day found the McCraines spending time touring exhibit after exhibit. His parents were especially interested in the tablets which bore hieroglyphics – and in this place, there were indeed many of those – while he found himself more fascinated with the items in the gift shops. One item which caught his eye was a scarab necklace; it was comprised of a pendant on a thin gold chain and a scarab-shaped sapphire inset into a ridged circle of gold.

He couldn't help but scoff as he was transfixed by it. So it really is true what they say... if it's shiny, tourists will buy it. Damned nuisance. No wonder places like this manage to keep up with costs.

Nevertheless, he bought the necklace, and kept it well-hidden under his dark shirt.

Towards the afternoon, his parents resolved to spend some time on one of the grand markets, rather than simply perusing trinkets at various gift shops. His mother wanted clothing and his father wanted some exotic souvenir to take back to his office and put on his desk, or some such. Of course, Kyle wasn't interested in going along with either of them. For this, they made a concession.

"Kyle, I know you'd prefer not to be here at all," his father said. "But please do at least try to take the time to enjoy yourself. If that means going off by yourself, that's fine; you're old enough, I think, to be able to find your way back to the parking lot."

Kyle rolled his eyes. The only time he's ever admitted I'm old enough or mature enough for something...

"Tell you what, Kyle. You can go off all you like, but come back by 7 p.m. If you don't, we'll just go back to the hotel ourselves – you have enough money for cab fare – and wait for you there. We don't have anywhere else to go today."

Kyle scoffed, but then said, "All right, fair enough. Just leave me to my damned self."

His father seemed prepared to comment on the foul language, but apparently thought better of it and instead traipsed off down one of the market lanes with his wife. For a few moments, Kyle simply stood there and watched them go. Wow. They're actually leaving me to myself. Then he glanced at his surroundings and rolled his eyes. In a market this huge, no less. Not that I've got any damned interest in shopping... still... way easier to get lost here than back home.

So he began to drift away from his parents. He figured they'd probably anticipated his sulkiness from the start – he'd certainly displayed enough of it on previous trips to warrant suspicion for this trip – and were planning on leaving him by himself at some point. As he walked along, he found himself remembering a trip to New York City, where he hadn't come back to the car at the appropriate time... and when he got back to the hotel, his parents had already locked the deadbolt for the night.

He ground his teeth at that memory. Oh, yeah, damned fond one, that was.

He'd finally decided to just get his own room in that place; there were plenty of vacancies, and it gave him a chance to be away from his parents. The only thing that had truly ticked him off was that his notebooks and writing materials were still in their room. He'd taken to writing on the notepad on the bedside table, but had filled that within an hour's time.

Of course, when the next morning came, they found out he'd gotten another room and reamed him up one side and down the other for not simply calling their room from the front desk. He'd responded with, "Didn't seem like it was worth the effort."

He chuckled at that memory. Now, that was the truth if I ever told it.

He found a row of kiosks selling ornamental weaponry; daggers, swords, scimitars, the like. He stopped for several moments to admire these. He could appreciate the intricately ornamented hilts and scabbards, but he doubted if he could appreciate the edges of the blades themselves. They weren't meant to do harm... they were merely eye candy, meant to hang there and look pretty.

"I especially like that one."

Kyle glanced to his right; the one that had spoken was a rough-looking American gentleman with a short, bristly beard and a certain aura that declared him to be something other than warm and inviting. He was pointing at a wide-bladed scimitar mounted on the rear wall of the kiosk. When Kyle glanced back at it, he noted the scimitar and its scabbard hung separately, and the blade of the weapon appeared to be made entirely of solid gold. The price tag certainly seemed to back that up.

Kyle shrugged at it. "The price tag isn't that damned great for the practical purposes swords were meant for. It isn't really worth it."

"Oh?" The man raised an eyebrow. "Why do you say that?"

"Elemental property. Gold is too damned soft to be used in a weapon more than a few times. You'd want shit that could cut consistently."

"True. But I prefer something that pulls down a high price."

