The Tomb Of Hercules

22

Which way?” Chase said into his headset. The winding tunnel had reached another junction. “Left or right?”

“Left,” said Nina through the earpiece after a moment.

“You sure?”

“Will you stop asking me that? Yes, I’m sure.”

“Just checking.” He took a step down the left passage, then looked back. Komosa watched him from about twenty feet behind, a silver Browning longslide pistol with a laser sight in one hand. Past him, Chase could see the flashlight beams of the rest of the party.

Komosa waved the gun for him to keep moving. Chase shot him a foul look, then continued down the next passage.

It didn’t take long before his light picked out something new. “Okay, looks like another trial,” he reported. “What’s next on the list?”

Another pause from Nina. “The apples of the Hesperides.”

Chase rolled his eyes. “What, I’m going to be attacked by giant apples?”

“There’s only one way to find out, Eddie,” Sophia cut in mockingly. “In you go.”

He glanced back to see the smiling Komosa pointing the gun at him. Huffing, Chase entered the chamber.

Unlike the long rooms that had housed the previous trials, this one was square. The floor was laid out in a grid of light and dark tiles like a chessboard, each tile around five feet to a side. The grid itself measured nine squares by nine, a light tile in each corner. Four stone columns carved to resemble trees, a squat metal cage at the top of each, rose to chest height on the light tiles halfway between the center of the grid and the corners. At the far side of the room beyond the chessboard was a figure whom even Chase, with his limited knowledge of mythology, recognized as Atlas, holding the heavens on his shoulders. In this case, the heavens were represented by a large globe of copper or bronze. A pair of rails curved down from behind the statue’s shoulders to the floor.

“Eddie, what do you see?” Nina asked.

Chase described the scene. “I don’t see any apples, though. How does the story go?”

“Atlas guarded the garden of the Hesperides. Hercules wasn’t able to reach the apples himself, so he offered to take the weight of the heavens for a while so Atlas could get them for him. Once Atlas got the apples, he decided to deliver them himself for a reward, but Hercules tricked him into taking back the heavens by saying that he wanted to adjust his cloak to get more comfortable, so if Atlas could just hold them for a moment…”

“So Atlas was thick as shit, then.” Chase scanned the room again. “The globe looks like it moves, so… ah, I get it. I’m supposed to shove the globe off his shoulders so Atlas gets the apples somehow, then I have to roll it back up the rails onto his shoulders again to get out.”

“I doubt that the statue’s going to come to life and collect the apples for you,” Sophia said. “There must be more to it.”

“I’m still working on the text,” Nina told him. “It’s like the description of the Augean stables-it’s a puzzle, a test of wits rather than fighting skills, so it’s more involved than the others. I just need time to transcribe and translate it.”

“Time is in short supply, Dr. Wilde,” said Corvus impatiently. “Chase, go to one of the columns, see if the apples are inside it.”

“I’d rather wait,” Chase said testily. He looked back at the entrance, seeing Komosa signaling with the Browning for him to go on. “But I guess that’s not an option, is it? Oh well, let’s grab some Golden Delicious.”

He moved towards the first column on the left side of the room, stepping onto a dark tile-

“Eddie, stay still!” Nina shrieked through the headset, but too late.

The tile dropped out from under him. It was hinged along one edge, swinging away to pitch him into a black void below-

Chase threw out his arms, his flashlight spinning down into the darkness as he caught the side of the hole with one hand. Pain searing through the wound in his back, he swung helplessly for a moment before struggling to bring up his other arm. With a groan, he finally managed to secure himself.

Nina screamed his name through the headset. “I’m okay, I’m okay!” he gasped. “Well, technically.”

“What happened?” Sophia asked, sounding more professionally curious than concerned.

“The tile was hinged; it gave way when I stepped on it.” Chase turned his head to examine the side of the hole opposite the hinge. Metal strips supporting the tile from beneath had bent under his weight.

“I always said you could stand to lose a few pounds, Eddie,” said Sophia.

“Yeah, ho fucking ho. Get me out of here.”

Her voice became patronizing. “I’m disappointed in you. Can’t you climb out on your own?”

