Keepers of the Labyrinth (17 page)

Lil shivered as she looked at the fresco within. It was dimmer than the others, both the torch and the wall painting. On the upper right-hand side was a yellow-and-tan drawing of a large building. A variety of pictographs littered the sky and ground. And below was a picture of Europa, her right arm extended with nothing but a stick in her hand. She looked, for a moment, like a little kid drawing her name in the sand.

“A hand with a pen,” Charlie said, staring up at the keystone.

Lil looked down at the disk around her neck.

“Perhaps symbolizing her invention of the language? Her role as scribe?” Kat said as she traced a pictograph of a bird with outstretched wings.

“Got it,” Sydney said from across the room as the next stamp clicked into the next wooden arm.

“Just one more,” Charlie said, moving to the final alcove.

This one was darker still, barely lit by the candle within. Lil poked the torch inside, straining to see. Her voice caught in her throat. The wall was covered in black flames. And in the center of it were two people. They lay sleeping. Or they lay dead, holding tight to each other's hands between them.

For a moment, Lil's mind flashed to Mom in her coffin. She shook her head, trying to banish the thought. “Death,” she said softly.

“The final symbol,” Charlie said. “It's an urn.”

“I have it!” Sydney said.

Lil hurried away from the dark alcove as they all crowded around the desk once more. Charlie placed her notepad back down and accepted the final stamp from Sydney. They all looked at one another.

“Here goes,” Charlie said.

Lil's body stiffened as Charlie placed the stamp into the sixth and final lever. She pressed it and it snapped into place with a satisfying
pop.
For a moment there was only silence. For a moment nothing moved. For a moment the look of tension slid from the girls' faces.

But only for a moment.

A heartbeat later, a small door began to open to the left of the desk. Then it picked up speed, stone grinding so swiftly against stone that it let out a banshee scream. A burst of flame erupted from its belly. They doubled over, shielding their faces as a hot blaze jumped toward them.

28

L
il stared into the fire. The blaze was sucked back like it might be contained inside the wall, but then it snaked out, climbing into the ceiling in fiery paths.

“Do you think that's supposed to work like that?” Lil said as she watched the reed tapestry light, curl and fall off the wall. A billow of smoke filled the air, and she covered her nose. She searched the room for an open door, another passageway leading out, but the mechanism hadn't opened anything else.

“No, I don't think so,” Kat said, doing the same with the top of her cardi-wrap.

Lil's heart raced as she watched the fire continue, grasping cobwebs and lighting debris. They were going to be smoked to death. She turned toward Charlie.

“Any ideas?” she shouted. “We're in an oven.”

Charlie was half off her seat, staring into the flame and then back at the other side of the machine.

“It's a wood-fired oven of some sort!” Sydney shouted, indicating a long-handled paddle leaning against the wall. “My uncle built one of those in his backyard for cooking flatbreads.” She yanked the collar of her shirt over her face, too.

“No, no, no,” Kat said, shaking her head. “It's a
forno
—how do you say it in English—you fire the sculpture to make it strong?”

“A kiln?” Lil coughed.

“Yes,” Kat said, nodding. “It's a kiln.” She turned and gestured toward the tablets on the shelves. She pulled the nearest one off and held it out, flicking the corner. “See their colors? See how hard they are?”

Lil stared at the tablet. It was black and charred. They would be just like that if they didn't start moving soon. They had to douse the flames, put them out. She stared around the room, toward the bed. But there were no blankets, only hay. No fabric, anywhere. The path of flame scattered ash down to the floor as it sailed toward the outer alcove.

She turned back toward Charlie, her gaze landing on a spout to her right. A shelf of urns sat above it. She rushed around the desk, twisting the handle. A landslide of muddy water descended, splashing into the large urn at her feet.

“We have to put out the fire,” Sydney shouted. She grabbed a small urn from the shelf while Lil filled another and handed it to Kat.

“Of course!” Charlie shouted as Lil filled yet another to the brim and threw its contents at the nearest patch of fire. The flames hissed and sizzled back, then regrouped. More smoke billowed up.

“Of course what?” Sydney wheezed, filling her urn and doing the same.

Kat flew across the room to a spot in the corner where the flame seemed to be attempting to light stone, dousing it, stomping on it. Lil went after the flames that hung in the ceiling like an upside-down grill.

“It's only partly a kiln. This whole thing is one giant machine. Don't you see?” Charlie said. Without hesitating, she reached over Lil's shoulder, thrusting her hand into the base of the urn that was secured to the floor. “It's a printing press!” She yanked and pulled until her hand came up out of the abyss with a loud
s
chlaaap.
“It's clay,” she said, mashing the clay into the frame, completing the tablet. Without hesitation she hit the fourth lever. It burst forward, slapping into the wet clay, then came away, leaving the symbol etched into the glossy surface. Charlie hit the next key, embedding the fifth symbol in the tablet, and then the last. She cranked a lever as Lil exchanged urns with Sydney, handing her a full one and taking an empty one.

“I don't think it's helping!” Kat said as she reached them. She held her elbow over her nose, her eyes circled with red. Lil watched the flame as it stopped momentarily, then danced toward the alcove with the small hay-filled mattress.

“Hurry!” Lil shouted, sloshing half the water onto the ground as she handed an urn to Kat and turned to Charlie.

Charlie cranked the lever on the side and the frame flipped up, depositing the tablet on a revolving paddle. It slid toward the fire as the frame settled back into place.

Lil glanced around the room, looking for a door. Looking for the secret passageway.

