by Lisa Lace
“Let’s pretend I don’t know anything about Earth chemistry.”
“Cesium reacts explosively with water. They also mentioned crossbows.”
“At least those are traditional weapons an average person can understand.”
“When the first archeologists went inside, guess what they found?”
“Ancient crossbows that crumbled when people looked at them and turned to dust?”
She shook her head, her eyes looking animated as she spoke. “There were fully functional crossbows coated with chromate, which perfectly preserved them.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“One man died when they encountered a pool of water. There wasn’t anything over it, but glass spheres containing something volatile filled the water. When he waded through, the glass spheres broke, triggering an explosion which killed him and injured several others. No one has been brave enough to go any further.”
“There’s a thin line between bravery and stupidity.”
She shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it.”
“We’re going down there?”
“Yes?” She glanced at me. “You can stay here. I don’t expect you to risk your life for me, married or not married.”
“I don’t think I could live with myself if I let you go down there by yourself.”
She rubbed her fancy shoe against the stone floor. “Let’s go.”
“You’re not properly dressed, Emmy.” I motioned to her fancy dress.
“That’s right.” She grabbed hold of her skirt and ripped it off. Underneath the dress were beige pants with pockets stuffed with useful things. The top of the dress now looked like a tank top. I noticed her shoes resembled boots from a particular angle. They looked expensive, but they didn’t have heels. The footwear looked perfect for trekking through underground passageways dug by monks long ago.
Now wearing clothes befitting an archeological expedition, she stepped down a few of the red stone stairs. She turned back when she realized I wasn’t with her.
“What is it?” She looked up at me with concern.
I knew I wouldn’t have the right words to express how much she impressed me. “You came prepared.”
“It’s a habit of mine.” Emmy’s eyes shone with amusement. “Wearing a dress over a complete archeological dig outfit wasn’t my idea, though. It was Morley’s creation. Shall we?” She held out her hand.
EMMY
We reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed into a passageway. As soon as we entered, the hall illuminated itself with a soft glow. I looked around trying to identify the light source, but I couldn’t see it.
“Where’s the light coming from?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “The monks had advanced technology like these lights and the mirror. No one knows where it from.” I wished I had a better explanation, but I didn’t know the answers.
It felt like we walked for about a mile before we encountered the first problem. When we saw a T shape on the floor, Ven and I flattened ourselves against the wall before I tripped it with my toe. A second later, a spike trap popped up, looking vicious and completely functional.
“We would have died.” Ven stared at the spikes.
I nodded, not saying a word. We left it activated and continued moving. Soon after we found the first pool with cesium spheres.
“We don’t want to trigger this one.” We carefully edged around the pool and walked down a passageway. “It would start an enormous explosion.”
After the pool, we found ourselves traveling through catacombs which ran under the mountain. It must have taken many years to excavate these tunnels. I heard stories about monks who had gotten lost and never found their way out, walking for miles and never coming to the end. There was supposed to be a cemetery down here, and everything felt creepy.
As we walked along, keeping watch for any obstacles, I felt overwhelmed by different emotions. Excitement about getting to explore these catacombs and anxiety we might be hurt. Ven evoked mixed feelings. Lust, for one, whenever I looked at him. But there was another feeling that was hard to describe. It was a happy feeling that seemed to come from being in his presence.
“Emmy, I want you to know something.”
I glanced over at him briefly before returning my eyes to the floor and walls. “You may speak. We’re the only people here.” I was curious to know what he wanted to tell me. “Wait a minute.” I saw something unusual and stopped, putting my hand over his chest. “Something feels wrong.”
I scanned the stone floor and the walls trying to identify what caught my attention. There was a thin line in the shape of a rectangle in the grouting between the tiles. It was barely visible. When I crouched down, I saw there was a crack.
“Come on, Emmy. I’m sure it’s nothing.” Ven was growing impatient.
“There’s something between these stones.”
“So what?” He stepped forward. “We’ll never get anywhere at this pace.”
“Wait!” I heard the screech of stone against stone. I grabbed his hand and yanked, falling back onto the floor, Ven crashing by my side.
“Was that necessary?” He stood up, rubbing his hip. He turned to move forward again but stopped when he saw a pit appear in front of us. Metal spikes and a single decaying body lined the bottom of the hole.
Ven froze. I got up and started dusting myself off, trying not to feel smug. When he finally looked at me, he had a sheepish expression on his face.
“It was necessary if you wanted me to save your ass.” I heard attitude coming from my voice despite my best efforts.
“Thank you.” He looked like he was suppressing his annoyance again. “I owe you.”
I shook my head. “We’re even. Do you remember what happened on the road? You saved me from being kidnapped by those assholes.”
I placed my hand over his. I was amazed at the tingling sensation from touching our skin together and wondered what would happen if I wanted more. “You’re in my world now. You should listen to me, as long as you can handle it.”
