by Gregg Taylor
“I wasn’t going to say that,” the Red Panda protested. “I was going to remind you that if there is an intelligence, it could be lying. It could even be Pavli or Thatcher trying to throw us off.”
Falconi considered this for a moment. “No,” he said simply, with a shake of his head.
The Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel exchanged a look. “Good enough,” he said.
“If you’ve gotta trust somebody, it may as well be an ancient magic amulet,” she shrugged.
“It’s this way,” Max said with a smile.
Even with the Stranger guiding them, moving quickly and barely slowing down to determine their course, they were still in the maze nearly an hour later, and Kit was beginning to lose her confidence. They heard voices from time to time, and they always seemed to be engaged in a furious argument in a language the Flying Squirrel did not understand, but they never directly crossed paths with anyone. Every length of passageway looked so similar, she forced herself not to consider them at all, which was the only way to convince herself that they were not going over the same ground again and again. That must be exactly what was setting the angry voices they could hear to arguing. Not just the fear that they would never get to their destination, but their increasing concern that they would never be able to find their way out. Kit Baxter found it impossible not to sympathise.
Through it all, they maintained their silence. It was clear that there were a number of small groups scattered throughout the labyrinth, but logic suggested all of them were members of Pavli’s troops, which meant that they were all enemies. If their foes were fighting amongst themselves, so much the better. Quickly and quietly seemed like the best policy.
At last they rounded a corner at top speed and came instantly to a halt. The passage ahead was long and straight, perhaps a hundred yards without a single twist, turn or alternate exit. And from the vast doorway at the end of the passageway there was an unearthly glow that bathed the long, stone hallway in its radiance. The light itself was more than simple illumination, there was something almost living about it. It seemed to pulse, just slightly, and there was something that made it hard to look away. Each member of the trio was elated to be so near to their goal, even if there was still the return journey to be made. If they were the first, and could slip out before the others found this passage…
It was a moment before the Red Panda spotted them, two dark shapes moving cautiously along the passageway ahead of them, clinging to the walls toward the goal. The shapes were nearly halfway down the length of the passage already, and he signalled to Kit who had not yet discerned the shadows for what they were.
They set their torches on the ground carefully and immediately picked up their pace, running as quickly as they could while still being totally silent. They needed to close the distance and do it fast before the pair of henchmen in front of them began to shout their discovery to the rest of their fellows, still lost in the maze. Falconi hurried behind, but he understood the need for silence as well as they did, and he did his part to do nothing to betray the coming attack.
The Red Panda was no more than ten feet from striking distance when a loud cry was heard from behind. They stopped in their tracks, but there was nowhere to hide when the two members of the late El-Nemr’s guard turned around and immediately drew their pistols.
“Rats,” the Red Panda said. There was a small coo from beside him.
“More rough talk,” the Flying Squirrel said, grinning even as she raised her hands, “and we just don’t have the time.”
One of the gunmen shouted something that neither of the heroes understood.
“Do you speak that language?” the Flying Squirrel asked.
“I think he was telling you to behave yourself,” the Red Panda smiled, “but it loses something in the translation.”
The man did a little more shouting and gestured with his pistol for them to raise their hands higher. They obliged.
“Which one do you want?” the Red Panda asked pleasantly.
“I’ll take the fat one,” she smiled. “He could use the exercise. Is Max closing the distance to us like a good boy?”
The man with the pistol said something quite emphatic and the Red Panda thought it best to humor him slightly, so he nodded just a little.
“That is far enough, Falconi,” Pavli’s voice called out from the far end of the passage. “A shame for you to come so close, only to lose the race here.” Other voices could be heard now, closing the distance, honing in on their master’s voice.
The second man guarding the masked heroes, the one Kit had declared to be the “fat one” now called out to his master, speaking rapidly and excitedly. He and his partner had been the first in the passageway and no doubt he was keen to keep the credit for the discovery. He called out again and began walking toward the ambient glow from the end of the hall. He took only three or four more steps but in so doing, the Red Panda noted, he had reached the precise middle of the passageway, just as great a distance to continue on as to turn back. It would have been the perfect place to put a –
The Red Panda’s train of thought was cut off by a cry of alarm from a member of Pavli’s group. It had been a simple thing, just the sound of stone grinding against stone, and if they had not all spent hours in an underground madhouse that tried to destroy them at every turn, they might not have noticed it for another moment. But the truth could not be avoided. Along the entire length of the passageway, the walls were closing in!
Twenty-Five
There is nothing quite like impending doom to make people lose their focus, and the gunmen were no exception. The walls were moving at an impressive speed, and the fat one did not wait for instructions. He did the math and immediately bolted in the direction that had no obstacles, shrieking like a monkey. His partner was distracted enough that the Red Panda reached out and took the pistol right out of his hands.
“Run,” the Red Panda said simply, and without his weapon, the man saw no reason to argue the point. He ran after the fat one at top speed.
“Aw,” the Squirrel pouted, “you didn’t hit him or nothin’.”
“I’d rather not be responsible for him being squashed flat,” the Red Panda said, casting the weapon aside.
