The Labyrinth Key

by Christopher Cartwright

  “Pipe down. I’m not done,” Tom raked his hands through his hair and glared. Tom hated when his plans went awry. “Anyways, we now have two options: either find another way in like a secret passage, or attempt to blend in with the pack and find a way to split off.”

  Sam knew the first option was impossible. “We’re already looking for a hidden door inside the pyramid. There’s no way we’re finding one on the outside of it along with that.”

  Ethan shoved his hands in his pockets. “I guess that leaves the second option. Question: how the hell are we going to get in if this thing has been booked for months?” He looked the crowd over.

  Surprisingly, Ethan grinned. “Give me five minutes.”

  He strode off into the line and returned dragging a skinny Iraqi kid by the arm. The kid was grinning ear to ear. Ethan introduced him as Ali. “Ali’s willing to give up his place in line; he and a friend run a business on the side.”

  Sam shook his head in admiration. “Scalpers? Man you are good.”

  Ethan shrugged modestly. “Spot scammers a mile away. All part of the job.” He turned to the skinny kid. “Okay, Ali. Name your price.”

  The kid sized up their American features, their carefully hidden desperation. “390 pounds,” he said and Tom sputtered.

  “That’s three times the price! 260 and you’ve got a deal.”

  Ali’s teeth flashed white. “That was 130 pounds each, man.”

  They gaped at him as the line started to move. Soon they’d be out of luck. Ethan turned to the skinny kid and revealed the M16 at his side. It was a beast of a weapon and meant business. “How about now?” he said.

  Ali shrugged. “130 each.”

  Sam shook his head. “Pay him,” he said. “We don’t have time.” He dug in his wallet and counted out bills. He counted again. “I’ve got three hundred, three… forty,” he said, squinting to count in the dim light. “All I got. Tom, spot me fifty quid. I’ll pay you back.”

  Tom slapped his pockets and came up with nothing but the guidebook. HIs face fell. “Motherfuckers,” he breathed. “Gone.”

  Sam pushed down his rage, turning to Ethan. “Etha….” But he already knew Ethan was out of cash. His wallet had been stolen already. Shit.

  He turned to Ali with a charming smile. “Get you three forty, Mr. Jobs. Best we got.”

  But Ali shook his head. “Sorry. Couple of japs waiting up there, ready to pay full price. Give you two.”

  Sam shook his head. “We need three, one for each of us.” He cracked his knuckles, fighting the urge to pound Ali in the knees.

  Beside him Ethan was digging in his pants pockets and Sam thought he was checking for smokes, and thought about asking for one when Ethan said, “Here! I found some!”

  Sam turned. Sure enough, the SEAL held a wad of Egyptian bills in his hand. “I found them in one of my cargo pants. Maybe it was a nice little surprise for my future self.”

  Sam laughed. “Or you just didn’t want to pay for the room.”

  Ethan grinned, took the bills from Sam, and handed them to Ali, saying something in Arabic that made the boy grin. Ali flicked him three tickets and raced off into the night. The bills had already disappeared.

  “Christ.” Tom surveyed the group, mind working. “Okay, entry accomplished. Second question: are we inconspicuous enough to enter without attracting attention?”

  Sam surveyed the group and felt his heart sink. Tom wore a tank top and camo tactical pants, which would have been relatively ordinary if his backpack wasn’t a full military-style pack. Meanwhile, Ethan sported an unusually large hip of his jeans, under his black shirt that read “US NAVY” in conspicuous yellow lettering.

  “We’re going to need a wardrobe change,” Tom noted. Sam inspected the admissions kiosk with his eyes for anything of help. To the right sat a dejected, sand-dusted plastic box filled to its brim with clothes.

  “Bingo,” Sam said. In no time all three looked like ordinary citizens, save for Tom’s huge stature. His T-shirt was at least a size too small for him and made Tom look like a bodybuilder, but at least he wouldn’t get noticed as anything out of the ordinary. For now, at least. Sam grinned and took a photo with his phone.

  Tom batted away the flash, “The hell you doing, Reilly?”