“I would’ve if some bastard hadn’t stuck a drill in my shoulder!” Chase twisted around to see Komosa still lurking in the entrance. “Oi, Silvernips! Give me a hand, for fuck’s sake.”

Komosa smirked, making no effort to move. Behind him, the other members of the expedition arrived, Nina leading. “Help him, then!” she cried.

Corvus directed his flashlight at the dangling Chase. “He fell in the hole, let him get out of it. Why should we help?”

Nina fixed him with a cold, determined stare. “Because if he dies, you might as well kill me too, because there’s no way in hell I’m going to translate another word of this.” She held up the parchments, thumb tightening. Part of one page tore. “Oops.”

Sophia brought up her gun, but Corvus raised his hands. “All right, Dr. Wilde.” He nodded to Komosa. “Get him out.” Annoyed, Komosa entered the room and pulled Chase from the hole.

“Cheers, mate,” Chase said sarcastically, kneeling on the solid light tile that he’d grabbed. He peered into the hole to see his light lying on the ground ten feet below-surrounded by a nest of jagged metal spikes. “Jesus. You’d need more than a tetanus shot if you landed on those.”

“How do we get across safely?” Sophia asked, looking at the transcribed Greek text in Nina’s notebook. “Are all the dark squares booby-trapped?”

“Yes, but so are some of the light ones too,” said Nina, defensively turning the book away from her. “Let me see… oh, Christ, this is complicated.” She frowned as she read through the text. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. Every second light-colored tile in the first row, the one along the left side of the room, is booby-trapped. Then in the second row, the third light tile is trapped. The third row, all the light tiles are safe. Then the pattern repeats-every second one, every third. All the others should be safe.”

“Should be safe?” Chase remarked dubiously.

Sophia pointed her gun at him. “Only one way to find out.”

Cursing under his breath, Chase banged a heel down hard on the next light tile in the adjoining row. It didn’t move. He warily stepped onto it, then with a little more confidence hopped diagonally to the light tile on which the column stood. “Okay. Any chance of another torch?”

Komosa tossed him his flashlight. Chase caught it and examined the metal cage on top of the column. “Yeah, we’ve got an apple in here.” He tugged at the cage, but it held firm. “Better roll the ball, I suppose. You’re absolutely sure about which tiles are booby-trapped?” he asked Nina.

Nina was working as quickly as she could, holding the red plastic sheet over one of the parchment pages and shining a light on it to spot each hidden letter in turn, then scrawling them into her notebook. “As far as I can tell.”

“Well, if you’re sure, that’s good enough for me. Which way do I go?”

There was a short pause while Nina worked out the pattern. “Okay, if I’m right, the light square diagonally to the right is trapped.”

Chase tested it with his heel. It dropped fractionally. “Yep, you’re right.”

“Okay, go left.” He moved cautiously; this light tile was solid. “Now go right, right again and left to get to the second column, then go left, then right, and you’ll be at the statue.”

Chase followed her directions, arms half raised ready to grab the sides if another hole opened up beneath him. Nothing happened. He reached the statue of Atlas, which stood seven feet tall, and looked up at the giant ball. There was some kind of mechanism beneath it, set between Atlas’s shoulders. “So I push this off, and then…” he muttered, as much to himself as to Nina, as he looked around. “Oh, here we go. There are some holes in the wall. Three guesses what fruit they’re shaped like.”

“You must have to put the apples in them, then push the ball back into place,” Nina suggested.

“Yeah, I guessed that. It’s like a psycho version of The Crystal Maze.” Chase turned back to the statue and reached up to push the ball. Even though it was hollow, it still took a fair amount of effort before it started to move. “Go on, you bugger!”

With an echoing rumble, the ball came free and rolled down the rails, picking up speed before reaching the steeper upward curve at the bottom. It trundled back and forth a few times, then finally came to rest.

Chase retraced his steps to the nearest of the four columns. This time, the metal cage rose easily. He reached inside and carefully lifted out the bronze apple. There was a square protrusion at its base, which he realized matched an indentation in one of the holes in the wall behind Atlas-a primitive key.

