It was strange, not being able to see the men’s faces, to get a sense of what they were feeling. Just dark forms bathed in infrared light. Almost inhuman.
Three of them stuck out thick arms to form a shoulder-high platform. Turcotte clambered up onto the arms. He was able to reach up with both arms and spread them, jamming them between the sides of the shaft.
Using the added power from the suit, he lifted himself into the circular opening. Once inside he braced his legs against one side, his back against the other. Shifting to an up view, he could see that the shaft was not exactly vertical, just as Burton described. Turcotte felt a surge of excitement. He felt they were on the right path.
He began going up by scooting his legs up, then sliding the back of the suit along the stone.
“Down view,” Turcotte said. He could see a suited figure — Graves — right behind. “Up view.” The shaft extended as far as the IR lights could penetrate.
Duncan felt a tremble in her knees and she forced herself to stay upright, her face calm. The urim was in her right hand, the stone giving off an unnatural warmth.
“Why did you give this to me?”
“It is time for us to move on. We cannot stay here forever. Things are happening in the outside world.”
“What do you want in exchange?”
“All I want is for you to pull back the curtain and let me see the Ark and the Grail,” Aspasia’s Shadow said.
Duncan knew there was more to it than that, but she couldn’t figure out what Aspasia’s Shadow was trying to do. It was difficult to think clearly with the urim in her hand, the Grail next to her. Pulling the veil back changed nothing given the weight of the stone in her hand. She reached up and slid the white material aside.
The shaft ended abruptly in stone. Turcotte edged as close as possible, then stopped. “Magnify twofold,” Turcotte ordered. “Suit power lock.” The suit’s muscle magnifiers locked in place, both saving power and keeping him in his place in the shaft.
He scanned the rock, looking for a place to insert the ring. “Magnify threefold,” Turcotte ordered.
It was as if he were searching the surface from just inches away. The slightest of depressions in the smooth surface caught his attention. “Magnification off,” Turcotte ordered. He reached up with his right arm, maneuvering the middle finger, tip bent, ring forward to the depression. It fit perfectly. The stone dropped six inches, then slid aside. Turcotte reached over the edge and climbed into the chamber to be confronted by the mummified body of a man, arm trapped under a stone set in the wall. It confirmed that they were in the right place.
“Who the hell is that?” Captain Graves was the next up through the floor. “Kaji,” Turcotte knelt next to the body. “One of the Kajis,” he amended, thinking of Von Seeckt’s story.
Brown skin was stretched tight over the skull, the eyes covered with a milky surface. Turcotte wondered why one of the succeeding Kajis hadn’t come down here and recovered the body. Perhaps this Kaji’s son had not been guided this deeply into the Roads of Rostau, Turcotte thought. Burton also had Kaji’s ring.
Turcotte recalled from Burton’s tale that he had claimed to have scoured all the walls for a way out and found no place where the ring would work. They had prepared for that in isolation.
“Demo man forward,” Turcotte ordered. “Everyone else, back in the shaft.” Metayer, the senior engineer on 055, went to the block that had pinned Kaji’s arm. Turcotte helped him remove his waterproof pack and lay it on the floor. Unzipping it, Metayer pulled out a long strip of explosive which he pressed along the stone’s seam. He ran out detonating cord with a fuse igniter.
“What about the body?” Metayer asked.
“He’s already dead,” Turcotte said. “I don’t think he’ll complain.”
“Which side does it go in?” Duncan asked. She had the Grail in front of her, between her knees as she sat on the floor. She felt like a child with a new toy on Christmas morning, sitting on the floor, cloaked in the over-sized robes of the ancient priests. The pull of the Grail was irresistible to her. “I do not know,” Aspasia’s Shadow said.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“As far as I know, the stones have never been in the Grail,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “I certainly have never seen it used.”
Duncan wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. “Do you know what it does?”
“The urim does one thing, the thummin another.”
“That’s not much help.”
“I am not here to help you,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “I gave you the urim so we can end this impasse.”
Duncan placed the palm of her hand on top of one end and waited. The end irised open. Reverently she took the urim and placed it in the depression, feeling the tingle as before.
She stared down at it. Nothing.
A part of her felt relieved.
Metayer held up the ignitor. “I’m all set.”
Turcotte slipped over the edge of the shaft and went down, leaving enough room for Metayer to be above him. The demo man followed.
“Fire in the hole,” Metayer announced.
“Audio down three quarters,” Turcotte ordered the computer. When the blast came, it was muted.
“Audio normal power.” Turcotte climbed up behind Metayer. The chamber was full of airborne dust swirling about.
The stone had been knocked out of position and a tunnel beckoned beyond.
Duncan looked up. Aspasia’s Shadow stood on the other side of the chamber watching her like a hawk — no, more as a vulture would, she realized. A soldier ran up the tunnel, halted next to Aspasia’s Shadow, and whispered something in his ear. Aspasia’s Shadow hissed something in return, never once looking away from Duncan and the Grail. The soldier ran back down the tunnel.
Aspasia’s Shadow reached inside his cloak and removed a small black sphere. It disappeared inside his large hands, the fingers moving around the surface of it. She briefly wondered what it was, but the lure of the Grail was too strong for her to spend much time on that.
Duncan reached in and removed the stone. The opening closed. She turned the Grail over and placed her hand on the other end. It opened. She lowered the stone in and knew she had it right this time as soon as the urim got close. The stone grew hotter, the green light inside blazed brightly, illuminating her and the entire chamber with an unearthly glow.
A shock raced up her arm as she placed the stone in its place. The opening irised tight against her wrist. She tried to remove her hand but couldn’t. Her fingers would not let go of the stone, held by an invisible force. Pain radiated through the flesh that touched the stone, lancing into her bones and causing her to cry out. It was as if her hand were on fire. She could feel the flesh peeling back, charred and burned. She had never felt such intense agony.
In her concern for the pain the Grail was causing, she failed to notice that the light had gone out in the ruby eyes of the sphinx head guards.
CHAPTER 16
Turcotte felt a momentary sense of panic as he entered the tunnel. Was it right or left now? He forced himself to concentrate on the mission. Burton had said the hidden door was on the right, which meant he had to turn left. He shifted in that direction. Seventy paces, which meant about sixty meters. Turcotte had checked his pace count in the suit while in the hangar during isolation. He moved quickly, the team following, each man keeping his own pace count. The last man in line dropped a chem light next to the door, marking the location as it slid shut.