  Sam pocketed his phone. “Evidence for Genevieve of just how handsome you can be.”

  Ethan laughed and Sam wondered if he was thinking of Mia.

  They pushed themselves to the middle of the line to blend in among the crowd. Tom turned to Sam and Ethan with instructions. “Okay. From what I remember, the tour guide will probably give us maps, so we can explore the places that aren’t listed in it. They wouldn’t put details about the private areas in it.”

  Ethan shook his head. “How the hell do you know all this?”

  Tom glared at him. “I do my research. Just because we were coming at night doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared for all contingencies.”

  As he said this, a stout dark-skinned man with fair hair waddled up to the tour group and began to speak.

  “Everyone. Please listen. I will be tour guide for you this evening. Follow me.” He then yawned and walked off for the tour group to be left trying to collect themselves and follow the guide.

  The three men looked at each other.

  “Let’s just… get us some space.” Ethan pushed through the crowd and they soon found themselves at the front of the horde, eyes set straight on getting as close to the tour guide as possible. For now.

  Sam, Ethan, and Tom followed the tour for half an hour, inspecting every rocky cavern they entered and the fake sarcophagi lined up along the walls under thin glass displays lit by hot flood lights. As the guide droned on and on, often overrun by the continuous clicking sound of cameras, Sam leaned into Tom. “Now that we’re inside, you think we could get a hand? Think we could get a map?”

  Ethan shook his head. “What good is a map? We’re looking for something that’s not ON a map, aren’t we?”

  Without replying, Tom strode up to the guide and tapped him on the shoulder. “What do you want?” the man said in broken English.

  “Do you have a map?”

  They clearly did. The man sighed, rummaged around his paunch and dug up a crumpled sheet of paper from his fanny pack. He threw it at Tom. “Here.”

  Tom brought the map back and spread it flat, and Ethan and Sam came to his shoulders to see it. The only marked path was the one being toured.

  “There has to be more than this.” Ethan grit his teeth in frustration.

  Tom threw up his hands. “This map tells me nothing.”

  Sam shook his head. “What exactly did you expect? We have to find it ourselves.”

  “Wait. Guys, take a look at this.” Tom pointed directly to the left of them. Instead of the same boring wall, there was another passageway cordoned off by yellow tape with Egyptian writing that Sam could only assume said something along the lines of “WARNING” or “CAUTION”.

  Sam knew that if anything, this was the chance to break off the tour group unnoticed. The Americans and Chinese were presently ogling over a mask supposedly worn by a pharaoh thousands of years ago. Somehow, seeing as it was out in the open and rusting at the edges, Sam doubted the legitimacy of that.

  Sam looked left and right, then nodded sharply. “Break away. Now!” With that, Tom vaulted over the tape, and Ethan scuttled under it. None of the tour group appeared to notice. Sam checked one last time, and moved the post holding the tape up and walked past.

  The tunnel beyond the tape was surprisingly spacious and wasn’t claustrophobia-inducing, as Sam had feared. It was wide enough for the three to walk side by side comfortably. Even more so, this made him nervous. The Obsidian Door was here for a fact, but what if it was hidden away so well that none of them could find it? Their efforts would be wasted. He supposed they could talk their way out, claim they’d gotten lost from the group, but what if they really did get lost from the group? There was no map of the places the
y wanted to go. And there was no end in sight of the tunnel.

  As they walked, the ground began to angle downwards. They all felt it, but the scenery never changed. Normally, Sam would be staggered by the designs on the walls, the paintings and inscriptions that glowed in the light of his phone when he deemed them safe enough away from the group to risk the illumination. But now, so close and with no real knowledge of what lay before or behind, he gritted his teeth and continued.

  Suddenly Ethan tensed. Sam, walking next to him, stopped too. “What is it?” he whispered, ready for anything.

  Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know. It just feels-”

  Suddenly the ground under them gave way. Sam had no time to open his mouth and shout as rubble rained down, the floor dropped out, and he felt himself falling. Dirt and rocks struck his skin and he defended his face as best he could. He thought of the keys around his neck and was glad he’d double chained them with tungsten cord.

