Upwards, ever upwards, our band of characters and Peeps made their way. Where was Russell leading them anyway? The Valley of the Kings was now far below and behind them as they entered a hidden valley, tucked behind a tall cliff. There was no trail here, only sheer rust-colored valley walls going several hundred feet upwards on both sides.

Arthur was getting nervous, especially after reading the stela graved, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." THAT, he figured, did NOT bode well!

Russell smiled, waving them onward. "Come ON!" he shouted merrily, "It will be FUN!" How were they, innocent as they were, to know that....

***********

....the flannelly-frayed Aussie they were following so trustingly was NOT Himself...which personage was, as we read, still engaged in vain attempts to bite his way out of the thick canvas sack that was soaring through some unknown and far distant sky, tucked as it was in the rear of the sleigh.

"FUN?" grumped Ando, peeling slathers of toasted English skin off her nose as she peered at the relentlessly baking Egyptian sun. She turned toward Sue the-thinking-of-being-Vile and asked sarcastically, "Are we having FUN yet?"

Sue, however, did not take her eyes off the little puffs of dust that poofed up every time Cort shot a scorpion. Ahhhhh, she sighed, so very, very much....umm...supply. Yes, she could feel pleasantly vile thoughts rising up her cerebral cortex. Her birthday was coming soon and she had plans for a celebratory count-down of the days leading up to it...plans that involved no longer being encased in her closely-fitted black leather...plans that involved...well...*grin*...she would not share THOSE plans on an open list!

Suddenly Joimus shouted loudly, "LOOK!" and everyone came running to see what she was pointing at so excitedly. There, carved deeply into the reddish rock wall of the narrow valley was the unmistakable form of a...a...fish. "Look," repeated Joimus, "it's a fish...it's a BIG FISH!" As one, all of Crowedom groaned, knowing that meant she had seen yet another movie.

Such celluloid viewings never boded well for epi plots...and THIS one, alas, could well prove, as Susan Guildford had feared, the bodiest of them ALL!

BertiVet made her way to the front of the grouping, running a practiced finger along the lines of the carving. "Hmmm," she hmmmmed. "Looks to me like an Egyptian snapping yellow-scaled UrpUrp fish." No one challenged her on this.

Indeed, Wanda, something of an amateur Egyptologist, shook her head in firm agreement. "Yes!" she chortled chortlingly, "I know for a fact that in the closing years of the Middle Kingdom the UrpUrp began to be viewed as somewhat of a minor deity and was often invoked for guidance by travelers who had become lost in the winding valleys beyond the Valley of the Kings!"

Diz narrowed her eyes, studying the carving, "Well, then," she remarked, "how appropriate." Everyone had thought, from the beginning of her sentence, that she was going to add, "we haven't a moment to lose," but they had been in error. For once.

Russell directed their combined gazes up the sheer cliff face to where, about 75 feet above their collective heads, was what appeared to be the small, dark opening of a cave. "There!" he pronounced, "There is where we must go."

"Th..th...there?" asked BugDogPugMom in a quavering voice, recalling her fateful trip up the cliff face in Fuego when her basket rope had snapped and she had been sent hurtling toward the ice stalagmites far below. "Are...are...you SURE?"

Russell fixed her with a piercing, almost electronic, gaze. "Listen, DogMomPugBug, that is the clear meaning of the BIG FISH. It is directing us to the lost tomb of the Pharoah Russenaten where untold treasure awaits."

"Sort of like a sign post, MomBugDogPug," added Wanda helpfully.

Ann was, as usual, looking at Terry's equipment. Marvelous as it was, she did not think even IT could reach 75 feet....though it might be interesting to try.

Juditha turned to Jack and asked, "Do you have your special keepsake anchor rope about your person, Cap'n?" He, of course, did. Never would she understand how the captain managed to keep so very much tucked into those tight white pants. Especially with his pet seagulls taking up so much space all by themselves. He had come upon Hector, George, and Percival, wounded by pirates and left, nearly featherless and close to death, upon the Galapashires and had since carried them everywhere with him, much to the delight of certain not-to-be-named CrowePersons who amused themselves by counting to assure themselves that all of the captain's seagulls remained secure and in place. It was a service they selflessly offered.

Some, you know, were capable of great heights of nobility.

Speaking of great heights, the captain had uncoiled his anchor rope and expertly managed to hook its anchor (yes, that had been in there, too!) over a small, sharp outcropping directly above the entrance to the cave.

As Jack was, of all the characters, the one most used to scurrying up and down ropes, smiling all the while, he began his hand over hand ascent, watched carefully and with great...er...interest...from below by the assembled females.

"Gosh!" remarked Amanda in admiration. "Isn't he afraid to go up so high like that?"

"Nah," Joimus replied. "Russell may not like heights, but Jack isn't afraid of them at all."

