Chapter 3. Here we are. I appear to have confused a few people, so let me clarify. Ironically enough, the story starts near the end. That's that first paragraph. Then it skips back to the beginning, three weeksearlier, straight into Lara's nightmare, which is the italics. After that, yep, some of you were right,it's all the same timeline and no, Lara isn'treally there with Kurtis. She's in England embarking on her latest adventure whilst he's locked up in a Chicago nightclub.Lara's nightmare, though strangely similar to Kurtis' experiences, happens before he's even kidnapped. Unreal, eh? LOL

SilverDragon - Thanks! Yep, I'd say pity is the right word. Poor Kurtie. :-( I would help him, but, hey, y'know... LOL

Linzi - Thankyou! Glad you like Bryce's 'readers up to speed' quip - you gotta have injokes, right?

Lady Lara Croft - Oooh you flatter me:-) And yep, got it in one, Lara's all in poor Kurtis' abused head.

Godavari - Hey, girl, calm down! No worries! I'm just glad you're reading. And y'know, if you complain about cliff hangers, I'm only going to be evil and put more in. Hee Hee

Jordana - Oooh, hello, new reviewer! Welcome! I'm happy that you like this and I'm ecstatic that I'm getting recommended! Good to know my research does not go unnoticed, although due to the completely unfactual basis of the Styx being real there will be a fair amount of, shall we say, artistic license! LOL. I'm going to try to keep it as fact based as possible though.

Alone With Memories

"Are you sure you're not being a little hasty?" Hillary asked Lara, knowing it was useless. They were in her bedroom, Hillary removing items from Lara's suitcase as fast as she was throwing them in. For such a seasoned traveller the girl had no idea how to pack. She just took what she wanted and hurled it towards the case, stuffing it in and slamming the lid down, which meant that it was always left to Hillary to intercept her luggage and fold her clothes properly. Doing the laundry when she returned from a trip that he hadn't accompanied her on was a nightmare; the ironing took hours.

"No," Lara said shortly in answer to Hillary's question.

"Well, what if it's a wasted journey because Bryce has made a mistake? Or what if he's not researched the dangers properly and you meet something you're not prepared for?"

"Then I'll become prepared – very quickly," Lara sighed, used to Hillary's usual pre-adventure fussing. She dug around in her wardrobe, pulled out the bomber jacket that she'd rescued from the ill fated plane on her Dagger of Xian chase, surveyed it for a second and then tossed it over her shoulder, where it landed half in the suitcase.

"I just think it might be pertinent to spend a couple of days doing some detailed research with Bryce into the finer points, that's all."

Lara dumped her boots onto the bed and gave Hillary a momentary mild glare. "That article about the Styx being based on a real river has already been out two weeks – if other raiders have made the same connections we have and come up with the same conclusions, a couple of days might cost me the Helmet."

"Well, do we really need a helmet of invisibility anyway?" Hillary pleaded, exasperated by her willingness to rush into things without thinking and the dusty boot prints now left on her duvet. "We are running out of room."

"That's why I sold things," Lara stated, pondering whether to take her black catsuit or not. "To make room."

"Yes, and then you got more things for Christmas when Kurtis sent you that replica of the Periapt Tip and you had less room to put them all in when you extended the garage to make way for that new model Bentley you just had to have, and, I might mention, have hardly driven."

"So, I'll sell more," Lara said absently, decanting shampoo into a travel bottle. "I meant to send the Dagger of Xian to the auction house last time, anyway."

Hillary dropped the socks he was balling and glared at Lara's back at that news, and then picked up a boot and held it aloft as if to hurl it at her, but quickly let it drop when Bryce appeared in the doorway.

"Lara, the flight's booked," Bryce said, leaning into the room. "Three first class seats to the Ukraine; check-in's at eight."

"Good," said Lara, picking up her make-up bag and dropping it into the suitcase before pointedly snatching her top out of Hillary's hand. "Time enough for you to pack and for us all to have dinner before we go, then."

Hillary sighed, relinquishing the packing and leaving the room behind Bryce.

"She wants to sell the Dagger of Xian," Hillary said with annoyance as they moved down the hallway to their own rooms.

"Oh, you're frickin' kidding me!" Bryce said, opening the door to his room and sweeping inside.

"Nope!" Hillary replied, shouting to make himself heard before slamming his own door.

Kurtis was woken by a strong light being shone onto his face as he slept, lying awkwardly on the hard uncovered floor. Rolling his head and muttering curses as he brought his hands up to his eyes, he tried to avoid the blinding beam as he was quickly pulled back to full consciousness.

"Jesus!" he complained, squinting and pushing his the upper body up off the floor with his arms, "I'm awake, ok! Turn it off!"

The light was moved out of his face and he blinked, seeing only the mirage of his own retinas for a moment before his eyes recovered and he managed to focus on his keepers.

There were two of them, stood over him in the doorway of his makeshift cell with impassive faces and a gun aimed at his chest along with the flashlight beam.

Kurtis coughed chestily as he got to his feet, the cold and damp having begun to get to him already.

"Back up against the far wall, please," one of them said, indicating the position with the flashlight. Kurtis did as he was told, backing up warily, the gun following him.

