Old Mars Page 22

  Above! It’s right over your head!

  Scorpio looked up. There was nothing but the top of the corridor, composed of the same faintly glowing stone as the walls.

  You’re wrong. There’s nothing there.

  Here it comes!

  And suddenly, an ugly head with huge, razor-sharp fangs and glowing red eyes burst through the ceiling exactly above Scorpio. He pushed Quedipai back, hurled himself against a wall, and fired at the head. It didn’t quite roar and didn’t quite hiss, but made a sound that was halfway between the two. The burner had blown one of its eyes out and melted a fang, but still it came at him, and as he backed away, firing his weapon, it stretched out to four, five, six, seven feet in length.

  Finally, Scorpio extended his weapon and arm in the thing’s direction. It opened its mouth to bite or perhaps swallow both, and he pressed the firing mechanism one last time, burning the beast’s brain to a crisp and blowing a hole in the back of its head.

  It hung, motionless, from the ceiling, almost touching the floor, while the trio stared at it.

  “What the hell is it?” asked Scorpio.

  “Even I cannot pronounce the ancients’ name for it,” answered Quedipai. “It is not quite a snake, because it has very small limbs and claws that are still above the ceiling, but I suppose the closest definition is a cave snake, a snakelike thing that lives within the walls of caves.”

  This isn’t a cave, noted Merlin.

  Same thing, responded Scorpio. Besides, what difference does it make? You want to call it a tomb snake, be my guest.

  Do you get the feeling that these kings don’t want to be disturbed?

  Scorpio began walking again, and after another hundred yards the corridor broadened out and the walls actually glowed a little brighter. They finally came to a fork in the corridor, and Scorpio paused, wondering which direction to go.

  “This is too easy,” he said at last.

  “Easy?” repeated Quedipai, surprised.

  Scorpio nodded. “Keep alert and you don’t have a problem on the staircase. And I didn’t have to shoot the snake thing; I could have just run ahead. He can’t go through stone as fast as I can run. Whoever designed this had to know that most intruders would get this far.”

  He stared at both corridors again and couldn’t make up his mind. Finally, he retraced his steps to where the dead creature still hung down from the ceiling. Reaching into his boot, he withdrew a wicked-looking knife and soon cut the thing’s head off.

  “What are you going to do with that?” asked Quedipai, staring at the severed, mutilated head with horrified fascination.

  “You’ll see,” said Scorpio.

  He carried the head back to the fork, took a couple of steps into the left-hand corridor, then rolled the head down it like some nightmare bowling ball.

  When it had rolled about forty feet there was an audible click! and the floor opened up. The head plunged down into a deep, seemingly bottomless pit.

  Did you see where it stopped and started?

  Yes. Let me go first, while I’ve still got it pinpointed.

  Be my guest.

  Merlin began trotting down the corridor. When he had gone just short of forty feet he reached a forepaw out and gently touched the floor.

  Nothing happened.

  He moved forward another foot and repeated the procedure, and this time the floor opened just as it had for the snake’s head.

  Merlin leaped across the pit with ease.

  It’s no more than four feet wide, he signaled back. Deep as hell, and the walls are absolutely smooth, so don’t trip.

  Scorpio turned to Quedipai. “Can you jump?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” answered the Martian uneasily.

  “How can you not know?” demanded Scorpio. “Either you can jump or you can’t.”

  “I can jump. But I am very old. I don’t know if I can jump that far.”

  “All right,” said Scorpio. “We’ll do it the hard way.”

  “The hard way?” repeated Quedipai.

  Scorpio scooped the Martian up in his arms, ran down the corridor, and measured his leap to begin a few inches before the pit began. It didn’t sense him and remained shut until he landed on the far edge. The floor dropped away from him, but his momentum carried him forward. As he released his grip on Quedipai, both of them rolled down the corridor behind the pit.

  “That was terrifying!” moaned the Martian.

  “These guys knew their stuff,” commented Scorpio. “It’s amazing that it still works after all these thousands of years.”