He returned to the statue and placed the apple in the indentation, experimentally turning it. It made a quarter-turn clockwise, then stopped. “Okay, it seems to work.”

“Get the other three,” ordered Sophia.

Chase made an annoyed grunt and turned back to face the grid, standing before the central light square. “Okay, Nina, is this one safe?”

A brief pause, then: “Yes. Then go right.”

He took the step-

“No no no, stop, wait!” Nina shrieked. Chase flung himself back just as the tile fell away with a bang.

“Jesus!” he gasped. “What happened? I thought you had this all worked out!”

“Sorry, sorry! We’re facing in opposite directions-I meant, go to my right. Your left.”

A half laugh escaped Chase’s mouth. “All those brains, but you still can’t tell left from right?”

“Yeah, okay, sorry,” Nina said sheepishly. “So, you need to go left, then left again to get to the next column.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“Like I said, just checking.”

Under Nina’s guidance, he gingerly picked his way around the board to collect the three other apples before returning to the statue of Atlas and the keyholes behind it. He inserted the apples one by one. As he turned the final one, he heard some hidden mechanism click: a lock opening.

All that remained now was to push the heavy ball back up the rails and onto Atlas’s shoulders. It took considerably more effort than it did to move it in the first place, but after a couple of minutes the ball rolled back into place onto the switch in the statue’s shoulders. With a loud thump, one of the lighter tiles at the back of the room fell open.

“How do you like them apples?” Chase called triumphantly across the room as the rest of the party followed the safe route to the far side.

“One down,” said Sophia, unimpressed. “Two to go. Get moving.”

“This is just what she was like when we were married,” Chase said into the headset for Nina’s benefit, even though he knew full well that Sophia could also hear him. “‘Cept for the cold-blooded murder, I mean.” Nina almost smiled.

“Let’s keep the stupid comments to a minimum, Eddie,” Sophia said in a clipped tone. Chase shrugged and dropped through the newly opened hole, Komosa waiting for him to advance before jumping down after him.

Another series of junctions through the maze at Nina’s guidance, and Chase found himself at the entrance to a new chamber. He aimed his flashlight inside. “Okay, I see lots and lots of sharp pointy things. What’s the story here?”

Nina completed the next translation. “This must be… the girdle of Hippolyta. Hercules had to get the magical belt of Hippolyta, the leader of the Amazons. But he knew that if he tried to take it by force, the other Amazons would kill him before he could escape, so he had to come up with another method. What do you see?”

Chase cautiously stepped into the chamber. “Well, what we’ve got here is a round room about twenty-five feet across, and all around the outside are statues of women holding spears and arrows.” He took a closer look at the nearest statue, noting that the spear it held continued back into a hole in the wall. He reached out a finger. “I don’t know if they’re work-”

He only gave it the lightest touch, but the spear suddenly sprang from the statue’s hand and hurtled across the room to smash against the wall opposite, its sharp flint head shattering on impact.

At the same moment, an arrow shot with a twang from the other side of the room, coming straight at him-

Chase just barely flinched out of its way, but it still sliced a nick in his jacket’s sleeve. “Shit! Take that back, I do know if they’re working,” he said, quickly stepping back. The traps were interlinked, to deter anyone from simply setting them off one by one.

He noticed other arrows and spears lying broken on the floor; presumably they had gone off of their own accord over time. But if all the remaining weapons fired at once, anybody inside the room would be turned into a pincushion.

He turned his attention to the statue standing alone in the center of the chamber. “So how did Herc get the belt? There’s another statue here that must be Hippo Legs, and yeah, she’s got a belt on, or at least part of one.” The sculpted woman stood almost as tall as the statue of Atlas, feet apart and hands on her hips in a stance of unmistakable dominance. Around her waist was a bronze and silver band, part of which could clearly be detached from the statue.

But Chase had no intention of simply pulling it loose, keeping a wary eye on the weapons all around him. He described the statue to Nina. “So, what do I do?”