"Strange how that works," added Amanda.

"Yes, isn't it," added Jeffrey wryly, thinking Insiderish thoughts.

Soon Aubrey had gotten to the lip of the cave and turned, staring smilingly back down at the characters far below. Lucilla clenched her teeth and gamely began to ascend the rope. She would have felt more comfortable about the whole thing were it not for the large vulture that had perched upon the rope about 50 feet up.

Maximus hurled his sword at it, knocking it off before Lucilla had gotten that far. The former hostess caught the falling sword in her teeth and grinned down at the General of the Armies of the North. "You can have this back.....later," Lucilla managed to say, with only the most minor damage to her tongue. Joimus narrowed her eyes. The hostess was up to her old ways again, was she? Russell smiled. How he loved a bit of rancor among his folk.

"Next?" Russell said, inclining his perfect head toward the dangling rope and looking glintingly at Maximus.

Maximus stared with a bit of puzzlement at Himself. Never had he disliked the actor before...but...now. There was something about his manner...his whole bearing....that made the hackles on the back of the General's neck stand up in warning. There was only one person who had ever made him feel so wary as that (well, discounting Commodus) and that had always been Sid. But Sid was not even ON this particular adventure. Maximus' eyes narrowed. Where WAS the chipman, anyway?? He brushed a bit roughly past Russell and took the thick rope in both of his strong, tanned hands.

Every feminine eye watched intently as the muscles in his arms gathered themselves and he placed his boots on the cliff wall to begin his ascent. Too bad, they thought, he was dressed as General and not as Gladiator. The ascent would have been much more...er...enlightening had the attire been different.

Only a yard off the ground, Maximus turned, letting go with one hand and reached back for the always nearby Joimus. Placing her atop his cuirass, he easily continued his ascent.

"That Joimus!" muttered Lucilla from her perch at the edge of the cave, "Always typing the best stuff for herself!"

Joimus, tho, knew it was an equal-opportunity-keyboard. How could SHE help it if she just happened to be the wordiest? Was that HER fault? Besides, Sue had birthday count-down plans, did she not? And was not Joimus' birthday even before Sue's? Did SHE not deserve a bit of birthday...er...pleasures as well? One, she found, could rationalize almost anything were one of a mind to. Snarkle!

With that, Cort, also well familiar with ropes though somewhat differently in his experience of them from the good captain's, took hold of the lower end and gathered the black-leathered-one to his chest. Then he took hold of the rope, too. Sue would have really enjoyed the closeness of the ascent had it not been for her constant worry that the sweat, forming profusely underneath her leather garb, would find a path and drip from her cuffs onto her dusty parson, thusly removing some hard-won exchanging material. But she need not really have worried as, so tightly-fitted was her leather outfit, that not even sweat could find a means of escape.

Bunny had been studying the BIG FISH closely for some time now. She found an especially hard and sharp stone lying nearby and began to carve the word "Jo" just beside it. She had put the word "Jo" on so very many things for Joimus, that she was incapable of NOT putting it on everything anymore.

Wanda grabbed her carving arm in the nick of time. "No," the Mississississippi gal said firmly, but with great compassion, "It's been here over 3000 years without a 'Jo' carved beside it."

Bunny was grateful for the intervention and the further distraction of the extra "iss's" in Wanda's home state. They didn't have such awfully-spelled words back in England.

"Oh, yeah?" piped in Ando. "Well, most any town in Wales could put THAT one to shame!" She was right. Terribly right. Right as only a former Welshwoman can be right. Which was once every 41 years. This had been Ando's turn. It would not come again until she reached 82.

Sue, up in the cave, looked down in gratitude. It was over...at last. She was free. Free from the interminable wait for Ando to be right. Now they could get on with life without that hanging over them as a possibility...however remote it had always seemed.

Joimus, living as she did near the Monongahela River, had not been impressed. Actually, it had always been the nearby town of Coraopolis that she had had trouble with. But we digress! Before the chariots had dragged the sun to the underworld, all the characters, even PugMomDogBug, had made their way up to the cave, lit now only by Zack's flashlight and Russell's strangely glittering eyes. Biebe used his hockey stick to brush away some of the thick cobwebs left by Egyptian GlogSpiders over the ages. A few skulls, embedded in the webs for century after century, fell then to the cave floor, crumbling into yet more dust.

Sue licked her red lips, looking at Cort. Skull dust. That was new....and different.

"Look!" Joimus shouted again. "It's another fish! It's a BIGGER FISH!" She was SO excited!

Sure enough, there on the shadowy cave wall was an absolutely HUGE FISH. Zack shone his light on the fish's mouth. It was open and something had been carved inside. What WAS it? Everyone peered closely at the ancient engraving...not noticing that Russell was slowly backing his way deep into the cave, looking for the hidden lever that would....