She nodded, grim. ‘I know.’
‘Chase!’ the warlord shouted, directing his light through the bars. ‘Dr Wilde! How did you get out?’
‘Long story,’ Nina said. ‘But everyone can come through now. I think that once someone proves willing to sacrifice themself for someone else, the trap stops.’
Mukobo pulled at the bars, turning the cage. ‘And the treasure?’
‘At the end of the next tunnel, I guess.’
‘Good. At last!’ He entered the antechamber, keeping his gun on the couple. ‘Where is that boy with the camera? I want him to film me as I find it!’ Howie was pushed to the front of the group as Mukobo rotated the cage again and emerged from the enclosure. ‘So, Dr Wilde, we have overcome the tests of King Solomon. And now, it is time to claim my reward!’
Eddie and Nina exchanged looks of despair, then started down the steps, the gloating warlord behind them.
19
The final tunnel was not long. ‘Do you feel that?’ said Ziff. ‘There is a breeze.’
‘Yeah,’ Nina replied. ‘But we must be almost in the heart of the palace, so I don’t know where it’s coming from.’
‘We’ll find out in a second,’ said Eddie as they reached an elaborately carved archway. ‘Doc, there’s some more text. What does it say?’
Mukobo halted impatiently as Ziff read the inscriptions. ‘Another message from Solomon,’ he reported. ‘No, actually… a welcome. “In reaching here, you have proven you possess the wisdom of Solomon. The Imashamir awaits you. Those who wish to use it, do so with the same wisdom.”’
‘Wisdom, wisdom,’ scoffed Mukobo. ‘A true leader knows that power is worth more than wisdom! And whatever Solomon hid here, I will now have its power!’ He snapped his fingers at Howie, ordering the young man to film him, then marched through the entrance.
The others followed, torch beams sweeping outwards to probe the huge new chamber — and finding more than they had imagined. ‘All right,’ said Eddie, trying to hide his amazement. ‘Wasn’t expecting this.’
High above was the underside of the palace’s vaulted roof, the dull expanse of lead camouflaged by a sweeping decorative filigree in gold leaf. The walls bore ornate pillars that Nina imagined were designed to evoke the original architecture of Zhakana before its fall.
But it was not what lay above that drew everyone’s attention.
The pathway continued downwards — into a gaping chasm. Steeply sloping bridges criss-crossed the abyss, linked by equally precipitous stairways carved into the cliff faces on each side. Nina went to the edge and peered down. Structures were dimly visible on terraces far below. Whatever lay at the bottom was beyond the range of her flashlight, however.
There was something else too: not seen, but heard. Or felt. An unsettling vibration, just below the limit of hearing, but undeniably there…
She turned to Lydia. ‘Do you hear that? Is it the same noise you picked up outside?’
The chance to focus upon something technical drew the other woman out of her shell-shocked lethargy. She donned her headphones, adjusting her equipment’s controls. ‘Yeah, I hear it,’ she said. ‘It’s definitely the same sound — but it’s much louder here.’ She aimed her microphone into the chasm. ‘It’s coming from down there.’
‘Then that is where we will go.’ Mukobo went to the first bridge, then had second thoughts as he saw that not only was it very steep, but also lacked any kind of safety barriers. The only thing between a person traversing it and a very long fall was an ankle-high parapet with a deep groove carved into it. ‘Dr Wilde!’ he said. ‘You are the archaeologist — go first and tell me what you see.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ she said, but the odd architectural feature had already caught her attention. There was a large stone bowl at its top, a small hole in the base feeding into the channel. Stacked near it were several pottery casks, narrow necks sealed with dark wax or tallow. She went to investigate them.
‘Ah, Dr Wilde? The bridge is that way,’ said Brice, pointing.
‘You said you wanted me to tell you what I see,’ she told the frowning Mukobo. ‘And I want to see if this is another trap.’ She examined the casks. One was cracked, stained where its contents had drained out. She cautiously probed inside, finding a sludgy residue. ‘It’s oil.’
‘What is it for?’ asked Fortune.
‘I think it’s how they illuminated this place. They poured oil into this big bowl here and let it drain down the gutters, then set it alight.’
‘Ingenious,’ said Brice, not sounding remotely impressed. ‘Fortunately, lighting technology has advanced since Solomon’s day.’
Mukobo shone an example at the bridge. ‘You are wasting time. Now go.’
Nina reluctantly started over the crossing. With no guardrails, she quickly felt a dizzying sense of vertigo. She fixed her gaze upon its far end, taking the descent step by step. As she neared the chasm’s other side, she realised it was not a natural feature — at least, not in its present form. There were patches of raw rock, but most of it seemed to have been carved out of the ground. By the natives of Zhakana, or those who came after them?
She stepped on to the ledge at the bridge’s foot with great relief. ‘It’s safe.’
Mukobo led the others after her. She moved down the steps cut into the cliff to make room, looking back up at the bridge. It was an elegant arch, the stone blocks supporting their own weight just like the roof high above. Each piece had the same precision-cut appearance as those in the Palace Without Entrance and the First Temple — a level of accuracy far beyond what archaeologists had previously thought the people of that era capable of. The chasm had been excavated in the same way. Maybe there was something to the legend of the Shamir being able to split stone…
The rest of the group arrived. ‘That noise is louder down here,’ Lydia reported.
‘I can tell,’ said Eddie. ‘Still can’t really hear it, but it’s putting my teeth on edge. Like when some arsehole in the downstairs apartment’s got their bass turned right up.’
‘But he didn’t do it again after you spoke to him, did he?’ Nina said with a half-smile. ‘Well, I say “spoke”, but I could hear you from our apartment!’
Brice peered into the rift, his expression thoughtful. ‘Feels almost like an LRAD.’
‘A what?’
‘A sonic weapon — Long Range Acoustic Device. Ships use them to ward off pirates, but police and military use them as well for crowd control. They’re non-lethal, but nobody stays around when one’s pointed at them.’
Eddie nodded. ‘I’ve heard ’em. The high-frequency ones give you a banging headache. The low-frequency ones… well, if you’ve got constipation, they’ll shake you loose.’
The last Insekt Posse stragglers finally crossed the bridge. At Mukobo’s urging, Nina again led the way downwards to another arched crossing. She shone her flashlight back into the abyss. There was water below, a shimmering dark pool occupying part of the chasm’s foot. More structures were now also discernible, the largest overlooking the body of water and what appeared to be mine workings above its edge.
Another careful traversal of the next bridge was followed by a stretch of winding pathway, then a third crossing. They were now over a hundred feet below ground level, deep inside the rocky promontory on which the Palace Without Entrance stood. Despite that, the air felt fresh. There was ventilation even down here.