Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [120]
‘He’s trying to crash the Gardens onto us!’ he said to Pooh Bear. ‘Run! Run!’
And so they’d bolted. Fast, with Horus fluttering above them.
Down the vertical shaft of the Priests’ Entrance—avoiding some traps along the way—until it had opened onto this horizontal passageway.
Then the stalactite had landed on the ziggurat and the structure had started collapsing behind them—which was how West, Pooh Bear and Horus came to be here now, hurdling traps, running in total desperation from the collapsing ceiling and crushing death.
It was also why they almost ran right into the next trap.
It came upon them with startling suddenness—a narrow but exceedingly deep pit with hard blackstone walls and a quicksand floor. In fact, though much smaller, it was very similar to the first quicksand pit they had traversed earlier: their entrance was right up near the ceiling, opposite a matching exit on the far side; a set of about thirty handrungs joined the two openings.
One big difference, however, was the intricate engravings on the walls of this pit. They were covered with images of snakes—and in the very centre of the main wall, one supersized image of a serpent wrapped around a tree.
‘Ningizzida, the serpent-god. . . ’ West said, seeing the serpent image. ‘The Pit of Ningizzida. . . ’
But then movement caught West’s eye and he saw a figure standing in the far exit doorway having just traversed the pit.
The figure turned, saw West, and grinned meanly.
It was Mustapha Zaeed.
West glanced from the collapsing tunnel behind him to Zaeed.
‘Zaeed! What’s the sequence of the handrungs!’
Zaeed eyed West slyly. ‘I fear I have run out of advice for you, Captain! But I thank you for breaking me out of Guantanamo Bay. You have enabled me to continue on my quest for the Capstone. Although I will give you one piece of knowledge that I imagine the good Professor Epper neglected to tell you: for Tartarus to be tamed, your girl must be sacrificed. Thank you and goodbye. You are on your own now!’
And with that, the terrorist vanished, disappearing down his passageway, leaving West and Pooh Bear stuck on their ledge, with their collapsing tunnel rushing forward fast!
‘Huntsman!’ Pooh Bear urged. ‘What do we do?’
West spun, saw the collapsing tunnel behind them.
It was certain death to stay here.
He turned to see the wide deep pit before him, the Pit of Ningizzida, and a flashing memory raced across his mind, a page from the Nazi diary:
BUT BEWARE THE PIT OF NINGIZZIDA
TO THOSE WHO ENTER THE SERPENT-LORD’S PIT,
I OFFER NO ADVICE BUT THIS:
ABANDON ALL HOPE,
FOR THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM IT.
So it was also certain death to enter the Pit.
Certain death v certain death.
Some choice.
‘Screw it,’ West said. ‘Grab the rungs . . . Go!’
And out they swung, over the deep quicksand pit, just as a billowing blast of dust exploded out from the collapsing tunnel behind them.
The eighth handrung broke in West’s grasp . . . and he fell.
Pooh Bear avoided it—but the tenth one got him, and he also dropped, down into the quicksand, joining West in the Pit from which there was no escape.
West and Pooh Bear landed in the quicksand with twin goopy splashes.
West made to lie on his back, to spread his body-weight and thus avoid sinking . . . when abruptly, four feet below the surface of the quicksand, his feet struck the bottom.
They could stand in here. . .
So he and Pooh Bear stood, chest-deep in the deep pit.
The walls around them were slick and sheer, made of diorite.
‘This isn’t so bad. . . ’ Pooh Bear said. ‘I don’t see why Imhotep said this was escape-proof—’
It was precisely then that the ceiling of the pit—the flat section of stone containing the handrungs—began to lower. Its great square bulk fitted the pit’s four walls perfectly.
The intention was clear: the lowering ceiling—itself a two-ton slab of stone—pushed you down into the quicksand, drowning you.
It was only a lightning-quick swoop from Horus that saved her from the descending ceiling. As the trap sprang into action, she darted like a rocket for the