Page 41 of Tiger's Curse
The remnants of a ceiling, still held up in some places by rock pillars, cast deep shadows over the area. Statues were carved into stone columns, and, as we walked through, I kept my eye on them just to make sure they didn’t let the remainder of the roof come crashing down on top of us.
Ren continued making his way to the back of the main room toward the black gaping maw of the cave that led even deeper into the hill. I followed him and stepped through the opening and onto a sandy floor in a large, circular room. Pausing, I let my eyes adjust for a minute. The round room had many doorways. The light coming in was just enough to silhouette the opening, but it could not penetrate into any of the other corridors beyond and was quickly fading as the sunlight disappeared.
I pulled out a flashlight and asked, “What do we do now?”
Ren stepped over to the first shadowy doorway and disappeared into the darkness. Following him, I ducked into the small room. It was filled with stone shelves. I wondered if it might have been used as a library once. I wandered through and made my way to the back, hoping to see a giant sign that read: “Durga prophecy here!”, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jumped at Ren’s touch.
“Don’t do that! Can’t you give me some kind of warning first?”
“Sorry, Kells. We need to check each room for a symbol that looks like the Seal. You look high and I’ll look low.”
He squeezed my shoulder briefly and morphed back into his tiger form.
I shuddered.I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.
We didn’t see any carvings in the room, so we moved on to the next one and the next one. At the fourth doorway, we searched more carefully because the room was full of glyphs. We spent at least an hour in there. No luck in the fifth either.
The sixth chamber was empty. Not even a stone shelf graced the walls, but the seventh door was where we found a match. The opening led to a much smaller room than the others. It was long and narrow and had a couple of shelves similar to the other rooms. Ren found the engraving under one of the shelves. I probably would have overlooked it if I’d been searching alone.
He growled softly at me and stuck his nose up under the ledge.
“What is it?” I asked and bent down.
Sure enough, under the shelf on the wall in the back of the room was an engraving that matched the Seal exactly.
“Well, I guess this is it. Keep your fingers, er, claws crossed.”
I removed the Seal from around my neck and pressed it into the carving, wiggling until I felt it click into place. I waited, but nothing happened. I tried twisting the Seal, and this time, I heard a mechanical whirring behind the wall. After a full turn, I felt resistance and heard a quiet pneumatic hiss. Dust blew out from the edges of the wall revealing that it wasn’t a wall at all, but a door.
A deep, muffled rumble shook the wall as it slowly rolled back. I popped the Seal out, put it back around my neck, and aimed my feeble light through the door. I only saw more walls. Ren nudged me aside and entered first. I stayed as close to him as I possibly could and almost stomped on his paws a couple of times.
Shining my light on the wall, I found a torch hanging in a metal sconce. I pulled out matches and was surprised that the torch lit almost immediately. The flame brightened the corridor much more than my meager flashlight had.
We were at the top of a winding stairway. I peered cautiously over the edge into a dark abyss. Since the only way to go was down, I took the torch and started the descent. A clicking noise sounded behind us, and with a slight whoosh, the door closed, sealing us in.
I muttered, “Great. I guess we’ll worry about how to get out later, then.”
Ren just looked up at me and rubbed his head down my leg. I massaged the scruff of his neck, and we continued down the steps. He placed his body on the outside of the steps, which allowed me to hug the wall as we descended. I wasn’t normally afraid of heights, but a secret passageway plus narrow stairs plus a dark abyss and no handrail equals freaking me out. I was very grateful that he took the more dangerous side.
We crept along slowly, and my arm began to ache from holding the torch. I shifted it to my other hand, careful not to dribble any hot oil onto Ren. When we’d finally reached the dusty bottom, another dark passageway gaped open before us. A short distance from its beginning, we came upon a fork leading in two different directions. I groaned.
“Fantastic. A maze. Which way do we go now?”
Ren stepped into one corridor and smelled the air. Then he moved to the other one and raised his head to sniff again. Moving back to the first one, he continued. I sniffed the air too, just to see if I could smell what he did, but the only thing I detected was an acrid, noxious sulfurlike odor. The bitter smell permeated the cavern and seemed to intensify with each turn we made.
We continued onward in the dark, twisting through the underground labyrinth. The torch cast a flickering light on the walls, creating scary shadows that danced in sinister circles. As we made our way through the tomblike maze, we frequently came upon open areas that branched off. Ren had to stop and smell each opening before choosing the one that he felt led us in the right direction.
Shortly after passing through one of the open areas, a terrifying sound shook the passage. A metallic hammering grated loudly and a sharp-spiked iron gate slammed to the ground right behind me. I spun around quickly and cried out in fright. Not only were we in an ancient dark maze, it was an ancient dark maze full of booby traps.
Ren moved up beside me and stayed very close, close enough for me to keep my hand on his neck. I dug my fingers into his fur and held on tight for reassurance. Three turns later, I heard a quiet hum emanating from one of the passageways ahead. The hum increased in volume the closer we walked.
Turning a corner, Ren stopped and looked directly ahead. His fur stood straight up and crackled against my fingers. I raised my torch to see why he had stopped and gripped his fur as I started shaking.
The corridor ahead was moving. Giant black beetles, as big as baseballs, were lazily crawling over one another, obstructing the entire passageway ahead. The strange aberrations seemed to limit their movements to the corridor directly ahead of us.
“Uh . . . Ren, are you sure we need to go down that direction? This other passageway looks a little better.”
He took a step closer to the corner. I reluctantly took a step closer too. The bugs had shiny black exoskeletons, six hairy legs, quivering antennae, and two pointed mandibles on the front that clacked back and forth like sharp scissors. Some of the bugs cracked open thick black wings and hummed heavily as they flew to the opposite wall. The prickly legs of other bugs stuck to the ceiling.
