The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 140

them, so that they were able to watch the shape of the doorway as it was

fully revealed. It proved to be a dark rectangle, of the same dimensions

as the tunnel leading up from the sink-hole, three metres wide by two

high. The lintel and the door jambs were of beautifully cut and dressed

stone, and when Nicholas shone his lamp into the opening he saw a flight

of stone steps rising before him.

They moved the cables and the lights into the gallery and arranged them

at the entrance to this new doorway, but when Nicholas set foot on the

first step he found Royan at his side.

"I am coming with you, she told him firmly.

"It's probably booby-trapped," he warned her. "Taita is lying in wait

for you around the first bend."

"Don't try that. It just won't work, mister! I am coming."

They went slowly up the steep steps, pausing on each one to survey the

walls and the way ahead. Twenty steps from the bottom they reached

another landing. A pair of doorways led off it, one on either side.

However, the staircase continued climbing directly ahead of them.

Which way?"Nicholas asked.

"Keep going up," Royan urged him. "We can explore these side passages

later."

Cautiously, they continued climbing. After twenty more steps they came

out on an identical landing, with a doorway on each side and the

stairway in front of them.

"Keep going up," Royan ordered, without waiting for him to answer,

Twenty more steps and there was another landing with the familiar

openings on either side and the stairway straight ahead.

"This isn't making sense," Nicholas protested, but she prodded him in we

should keep going on upwards," she told him, and he did not protest

further. They passed another landing and then yet another, each of them

the exact image of those that they had passed lower down.

"At last!" Nicholas exclaimed when they came out at ay on each the top

of the staircase,,with the expected door.

"This is as far side but now a blank wall in front of them. as it goes."

she asked. "How man

"How many landings are there?  altogetherr

"Eight he answered.

"Eight," she agreed. "Isn't that a familiar number

nowr lamplight. "You He turned to stare down at her in the mean-'

"I mean the eight shrines in the long gallery, these the bao board."

eight landings, and the eight cups of They stood silent and undecided on

the top landing  looked about them.

an Okay," he said at last, "if you are so damned clever, tell me which

way to go now."

she recited. "Let's try the

"Eeny'meeny-miny-moe,'

t'hand doorway." righ and passage only a short They followed  ri t

distance before they were confronted by a Tjunction - a blank wall with

identical twin passageways on each side.

"Take the right one again," she counselled, and they followed- it. But

when they came to the next T junction Nicholas stopped and faced her.

"You know what is happening here, don't your he demanded. "This is

another one of Taita's tricks. He has led us into a maze. If it were not

for the cable, we would be lost already."

With a bemused expression she looked back the way they had come, and

then down the unexplored passages to their right and left.

"When he built this, Taita could not have anticipated the age of

electricity. He expected any grave robber to be -quipped the same way he

was. Imagine being caught in here without the electric cable to follow

back the way we have come," Nicholas said softly. "Imagine having only

an oil lamp for light. Imagine what would happen to you when the oil

burnt out and you were lost in here in the utter darkness."

Royan shivered and gripped his arm.

whispered. "It's scaring!" she "Taita is beginning to play rough,'

Nicholas said softly.

"I was developing rather a soft spot for the old boy. But now I am

beginning to change my mind."

She shuddered again. "Let's go back," she whispered, "We should never

have rushed in here like this. We must go back and work it out

carefully. We are unprepared. I have the feeling that we are in danger -

I mean real danger, the same as we were in the long gallery."

As they started back through the twists and turns, picking up the

electric cable as they retreated down the stone passageways, the

temptation to break into a run became stronger with each step. Royan

hung tightly to Nicholas's arm. It seemed to both of them that some

intelligent and malignant presence lurked behind them in the darkness,

following them, watching them. and biding its time.

The army truck carrying Tessay drove back through the village of Debra

Maryam, and then turned off on to the track that followed the Dandera

river downstream towards the escarpment of the Abbay gorge.

"This is not the way to army headquarters, Tessay told Lieutenant

Hammed, and he shifted awkwardly on the seat beside her.

"Colonel Nogo is not at his headquarters. I have orders to take you to

another location."

"There is only one other place in this direction," she said. "The base

camp of the foreign prospecting company, Pegasus."

"Colonel Nogo is using that as a forward base in his campaign against

the shufta in the valley," he explained. "I have orders to take you to

him there."

Neither of them spoke again during the long, bumpy ride over the rough

track. It was almost noon when at last they reached the edge of the

escarpment and turned off on to the fork that brought them at last to

the Pegasus campThe camouflage'clad guards at the gate saluted when they

arrived. The truck drove through the gates, recognized and parked in

front of one of the long Quonset huts within the compound.

"Please wait here." Hammed got down and went into the hut, but was gone

for only a few minutes.

"Please come with me, Lady Sun." He looked "awkward and embarrassed, and

could not meet her eyes as he helped her down from the cab. He led her

to the door of the hut, and stood aside to let her enter first.

She looked around the sparsely furnished room, and realized that it must

be the company's administration centre. A conference table ran almost

the full length of the room, and there were filing cabinets and two

desks set against the side walls. A map of the area and a few technical

charts were the only decorations on the bare walls. Two men sat at the

table, and she recognized both of them immediately.

Colonel Nogo looked up at her, and his eyes were cold behind his

metal-framed spectacles. As always, his long, thin body was immaculately

uniformed; but his head was bare. His maroon beret lay on the table in

front of him.

Jake Helm leaned back in his chair with his arms folded.

At first glance his short-cropped hair made him look like a boy. Only

when she looked closer did she see how his skin was weathered, and

notice the crows' feet at the corners of his eyes. He wore an

open-necked shirt and blue jeans that were bleached almost white. His

belt buckle was of ornate Indian silver, the shape of a wild mustang's

head.

The sleeves of his cotton shirt were rolled high around his lumpy

biceps. He chewed upon the dead butt of a cheap Dutch cheroot, and the