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.

  CHAPTER 21

  Sinbad’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.

  Before them was the inside of the Shrine and their senses could not at once take it in. At first it was all shimmering and light, sparkling and glittering.

  Then they began to put it together and realized the room was immense, a vast chamber filled with wonders. It was dreamlike and unlike anything any of them had ever seen. The four interior walls of the pyramid reached up, tilting and slanting to the metallic apex, which was decorated with a brilliant fan vaulting of enormous icicles. The very walls sparkled and shone, for they, too, were covered with a protective layer of ice—dripping stalactites.

  In the center of the vast floor was a high, round platform with several layers. On the highest level, enclosed in a circular pool, they could see a whirlpool spinning. There was also a humming sound that vibrated through the icicles like a violin.

  From the metallic cone that capped the pyramid a column of brilliant light shone down. This light column sparkled and flashed in many colors, a perpetually active shaft of brilliance that played upon the center of the whirlpool.

  “Almost beyond belief!” Melanthius said in an awed voice.

  Dazzled by the sparkling magnificence, it took Sinbad a moment to remember to look around for Zenobia or any other enemy. His instincts of survival were being assaulted by the sheer shining walls, the unusual architecture, the unfamiliar shapes.

  Farah took Sinbad’s arm and clung to him. She looked up at the radiance. “It’s . . . it’s as if the Aurora was being . . . was being filtered down through that metal cap . . . through that cone and into the whirlpool . . .”

  Melanthius took a few steps more into the great room. His eyes sought to absorb everything at once. The humming sound that seemed synchronized to the whirlpool was not the only sound he heard. There was a strange, droning hum that was unlike anything the old philosopher had ever heard. It seemed artificial, a steady, even sound, and not the moaning of a creature or the sigh of wind.

  “That must be the source of energy . . . up there,” Sinbad said.

  Melanthius looked up at the undulating smoke that obscured the apex, and at the emanation of rays that poured down their light. “Drawn from the Crown of Apollo itself,” he said. “The princess was correct . . .”

  “The secret of the Arimaspi . . .” Dione said in a whisper.

  But Melanthius was ignoring his companions, his eyes darting about trying to make order out of the chaos of impression. He noticed at one side of the platform, leaning against the pyramid wall, was a complicated loop of gigantic golden chains which supported a cage large enough to contain a human. The cage was metalwork, and finely done. The old Greek’s eyes went along the chains and he saw they were counterweighted and controlled by a chain that passed through a hole in the staircase that lead up to the pool in the platform’s top.

  Around the big circular platform Melanthius saw four niches, and guessed that each one faced the four cardinal points of the compass. He had noted that the pyramid itself was aligned that way and the niches corresponded properly. Within each niche was a huge beast of some sort, frozen into protective blocks of ice.

  Melanthius limped around the platform, inspecting everything. He saw that each of the strange beasts was positioned couchant, sitting or squatting within the niche. One was a griffon, another a sphinx. The Greek walked on, seeing that the next one was another heraldic beast and the last a gigantic primitive creature.

  “Are those their gods?” Farah asked, her voice hushed.

  Melanthius looked at the beasts in the niches and saw that one of them was a monstrously large saber-toothed tiger encased in a prison of ice.

  “The Guardian of the Shrine,” Melanthius said, touching the smooth, uneven surface of the frozen water. Sinbad joined the wise man and wiped his palm across the ice.

  “The ice is melting!” he said in surprise. There was a roll of thunder heard distantly through the funnel of the passage to the outside. Sinbad became aware that there was water beginning to drip from the thousands of hanging ice knives over their heads. He knew they didn’t have much time.

  Maroof was nervous and he kept gripping and re-gripping his scimitar tightly, although he didn’t think whatever dangers this place contained would be much deterred by one man’s blade. He saw that at the lower edges of the slanted walls, in the shadows, were bodies frozen in ice. There were Egyptian-style support columns lining the walls, and between them were massive blocks of ice that contained the shadowy and frozen bodies.

