Diane Cassidy frowned with surprise, but relayed Zoe’s words to the warlock.
The warlock glanced at the little figure of Alby and, apparently seeing no danger in him, nodded his assent.
Alby was taken from his prison platform and led to the steps of the temple-fortress, where he joined Zoe.
“Zoe…?”
“Trust me, Alby,” was all she said as the gate to the temple-fortress rumbled open, lifted on chains.
Just before the two of them were led inside it, Zoe called back to Lily: “Lily! Keep listening to your friend’s radio!”
“Huh?” Lily said.
But by then the great gate to the temple-fortress had rumbled ominously shut behind Zoe and Alby.
Two mighty drawbridges were lowered into place and they crossed them, arriving at the edge of the vast circular maze, looking back at the village; at Lily and Wizard on their platforms; at the villagers on the amphitheater-like seating around them; and at the sacred island with the Orb and the Second Pillar displayed on it.
A snarling noise made them turn.
Four warrior-monks emerged from a cage dug into the wall nearby, holding four large spotted hyenas on leashes.
The doglike animals heaved and strained—they seemed starved, just for occasions like this—and they barked and snapped, saliva spraying from their jaws.
“Tell me again why you brought me along,” Alby whispered.
“Because you can read maps better than I can.”
“Because I can what?”
“And because you have my digital camera around your neck,” Zoe said, looking at him meaningfully, “and my camera holds the secret to this maze.”
“How?”
Before Zoe could answer, they were brought to the northern extremity of the maze and the entrance there: a wide arch set into the outermost stone ring.
The stonework of the wall itself was remarkable—a marble-colored rock without any visible joins or seams. Somehow the superhard igneous stone had been cut and smoothed into this incredible configuration, work that was far too advanced for a primitive African tribe.
The warlock addressed the crowd across the lake, calling loudly: “Oh mighty Nepthys, dark lord of the sky, bringer of death and destruction, your humble servants commend this taker of royal blood and her companion to your maze. Do with them as you will!”
With that, Zoe and Alby were thrust through the archway and into the maze, the ancient labyrinth from which no accused had ever emerged alive.
THE MAZE OF THE NEETHA
THE MAZE OF THE NEETHA
AHEAVY DOORboomed shut behind them and Zoe and Alby found themselves standing in a superlong open- topped white-walled corridor that curved away in both directions.
Looming above the maze’s ten-foot-high walls, rising out of its very center, was the spectacular stone staircase that led up into the volcano, into the priests’ inner sepulcher. Right now ten warrior-monks stood on the staircase, guarding the inner sanctum in the unlikely event Zoe and Alby got to the center.
They had three choices.
Left, right or—through a yawning gap in the next circular wall—straight ahead.
On the muddy floor in that gap, however, blocking the way, was the foul decaying skeleton of a very large crocodile that hadn’t quite made it out of the maze. Half-eaten, the skeleton still had rotting flesh on it.
What on earth ate a crocodile? Alby thought.
Then it hit him.
Other crocodiles. There are other crocodiles in here…
“Quickly, this way,” Zoe said, dragging Alby left. “Give me the camera.”
Alby extracted the camera and gave it to her. As they ran, Zoe clicked through its stored photos, clicking back through their African adventure—shots of the Neetha’s carved tree forest, of Rwanda, then of Lake Nasser and Abu Simbel and…
…the shots Zoe had taken at the First Vertex.
Images of the immense suspended bronze pyramid leaped off the camera’s little screen, and then shots of the walls in the Vertex’s massive pillared hall, including the picture of the golden plaque.
“That one,” Zoe said, showing it to Alby. “That’s the one.”
He looked at the photo as they hurried down the long, curved passageway:
The photo showed two curious circular images intricately cut into a rockwall. Images of a maze.This maze. One image showed the maze empty, while the other showed two routes through it, one from the north, the other from the south, both ending at the center.