The one with the flashlight ducked out of the cell and reached around the corner, pulling a kitchen trolley into view. It was wheeled over to the entrance and then shoved into the cell.

"We'll be back in twenty minutes, eat up," the man said, and then they left, locking his cell door securely and hurrying out of the cellar.

Kurtis watched them go with an air of suspicion but as soon as the door at the top of the stairs had closed and the lock had clicked, he darted over to the delivery. It was a sealed plastic container, the kind that take-out is ladled into, and a small bottle of mineral water.

He opened them, sniffing suspiciously. Thankfully, his captors didn't appear to have a twisted sense of humour, because the food was hot and fresh and the water tasted clean and cold. They'd even had hospitality enough to leave him a plastic fork, though it had been dumped on the dirty trolley. He wiped it off with his fingers and then moved everything to the floor and tucked in, sitting cross legged and eating ravenously.

It was too dull to properly see, but the food was identified by taste as chicken chop suey. Chewing quickly on a mouthful, he pulled up his sleeve and illuminated his watch face. Seven thirty a.m. Dawn must have just been beginning, because it wasn't as black as it had been the previous night. It'd be fully light soon and then he'd be able to assess his surroundings more easily, maybe figure a way out of there, since no-one was going to let him out.

That reminded him – Lara. It could have just been the tiredness and the beating last night, but he was so sure that he'd seen her. Was she here? A thought occurred to him and, taking another mouthful of food, he shifted to kneel at the bars and look out at his limited view of the room. Why would they need a food trolley just to deliver him his meagre breakfast?

He grabbed the bottle and screwed the top back on before tipping it on its side and trying it for size against the gaps between the bars. It wouldn't fit, which explained why they needed to come into his cell and the trolley allowed them to do that faster than having to come in and put it down on the floor, but even so, there were two of them…on the one hand, they needed the gun trained whilst the light was kept going otherwise they risked having their prisoner jump them in the twilight, but one could hold a gun and a light at the same time whilst the other put the food on the floor, right?

Maybe, they needed the trolley because his breakfast wasn't the only one they were carrying and they did have Lara. He didn't get a good look at the cellar last night, it was entirely possible that there was another lock up in there with Lara in it that he'd missed. Or, he thought to himself despondently as he flopped back down to continue eating, they just thought pushing the trolley inside was the safer option for them.

"You're not here, are you Lara?" he said to the quiet, fully expecting no answer, and indeed none came. "No," he said to himself as he bit some chicken off his fork, "didn't think so."

The vivid colours of the photograph spoke of a time of happiness, but those that had been present couldn't help but look at it and remember a thin veil of sadness over it all.

Taken after Lara and Kurtis' dealings with The Company, before he had left for an emotional pilgrimage, it depicted the two in warm sunshine, Kurtis behind and slightly to the right of his friend, his arms hugging around her waist, both of them beaming at the camera. The rich green leaves of the weeping willow behind them created a serene backdrop to contrast with their modern outfits, Lara in black jeans and a red top, Kurtis in desert camouflage trousers and a black T-shirt.

Lara picked it up in its ornate silver frame and traced her fingers over the image, remembering. Hillary had taken it. Bryce had been nowhere to be seen all that week, still angry that Kurtis had rejoined the fold. She had wanted them all in the photograph, but Bryce wouldn't come out of his room and so rather than have an incomplete family picture, they had opted for a complete partnership picture.

"You miss him, don't you?"

Bryce's voice rang out in the silence from behind her. She took one last look at the picture and then replaced it on the sideboard, surrounded by snapshots of herself, Hillary and Bryce taken over the years.

"It's just going to be a little strange going back out there without him," Lara said, covering her wistfulness.

Bryce studied her for a moment and then gave an amazing show of selflessness and said, "Ask him to come."

Lara smiled, both imagining the high jinx that they could get up to searching for the underworld and also appreciating Bryce's checked attitude. "No," she said, turning away from the photos, "I'd rather it was just the three of us for this one." She touched Bryce's shoulder and gave him a smile as she passed, leaving the room.

Kurtis was sitting, leaning against the bars and playing with the plastic fork when the door to the cellar opened and his guards returned. He twisted around, watching them approach with curiosity. He hadn't quite reached dread, yet. He was doing ok, he was staying calm, he was going to handle this.

"Up against the wall again," one said. Kurtis did as he was asked and backed up out of the way, watching his captors as they opened the door and reached in to pull out the trolley, one with a gun trained on him through the bars. The sun had finished rising and though the cellar wasn't even approaching a state that could be described as daylight, it was illuminated enough for him to make a cursory examination.

They were both dressed in jeans and shirts, one in trainers, and the other with a hairstyle similar to his own. They and their colleagues' lack of professional dress and unpractised approach to interrogation and imprisonment techniques told Kurtis one wonderfully prominent thing: this was an amateur operation. Internally, he smiled at his small advantage, but externally he remained passive and curious, as though he had an amiable attitude to the whole affair – at least, as long as he wasn't being tied to a chair and beaten up, anyway.

