30

SAM

‘The stairs end here,’ Sam said, nearly slipping off the wet stone underfoot and falling back into the void. He looked back down the dark chamber. The drop to the stone floor would be enough to kill and the stairs were slippery. ‘Watch your step.’

‘OK. Any bats?’

‘No.’

Ahead, the landing turned a corner and funnelled into another tunnel. Sam led, always wary for anything that might be a trap and realising that it was likely impossible that they’d see one until it was too late, for everything was made from the same grey stone, the finish impossibly smooth. They walked out into the tunnel, where the ceiling curved into an arch. The walls bore pick marks from their excavation out of the solid rock.

‘Stop!’ Rapha called. ‘The floor!’

‘What is it?’ Sam asked. He froze and looked down to his feet. The stones here were irregular in shape but they still fitted neatly into one another. It was almost as though instead of being carved and fitted together they’d been melted together—some had four or five sides, others had ten or twelve, yet somehow they all slotted together like a tightly packed jigsaw.

‘This part of the floor is different to the rest of the cobbles,’ Rapha said. ‘Larger, for one thing. And look closer, some are a bit lower than others.’

‘But these ones are higher than the surrounding stones,’ Sam said. ‘And … they have carvings on them. Monkeys, jaguars—’

‘Birds, snakes …’ Rapha continued. ‘Bats.’

‘I’ve seen this before,’ Sam said, taking Dr Kader’s journal from his pack. ‘Here, look.’

‘The way the tiles are notated in here, it’s like the whole hallway is a hopscotch game,’ Sam said. He shone the torch on a section of floor ahead that had disappeared, now only an ominous gaping hole. ‘Only this is no game. You step on the wrong piece, it’s game over—for good,’ he said.

‘Your Dr Kader must have pieced this together from records left by the survivor.’

‘Yeah. He only survived for a few days after being found at a settlement, but the map was made from the story he told before he died,’ Sam continued. ‘And that helped spawn the legend of the lost city of gold.’

‘El Dorado …’ Rapha shined his flashlight over the symbols and looked back to the drawing in the journal. ‘It’s very similar to the stones before us. Pretty clear recall from a guy on his death bed.’

Sam paused, then said, ‘You think that he was delirious?’

‘He had the fever,’ Rapha said. ‘I’ve seen what it can do.’

Sam looked again at the floor, and then the diagram.

‘I think we’ve got no choice but to trust this book,’ Sam said.

‘I just hope he remembered the right tile.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam said, then he read from the journal. ‘Look, it says here, stick to the single monkey figures only.’

They stood and traced the route ahead—an easy step from one to another, although there was an area near the end, about ten metres away, near the black area where the floor had dropped out, where they could not see a monkey carving.

‘I’ll go first,’ Sam said. He pulled his backpack’s straps tighter, slipping the journal into his pocket. He stood rock still. Thinking … waiting.

‘Sam?’ Rapha nudged.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m going,’ he said, taking some settling breaths. ‘I mean—it doesn’t say what happens if you get it wrong. What do you think would happen?’

‘Perhaps don’t think about it is the best advice?’ Rapha said.

‘Right.’

‘I mean, maybe the floor will drop out from under you,’ Rapha offered.

‘Awesome. Yeah, I think I preferred the “don’t think about it” bit.’ Sam paused longer, relaxed as much as he could. He lifted his leg and set off, reaching out with a long step to the first monkey tile. He tested it gently but it remained strong underfoot, with no movement at all. He brought his other foot to it and they just fit, blotting out the tile. ‘OK, so far so good.’

Sam made his way with a wide stride to his left. Overbalancing, he shot out his right foot which landed on another monkey tile next to it.

‘Phew, that was lucky,’ Sam said, trying to plot the way ahead.

‘It does make me wonder,’ Rapha called out, now at the first tile. ‘What happens if we step on another carved figure …’

Sam stopped and stared down at the area ahead, just before the section that was missing.

‘What is it?’ Rapha asked.

‘There’s a group of tiles up ahead that are all covered over in bat droppings,’ Sam replied. He crouched down, all his weight on his monkey piece of the floor tile. He shone his flashlight along the surface. ‘I can’t make out any of the markings at all—it’s all just dark and slimy.’

‘Can you jump to the other side?’ Rapha asked, shining his light ahead. ‘Land just there, before where the floor has disappeared.’

‘Maybe,’ Sam replied. It’ll be close …

‘And don’t stop,’ Rapha said, his flashlight piercing the darkness ahead. ‘That patch where the floor has given out, that’s the end, so you make it over that, we’ve got this licked.’

‘Licked?’

Rapha shrugged. ‘Heard it in a movie once.’

‘You’re enjoying this now, aren’t you?’

‘Beats getting shot at on the river.’

‘Even if there’s bats?’

‘Where?!’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘Or,’ Rapha said, looking back to where they’d started, ‘we could go back and find something to clean the tiles off with, so we can see what they are?’

‘No, I think I can make it,’ Sam said, visualising the leap in his mind. He practised his launch a couple of times, then leaning back on his heels for momentum, he pushed off, leaping forwards.

Sam just made it to the other side of the moss. His feet skidded on the damp cobbles on the other side, causing him to slide towards a two-metre section of missing ground.

He jumped again—

And landed in a tumble that ended when he spread out his arms and legs and stopped himself against a wall. He got to his feet, dusted himself off, then turned back to face Rapha, smiling.

‘Piece of cake. Your turn.’

‘OK …’ Rapha said, although he looked spooked. He tried a different approach, going back two monkey pavers, readying himself, then he ran and jumped—

One tile.

Two.

He made his final leap.

The back of his foot landed just short of the end of the moss, making an ominous CLICK as his weight rested on a different tile.

‘Jump!’ Sam yelled.

In one fluid movement, Rapha bent and sprung forward, arms outstretched as he threw himself through the air.

Sam lunged forwards, grabbing the front of Rapha’s shirt and pulling Rapha towards him as—

A stone wall thundered down from a recessed slit in the ceiling, smashing the grimy section of tiles and sending out showers of dust.

Sam and Rapha covered their faces and coughed in the settling dust.

‘That was—’

‘Close,’ Sam said. ‘Too close.’

‘We’re trapped,’ Rapha sighed, staring at the wall behind them.

‘No, we’re not,’ Sam said, determination in his voice, looking away from the wall. ‘We’re just not going out this way. Come on, we have to keep moving.’