“You will no doubt encounter several snares, Roman. The priests of Horus knew how to protect their secrets well. Never let your guard down, even for an instant. Oftentimes, escape from one trap leads directly into another. By my estimation, the map room will be deep in the rear of the shrine, far down that passage.”
“My thanks, priest. Anything else?”
The intense eyes suddenly appeared hesitant before Khay added. “Just this. These shrines are often sought out by thieves, bent on finding treasure. Do not be disturbed if you find the remains of …others…who went before you.”
As Lucius ducked into the doorway, his torch held before him, he wondered why the Khay had bothered to mention that. He truly doubted that the priest was in any way concerned for his peace of mind, let alone for his safety. Perhaps Khay thought the warning might improve Lucius’s chances of succeeding. Lucius let his mind be satisfied with that explanation.
Once Lucius was through the door, the passage took a series of jagged turns. It was remarkable how the outside light was suddenly and completely swallowed up, even to the point where the torch seemed to afford little light. The pitch blackness through which he now groped smelled of putrescence and mildew. As stalwart a warrior as Lucius was, even he was forced to cover his mouth and nose with the skirt of his turban to avoid breathing in the foul air. Holding his gladius ahead of him, he proceeded cautiously, stepping once, and then stopping to look and listen. He repeated this over and over again until he came to a long, straight passage where the darkness finally abated. The passage was lit by glowing beams of sunlight emanating from large square holes in the ceiling, but these were not skylights as he had originally thought. It was dull, indirect light. Whether the outside world was but a single turn of the shaft above, or the light had been piped through a series of mirrored shafts from far away, he could not tell. He guessed the latter, judging from the putrid odor that hung in the air like a heavy blanket, and the fact that the flame in his torch was so starved of air that it was barely the size of a candle now.
The passage before him appeared harmless enough. It led on for fifty paces or more, with shafts of light illuminating the corridor at even intervals. The space between the intervals was pitch black, but judging from the emptiness of the illuminated spaces there appeared to be no dangers here. That fact alone made him sharpen his senses. He withdrew the fabric from his mouth that he might smell any danger, if necessary. Then he began to move slowly, creeping toward the first dark space. He slowed considerably, checking every place he put his feet, forcing his eyes to adjust from the brightness of the beam he had just passed through. But there was nothing there, and he was through to the next shaft of light. Again, he approached the darkness with trepidation. But again, the passage in the dark space was no different than it had been in the light. He breathed easier, and cursed himself for being too cautious. The priest’s words had set an anxiety in him, and he now wished the bastard had said nothing at all. But just as he was about to casually step out of the light and into the next area of darkness, the priest’s words resounded in his head.
Never let your guard down, even for an instant.
Lucius stopped abruptly, catching himself before placing one foot in the dark space. Instead of stepping into the dark section of the passage, he crouched low and advanced cautiously, holding the scant light of the torch in one hand while he prodded the floor ahead with the sword. And then just inside the escarpment of dark shadow, his probing sword suddenly met with no resistance at all. It was stabbing at a black void. He strained his eyes to discover that the floor disappeared just where the edge of the dark shadow started. There was no telling how deep the pit was or how far he would have to jump to clear the chasm. He had to assume the pit encompassed the entire dark section of passage, and if that were the case, there was no way he could make that leap. No less than ten paces separated him from the next shaft of light farther down the passage. At least he could see that the floor there was as intact as the one on which he now stood. But how could he get there?
He tore a small piece of wool from the hem of his robe and coaxed the torch flame onto it. Then he tossed the flaming material into the blackness, fully expecting it to fall out of sight. He was surprised when it came to rest only a few feet down, and he certainly had not expected to see what the flame now revealed. Glimmering, three-foot spikes covered the floor of the pit, each one bearing a point that looked sharp enough to draw blood at the touch. But that was not all. Impaled upon five or six of these deadly spikes were the decaying remains of three men.
After first dismissing the grisly bodies as mere thieves like the ones Khay had warned him about, Lucius realized that there was something odd about these corpses. Looking past them, at the floor of the pit, he could see a scattering of human bones. There were enough to have once comprised one or two human skeletons at the most, as one might expect to find inside a shrine that had lain hidden for a century, only occasionally discovered by an overly curious traveler. The bodies of the three men on the pikes, however, were relatively fresh, appearing to have only been dead for a few weeks at the most. What’s more, they each wore black tunics of similar make, the same kind Lucius had seen worn by many of the religious acolytes in Alexandria.
While studying the bodies, Lucius discovered the way past the pit. A narrow ledge no wider than a hand’s breadth, projected from one wall affording a small foothold that the dexterous could nudge along while clutching the wall for support. Of course, the ancient priests of Horus would have needed a way to get safely past their own trap, and this ledge must have been it. With the agility of a velite, Lucius moved out onto the narrow space, and quickly made it across. He had spent enough time in his career balancing on the rails of a galley about to collide with an enemy vessel, that he had little problem negotiating the path, even with his torch in one hand.
Once past the pit, he approached the next dark section of the corridor with caution, but to his relief, it hid nothing but the solid stones of the passage floor. And he soon discovered this to be the case for the remaining dark areas in the corridor.
At the end of the hall, he came to an open portal. Peering inside, the torchlight revealed what appeared to be a great round room. A small glow of light emanated from an arched doorway on the opposite side. It appeared to be natural light, and it had the effect of luring one to move toward it, as if the outside world lay just beyond. But Lucius was still smarting from his encounter with the spike pit and was now on the lookout for such things. Directing the torch low, near his ankles, he once again could see that he was faced with some kind of open pit, for the room had no floor. Again, he tore off a bit of wool, lit it, and tossed it into the dark hole. As the burning fibers descended he could see that he stood on the precipice of a circular shaft encompassing the entire chamber, nearly twenty paces across. Not only was it much wider than the last, it was much deeper. He watched the tiny flame float down and farther down the shaft until it was nothing more than a flicker and was finally swallowed up by the blackness. Out of curiosity, Lucius grabbed a crumbled piece of brick on the floor and tossed it into the pit. He counted to fourteen before any echo of an impact made its way to his ear. It had sounded like a splash. There was no telling what vast underground lake this tube led to, nor how many unwary thieves had met their ends in this fashion, but one thing was certain – anything that fell into this pit would never again see the light of day.
Lucius was wondering how he might get across it when he discovered that two ropes had already been provided for this. Like the strings of a lyre, the cords had been stretched tightly across the mouth of the chasm. One end of each rope was securely fastened to a great stone brick on Lucius’s side. The massive brick had probably fallen out of the ceiling decades before, and had evidently been chosen as an anchor for the ropes because of its size. It looked as though it weighed as much as a newborn elephant and certainly would not budge. The other ends of the ropes were attached to the opposite side by two grappling hooks that Lucius could only make out if he held the torch just right. He ran his fingers along the ropes and was further surprised. They were not old and frayed from years of decay, but newly stranded. Someone had been here before him, and somewhat recently. Perhaps the three dead men impaled in the passage had companions that had pressed on and made it this far. If so, Lucius could only assume that the map had already been discovered and the bandits were now far away. If they had already discovered the hidden location of the jewel, Lucius’s whole purpose for being here was now nullified.