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28

Before setting foot into the darkness of the tunnel, I pressed my palms to my eyes and whispered the incantation, “Fos.”

I could now see the tunnel ahead of me, as though it were just on the bright edge of twilight.

The tunnel was narrow. Narrow enough that I couldn’t have put my arms out to the sides, if I needed to. Once past the opening, though, the ceiling went up quickly to at least three times my height.

The ground under my feet was rocky and dirty and gray.

The air of the tunnel smelled of dust and … bats.

At least, I was pretty sure that smell was bats. I didn’t know what about them generated it, but I’d visited the bat exhibits in a number of zoos over the years, and this tunnel’s scent reminded me of all of them.

And between that dry, musky odor and the all-too-recent public toilet smell I’d had to endure, my rumbling stomach was happy I hadn’t gotten to eat yet. I didn’t have anything to bring back up, if the odors got any worse.

I stretched my awareness out ahead of me, as much to make sure that there weren’t any traps waiting as because…

There.

Maybe three, four paces in. Weak spot in the floor would open into a pit.

Without opening it, I couldn’t be positive, but I was pretty sure it was a pit, down there, not a shaft.

So I crept up just shy of it, and waved the others to approach.

“No deeper tricks to it,” Vasco whispered when he reached me. “You want to lock it or shall I?”

“What if it’s the way down that they use?”

“Nychters are a lot like bats,” Vasco said, patiently. “Would a bat use that? Or would it go up?”

I ducked my head, a little sheepish.

The design might have been a pit trap, but really, it was just a concealed trap door, above a stone chamber.

I reached down to just above the stones of the pit trap.

“Konta,” I whispered, while making a twisting, locking gesture.

I then strolled across the pit trap, followed by Magellan, Brikatika, and Vasco.

Once across, Vasco turned and reached to unlock the pit trap. Standard procedure to not leave signs of our passage.

I still grabbed him by the shoulder.

“What if we have to leave in a hurry?” I whispered.

Vasco frowned, but nodded, and left the pit trap locked.

There were three more traps like that one, irregularly spaced farther down the tunnel. The first two we handled the same way.

The last of those three pit traps, though, was the worst.

Somebody had already triggered this one. Or maybe it just never had any stone covering at all.

Either way, there was nothing to lock. It was just an open pit.

It filled the the tunnel from side to side, and was long enough that I couldn’t just step over it. I might not have been able to jump over it either. Felt to me like just over thirty-five feet long.

What was worse, the tunnel had widened to about ten feet across by this point. So I couldn’t even walk myself across like a rock climber, using my hands on one rock wall and my feet on the other.

Jumping looked like the only answer. But that was a problem.

Not for me, necessarily. I mean, I could jump well, from all that basketball, even before my Locksmith training. After training, a thirty-foot jump might just have been possible.

But just because I might make it across, didn’t mean Vasco would. And even if he did, Brikatika wouldn’t.

Magellan, well, I wouldn’t have thought Magellan could do it. Then again, I wouldn’t have thought the beagle could grow to sixty feet at the shoulder, but I’d seen it with my own eyes.

So I couldn’t really discount anything, as far as Magellan went.

“Energy net?” I asked in hushed tones. “Cover the top and cross that way?”

“Too much energy,” Vasco said. “Someone would notice. Give up our surprise.”

Instead Vasco dug into his duffel bag. Came out with a rope cargo net, a hammer, and a couple of spikes.

“That won’t draw attention?” I asked.

“Won’t warn them that we’re Locksmiths.”

Vasco tacked the cargo net into the rocks about a foot above the floor, on both sides of the tunnel.

He handed me the other two spikes and the hammer, then made an after you gesture.

I sighed. Backed up a few steps. Bounced up and down a couple of times to get my legs ready. That was habit, though. All that swimming had my legs as ready to go as they might need to be.

If anything was likely to be a problem, it was that I hadn’t had any protein since that Denver omelet, oh so many hours ago now.

I ran right up to the edge of that pit.

I leapt for all I was worth.

I came up short.

Soon as I realized I was bound for the pit wall, I pulled in my arms and legs. Braced for impact.

I slammed into the far side of the pit. Air whuffed out of me.

I bounced off the wall. Started falling. Flailed with my hands for something to grab.

One hand caught part of the rope cargo net. Vasco had to have thrown it.

I didn’t question. I grabbed it. Clung for dear life while my pulse tried to beat its way right out of my throat.

Sure enough, Vasco was holding the other side, in case the anchors gave out under my falling weight.

The cargo net and I slammed into the side of the pit wall.

Less momentum this time, but the collision still hurt.

I could see now that the pit walls had squared edges. And that the shaft into the pit went on for a good hundred feet or so. I could see bones down at the bottom as well.

Human bones.

Well, the remains of human bones, anyway. They weren’t exactly intact skeletons. That status of those skeletons, though, wasn’t what mattered to me at the moment.

More important just then? Apart from getting my ass out of this trap?

The fact that treaty violations just kept stacking up today.

I gripped the net. Calmed myself down, against the pounding of my heart and the clutching of my sphincter. Not to mention my most recent set of aches and bruises.

I started climbing the rope net back up to the ledge.

