“What can you see?” Riley asked after an interval.

  “Portcullis stone,” he called down. “Oops! Sorry about that.”

  Abigail heard the sound of stone against stone. Riley pushed her out of the way just as the massive block of granite fell.

  28

  DAHSHUR

  Riley rolled off her. “Are you hurt?” He shone the flashlight over her.

  “Just frightened,” Abigail said breathlessly. “What happened?”

  “The giant rock fell and just missed us,” Riley said. He cracked another chem light.

  Abigail gasped when the chem light illuminated the chamber. Where she had been standing only seconds earlier was a giant portcullis stone.

  “Charles must have triggered it.”

  “You’ll have to explain,” Riley said.

  Abigail nodded. “A portcullis stone was lowered to seal off chambers. It blocks the passageway and prevents tomb robbers, or robbers of any kind, from entering the tomb. This one had never been lowered into place. I don’t know if that’s because they didn’t get around to it, or because it’s actually a booby trap.”

  “So you think it was another booby-trap?” Riley asked her.

  Abigail nodded. “Yes, most likely it was. It’s terrible! I wonder what happened to Charles?”

  “I don’t think he’s waiting around to see what happened to us,” Riley said. “I didn’t trust him. That stab wound was awfully shallow and may have been self-inflicted to fool us, for all I know. And I think he’s heading for the exit with that gold.”

  Abigail didn’t like to believe Riley’s words, but maybe he was right. Maybe Charles had lowered the portcullis stone so they wouldn’t follow him. Still, she had more pressing matters on her mind. She could no longer see the sky. “How do we get out of here?”

  Riley shone his flashlight high above. “I’ll try to chimney-climb up there. I’ll tie the rope around you, and once I make it, I’ll haul you up there.

  “But there don’t seem to be any handholds,” Abigail said in disbelief. “How will you get up there?”

  “I’ll chimney-climb,” Riley said, moving his body in an attempt to show Abigail what he meant.

  She still did not understand. He tied the rope around her and then said, “If I get up there and can haul you up, don’t climb like I’m going to climb, but use your hands and feet to assist yourself in any way you can.”

  Abigail nodded. It seemed an impossible task, and she thought Riley was being overly optimistic. What if they were trapped forever in that small chamber, to be discovered maybe hundreds of years later by archeologists? Even if Myles had gotten away, he would never find them, and Charles was obviously beating a hasty retreat with his gold.

  A tear trickled down her cheek. Riley was already in the chamber. He stood on top of one of the plinths and jumped up into the narrow vertical shaft.

  Abigail soon saw what he meant by chimney climbing. His back was against the shaft wall and his legs and arms were firmly pressed into the walls. He made jerking movements which pushed him further up the shaft. It looked awfully difficult, and Riley’s grunting supported that fact.

  Abigail sat down and covered her eyes with her hands. She didn’t want to see what would happen if Riley fell. The thought made her break into a cold sweat. The particulates in here were plentiful, making breathing difficult. It seemed an impossible situation.

  Riley had disappeared into the darkness, and she didn’t want to shine her flashlight in case it startled him. All she could do was wait.

  To her immense relief, he called down to her. “There’s a shaft in another room. I’m going to pull you up now. Climb onto the plinths first.”

  Abigail could have cried with relief. They hadn’t reached safety yet, but this was a good start. She climbed onto the plinths and then held out her hands as Riley had suggested.

  “Ready,” she called up. He pulled on the rope, and she did what she could to push off with her legs and her arms. All it served to do was cause grazes along her body. Before long, she could see Riley illuminated by chem lights. Riley hauled her over the edge, and she lay on the ground panting.

  “Good work,” Riley said. “I’m impressed.”

  Abigail smiled at his praise, despite the seriousness of their situation.

  “There are stairs beyond that shaft,” Riley said. “We might find we’re near the top of the pyramid. The stairs are going down.”

  “I really don’t want to go back down,” Abigail said. “I wish we could go up to find an exit. What a shame the portcullis stone fell and blocked the way out. Charles has obviously gone that way.”

  “At least this seems away from the main labyrinth,” Riley said. “Can you see any warnings on the walls?”

  Abigail read a few inscriptions. “No, I don’t. These still speak of treasure storage. Of course, the inscriptions were made at the time of Amenemhat III. This was around a thousand years before the time of Pharaoh Shoshenq, the one who took Goliath’s spear and Solomon’s gold. Since the pyramid was built a thousand years before those events, those items could be anywhere.”

  “So you think Goliath’s spear might still be here?” Riley asked her.

  “I don’t have a clue, to be honest,” Abigail said. “But it’s certainly a possibility.”

  Abigail and Riley climbed down the short flight of stairs and then turned into a passageway. “I think you’re right,” Riley said. “This doesn’t seem like part of the labyrinth. There aren’t endless passageways turning off the main passageway.”

  “Thank goodness,” Abigail said fervently.

  They walked along the passageway and turned into an antechamber. Riley threw a chem light. “This is a bigger room,” he said.

  “There’s a pink granite sarcophagus!” Abigail said.

  Just then, two armed figures rose up behind the sarcophagus.

