It took Clara a couple of seconds to get her bearings as she stood on the small sandy beach on the edge of the lake. The early morning light was still quite dim and Clara suspected that the sun had not quite risen yet. Even if it had, they would still be in the shadow of the large mountain looming just east of them.
"Ah, nuts!" Jeff complained, grabbing Clara's attention. He quickly ran out of the freezing-cold ankle-deep water in which he'd reappeared and on to the dry bank. Clara smirked. She had not intended to transport Jeff into the water. Precision long-distance travel just happened to be one aspect of her powers that she hadn't quite gotten the hang of yet.
"Sorry about that," she said flatly.
"Nah, it's okay. I didn't have time for a bath before we left, anyway," Jeff facetiously replied. "Where... where..." Jeff trailed off, suddenly seeming very unsteady.
"Are you okay?" Clara asked with concern. Jeff fell backwards onto his ass and Clara ran over to him. He was sitting up, but still seeming quite unsteady about it.
"I'm okay..." he said in groggy speech that seemed to suggest the exact opposite. "I just... just tripped. It's so dark."
"Not really," Clara disagreed. "It's the sudden drop in air pressure. You'll be all right. Just rest there until you feel better. Don't try to get up."
"Can do," Jeff softly replied. Clara watched over him vigilantly until she was satisfied that the worst was over. She was quite grateful now that she hadn't attempted to transport them directly onto the peak of one of the mountains, as she had been tempted to do the previous afternoon. Clara shuddered at the thought of what condition Jeff might have wound up in if she had.
As Jeff's strength seemed to return to him, Clara took in her surroundings more thoroughly. On a raised area a couple hundred feet from the lake's edge Clara could see what appeared to be a road sign of some sort. "If that's the road, then we can follow it into the town." She thought. Her intention had been to transport Jeff and herself to the edge of a lakeside town conveniently close to all four of the mountains they were interested in. The town had a vehicle rental agency and Clara had had the foresight to phone the agency the previous afternoon and arrange for a four wheel drive to be ready for them by the morning. Clara looked down at Jeff once again. As soon as he had recovered, they would set out.
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As it turned out, Clara had transported them three kilometers away from the town. Even after the long walk, however, they still managed to arrive in the town well before the rental agency opened. Fortunately, there were no problems with the vehicle. The dealer had managed to secure for them a top-of-the-line Mercedes four wheel drive, more than capable of getting anywhere on the mountains that a vehicle could possibly go. Clara quietly groaned when Jeff took the keys and made for the driver's side door. Jeff smiled and playfully told Clara that she could drive on the way back. Clara climbed into the passenger side, silently thinking to herself that it would be Christmas before they arrived at the mountaintop.
Within an hour, however, Clara and Jeff had made their way to the end of the trail that lead up the first mountain they planned to explore. Since the capital of her empire was located far to the south, the plan was to begin the search for Tukanni's tomb on the southernmost mountain and work their way north.
Exploring the mountaintops was easier said than done, especially for Jeff, with steep inclines and rocky dead-ends limiting where he could go. The treacherous terrain did not pose such a problem to Clara, however, who managed to climb around any obstacle she found with sure-footedness that would shame any mountain goat. Jeff found himself watching her admiringly, wondering just how much of what he saw was genie, and how much was pure Clara Roft.
Jeff would follow Clara along the mountain trails as far as he could, and although she easily could have, Clara never allowed herself to get more than a few feet ahead of him. When they struck an obstacle that Jeff simply couldn't navigate around, Jeff would wait while Clara went on ahead to "Just have a look." Sometimes she would leave him for over an hour while she continued to explore solo. In many ways, she preferred it when she was alone, there was still something about Jeff's presence that Clara found disconcerting. But on the other hand, she also worried about him wandering off and getting into trouble while she was gone. If he was to die whilst she was still his slave, it would devastate her quest for freedom. Had it been an option, Clara would have preferred to leave Jeff back in England while she explored the Turkish mountains alone. But the spell she was under bound her to stay within a certain distance of the lamp, and it also forbade her from transporting the lamp out of the reach of it's owner.
Before long, the sun began to get low in the sky. The pair continued traversing the mountain for as long as they safely could before they returned to the four wheel drive and returned to the town. True to his word, Jeff let Clara drive on the return trip.
Getting a motel room for the night resulted in an awkward moment for Clara. When the desk clerk asked Jeff if they wanted a double, Jeff turned to Clara, silently asking what she wanted.
"Very well," she replied straightforwardly. Jeff's delighted smile betrayed his thoughts as he signed them in. Clara loathed having to give him such a mixed signal, but ultimately she thought it was the simplest and safest way of handling the situation. Once they were in the room, Clara made her way to the phone. She ran her eye quickly over the nearby instructions on how to dial out of the motel, and proceeded to dial the number for Croft Manor. Clara spent ten minutes talking to first her father and then her mother, mostly assuring them that both her and Jeff were safe and that she remained optimistic of finding the tomb, despite the day not having yielded any results. Meanwhile, Jeff had stripped down and made his way into the shower. He was still in there when Clara entered the bathroom.
Clara excused herself from Jeff's presence, telling him that she wished to return to the lamp, carefully choosing her words to make it sound like she planned to study Zhiasa's journal. Jeff gently protested, saying he had hoped they could spend the night together, perhaps finding a restaurant in the town in which to dine, but in the end he did not forbid Clara from returning to the lamp.
Seeking sanctuary within the lamp allowed Clara to avoid any further advances from Jeff, but contrary to what she'd implied to her master, there was nothing else for her to learn from Zhiasa's journal. With nothing else to do Clara layed down on the elegant bed within the lamp chamber and fell asleep, knowing that she would awake when Jeff rubbed the lamp in the morning.
The following three days progressed much the same as the first. Clara and Jeff combed the surface of the mountain, Clara often going off to explore on her own, but finding nothing of interest. At night, Clara would fulfil her promise to call her parents, and then quickly excuse herself into the lamp.
By the afternoon of their second day in Turkey, Jeff was getting severely bored with being left alone on the mountainside for extended periods of time. He used the sat-phone to order the most expensive portable DVD player that could be shipped to their motel by that evening, and took it with him on the following days, playing movies in blocks whenever Clara left him to go off on her own. Jeff seemed quite proud of himself for his first instance of frivolous spending since he became a billionaire. Clara did not share his excitement.
By the end of their third day in Turkey, both Clara and Jeff decided that it was time that they move on to the next mountain on their list. On it's first day, the second mountain seemed no more promising than it's predecessor. But just after ten o'clock the following morning, Clara's keen eyes spotted a small cavern in the mountain face, on top of a seven-foot-tall mound of earth. The opening was small, but the mound beneath it offered the possibility that it was just the top of a tunnel entrance that had been partially buried. The pair immediately made their way over to the cavern. Clara kneeled in front of the dark opening and shone her torch into it, revealing that the passage went deep into the mountain.
"See anything?" Jeff asked as he squatted down beside her.
