"Touch nothing," Amira commanded as she moved to each of the three entrances to the room. The way they had come had been cleared by their passage and the other two archways, each guarded by the statues of fantastical beasts were choked with cobwebs woven by small silvery spiders. Proof enough that they had lain undisturbed since before the time of the prophet. 

"There are powerful curses on this place," she mused, more to herself than to her companions.

"Who... who are you?" Ma'kum blurted, his voice rising to end on a squeak of terror. Amira turned to him from the last of the doorways, her eyes glinting in the flickering torch light.

"We are travelers," she said simply and then seeing the dissatisfaction in the thief eyes elaborated, "This is Rhaak and I... some call me Amira, although I do not expect you will have need of my name."

"Yes... yes mistress," the thief stammered.

Amira awoke from her trance, she never really slept as such, to the feeling of something monstrous moving beyond the sight of men. She didn't need Rhaak's shouted 'Master!' to bring her to her feet. In the center of the room stood Ma'Kum, a look of abject terror on his face and the papyrus in his trembling fingers. A grinding boom and a great cloud of dust gouted from the entrance passageway like a tidal wave, completely blacking out the torch.

The dust surged for a moment as Amira raised her palm and then rushed together to form a perfect sphere a foot wide suspended in the air.

"Fool!" she snapped at the thief her voice unusually animated.

"We are sealed in now," she declared as rubble from the collapsing tunnel tricked into the chamber. In the distance there was a clank of metal against metal that began low and rhythmic. Sealed in, but perhaps not alone.

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