The Scepter

by Tom Hunter

  In between the paintings, facing the party on the opposite wall were two doors. There was nothing on either door to suggest that it was the way forward.

  “Now what are we supposed to do?” huffed Basile. “You know, I’m starting to get really over this game-playing. Would it be too much for the ancients to at least give us a clue?”

  “The catacombs are supposed to be protecting the relic,” Akhenaton reminded him. “If my Order is to fulfil our duty of guarding St. Augustine’s secrets, we can’t go around providing hints to everything. Remember–only the worthy should be able to make it through to the treasure chamber. It is not unreasonable to want to test our worth on a regular basis. To be honest, I’m surprised that there haven’t been more traps along the way. We seem to have had a remarkably easy run of it so far, which makes me suspicious of what might be waiting for us.”

  “What, you mean like a death trap behind one of those doors?” suggested Basile. “I hear what you’re saying, but the longer it takes us to figure out where to go, the more likely it is that the Bruard will be able to catch up with us. We’ve done all the hard work for them. I hate the thought that we’ll go through all this only to have them steal the relic from under our noses at the last minute again.”

  “We can’t worry about any of that,” Samuel reminded them. “At the moment, all we need to focus on is the here and now. We’re on a schedule here, so we don’t have time to sit around complaining about how hard this is. We knew it was going to be tough right from the start. We’ve been through worse and no doubt we’ll have to deal with worse before we’re done. All I can say is that I promise that no one’s going to die during this trip. Not on my watch.”

  “That’s great, Samuel, but can you really promise that?” asked Waleed. “We still have no idea which door we should go through and no clue to guide us.”

  “That’s not true, though, is it?” Samuel pointed out. “There are two paintings.”

  “Of generic images,” Waleed countered. “I don’t see how they can be a clue when we’ve seen exactly the same pictures multiple times.”

  “But they’re not exactly the same as before,” Samuel told him. “We’ve never seen a flower like the one in the Knights’ symbol. That suggests that there’s something important going on here.”

  “Maybe it’s meant to remind us of the principles of the Order?” said Shafira.

  “Or perhaps the purpose of the catacombs?” added Akhenaton. “Maybe St. Augustine is there to tell us that he’s protecting something and the symbol reinforces the concept of guarding the secret.”

  “Guarding…” Samuel narrowed his eyes as he pondered their ideas. “I think I’ve got it. We need to go through the left door. As we face them, the symbol of the Order is on the left and St. Augustine’s left hand is empty. A knight would normally carry a shield in his left hand, therefore the left door must be the correct one.”

  “That’s too obvious.” Josh shook his head. “That would be exactly what the puzzle designer would expect us to think. Surely we should go against the obvious and choose the right? That would fit in with the Knights’ preference for double blinds and false leads.”

  “Don’t even go there,” groaned Shafira. “We’ll tie ourselves up in knots with that whole ‘I think you think that I think’ tangle. I think the simplest solution is generally the best. Samuel’s right. We should take the left hand door.”

  “There’s no ‘we’ about it,” Samuel corrected. “You all stay here and I’ll go explore on my own. I’ll investigate the left door to make sure it’s safe.”

  He took his backpack off, handing it to Basile. “Look after my supplies,” he instructed. “If anything happens to me, you need to promise that you’ll go on without me.”

  “Are you kidding?” Josh exploded, as Shafira looked panicked.

  “You can’t go on alone,” she told him. “Please. Reconsider this stupid idea. We’re a team. We should stay together, for better or worse.”

  “I’m the leader,” Samuel reminded her. “I’m responsible for all of you. I can’t ask you to take unnecessary risks. Besides, there’s no point in risking all of us. Nobody is so indispensable that the mission can’t continue without one of us.”

  He gazed into her eyes, as if debating whether to say something more. Whatever it was, he thought better of it. He shook his head before suddenly turning and striding across the chamber. Before anyone could stop him, he pushed open the left hand door. It slammed shut behind him with an ominous clunk.

  “Samuel!” cried Shafira, as she made to follow him. The door wouldn’t move.

  “Samuel!” She screamed again, more frantic this time.

  She turned to the other men. “We have to get him out of here. Someone, open this door.”

  Josh and Akhenaton rushed forward, pushing against the door as hard as they could, but it didn’t budge.

  “Samuel? Can you hear me, Samuel?” called Akhenaton. “We’re going to get you out of there.” He turned to the others shaking his head. “He took the wrong door. What shall we do? We can’t just leave him there.”

  On the other side of the door, Samuel could hear the group yelling for him, but the door was too thick for him to be able to make out the words.

  “I’m all right!” he shouted. “If you can hear me, just wait where you are. Give me a chance to find another way back to you.”

  He pressed his ear to the door, but couldn’t tell if they’d heard him or not.

  He was alone, with nothing but a lantern to defend himself in a chamber that was certain to lead to a trap.

  Thirty-One

  On his own, Samuel had long since lost any sense of time or space as he made his way down the narrow passage that led away from the door. He had yet to hit an intersection or come across any side passages. It was clear that he was being herded into another section of the caverns, and the only way available was forward.

