The slow pace and the knowledge that a trap could spring at any moment created a tension so thick it tasted bitter on Shyla’s tongue. Only Jayden seemed unaffected, watching Aphra’s cautious movements with an amused disdain.
That was until she cried out and tackled him, knocking him down right before a sword shot out from the wall he’d just been standing next to.
“Scorching sand demons,” he said.
Aphra shushed him and they remained quiet. Shyla and the others stood frozen in place. Afraid to move, she noted Vashi had drawn her short sword.
“All clear,” Aphra said, rolling off Jayden.
He regained his feet, brushing the sand off his pants. “That happened so fast. How did you know?”
“I heard a click. These traps are old and many times there’s a delay. And sometimes they fail to trigger. Other times…”
“Other times?” Jayden helped Aphra to her feet.
“They skewer you without warning.”
He shuddered and scanned the walls. “When the Invisible Sword had their headquarters below, we hardly came up here, but I was certain there weren’t any traps left.”
Aphra glanced at Shyla. “We must be getting close.”
“A few more turns,” she said.
“Stay behind me,” Aphra ordered.
No one argued.
After a few angles and a half dozen more traps, which Aphra triggered so they weren’t surprised on the way out, they reached an empty hexagonal room. About four meters wide, it was smaller than Tamburah’s judgment chamber and a layer of loose sand covered the floor, but, instead of six doors, it had only one. The room was a dead end. Aphra checked it for traps as Shyla consulted the map, but it appeared they’d arrived at the area of Tamburah’s left eye.
“Now what?” Aphra asked after she declared it safe.
Shyla examined the room. There were no symbols or markings on the walls or floor, no switches or even cracks. Everyone waited for her. But she saw nothing. After another frustrated angle, she remembered. Shyla needed to see with the power of The Eyes. Gathering her will, she added…heat…to her gaze and scanned the walls.
Yellow symbols glowed—one on each wall, five total.
“Do you see them?” she asked, digging into her pack for a piece of chalk.
“Them?” Jayden asked.
She swept a hand out. “The glyphs?”
“No.”
The rest shook their heads.
“I do.” The others watched her as she traced them with the chalk. When she finished all of them, she relaxed and the glow faded. The white chalk marks stood out clearly against the reddish-brown walls. The curved graphics tugged at her memories. She’d seen these before.
“That was…interesting,” Aphra said. She moved closer to study one. “This is familiar.”
Shyla joined her. “I thought so, too.”
“These crossed and hooked lines remind me of Wequain’s reign. It’s part of his crest. He had everything branded with his crest.”
“Even his family and servants,” Shyla said, then tapped the middle of her forehead. “Right here.”
“That’s horrible.” Jaft rubbed his arms.
“Hence the moniker, Wequain the Horrible.” The king had done a few other notable things as well. “He also started using osmium as currency. And—” She stared at the symbol as its meaning clicked in her head.
“And?” Jaft prompted.
“And it’s the number three!”
“Great. How does that help us?”
“Patience, Jaft.” Shyla examined the others. “Here are numbers one, two, four, and five.”
“It’s a code. Get the right combination and…something happens,” Aphra said.
“Something good or something bad?” Jayden asked, no doubt remembering his near miss with the blade.
“It’s usually a surprise.”
“Fun.” Jaft’s dry tone indicated he thought the opposite.
“There are one hundred and twenty combinations with five numbers if you don’t repeat a number,” Vashi said. “But if you do, then it’s in the thousands. If the code is longer than five digits, then the possible combinations can be in the millions.”
Shyla flipped between being impressed by Vashi’s math skills and despairing over the sheer number of possibilities.
“Vashi was in charge of our treasury and ensuring we had enough supplies,” Jayden said.
While interesting, it wasn’t helping. Shyla concentrated on the glyphs. The numbers weren’t in order on the walls either from left to right or right to left. Only Tamburah would be able to see them, so why not make it simple?
Since she needed magic to find them, Shyla guessed she needed to use her power to…what? Touch them? It’d be a start.
“I’m going to try pressing them from one to five in ascending order. You need to leave the room just in case there’s a bad surprise,” Shyla said.
They moved to the doorway but remained there.
Shyla went to number one and pulled her magic into her right hand. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Yell if you see or hear anything.” She placed her palm against the symbol. The rough wall was cool to the touch. Moving onto two, she repeated the action. Then three, four, and five. She kept her weight balanced, ready to dive or dash.
Nothing happened.
All right, what else was simple? “Now descending order.”
“Are you going to try all hundred and twenty combinations?” Jaft asked.
Was she? “Yes.” She touched five, then four, three, two, and one.
A deep boom rattled the room. Then, starting in the middle of the floor, a line appeared in the sand and spiraled outward, growing larger with each rotation. It looked as if a giant invisible finger was drawing it.
She looked at the others. “Can you see—”
“The creepy death spiral? Yes,” Jaft said.
Shyla joined her friends as it grew. With a thud, the middle of the room sank. Sand sizzled through the cracks in the floor as it continued to go down. The grating sound of stone scraping stone filled the air. The next spiral sank a moment later, then the next, and the next followed. Another boom vibrated through the soles of her boots. After a few heartbeats, the sand stopped. Silence descended.
Instead of a flat floor, before them was now a ramp that corkscrewed down into the blackness.
Thirteen
The five of them stared into the darkness. For the floor to just drop away…that was impressive. She’d never witnessed anything like that before.
“Who wants to climb down into the seven caverns of hell first?” Jaft asked.
“Are you always this melodramatic?” Vashi asked him.
Shyla glanced at Aphra. “Do you think there will be booby traps?”
“It depends if Tamburah believed someone could get this far. Considering only he had been able to see the symbols, I doubt it. But I’m not relaxing my guard.”
“Then you first.”
“Thanks.” Aphra approached the lip of the ramp as if a venomous snake was coiled inside. She held a druk in one hand and her knife in the other. Winding around the steps, she slowly disappeared.