  They walked cautiously, looking for more traps, for another hundred yards. Then the corridor curved to the left and terminated at a massive golden door that had a series of hieroglyphs carved into it.

  Quedipai walked up to the first set of hieroglyphs and studied them intently. Finally, he stood back.

  “Well?” asked Scorpio.

  “This is the Tomb of the Lesser Kings,” he said.

  “Lesser Kings?” repeated Scorpio.

  “The Krang had seven kings. Six of them are interred in this vault.”

  “I assume the important one—the seventh king—is down the other corridor?”

  “That seems likely.”

  “But it doesn’t expressly say so on the door?”

  “No.”

  “Well, we’ll worry about it after we examine this tomb,” said Scorpio.

  Quedipai was about to push the door open when Scorpio grabbed his hand.

  “Don’t!” said the Earthman.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Quedipai.

  “Let’s assume the guys who designed this place meant business,” replied Scorpio. He pulled his knife out of his boot and tossed it against the door, which immediately began sparking and crackling.

  “Electrified?” asked the Martian.

  Scorpio nodded. “Yeah. I’m surprised it still has power after all this time.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “It’s deadly,” replied Scorpio, “but it’s not unique. Merlin and I run into this kind of thing a lot.” He pulled a small, complex device out of one of his many pockets and held it up. “A Nullifier. This little gizmo can negate any charge that’s not strong enough to melt the door.”

  He pressed a switch, the device began humming, and he pressed it against the door. There was no repetition of the sound or sparks.

  “Okay, let’s see what’s inside,” he said, pushing at the portal, which slowly swung inward, creaking under its own weight.

  The chamber was spacious. More, it was luxurious. The walls were gold, and reached some twenty feet high to an arched ceiling. There were a number of ornate cabinets, and spread evenly about the chamber were six exquisitely carved and freestanding mausoleums, each looking like a miniature temple.

  Scorpio entered the first mausoleum and saw nothing but a pile of ashes.

  All I’m finding are ashes, signaled Merlin.

  Me, too, replied Scorpio.

  He walked back out and saw Quedipai emerging from another mausoleum.

  “What the hell happened here, I wonder?” said the Earthman.

  Merlin opened a cabinet with his pointed tail. Empty, he observed.

  Quedipai walked to a series of hieroglyphs that had been carved into the wall. “Do you see this?” he said, pointing to an inscription at the very bottom of the hieroglyphs.

  “Yes?”

  “It was added to the original approximately five thousand years ago, if I have identified my dynasties correctly. It was written by a grave robber who actually reached the tomb, only to find that it had been robbed millennia earlier. He stole what few artifacts remained and left this message for any who followed him.”

  “What does the message say?”

  “That he looked for the Book of Blaxorak but couldn’t find it. Either it is in the other tomb, or it never existed.”

  “As long as he got this far, why didn’t he just go to the other tomb and see for himself?”
asked Scorpio.

  “He had three companions. Cohorts, I think one could call them. They all died trying to enter the Tomb of Xabo, and he decided to leave while he still lived.”

  “Xabo?” repeated Scorpio.

  “He was the greatest of the Krang kings,” answered the Martian. “It was said that he was capable of feats that seemed very little removed from magic.” He looked around the tomb. “I am almost glad the thief’s associates were killed. I hope Xabo’s tomb is intact.”

  “Let’s find out,” said Scorpio.

  They retraced their steps, the Earthman once again jumped across the pit while carrying Quedipai, and finally they came to the fork. This time they set off to the right, down another glowing corridor.

  Anything alive up ahead?

  Not so far.

  The corridor twisted and turned, and suddenly they saw two ancient bodies sprawled on the corridor’s floor about ten yards ahead. They stopped and stared at the scene.

  “Do you see anything that looks wrong?” asked Scorpio.

  He got negative replies from his two companions.

  “Any marks on the bodies?”

  No, but they’re both facedown.