The trolley was pulled out of the cell and allowed to roll out to the middle of the room as the barred door was once again locked and the man then took out his own gun and aimed. "Put your hands through the bars," he said.

Kurtis obliged, shoving his hands through two gaps.

"No – no, so I can cuff you. Put them between the same two bars, one above the other," the other man said, his manner hinting at a growing fluster.

Rolling his eyes slightly, Kurtis adjusted his position and was duely handcuffed from the safety of the other side of the bars. The door was then opened and he stood, moving out and allowing himself to be frogmarched away, taking a quick look around the cellar as he did so – no Lara.

"Alright," Lara said that evening as the plane levelled off after take off on its way to Budapest, the stop-off for their ultimate destination of Odessa, Ukraine, "tutor me."

"Pleasure," Bryce returned, as he sat back down after having stood to retrieve his research from his hand luggage in the overhead locker. He unfolded the seat table and laid out the papers as Hillary and Lara, either side of Bryce, settled down to listen.

"These are copies of the original documents," he said, pushing several photocopies and digital photographs of foreign language scripts over to Lara to browse through should her language skills be fluent enough to translate them, "and these are the translations, which are either taken from academic websites or done painstakingly by yours truly.

"Though I can't find any real details, as far as I can tell the Dnister originally was, in every way, the Styx. Then, the Greek gods left or were ousted or whatever – I dunno – but basically as the Ancient Greek culture faded the gods put a 'lock' on the Styx, making its mystical attributes accessible only through magic in order to protect it whilst they weren't around to watch over it anymore. That's why the Styx is now the plain old Dnister. Right?"

Lara and Hillary nodded their comprehension, Lara squinting at the originals as she tried to follow Bryce's explanation in its native language. "So how do we unlock it?" Hillary asked, a hint of annoyance in his voice. Bryce grated on him far too easily sometimes.

"Well," the techie continued, accompanying his explanation with gestures to various interesting but basically useless photos of Greek vase paintings and wall carvings, "originally there was an unlocking ritual documented by some of the last priests of the Ancient Greek gods."

"Originally?" Lara said, looking up and eyeing Bryce with a look that just dared him to follow that up with a 'but'.

"But," Bryce said, earning a glare, "that knowledge has been lost."

"So why are we here, Bryce?" Lara asked with false amiability as she dropped the photos she was holding back onto the table.

"Wait, wait, wait, let me finish," he protested. "I'm certain that we can achieve the same effect with an Egyptian ritual known as the Ritual of Anubis. Not a great name, I know, but I suppose it loses something in the translation…"

"What makes you think that?" Hillary interrupted.

"What I do know about the original spell was that it was to contact the Underworld, thus turning the river back into the gateway. The Ritual of Anubis is exactly the same thing, a way to contact the Underworld. Different Underworlds, yeah, but aren't all religions just different aspects of the same belief?"

"According to some people," Lara said, annoyed.

"No, look, look," Bryce moaned, searching out another visual aid, "it's not entirely my idea. According to this Egyptologist, the Ritual of Anubis apparently has Greek roots."

"Greek roots?" Hillary didn't understand.

"Ancient Greece is an oft-misunderstood term that actually encompasses the entire Greek known world over a long period of history. It included both what is now Southern Ukraine and parts of Egypt. Greeks settled abroad in colonies and took their culture with them," Lara explained quickly, well versed in her history as always.

"Right," Bryce agreed, pointing at her, "like she said. So it's not impossible that the Ritual of Anubis could in fact be the original Greek key to the Styx, just a corrupted version adopted by the Egyptians."

Lara let out a contemplative 'hmm', taking the scientific paper written about the Ritual of Anubis from Bryce's fingers and looking it over. "It's possible, I suppose."

Kurtis grunted as he fell to the floor, dropped unceremoniously back through the door of his cell after another long and pointless interrogation. For hours, the same question and always the same truthful answer.

'What do you know about the Ritual of Anubis?' 'Nothing.'

A half hour's respite every now and then, just as it was beginning to become too much, was all he had been afforded, and now he lay panting on the grimy, cold floor, aching all over with a splitting headache and so tired that his eyes stung when they were closed.

Slowly, he calmed, allowing the silence to pervade and the pain to dissipate throughout his body, spreading the focus from the cuts and bruises so that it was somehow a more easily bared state of being rather than a distressing punctuation to an exhaustive state.

Just as he felt able to relax into a mindset near sleep, he heard her voice from behind him, within the cell.

"Who are you?"

He gasped, forgetting his pain for a moment as he flipped onto his back to look in her direction. He blinked rapidly, not quite understanding what he saw. Lara stood there, inhabiting his previously empty cell and staring down at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. She was wearing the clothes he had first seen her in when he had accosted her in the Louvre, and their dark colours seeped into the dusk surrounding her, leaving her shadowy and mystical.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Lara!" he gasped again, forcing himself up into a half-sitting position supported by his hands, "Is it you?"

A slight smile crossed her lips at that question, and she stared down at him compassionately.

"Lara," he groaned, "the door," and he looked over to indicate the need for her help in escape, but she didn't move to offer any assistance, and when he looked back to query her inaction, she had gone.