“All right,” Vasco said, pulling me up onto his side of the pit, where I lay for a moment and reassured myself that I had not, in fact, fallen to my death.

“All right,” Vasco said again, reassuringly this time. “Think you’re up to another attempt?”

“I didn’t make it last time. Why should this one work?”

“Because this time you’ll be ready.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “You were only about a foot shy. If you’d been ready, you could have grabbed the other side with your hands and pulled yourself up.

I didn’t feel very certain of that.

“I’d really rather open a portal to the other side.”

“No,” Vasco said, shaking his head firmly. “Right now, the nychtera probably know someone is in their tunnels. You made more than a little noise slamming into rock walls. They’ll send a couple of scouts to check.”

Vasco gave me a grim smile. “But if you open a portal they’ll know Locksmiths are in the tunnel. They’ll hit us in force before we can be ready.”

“Who else could end up in these tunnels?”

“Whose bones were those at the bottom of the pit?”

I sighed, but couldn’t find fault with his logic.

I stood. Rolled my shoulders. Took a few deep breaths (that were too dusty for my taste). Did a couple of deep knee bends.

“You’re vacillating,” Vasco whispered.

“Fine,” I grumbled.

I bounced a couple of times. Set myself. And ran for all I was worth.

I leapt, right at the edge.

Tried to fling myself even farther, once I was in the air, not that it would do much good.

I started coming down.

I wasn’t going to make it.

My teeth gritted. My heart double-timed it. I tried not to think about the sweat in my eyes, or worse, the sweat no doubt on my hands.

I landed chest-first against the edge of the pit. Sharp ache through my ribs. My lungs seized up. Couldn’t breathe.

But I could grip. I grasped the rocky floor of the other side of the pit trap with everything I had. My fingers had to double-time it against the sweat on my palms.

I yanked myself up and over. Rolled over onto my back and tried to persuade my lungs to breathe again.

Before I finished, the edge of the rope cargo net hit me in the face.

I grabbed it by reflex. Held it tight while my lungs and diaphragm remembered how to inhale and exhale.

Once life-giving air was coming into me once again, I rolled to my knees and tacked the cargo net to the rocks on this side of the pit trap.

Then I just lay back and waited while Vasco, Brikatika and Magellan made their way across.

While I waited, I tried not to think about the rustling sounds I heard further down the tunnel, around where it snaked to the right before cutting back left again.

Once the others joined me, it was our turn to lay a little trap. Vasco and I worked together to weave an energy net like a spider’s web across the tunnel behind us.

Only took a moment, and it reminded me of what Vasco’d said only a few minutes before. We’re the spiders. Climbing nets. Weaving traps. We really were like spiders down in this tunnel.

Soon as our trap was in place, the four of us got prone against the floor and walls. Tried to make ourselves less noticeable to sonar.

A pair of nychtera flew around the bend toward us, at speed.

They zoomed right into our energy net. Caught there like flies. Unable to even screech out a warning.

Their yellow eyes bored into us as they wished their teeth could. And those teeth were big enough to do some serious harm.

I hadn’t gotten a sense of how big those nychtera were, back in the prismatic crystal chamber. I’d seen them either at long-distances, or with only Chiron nearby for scale.

I’d known the nychtera looked like big yellow bats. I hadn’t realized they were the size of great danes.

And there were how many of these things ahead of us?

“Maybe we should call in backup?” I asked, trying to suppress the hope in my voice.

“No time,” Vasco said. “Besides, coming with a large force would guarantee they kill the hostages.”

“What about these two?” I asked, pointing to the nychtera. “Worth interrogating them?”

“No,” Vasco replied, just as quiet. “Couldn’t guarantee truth. And if we took the time, others might come. We need to move faster now.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “Up for it, point man?”

“Um, hoo-yah?”

I turned, stretched my awareness ahead of me, and continued down the tunnel.

Nothing more ahead of us in the way of traps. The tunnel curved a couple of more times. Had a pair of branches, too, but I could feel that those were false leads.

I glanced back at Brikatika though, just to be sure.

Each time Brikatika pointed with one paw down the main tunnel ahead of us.

I nodded. Continued.

The tunnel widened as we went farther. Wide enough we could have walked four abreast comfortably, had we wanted to. And the ceiling was at least sixty feet up now.

The smell of bats got strong enough that my stomach roiled with it.

But we kept going.

Finally, the last length of tunnel before I could feel it open up into a huge, dripping cavern.

I signaled for the others to stick to the tunnel wall as we continued.

Something was wrong, though.

The smell was stronger, yes, but I couldn’t really see into the cavern. I couldn’t hear any movement or screeing in the cavern ahead either.

Nothing to hear but the sounds of our own movement.

I tried exploring the tunnel entrance with my awareness, and found out why.

Energetic patterns there kept all sounds and sights within. No other traps or tricks to it. Just sensory containment.

That was more than enough, in my opinion. I didn’t like it at all.

An effect like that meant there could be hundreds of those great big nychtera, all poised and waiting for us to enter. Ready to rip us apart before we even had a chance to offer an objection.

And I had no way of knowing until I crossed that threshold.

I shot Vasco a troubled look. He gave me a grim expression, but nodded for me to continue.

One deep sigh, then I pushed on into the cavern entrance.

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