Baahir butted in. “Just do it, dammit.”
Ali grinned and did as he was told. “Now what?”
“Now,” