Of Scallywags and Sorcery

A Framing and A Fleeing

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Note to the contest judges: I have purchased two cotton balls to eliminate the siren's curse for this island :)

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I stumble. The Roman guard behind me grabs hold of my shoulders before I can fall, huffing in annoyance.

"Hey, you try walking with blindfolds on," I say, but the guard either doesn't understand me or doesn't care to reply.

There's a tug on the rope binding my hands together in front of me. I follow in its direction, like an animal being led to the slaughter but worse off. Being forced to hunt down a grave robber for the Romans in return for my freedom? I'd rather be a goat being dragged to a sacrificial altar. Then I'd have a greater chance of escape.

The rope around my wrists falls slack. A hand rips the blindfolds away from my eyes. I gasp.

I had never realised how sharply sculpted the kings and gods on the walls were, how bright the colours in which they had been painted. The art on the walls had been crumbling, the vivid shades that decorated them long faded when I saw them on my trip to Egypt in the 21st century.

Even now, hundreds of years before I would see any tomb like this, it smells stuffy, like it had been locked up with its treasures for too long, but it hadn't. Someone had ignored the ancient curse promised to tomb raiders and broken in a few days ago, snatching treasures that are ancient even in this time for themselves.

The General, a man with chiselled cheekbones and dark hair that is greying at his temples, cuts me loose at the wrists.

"Now, your deal is simple." He turns away from me, pacing the tomb as if he were addressing an army. "Uncover the truth about who robbed this tomb, and you shall be free to return to terrorising the seas, pillaging and looting as you go." He turns back to me, his lip curling in his distaste for my means of making a living.

Or rather, Ching Shih's living, but to everyone around me, she and I are the same. I've gotten used to it now, being called by a name that isn't my own.

"Are you sure this place has been robbed?" I look around at the golden daggers resting on the ground beside a chest encrusted with lapis lazuli, turquoise and obsidian, at the glittering diadem carved with a cobra and a vulture. If the tomb had been robbed, why would all of this have been left behind?

"Of course we are sure," snaps the General. "As Pharaoh, Augustus Caesar has taken possession of these treasures. This thief has robbed the Emperor of Rome, and they must pay in kind."

If these are the treasures left behind, I can't imagine how valuable the items that caught the thief's eye must've been. Maybe I am more like Ching Shih than I'd like to admit because I can't look away from all this sparkling gold.

"Fine." My eyes catch on a pair of golden sandals. "I will find your culprit."

The General remains in the tomb's centre, his eyes fixed on me as I stride to the doorway leading into the burial chamber from the antechamber. From the entrance to the tomb all the way to where I stand is a trail of rubble ranging from chunks to dust.

"There was forced entry," I say.

"Obviously," says the General.

I grit my teeth against my retort. If the General knows so much about the mystery, why did he bring me here? But I am the prisoner, and he's the one with power he won't hesitate to take out on me if I so tempt him.

Solving this case is my only chance of escaping Rome and returning to the 21st-century life I had left behind. I can't talk back to the General no matter how much I might want to.

"Whoever the thief was, they weren't familiar with this tomb or they might've known about a secret entrance or a cleaner method of entry."

The General nods, subtle awe in the action.

I stroll around the tomb, the guard still on my heels. I roll my eyes. It's not as if I can escape the Romans, but they're always more careful than they need to be. That's how they wrenched Egypt from Cleopatra's grasp.

At the sign of a smudge on the ground, half obscured by a chariot's wheel, I kneel. I trace my finger around the dark mark. It's the shape of a foot, small but unmistakable.

"Whoever was here was wearing boots."

"Or caligae." The General touches his bearded chin.

Like me, he must be thinking that sandal-boot tracks would make every Roman in Egypt a suspect.

I walk on, the guard and the General both trailing after me. Something glitters in the shadow of a boat model, startlingly silver in the tomb's golden glow. I snatch it up and study it.

It's a small circle with wavy edges imprinted with Chinese symbols that I don't understand. My stomach lurches. I curl my hand around the coin.

The General frowns at my prolonged silence. "What is it?"

"Nothing," I say, trying for a breezy tone.

The General grabs my hand. I resist him, gritting my teeth, but my strength is no match for his. I haven't trained in the Roman legion and won battles. I'm just a teenager trapped in a body too big for her.

He prises my fingers apart and takes the coin from me. He holds it up. His eyes gleam.

"This is your people's currency," he says. "There's only one person who could've dropped it here. You."

I shake my head. "I swear, it wasn't me."

But the evidence is damning.

I wouldn't know the easiest way into a pharaoh's tomb. I wear boots and carry 18th-century Chinese currency.

For all the Romans know, I could be the thief.

Before I can resist, the rope is fastened around my wrists, and the General is calling for the guards securing the entrance to the tomb.