  “Take out your weapon slowly and place it on the ground,” one of them said to Riley. “Then kick it over to me.”

  Riley did as he asked.

  “Dr. Spencer, I presume? Come over here. Is this the spear of Goliath?” one of the men asked.

  Abigail almost forgot that the men were pointing guns at her. She walked over to the spear and exclaimed with delight.

  “It looks like it,” she said in amazement. “It’s the right length, and the iron spearhead does seem to be about six hundred shekels. That’s fifteen pounds,” she explained. “And it’s like a weaver’s rod.”

  “A weaver’s rod?” the other man asked.

  Abigail nodded and pointed to the loop on the end of the spear. “That’s how it’s usually translated into English, but it’s an unusual word and no one can be certain how to translate it. We do know that weavers’ rods of the time had loops to guide the thread, and the Greeks of the time had loops on their javelins to guide them—you know, to improve their aim. So then, that loop you can see on it is to improve its aim as well as to give it more distance,” she said, pointing to the loop.

  “So, this is the spear that Goliath used in his fight with David,” the taller man said in wonderment.

  “No, Goliath didn’t actually use that the spear,” Abigail told them. “He did have it with him, but he obviously underestimated David and didn’t think he’d need to use the spear. Not according to the Biblical account in 1 Samuel 17 at any rate. It says that Goliath was walking toward David with his shield bearer in front of him. He didn’t throw the spear, and he was apparently offended that David was coming at him with a staff. David killed him with a single slingshot, as we all know.”

  Abigail gently touched the spear with reverence. She couldn’t believe she was touching such a famous ancient artifact. After staring at it for a moment, their predicament dawned on her. Vortex would no longer need her, not now that she had identified the spear. Now they would do away with both her and Riley.

  Abigail looked around. Surely, this room had to be booby-trapped. She looked up and saw a portcullis stone above where the men were standing.

  Abigail realized the Vortex agents would have navigated booby-traps to get this far. She looked around, caught Riley’s eye, and looked up at the roof.

  “What are you looking at?” the taller man snapped, raising his gun.

  “There’s a portcullis stone above our heads!” she yelled, injecting as much urgency into her voice as she could. “It’s about to fall on us!”

  Of course, it was about to do nothing of the sort, but both men looked upward, which gave Abigail and Riley a chance to escape. She ran to Riley and in one swift move, he pulled her through the door and shut it behind them. They sprinted down the corridor, immediately opened another door to the left and stepped inside, holding their breath.

  Shots echoed along the passageway followed by footsteps, and then Abigail heard a man’s voice say, “Don’t worry about them. They’re unarmed. We’ve got the spear. That’s all we need. It’ll take the two of us to carry it out.”

  “We can’t let them get away,” the other man said.

  “What does it matter? The spear is our priority.”

  That’s all Abigail heard. The men went silent. Riley turned on his flashlight and shone it around the room. Above him, was a shaft like the one he had chimney-climbed earlier.

  An idea occurred to Abigail. “Riley, if you can climb up there, you can release the portcullis stone into the chamber where they are, and they’ll never be able to get out,” she said. “We can’t let Goliath’s spear fall into the wrong hands. It’s better if it stays down here forever.”

  Riley did not respond, but immediately wedged himself into the shaft. Abigail did not dare shine the light on him. She stood there by herself in the darkness, holding her breath, hoping and praying Riley would succeed.

  Although it seemed like a long time, it was only scant minutes later when a heavy thud shook the ground. Riley soon landed beside her.

  “You did it?” she asked him, although the heavy thud had already provided her with the answer. “Did it fall on Goliath’s spear?”

  “No, I threw a chem light into the shaft just before I released the stone. The spear is all right, but those two Vortex agents weren’t so lucky.”

  Abigail closed her eyes tightly but opened them once rubble fell on her head. A large piece of ceiling fell between them, casting sandy particulates all over them.

  “The roof’s collapsing,” she said in alarm.

  Riley grabbed her hand and pulled her through the door into the passageway just as the ceiling where they had been standing collapsed.

  “Run!” he said.

  29

  DAHSHUR

  Abigail had never been one for cardio. She had gone to the gym twice in her life. The first time she’d locked her keys in the car and couldn’t get into her home, which meant she needed somewhere to shower. Her mother had bought her a two-year gym membership for Christmas, because her mother excelled at passive aggressive gifts and also had way too much disposable cash.

  All Abigail had to do was give the man at the office her name and address, and she was free to use the facilities. She’d showered, and after she’d showered, she found a man named Mario leaning against her locker, where she’d stashed a half-eaten chocolate bar and her fake Chanel earrings. He’d apologized, but not before purring in her ear how pretty she looked without make-up.

  Of course, Abigail was wearing make-up. She had been extra careful not to wash it off in the shower, seeing as her foundation, lipstick, mascara, blush, and highlight were all in the home she’d locked herself out of earlier that evening.

  The second time Abigail had gone to the gym was a week later, spending time in the terrible fluorescent lighting, among models from Paris and St. Petersburg who seemed to sweat only in a cute, dainty way. She never went back.

  Abigail took a deep breath and coughed when particulates and dust filled her mouth.

  “Hurry,” Riley urged her.

