“Not amuse, Samuel,” his sister corrected. “A-maze.”
He looked at his sister. She gazed back with a humorless expression. She’d figured it out as well, he realized. She just had no intention of helping them advance into the tomb. She knew what awaited them at the end when Moreau had all he needed. He couldn’t fault her analysis.
The group studied the floor trying to find a pattern.
“Here.” Olivia pointed to the symbols to explain. “They represent earth, air, fire, metal, water. Balance,” she said, thinking aloud. She lifted the skirts of her riding habit and moved to cross, until Samuel snatched her back.
“A little caution would be appreciated, Ollie.”
“Trust me.” She stepped forward and waited. No stabbing swoosh. She stepped again, following the repeating pattern left and right, with Samuel at her back until they crossed the room to safety.
Merryvale stepped next, followed by Alex, the duke, and Moreau. It took them five minutes to travel the circuitous route. Lampley issued orders to remove the bodies and mark the path. Alex reached out a foot and stepped on one of the unmarked stones. Then another. Two spears shot down.
“Allie,” Samuel warned.
She ignored him, taking one spear for herself and tossing the other to her husband. “It will make a nice walking stick, brother.” She nodded to Moreau. “And Sir Jason means us no harm. He simply wants the treasure at the end for himself. I have no issue with that. I am happy to enjoy the adventure.”
“It is a joint venture, Your Grace. Sir Jason is our partner,” Lampley asserted.
“Indeed,” Merryvale assured cynically.
Olivia pulled out the cone and pressed it into the slot. A serious of clicks sounded, followed by another loud movement under them. A turning motion activated the doors. The door on the right revolved halfway, allowing entrance, while the one on the left lowered completely into the floor.
The group members contemplated their options, peeking cautiously into each chamber.
“Do you think there’s a right and a wrong?” Olivia asked.
“Right is always right,” the duchess stated. “Left is historically evil.”
“Unless the librarian was left-handed and therefore more evenhanded with our torture,” the duke said, looking into the left room.
The duchess entered the right-hand room, leading with her spear and testing the ground. “It doesn’t seem like the floor is part of this puzzle.”
Olivia followed, lifting her lantern. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she recognized they were in a cylindrical tower. The men were exploring the other room. She called to Stafford to bring the torch. He came in, providing more light.
“Look!” She pointed up.
The light revealed an open doorway at the top of the tower. Odd. There were more than a hundred star-shaped cones sticking half out of the wall, with progressively fewer up higher. She pressed one of the star cones into the wall. When it clicked in place, a large stone next to it slid out two feet.
“Excellent! We merely figure out how to make our own steps to the top. Get the key, Stafford. This one seems much less deadly than anything thus far.”
Stafford left the room while Olivia and his sister studied the problem.
“I think we need to work from the top,” the duchess suggested.
The sound of stone turning got their attention. They ran to the entrance.
“Wait!
The door rotated. The duchess threw her weight against the revolution, trying to reverse it. Olivia joined her. It was impossible, despite similar efforts on the other side. The stone door locked in place with a resounding crash.
On the other side of the door Samuel looked around for the cause of the problem. Lampley had removed the key from its slot.
“Put the key back in!” Samuel shouted.
Surprised by the development, Lampley reinserted the key, but nothing happened.
Worthington pushed against the door forcibly. It wouldn’t budge. He listened, his hand against the stone, tormented.
“Alex! Alex!”
Samuel heard his sister’s voice, the sound muffled.
“Joshua! I love you, Joshua. I love you!”
Olivia’s voice was next. “Go through the next room! We’ll meet up!”
“Be careful!” Samuel hollered.
Joshua’s forehead lay against the cold stone door. He slammed the meat of his fist against it in frustration, clearly not wanting to leave. When he lifted his head, Lampley was in his sight.
He picked Lampley up by the throat and slammed him against a wall. “I swear if anything happens to my wife there won’t be a place on Earth you can hide from me.” He dropped the man and pushed his way to the other room to survey the problem. “What do we need to do?”
Merryvale redirected the men to the task at hand, while Moreau claimed the key. The second room was also circular, but had a low ceiling that the men could easily touch.
In the center of the room was a giant contraption of sorts—a large stone wheel on a circular track, with an enormous wood lever to pivot it around the center.
“I say we push this lever and see what happens,” Lampley said.
After a careful look for darts and spears, the others shrugged and decided to give it a try.
Joshua went to the lever, testing the weight. Samuel and the others joined with some additional guards to help push the wheel out of its two-thousand-year-old rut. As they pushed, a loud screech reverberated around the room. It seemed as though the entire tomb would fall in on them. The noise was not the progress of the wheel they turned, but the wall that turned with it, moving in a circle counterclockwise to them. Soon the opening they came through was blocked by the interior wall they turned with the contraption, indicating that there must be another matching doorway to realign with in order to get out. Encouraged, the men pushed harder.
“Brilliant,” Merryvale breathed, awed by the engineering.
Once they started, the movement required only two men.