"Well, then, if you buy it, be damned sure it stays in a cold place. Otherwise the blade'll warp and melt and it depreciates. Hell, I wouldn't doubt if it was melting right now, all this damned heat."

"I'll keep that in mind." The man regarded Kyle for a moment. "Speaking of all this 'damned heat', you must be sweating your ass off in that black clothing. Didn't anyone tell you it's hot here?"

Kyle rolled his eyes. "I prefer it. I don't really want to be here anyway."

"That's what I thought," the man said. "You had the expression of someone who was here against his will. So why are you here, then?"

"Damned enforced vacation," he grumbled. "I'm told I'm supposed to enjoy myself."

"Yet you're not, I can tell that."

Kyle didn't feel like continuing the conversation. "If you buy the sword, keep it cool." He turned away.

"Actually, I've already got a cold place staked out for my little visit."

"Really." Kyle saw little point in faking interest; he began to move up the promenade.

"I need some strong men," the man called out. "And men who have nothing better to do."

That caught Kyle's attention. He slowed, then stopped and turned around.

"Interested?" the man asked.

"What have you got in mind you'd need someone like me for?" Kyle inquired.

"I'm heading up an excavation team," the man said smoothly. "Where we are right now, we need some strong young men for heavy lifting of various sorts." He beckoned. "Come walk with me and I'll tell you more, if you like."

Kyle frowned. "Why me?"

"You're bored, you're not enjoying yourself, and what I can see of your build suggests you could help me... if you wanted to." He shrugged. "You might find this activity worthwhile. At the very least, it'll give you something to do, and a chance to get further away, whatever it is you're running from."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. This guy's good. Damned good.

And he walked with the stranger.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Kyle."

"Good to meet you, Kyle. I'm Rieger."

--

Rieger told Kyle about the cave he was digging into, told him about the minimum support he had at the moment... how he had few resources and these days, it had come down to just throwing ropes around huge boulders and pulling back with all their might. Kyle asked after machinery, but Rieger said that he couldn't bring bulky industrial equipment out – something about pollution regulations.

"Mostly it's just a bunch of guys out there, sweating their asses off while they try to move a bunch of big rocks," said Rieger. "That's what it's boiled down to, anyway. We don't need to do any drilling or anything like that. This cave collapsed a long time ago, but its new ceiling has held up well enough since then. We're just pulling the boulders out of the way to take a look at what's in there."

"If there's air flow into the cave, wouldn't that mean that all the shit inside's been eroded?" Kyle asked.

"Not necessarily. Some artifacts don't fade away so easily. Some things could have been buried and preserved under sand or mud. Besides, it's not as if tourists have been popping in and out of there all these years."

"Any idea how long ago the cave collapsed?"

"Still trying to pin down the exact date, but it's been thousands of years, we know that much."

Kyle frowned and chewed on the inside of his cheek. "How long will it take to get inside?"

"No idea. My cohorts are out recruiting other people to do the same. The more we get, the faster it goes. Hopefully we'll have about a dozen or so people to do it with. If we have that many, we might get inside as quickly as by nightfall."

"That quickly? How close are you to getting all the debris out of the way?"

"We're figuring maybe about two or three meters yet on one of the caverns. There are several passages in the cave, but that's about the last one. The others, we're dusting for trinkets. If we can't push the rocks out of the way, we do have some equipment to help out. It's hardly high-tech, but it works."

"Sledgehammers and picks, right?" Kyle sneered. "The old prison setup."

"You've got it."

"Nice," the teen scoffed. "You're recruiting me for maybe four or five hours' work total in order to make the work progress faster? And you're so close already? What the hell do you need someone like me to speed up your progress for if you're already so close?"

"We're impatient men," Rieger answered simply. "We like to find what we can find as quickly as we can possibly find it."

"With bare hands and low-tech tools?"

Rieger shrugged. "It's what we've got. I know it's not what you might prefer, but on the other hand, think about what's in there."

Kyle raised an eyebrow.