“It's still not doing anything!” Lil shouted as smoke billowed toward her. Her eyes burned as she tried to see Sydney in the distance. She heard a cough and a gasp. Charlie swiveled to look into the room, shielding her face with her arm. The flames tore steadily now, diving into the alcove with the bed and causing a patch of fire to erupt along the mattress.

Lil's mind raced. Her throat grew raw and strangled. Her eyes blurred and her head buzzed. “Everyone get down low!” She coughed.

Charlie was on the floor next to her, clutching the tablet. Her eyes darted from corner to corner. “Maybe we need to archive it? Put it on the shelf.”

“I can barely see anything,” Kat said.

“I can barely breathe,” Sydney wheezed.

“Look for spaces on the shelves,” Lil said. “We're running out of time.” She looked up, counting spaces in the wall in front of her where the tablet might belong. There were perhaps eight.

“I have one, two, three,” Sydney said.

“I have several,” Kat said.

Lil turned, surveying the walls. “There are over two dozen empty spaces, at least,” she shouted.

“Too many options,” Sydney coughed.

“Over here,” Charlie called to them from the final alcove.

Through gasps and coughs, the girls made their way to the opposite side of the room. Lil could just see Charlie by the blaze of the mattress fire.

She could hear Sydney, her breath a strange whistle.

“Where?” Lil shouted frantically.

“There,” Charlie said, pointing to the other side of the bed.

In the wall on the other side of the flames was a rectangular indentation. One that would allow the tablet to fit perfectly.

“Oh God,” Kat said.

“I can get to it,” Charlie said, grasping Lil's shoulder and pushing herself up before Lil could object.

Charlie landed on the other side, but the flames were hot. Surely they would burn her. The flickering flame, Charlie, the bed and Sydney and Kat began to fade around her, almost like she was seeing them through a tunnel.

“Hurry!” she gasped as Sydney fell into her.

“Oxygen deprivation,” Sydney wheezed. “We have three . . . minutes . . .”

Charlie embedded the tablet into the indentation. A grinding noise rose from the chamber, and a door in front of them opened. The smoke was sucked forward like a thick zephyr around them. The flames on the bed blew back, for a moment decreasing. “GO!” Lil said, pushing Sydney. She lurched forward, tripping over the mattress into the far wall. Kat dove next, and Lil jumped up last, grabbing for the wall to steady herself.

“Hurry!” Charlie took her hand as they stumbled into the stairwell.

“Wait,” Lil said, reaching back. There was the brick, jutting out just as it had in the previous chamber. Like a little drawer that had been hidden in the wall. When Lil bent over it, she saw that this time it contained a different charm. She grasped the leather thong, pulling it from its resting place. A miniature rectangular tablet hung from the end of it.

Underneath it she could just see the symbol of the labrys through the encroaching cloud of smoke. “Okay,” she said, her voice coming out hoarse now. “This is right.” Though nothing about it seemed right to her at all. She threw the talisman to Charlie, and they ran into the shelter of the tunnel.

29

H
oratio scrambled for his light. It couldn't have been a draft. His ego, his elbow and his heart were bruised as he clutched the gold pendant of Zeus. The lightning rod, poking from the edge of the circle into the palm of his hand. Perhaps Zeus was trying to teach him the lessons of humility? Perhaps before one can gain eternal life, he thought, he needs to be humbled. He kissed the pendant and told himself to be patient. Then he reached for the flashlight, dusted it off and sent the beam to the trapdoor many feet above. Felice's face appeared over the edge.

“Throw me the rope,” Horatio shouted, grasping at the wall. Why wasn't she getting it out already?

“Are you all right, 'Ratio?”

Horatio groaned. “Fe, do you think I would be asking for the rope if I was hurt? Please just throw me the rope and get me out of here.” He felt the heat rising to his head. “It's getting late. We're going to miss them.”

Felice pulled the rope from her satchel. “If you had listened to me and turned back to follow the noise, you wouldn't be in this predicament, so don't be mad at me about it.”

Horatio slammed a fist into the wall, grasping a nearby root and strangling it. She was always the first to point out his mistakes.

“Hurry up!” he shouted, his chest forming knots. “Hurry up.”

The rope descended into the pit, whipping his shoulder as it appeared.

He grabbed it.

“Not yet,” Felice shouted. “Let me tie it off on this root.”

She disappeared from the edge for a moment, and Horatio flipped the flashlight off and placed it into his satchel. He counted to ten, waiting for her to hurry. His fingers ran over the Deus Maxima beads that he always had at his side. They clicked against one another as they ran swiftly between his fingers. Ares had given them to him when he was a child and he kept them in his pocket to this day. When he felt as though he might lose his temper, he would run them through his fingers, counting individually, then by twos, then by fours, then by sixes. Just pressing his fingers along the wooden spheres made him calmer, somehow. Made his mind work better, strengthened his intuition. Listen to Felice, it was telling him. Do not be too prideful.

“All right,” Felice said, reaching the edge once more. “Climb away.”

Horatio deposited his beads back into one pocket, and jammed the flashlight into his other as he grasped the rope. He planted his feet and moved quickly up the wall, pulling himself over the top.

“Do you still hear them?” he asked as he yanked the end of the rope up from the abyss.

“Yes,” Felice said. “Back the way we came.”

Horatio handed her the ropes and wiped the dirt from his body. He wouldn't argue with her, not this time. “Lead the way,” he said.

Felice lifted her head like a hound on a hunt, and they stalked back the way they had come.