The Third Gate

53

Logan didn’t know if he’d been out for an hour-didn’t know if he’d been out for a day. But as he opened his eyes and tried to rise to a sitting position, shaking his head to clear it, he realized it could only have been a few seconds. The tomb was full of raised voices and the sound of running feet. A handful of tiny emergency lights had come on, bathing the chamber in a sepulchral crimson glow. Rush was bending over him, massaging his wrists and trying to get him on his feet.

“Come on, Jeremy,” he said. “We’ve got to go.”

The tomb was beginning to fill with choking, acrid smoke. There was a strange smell in the air: a combination of burning rubber, ozone, and-ominously-methane.

“What’s happening?” one of the roustabouts was shouting, in a ragged, hysterical tone. He had a gash on his temple that was bleeding freely. “What’s happening?”

What’s happening? The words of Narmer’s curse came into Logan’s mind. Any man who dares enter my tomb will meet an end certain and swift. The hand that touches my immortal form will burn with unquenchable fire. Should any in their temerity pass the third gate, then the black god of the deepest pit will seize him, and his limbs will be scattered to the uttermost corners of the earth.

“It’s Narmer’s queen,” he said. “Niethotep. She’s trying to preserve her immortality by burying her tomb-the tomb she stole from her husband-all over again. Killing all who would attempt to despoil it-who might attempt to wield the crown. It’s the queen-with a little help from Jennifer Rush.”

Logan realized that, in fact, he had only thought these words, not spoken them aloud. Ethan Rush was still at his side, urging him to stand. With an effort, he rose to his feet; the world swayed around him, then slowly righted itself. Rush looked intently into his eyes, grunted, then began leading the way out of the tomb.

They left the ebony nightmare of chamber three, passed through chamber two and into the larger space of chamber one. Here, the entire team was clustered around the Lock and the platform that lay beyond. There were no emergency lights here, and several people had their flashlights out, the yellow beams lancing through the thickening air. Numerous radios were chattering, filling the background with a steady, electronic din. Logan could make out the figure of Stone, standing on the air lock platform, starting to direct people up the sloping tunnel of the Umbilicus. One of the security guards urged Stone to make the climb himself, and after a moment Stone relented and went next in line. He was followed by two of the technicians. Then one of the grunts, the one named Kowinsky, forced himself to the head of the line and began climbing frantically, despite the angry shouts of Valentino, who was standing at the rear, urging everyone else on before him.

And now, shuffling forward with the others, Logan found himself ducking through the heavy door of the Lock, past the dressed granite that made up the entrance to Narmer’s tomb, and onto the thick metal grating of the air lock platform. Tina Romero was directly in front of him; she looked back, gave him a wan smile, and started to ascend. And then it was his turn. He grabbed the first handhold, looked up in preparation to climb-and stopped dead.

The yellow length of the Umbilicus tube-normally so orderly-was a shocking mess. The heavy cabling that ran down its length had come loose and was hanging limply across the span, like so much viscera. The wooden framework of skeletal bracing was crushed in several places, the overlapping hexagonal beams now just a labyrinth of lumber, and the climbers above him were being forced to thread their way arduously through the planking. Ropes had been dropped by those in the Staging Area above, but in the ruined jumble of cabling and cracked wood they were of little help. In the distance-at the top of the Umbilicus-Logan thought he could make out the Maw itself; but it looked blackened and distorted, its metal edging strangely petaled, as if from the force of some great explosion. But the distance was too great, and the air too thick with smoke, for him to be certain.

But it was the Umbilicus itself that stopped him in his tracks. Its yellow skin, normally so smooth and regular, was distorted into an ugly mass of runaway wrinkles and bulging concavities. At the points where the wooden bracing had partially collapsed, the Umbilicus walls pressed frighteningly in on the half-dozen people overhead, moving one after another like mountain climbers, heading for the surface. The great weight of the Sudd was squeezing in on them from all sides, probing the damaged tube, searching for a way, any way, to…

Logan felt a pressure on his shoulder. “Come on, man!” he heard the voice of Valentino say. “Climb! Sbrigati! ”

Romero was now several feet above him. Logan forced himself to look only at the hand and footholds, to ignore what was above, and to begin the climb. He resolutely refused to look up again, concentrating on putting one hand above the other, first the left, then the right. Below, at the edges of his vision, he saw another technician mount the lowest step, begin to climb…

And then he felt Romero’s foot graze the side of his head. Without thinking, he glanced up to see what had stopped her ascent.

As he did so, he heard gasps-and curses-from the climbers above.

He glanced past Tina-and his heart sank. About twenty feet over his head, near the top of the Umbilicus tube, one of the wooden supports-broken in two, its edges like sharp stakes-was being pressed against an inward bulge in the Umbilicus wall, its material weakened by whatever explosion had caused this devastation. Even as he stared in horrified fascination, the yellow fabric met the sharp edges of the wood. A tear formed; first small, then quickly growing, as the external pressure of the swamp found the weak spot and exploited it.

“No!” the grunt overhead, Kowinsky, screamed. “Jesus, no!”

And then, with a strange sound that was half a sigh, half a shriek of rending fabric, the wall of the Umbilicus gave way. And instantly the Sudd poured in: a vomiting eruption of quicksand. Like water traveling the length of a garden hose it came down toward them. Under its irresistible pressure the Umbilicus began to unravel, from top to bottom, a long seam of black that began tearing itself apart with alarming speed, the foul sludge thrusting inward and downward. Cries and shrieks arose from the climbers above-a cacophony of mingled dismay and terror.

Logan did the only thing that came to mind. Instinctively, without thinking, he reached up, put his hands around Tina Romero’s feet, then let go of the ladder, sliding down past the climbing tech and falling heavily onto the floor of the air lock platform.

She struggled against him. “What are you doing?” she cried.

“Tina!” he shouted over her protests. “Close your eyes!”

There was a rushing sound; a strange tremor, like an approaching earthquake; a chill puff of cesspool wind-and then they were enveloped in cloying, suffocating, disorienting blackness.