Slowly they pushed the wheel in a complete revolution, noting various symbols revealed on the outer wall as their door frame circled the room. Unfortunately, without Olivia they were unable to decipher any potential clues, and they completed the circle without discovering another opening.
Back where they started, all contemplated the dilemma.
“We’re locked in,” Joshua said.
Samuel stepped back and thought. Then he slowly nodded, comprehending the situation. “You’re right. We need the combination. This room is a lock, and we’re inside it.”
“Hell,” Joshua swore.
“Yep.” Samuel knew his thoughts. Alex was the expert lock picker in the family.
Merryvale gasped again in awe. “If this truly is a combination lock, the technology predates the first known locks invented by Muhammad al-Astrulabi in the early thirteenth century.” He shook his head. “Astounding.” To the unimpressed Lampley and Moreau, “Gentlemen, truly astounding.”
“But can we get through?” Joshua asked.
Lampley cleared his throat to get their attention. “I might be of service.”
“Are you a thief?” Joshua snapped.
“I prefer locksmith. A useful tool for a man in the security business.”
“Uh-huh.” Samuel waited. “Can you get us out?”
“If this device plays by the same rules,” Lampley promised. “Listen and line up the discs.” He motioned to the men. “Turn it clockwise, slowly.” To the audience, “I will need utter silence.”
“How can you have silence with a thirty-foot-wide stone floor and wall creaking about you?” Stafford asked.
“Captain.” He raised a hand. “If you please. Your doubts are affecting my sensitive hearing instruments.”
Samuel glared at the man, barely able to contain his impatience. “Please …” He waved for Lampley to continue.
The men pushed, and Samuel could not distinguish anything unusual in the no
ise when Lampley signaled for them to stop.
Merryvale scribbled down the symbol quickly.
“Counterclockwise, please,” Lampley ordered.
The men turned, but as they did, another sound interfered with Lampley’s sensitive hearing instruments.
Bloodcurdling screams.
“The women!” Samuel ran to the sound, listening against the wall, then calling to Olivia and Alex. They no doubt could not hear him over their own nightmare.
Then just as suddenly it was silent.
Joshua paled. “Lampley, get us out of here!”
“Yes, yes.” He filled in, “Or there will be no place on Earth that I can hide.” He rubbed his left ear as if it had clogged. “Gentlemen, if you please. Counterclockwise.”
They turned, and very shortly Lampley had them stop and switch directions. When at last he lifted his hand, his face straining for auditory confirmation, Samuel was convinced the man was a complete fake.
He was soon proven wrong.
The room shifted so slightly that the change was almost unnoticeable. Then a loud crash shook them, the earth quaking below their feet.
Just as suddenly, it stopped.
The men didn’t move but stared at each other, wondering what this particular noise of doom meant.
Samuel found Lampley’s eyes. “You sure that was it?”
Before Lampley could respond, the room did it for him.
The floor dropped out from under their feet.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nathan didn’t waste time when he left the tomb with Elizabeth. Without Lampley or Moreau to enforce the rules, the guards were a little more flexible. Moreau’s personal guards still protected his tent, but the Riedells had access to the other structures for shade.
Nathan kept watch while Elizabeth discreetly searched Lampley’s tent, acquiring a small flintlock pistol and some shot that were secured in a chest. He also chatted up the workers. While the guards had been paid just that morning, the workers doing the heavy lifting and transporting of objects had not been paid in three weeks. It was not the longest they had gone without pay, but it was becoming the trend, and there were enough people ready to abandon the project. Most stayed in the small oasis, but a surprising number left in the evenings to homes elsewhere. He could count on their support should a safe opportunity arise, but none wanted to incite danger, nor did they have weapons, other than the tools provided to them.
They did help him with one key strategy.
He was able to get enough clothing from locals to dress one of the crew—Longstrom—like them. Nathan then sent him to join the workers wrapping and transporting objects from different areas of the catacombs. Once Longstrom mixed in, the guards did not notice. When the local workers left that night, he would go with them, then return to Alexandria to find Riad and assistance.
Nathan needed to get Elizabeth out of there and back to the ship. He didn’t trust Lampley, and he certainly didn’t trust Moreau. For now he could only pace, praying the others down in the tomb were safe and would join them again soon.
Olivia felt nothing short of guilt and sorrow as she held the lamp behind the duchess. The woman laid her forehead against the stone door parting her from the duke, her palm pressed flat against the cold divider, pained by the separation. Olivia waited in silence until Samuel’s sister slowly breathed in and faced her.
She expected a display of emotion, but the duchess appeared utterly composed, focused, and all business. She even smiled encouragingly, reaching for the spear she’d used earlier. “With the door closed, at least the scent is not so bad. And there are no poisonous darts or piercing spears. This should be easy.” She studied the opening above. “Right, Professor?”
“Yes, yes! Most definitely. I think this is the next one.” Olivia climbed the first stone and pressed a star cone into the wall. Another block came out on top of the one she stood on and forced her off, back to the ground. Olivia jumped, her lamplight flickering precariously.
