From the top of a giant pile of treasure Hunter called out, “There’s a door! Tiyana, Hongo, there’s a huge door!”
From his vantage point fifteen feet off of the ground, Hunter could see a great door. Unfortunately, the entry to the door started about thirty feet from the ground. Strangely, no staircase was to be seen. The door simply hovered there.
As Hongo climbed up to join Hunter he surmised, “We cannot reach that height. We must look for a way up there.” They searched and searched and found nothing but more and more treasure.
“I would give up all this gold for a ladder right about now.” Said Hongo.
“Keen observation Hongo, we have to work with what we’ve got.” Interjected Tiyana. “Let’s go back. If we get everyone together and start piling stuff up, we might be able to build a hill that will take us to that door. Plus,” she said with a grin, “I’m sure they’ll want to see this.”
They went back to gather the troops. People walked in awestruck. They even managed to get Shenouda across the lake. Hongo had found an ornate palanquin to carry her in. Hongo began barking orders and soon they had an assembly line going.
“This is going to take a long time.” Tiyana said between grunts as she lifted and passed heavy objects of immeasurable wealth. “My opinion of gold is dropping quickly. I’m getting knackered.”
“Yeah, no one has eaten much. I think we had better take a break before someone pulls a muscle. Hongo…” Hunter went off to talk to Hongo about a work break.
On the break, Hunter and Tiyana wandered through the chamber.
“They’ve got shelves over there. That area’s not so shiny.” Said Hunter in reference to the southwest corner of the room.
Tiyana replied. “You know, I am getting sick of hauling gold around, I wonder if they’ve got lighter material over there.”
As they walked the aisles, they found progressively cheaper, less impressive stuff. Tiyana picked up an aluminum cast of Chiron, the supreme centaur. The half-man, half-horse clutched an arrow buried in his thigh.
Hunter noticed and spoke up, “That’s Chiron from Greek mythology. It seems every mythological creature in history has a place here.”
“The statue feels light.” Tiyana remarked off-handedly.
“It’s probably aluminum. Aluminum used to be considered a precious metal. Napoleon the Third allegedly served his most important guests on aluminum plates while the others had to settle for gold.”
“Nice, I like aluminum, I’m getting real sick of gold right now. Look Hunter, I know that making this hill was my idea, but honestly I don’t think we’ll make it. At the pace we’re going it will take days to finish this, even to get it high enough for someone to jump up and grab the edge of the platform. We haven’t eaten much; we hardly have any food, or water for that matter. Maybe we should conserve our strength, I don’t know.”
“Think about it dear, you’re a smart woman. If you say stop, we’ll stop. Let’s keep walking and keep thinking.”
They continued perusing the aisles.
Tiyana continued, “When we start back up again, we really ought to start bringing stuff from this section. There’s a lot of lighter material.”
Towards the end of one of the far aisles, a painted runestone caught Hunter’s attention. “Would you look at that?”
“What?”
“This temple…”
“It’s beautiful, surrounded by clouds, up in the mountains. Where is that?”
“Oracle Lake.” Said Hunter with dramatic emphasis. “I think, anyways. It’s a holy lake in Tibet, near the Himalayas.”
The hair on the back of Hunter’s neck stood up when he said the word Himalayas. The stories of the hidden kingdom of Shambhala had always fascinated him. He harbored a deep-seated passion for the mythical city. Hunter, the eternal explorer, harbored a passion to find many great things, but in Hunter’s mind and his heart, he held a special place for the quest to find Shambhala. As he gazed into the painting, he felt closer than ever to the electric pull of the hidden kingdom.
“Hello, Hunter, dear.”
“Oh, sorry.” Hunter said as his mind stopped wandering and snapped back into the present.
“Does the statue guarding that temple look familiar to you?” Hunter asked his wife as he pointed to a statute in front of a temple high up on a cliff overlooking Oracle Lake.
“Bugger! It’s that bastard from the other room who got Geb and the rest of them.”
“Yep, that’s him alright.”
The depiction showed the beast with a ball under his right paw. Hunter had seen that ball many times, always carried by the male Snow Lion, always under his right paw. Hunter wondered about that ball many times. What was it? Why do the Snow Lions always have it? Hunter could not bring himself to ask the big question, the question that haunted him. Could that ball be the Cintamani stone? Furthermore, if they had found the real Cerberus, then could they find the real Cintamani stone, the mythical wish-fulfilling stone carried by numerous creatures and deities?
