Read Online Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear by Gabriel Hunt, Charles Ardai - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Gabriel Hunt, Charles Ardai
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and for a few feet he feared he might actually get stuck, but the tunnel widened slightly after that, the left and right walls angling away from one another at the top, almost like an inverted trapezoid. He found the fit snug but not uncomfortably so. He had been in tighter spots—while caving, for instance. And he’d gotten out of those, hadn’t he?
With his arms outstretched, he pushed the pail ahead of him, a few inches at a time, and then followed slowly behind it, feeling his way. The darkness was complete,not a trace of light from either end. He dug beneath the fabric of the burnoose to his jacket underneath, straining to reach the closed inner pocket with the Zippo lighter inside. He brought the lighter out and flicked it open. A tiny orange flame bloomed.
The inner walls the flame revealed were smooth, though hand-carved. They were damp, not just beneath him, where the smell of Rashidi’s blood explained it, but on the sides and ceiling as well. He could see the pronounced V-shape the walls made—though the hole in the other room had been circular, the tunnel itself was more like a trough or a channel, with the tops of the side walls significantly farther apart than their bottoms. And there were no carvings on either of the walls, no further instructions for those of Sekhmet’s priests who made it this far.
He thought about the text Sheba had read, describing the required offering. The opposition of “heavy” and “light” wouldn’t have been accidental. Not when the instruction involved placing something heavy—he pushed the pail forward another few inches—into a receptacle; not when it was the descent of some sort of heavy mechanism that had separated Rashidi into top and bottom halves.
He crept another foot forward and then, feeling ahead of him, found the rim of the basin into which Rashidi had poured his bucket of mud. The bucket was nowhere to be seen, and the top half of Rashidi’s body, similarly, had vanished.
From outside he heard a voice, DeGroet’s. “What have you found?”
“Nothing,” he called back. It was the truth.
“Well get a move on,” came the shouted reply.
He held the flame of his lighter to the basin—it was empty. How that could be, he didn’t know, given that it had been full just minutes earlier. He felt around thebasin for any drainage hole through which the mud might have escaped—nothing.
Turning over, he looked up at the ceiling. At a glance it looked no different from the rest of the tunnel, but upon closer inspection he could make out the concealed edges of a distinct block, much like those of the section of the Sphinx’s paw Zuka and Hanif had manhandled out of the way at ground level. Clearly this block could move, too—specifically, it could come down, with great force, and anything lying beneath it would get driven violently down along with it.
But what would happen then? Wouldn’t the stone block hammering down shatter the basin beneath it when it struck, or at least leave crushed, pulped matter behind when it rose again?
It would—unless, Gabriel realized, the block containing the basin moved as well, swung out of the way at the same time the block descending from above came down. He pictured the block containing the basin and the one above it as teeth on a giant stone gear that rotated when provoked. You poured your mud into the basin, after a moment the weight caused the wheel to turn, the basin block fell out of the way and the new block from the ceiling rotated in to take its place—with a new empty basin of its own on its upper surface.
And anything that happened to be lying between the two blocks at the time got chopped as the upper block rotated down to take the place of the lower.
It was a devilish trap—clever but simple, and a marvel mechanically. The stone gear must weigh tons, many tons; how it had been carved and moved into place and mounted on some sort of axle and hidden within the rock he couldn’t imagine. But then no
With his arms outstretched, he pushed the pail ahead of him, a few inches at a time, and then followed slowly behind it, feeling his way. The darkness was complete,not a trace of light from either end. He dug beneath the fabric of the burnoose to his jacket underneath, straining to reach the closed inner pocket with the Zippo lighter inside. He brought the lighter out and flicked it open. A tiny orange flame bloomed.
The inner walls the flame revealed were smooth, though hand-carved. They were damp, not just beneath him, where the smell of Rashidi’s blood explained it, but on the sides and ceiling as well. He could see the pronounced V-shape the walls made—though the hole in the other room had been circular, the tunnel itself was more like a trough or a channel, with the tops of the side walls significantly farther apart than their bottoms. And there were no carvings on either of the walls, no further instructions for those of Sekhmet’s priests who made it this far.
He thought about the text Sheba had read, describing the required offering. The opposition of “heavy” and “light” wouldn’t have been accidental. Not when the instruction involved placing something heavy—he pushed the pail forward another few inches—into a receptacle; not when it was the descent of some sort of heavy mechanism that had separated Rashidi into top and bottom halves.
He crept another foot forward and then, feeling ahead of him, found the rim of the basin into which Rashidi had poured his bucket of mud. The bucket was nowhere to be seen, and the top half of Rashidi’s body, similarly, had vanished.
From outside he heard a voice, DeGroet’s. “What have you found?”
“Nothing,” he called back. It was the truth.
“Well get a move on,” came the shouted reply.
He held the flame of his lighter to the basin—it was empty. How that could be, he didn’t know, given that it had been full just minutes earlier. He felt around thebasin for any drainage hole through which the mud might have escaped—nothing.
Turning over, he looked up at the ceiling. At a glance it looked no different from the rest of the tunnel, but upon closer inspection he could make out the concealed edges of a distinct block, much like those of the section of the Sphinx’s paw Zuka and Hanif had manhandled out of the way at ground level. Clearly this block could move, too—specifically, it could come down, with great force, and anything lying beneath it would get driven violently down along with it.
But what would happen then? Wouldn’t the stone block hammering down shatter the basin beneath it when it struck, or at least leave crushed, pulped matter behind when it rose again?
It would—unless, Gabriel realized, the block containing the basin moved as well, swung out of the way at the same time the block descending from above came down. He pictured the block containing the basin and the one above it as teeth on a giant stone gear that rotated when provoked. You poured your mud into the basin, after a moment the weight caused the wheel to turn, the basin block fell out of the way and the new block from the ceiling rotated in to take its place—with a new empty basin of its own on its upper surface.
And anything that happened to be lying between the two blocks at the time got chopped as the upper block rotated down to take the place of the lower.
It was a devilish trap—clever but simple, and a marvel mechanically. The stone gear must weigh tons, many tons; how it had been carved and moved into place and mounted on some sort of axle and hidden within the rock he couldn’t imagine. But then no
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