David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

Then, one by one, the others came across, following the trail of blood across the tiles. Phoebe and Orlando went next, followed by Qara, who almost slipped at one tile, having some trouble walking while handcuffed and still weak. Finally, Renee and Chang made it over.

They had to leave the heavy lights on the other side and reverted to using flashlights going forward.

“Keep moving,” Renee ordered. Then all the Maglites aimed ahead, piercing the darkness. “Any more surprises we need to know about?”

Phoebe waited for her to catch up. “Yes, and a choice to be made.” She pointed about fifty feet ahead, where the passage came to a dead end. A corridor led to the east and another to the west.

They stood at the crossroads, lights shining in either direction. Two scouts went ahead, one left, one right. Moving cautiously, assault rifles at the ready, their lights darted around. Orlando turned on his iPad again, displaying the image Phoebe had drawn.

“You’ve got a long passageway in each direction, both ending in large rooms. Any other impressions?”

Phoebe held her forehead, her eyes closed. The air was growing tighter, thicker. The taste of fear and dread became almost palpable. “No. I can’t see. But I do sense something.” She stepped forward and rubbed some dust off the wall ahead.

“What are you doing?” Caleb asked.

“Saw something here.” She brushed away another section and revealed a single line of script. More characters like before, this time in a single horizontal line.

“Darkhad.” Renee aimed her light on Qara, then the wall. “Translate.”

Stepping forward, giving Renee a dull glare, Qara bent down and analyzed the symbols. “It says, Sometimes the best choice is not to choose.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Renee snipped.

Just then, twin screams cut through the passage. Then a merciless thudding sound came from the left. Men bolted in each direction, flashlight beams shaking. Chang barked orders amidst the shouts and frantic screams.

“What’s happened?” Renee yelled into her transceiver. Garbled answers returned, men screaming all at once.

“So it begins,” Qara said, ominously.

“What?” Phoebe asked.

“The curse. Turn back now and you will live.”

Fuming, Renee ran to the right, grabbed hold of Chang and spun him around. “What happened?”

His face paled. The commander pointed to where the beams revealed something rising slowly. The floor itself was ascending, but there was something thick dripping from the center.

“The ceiling,” Chang said. “It fell!”

“And the other?” Renee turned, looking in the other direction.

“False floor,” Chang said, relaying what his men were screaming back to him. “And a pit of spikes.”

“So there’s our choice,” Orlando said. “Go right and get crushed, go left and be skewered.”

Renee took a moment, thinking it through. “We can, it seems, set off the trap in this direction, wait for the ceiling to drop, and then run across it, assuming there’s a door or some other exit on the far side.”

“True,” said Caleb. “And this direction”-he pointed to the left-“might work the same way. Trigger the collapsing floor, prevent it from rising somehow, lower ourselves down, avoid the spikes, then walk to the other side. So we still have to choose.”

“Do we even know there are exits?” Renee asked.

“Yes,” said Orlando, pointing to the iPad screen. “I think Phoebe’s got them drawn here.”

“I saw that much,” Phoebe recalled. “And I just had the impression that beyond each of those rooms there were underground streams in the darkness. Both leading to a magnificent city set in a cavern.”

“So which door?” Renee asked.

“How about neither?” Caleb offered. He pointed to the wall ahead. “Remember the riddle? Sometimes the best choice is no choice. I would say that means-”

“To stay here,” Orlando said, eying the wall ahead of them. “And what then?”

“Shine your lights here,” Renee ordered. “All around this wall. And use your gloves, sleeves, to clear the dust so we can look for outlines.”

Caleb noticed Qara in his peripheral vision. Her head down, breathing excitedly. He moved closer to her and in the noise of scuffling and rubbing, he whispered, “What is it? You know this too, don’t you? Is it a trick?”

She shrugged, poker-faced. “Use your mind powers if you want the answer, and make sure you see the right thing. I will say nothing else.”

“Please help us. My son is going to be coming this way soon, and I can’t let him get caught in one of these deadly traps.”

“Then I hope he’s better at this than you are.”

Caleb glared at her, then turned his attention back to the soldiers brushing away at the wall under Renee’s supervision. He wasn’t sure which woman he was angrier at right now-Renee or Qara. But then, of course, he couldn’t forget Nina. It seemed, all in the course of this single day, his wife was snatched from him and cruelly the gods put in her place three heartless substitutes.

“Found it!” Chang yelled, pointing. “Outline here, a small door. Do we push? I see no other mechanism.”

They all looked at Qara, who merely shrugged. Caleb walked over to Phoebe and Orlando. And silently, as if communicating telepathically, they each lowered their heads, closed their eyes and willed themselves forward in space and backward in time, searching, seeing.

“I’ve got it!” Orlando yelled, clapping his hands for the want of a game-show buzzer. “Just push anywhere along the right edge and it’ll swing inward.”

“And beyond the door?”

“A staircase,” Phoebe said, rubbing her temples, feeling like a sudden migraine just bored through her skull. “Leading down to what looked like a fancy golden crypt.”

Renee’s face brightened. “We’ve found it!” And she quickly ordered her men to open the door and light the way.

“But-” Caleb started to ask, then kept his mouth shut.

Phoebe also didn’t share the others’ enthusiasm. She looked at Qara and then Caleb. “I didn’t see this the first time. I saw a journey along an underground river of silvery water, then to the gates of a palatial city basking in the dark and protected by soldiers.”

Qara’s eyes softened, and she gave an almost-imperceptible nod.

Renee snorted. “It seems you can be fooled just as easily as everyone who’s read the Sacred History. It’s all a big game of misdirection. Sometimes,” she said, confidently, “the easiest path is the best. Occam’s Razor. And sometimes, the best choice is not to choose. We go in.”

The soldiers smiled, their steps lighter. They believed they were close, and the prospect of not having to pass over or around their mutilated comrades in either direction was a popular one. Chang ordered four men ahead through the door and down the stairs, into a slanting passage that was so dark no one could see the bottom.

“I suggest you to wait here,” Chang said to Renee. “Maybe more traps.”

“Doubtful,” she said, “given that we needed psychics to get this far and find this door, but just to be safe, we stay here and see what they find.”

“Agreed.”

Renee turned and pointed her gun at Qara’s face. “And if we lose these men too…”

Qara shrugged. “You’re acting rashly. If those men die, it will be your fault. I warned you.”

Renee took a breath, trying to calm herself. “Do you, in fact, know anything about what’s down here, or should I just put an end to your suffering?”

“Please,” Caleb said, “can we just focus? Qara can help. And I have seen that she will. But right now, you should have your men come back. We can try to remote view what’s down there again, try to visualize-”