Email:
Lespion@msn.com
Thanks to Trent Wolfe for this
idea. This story is based on
a story he wrote called the Conquest of
Cortez. I have taken it a bit
farther, but the original idea was his.
There was a grinding crunch and then to her delight one of the seemingly solid slabs slid smoothly to one side revealing three circular holes set in a triangular pattern. “Yes,” she said aloud. “It is as I thought.”
She stepped back from the stone she had revealed and looked around for
Marchand. It was much too early
for her “partner” to put in an appearance, but he had the annoying
habit of dragging himself away from the local hotel he had established as
his headquarters whenever anything interesting happened in order to take
credit for it. Almost instinctively
she looked for one of her female companions and then remembered that the
bureaucrats that governed archeological digs in
Normally she would have refused to work with such a complete
idiot. Count Vincent Henri Marchand,
was certainly the most arrogant, opinionated, and chauvinistic personality
it had ever been her misfortune to meet.
He had first done everything in his power to convince the Turkish
government to refuse her permission to carry out her exploration of the ancient
ruins and then when that had failed had convinced the Turkish authorities
that it required his presence to ensure that the dig was carried out
properly. The fact that he had
done everything to denigrate her theory was ignored and he was given authority
equal to Larra’s in conducting the
excavation. As a result it had
become something of a challenge to prove Marchand
wrong. Currently, however, he
was not in sight, which was not surprising considering that he had arrived
in Turkey with a large personal entourage, a dozen cases of brandy, and thirty
boxes of cigars in addition a variety of other luxury items too numerous
to mention. After hauling all
of this superfluous equipment to the remote and rustic Turkish
That was fine with her. Today’s discovery would prove her right and possibly eliminate Marchand as a source of irritation. “Bring up the hoist,” she ordered.
At that moment she heard the sound of a car’s motor. “Damn,” she muttered. She looked toward the winding road that led to the hilltop ruin. An ancient jalopy of unknown vintage was grinding its way toward the top accompanied by a cloud of dust and much grinding of gears. She watched as it ground to a halt and an elegantly dressed man of slightly more than average height swung out, followed by two other men.
“Ah,
“The rubble was disposed of days ago, as I am sure one of your spies has informed you. What do you want?”
“Ah!” Marchand exclaimed.
“Direct and to the point as usual,
“We are if your concept of a partnership means that you and your cronies amuse yourself drinking and playing cards while I do all of the work.”
Marchand smiled and gave his well waxed mustache a twist. “That’s another quality I admire in you, your sense of humour.” He placed his foot on a block of stone and surveyed the area around him. “It looks like you may have made some progress.” He looked inquiringly at the block of stone with the three holes. “What is that?”
Larra was annoyed. She was hoping Marchand would have stayed away long enough for her to finish her work, but she did not try to hide what she had found. “I think it’s the tomb entrance.”
Marchand laughed. “Really,
Larra shook her head. Marchand’s archeological ignorance always amazed her. “If there is nothing to find then why don’t you go back to the hotel and play a few more hands of euchre with your idiot friends and leave me to not find what I’m looking for?”
“You’re angry,
“I normally consider a woman’s place to be in the kitchen or the bedroom, depending on her physical qualities and I must say that you would eminently grace my bedchamber.”
Larra maintained her self-control, but her hand strayed to the .45 Browning semi-automatic strapped around her narrow waist. “I think you should go now, Mr. Marchand. And take your lapdogs with you.”
Her violet eyes flashed dangerously as she stared down the three men who had come with Marchand. She knew from the way they were standing that they were armed, but she wanted to avoid any confrontation, knowing that killing one or all of them would probably not sit very well with the Turkish authorities and bring an end to her excavation.
Marchand smiled again, apparently
unconcerned. “I do believe
we have been threatened,” he said to his
men. “Apparently the great
“Cretin,” Larra muttered as she watched Marchand drive off. She had let her nemesis get the better of her and given in to anger just as he had intended. Turning away she refocused on the task at hand.