"Well, c'mon, it's not like I wouldn't compensate you. Whatever we find in there, we'll dig up and sell to museums... that'd get us a fortune, and it'd likely get you out from whatever shadow's looming over you."

"Depending on what artifacts we find there. If any at all. It might just be a cave full of nothing but the damned air. Where's the compensation for that?"

"No fear." Rieger grinned. "There'll be goodies inside, I can feel it. And if there aren't, you'll still be given a reward for your time. But trust me, I've never done a shoot-and-miss before. I always hit the mark."

Kyle scoffed again. "If you say so. When do we start?"

Rieger checked his watch. "The sooner, the better. We can go out there right now, if you'd like. I've already recruited my share of men."

"Fine, then, if you're so impatient, let's stop wasting time and get the hell out there."

Rieger chuckled. "Very well, then."

--

The excavation site was quite a distance from any roads, requiring the use of a dune buggy. Kyle felt rather suspicious of Rieger – hell, I'm suspicious of the whole damned operation – but it gave him a chance to get further away than he would have dreamed possible... and that was an encouraging thought.

The site was at the base of an extremely steep incline, which could almost be considered a cliff-side. Maybe it was, once, Kyle mused, as they approached the cave entrance.

There were several men already standing at or inside the entrance, bearing various low-tech tools. They were covered in perspiration (and little else, considering the heat in which they were working), and their expressions were apprehensive, as if they were expecting something bad, or worse... expecting nothing at all. They varied in age, but only one or two seemed to be even close to what one would consider "middle age" – most seemed to range in their twenties. Kyle abruptly wondered if Rieger had taken him to be older than he looked. Hm, maybe the cigarettes are having that effect...

"All right, let's get to work," Rieger encouraged. "Feel free to discard your shirt; this is hard work, no mistake. It's cooler inside the cave, but not by that much."

A small frown creased Kyle's brow. He saw the logic in what Rieger said, but he didn't much feel like taking off his shirt just to have everyone else gawk at his extensive tattoos. Besides, I burn too damned easily. He approached a small tent that appeared to be the base for the working materials and peered inside. A few picks, a couple hammers... hmm, I think I'll take a pick for now.

"Kyle, I'm going into one of the other passageways. Let me know if you need me, all right?" said Rieger.

Kyle grunted in acknowledgment as he entered the cave. Rieger was right... the cave's much cooler than it is out there. He searched for the particular passage that Rieger had mentioned, figuring that to be the one he wanted his men to be working on, anyway. It was easily identified by three men pounding away at what seemed like a dead end. One of them glanced at Kyle, grunted, and asked, "New recruit?"

Kyle nodded wordlessly.

"Hnh. Well, good. We need a pick in here anyway. We're going for the lower edge of this boulder here, see the line we're making?" The man pointed out the jagged outline of the bottom of the massive rock, which had several obvious chips in it. "We're trying to get under there so that gravity'll be on our side when we try to pull it out of the way."

"Pull it? And what, get ourselves turned into damned pancakes? I saw this in an Indiana Jones movie once," Kyle scoffed.

"Got a better idea?"

"Not offhand, but I doubt if there are many worse ones."

"Har har. Just help us out."

Kyle snorted, but did as he was told and started chipping away at the bottom of the rock.

--

The item was sensing the nearness of people. Some with indifference, and some with malicious intent.

It burned gold, desperate to find a master that would protect it. All it had was the stone construct, and if that awoke and bore down on the intruders, it would simply collapse the cave... again.

It did not need to be buried further. It needed a new fate to bind itself to.

The others already had bearers. As long as the protection cast on them was maintained, they were safe. But as for itself... now that its power was beginning to awaken, they would be able to sense it once more.

The guardian, the Shadow creature, could only protect it for so long.

And when that protection failed, what would happen to it then?

It needed to be released.

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A/N: Okay, that's all for this chapter! Stay tuned for the next one, where at last, the mysteries of the cave are revealed! The suspense, the drama! The reviews! ... Oh, wait, there aren't any for this chapter yet. *shamelessly begs for reviews*