“What happened?” Phoebe asked as they neared the parking area for Qaitbey. Her face had gone pale, her shoulders trembled.
The cabbie spoke some words into his CB, and the answer came back, a garbled series of guttural consonants. “I am told an older woman was just lifted out in a helicopter, taken to hospital.”
Phoebe’s nails dug into Caleb’s flesh. “Stop! Turn the cab around and take us there.”
“Pardon?”
“Do it!” Caleb said, his mouth dry. “Did they say what happened to her?”
“Do not know. They find her on the rocks. No swimsuit, no air tank. They say she will probably die, I am sorry to say. Underwater very long.”
“Was there a man with her?”
“Yes, yes. Man with her. He is OK. He must be very powerful man. He survives accident and calls police.”
Caleb shot Phoebe a look.
She leaned forward. “Just drive to the hospital, please. Fast.”
As they turned around, Caleb stared at the old sandstone turrets of Fortress Qaitbey, and he saw the red and blue lights flickering off its massive walls. For an instant, he could see a marble stairway ascending between two immense royal statues looking solemn and compassionate.
Helen was on the second floor. And as Phoebe wheeled into the room and rolled beside her bed, Caleb glanced around for Waxman. His hands were tight fists, and he found himself grinding his teeth, fuming.
“Where is he?” he asked the first doctor entering his mother’s room. “The man who brought my mother here, where did he go?”
The doctor, a dark-skinned bald man, shrugged. “Your father checked her in-”
“He’s not my father.”
“-and… eh… he left immediately. Said you would be along to care for her.”
Son of a bitch.
Caleb went to his mother’s side. His arm around Phoebe, he sat in a chair and they both held her hands. She was so cold. Her head was wrapped in bandages, and a tube had been inserted into her nose. An IV fed fluids through her right arm.
“What about a decompression chamber?” he asked. “Shouldn’t she be in one?”
Phoebe shook her head. “The nurse told me she’s too bad off. She needs the IV, morphine and rest. They chose to save her life.” Her voice cracked and she could barely finish the sentences. “They say she won’t wake up again, and if she does, she’ll be a vegetable. The damage to her brain, a severe stroke from the pressure…” Phoebe blew her nose and rubbed away her tears. “She won’t-”
“It’s okay,” Caleb whispered, even though he knew it wasn’t. “Mom’s alive,” he said. “And as long as she is, there’s hope.”
“What did he do to her?”
“We’re going to find out.”
Phoebe lifted her head. Her eyes were like steel ball bearings, cold and fierce. “Let’s do it now. Let’s view the bastard.”
He took his hand away from his mother’s and held Phoebe’s. They had seen similar visions before, but never this direct, never such a match, detail for detail.
It started with the caduceus. The door parting, the seventh symbol unlocked. This vision tunneled through Caleb’s consciousness like a sonic drill. He saw the great door ease open, and Helen and Waxman gave a shout of joy. Their skin glittered with a golden dust. They picked up their lanterns and a flashlight, and bounded forward. Caleb’s mind’s eye followed…
… Waxman down another staircase. He shines the lantern’s brilliant light around. “Eight sides to this room.” They stand together in an immense, cavern-like chamber with high vaulted ceilings and what looks like two circular portals above, vents for bringing in the water used for the second trap.
“We’re in the octagon section.” Helen pans the walls with her flashlight. “Caleb was right. ‘As Above, so Below.’”
“Yeah, all credit and glory to your son, Amen!”
“Stop being so cynical. He’s the reason we’re here.”
“No, you are. It was your dedication, your focus, your drive that kept this dream alive long after he deserted you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Whatever. We’re almost there. The treasure awaits.”
They circle around and around on smooth stairs, through thin layers of dust shaken free in the quakes. Here and there a crumbled stone lies on the stairs, and pieces of the wall have fallen in places; but soon the steps end and they walk onto a flat floor that leads to another door, this one with a single image drawn on its surface.
“That again! What is this?” Waxman shines his light up and down. It’s a modest door, about half as large as the previous one, and otherwise non-descript. The room itself is bare, with no artwork on the walls. Nothing inscribed on the floor. No rings, no pits. Nothing but red granite blocks.
Helen shifts her weight, looking over her shoulder. “I don’t know, but I think we may have it all wrong.”
“Nonsense. Here’s a handle on the door. Probably just pull on it and-”
“Don’t touch anything!” She shouts and grabs his hand.
“Are you serious?”
“Do you even have to ask?” She takes a step back, almost to the stairs. “Did you forget what we just went through up there? Any one of those traps could have killed us, and when we find another door you think it’s going to be as simple as pulling it open?”
Waxman exhales roughly, exasperated. “Fine, then RV this one. Let’s do it now!”
“No. Let’s leave, and think about this. Come back later, once we have all the information. We can analyze the scroll some more. We can probe our psychics, we-”
“-can’t wait any longer! It has to be now.”
“Why?”
Standing at the door, he wraps his fingers around the handle. “Because.”
“Why? Nothing’s as important as our lives. We can wait!”
“No, we can’t.”
“What are you talking about? What about the thrill of the hunt, the research, the quest into psychic talents? I thought that was what made this all worth it, whether or not we succeed in getting beyond that door.”
“No.” Waxman glowers at her, then turns to the door, his hands in tight fists. “There’s more, much more. I have to make it stop!”
“What are you talking about?” Helen takes one step up the stair, back the way they have come.
“She never stops,” he whispers, brushing the handle free of dust. “Every minute, every day.”
“Who are you talking about, George? Have you lost your mind?”
“Yes, a long time ago.” He looks back, and his eyes are glowing fiercely in the lantern’s brilliance. “But it ends now.”
He grunts and pulls back on the handle.
“Wait!” Helen yells. “I think I see something-a hole above your hand. Maybe there’s a key.”
But it is too late. The room shakes.
Helen screams and turns. Waxman slips and falls. As he topples, a foot-wide block rips free from the side of the door right where his head was. It shoots out across the room and glances off Helen’s skull, spinning her around, and she crumples onto the stairs without a sound. Just as quickly, the deadly trap withdraws and returns to its sealed position.
Waxman lunges for Helen. He lifts her and races up the stairs, gasping for air. This time, as he makes it back up through the octagon section, the great door slams shut in front of him. A grinding sound arises from the left, up high in the chamber. Then another echoes the first, from the other side.
The walls rattle.
Waxman shines his light up and directs it toward one, then the other portal. The great circular doors have been opened, moved by some major contraption of gears and levers.
