Drifters

Great Pyramid of Giza

They were two-thirds of the way through the pyramid. Peter wasn't sure how long they'd been in this dark place, but he was ready to get out. The stone walls were closing in, and the air felt stale.

Behind him, Sophie complained, "You're slowing down!"

With a click the walls moved in another inch. The corridor was almost too narrow for him to walk straight in, and the end still looked miles away.

Ahead of him, Marie stopped. She grabbed his wrist and yanked him into a run.

The walls continued getting closer together. Peter hunched down into his poncho, breathing fast.

"Close your eyes, lad," his captain ordered. "Deep breaths and follow me."

Not one to disobey orders, Peter took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

It didn't really help. His left shoulder was brushing the stone wall, and he could feel the stone on his right drawing closer. But he took another deep breath, trusting Marie wouldn't let him die.

Suddenly she gave his arm a sharp pull, and he was half-thrown into a small stone room.

The air still felt stale, and even though he knew the walls weren't moving here, it felt like they were. He started breathing faster again, blood rushing in his ears.

"Peter. Look," Marie ordered.

He looked at her, then at where she was pointing.

A window. A small, rectangular window, showing black night sky.

Peter stumbled towards it and shoved his face into the hole.

A faint, fresh breeze hit his face as he stared down on a huge sleeping city. A wide river sparkled in the distance, and beyond that was a beautiful silver desert.

In the room, Marie was discussing something with Sophie. Razan made a comment. Marie responded. It wasn't important.

To him, it felt like they were halfway through the afternoon. But the city below only had a handful of lights flickering through windows, only a few lamps showing where the main streets ran. It was calm, peaceful, with a bright sliver of a moon watching from above.

Someone poked his elbow, and he tore his gaze away from the silent city.

Marie raised an eyebrow at him. She didn't say anything, just watched him.

Peter nodded, backing away from the window. The stuffy air closed in around him, but it wasn't oppressive any more. He could still breathe.

"Right," she said, turning to look at Razan. "What are we walking into?"

"Floor spikes," the samurai answered. "I don't see any; it wasn't mentioned if they're timed, or have tripwires or pressure plates to activate them."

Sophie jumped into the corridor, and there was a shunk as iron spikes shot out of the ground. Peter automatically reached out to drag her back, but the spikes stopped half an inch from her nose.

"Pressure plates!" she said cheerfully, stepping back into the room. The spikes vanished back into the floor. Sophie stepped in again, and they shot back out at her. "Yes. Pressure plates. There's a bar along the ceiling; climbing along that would be easier than dealing with the spikes."

"Assuming we can get to it," Razan said, moving into the corridor next to her.

"How would you go about it, samurai?" Marie asked, moving to the entrance.

Peter took one last glance at the window, adjusted his hat, and followed her.

Razan poked an iron spike a few times, then smirked back at them. "With a complete lack of grace and subtlety."

He turned sideways and shoved himself between two spikes. It was tight, but he made it through fairly easily. The next set of spikes sprang up, and the ones behind him slid back down.

Marie stepped onto the first plate, watched the spikes shoot up, and pushed herself through them. "Not easy, but easier than Sophie's way. There's a slight delay; I'm sure there's some sort of jumping trick to get around them. Cowboy, which way do you choose?"

Peter looked up at the long broomstick hanging from a few flimsy ropes. There were carvings along the wall which could be used as handholds for a jump, but he never had been good at jumping. "I'll take the ungraceful approach," he decided.

"No one's joining me? You're just barging through the spikes?" Sophie asked, already hanging from the bar. "I'm sure there's a more exciting way of going about it."

"Excitement typically equates danger. I am personally opposed to putting myself in danger. Thus, sadly, I must avoid excitement," Razan told her, moving through to the next plate.

Peter smiled, forcing himself through two spikes. "I don't think I've ever agreed with something you've said more."

Marie tsked. "You men would have made terrible pirates."

Peter and Razan agreed wholeheartedly.

The next room had the simple task of finding and touching all the cat carvings to open the door. There was a small window in one wall, letting fresh air in.

Marie looked out and saw a vast, moonlit desert. She wondered why the rooms in these higher rooms had windows, when the lower rooms were completely closed. It probably had something to do with the risk of people outside seeing them.

Sophie jumped, slapping a carving near the ceiling, and the door slid open to reveal a perfectly ordinary staircase.