  “Dammit!” He cursed and hit at his lantern as the light flickered. It wasn’t the first time it had threatened to go out. He hoped the batteries would hold out until he could find his way back to the others.

  Finally, the lantern glowed again. Samuel could move forward, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the tunnel was getting smaller. It wouldn’t be the first time that the subterranean passages had shrunk, but, unlike the section leading to the tiled chamber, the hallway was getting narrower rather than shorter in height.

  He turned to one side to move forward, trusting that eventually it would open up again. As he shuffled along sideways, the walls kept constricting. Samuel paused for a second, as he realized he was sweating from the effort of squeezing through the passage. Alarmingly, his chest couldn’t expand enough to allow him to take a deep breath. For the first time, Samuel felt a flash of panic. This only made him want to breathe all the more. He closed his eyes, and consciously forced himself to take many short, shallow breaths, in place of deep ones. Now he was beginning to understand how Shafira and Waleed had felt.

  His lantern flickered, before going out. Samuel’s heart fluttered in panic as he shook it to get it working again. The light came on briefly, but then completely died. No amount of shaking and swearing would make it work.

  “Oh no. Please, no.” For the first time since he’d entered the catacombs, Samuel had serious doubts about his ability to complete his quest.

  Lost in the dark, the only sound was the pounding of his heart. “Come on, Samuel. Keep it together,” he told himself, forcing himself to keep his breathing calm and slow. If he hyperventilated and passed out, there was no one around to help. His only option was to keep moving forward. He’d never been in such complete darkness before. It was surreal knowing that his hand was right in front of his face, yet it might as well not exist for all that he could see. There could be a Knight waiting to ambush him, and the first he’d know of it would be when he was run through with their sword.

  Suddenly, he grazed his cheek and banged his knee as he hit a dead end in the vise-like
passage. “No!” He cried out in frustration, trying to move back again, but he was well and truly wedged in place. “I am not dying here!”

  Yes, you are, a morbid little voice in the back of his mind whispered. You’re trapped and alone, with no way of contacting your team. This is where it ends for you. Forget saving the world. Forget seeing Shafira one last time. This is your final resting place.

  “NO!” Samuel’s shout echoed down the tunnels as he kicked out at the wall.

  “Argh!” The pain in his foot almost made him miss the fact that he’d dislodged a stone in the wall.

  Pulling back as much as he could, he kicked out again. Yes! There was definitely movement.

  Although there wasn’t much room to manoeuver, Samuel was like a man possessed as he lashed out at the wall in front of him, loosening more bricks until there was a space large enough for him to push through. Light streamed through from the room beyond. “Yes!” Pulling a few more bricks free with renewed strength, Samuel finally had a hole big enough to squeeze through.

  “Woah!”

  Going from the restrictive tunnel back out into the open meant that Samuel almost fell through the other side. Somehow, he managed to stop himself just in time as bricks fell to the floor below. A jet of fire burst up from where they landed, scorching his eyebrows.

  He was back in the room with the tiles!

  He gazed over at the Arabic, but he understood it about as well as he had the first time he’d seen it.

  What was the pattern? he mused. Two forward, one back, four to the left, two back? No, that’s not it. Three forward, two to the left? Was it a cloud or shield to start? He shook his head. It was too confusing. He couldn’t remember the pattern and even if he could, he was nowhere near the beginning of the trail. There was no way he was going to be able to make his way through the tiles unscathed.

  “Think, Samuel, think!” he urged, as he weighed up his options.

  The hole in the wall had come out over the top of a large sarcophagus, which gave him an idea. Edging out onto the ancient coffin, he took a moment to get his balance and find his bearings. A row of sarcophagi lined one wall of the room. The nearest one was close enough to jump to. Samuel launched himself to the next coffin. It teetered dangerously when he landed, before settling back in place.

  You got this, Sam! He couldn’t waste too much time patting himself on the back. He had no idea how long he’d been away from the others, or what they’d been doing while he was gone. All he could do was hope that they would still be waiting for him once he’d managed to get across the chamber.

  The next coffin was slightly higher than the one he was on, so he had to scramble to get up to the top. Once there, the tip was very narrow, not giving him much of a base from which to jump across to the next.

  After a while, Samuel got into a rhythm as he moved from sarcophagus to sarcophagus to sarcophagus, each one taking him closer to his goal. Maybe it was the excitement of being back with his friends again; maybe it was just exhaustion catching up with him, but as he was mid-air between the final two coffins, he realized that he’d completely misjudged it. He was going to fall short!

  There was no time to think, only react, as he fell towards the tiles below. There was no escaping it. He was going to trigger the trap. The second he hit the ground, he tumbled and rolled, feeling the heat of the flames nipping at his heels.

  Getting up from the floor, Samuel brushed himself down. His back felt singed, but he was alive. Casting a glance back over the tiles, he realized just how lucky he’d been to survive the deadly room.

  “Shafira! Josh! Basile! I’m coming!” he called as he ran down the corridor and back to where he’d last seen his friends.

