“‘Choose thy faithful servant to release correct bridge,’” I repeated.
“But which one?” Hi said.
“Five of the handles are crossed!” Shelton exclaimed.
“Good!” I said. “‘Thy faithful servant’ must be another Christian reference.”
I stared at the five candidates, willing the correct choice to announce itself.
None did.
“Check the proportions,” Hi said. “The horizontal bar on this lever is too low for a traditional cross.”
I froze. Why did that seem important?
“Same with those two!” Shelton squeaked. “And that one’s too high!”
“This one!”
My mind spun. What? What?
Hi pointed to a central handle. Even in the dim light of our lantern, it was clear that better care had gone into its carving. The lever formed a perfect cross in exact, eye-pleasing proportions.
Still I hesitated. Something in my lower centers was clamoring for attention.
“Tory!” Hi exclaimed, “It must be the center one!”
“Footsteps!” Ben hissed.
“Pull it!” Shelton urged.
I locked up. Something was terribly wrong.
“I’ll get it!” Shelton reached for the knob.
What? What?
Shelton’s fingers curled around the handle.
“NO!”
My hand shot forward and slapped Shelton’s away. He jerked backward, startled by my sudden move.
“Bonny called it ‘thy faithful servant!’” I rushed. “‘Thy!’ Hers! We need to look for Anne Bonny’s cross!”
“The symbol from the map!” Hi was with me.
I grabbed the treasure map, held it before the levers.
At first, nothing was obvious.
Then I saw.
The rightmost lever had a high crosspiece, making it tall and skinny, just like the curious little illustrations. I shoved my nose close. Details zoomed in with laserlike clarity.
There. The upper tine curved ever so slightly to the right. Nearly imperceptible, unless one was looking for it.
Bonny’s bent cross. Her calling card. Thy faithful servant.
I pointed.
“Together?”
Hi and Shelton nodded excitedly, then reached for the dusty stone handle.
I called a heads up to Ben. “One! Two! Three!”
The cross arced down slowly, groaning after centuries of disuse. Finally, it could descend no further.
Fearfully, we pressed our backs to the cavern wall.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Ropes snapped. Pullies creaked. Iron chains screeched as they released their centuries-old payload.
Overhead, the massive stone slab began to descend.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The rock suddenly halted. A rumbling sounded behind the wall at our backs.
I tensed. Something was wrong.
Crack! Boom!
The slab above us shivered, then dropped in an avalanche of dirt, pebbles, and mouth-coating grit. It struck with the power of a train crash.
The noise thundered in my canine ears. I covered them, yelping in agony.
SNUP.
For seconds, all was chaos. I couldn’t see or think. Choking and gasping, I tried to breathe through my shirt.
After what seemed an eternity, the dust storm settled.
I surveyed the scene.
“Oh no.” Ben pointed across the abyss, his eyes their normal black-brown.
Upon impact, the stone slab had shifted sideways, leaving only one corner on the opposite ledge. It teetered, threatening to slip into the chasm at any moment.
“We have to go now!” I jammed our lantern and the map into my pack. “Before it falls!”
“I can’t cross that!” Shelton was almost crying. “I lost my flare!”
“You have to!” I hand-cupped his cheeks. “Remember, you’re a Viral. You can do anything.”
Screwing his face into a determined mask, Shelton spun and shot over the bridge, never slowing until he slammed into the opposite wall.
“Ooof!”
Hiram and I inhaled sharply. Shelton crumpled, but gave a woozy thumbs-up.
“Unreal!” Hi croaked. “Here goes nothing!”
Hi stormed forward, wailing the entire way. Then he collapsed next to Shelton. The two exchanged a shaky fist bump.
“Go!” I said to Ben.
“You next. I’m heaviest.”
I squeezed Ben’s arm, then fired across.
The platform wobbled wildly as I dismounted. A low grinding filled the cavern.
“Now Ben!” I screamed. “Hurry!”
As Ben raced for the bridge, a shadow appeared in the opening behind him. I barely noticed. My eyes were locked onto Ben, who seemed to move in slow motion.
The grinding amplified.
Crrrreeeeeeeaaaaaaaaak!
Ben pounded across. With each step, the bridge wobbled more. Then the end slipped from the ledge and the slab plunged downward.
“BEN!”
I watched in horror as the bridge dropped from beneath his feet.
Ben threw himself forward, arms out-thrust.
Time froze. My heart stopped.
Ben’s forearms caught the cliff’s edge. His fingers clawed for purchase. Then his body slammed the rock face, causing his grip to falter.
Six hands shot out and seized Ben’s arms, hair, shirt, and neck. As one, we pulled him to safety.
“Thanks,” he wheezed. “I was a little short.”
“Anytime.” Shelton. Doubled over.
“I still owe you one,” Hi panted. “And that’s just tonight.”
Crack! Crack!
Bullets smashed the rocks above our heads.
“Move!” I shouted.
We charged into yet another black passage.
WE TUMBLED DOWN a ramp and landed in a tangle of arms and legs.
Everyone lay still, too overwhelmed to move. My thoughts were firing in short jagged clips.
We’re alive. Unharmed. The shooter can’t follow.
Slowly, my panting subsided and my pulse decelerated. Disengaging myself from the others, I rose and looked around.
The current chamber was circular, the size of a classroom. A waterfall poured from a hole in the roof to a pool in the center of the floor. I guessed the pool’s diameter and depth at about ten feet each. The water swirled, eventually draining through a chute at the bottom.
The effect was beautiful, like a graceful garden fountain. The rest of the room was empty.
“This must be ‘the dark chamber’s sluice,’” I said. “We made it!”
My gaze scoured the walls, snagged on a platform jutting from the rock. Roughly a yard square, the platform held nothing. Deep gouges marred its otherwise smooth stone surface.
My shoulders slumped in dismay.
Something heavy had once rested there.
Like a chest.
No.
“What’s that gibberish?” Shelton pointed to black letters chiseled into the wall directly above the platform.
“Another riddle?” I said. “But that’s definitely not English.”
The characters were recognizable, but I couldn’t place the language. Beside the lettering was the now-familiar symbol. Bonny’s signature bent cross.
My heart sank into my socks.
She took it. The treasure isn’t here.
“No!” Hi slapped his forehead. “Tell me this isn’t where the treasure’s supposed to be. Please.”
I couldn’t meet his eye.
“It’s gone?” Shelton wailed. “How? Nobody’s been in here before us! Those tunnels would’ve been front-page news. And the skybridge! That never came down until tonight!”
I shook my head. I couldn’t agree more.