The Turkish labourers had brought up the heavy wooden beams and the block and tackle. She supervised the assembly of the beams into a tripod that she position directly over what she thought was the tomb entrance. Then she helped set three heavy ringbolts into the holes in stone she had uncovered. Now that Marchand was not around to hinder her the work went smoothly. Larra had spent weeks with her Turkish crew and by now they had gotten used to the fact that although she was a woman she knew what she was doing.
She attached a hook hanging from the tripod to the ringbolts and ordered the slack taken up. She watched with mounting excitement as, groaning from the strain, the lifting gear gradually began to raise the stone that had blocked the entrance to a tomb that had lain hidden for two thousand years.
It took all of her crew of about fifty men, but with the mechanical advantage offered by the pulleys the heavy stone door that sealed the tomb was slowly lifted from its resting place. As the stone cleared the surface of the tomb Larra and the Turkish labourers rushed to gaze into its dark entrance.
“Careful, Korkud,” Larra cautioned. “The air in the tomb may not be safe to breath.”
“Yes, mistress,” her headman nodded. “I will see that the stone is lowered safely. Shall I send for the lanterns?”
Larra nodded and watched while Korkud spoke to one of the other workmen. The man scurried away and returned a few minutes later carrying two lanterns. Larra waited until the massive stone had been swung out of the way of the entrance and then lit one of the lanterns. She attached a long rope to its handle and then lowered it into the hole.
The lantern illuminated very little of its surroundings, but Larra was more interested in determining whether the air in the tomb was safe to breath and finding out how deep it was before seeing what was inside the tomb opening. “Excellent,” she murmured as the lantern touched the bottom of the tomb just twenty-five feet down and continued to burn. That meant the air was safe to breathe and the climb into the tomb would not be too difficult.
“I’m going down,” she said to Korkud. By rights she should have waited, but after months of investigation and digging, she had exhausted her patience. She would take just a quick look and then investigate more carefully the next day.
She took the second lantern, her camera, and a small pack containing a hammer and a few other tools, and then wrapping a rope around her long legs, had Korkud and three other men lower her into the darkness.
She descended into a shaft lined with perfectly cut blocks of stone, and then reaching the lantern she had already lowered, she looked about her. She was in a long passageway that appeared blessedly free of rubble. After having moved the huge amount of broken rock that had hidden the tomb entrance she was quite relieved. It was not at all uncommon for builders of ancient tombs to fill the access tunnels with all manner of debris to frustrate any tomb robbers, but that did not appear to have occurred in this case. Raising the lantern she started down the tunnel, keeping her eyes open for any sign of weakness.
The tunnel ran straight back at right angles to the shaft she had entered and was constructed of the same perfectly fitted stone blocks she had seen earlier. About three feet wide and eight feet high it was more than spacious enough for her to pass easily and only her caution slowed her down. She was not afraid of any booby traps. For the most part she had found that those only existed in films and boys own adventure stories, however, there were other possible dangers. Although the stone around her seemed solid, she was in an earthquake zone and the occasional crack in the surface of a few of the stones reminded her that the passageway might not be as safe as it looked. And there was always the danger of water. The deeper she moved into the tomb the more likely she was to chance upon some underground spring. Falling into a deep pool of water was not only uncomfortable, it could be dangerous.
However, she encountered no such dangers, even though the passage began to angle deeper into the ground. She looked back. Far behind her was a tiny pinpoint of light; the lantern that she had left burning by the entrance. She debated turning back and recruiting Korkud a few more men to come with her and then shrugged. “I’ve come this far,” she said aloud. “It won’t hurt to just go a little farther.” A hundred steps later she was glad she had not gone back.
Without warning the narrow passage suddenly opened up into a chamber that was so large her feeble lantern could not illuminate all of it. But she knew that she had discovered something quite amazing. On either side of her and stretching into the darkness as far as she could see was a row of pillars holding up a high ceiling that soared up thirty feet over her head. “Fantastic,” she murmured. “Fantastic.” She stopped to take a few pictures using flash bulbs and then continued moving into the tomb.
