The girl, who Sekhmet's father was addressing, gave him a brief nod then tugged at a plait in a half-nervous, half-coy gesture. His daughter rolled her eyes from her desktop perch surrounded by a confusion of crumbling manuscripts and stone tablets. Spoilt society princess, she thought as she took in the new arrival's ultrabrief shorts, little-girl pigtails, chunky Docs and white, clingy top. A small backpack, splitting and blackened with age, topped off the ensemble incongrously. Her father continued:

"You were there, weren't you?"

"Yes," the teenager's eyes behind their reflective glasses were unreadable, mirroring Doctor Anubar's face, "I tried to save him, but . . . the trap closed on him before I could get to him. He . . . I think he'd lost consciousness by then, because he didn't scream. If he did, I couldn't hear him over the falling rocks. As you know, the temple collapsed shortly afterwards. I was lucky to get out alive." (1)

From the little Sekhmet had had to do with von Croy, she was not too sorry that he was buried in an ancient tomb beneath miles of stone. Oily and manipulative, the man had struck her as a human-salamander, although her father had called him a fine archaeologist and considered him a friend. He had been a little too friendly to her for her liking, she thought, remembering his furtive peeks, double-entendres and greasy, acquisitive smirks.

"You were," her father agreed, "To speak frankly, I don't understand why, after that experience, you want to join us on this dig."

The girl grinned, "When a horse throws you . . . ."

Sekhmet could not restrain a contemptuous snort. Obviously, Milady had been part of the pony-club, gymkhana circuit, before graduating to fox-hunting in order to get more visceral trophies than ribbons or cups. Anubar looked at her angrily and she stuck out her tongue at him.

"Well, I can't speak for Sek but I'm certainly glad to have you on board, Ms Croft." he extended a hand which she shook with a pretty smile.

"Lara."

Croft. The name struck a chord. In one of the rare gossip magazines that found its way onto the site, she had read about Lord Henshingly - what a ridiculous name! - Croft and his wife. The cream of British society, they were well-known for their 'donations' to various causes that just happened to do them quid pro quo favors. Her presence on their dig made sense suddenly, as did the purchase of long-needed new equipment despite her father's constant complaining about their financial woes.

"You've met my sulky daughter, Sek?"

Sulky! Her hot temper flared in an all-too-common flash. (2) She stood, scattering tablets and papers, to plant her hands on her hips.

"Maybe if our guest had a few million pounds to throw in my direction, that might sweeten my disposition. Didn't it do it in your case, daddy?"

Lara seemed amused, pretending to search through her battered pack. Sek caught a glimpse of medikits, a deadly-looking knife, flares and an unusually engraved stone. The script appeared to be Greek - words, sentences flowing into each other in the world's earliest stream of consciousness prose. (3) Before she could get a look at the last, her guest snapped the pack shut.

"I seem to have lost my wallet. Will you take a cheque?"

Before Sek could snipe back, her father answered, "No, she'll take you around the Shrine to Pallas Athena. It's safe enough - we've been through it a number of times with and without guides and gadgetry and it'll give you a good introduction to our work here."

Fuming, she turned to Anubar in appeal. How could he reveal their private project to this spoilt princess? It was meant to be their find, their research, their glory. She had thought that he would set this Lara to menial tasks, such as coffee-making, grocery-shopping and house-keeping, while they continued to delve into the mysteries of the past.

"But, dad . . . ."

"Can it, Sek, or I'll send you home to your mother. She keeps phoning to check how you are doing."

Scowling at Lara, she snapped her mouth closed, wondering how even a million pounds could be enough to buy a father's love.

"In the breast of the owl, those loving wisdom are cherished.

Her eyes watch those who seek understanding,

Watch over those who are steadfast and have courage,

For those that abide despite the darkness of ignorance

will be admitted to the light of truth."

The owl-image was obvious as was the reference to wisdom. Pallas Athena, whose symbolic animal was the owl, was the Greek goddess of Wisdom, as she had sprung fully-formed from the brow of Zeus. As to what the rest meant, Lara was unsure, but it was enough of a lead to begin investigating possibilities. When she had discovered that there was a dig near Athens, she had begged her father to write to Dr Anubar, the project director, and 'convince' him to allow her to join the team. After her experience with von Croy, he had not been willing to allow her to risk her life again. It had taken weeks of pouting and arguing to get him to agree, if only to remove his truculent teenage daughter from the house. She smiled to herself, crashing into Sekhmet who had finally stopped before a massive stone door inlaid with gold and lapis lazuli.

"Damnit," the other swore, rubbing her shoulder, "Be more careful, Croft, or you'll get us both killed. Despite what daddy says about this being safe, there are still traps that haven't been sprung yet. In short. this isn't one of your English tea-parties."

Curling her lips, "I know. I've been in one of these places before, remember?"

Nastily, Sek replied, "Yeah, and the person you were with then ended up dead too."

