Chapter 10 #2
The floor shook with a deafening grinding of ancient counterweights. The enormous stone slab at the center of the courtyard tilted abruptly backward, revealing a dark ramp descending at a steep angle into the depths below.
At that same instant, the main charge of French dynamite exploded in the main ceiling. A massive three-ton block of sandstone crashed down from above, crushing the passage and sealing off the French party behind a colossal curtain of red dust.
"Down! All of you, move!" Alejandro ordered, pushing Father Bartolomeu and throwing himself into the gap right behind Samira, Mateo, and Vance.
Don Luiz leapt in last, at the exact instant the central chamber's ceiling gave way completely, burying the hall under tons of desert rock and leaving the French trapped on the surface with the echo of their own frustrated shouts.
The group slid blindly down the inclined duct, falling toward the unknown watery depths awaiting them below.
The fall down the stone ramp ended abruptly.
One by one, the members of the group were flung into an immense underground cistern, sinking into dark, cold, brackish water.
Alejandro surfaced gasping, instinctively raising his left arm to keep the bronze box — and the two rings hidden against his chest — out of the water's reach.
Around him, the floating oil torches he had lit earlier had gone out, leaving only the ghostly light emanating from phosphorescent algae on the damp sandstone walls. The water came up to Don Luiz's chest.
"Everyone alive?" Lieutenant Vance coughed, spitting out the dark water while helping Father Bartolomeu steady himself on a submerged block of stone.
"Alive, but in need of an actual bath with soap," grumbled Mateo, his hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes already scanning the new surroundings.
Samira swam toward an arched opening at the far end of the cistern, from where came the rhythmic sound of the water table draining toward the Nile. It was the way out.
"The channel is clear!" the guide called, pointing to the stone arch. "If we swim through this duct, we'll come out in an open cave near the river in under ten minutes."
However, before the first man could move, the water in the cistern began to vibrate. It wasn't the echo of the French explosives above; it was a tremor coming from below, from the abyssal depths of the underground well.
The water around the exit arch began to boil, thickening and turning black as pitch. The smell of sulfur and rotting flesh invaded the rarefied air, making Father Bartolomeu gag.
"Something's wrong..." whispered the Jesuit, eyes wide with pure mystical dread as he clutched his silver crucifix. "The seal... when Captain Dumont aligned the discs, he deactivated Solomon's containment barrier! The ash guardians were the jailers... and we opened the cell!"
From the roiling waters of the exit duct, a colossal silhouette began to rise, completely blocking the only escape route.
It was not a warrior of ash, but a shaytan of the Shadows, an ancient demon banished from the surface even before the pyramids were built.
Its body seemed made of a dense, liquid smoke that mixed with the black water.
Sickly bilious yellow eyes cut through the gloom, fixing on the group.
The creature had no legs; its base was a whirlpool of mud and rusted iron chains that clanged against the stone walls with a shrill sound.
When it opened its maw, it revealed rows of shark-like teeth made of obsidian, letting out a silent roar that vibrated straight through Alejandro's bones.
"It couldn't come in before..." Samira took two steps back into the water, her golden face pale as the moon. "The sanctuary was sacred ground. But now the ground is broken."
The shaytan extended a vaporous arm, its claws of solid smoke tearing the air. The impact of its movement created a shockwave in the water that threw Vance and Mateo against the stone wall.
Don Luiz raised his sword, but the Spanish steel seemed laughable before an entity that controlled the very darkness of the underground.
The demon fixed its yellow eyes directly on Alejandro's leather satchel.
It sensed the energy of the Rings of Sheba.
It wanted the power that had imprisoned it for three millennia.
"Alejandro!" shouted Don Luiz, his voice firm despite the terror emanating from the creature. "Steel won't cut the wind! Use the rings! If that thing was sealed by them, they're the only weapon we have left!"
Alejandro felt the weight of the two hidden rings burning against his chest through the wet fabric of his uniform. He had eight rings in the box in plain sight, but his true engineer's instinct told him the circuit needed the right polarity.
Holding the bronze box with one hand, he slid his fingers into the inner pocket, touching the two secret rings. The instant his warm blood touched the unknown metal of the two hidden hoops, the Hebrew runes engraved on them began to glow with an electric blue beneath his uniform.
The demon hissed, retreating a meter in the water, recognizing instantly the energy that had defeated it in the past.
"It's afraid of what you're carrying, captain!" bellowed Mateo, catching his breath. "Work your engineer's miracle before this thing has us for dinner!"
Alejandro stepped forward in the heavy water, his brown eyes fixed on the Djinn's yellow eyes. He did not know how to pray like Father Bartolomeu, but he knew the laws of force and containment. If the rings controlled the elements, he needed to close the circuit right there.