Ahead of her the smooth round pillars marched in neat rows into the darkness. She continued moving, her lantern throwing eerie shadows to either side, but Larra was far too excited to be frightened by the fact that she was now hundreds of feet underground and completely alone. The pillars receded behind her and she counted them as she passed in order to give her a sense of how far she was going. She got to forty when suddenly something loomed out of the darkness before her.
She stepped closer, her heart beating loudly and found herself standing before a huge slab of elevated white marble. “The tomb,” she thought. “It wasn’t just a story after all.” Slowly she circled the marble slab and then took out her camera and began to take pictures.
The slab was about six inches thick, nine feet long, and three feet wide. It was raised off the floor about three feet by what she was sure was a sarcophagus. The entire structure was bound by decorative bands of gold and at each corner there were large bronze rings embedded in the slab about six inches in from the edges. Larra ran her hands over one of the rings. No doubt at one time these had been used to lift the heavy lid of the sarcophagus into place. It would make her job of opening the tomb that much easier.
She took a deep breath. It was always an incredible thrill to come upon such a find. It was an amazing discovery and ranked with almost anything else she had accomplished during her archeological career. Almost certainly this would secure her ranking as the world’s foremost archeologist. And then she heard a sharp “click”
She froze, but she didn’t need what happened next to know what the sound meant. It was unmistakable. “Yes, Miss Court,” Marchand’s voice said from out of the darkness. “I have you in my sights. Please don’t force me or my men to shoot you by doing anything stupid.”
An instant assessment of her situation gave Larra very little choice but to comply. She was in the middle of an open space and was perfectly illuminated by the lantern she had set down on top of the tomb. There was no place to hide except behind the sarcophagus and she could only do that by jumping across the top before Marchand shot her.
“Very good,” Marchand said, emerging into the edge of the light. He was holding what appeared to be a submachine gun and although she had no idea how good a shot he was, he didn’t have to be very accurate, given how close he was and the number of rounds he could throw at her. She stood watching, looking for the rest of his men while he took one more step toward her.
“First the gun,”
Larra ignored the command. After her initial shock at finding Marchand in the tomb with her she reacted indignantly. “What the hell is this, Marchand? You come slinking in here after I’ve proved you wrong and then point a gun at me?”
“It is just what it looks like,” Marchand replied. “You may have made the discovery, but I’m taking credit for it. You are going to have an unhappy accident. Now do as I told you before my trigger finger gets any tighter.”
“You must be mad,” Larra replied, even as her fingers went to the buckle of her gun belt. “All sorts of people know I am here. You’ll never get away with it.”
Marchand said nothing as Larra removed her gun belt and then lowered it carefully to the floor. She could see nothing of Marchand’s men, but that did not mean they were not there. As she lay her gun of the stone floor, Marchand moved a little closer, but not close enough that she dared make a grab for his gun or try to take him out. “Good,” he said finally. “I certainly don’t want to shoot you just yet.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Larra protested. “My entire crew saw me enter the tomb. There are too many witnesses.”
Marchand tossed something toward her. It fell at her feet and Larra saw that it was a length of rope with a slipknot tied in one end. “Put this on your right wrist and pull it tight,” Marchand ordered. “And don’t fiddle with the knots. If you do I’ll have to cripple you and then tie you up myself.”
Reluctantly Larra slipped the end of the rope over her wrist and pulled it tight. Marchand had used a knot that would tighten easily, but which would not loosen without some effort. “Now thread the loose end through that conveniently placed ring to your right.”
Larra did as instructed, but she could still not believe that Marchand actually thought her could steal her find. “You can’t be serious about this. Are you going to kill every man who saw me enter the tomb?”
Marchand tossed her another length of rope. “Now tie the other wrist in the same way and toss both ends of the ropes as far behind you as they will go.” Once again Larra did as she was told. Then Marchand gave her one final order. “Now get on your knees and hold your arms over your head.”