Von Croy - her mentor, teacher, inspiration. He had broken his own primary rule - respect the tomb - but he did not deserve that death. Did not deserve to hang helplessly by his feet, while . . . . She shuddered as she remembered the iron-lotus folding around him, crushing him in its petals and bloody, metal scent. (1)

'On your own head be this, von Croy', she had said, not dreaming that the trap would be so deadly, thinking that it might be poison or plague or sand or something curable, escapable. It had shocked her into a realisation of the treasure she was hunting - coins that could flip from life to death if she was even slightly careless. She would not make the same mistake again; would not make any if she could help it. Sekhmet had been right to reprimand her, although it pained her to admit.

"Sorry", she apologised, but Sek did not seem to hear her.

The slim, Egyptian-American girl was squatting on the tiled floor, running her fingers around a complex abstract design on a panel of the door and murmuring a nonsensical rhyme to herself. From the snatches she could hear, it sounded intriguingly similar to the riddle on her slab:

"Wisdom is fire, ignorance burning.

Truth, light in darkness shining.

Those of you who honour learning,

Enter and satisfy your yearning."

As she recited, her deft digits followed a seemingly random sequences of probes and pushes. Eventually, something clicked and the door ground open on ancient pulleys and ropes. Sek looked so absurdly proud of herself that Lara applauded her mastery teasingly, after which she looked abashed.

"I've been a real cow to you, haven't I?"

"Yes," she replied wryly, "But perhaps with reason . . . . I've also not been honest with you. I'm not here out of a burning love for cleaning bits of smashed pottery from cobwebby tombs. I don't want to be a serious archaeologist, at all - don't have the patience to be forever fiddling with little brushes and toothpicks."

Sekhmet crossed her arms across her skinny chest, "Why are you here, then, because that's all there is at this site?"

Deciding to trust her and scrounging in her backpack, Lara handed her the small, cool marble block. Anubar's daughter's eyebrows raised perceptibly as she translated the archaic script, mouthing each word as she did so, tracing each character with a pink fingernail. Impressed at her lingustic skills, Croft repeated her conclusions about Pallas Athena's shrine and the possible treasure contained within it.

"Yes, this is definitely the place," Sek looked shaken, olive skin pale, "It's called the Shrine of the Owl on various inscriptions in the temple. The Greeks built it to honor that aspect of Athene - this writing above the door says 'scholars and philosophers who venerated wisdom gave generously for its erection'. As for the reference to the eyes . . . ."

She stepped into the newly-opened room, sweeping her torch across a wall to illuminate it. A huge mosaic of a blue-white owl, made of shattered tiling, glimmered and gleamed as the light touched it before subsiding into darkness again. Its eyes were two black, soup-plate circles, barely distinguishable from the gloom.

"Do you think . . . ?" Lara was by her side instantly, dropping her pack to the floor, "Gimme a boost, luv."

Sek shook her head, "Forget it, 'luv'. You're heavier than I am and there's an easier solution."

The Egyptian-American scooped up a handful of loose rock from the floor. The pale chunks had once between a statue, Lara thought, judging by the smoothness of them, the still visible engravings of some ancient sculptor's hand. To her surprise, judging by how overly respectful of archaeological ethics Sek had seemed, the girl threw a pebble at each black eye, hitting it exactly in the centre. She smiled self-deprecatingly.

"Daddy was a baseball fanatic. As a kid, I spent hours pitching at him."

Lara chewed her bottom lip, looking around the shrine to see if any change had taken place, however subtle. The only difference that she could see was that the wings of the owl on the altar had folded, where once they had spread across the gold-chased marble slab. Still, she had barely had time to examine the room before Sek had triggered the mechanism, so it was possibly merely a trick of her imagination.

"The wings of the owl have changed, haven't they?", she ventured.

Sek frowned, "Yes, I'm sure she was in flight before. Now she looks like she's roosting."

"They're at her breast," Lara exclaimed, as she recalled the verse, "In the breast of the owl, those loving wisdom are cherished. I wonder . . . . "

Stepping forward, she felt among the hard, stony feathers at the front of the statue's body. The breast of the owl. To even her untrained fingers, one felt looser than the rest and she exclaimed in triumph as it came away from the rest of the statue. Sek, evidently rediscovering her morals, looked disapproving, up until the point where the slab ground its slow way across the floor towards the mosaic. Beneath it, spiral steps led downwards into absolute darkness. The staircase too disappeared as the light of the torch, that Sek held down the gap, was extinguished by the wind rushing up through the hole in the floor.

"Guess we don't need a canary, after all," the Briton quipped, as she sat on the edge, feeling for a step with a booted foot.

"We should tell my father," Anubar shook her head indecisively, "He'll want to know about any new discovery made. He is manager of this site, and it could be dangerous," then seeing that the argument was having no effect, "At least, let's wait until I have a flashlight."

Grinning, "'For those that abide despite the darkness of ignorance will be admitted to the light of truth.' I suspect that they've rigged up some sort of light-sensitive traps or locks. We'll be risking our lives and the success of the mission if we don't travel in the dark."

"The ancient Greeks?" Sek rolled her eyes, "Riiiiight. I'm sure they had infrared and photon sensors back then."

