Bendia Bones spread the four sheets out on her new bed. The wooden chair, the only other furniture in the room, blocked the door for her. Someone had already tried to rob her for the rest of her operating money. She needed to be careful until she left the country.

Bendia pulled a magnifying glass from her carrier bag. She placed it on the first sheet. She went over it carefully. It told her the legend she already knew. The only new clue it gave her was for a cave in the sand close to the mythical city of Umir.

That didn't mean much. Umir had been identified as a destroyed ruin just across the border in the desert. The only thing that remained was a hilltop with a post sticking out of it. Everything else of a state that had treated with King Solomon was gone.

She sat back and thought about Umir. Nothing had come out of the searches that had been conducted there as far as she knew. Certainly a cave had never been found.

She went over the next page. This had a detailed account of the thing she was chasing. It was a rod with a loop at the end. It looked like an ankh to her. That usually represented life.

The third page told her that someone had used the artifact on the city of Umir. The thing had opened a door for the underworld to enter the land of the living and take any who might oppose them. The city was pulled down stone by stone by the demons.

The author of the third page had fled before the destruction. He watched from the top of a hill away from the city. Everything living that didn't, or couldn't, flee was killed right down to the grass and the myriad insects. All that was left was sand.

The author joined a caravan and fled from the area. He wrote down the events later in his life for his sons to remember.

Bendia closed her eyes and imagined the scene from the author's point of view. He stood on that hill. Grass covered the area. His home crumbled in the distance as things men weren't meant to know pulled down the stones. Maybe trees and flowers burned up as the city vanished. Then the rot spread toward where he stood. He turned and gathered up his family and belongings and fled.

How long was their exodus? Had they settled the city she was in? How had Yuseff found the account?

She idly turned her attention to the fourth page she had grabbed at random. She wondered what was there. She ran her magnifying glass down the cracked page, translating as she went.

It told her of a shifting maze created under Umir. It was there to protect the Key from being used again. Destroying the city had been a hideous crime. It should not be duplicated.

Bendia sat back. The fourth page didn't give any clue to where the entrance of the maze had to be. She thought of the cave mentioned in the other paper. Could that be the entrance? How did she find it?

She decided that she needed to start with Umir. Maybe there was something there that would help her in her search.

Should she go back to Yuseff's shop and see what else he had? She decided against that. The attempted thieves might be waiting on her to show her face again.

She glanced at the Mauser on the bed. She didn't want to shoot someone if she didn't have to do that. It was enough to walk across the border under everybody's radar.

She gathered up the papers and put them back in their tubes. She put those in her bag. She needed to get some rest and then head for the border.

Traveling to Umir from there would require transportation. Maybe she could hitch a ride, or find something she could drive.

Finding something she could drive would be the best thing. Where she was going, she doubted there would be that many people just out driving the road.

A shifting maze to keep people from the Key seemed a little much. She supposed they were afraid to throw it in the water in case it killed all the children when they weren't looking.

She could understand that. Anything that could wipe out a city overnight was not something normal people should mess with.

Bendia decided she would take a nap. She needed to be fresh before she moved out. She would have to check out of both of her hotels and head south toward the desert.

She would also have to keep an eye out for the local goons trying muscle in on her. Finding artifacts was not easily done when someone was shooting at you.

She decided to not check out of her original hotel just yet. She didn't want to make it easy for the three goons to find her again.

Bendia lay on the bed. She slid the Mauser where she could reach it in case of trouble. Anyone trying to knock the chair out of the way, or get the shutters open, was going to have a surprise.

She closed her eyes and pictured a castle on a hill somewhere. She imagined its features as she walked closer to it. This was her favorite dream. She returned to it whenever she could.

She hadn't gotten around to peopling it yet. She just liked to walk the stone halls, listening to her muted footsteps on the floor. She added rooms from places she visited when she was awake. Exploration of how the castle changed those rooms to suit it made her smile.

She heard something that felt like it didn't come from her castle. She decided that it was something in the real world. That meant it was something she had to deal with before it became a serious problem.

She willed her eyes to open. She didn't move except to grasp the Mauser by its grip. What was making the noise?

Something tried to pull her shutters open. She couldn't make out what. She frowned. Should she shoot and hope for the best?

She decided the best thing to do was open the shutters.

She slipped out of bed. She picked up her bag and draped it across her torso. She pulled on her boots and jacket. She pulled on her ball cap last. She hoped she wasn't making a mistake.

She slid the rod back so the shutters could open. One of them swung open with an arm on it. She dove at the other one. The wood cracked as the shutter slammed against whomever was on the other side. She heard a cry as the night air gleamed from the stars above.

She heard a thump of something hitting the ground. People started assembling from the sounds drifting to her window. She aimed the Mauser at the window and waited. No one came into the room from that way.

If it was one of the three from earlier, where were the other two. She supposed they were waiting for her to open the door. Or they were waiting for their friend and didn't know he had fallen to the street. If she went out that way, how much of a surprise would she have on her side to use the pistol?

She expected it wouldn't be much. They were waiting to enter. Once the door was open, they would charge it. She would have to shoot them as they ran for the door.

She went to the window and looked out. The attempted burglar lay in the street. People had surrounded him. She didn't see anyone else on the wall of the hotel. She saw a ledge leading to the next window over, and then the roof of the building next to the hotel.

She visualized the man stepping out on the roof of that building. He used the ledge to get to the window next to her room, then inched to her window. He tried the shutters and found them locked. Trying to open them woke her up and led to his fall.

Bendia tucked the Mauser away and slid out of her window, stepping on the ledge as carefully as she could. She inched her way along the ledge until she was at the edge of the front of the hotel. She judged the distance between where she stood and the next roof as about four feet. She didn't see a gap between the buildings. The only thing she had to worry about was pushing from her perch and not falling on the next roof. She would hit the front and then the street.

She didn't need broken bones from a missed jump.

She clutched the corner of the hotel for a second to steady herself. Then she leaped for the roof. She dropped over the lower building's rampart and rolled across the roof. She picked herself up and brushed the dust off as she looked for a way down.

How long would they wait before they decided to break her door in? That was how long she had to find a way off the roof she was on and start looking for a way out of the city.

She found a ladder at the rear of the building. She used that to get to the ground. Now how did she get a vehicle and get out of the city?

She decided to head south and see if something presented itself. Umir was hundreds of miles south of where she was. She crossed off the two hotels she had stayed at for shelter if she made it back. They would want their money, and she didn't think they would be happy that she had slipped away without paying.

She walked along, keeping close to the buildings around her. She didn't need any problems with the local cops. A woman walking alone was not done.

She saw lights and shrank back. She frowned at the BMW cruising the narrow road. It seemed to be pausing at every opening to the street. She pushed into an alcove created by a dent in the wall and waited. Her hand dropped down to the Mauser in case she needed to use it.

The automobile paused in front of a nearby alley, then it moved down the street. The driver seemed to have missed her standing against the wall. She took a breath and watched the car drive out of sight.

Bendia moved down the street after the car. Pedestrians were fewer as she made her way south. She needed to hole up somewhere if she wanted to wait until the daylight and get some kind of vehicle to take her where she wanted to go.

She doubted anyone would sell her a car. Women weren't allowed to drive. She hated to take one. That would cause problems if she was caught.

Could she get a camel?

She snorted at that.

She didn't get along with animals, and they didn't get along with her. If she was in India with a group of people crossing through a maneating tiger's territory, the tiger always went for her.

She needed a mechanical conveyance to get where she wanted to go.