“There are different versions of the story,” she told him, “but the most common one is that Hercules persuaded Hippolyta to give him the girdle of her own free will. Basically, he told her why he needed it, and she agreed to let him have it-either to avoid a fight that would end badly for both sides, or because she fell in love with him. Again, there are different versions.” She thought for a moment. “Did you say the statue was in a dominant stance?”

“Yeah, hands on hips. Kind of like the way you stand when I’m watching the telly and you want me to move furniture.”

“Cute. But is there anything on the floor around her feet, or on the feet themselves?”

Chase turned the light downwards, and saw that her guess was correct. “Looks like part of the feet move, like they’re trigger stones or something.” He cast a nervous look up at the spears and arrows. “Wait, what if they fire everything?”

“I don’t think they will. The story is about submission; to get what he needed, Hercules had to grovel to Hippolyta. I think that’s what has to be done here.”

“You mean…”

“Get down on your knees, Eddie,” said Sophia over the radio with unconcealed amusement. Outside the doorway, Komosa stifled a laugh. “You finally take your rightful place in front of a woman. Wait a second, though-I have to see this.”

“Glad you’re having fun,” Chase grumbled as she skipped up the tunnel to peer around the entrance. He kneeled down, realizing there was a third trigger set into the floor beneath his knees-simply standing on the statue’s feet wouldn’t work.

He leaned forward, bending into an embarrassingly submissive position in order to place both hands on the stone feet. “All right,” he sighed as he pushed down, “let’s get this over with.”

“I really think you should call her ‘Mistress,’” Sophia called from the door, but he ignored her, instead looking up as a soft clink of metal sounded above his head. The belt had moved slightly. He rose and gingerly touched it, more than half expecting a fusillade of spears to impale him…

They didn’t. But in the quiet of the chamber, his ears picked up a faint but distinct creak, like a bowstring tensing. He looked around. A thin line of dust slowly drifted down from one of the nearby spearheads, shaken loose by a very slight vibration.

The trap was still primed.

Chase warily took in the dozens of other sharpened points also aimed at him, belatedly realizing that his mouth had gone dry. He swallowed, then turned his attention back to the belt, carefully placing the fingertips of both hands against it.

No sounds, no missiles flying to impale him. He applied more pressure, slowly pulling the metal band towards him. Metal scraped against stone. There were protrusions on the back of the belt, catching the statue-

Creak.

Chase froze. The sound had come from his left. Not even breathing, he eased his grip on the belt and cautiously turned his head. More dust wafted down from the head of an arrow pointing straight at his face.

He leaned back out of its path, then set his jaw. He’d done everything he was supposed to do-if the trap was going to fire, there didn’t seem to be any way he could prevent it. One eye on the arrow, he took hold of the belt again, and pulled.

The curved metal band slid free. The weapons surrounding him remained still. Chase blew out a relieved breath and stood.

He had already noticed a recess in the closed door on the far side of the circular chamber, and was not surprised to find that it matched the shape of the belt. Slots accepted pegs on the back of the ancient bronze piece, and he heard a lock clunk as he pushed it into place. Another, harder push, and the door swung open to reveal a black tunnel beyond.

Komosa came into the room, Sophia behind him. “Only one more task to accomplish, Eddie,” she said. “Get to it.”

“And then what happens?” Chase wanted to know. “You going to kill us as soon as we get into the Tomb?”

Sophia didn’t reply, but there was something in her smile that gave Chase pause. At that moment, he knew that she wasn’t simply going to kill Nina and him. She had something else in mind. He doubted he would like it. Whatever it was, Komosa seemed to be in on it, sharing a similar look of expectant sadism.

He left the circular room for the new tunnel just as Nina entered from the other side. She took in the surrounding statues, but Corvus urged her along when she stopped for a closer look.

Nina stood her ground, the rest of Corvus’s men bunching up behind them. “The least you can do is let me look at them. This is an incredible archaeological find.”

“I am not interested in the past,” Corvus said sniffily. “Only the future. Go on,” he told his men. They shuffled around the statue of Hippolyta.

Nina’s voice filled with sarcastic contempt. “Don’t you know that those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to-”

Thwack!