“Of course I do not intend to murder all of the men who worked with
you, and why should I?” Marchand explained, as he moved to pick up the
loose ends of the rope. “None
of them have anything to say against me.
All they know is that you entered the tomb alone and that I followed
a few minutes later to rescue you.
They have already been told that the Turkish government will be most angry
with them for allowing a foreigner to enter a tomb that was known to be
cursed.”
Marchand picked up the trailing ends of the ropes and threaded the second one through the ring to Larra’s left. Then he pulled on the ropes, pulling Larra’s arms out to the side until they were parallel to the top of the marble block. Marchand continued to explain as he secured the ropes to the rings at the other end of the marble slab.
“I will tell the workers and the authorities that I entered the tomb in order to save you from your stupidity, but that I arrived too late. The spirits of the tomb had already taken you away.”
“No one would believe such a ridiculous story,” Larra protested. “Someone is bound to investigate.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Marchand returned. “Of course I will get away with it. All it requires is a few well-placed bribes and the Turkish government will accept my story. Even better your disappearance will add to my fame. I will have succeeded where the world famous Larra Court will have met defeat. Anyone challenging me will simply be considered jealous.”
“I have friends who will never believe you,” Larra said, tugging at the ropes to test them. “They will never give up until I am found.”
“I know about your friends
Larra’s eyes widened in understanding. “You used me. You were never against this expedition. You knew that I would probably succeed and used me to do what you could not.”
“You win a prize,
There was an unmistakable hint of envy in Marchand’s last comment. “You’re jealous of me. This is all about me being famous while you are not.”
“But now that fame will end,
Larra swallowed. Still on her knees with her hands drawn out to either side and tightly secured, she realized that she was in the hands of a madman, and it was said that no one could reason with a madman, but she tried anyway. “You can’t get away with this. I have more than just my companions. I have friends in powerful places. They will not accept such a ridiculous story. Untie me and I will go easy on you.”
“You talk too much,
“I have studied you well,
“You bastard,” Larra grunted as Marchand grabbed her right ankle and pulled her leg to the side. He tied it with a third rope and then moved around to do the same with her left leg. When he was finished her legs were splayed so that she was standing with the top of the sarcophagus pressed against her backside. Marchand had tightened all of the ropes so that she could move her arms and legs only a few inches.
Now that it was safe Marchand moved in front of
her. “Now,
“You’ll never get away with this. People don’t just disappear. Someone will track you down.” As she spoke, she strained her body in a futile attempt to escape her bonds, but Marchand had her right where he wanted her. All she succeeded in doing was pulling the knots tighter.
“You never give up do you, Larra?” Marchand asked as he popped open the first button on her blouse. Due to the heat, she had not bothered to button her silk blouse all the way up, and the removal of the third button allowed her blouse to part and reveal the sweet curves of her breasts.
Marchand continued to work his was\y down the front of her blouse until it was completely open; then he tugged it from her trousers leaving only her white cotton bra. Larra tried to contain her fear. She was horrified about what was coming. Why did all of her captors have to rape her? It was something that always terrified her, perhaps stemming from the brutal rape that had been her initiation into the world of sex. It was something she had never forgotten and when threatened with a repeat of that traumatic event she found it almost impossible to hide her fear.
She was sweating profusely now, something that Marchand could not fail to notice as he ran his fingers along her collarbone and then down between the valley separating her breasts. “So, Larra there is something you fear after all. I thought that you were afraid of nothing, but it is obvious that the touch of my hand has you almost fainting.”
Larra gulped in air, but did not answer. Her breasts heaved with emotion as Marchand’s fingers reached beneath the cups and peeled them back, exposing her copper-rose nipples. They were quite erect, and incredibly sensitive. She swallowed in fear as Marchand ran his fingers over them ending with a painful pinch. More than anything, it was the sensation of being completely helpless that frightened her most. Marchand had her at his mercy and could do anything he wanted with her and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Marchand stepped back and held up her camera. “How obliging of you to bring this, Larra. With it I can record your humiliation. It will give me something to look at long after I am rid of you.” He held up the camera and moving about her, snapped several pictures from different angles. Mortified, Larra could only strain at the ropes that bound her while he photographed her humiliation.