  Scorpio studied the scene with a practiced eye. “No bloodstains on the floor or walls, so whatever killed them, it didn’t break the skin.” He paused, frowning. “Cutie Pie, didn’t that hieroglyph say that the author lost three cohorts?”

  “Yes,” replied the Martian.

  “So one of them got through.” He paused as he considered the bodies. “We’ll never know how he made it until we know what killed these two.” He peered more intently at the farther body. “He’s got a weapon in his hand, so I think whatever killed them, it wasn’t something of flesh and blood that he could blow away.”

  He scratched his head, frowning. “Nothing living. And it couldn’t be something that electrified the corridor. There are no burn marks, and one of them survived in each direction.”

  “Each direction?” repeated Quedipai. “I don’t understand.”

  “We haven’t come to a third body yet, so he obviously got through … and the one who wrote the message either stayed on this side of the carnage or found a way to get back through it unharmed.”

  Still nothing alive in the area, Merlin informed him.

  “Well, once we’ve eliminated all the things that didn’t kill them, we’re left with just two possibilities: sound or gas. And I don’t believe it was sound. These walls would turn the corridor into an echo chamber. Any noise that was strong enough to kill these two would have killed the others. It had to be gas.”

  “Why only two, then?” asked Quedipai.

  “Air currents,” suggested Scorpio. “Or, more likely, a lack of air currents. If you weren’t standing directly where the gas was released, it didn’t reach you.”

  “I don’t see any vents in the walls or ceiling,” said the Martian.

  “It didn’t have to happen right there,” replied Scorpio.

  “But you just said they had to be standing exactly where it was released,” protested Quedipai.

  “They did,” confirmed Scorpio. “But they didn’t have to die instantly. They take a whiff, they scream ‘Run!’ to their partners, and they go two or three or ten steps before they collapse and die.”

  “Then how can we tell where it was released?”

  “We’ll check for hidden vents between here and the bodies,” answered Scorpio.

  After ten minutes, they had to admit that there were no vents.

  “You must have been wrong,” said Quedipai at last.

  “It happens,” admitted Scorpio with a defeated shrug. “Let’s proceed.”

  They had gotten to within five feet of the bodies when Scorpio yelled “Stop!” and both his companions froze.

  “What is it?” asked the Martian.

  “I’m an idiot,” said Scorpio.

  I already knew that.

  “Put yourself in their place,” he continued. “You know you’ve been attacked, been poisoned. You don’t know what lies ahead, between here and the tomb, but you know it was safe up until you were gassed.” He smiled triumphantly. “They weren’t running toward Xabo’s tomb. They were running back the way they came.” He took a step past the bodies, studying the ceiling, took another five steps, then he froze, staring at the ceiling.

  “Stand back,” he said, pulling out his burner and aiming it at a tiny, almost invisible vent.

  It melted and sealed the opening instantly, before any remaining gas could be released. They waited a few minutes, just to make sure no poison had escaped, and began walking toward the tomb again.

  Finally, they came to a massive door, the sister of the one leading to the Tomb of the Lesser Kings.

  “So where’s the third body?” asked Scorpio, looking around.

  “I see nothing,” agreed Quedipai.

  “Either the writer can’t count, or his friend made it into Xabo’s tomb.”

  “If that is true,” said the Martian, “then they both made it, or the writer would not know that his cohort had died.”

  Still no sign of life?

  None.

  Scorpio pulled out his Nullifier again. “I assume this door’s rigged the same way as the other,” he said. “After all, if you touch one of them, you’re not going to be around to touch the other.”

  He activated it, placed it on the door, then pushed it open.

  “What the hell?” he muttered, as he found himself facing six mummified warriors standing guard around a mausoleum. It was larger and more impressive than those in the other tomb, made of pure gold, forty feet on a side. A throne, also gold, stood just in front of it.

  Scorpio stepped forward and studied the warriors. Each was nine or ten feet high, and their facial features differed markedly from Quedipai’s or any other Martian he had ever seen. Each stood—or had been positioned—at attention, and each held a wicked-looking spear in one hand.