"What's wrong here?" Marie asked Razan, looking for traps. There were wide, square holes evenly spaced near the ceiling on the left side.

He checked his paper. "Birds."

"That shouldn't be too bad," Sophie said, moving onto the first step.

There was a faint rustling sound from the holes. The group moved onto the stairs, watching the holes near the ceiling as the sound grew louder.

Suddenly bats exploded into the stairwell. Marie ducked, pulling her hat tighter down over her head. The bats kept coming, until there were at least a hundred in the confined space.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Not birds!" Peter yelled, batting at them as he also held his hat down.

Razan cursed, then pulled his knife out. "They bite!"

Marie ran up the stairs after Sophie, who was trying to be as small as possible. The girl was wearing shorts and a camisole, which offered no protection against bites. The creatures flapped around, screeching as they tried to get their teeth through Marie's jacket, but had little success.

With so many of the things swarming around them, Marie wasn't sure where the exit was until suddenly she stumbled after Sophie into an open room. Peter quickly followed, but so did the bats. Wondering where Razan was, Marie pulled out her cutlass and began hacking at the flying monsters.

Hitting them with the edge worked, damaging the bats so they flapped uselessly on the ground, but she discovered that whacking them with the wide flat of the blade worked just as well. Slapping them stunned the things, and they fell unmoving to the floor.

She heard a whimper behind her, and turned to find Sophie huddled in the corner. Blood was pooling on her arms and legs from dozens of tiny bites made by five bats crawling around on her.

Cursing, Marie slid her jacket off and quickly stabbed at the bats in Sophie's corner. She whacked away a few more, then threw her jacket over the catatonic girl. A bat landed on her shoulder and bit in, its teeth breaking through her thin shirt and piercing skin. Cursing louder, she grabbed the damned creature and threw it hard against a wall.

Peter was in his own corner, a respectable pile of stunned bats around him. His method seemed to be catching them in his hat then punching them, which Marie assumed was going to damage his hat.

Still wondering where Razan was, she grit her teeth and knocked two bats out of the air with her sword.

Razan stabbed at another bat, wondering how long it was going to take to get his knife properly sharp again. He'd killed at least twenty bats by now, and they kept coming out of the holes in the wall. The sound of their chirps and flapping wings was making him almost seasick somehow.

And then he realized that if he left the corridor, the door would close and the bats would stop coming out.

He stopped moving, mentally cursing his stupidity, for long enough that a bat had time to close in and bite him. He stabbed it.

Razan ran up the stairs, slashing at the bats in his way. It took a minute, but finally he burst through into a smallish room.

"What kept you?" Marie demanded as the door slid closed.

Razan bowed in apology, trying to think of a good excuse, and saw the floor was made of metal grates. He remembered what this room was. "I was giving you time to solve the door puzzle before the room floods."

"Floods?" Peter asked, punching a bat to the floor with his fist.

"Yes, it will fill with water," Razan said, straightening up to stab a bat.

"Damnit," Marie hissed, spinning to face the corner. "Sophie, on your feet, thief, we need you."

Razan finally noticed Marie wasn't wearing her jacket; it was covering something on the ground. Three bats were climbing around on it, occasionally doing their best to bite through the thick fabric. Marie hit them off with more aggression than Razan thought strictly necessary.

Sophie pulled the edge of the jacket down and muttered a question, looking around the room with wide eyes.

"No, but we need you to open the door," Marie told her, taking the jacket.

Sophie had an alarming number of bites on her arms and legs. If these had been real bats, Razan would have been worried about diseases. Thankfully, he only had to worry about blood loss.

The door closed with a loud thump, and water began slowly rising through the floor.

Razan stabbed another bat. There were only about a dozen left, mostly around Peter.

"Left or right?" Sophie asked, climbing unsteadily to her feet.

"Right," Razan answered, killing two more bats as the water began soaking through his shoes.

She nodded, splashing to the door. "Oh, this one's eas- Rather, oh my, this one will be quite difficult! Marie, please help me with this incredibly tricky puzzle!"

"You're going too far with that," Marie laughed, sliding her jacket on. "Moderation, child. Razan, Peter, finish off the bats then see if you can open the other door."

"Yes, Captain."

"Yes, Captain."

Another tripwire corridor led to a room with a lowering ceiling, then another moving staircase opened into a room with a deep hole in it. This time, the hole had spikes rather than snakes. It also had a bridge.

