Page 187 of Tomb of the Sun King

The hall beyond the door was quiet. As Neil held his breath, tuning his ears even more carefully to the silence, he could just make out the murmur of distant voices.

“I think they’re down in the—” Neil began.

The rest of his words were cut off by a deep, resonant thunder that drummed through the stillness of the quarry.

Neil pressed himself against the doors as the sound boomed around him. Chips of stone shivered down from the cavern ceiling, cracking softly against the ground as they fell.

The rumble faded into a low echo before drifting back into silence.

“What…” Neil swallowed against a dry throat. “What was…”

Sayyid had flattened himself against the wall. He looked up nervously. “It sounded like firecrackers. Extremely loud, very powerful firecrackers?”

A few more bits of stone pinged down by Neil’s shoes. “Is the quarry going to collapse?”

The question ended in a somewhat humiliating squeak.

“I truly, sincerely hope not,” Sayyid replied fervently.

Neil jolted at the sound of voices through the crack in the alabaster doors. They were coming from much closer than before, and one of them was most distinctly that of Mr. Forster-Mowbray.

Neil couldn’t make out Julian’s words, but the high-pitched reply came to him in the tones of Professor Dawson.

“Attack?!” Dawson echoed wildly. “From whom? We’ll be cornered down here!”

Neil quickly looked at Sayyid, who was still prudently plastered to the wall. Sayyid raised an eyebrow.

A rush of harsh whispers followed, and then Neil heard the creak of a winch.

After that, everything went quiet.

Neil met Sayyid’s eyes with an unspoken question. Sayyid drooped with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, then nodded. Peeling himself from the wall, he hefted the crowbar like a cricket bat and waited.

The firebird bone flickered, reminding Neil that he was more or less carrying a beacon. He shoved it into his pocket, dropping them in a deep, thick gloom, then felt his way to grip the rough edge of the cracked door.

The heavy stone slab ground against the floor with a noise that sounded like the groan of a giant to Neil’s paranoid ears. He forced himself to keep pulling, knowing that leaving the door half-open at this point would only invite some burly, well-armed enemy to set up an ambush.

Sayyid rushed inside, the crowbar raised. Neil followed him, lifting his fists… for all the bloody good that would do him.

The hallway was empty. A lone paraffin lantern sat under the hole in the ceiling like a neglected relic. A rope sling dangled down from the opening, clearly a more elaborate system for lifting people and gear than what Neil and the others had managed an hour before.

Sayyid’s favorite scarab curse decorated the wall beside him, reminding Neil of the divine punishments intended for those who violated tombs.

Fear tugged at him—not of curses, but of the possibly murderous thugs who might lurk around every corner.

His worry about Ellie and the others outweighed it. As quietly as possible, he crept up the hall to where the fissure opened in the ceiling. There were no more explosive sounds, but he could hear the bark of angry voices.

Sayyid held the crowbar uneasily. “Have they all gone?” he whispered.

“I… think our people must have been taken outside.” Neil glanced up at the hole.

“How can you be certain?” Sayyid demanded.

“I think we would hear them if they were still here,” Neil pointed out. “None of them are particularly quiet.”

“That is true,” Sayyid acknowledged.

“Should we go up?” Neil looked anxiously to Sayyid.

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