He was about to say something but relented after a moment. “All right. Lead the way.”
We slowly started to walk forward with wary eyes. I pointed out markings indicating a trap was coming. To someone who knew the signs, the monks had ways of showing there was danger ahead and how to avoid it.
“Look at these horizontal cuts in the stone.” I traced them with my fingers. “They indicate a trap…” I counted the lines. “Twelve paces away, embedded in the floor. If the lines were vertical, they would mean the trap is in the wall.”
“How do you know they didn’t make random marks to confuse people?”
“They wouldn’t want to kill themselves accidentally. People were living here during construction. Not a lot, but enough to guard the place.”
“I suppose not.” Ven paused, and I immediately stopped as well.
“What is that thing?” He pointed ahead at a dark patch in the floor directly ahead of us.
“I don’t know. Come on.”
We slowly inched forward, keeping our eyes on the floor. I motioned Ven to sidestep a tile that triggered a trap. Even at our reduced speed, we almost fell into a deep black hole that obstructed the entire passageway, barring our path. I nearly missed it because I was looking too closely at the tiles.
Ven gasped and put his hand out, shoving me back from the edge. If I had taken one more step, it would have meant my death. As I stumbled backward, I landed on the tile I had been trying to avoid. A beam swung down in a deadly arc, aiming deadly spikes at our heads. Ven tackled me to the ground a moment before I would have been impaled. We lay together on the floor. I saw my fear reflected in his eyes.
“See? I am good for something on this trip. Be careful.” His eyes didn’t leave me as we slowly rose to our feet. I felt stunned at the near miss.
I wanted to tell him that he was good for more than saving my life. Having him here made everything seem possible. Ven gave me confidence.
I felt protected with him beside me no matter what dangers we faced.
But I didn’t have the words, so I kept my thoughts to myself.
Gazing into the hole in the floor, I felt my first flicker of doubt. According to legend, the monks wanted to make sure the people who found Zelia’s ladle were courageous and genuine. Theoretically, individuals who sought it for personal gain would be discouraged if the penalty was death.
I knew it was a test, but I started to question my motives. Did I want the ladle to benefit others, or to boost my ego? I had no idea, and I didn’t know what to do.
I gestured at the gaping abyss. “How are we going to get across?”
Chapter Eighteen
VEN
“These guys don’t fool around.” I looked down, trying to see the bottom of the hole. It seemed bottomless.
“You wouldn’t either if you had something precious to protect,” Emmy said. “Do you think we can swing across?”
She pointed to the trap, which turned down when we approached the hole. Plummeting to our doom wasn’t bad enough. Someone wanted to make sure we were impaled and killed twice.
“That doesn’t seem safe.”
“Stop acting like I’m crazy because I make different decisions than you.” Emmy’s eyes flashed. She was furious. I guess I thought of her as crazy, but she imagined herself as persistent, inventive, and courageous.
“There’s got to be a better way to get across.” I started looking around.
“What do you suggest?” She could have sounded sarcastic, but she was sincere. She only wanted to know what I thought.
I thought for a moment. “You said these catacombs had monks living in them, guarding the ladle after they set the traps, right?”
“That’s my understanding, yes.”
“They must have had a way to get across.” An idea flashed into my brain. Excited, I started feeling around the walls and stepping on the floor stones leading up to the hole.
“It’s a sound theory.” Emmy followed my lead, doing the same thing along the other wall. “What’s your degree in?”
In the past, her question would have made me feel like a failure and an idiot. I would have become angry, and either yelled at her or ignored her. But I had no anger attached to my education any longer.
“I was in the military and liked the ground assignments better than sitting in the classroom. I could have gotten a degree, but I didn’t.”
That was the truth. I made a choice. It wasn’t the same as others, but it was the right one for me.
She glanced at me, meeting my eyes. “Have you ever thought about getting your archeology degree? You’d be a great asset.”
I laughed.
“I’m serious. You’ve got the right sort of mind.”
“What do you mean? I’m a soldier. All brawn, no brains.” I flexed my bicep.
“Yeah, right,” she said. “You’d be perfect. You’re intelligent. You aren’t afraid to go into strange places, and you can think through problems.”
At that moment, I got lucky and pressed the right place. Stones slid out from the wall, making a narrow path along the left side of the abyss.
“And find answers that weren’t obvious. Brilliant. You’d make a great treasure hunter.”
No one had ever told me I was smart in this many different ways. When I gazed into her eyes, I could tell she meant her words. It was a revelation. I no longer believed I was stupid, and the woman in front of me thought I was smart, too.
“I thought you said calling someone a treasure hunter was insulting.”
“It is, but I wasn’t talking about me.” She grinned. “Who goes first?”
“I will. If anything happens, I want to bear the brunt of the damage. You have critical information in your head.”
She blushed, then frowned. “Don’t talk like that, Ven. We’re both going to make it out of here alive.”