  Then he wasn’t glad of anything as he hit rock bottom hard and fast. He gasped at the pain in his back and prayed he hadn’t broken anything.

  Miraculously he still clutched his phone. Its flashlight still illuminated the scene before him, faint and eerie.

  “Is everyone fine?” Sam shouted as quietly as he could. He didn’t want to risk being overheard and didn’t know how far sound echoed in these tunnels. From nearby, he received grunts of affirmation. He shone his phone around, but all he could see was male bodies hunched in pain and recovering. It was all they could see of him, he assumed.

  Sam gripped his phone and pushed himself aching to his feet. As he brushed off the debris from the fall, he inspected the path. The only difference appeared to be the light, which was coming from somewhere. Sam had assumed it was some trick of his lighting, but now realized that was not the case. Rather than a harsh fluorescent, it was warm and welcoming light like a campfire. He clicked the light on his phone off and the light in the distance remained.

  Sam tipped his head back in wonder.

  The ceiling was inscribed with ornate hieroglyphics, none of which Sam could translate. They bore the stamp of weather and time, of soot and dust. Sam shivered with the sudden feeling that the past was here and it was real. Other men had stood in these halls. Other men with lives like his. Kings and robbers had breathed this same air.

  “Wow.”

  With the echo Sam couldn’t quite be sure who had made the sound, but he thought it was Tom.

  As Tom and Ethan collected themselves and dusted their clothes off, Sam swung his light down to inspect the walls. Unlike last time in the caves in China, there were no secret passageways hidden into the walls. Sam wrestled with himself. Which way to go? There was no way to know and all he did know was that this was a maze. Which didn’t help at all. He steadied his shoulders and glanced at the others.

  “Rock paper scissors?” he said.

  They put their fists in the circle and hit. Ethan won and jerked his head down the passage Sam himself would have chosen. “This way,” he said. There was no hope but to keep trekking.

  The tunnel continued on a downward slope, and the three checked the ground for any more trapdoors thanks to the unusual ambient light.

  “We’ve got to be getting close to something.” Ethan wiped his sweaty brow, and Sam didn’t correct him, even as he felt the uncertainty in his stomach. He squinted forward, but it did seem that Ethan was right: there seemed to be a solid wall some distance away from them, where the ambient light stopped.

  Tom pushed past and Ethan and Sam followed him, grinning at each other, their pace renewed, and their strength restored.

  Tom walked fast to the wall, his footsteps getting quieter as he fell away from sight.

  “You guys might want to check this out,” he called.

  There was nothing at the wall except for another inscription.

  “Are these hieroglyphics?” Ethan asked. “I still can’t tell the difference.”

  Tom squinted at it and ran his fingers over the engravings. “No,” he answered. “It’s just a diagram, and it’s depicting something important.”

  “What?”

  “Looks like a picture of them burying something… in some kind of tunnel.” He turned to Sam. “Didn’t you say this place had been a mine at some point?”

  “They built one nearby, yeah. Why?”

  Tom leaned forward. “It looks like this is…”

  In Sam’s head, everything clicked suddenly. He looked at Tom, whose face was lit up with inspiration as well. “Oh my God. It’s genius.”

  Ethan folded his arms. “What’s genius?”

  Sam turned to him, tracing the drawing. “This place used to be a mine, just some utilitarian space that no one thinks twice about, right? And what are mines vulnerable to? What are we next to?”

  Ethan’s mind worked. “Water… a river…” He frowned. “You’re saying he buried the entrance in the river? But how?”

  Sam tapped the stone, feeling thousand-year-old grit beneath his sweaty fingers. “He used the mine shaft to hide the excavation of the library labyrinth. No one would ask questions, they just assumed people would be doing the pharaoh's orders.”

  “How would he ensure they wouldn’t talk.” Ethan shook his head. “Never mind.”

  Sam spread his hands. “So they build the labyrinth disguised as the mine, but he knew there had to be a way to hide it permanently. So… man, this guy was smart, so he designed it, positioned it originally just before the second cataracts in the Nile.”