There was a light sound of something dropping, and they both turned. The duchess shook it off and pressed another key. “Not that one, this one.” A stone came out on the very bottom next to the two others, so that now they had two steps created.
Thump.
Again, the women spun toward the sound.
“What was that?” the duchess asked.
Olivia huddled next to her, holding out the lamp, hoping to expose the source. As she did, something dark fell in front of them. Too close.
Both women jumped back in surprise.
Then it uncurled.
Olivia’s lamp shook violently from her trembling body as she illuminated the venomous vermin. “Snakes,” the duchess whispered.
They took a slow step back.
Another fell in front of them and they jumped back, clinging to each other, as it lifted its swaying body curiously.
“No,” Olivia corrected. “Egyptian asps. One bite will cause swelling, hemorrhage, vomiting, paralysis, and death in approximately fifteen minutes.”
More thumps sounded behind them, and when something hit their heads, sliding against their hair, they didn’t need to guess what is was.
Bloodcurdling screams filled the chamber.
The two women scrambled up the first two steps to get away.
Olivia steadied her lamp to find the next block that would advance them. The duchess began to unbutton her leather coat.
“No, leave it on, Your Grace. It’s your best defense!”
Samuel’s sister laid her coat and spear against the curved wall of the first step. “Not likely, Professor.”
Olivia raised her light over the duchess. Across her chest and around her hips rested an assembly of knives. “What?” That’s why the duchess had insisted on keeping her coat on through the heat. “What is that?”
“A wedding gift from my brother Matthew.” She pulled a knife and nailed an asp to the wall. “I love getting married.”
Olivia stared in shock. Grateful shock. “You’re mad. Thank heavens!”
“I prefer prepared, Professor. Now, you were about to lead us out of here. I’ve only seventeen knives left, and if I’m not mistaken we are directly underneath the snake den.”
“Oh.” Olivia knew her voice sounded weak. She looked for the next option, holding up the lantern and trying to visualize backward. She locked another key into place, and another step took her higher. The duchess was still on the first stair, aiming at the most threatening targets. One asp suddenly slid up from nowhere and peeked over the stone at her feet, its small flat head and snout pointed toward her.
Then it got taller, its scales extending out like a hood.
“That cannot be good.” The duchess inched backward slowly, reaching for her leather coat to protect her legs as she climbed the next step.
“Careful,” Olivia warned.
The hiss was all the warning they got.
The serpent shot forward and attached itself to the bottom of the leather. The duchess swung her coat against the wall, then the stairs, then the wall. “Get off, you bastard!”
“Throw the coat!” Olivia ordered, cringing, chills covering her body as she shuddered with each violent thwack.
The duchess continued to swing the snake and the coat until finally the asp released with the final slam. Its body stuck to the wall, then abruptly fell.
Two more snouts popped up in its place.
“Try this.” Olivia handed her the pouch. “Open and spray.”
“What is it?”
“Spanish chili-pepper juice.”
“Brilliant!” the duchess said. She sprayed the serpents.
They hissed and rose up in fury, their flat snouts ready to spring. Alex scrambled up to the next stone step. “Brilliant, but not on snakes. Hurry. They’re slithering.”
Olivia swallowed her panic. They were slithering. Toward them! The duchess released three knives in succession, wielding them with enough force to send the first few flying backward.
&n
bsp; “Your Grace, the path is going to switch directions. I need you to stand on the same step as me or the next block will knock your head off.”
Alex stood carefully trying not to alert the snakes, stepped up, and squeezed behind Olivia. There was barely enough room for both of them.
“Keep going, Professor.” Samuel’s sister reached for a new knife, climbing backward onto the next step.
They were about to continue upward when the room began to vibrate. Olivia pressed against the curved wall, waiting. The vibration increased until the earth quaked beneath their feet and male roars sounded from the room next door.
“The men!” Her Grace cried out in panic. The tremors stopped. “Dear God.”
Silence.
Olivia tried to comfort the other woman, but her own fist clutched with terror. If something happened to Stafford, she would never forgive herself. They waited long moments, hoping to hear anything besides the hissing of snakes.
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“May I call you Alex? It seems quicker than Your Grace, under the circumstances.”
“I gave you leave before, Professor. If we survive this, you may call me whatever you damn well please.”
“You’re just like your brother,” Olivia said, smiling with quivering lips.
She pressed the next key, and sure enough the block came out where she’d expected. She moved with more confidence, leading them up in a winding circle around the edge of the tower, while asps fell regularly past them into the center of the cylindrical space, occasionally coming close. They made good progress until they were three steps from the doorway—on the wrong side of the room.
The women paused, examining the wall with the flickering light.
“There,” Alex pointed. “Another direction change.”
Olivia looked at it. “It looks different. It’s not star-shaped, but circular. Though I don’t see any more star-shaped ones.”
“There couldn’t possibly be any more snakes,” Alex offered. “What could happen?”
“Very well.” Olivia pushed in the key. The step she was on began to move.
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