Marchand set down the camera. The cruel curve of his lips signaled his next action. He reached into his inside pocket and took out a long cigar. Carefully he trimmed it and punctured one end. Almost languidly he bent his head and used the lantern Larra had brought to light it and then puffed gracefully, the tip glowing cherry red in the semi-darkness of the tomb. Larra stifled a cough as he exhaled the smoke into her face, but she was less successful at hiding the pain as he touched the glowing tip of the cigar to her nipple.
“Nnngh!” she grunted. The pain was exquisite. As the stench of her own burning flesh assailed her nostrils Larra heaved against the ropes that bound her, her mouth opening as she fought against the pain. “You rotten coward,” she gasped. “I hope that gave you pleasure.”
“I am tired of your superior attitude,
“It is wonderful how persuasive a little bit of heat can be when it is applied in the right place,” Marchand said as he unbuckled Larra’s belt. It took him only a few seconds to undo the buttons on her trousers and reveal the white V of her white cotton panties. Helpless, she could only watch wide-eyed as he tugged them down until the soft, dark hair covering her pubic mound was almost revealed.
Marchand slid his fingers inside the elastic waistband curling his fingers into the tight coils of downy fleece that covered her mound of Venus. “Aaah!” Larra yelped as he tore a handful of hair from her nether lips, then he wrenched her pants and undergarments down to her thighs exposing the region he had just savaged. He stepped back once more and snapped a few more photos, and then setting down the camera once again approached Larra until he stood less than an arm’s length away.
He puffed on his cigar, directing the smoke into Larra’s
face. “I might not be much
of an archeologist,
“You are very brave, Larra and your pain tolerance is exemplary, but I assure you I will have you weeping like a child before I am through with you.” He touched the cigar to her body again, this time targeting the inside of her thigh. Larra’s body convulsed, but she did not scream. Marchand smiled slowly and then using his cigar began to work his way systematically around her body.
A score of burns later, Larra was whimpering like a beaten dog. For some reason Marchand had stopped torturing her and looked at her almost analytically. “You son-of-a-bitch,” Larra gasped. You’ll regret this!” She was almost sobbing with pain, her body dotted with the burns of Marchand’s ‘scientific’ application of the cigar.
“You are very strong,
The bulge in his trousers clearly indicated what Marchand meant. If there was any doubt it became more obvious as he began to unbutton his trousers. “You sick bastard,” Larra said through clenched teeth. “You get aroused through torture. You’re just a sorry little pervert.”
“We’ll see how perverted I am,” Marchand replied angrily. “I’m just getting started on you.” Marchand closed with her. Larra she grunted as he slipped the tip of his throbbing phallus past the lips of her vulva. “You…Bastard…,” she groaned as he entered her. He slammed into her with all the subtlety of a mating bull, sliding his member in to the hilt. She arched her back against the pain, her breath coming in agonized gasps.
“Ah Larra!” Marchand grunted.
“I have looked forward to doing this ever since I laid eyes on
you. The arrogant
“Bastard,” Larra whimpered, trying to control her reaction as Marchand thrust into her and squeezed her breasts. The pain of the burns superceded that of the rape, but it was the feeling of complete helplessness as Marchand had his way with her, that had her close to breaking. He slammed her hard, driving her buttocks again and again into the cold marble of the tomb, until with a gasp of satisfaction he spilled his seed inside her.
Marchand stepped back and gave his member a shake before tucking it back inside his shorts and pulling up his pants. “That was excellent, Larra. I would like to continue, but it grows late. My guests will arrive any minute and after that you belong to them.”
Through the haze of pain Larra caught the meaning of his last words. “I thought you were going to kill me,” she moaned.
“Ah that was just to put the fear of God into you. I have something much more humiliating in mind. Have you ever considered a career as a whore?”
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