  “How many Xabos were there?” asked Scorpio, frowning.

  “None of these is Xabo,” answered Quedipai. “They guard Xabo.”

  “These guys look like they’re in the prime of life,” observed Scorpio. “Are you saying that they killed and preserved six warriors just to stand them down here and frighten off any superstitious grave robbers?”

  “He deserved more,” said the Martian, “but the Krang were not a numerous race. As I told you, they may not even have originated on this world.”

  There were four small anterooms attached to the main chamber, each filled with exquisitely carved cabinets. Scorpio walked over to an ornate cabinet and opened it. It was empty.

  “Maybe they should have stuffed and mounted twelve warriors,” he said, as Merlin pushed open the door of the mausoleum.

  Scorpio—trouble!

  What’s the problem?

  Come see for yourself.

  Scorpio did so, and was soon staring at two bodies that were sprawled on the floor of the mausoleum.

  Take a look. He’s a member of Quedipai’s race. He’s been stabbed maybe fifteen times by spears. And the other is dressed from a different era, but he was speared to death too.

  Scorpio stood, hands on hips, surveying the carnage with a puzzled frown on his face. Each clutched a sack or bag, and when Scorpio examined them he found them filled with what he assumed were the missing art objects.

  I assume one of them is the third member of the gang?

  Almost certainly.

  “What the hell do you think happened?” he asked aloud.

  You don’t want to know my answer, thought Merlin nervously. But I think we should leave, and the sooner the better.

  “It was Xabo’s personal guard,” announced Quedipai with certainty. “The guard is here for only two reasons: to safeguard the sacred book and to protect Xabo. Not his possessions, not his funeral gifts, nothing but the book and Xabo himself.”

  “I want a closer look at this,” said Scorpio, stepping into the mausoleum.

&n
bsp; “It is here!” cried Quedipai excitedly. “It is actually here!”

  He raced up to a jewel-encrusted platform that held an ancient scroll.

  “That’s what you came to find?” asked Scorpio.

  The Martian gently lifted the scroll. “It is the sacred Book of Blaxorak!”

  Suddenly, they heard a heavy footstep behind them. Scorpio walked to the door of the mausoleum and looked out—and saw the six warriors slowly coming to life.

  Merlin, get over here quick!

  Scorpio pulled his burner and fired it in a single motion. A black, smoldering hole appeared in the chest of the closest warrior, but it had no other effect.

  We can’t kill them, Scorpio—they’re already dead!

  We can’t kill them, but we can sure as hell turn them to ashes!

  Scorpio stepped out into the chamber, pulled his smaller burner from where he kept it tucked at the back of his belt, and began firing both weapons, keeping his fingers pressed on the triggers.

  The warriors were moving slowly, as if they were using muscles that had not been used in millennia, which was indeed the case. Scorpio kept ducking and dodging their awkward attempts to impale him, keeping the burners trained on the two nearest until they finally burst into flame, then aimed at the next two.

  One of the two fallen warriors rolled across the floor and managed to kill the flames. The second he did so, Merlin leaped upon him and literally began tearing him limb from limb. Quedipai clutched the manuscript to his chest and stood motionless just inside the entrance to the mausoleum.

  Scorpio saw one of the last two warriors approaching Merlin, who was still battling a fallen warrior. The Earthman quickly trained one of his burners on the warrior’s spearhead, melting it before he could reach the Venusian. As he did so, a flaming warrior staggered against him, sending him rolling across the floor. As it came after him, he fired at its feet, burning them into a misshapen, useless pair of molten blobs.

  It was over in less than three minutes. The remains of the six warriors were scattered across the chamber, still smoldering.

  Well, now we know why there aren’t more grave robbers in the Crater, thought Merlin.

  We were damned lucky. I only had about twenty seconds of power left in my burner. Scorpio got to his feet and put new power packs into his burners. Where’s Cutie Pie?