  Sweat beaded her forehead, and there was an unpleasant pinch in her stomach as she ran. She spotted a light at the end of the passageway, but it was only a gap in the wall not big enough for her to squeeze through.

  “Which way?” she called out as they reached a choice of two passageways.

  Riley grabbed her hand and pulled her to the left. It was another passageway, but the roof had caved in long ago, so they crawled on their hands and knees. It wasn’t good, this strategy, but Abigail couldn’t think with all the adrenaline pounding through her body. Thankfully, they managed to crawl through the passageway and reached the other side relatively unscathed. Abigail’s knees were screaming as she stood and dusted off her palms.

  Before her was a slimy black pit with murky water, and worse still, crocodiles. At first, Abigail thought this was the way she had come, over the suspension bridge which had collapsed, until she saw the stepping stones.

  The only way across was provided by the stepping stones that lay a jumping distance apart. The one thing they had going in their favor was that the stones were not so much stones but columns, so they were high above the pit. Of course, that wouldn’t do either of them much good if they fell.

  A loud rumbling sounded all around them. Abigail absently wondered if the portcullis stone Riley had just released was in a more fragile part of the complex, setting off a chain reaction and causing that section to collapse.

  Abigail stepped onto the first stone.

  “Take your time,” Riley called out.

  Below her the crocodiles opened their jaws, reading to snap her up.

  “We don’t have time,” she said, trying not to cry. “We’re in a collapsing labyrinth, over a pit full of crocodiles, and we have a dozen more stones to jump onto.”

  Her breath felt short and her stomach was very much cramping now as she jumped across three more stones. She heard a gasp and turned to look over her shoulder, seeing Riley overbalancing on a stone. Before she could move, he righted himself and stood, white faced, shaking, but alive.

  They arrived at the other side of the pit without further incident. Riley briefly cupped Abigail’s face in his palms. “Are you okay?”

  Abigail nodded and tried not to listen to the sound of the labyrinth collapsing around them. The visual was bad enough, yet the noise somehow amplified her fear. She let out a yelp of pain as a piece of plaster hit her on the elbow. She didn’t need to look at Riley to know he was concerned, so she put on a brave face and kept motoring forward.

  Riley made a quick run down another passageway, only to return and say it was blocked. They went the only way they could, and that was to the right. Abigail didn’t care to return to either pit full of crocodiles. She fervently hoped and prayed there was a way out of here.

  They ran past walls of engraved figures and pillars of white stone, from the court into the rooms, and from the rooms into the pillared corridors, from the pillared corridors into other rooms, and from the rooms into more courts.

  When they reached a court with large pillars lying on the ground and fragments sticking out of the sand, Abigail stopped to catch her breath. “I can’t go any further,” she gasped.

  Riley frowned, but then said, “I don’t think this section is collapsing, not yet anyway.”

  Abigail held her breath and listened. “I can’t hear anything. That has to be good.” Her throat felt raw, and she was sure she had used every drop of energy within her. Still, she had to keep going.

  Riley took her gently by the elbow and led her forward, murmuring words of encouragement.

  As Abigail forced herself, one foot after the other, into the next chamber, she was disturbed to see mounds of sand displaced, some of it sunken down into lower chambers. It took her a while to realize the implications. “Riley, we’re not inside the lowest chambers,” she said after an interval.

  Riley stopped. “Is that good or bad?”

  Abigail hesitated. It was hard to think under such circumstances. After a moment, she said, “Good, I think. It means we’re above the labyrinth section. I think we are in the actual Black Pyramid itself, and that means we have a better chance of finding an exit.”

  Abigail and Riley rounded the corner. There had not been any pits for a long time, so Abigail had let her guard down. Luckily for her, Riley had not. He pulled her back.

  Abigail flattened herself back against the wall, gasping for breath. "I didn't see that one.”

  After a moment, she risked a look. She could see nothing until Riley cracked a chem light and threw it into the pit.

  Abigail jumped back, startled by the sudden bright white illumination, and then looked again. "Crocodiles!" she said.

  "And they're a long way down too," Riley said.

  “We’ll have to go back and look for another way," Abigail said, but Riley tapped her arm and pointed. She had been so busy looking at the crocodiles, she had not seen what was on the other side of the pit. There, ahead of her was a shaft. "It might not lead anywhere," Abigail said.

  Riley shook his head. "Just before I threw the chem light, I saw some sort of a glow coming down the shaft. I think it might have been the night sky. There’s a good chance the shaft leads to an exit, one that might not be too far away.”

  Abigail agreed. “There’s a similar shaft in the Bent Pyramid. Then do you think we should try to get across this pit somehow?" she asked him. “It doesn’t seem possible to me. There are no stepping stones or edges at the side, and it’s too far to jump.”

  Riley looked hesitant, but then a chunk of the ceiling collapsed behind them, where they had been only minutes earlier. Riley shone his flashlight over it.

  “The passageways are collapsing behind us!" Abigail said in terror. "We’ll be trapped!” She clutched Riley's arms in fear.

  Riley apparently was not one to give up. He looked up and then pointed. Abigail followed his gaze. There, above the pit, was a large beam.