They both jumped at a sudden blur of movement, which was followed by an anguished gurgle as one of the men slumped to his knees. He had accidentally brushed a spear as he passed it, and the trap had fired, shooting the weapon deep into his rib cage-and an arrow from across the room into his chest. With a final dying gasp, he flopped forward, driving the arrow even farther into his body.

Nina looked away from the body, at Corvus. “Case in point. Eddie learned not to do that five minutes ago.”

The other men nervously turned to Corvus, one of them bending to retrieve the dead man’s equipment and gun. “Leave him,” Corvus ordered. “We’ll collect him on the way out.” Now taking much greater care to stay well clear of the poised weapons, the group moved on.

Chase led the way, waiting at each junction for Nina’s instructions as she transcribed the hidden letters on the fly. What dangers lay down the paths not taken he had no idea, but he stopped thinking about them as the tunnel reached the entrance to another chamber.

The last trial of Hercules. Cerberus, the guardian of the Underworld.

This trap appeared similar in design to the mares of Diomedes, but in this case there was only a single statue waiting to advance, a juggernaut filling the entire width of the passage. That wasn’t what caught Chase’s attention, though, nor was it the pair of huge paws that he suspected would pound up and down to crush anyone who got too close.

It was the heads-plural. Cerberus looked like a particularly savage Rottweiler, but its broad shoulders supported no fewer than three snarling heads, each over two feet across. Unlike those of the mares of Diomedes, the jaws seemed sculpted to remain fully open.

“Bloody hell, it’s Fluffy,” Chase said into the headset. “So what’s the trick to dealing with giant three-headed dogs?”

“Hercules had to wrestle Cerberus,” Nina told him. “His task was to bring the dog out of the Underworld, which he did basically by putting a headlock on the middle head and dragging it out with him.”

“I think this mutt’s a bit big to drag anywhere, and Hagrid’s never around when you need him. So, I’m going to have to give it a bit of Hulk Hogan, am I?” If the paws did indeed move up and down, they seemed far too massive to do so at the same speed as the legs of the horses that had killed Bertillon. If he could jump onto one of them, he should then be able to grab the central head when it lifted him up…”Okay, then. Walkies.”

He entered the passage, advancing step-by-step and bracing himself for the moment when a footfall would bring the statue to “life”…

Clunk.

A stone slab dropped half an inch beneath his foot. Faint rattles came from beneath the floor, a chain reaction working its way towards the statue to knock out whatever final pin held the mechanism in check.

Cerberus lurched forward, each huge paw rising five feet into the air in turn before smashing back down onto the ground with enough force to crack the slabs beneath. Behind Chase, a gate slammed down to block his exit. The statue was moving more slowly than the mares of Diomedes, but it would still crush him against the back wall in little over a minute.

Each paw had claws curving out from it like scimitars. One more thing to worry about. Holding the flashlight in his left hand, he moved towards the giant statue, waiting for the precise moment to-

Jump!

Chase vaulted onto the statue’s left paw as it hit the ground in a cloud of dust. After a moment, it rose again, lifting him towards the heads. He braced himself, ready to grab the middle head and twist it around. This was easier than he’d expected…

A new noise came from the head above him, sounding oddly like clanking crockery.

Instantly on alert, Chase looked up. A sealed earthenware pot about the size of a grapefruit dropped from a hole at the back of the dog’s mouth onto the gaping lower jaw.

Chase leapt from the left paw onto the right-

The pot smashed on impact, the liquid inside spraying everywhere. He felt some of it splatter onto the back of his leather jacket. A sharp smell stung his nostrils.

Hissing fumes rose from the dust-covered stone, from his back.

Acid!

“Jesus!” He shone the light over his shoulder, seeing that the corrosive liquid had already burned the topmost layer of leather from black to an ugly mottled brown, and was rapidly eating through what lay beneath.

And with his weight now on the other paw as it rose, he heard more clinking sounds from above, another container about to drop from the right-hand head-

“What is it, what’s going on?” Nina shouted in his ear.

“It’s spraying fucking acid at me!” Chase yelled, jumping back onto the left paw just as a second pot smashed, froth pouring from the mouth.

