“A map,” Renee said, pushing past the others and gingerly walking close to the edge and gazing at the mosaic picture on the floor. “Looks like China and Mongolia, Arabia, and part of Russia.”
“The Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan,” Caleb said.
Orlando whistled. “And let me guess: step on the wrong one and you wind up on a rotisserie?”
“You got it,” Phoebe said. “I saw at least a dozen spikes from each side, spring-loaded and launched across on some kind of harness.”
Renee pointed and Chang’s men complied. A few of the soldiers shined their lights east and west, glancing their beams off the far wall, highlighting a slab that looked like Swiss cheese, full of various-sized holes.
“Okay, so where’s the path?”
Caleb passed the iPad back to Orlando, then stood beside Renee, hands on his hips. He scanned the map, the beautiful mural with its vibrant colors, mini-tiles making up each of the four hundred or so larger tiles.
“Need me to RV it again?” Phoebe asked.
Caleb shook his head. “No, I’ve got it. Even without your vision, I think we could have figured it out.”
“Maybe after a few of us got spiked first?”
Caleb turned to Chang. “Do you have a piece of chalk, or I don’t know, a paint gun?”
“No.”
“Bread crumbs?”
Chang thought for a moment, then called one of his men over, who carried a cooler. “We have raw Marmat meat.” He smiled at Caleb. “Very raw.”
“Ewww,” Phoebe said, covering her mouth when the lid was opened.
“That’ll do,” said Caleb. “Give it here. I’ll use the blood to mark each tile as I cross over, and you can follow after.”
“What’s the trick?” Renee asked.
“His last siege,” Caleb answered, heading for the fifth square from the left and setting foot on it. “Lucky I’m a history professor with a good memory. Here, at Xi-Xia, he died, most believe after a fall from his horse weeks earlier. He had been boar hunting, despite warnings from the philosopher Chi-Chang that he should give up hunting. Internal injuries perhaps. But while laying siege to the rebellious Xi-Xia, he passed on. Although there are some who claim the besieged kingdom had sent him a princess who delivered him a mortal wound while in bed together, but that’s-”
“Vicious lies,” Qara said under her breath.
“Probably. In any case, the path to take would be the reverse of his last mission, back from here, through Ghazni and Balkh, here.” After marking the first tile with the dripping Marmat meat, he took another step, diagonally to the left. When nothing happened, he smiled and smeared another X with the bloody chunk of flesh. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the history. “Around Samarkand, through Bukhara…” He took two steps ahead, covering two more squares, marking each.
Then he paused, thinking again.
“To your right.” Phoebe pointed. “I can see it again, from my vision. I’ll guide you if you get lost.”
“Ok,” he said, taking a step. “Then northeast through Otrar, and continuing at this angle…” Slowly, carefully watching every footstep, he took ten more large strides, marking each as he picked up speed, seeing it all now, just as Phoebe must have seen it. “Back to Lake Baikhal where his armies launched their missions.”
He was one foot away from the edge of the mosaic floor. Marking this last tile, he stepped off onto the clear granite on the other side. He turned around, breathing a sigh and only then realizing how tense his muscles had been. He set down the cooler and wiped his hands on his pants, a little disgusted.
Then, one by one, the others came across, following the trail of blood across the tiles. Phoebe and Orlando went next, followed by Qara, who almost slipped at one tile, having some trouble walking while handcuffed and still weak. Finally, Renee and Chang made it over.
They had to leave the heavy lights on the other side and reverted to using flashlights going forward.
“Keep moving,” Renee ordered. Then all the Maglites aimed ahead, piercing the darkness. “Any more surprises we need to know about?”
Phoebe waited for her to catch up. “Yes, and a choice to be made.” She pointed about fifty feet ahead, where the passage came to a dead end. A corridor led to the east and another to the west.
They stood at the crossroads, lights shining in either direction. Two scouts went ahead, one left, one right. Moving cautiously, assault rifles at the ready, their lights darted around. Orlando turned on his iPad again, displaying the image Phoebe had drawn.
“You’ve got a long passageway in each direction, both ending in large rooms. Any other impressions?”
Phoebe held her forehead, her eyes closed. The air was growing tighter, thicker. The taste of fear and dread became almost palpable. “No. I can’t see. But I do sense something.” She stepped forward and rubbed some dust off the wall ahead.
“What are you doing?” Caleb asked.
“Saw something here.” She brushed away another section and revealed a single line of script. More characters like before, this time in a single horizontal line.
“Darkhad.” Renee aimed her light on Qara, then the wall. “Translate.”
Stepping forward, giving Renee a dull glare, Qara bent down and analyzed the symbols. “It says, Sometimes the best choice is not to choose.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Renee snipped.
Just then, twin screams cut through the passage. Then a merciless thudding sound came from the left. Men bolted in each direction, flashlight beams shaking. Chang barked orders amidst the shouts and frantic screams.
“What’s happened?” Renee yelled into her transceiver. Garbled answers returned, men screaming all at once.
“So it begins,” Qara said, ominously.
“What?” Phoebe asked.
“The curse. Turn back now and you will live.”
Fuming, Renee ran to the right, grabbed hold of Chang and spun him around. “What happened?”
His face paled. The commander pointed to where the beams revealed something rising slowly. The floor itself was ascending, but there was something thick dripping from the center.
“The ceiling,” Chang said. “It fell!”
“And the other?” Renee turned, looking in the other direction.
“False floor,” Chang said, relaying what his men were screaming back to him. “And a pit of spikes.”
“So there’s our choice,” Orlando said. “Go right and get crushed, go left and be skewered.”
Renee took a moment, thinking it through. “We can, it seems, set off the trap in this direction, wait for the ceiling to drop, and then run across it, assuming there’s a door or some other exit on the far side.”
“True,” said Caleb. “And this direction”-he pointed to the left-“might work the same way. Trigger the collapsing floor, prevent it from rising somehow, lower ourselves down, avoid the spikes, then walk to the other side. So we still have to choose.”
“Do we even know there are exits?” Renee asked.
“Yes,” said Orlando, pointing to the iPad screen. “I think Phoebe’s got them drawn here.”
“I saw that much,” Phoebe recalled. “And I just had the impression that beyond each of those rooms there were underground streams in the darkness. Both leading to a magnificent city set in a cavern.”
“So which door?” Renee asked.
“How about neither?” Caleb offered. He pointed to the wall ahead. “Remember the riddle? Sometimes the best choice is no choice. I would say that means-”
“To stay here,” Orlando said, eying the wall ahead of them. “And what then?”
“Shine your lights here,” Renee ordered. “All around this wall. And use your gloves, sleeves, to clear the dust so we can look for outlines.”
Caleb noticed Qara in his peripheral vision. Her head down, breathing excitedly. He moved closer to her and in the noise of scuffling and rubbing, he whispered, “What is it? You know this too, don’t you? Is it a trick?”
She shrugged, poker-faced. “Use your mind powers if you want the answer, and make sure you see the right thing. I will say nothing else.”
“Please help us. My son is going to be coming this way soon, and I can’t let him get caught in one of these