"In a sense, they did. Certain species of fungus produce chemicals in the light that make them phosphoresce. These alter weight, acidity, whatever - things that the ancients knew how to quantify. Von Croy gave a lecture at my school - Wimbledon High - on traps in tombs and shrines," she explained.

As she lowered herself in the hole, she groped for a handhold, before realising that the stairs were banked on either side by a hardpacked dirtwall and that the possibility of them falling was minimal. It appeared that the riddle had been accurate in another respect - those seemingly seeking wisdom were cherished; protected from harm in other words. As for those seeking treasure . . . .

"Hope you're not claustrophobic, Sek."

"Stop," Lara hissed, after what seemed like an eternity, "There's a wall in front of us. Looks like a deadend."

Her voice sounding too loud to her own ears, Sek replied: "Guess we should go back, shouldn't we? What a pity. Guess they had the tablet carved too soon, huh? Lara?"

As she turned to reascend, she heard the hideous noise of stone scraping on stone. An identical wall shot up behind them, blocking their exit. Panicking, heart leaping in a crazy rhythm, she scrabbled against it until her fingertips were bloody, then began to scream wildly for help. The monsters would catch her, had trapped her, would catch her, had trapped her, would . . . . Another noise - helpless, low, muffled. Lara was sobbing.

"I'm going to die just like von Croy in a trap. It's so bloody unfair. Bloody, bloody, bloody unfair."

They were in trouble, the tiny fragment of her mind, that remained logical, thought if Croft was scared. Unfortunately, they were not going to be so for long, judging from the way that the ceiling was slowly, inexorably descending on them. Pressing on them. Impress her will on those that are
steadfast and have courage, she mouthed, eyes widening.

"Snap out of it. I know what to do."

Stretching a blind hand into the darkness, she groped along the icy, smooth surface of the rapidly approaching stone and found a hollow, the slightest depression in the rock that would have been invisible to the naked eye. It gave way beneath her questing fingers, as the floor gave way beneath their feet, depositing them ignonimously on their rearends on dust-billowing cushions in the chamber below.

"Ugh," Sek said as she removed cobwebs from her arms, then "Oh wow."

"The light of truth."

"Come look here," Sek called.

The Egyptian-American was standing by an enormous statue of the goddess, plated with age-green gold, and holding an owl, its beak curved wickedly. In her right hand, Athena held a miniature tablet onto which words had been engraved. Carefully, Sek removed the stone slab, grunting from the weight, and placed it on the floor. Lara squatted next to it, squinting at the archaic script.

"What does it say?"

"Wisdom reveals her true nature to those who seek her," her companion's mouth twisted, "In other words, another cryptic clue."

"Maybe not," she grinned, "One of the few advantages of going to a snobby girl's school was that we did all the classics. 'The Odyssey', for one. Athene - Wisdom - revealed that she was a goddess to Nestor by turning into a sea-eagle."

Searching the tiles, she came across one of a woman metamorphosing into a bird. Slender arms had become wings, head was beaked and feathered, legs still stood on the beach. Still smiling, Lara stood on it with one booted foot. As the tile sunk further beneath the pressure, the owl's beak opened slowly until it appeared to be screaming. Out of the newly opened hole, gold coins began to trickle slowly, forming a pile at Athena's feet.

"We . . . We found it?" Sek sounded amazed, picking up a soft coin and turning it over in her hands. Lara did likewise - the head of a woman gave way to the body of an owl as she flipped it. They had evidently been minted especially for the temple, a unique offering to the goddess.

"Yes," she grimaced, "Now how to get out. . . ."

"So, cherie, ya never did say how ya escaped dat tomb?"

"Shrine," she corrected with a kiss to take away the sting, "Daddy got worried and came a few hours later with a rope and flashlight, by which time we'd packed up enough gold to make even Midas happy. Seems that we'd sprung the ceiling trap, because he didn't have any problems. We got the lecture of our lives from him about responsibility, but we could see he was proud. On the other hand, Lara's father - having heard from daddy about what we did - called her back immediately. I hear he sent her to a - what did she call it? - public school. (6) I wonder what happeened to her?" (7)

Remy smiled teasingly, "Probably got married and now has two point five kids an' a dog. Happens t'de best of 'em. . . ."

1) The training course in 'Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation' is a tomb in Cambodia which a sixteen year-old Lara Croft runs around guided by the . . . I think . . . vile and slimy Werner von Croy . He 'dies' taking the Iris from a plinth despite an inscription telling all 'raiders that they will meet an unpleasant end.

2) This story is my attempt to make Sek less of a Mary-Sue. :)

3) The Classical Greeks wrote without the benefit of punctuation or spaces.

4) She took the backpack from a skeleton impaled on spikes in TR: TLR

5) Arggh! As penance, I've drafted a letter to Marvel about how angry and angsty I'll be if Remy and Sek end up together, but he's a narrative device in this one. Sorry. :(

6) Public school (UK) = Private School (US). State school (UK) = Public
School (US).

7) Play any of the four TRs to find out. ;)