Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger (24 page)

The Minaton came up the stone steps, his feet scraping on the hewn blocks, and he emerged, glistening and golden, into the sunlight.

“Come, Minaton!” Zenobia cried, and they started through the rubble of the ruined temple toward the great pyramid. The cauldron carried by the Minaton was leaking a few wisps of smoke.

“The Shrine . . .” Zenobia whispered fiercely. Her clawed foot caught on a root and she yanked it free savagely.

They had almost run down from the hills, but now that Sinbad’s party was almost to the great pyramid they slowed, without command, and took their time. The baboon clung to Trog’s thick neck, getting a higher view than anyone. Melanthius bobbled along next to Sinbad, muttering and not answering questions. Sinbad had to watch him, for he didn’t look where he was going most of the time, his eyes being on the huge structure ahead. Farah moved along easily and gracefully, with the four sailors bringing up the rear, happy and jesting, enjoying the warmth of the Valley and making wild speculations about what the pyramid was all about.

Everyone grew more and more silent as they got to the base of the monumental structure. The gigantic stones which made up the pyramid were as tall as a man, and they climbed up, dwindling toward the bright metal cap.

And above it all, directly overhead, was the shimmering glory of the Aurora Borealis.

On another side of the great pile of stone Zenobia and her son arrived at the base. They had been looking for an entrance all the way across the valley, but had seen none. Impatiently, Zenobia ordered Rafi to search along the side facing them, while she and the hulking Minaton searched the next nearest side.

“Come to me whether you find anything or not,” she ordered, and Rafi was off. Zenobia limped along the base, looking for any sort of sign of a hidden entry as well as a more public one. After a few minutes Rafi came running back, panting and sweating.

“N-nothing,” he gasped, leaning against the lowest tier of blocks. “I could not find an entrance.”

“There must be one,” she snapped. She pinned him with her slanted eyes. “You looked for secret entrances, didn’t you?” He nodded, miserable under her scrutiny. “You looked for paths that ended against the stone? Carved figures?
Anything
at all?”

Rafi shook his head, wiping the sweat from his brow. “There was nothing, I swear it.”

“Agh!” Zenobia turned away in disgust. “There
must
be an entrance!” she snarled. “Come on, my useless son, we will look at the other two sides!”

They moved along for a distance until Zenobia stopped suddenly. Her sharp eyes had seen a small sign carved into a block of stone. She recognized it at once as a symbol she had seen on one of Melanthius’s charts. She moved closer, glaring at the sign, as if by willpower she could make it speak.

She turned away with a sweep of her gown and signaled to the Minaton. “Here! We must make an entrance,
here!”

Zenobia backed away and the Minaton moved forward to the great block of stone upon which was carved the small Hyperborean symbol. He set the cauldron at the base of the wall, under the inscribed mark. Then he stepped back, holding his iron bar.

Zenobia held the phial in her outstretched palm and began to chant. “Spirits of the Underworld—infuse this potion with your powers! Efreets! Jinns! El Marid, I call on you—”

The cauldron started to emit more whiffs of smoke and Rafi gagged as he caught some of them. The cauldron began to quiver . . . to pulsate . . .

Sinbad looked at Melanthius as they surveyed the awesome size of the pyramid. “At last you’ll have a use for that precious ‘key’ of yours.” He gestured from side to side, indicating the great size of the structure before them. “If you can find a lock in which to fit it!”

Melanthius nodded, his face grave. “We’ll find it. The scrolls haven’t been wrong yet.” He looked to the right, then the left, shading his eyes. “We must look for an entrance. Somewhere there among the rocks, perhaps. It will lead directly to the pyramid through an underground series of sealed doors—”

There was a sudden, terrifying explosion—a thunderclap of noise—and Sinbad drew his sword. Wordlessly, he gestured with the naked blade. There was a white cloud of smoke over the pyramid, boiling up from a side they could not see.

“What was it?” Farah asked nervously.

“It was like an earthquake,” Dione said.

“There can be only one possible answer,” Melanthius said ominously.

“The witch!” cried Sinbad. “Zenobia!”

There was another, fainter rumble and the sailors took better grips on their drawn weapons. “She’s here ahead of us,” Sinbad said.