  “The second what?”

  “Cataracts – they’re like small waterfalls…navigable waterfalls…” Sam shook his head impatiently. “We passed through them last night. Once he had the library dug out, and they’d excavated what they needed from the mine, he just dumped tons of granite into the water, causing a backflow.”

  Tom’s appreciative smile spread across his face. “Wow. Wow, wow. They’d all just think their ruler was bettering the city, being smart. You make a backflow like that you widen the river, making the cataracts more navigable by large boats, increasing trade ability for the whatever they’d just mined…” He shook his head in utter admiration. “And In the process, it flooded the entrance to the library passageway, burying it forever…”

  Sam said, “All right, let’s go find the obsidian door.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Aswan, River City – Egypt

  The Tahila floated along the Nile River. Although the waters weren’t smooth, the boat’s automatic stabilization system made the ride feel stable, as if they were riding over land. Sometimes, Sam thought, depending on the land, it was even smoother.

  Sam looked down the Nile.

  It barely wound to and fro, sometimes linear enough boats could continue moving straight without turning. He breathed in the air of the Nile. It smelled full and slightly musty with the tinge of the algae brimming on the surface.

  His eyes squinted. About a mile down, he could make out the cataracts. Though he had never been there, he knew the cataracts frothed and churned the blue river into a muddy foam. The white bubbles were already visible from the yacht, and Sam could only imagine what their chaos looked like up close. They would soon drive head-first through the mess of liquid, once again unsure of the outcome.

  “Hey, Matthew.” Sam turned and sought the skipper, finding him at the wheel. Sam made his way over. “We’re going to have to go past the cataracts,” he called against the wind of their passing, watching his footing around lines and cleats. “Are you sure Tahila can handle it?”

  Matthew, standing amidships, hands clasping the glossy padded wheel, shook his head.

  “Look,” he said, “The Tahila might be able to survive it, but she will take a beating and for no reason. No, better to take the FC580.”

  A puzzled grin came across Sam’s face. “The FC580?”

  “We picked it up during the last maintenance overhaul,” Matthew said, retreating back into the cockpit and Sam followed, stepping over the s
mall metal steps entirely. They passed the steering and went all the way to the back of the yacht, ignoring Sam’s friend’s inquiries about their intentions. Matthew stopped randomly at the floor of the stern.

  “Right here. You’re going to be using this to get through as fast as possible.” As he spoke, Matthew crouched to an unassuming hook in the floorboards. He pulled it, and an entire trap door opened, revealing a hole filled to the brim with rubber.

  Sam was still confused. “It’s just rubber.”

  “Not just any rubber. Watch this.” The captain pressed a button on the rubber. Almost instantly, it expanded, popping out of its home under the boat. Little by little, the form revealed itself. A rubber boat.

  Ethan’s cold voice startled the two. “I know that boat. We used it all the time during marine amphibious training.” He walked up with calculated steps. “Really fast, somewhat impossible to get outside of the military, much less in Egypt. How the hell did you get your hands on this?”

  Matthew winked. “I have my connections.”

  Sam grinned. This was excellent. He clapped the skipper on the shoulder. “Mattew, you always come through.”

  Now that the FC580 dragged behind the bulletlike Tahila, the Zodiac looked like an unwilling prisoner forced to parade with a king. Even with this rather ill omen, Sam knew that he would feel infinitely safer in the nimble zodiac.

  “We’re approaching the cataracts,” Matthew called out. “Get your men ready for diving.”

  Sam decided to get his suit on first- that way he could pilot the zodiac while the other two got theirs on to save time. He jumped on the zodiac, shifting his weight to counteract the swells and falls of the water. The zodiac wasn’t stabilized like the Tahila and he could feel it.

  Sam struggled to get the diving suit on. He forgot how difficult it was to get a quality suit on sometimes. Having no success, he flung the suit onto the deck of the Tahila and hauled himself up after it. Putting the suit on here was a little bit easier, but it still took Sam a solid five minutes to finish securing the connections.

  Satisfied with his setup, Sam opened the door that led below decks.