“His spit’s poisonous in the legend!”

“You could have told me that before!” The right paw crashed down onto the floor, pieces of broken paving scattering around it. The left paw began to ascend again. Chase looked up. It was his extra weight on the moving stone that was triggering the acid trap, which meant another would be released at any moment.

The mouth above him was still dripping, fumes burning his eyes and nostrils. He coughed. The statue had already covered half the length of the passage…

Cerberus’s central head sneered down at him. Unlike its outlying companions it was a separate piece from the rest of the statue, its neck fitting into a circular hole.

Another clay pot skittered from the hole at the back of the dog’s throat-

Chase threw himself at the middle head. The pot burst open, a liquid limb sluicing after him.

He grabbed the statue, feeling the acid splash against his arm and side. Pinprick splashes burned his left hand and scalp as he pressed his face against the stone head for what little protection it offered, but he knew they would be nothing compared to what he would feel when the searing corrosive ate away the leather and started on his flesh.

And now he had no footholds, dangling with both arms wrapped around Cerberus’s neck.

He twisted, kicking against the statue’s chest as he got a grip on one of the ears and wrenched at it with all his weight.

It didn’t move.

“Shit!” His sleeve was smoking, the fumes so strong that he could barely breathe.

Ten feet away from the back wall of the passage, nine…

He kicked again, swinging into a new position to grip the top of the statue’s head with his left arm and turn it counterclockwise. Stray drops of acid seared his cheek as he raised his arm over his head.

Fingers closed around the other stone ear. The wall was six feet away.

Last chance-

Roaring, Chase pulled at the head, feet scrabbling against the dog’s chest for every ounce of leverage. Four feet, three… The head turned.

Both the giant paws fell to the floor with enormous force, one of the scimitar claws breaking loose and clashing against the portcullis gate. Cerberus juddered to a halt.

Chase dropped from the head, tearing off his jacket and throwing it to the ground. Swirls of smoke billowed from it, holes eaten through the left sleeve and the back. He wiped frantically at the burns on his head and hands with the material of his T-shirt. “Fuck! Fucking hell, that hurts!”

Komosa and another man lifted the gate. Beneath the central head, a stone slab moved slightly. Komosa shoved past Chase and kicked it open to reveal the exit. “We’re through,” he announced to Sophia and Corvus as they arrived.

Chase looked mournfully down at the smoldering leather at his feet. “Lost my jacket, lost my gun,” he complained. “This hasn’t been a good week.” But his expression lifted-slightly-when he saw Nina behind Sophia. “Haven’t lost everything, though,” he told her. She didn’t quite smile, but her relief at seeing him again was plain.

Corvus turned to Nina. “Is this it? Was that the last obstacle?”

“I’ve still got one more page to translate. But yes, that was the last trial. The Tomb of Hercules is through there.” She indicated the new opening.

Corvus stepped eagerly towards it, but Sophia held his arm. “I think we should send Yorkshire Jones in first. Just in case.”

Komosa prodded Chase with his gun. Wearily, Chase moved to the hole.

“Wait,” said Nina. “Send me instead.”

Sophia snorted mockingly. “I don’t think so.”

Nina turned to Corvus. “This is my discovery. You wouldn’t be here without me. You wouldn’t even know this place existed without me. At least let me be the first to see it.”

After a moment, Corvus nodded. Sophia shot him a warning frown. “René…”

“If she tries anything, kill Chase,” he ordered Komosa. The Nigerian gave Chase an expectant grin as he handed his flashlight to Nina.

“Good luck,” Chase told her as she bent down and clambered through the hole.

The low passage ran under the statue before opening out in the chamber behind it, the cogs and chains and counterweights that had driven Cerberus now still and silent. She ignored them, her flashlight beam falling upon another archway at the far end.

Much larger than the previous exits, this one was far more ornate, decorated in silver and gold and precious stones.

Nina walked to it, shining the light through the opening. More treasures glinted back at her.

“I think this is it,” she called as she reached the opening-and stepped through.

With that, Nina became the first person in thousands of years to enter the Tomb of Hercules.