The sunlight flashed off Minaton’s polished surface as he wielded the long harpoonlike metal bar, levering out the huge blocks from the side of the immense Shrine. The explosion of the cauldron had created a gaping hole as high as a man, but it was obvious that the pyramid was not just a block of stone deep, but amazingly massive.

Zenobia and Rafi watched the monstrous creation heaving on the bar, and the witch-woman’s eyes glared and flashed as she willed the bronze giant on to greater effort.

A block fractured by the explosion split under the pressure from the Minaton, and half of it tumbled out of the raw wound in the side of the ancient Shrine. The bronze Minaton rested the bar against a block and bent to pick up the remaining half-block and toss it out where it crashed into the other blocks that had been thrown out or blasted out by the explosion.

Rafi gnawed at a beringed fist and complained, “He’ll
never
break through . . . look at how thick the wall is . . . and the size of those blocks . . . ! We’ll be here until—”

“He
will
do it!” Zenobia snapped. “He must!”

She glared at the metal man, her eyes slanting into wicked slits as she brought her willpower into stronger force. The Minaton seemed to gain strength. He picked up the iron bar and thrust it into a fracture in the stone. His gleaming golden back bulged and heaved as he pried at the tightly set blocks of stone with the thick bar.

The Minaton seemed to squeak with effort, and there was the gritty, popping sound of stone cracking. The massive block moved. The Minaton tossed aside the iron bar, now bent and speckled white from the stone dust, and bent to brace himself. His metal arms were spread wide and his huge, shovel-like hands were straining, gripping the hewn block. The was the sound of metal scraping along the grainy surface, squeaks of metal under pressure from the Minaton, but the stone barely moved.

Zenobia drew in a great breath, lowered her head much like the bull whose image was atop the bronze creature’s shoulders, and her eyes almost popped with the effort of her mighty will.

Rafi made on ugly sound of frustration. “He will never break through . . .”

Zenobia’s voice was strained, her fiery eyes desperate. “He must! Minaton! Exert all the power I created in you . . . now!”

The Minaton heaved . . . the stone shifted in a gritty rasp of sound . . . but suddenly, with a roar like the thunder of an avalanche, dust exploded downward, then rivers of sand gouted from around the block, and fragments of shattered stone sprayed out of the hole. Still the Minaton strained at the stubborn block. Suddenly the block gave way, splitting, toppling forward.

The Minaton’s metal feet could not gain a purchase on the shifting sands pouring into the opening and he slipped. The great bronze, bull-headed monster fell backward with the two great fragments of stone falling with him. Dust clouds billowed out and Rafi choked on them, throwing his hand across his face.

But Zenobia only slitted her eyes against the dust. She watched, drained and impassive, as the dust settled. She knew what she would see.

It was Rafi who staggered into the last wisps of dust, his face broken and sagging as he saw the ruins of the mighty Minaton, crushed into useless fragments beneath the stones. Shards of dusty metal lay everywhere, and Rafi leaned against the chipped block that had crushed the Minaton. He looked at his mother through red-rimmed eyes, shaken and weak.

“What . . . what can we do now . . . ?”

Zenobia’s face closed up. Determination replaced her drained disappointment. “He has done his work,” she said. “Look . . .”

Rafi turned to see the final settling of dust being shoved away invisibly as a cold draft of air came from the hole in the pyramid. Rafi saw a darkness beyond and felt the cold air, heard it hissing as it streamed out into the warmth of the tropical valley.

“See?” said Zenobia. “He has broken through into the Shrine.” She stepped over the rubble toward the base of the pyramid, reaching out for her son, awkwardly dragging her bird-claw foot over the crumbled stones. “Give me your hand, Rafi.”

The young man took her hand, guided her over the shattered rock, and helped her up the now motionless river of sand and into the ragged hole exploded and pried into the pyramid. They stood a moment, letting their eyes accustom themselves to the darkness ahead. Then saw they were looking into a long dark passage.

“A torch, Rafi—get a torch.”

“Yes, Mother.” Rafi ran back out as Zenobia stepped over the ragged raw edges of the wall the Minaton had broken. The floor of the passage was covered with dust. Zenobia shivered and drew her gown around her.