  There was a sharp crack as one of the great icicles broke loose and fell toward the floor. “Look out!” Hassan shouted. The icicle crashed into the stone floor like the falling of a hundred windows, and Sinbad’s party eyed the glittering ceiling nervously.

  “We must act at once,” Melanthius said. He pulled out the scrolls and unrolled them, his face serious and frowning as he studied them. He only looked up to compare a scroll to the chamber interior and orient himself. He ignored the increasing drip of water from the overhead icicles and didn’t even look up when another icicle fell. The crack of its departure from the ceiling clusters and the resulting smash on the wet floor were like the snapping of a thousand sword blades. Another fell in moments, with the same ear-splitting noise. Everyone but the old Greek watched the ceiling nervously, and kept back near the archway into the passage to the exterior.

  “The chains and the cage,” Dione said. “Just as described in the scrolls, Father,”

  “Yes,” muttered the sage absently. He pointed at the platform. “We must pass Kassim through the column of light, in the cage, as soon as possible . . .”

  Sinbad looked up at the flashing particles of electrical energy that were cascading down the shimmering column of ethereal light into the murmuring whirlpool. He nodded in agreement and ran down the platform and examined the chains that controlled the cage.

  An icicle crashed, stinging Sinbad with shards of ice and splashing him from the thin pool of ice water that now covered the chamber floor. He ignored the near hit and continued his examination, tracing the chains as they came and went, in and out of the hole in the stone steps. He followed the chains as they went up toward the apex of the pyramid, where they disappeared into a grayed yellow-green mist. In that mist there were swirling and flashing particles of electrical energy drawn from the Aurora Borealis outside. The chain reappeared and came down to the bejeweled cage large enough to hold a man easily.

  Sinbad struggled with the chains, trying to decide just how they should be manipulated, while Melanthius began directing operations. He called across to Farah. “Quickly now . . . bring Kassim to the top of the platform, and into the cage.”

  As Farah brought the baboon down the steps from the tunnel and across the floor, the old philosopher searched in his robes until he found a phial of liquid. Then he watched impatiently as Farah assisted Kassim up the steps of the whirlpool platform. She glanced at Sinbad and saw that he was ready, holding only a taut chain and watching.

  “Come on, Kassim,” she urged. Sinbad rattled the chains as he gave the cage a test move. Suddenly a scream echoed through the icy chamber.

  “Kassim will never be Caliph!”

  The scream echoed around the room, making it difficult to decide where it came from, but Sinbad recognized Zenobia’s shrill voice. Releasing the chains, Sinbad’s hand went for his sword and it hissed from his scabbard, glistening in the shimmering light from the column of Aurora brilliance.

  From out of the shadows streaked Rafi, running hard, a knife in his hand and an expression of fanatic vengeance on his face. Behind him Zenobia appeared from behind the ice coffins, screaming, her face contorted with hate and fury. “Not the animal! Kill Melanthius! They are helpless without him! Kill the Greek!”

  Rafi raced down the steps as Sinbad started up from around the curve of the circular platform. The witch-woman’s son knocked Farah down as she tried to protect the screaming, gibbering baboon. The princess tumbled down the steps to the floor as Rafi launched himself on the snarling baboon. The knife flashed as they grappled, then they fell sideways and rolled bumpily down the steps.

  Melanthius got in Sinbad’s way as he leapt down the steps toward the tumbling Farah and the fiercely fighting pair of Rafi and the baboon.

  Rafi and the baboon splashed out upon the icy floor, snarling and biting, both of them. Rafi’s knife skittered along the stone slabs as he missed the twisting anthropoid. He uttered an unintelligible cry and raised his arm high to plunge the knife into the baboon’s breast. Sinbad leapt at them, but missed as they rolled away, again locked in battle as the baboon reached up to seize the knife hand of his assailant.

  Rafi screamed in pain as the powerful hands of the snouted baboon closed over his wrist. His fingers sprang open and the knife clattered to the floor and was kicked away by their shifting feet. The baboon launched himself up Rafi’s tottering body, using the youth’s torso as a climbing pole. His mouth, dripping saliva, opened and with a guttural growl the baboon sank his yellow fangs into the throat of the witch-woman’s son.

 

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