“That does seem like a certainty at any rate, old boy,” the Stranger said, wondering if they had any plans for getting out of this one themselves.
“What is Pavli doing?” the Red Panda asked.
“Bolting back the way he came, like a good boy,” Kit reported.
“All right, up we go,” he said. “Sorry about this, Max.” At this he slung the older man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and leapt up the wall. The walls were smooth and graded to make the climb impossible, but the ancient Egyptians hadn’t reckoned on Static Shoes. Even carrying the weight of another man, the Red Panda was on top of the rapidly moving walls in seconds.
“That was a little anti-climactic,” the Flying Squirrel grinned. “It’s never that easy in the pictures.”
“I think our friends with the guns don’t find it anti-climactic,” the Red Panda offered. “Perhaps you’d like to try it again without the Static Shoes?”
“Nah,” she said, “I’m too pretty to be a pancake.”
From this vantage, with his nightvision lenses on, the Red Panda could see just how vast a complex of twisting and turning passages they had just passed through. And there were points of light that shone like beacons closing in from all directions, making their way to the mouth of the rapidly closing tunnel that led to their goal. He looked down at the wall upon which they were standing. It wasn’t the most stable footing in the world, but the stone was at least three feet wide, and they should be able to move across it. The light from the chamber beyond revealed that the entrance was much taller than the wall they were standing on, and even if it slammed shut, they should still be able to get where they were going. The express route.
“Max,” he said, “is there enough light for you to see if we try and mak
e time?”
The Stranger nodded. “I’ll be all right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They set off at an awkward run over the top of the walls, which were now nearly completely closed. Ahead of them a short distance they could hear the terrified screams of the two gunmen, and it was clear that their foes were not going to make it. The heroes ran on grimly, not speaking until the cries stopped abruptly a few minutes later.
“The question is,” the Flying Squirrel said as she ran, “how long will this path stay closed? The water trap re-set pretty fast.”
“It did,” the Red Panda agreed. “They’ll still have to figure out how to get past it.”
“That may not take them as long as you think,” the Stranger offered.
“We’ll be all right,” the Red Panda said, though if he was basing that on something, he didn’t choose to say so.
They reached the open space at the end of the wall and stopped in astonishment for an instant in spite of themselves. The chamber was enormous, with vast ceilings held aloft by colossal statues depicting ancient gods, all turned toward the central point in the room. It was hard to see detail in the strange, pulsing light, but they had clearly arrived.
They leapt down to the floor and instantly torches around the room sprang to life, washing the centre of the room in a pleasant glow after the hours of semi-darkness endured to get to this point. The periphery of the room was still bathed in shadow, but within the central sphere of the room it felt as bright as day.
“Okay, that was weird,” the Flying Squirrel said.
“That was the most normal thing that’s happened to us all day,” the Red Panda said.
“That’s what’s weird about it,” she said.
“This way,” the Stranger said.
They moved to the left, around one of the enormous statues that acted as pillars to the roof above, and then they could clearly see the focal point of the room. There was a tremendous dais with stairs on all sides, which rose out of the floor like a step-pyramid. Astride the top of the platform, receiving the admiration of all the gods that surrounded him throughout the chamber, was an enormous statue of Anubis, jackal-headed god of the dead and life beyond death. He was majestic, and if his stock had dropped later in Egyptian history, it was clear what dizzying heights they had fallen from because here he stood in all of his glory, the reason for all of this.
Except not quite. Anubis’ right arm was raised high above him, and from the palm of his outstretched hand there came the unearthly glow they had seen from afar, obscured somewhat now by the many torches that burned brightly at the centre of the room, but still pulsing like a living thing.
“The Eye of Anubis,” the Stranger said in wonder.
“Yes, my friend,” Pavli’s voice rang out from the shadows. “It is a wondrous sight, is it not?”
The heroes turned quickly, but found themselves faced by the guns of a dozen or so surviving guards. Pavli was smiling broadly as if he were the host of a party, and Thatcher stood beside him seething with anger. They were all standing close together, as if someone were taking their picture.
“Hmm,” the Red Panda said, “that was fast.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Pavli smiled as his men spread out, pistols and rifles extended cautiously but confidently. “Maxwell Falconi is not the only one with tricks up his sleeves.”
Thatcher shoved Pavli back and stepped forward in a rage. It wasn’t hard to see why he should be, he looked terrible. His eyes and face were swollen and his front teeth were shattered. His nose had stopped bleeding at last, but it was badly broken and he really ought to have it seen to. He was an ugly mess. The Flying Squirrel tried not to smile. There were ways to hit a man when you just wanted to stop him, and ways to hit him when you wanted to hurt him. Even then there were nuances. Did you want him in more pain than he could stand right this second, or did you want him to feel it for a week and remember what he had been told? All degrees. But there were also ways to lay a beating on someone to make it very, very clear to anyone that looked at him that he had been beaten, and badly, and wonder if it had been done by you. They used such techniques sparingly, but it never hurt to have the lower levels of the criminal underclass so terrified of you that they couldn’t function properly if there was a chance you were around, and this was one way to make that happen. The Flying Squirrel hadn’t been doing a lot of thinking when she had beaten Thatcher senseless, but she knew that a sadist like him would find this humiliating, and that pleased her greatly.