“Sure.” I wanted to seem agreeable. She could think whatever she wanted, but her ideas might not match up to reality. I had gone on missions where the team thought everyone would come out alive. I had been lucky before, but you never knew when your number was up.
I wondered if I would die protecting Emmy. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go.
I gingerly put some of my weight on the first stone, testing to see if it would hold before committing my body. I slid my foot over, keeping my back pressed against the wall. I didn’t look down. The stones seemed stable, but I wanted to be careful. The first three rocks held, but the fourth one fell into the abyss. I paused for a moment as my heart pounded in my chest. I had to reassure myself that I hadn’t dropped with the stone.
Emmy and I locked eyes as we listened for the sound of the rock hitting the floor. I strained my ears for almost a minute but heard nothing.
The next challenge was maneuvering over the gap where the stone had fallen. I felt myself begin to lose my balance and frantically grabbed at anything that would keep me upright. I slowly moved my right foot past the gap. No more stones were damaged. I made the rest of the journey across without incident.
When I reached the other side, I felt a profound sense of relief but tried not to show it. I didn’t want Emmy to know how nervous I was even though it would be difficult to hide anything from her. She seemed to see through me already, and her mind penetrated directly into my soul.
Her passage across the narrow path was nerve-wracking. My trip was difficult, but at least I was in control of my destiny. When she reached my side safely, I immediately pulled her into my arms. She clung to me, gripping me as tightly as I was holding her. Then she pulled back and gazed into my eyes.
“Don’t worry. I’m right here,” she said.
I closed my eyes, and drew in a deep breath, placing a single reverent kiss on her forehead. She bit her lip.
“Come on.” She cautiously moved forward. “The fun’s just getting started.”
EMMY
When we arrived at the guard’s room, I felt like sinking onto the bed and going straight to sleep. I was exhausted. I didn’t know if it was because of the longer day on Heralla or all the activity. I had started by leaving Ven’s house in the middle of the night. The chase happened in the afternoon. We had arrived on Heralla in the early evening, and the party started at eight at night, Earth time. It felt like past two o’clock in the morning for me.
I had been awake for over twenty hours. I wasn’t sure I could keep my eyes open for much longer. Ven didn’t seem to be doing much better. For the past hour, we had been triggering each other’s yawns.
“Is this place safe?”
I shook my head. I wished it was. “This room is vulnerable to attack. There’s something the matter with it. Another place exists and it might even be accessible through this one.”
“That makes sense. How do we get to it?”
“Who knows?” I was too tired to think. “Whoever constructed this room was clever and had a lot of time on their hands to think of new ways to make my life difficult.” I yawned and covered my mouth. My eyes were watering.
Ven walked around the room, picking up objects and pushing random spots on the wall. “Do you have any idea what I should be looking for?”
“It’s probably a pull trigger. You tug on something in the room, and it opens a rotating door.”
He tentatively lifted a lamp. “Isn’t it possible that my actions set off a trap?” He gave me an inquisitive look.
“Of course.”
“Great,” he muttered. “Just great.”
I felt my eyes closing as I watched him. I forced them open. We couldn’t fall sleep here. As my mind drifted toward unconsciousness, I had an idea.
“Try ornaments.”
“Ornaments?” A framed picture caught his eye and he walked over to it. I had an ominous feeling.
“The picture’s crooked,” Ven muttered to himself. He reached up to straighten it.
“Don’t do that!” I was suddenly wide awake as I realized the danger in front of us. M
y warning came too late. He had already adjusted the frame.
Nothing happened.
I stopped for a moment, feeling confused. There might be a time delay, which would give us seconds to react. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the door as an explosion rocked the room, throwing us against the wall of the passageway.
We lay on the ground for a moment with our bodies immobilized. My ears rang and my forehead stung from a cut.
“Ven?” I couldn’t tell if I was shouting or not. He had been behind me and took the brunt of the explosion. “Ven?”
I heard a groan, and he sat up. “What was that?” He looked angry.
“It was a trap. They were designed to kill raider leaders. Only upper-class people would be concerned about a misaligned picture frame. They intended the explosion to take out people in command.”
“That’s disgusting. I need to learn how to leave a mess.” Ven rose to his feet. I stood up too and peered back into the room.
“It is peculiar, but look.”
We entered the room again. I was apprehensive about additional traps. I peeked into the hole made by the old-fashioned bomb. There was a second room behind the hole, inaccessible by any door.
“Let me guess. Is that the real guard’s room?” Ven said looked at me for confirmation.
I nodded.
“Let’s hope there’s nothing dangerous in this one.”
He was cautious enough to check things out before moving into the second room. When we were inside, we found a complete suite with a bed and a functioning bathroom.
I took off my shorts and tank top and crawled on the bed in my underwear. Ven fiddled with something near the hole we had accidentally blown in the wall.
“What are you doing?” I stretched out and curled up on the bed.