Rafi jumped back in brandishing a torch and joined his mother. They moved off down the passage, their feet disturbing the dust, which floated up, then settled sluggishly. Zenobia’s clawed foot made a grotesque track in the dust of ages.

They huddled together, for the air was growing colder and colder as they moved toward the interior of the huge stone pyramid. The dragging lines of Zenobia’s monstrous foot marked their passage as did smoke traces that smudged the ceiling blocks.

“Look . . .” Rafi said, pointing ahead. There was light, a soft, pinkish light. Within a few steps they came to a turning and an opening, and there was no more need for the torch.

“Apollyon, protect us . . .” whispered Zenobia. “Belial, defend us . . .”

“T-the . . . S-shrine . . .” stammered Rafi.

S
inbad’s men approached the tumble of jagged stones that marked the forced entry into the Shrine. Swords and spears poised, they warily advanced on the tunnel entrance.

“Here is the place of the explosion,” Sinbad said. “Look at the blackened stones. There is dust still in the air.”

“They must be there, inside,” Hassan said. He looked at his captain with a tigerish expression. “They cannot be far ahead!”

Melanthius caught up with them, gasping for breath, and Farah steadied his arm. Waving his men back, Sinbad stepped over the stones and approached the jagged hole. He could see the dark interior and caught the impression of a passage. He looked around at his men, saw Melanthius recovering his breath, and his attention was briefly caught by dark clouds beginning to form over the distant mountain tops. Trog arrived, with the baboon astride. Sinbad gestured for the troglodyte to approach but he seemed reluctant and apprehensive, making little guttural protests.

Farah and Dione joined Melanthius, looking with open mouths at the ruined shards of the Minaton. The horned head could be seen intact enough to make out its form. “A bull’s head . . .” Dione whispered.

“And a giant’s body,” muttered Hassan.

“Zenobia’s creation,” Melanthius said softly, “almost certainly.”

“Almighty Allah,” Maroof grumbled, looking around with slitted, alert eyes, “. . . defend us . . .”

Melanthius raised his eyes from the broken fragments and his face changed to shock. “They should never have tried to force an entrance,” he said angrily, pointing. “Now the power of the Shrine is threatened!” He clambered over broken stones to seize Sinbad’s shoulder for attention. “The atmosphere inside destroyed . . . !” He waved a fist toward the dark interior. “The keys to the entrance—the
real
entrance—are useless!” He reached into his robe and yanked out the curious metal objects and flung them away in anger.

Sinbad looked around. “No sign of another entrance here, either.”

Melanthius shook his head. “Under the ground . . . somewhere. It is clearly described in the scrolls. A series of sealed doors and passageways, all underground.” He glared again at the ruined wall. “All to keep the temperature within the pyramid constant, exactly at the point of freezing. Disrupt the temperature and everything will be thrown out of control, out of balance, ruined . . .”

There was a distant rumble of thunder that punctuated the old Greek’s words. They all turned to look and saw dark clouds massing over the protecting wall of mountains that surrounded the Hyperborean valleys. In moments enough clouds had formed to pass a shadow over them. It was enough to trigger the actions of the old philosopher.

He started into the pyramid. “We must be swift!” he said, climbing over the blocks. Sinbad waved at his men and they followed quickly, but warily.

Melanthius was first to make his way, cautiously, into the black passage which led into the interior of the immense pyramid. Everyone except Trog followed. They waited to let their eyes adjust to the darkness, straining to use the little light that filtered in through the crude opening the Minaton had made.

It was Sinbad who first saw the tracks in the dust, for his eyes had been sharpened by thousands of nights at sea, with only the stars to guide him. “Those tracks . . . human and . . . some kind of beast . . .”

Distant thunder rumbled behind them, sending ominous echoes through the passageway. Sinbad shrugged and started into the dark corridor, his sword preceding him. Melanthius followed and the sailors formed a protective ring around Princess Farah and the baboon, who was their reason for this curious journey.

They touched fingers to the passage’s walls to guide them, and shortly Sinbad whispered there was light ahead. They moved silently in the thick dust, senses alert. Even the baboon was silent, and only the wheezing of the old man was heard.

But gasps of wonder came from their open mouths as they came through the last arch into the vast chamber hollowed out of the great pyramid.