“Release me from these bands!” Thatcher shrieked at Falconi.
Max shook his head. “I cannot,” he said simply.
“Release me from these bands, that I may heal myself and deal with this wretched girl!” he demanded again.
The Stranger raised an eyebrow. “Was that meant to persuade me?” he asked, amused. “Because I still cannot break the enchantment of those bonds.”
“You escaped from them,” Thatcher fumed. “Tell me how.”
“Your partner, Mister Pavli, may be the only one who can remove those bonds and restore your power, Thatcher,” the Stranger said.
“Pavli has tried,” Thatcher spat. “He cannot open them.”
“Are you certain that he has tried all that hard?” the Stranger asked, smiling.
“Max, be reasonable,” Pavli said calmly. “You’re going to die anyway, there is no reason for it to be unpleasant.”
“In that case, I should certainly not remove the bands and give this monster back his power,” Falconi said. Thatcher hissed and clenched his fists in rage, but said nothing.
“In any event,” the Stranger said, “I did not escape from the bands. They freed me.” He gestured toward the masked heroes in his company.
“Impossible!” snorted Pavli.
“And yet the only possible explanation,” the Stranger said with a smile, “since you know that I could not have summoned an enchantment while bound by them, as Thatcher can testify. I don’t even fully understand what it was they did, or why it worked. So I suppose you’ll have to leave my friends alive.”
“An interesting conclusion,” Pavli said, pulling a pistol from under his jacket, “but it seems to me that I only need one of them.”
He pointed the pistol at the Flying Squirrel and drew the hammer back, but looked toward the Red Panda.
“Bring me the Eye of Anubis,” Pavli said, “or I will certainly kill the girl.”
Twenty-Six
The Red Panda was not exactly moving like he was in a tremendous hurry, and he hoped that his companions would take that as a hint. The Flying Squirrel was clearly disgusted by this turn of events, as it was just this side of being captured and then rescued which she was never one to stand for, but when Pavli had delivered his ultimatum, the Red Panda had not hesitated. He had simply walked to the base of the statue of Anubis, looking for all the world like a man deeply uncertain of how to climb a very tall statue of an ancient God.
If she were paying attention, the Flying Squirrel ought to be able to sense what his reasoning was. Yes, the odds of surviving a hail of gunfire at point-blank range like this was dubious at best but they had been in worse spots. Still, it was important to pick one’s battles. Thatcher’s magic was supressed by the limiter bands, but Pavli was still a wildcard with which they were ill-equipped to deal, and they were low on some of their equipment to be sure. But when it came right down with it, there were two very good reasons to obey Pavli’s order and climb up to retrieve the Eye. First of all, even if he had done the exact opposite and started a direct confrontation with their enemies, as soon as it was over, assuming they lived, he would just have to climb up and get the thing anyway. Which made the exercise of refusing seem less than entirely profitable. He was certain that Max would have arrived at the same conclusion, but he wasn’t quite as certain about the Squirrel.
The main reason for his gesture of surrender was that it would distract the guards’ attention, and give Kit a chance to make a play. He hoped that
she would err on the side of subtlety, but it wasn’t a tactic for which his partner was renown. Still, some of that was bluster, he knew that. She was ten inches smaller than he was, and female. Her combat work was excellent but she didn’t immediately come across as the intimidating half of the equation. It was only natural for her to cultivate a reputation as the dangerous one, the unpredictable one, maybe even the one that was a little bit crazier. It was a routine that she played to her advantage. It also wasn’t entirely a routine, and he knew that for a fact.
He reached the top of the steps without incident and looked up at the statue. He had decided on his play, and if this didn’t give her the idea that he was up to something, nothing would. He kept his Grapple Gun inside his coat and kept his Static Shoes off. He reached for a finger hold on Anubis’ lower leg and hauled himself up, his feet slipping slightly beneath him as he did so. He was an athletic young crime fighter at the top of his game… he could climb this statue without help, couldn’t he?
Three minutes later, he nearly answered his own question by tumbling down to the stone floor below. This was the dangerous part. He was high enough already to injure himself badly if he fell, and not yet high enough to give himself the necessary reaction time to activate any of his equipment before hitting the ground. There wasn’t anything for it but to go even higher, and within a few minutes of work, he was at the great god’s waist. This was harder work than he had thought, but the fact that he had not yet heard pained cries in Arabic mixed with liberal amounts of gunfire suggested that the Squirrel was on board for his plan. Whatever it might be. Which was rather, he reflected, where all of this fell down, but he was fairly certain that he would think of something.
He elected to take a route that would bring him up the statue’s back toward the shoulder, and did so for two good reasons. First of all, he would momentarily be out of sight, which would allow him to cheat and save some energy on the slippery surface of the god’s torso. Secondly, if he was right, every single one of his enemies on the floor would shift their ground to keep him in sight. With their focus on him, and that much incidental movement going on, he would be astonished if the Flying Squirrel were anywhere to be seen when he emerged.