“I know where that lake is, you know. There’s a monastery nearby that I’ve always wanted to visit.”
Tiyana looked deep into Hunter’s eyes and in a rare lapse of pragmatism she said, “We will get out of here, sweetheart, and we will visit that monastery.”
“Thanks. I needed that.” Hunter leaned over and kissed his wife.
They kept perusing the aisles. At the end of one of the far aisles they found one of the chamber walls. A large boulder stuck out from the wall and it looked as if an ancient sculptor had used his craft to create a display. They saw the image of the Sphinx carved into the boulder. Below the Sphinx lay more cryptic writing. The writing reminded Hunter of the language he had heard in the utility room where he had turned the lights on. Below the writing lay a large stone bowl filled with sand.
“Would you look at that? More sand.” Tiyana said as she walked up and started examining the text.
“This time under the Sphinx. It’s probably her famous riddle.”
“Really? Hunter that’s marvelous! If you know what it says, then we can use that as a base to start translating this entire language, assuming of course that they find us down here.”
“Which creature goes on four legs in the morning, two at mid-day, three in the evening, and the more legs it has, then the weaker it is?”
“Oh, that sounds familiar. I think I know this one. Man, it’s man isn’t it?”
“Man, that’s right. Humans. What do you think the symbol for a person is?”
“Why? So you can write it into the sand there and set off another trap?”
“Well... yes?”
Tiyana shook her head slowly and sighed, “I haven’t the foggiest idea.”
“Hrm.” Hunter muttered as he absentmindedly stirred his finger in the sand. Tiyana saw him do this and worried about traps, but the exhaustion and surreal nature of the labyrinth had begun to affect her. She worried more about the people topside finding them and about the door that they may never reach. At this point, she would rather die trying to escape than die waiting to be found.
As Hunter stirred the sand, a familiar emerald holograph materialized before their eyes.
“Bugger!” Exclaimed Tiyana.
“Tiyana, this is it. This is how I turned the lights on. You just put your hand in it like this.” Hunter said as he put his hand into the sphere.
“Hello visitors. Your entry was not recognized.” The soft, metallic voice told them.
“Right, imagine that.” Hunter said sarcastically to the emotionless machine.
“Hunter. May I?” Tiyana politely spoke.
“By all means.” Hunter said as he withdrew his hand from the sphere.
Tiyana put her hand into the sphere and watched the green melt into a warm orange glow. She asked the question, “How can we escape this place?”
“I apologize, but you are not authorized to receive that information.” Spoke the mechanical yet oddly pleasant voice.
“What information can we receive?”
“Little.”
“Great.” Tiyana oozed with sarcasm. “What exactly can you tell us?”
“Apologies again, but you are not authorized to receive that information.”
“It’s like a broken record.” Tiyana uselessly chided the machine. “Well, please tell us the word for man, or person, or human as the case may be.”
“Certainly.” The hologram turned green again and morphed into a word spelled, “□ ┼ ┐”
“Ha ha! Bob’s your uncle!” Tiyana exclaimed as she clapped her hands.
“Ha ha, I’ll never get that expression.” Hunter chuckled.
“Doesn’t matter.” Said Tiyana between breaths as she laughed triumphantly. “Go ahead and punch it in.”
“Are you sure?” Hunter asked.
“Not really.” Tiyana replied.
With that, Hunter drew the symbol into the sand. They heard a loud, reverberating clunk, as heavy iron gears and levers fell into place. Suddenly the ground beneath their feet shook.
“I don’t like this feeling.” Tiyana ominously said.
“Come on.” Hunter said as he grabbed her hand and began running. They ran back to the group. “Hongo, it’s another trap, get everyone under cover!”
“Kukiri, Kusikiliza! Kuchukua bima kila mtu! Everybody take cover!” Hongo blurted in Swahili, then English.
People ran around and took cover as best as they could, which did not work out well for most of them. Meanwhile, the ground and walls shook. A deafening roar filled the room. It sounded like thousands of rocks colliding with each other at great momentum. Hunter looked to the ceiling and the walls, but saw nothing disturbed except pebbles and dust. After a few moments, he crouched and walked to the edge of a pile of treasure. He looked down the short and narrow rock-lined hallway that they had entered from and saw a boulder the size of a car crush the statue of Hades. The labyrinth had begun caving in. The hallway that they came from was gone. They were trapped in the vast treasure repository.
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