  Thirty-Two

  “Hey, guys! I’m back!” Samuel burst into the room with the two doors, expecting to find his friends waiting for him. Instead, the room was empty, the right hand door wide open.

  Samuel sighed. It was good that his friends had stuck to the mission, but it would have been nice if they’d waited just a little longer for him.

  Going through the right hand door, he hurried down the corridor beyond. Unlike the one he’d just broken free from, this passage was lit by an invisible light source. This tunnel was much shorter than the other one, and soon he found himself standing in front of yet another door. This one was in stark contrast to the pair from the previous room. Large and ornate, the stone door was carved with numerous symbols of varying origins. He recognized icons connected to St. Augustine, and a few more images that he thought were associated with the Kushite kings, but there were many more that he couldn’t identify. It was possible that they were purely decorative, but given everything they’d seen of the Knights so far, it was unlikely.

  More murals were painted on the walls, but they were unfinished. It was as though someone had interrupted the artist mid-brushstroke, and no one had bothered to come back to complete the work.

  If only they had more time. Samuel would have loved to have examined these catacombs in more detail. There was so much he’d seen down here that would fascinate modern scholars.

  One day, he promised himself, reaching out to push the door open.

  As he stepped through the door, powerful arms wrapped around his neck, catching him in a strong chokehold. Samuel reached up to try and pull them away, but they were too strong for him. He wheezed as he fought for breath. His mind was racing. He couldn’t die here like this, not after everything he’d been through…

  “Samuel?” Shafira’s voice came from behind him. “Akhenaton, let go. It’s Samuel!”

  “Samuel?” The arm around his neck loosened, releasing him. Samuel leaned forward to catch his breath as his friends gathered around to see if it was really him.

  “I can’t believe it’s you, my friend,” cried Waleed joyfully. “I never thought we’d see you again!”

  “Don’t be so morbid,” scolded Shafira. “I knew that Samuel would find us. If anyone would be able to find his way through the traps littering this place it would be him. I’m so glad you’re all right. We need you. I mean, we need your brains. We’ve found another puzzle.” She smiled so brightly that it lit up the room, as the others gathered around Samuel, slapping his back and welcoming him into the group.

  “Well, that was long and confusing,” Samuel said. “I ended up traveling for what seemed like miles, before ending up back in that same room.” He sighed. “So what have you got for me?”

  “As Shafira said, there’s another mystery to solve,” Akhenaton told him. “Over there, you can see a door that has a ring handle, with no lock to should open and shut it. Only it doesn’t seem to work. We’ve tried peering through the crack under the door. Can’t really make out any details. There’s nothing barring it on the other side. We’ve pulled and pushed on it as hard as we can and it won’t budge. Just like the doors before, there’s no text to give us a clue for what to do, just more pictures.”

  “There’s also a narrow ditch that runs the length of the room from one end to the other,” Shafira pointed out. “It splits the chamber into two sections, but we can’t figure out what its purpose might be.”

  “Oh, and one other thing,” added Akhenaton. “When we first came into this chamber, we all had a really weird experience. Remember what happened in front of that picture, when we all got stuck and had strange sensations of déjà vu?”

  “Yeah.” Samuel nodded.

  “Same thing again, only more intense,” Akhenaton said. “We all experienced eerie flashes of memory, memories of things that couldn’t possibly have happened. It took great effort of will to break free of them.”

  “Hmm.” Samuel clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he considered everything he’d just been told. “It seems as though entering this room for the first time triggered some kind of mind affecting trap, because I didn’t feel anything like that when I walked in. All I felt was a certain someone’s arm throttling me.” He glared at Akhenaton, then relaxed into a grin to let him know
that there were no hard feelings.

  “But earlier, I could hear the sound of whips cracking, feel the heat of the sun beating down on my back,” he continued. “It was almost as though I’d been there when this temple was built.”

  “That’s just what it was like for us,” Shafira confirmed. “I could almost feel the ache in my arms from lifting heavy weights to build the obelisk.”

  “So what do we have so far?” Samuel began to pace up and down the room as he pieced the clues together. “We can’t risk getting it wrong again. We have to solve this puzzle right first time.” He stopped, looking down at the ditch splitting the room, disappearing off underneath the wall. “By the looks of it, that ditch is either something that liquid runs through or it’s connected to a trap system we haven’t spotted yet.”

  He turned his attention to the door, rattling at the handle to check that it really wouldn’t open. “That door is most definitely locked, which means that there’s a key we haven’t yet discovered. Of course, it’s entirely possible that we’re not looking for a physical key. So far, the ancient Knights seem to have preferred to use rituals or incomplete tasks to unlock the way forward. I know I was wrong before, but I can’t shake the feeling that everything points to respecting the Order’s principles to open this door. But how?”

  “What about that strange shared memory?” suggested Basile. Everyone looked at him, frowning.

  “Think about it,” the Frenchman continued. “We all experienced a similar thing, and we’ve all just assumed that it was a side effect of the relic, but what if it isn’t? What if it’s a clue as well? Maybe we should try and access the memory, explore all the details. Perhaps it can guide us to a solution.”