The most untrustworthy-looking, rickety rope bridge Sophie had ever seen. She shook it, and one of the sparse planks fell out.

"Everyone got their bail devices on hand?" Peter asked. No one bothered to answer.

Taking a deep breath, Sophie stepped onto the first plank.

Marie gently but firmly grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. "The posts holding the bridge up on the other side are the same as on this side, aye?"

Sophie looked at the stone pillars which the bridge's frayed rope was tied around.

"Yes, Captain," Razan said.

Marie nodded, holding her hand out. "Peter, your grappling hook."

He put it in her hand. "Do you want all the rope?"

"No, you keep ahold of it," she said, examining it. "Right. I'm going to hook this into Sophie's shirt. She'll cross first, and if she falls Peter will reel her back in and we'll figure something else out. If not, when she gets to the other side, she'll throw it around a post and make sure it's secure. Then we'll tie the other end of the rope to a pillar here and cross one by one, holding on to this rope for safety. Understood?"

The men agreed, but Sophie wasn't sure.

"How will you hook it into my shirt?"

Marie smiled a bit apologetically, turning her around. Sophie felt her slide the metal thing under her shirt, hook it around the bottom hem, and pull it back up until most of the shirt's length was bunched into it.

"Just keep your arms down," she suggested, holding the rope taught.

"Are you sure that'll hold?" Peter asked doubtfully.

"I'm more certain no one wants to find out," Marie said dryly. "Regardless, this is the best way of making sure the sharp ends of the hook are pointing away from her skin. A sudden tug in any direction won't get her stabbed; winding the rope around in any other way won't offer that certainty."

"I don't mind," Sophie said, stepping up to the bridge again. "I'll be careful."

She gently stepped onto the first plank, holding the ropes on either side of her. Nothing immediately went wrong, so she moved to the next plank.

Gaining confidence, Sophie started moving faster. She hopped over an obviously rotting plank onto a slightly twisted one, then onto one thinner than usual. After that was a round bar, a cracked plank, a braided rope, and an upside-down dinner tray. Sophie paused on the tray, wondering if whoever built this bridge had run out of proper planks and added in whatever they'd found laying around their house. Shrugging to herself, she continued on.

Near the middle, the planks became spaced further apart. She had to jump slightly from one to another, and that worried her. She knew that a piece of wood which could hold her weight all day might snap if she put all her weight on it suddenly. To avoid doing that, she tried to put more of her weight on the old ropes holding the bridge up. They didn't look likely to snap, but she wasn't about to trust her whole weight to them, either.

Finally she reached the gap where the plank had fallen out of earlier, and stopped. On the one hand, she was glad it had fallen out already, and wasn't still around for her to step on. On the other hand, she now had to truly jump to the next plank over. It didn't look trustworthy.

But on the bright side, after that it was only five more planks to nice, solid ground.

Taking a deep breath, Sophie crouched slightly, getting into as good of a position as she could. She let go of the ropes and jumped.

Her foot landed perfectly, which was nice. And then the plank snapped in half, which wasn't.

Sophie yelped, using as much momentum as she could to push herself towards the next plank. Forgetting Marie's advice, she reached forwards as gravity pulled her down, and her fingers touched solid wood. She scrabbled at it, knowing she couldn't find a grip in time, when suddenly she was hauled back up by her shirt. Not thinking, she grabbed the plank and pulled herself onto it one limb at a time.

The tension in her camisole, now bunched up around her chest, didn't slack until she'd climbed to her feet and had both hands back on the bridge's ropes.

"You all right, thief?" Marie called.

Sophie looked over her shoulder, heart still racing. "Yes, thanks!" She stepped unsteadily onto the next plank, giggling uncontrollably.

Three uneventful steps later, and she tripped to her hands and knees on solid stone. Every muscle felt faintly tingly and oddly loose. She fell to her side, still giggling. Hearing Marie call something, she remembered she had a job.

She had to get the thing out from her shirt and tie it around a pillar.

With some effort, she sat up. She tried getting the hooks off from her shirt, but it was very well hooked. Not having the mental energy to figure it out, Sophie pulled the camisole off and untangled it all at arms' length. Then she secured the grappling hook around a pillar and put her shirt back on.

Having accomplished her task, she flopped back onto the ground and closed her eyes.