Alby shook his head. With its ten concentric rings and the straight narrow staircase branching from its center out to the right, it certainly looked like their maze…
“That warlock and his priests probably have this exact carving somewhere,” Zoe said. “That’s how they alone know how to successfully navigate the maze.”
“Zoe! Wait! Stop!” Alby shouted, halting suddenly.
“What?”
“According to this, we’ve gone the wrong way!”
“Already?”
Peering at the camera’s tiny screen, they checked the carving showing the route through the maze. They had gone immediately left, racing around the outermost circle of the maze—
“We should have jumped over that crocodile carcass and taken the next circle,” Alby said. “Look. This route only leads to a bunch of dead ends. Quickly! We have to go back before they release the hyenas!”
“Glad I brought you along.” Zoe smiled.
Back they ran, arriving at the huge entry gate and again they saw the half-eaten crocodile carcass. They hurdled it.
“Nowwe go left,” Alby directed.
Left they went, running desperately around the curving alleyway.
They saw the high staircase looming above them, coming nearer, saw a semicircular archway in its base, allowing them to run under it if they wished.
“No!” Alby called. “Go right, into the next circle!”
Bam!
A banging noise echoed throughout the maze.
It was closely followed by the barking of the hyenas and the rapid splashing of paws on mud.
“They just let the dogs in,” Zoe said.
Through the maze they ran.
Dashing down its long curving alleyways, often hearing the hyenas over the walls.
Occasionally, they came to a pit filled with dank, stinking water and inhabited by a crocodile or two. Human remains were often nearby; crocodile skeletons, too, of those reptiles that hadn’t made it out before they’d starved.
These they skirted or jumped, not daring to slow down—although on one occasion, Zoe grabbed a long, thick croc bone from one of the skeletons.
They kept running.
All the while, the central staircase came nearer.
“Zoe,” Alby asked. “What are we gonna do if we get out of here? Won’t they just kill us some other way?”
“Not if what I think is going to happen happens,” Zoe said. “I needed to buy us some time. That’s why I took so long to kill that asshole prince.”
Alby was shocked. “You deliberately took that long? Why? What’s going to happen?”
“The bad guys are going to arrive.”
“I thought the bad guys already had us.”
“The badder guys, then. The ones who chased us out of Egypt and killed Jack. They’re almost here. And when they arrive and attack the Neetha, that’s our chance. That’s when we want to be out of this maze and ready to run.”
Out in the main village, Lily sat alone on her high stone platform. Ono sat across from her, as close to her as he could.
Abruptly, the radio around his neck squawked.
“—Ground Team Leader, this is Wolf, come in.”
“—This is Ground Team Leader. What is it, sir?”
“—Switchblade, be alert. While you and Broadsword have been rubbernecking at those big carved trees, we’ve spotted some heat signatures coming your way. Human signatures, about a dozen of them, and they’re sneaking up on your choppers from the east.”
“—Thanks for the heads-up, sir. We’ll handle it. Switchblade, out.”
Lily turned to Wizard on the other platform. He’d heard it, too.
“Wolf’s men…” he said. “They’re almost here…”
Zoe and Alby plunged deeper into the maze, racing down its long bending passageways, with Alby directing and Zoe looking out for danger. Curiously, as she ran, she also dragged her crocodile bone against the wall, scraping it harshly.
The staircase in the center gradually came nearer and just after they hurried through one of the ten archways cutting through its base, they suddenly found themselves in a perfectly round space fitted with two entrances and,
