Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

“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.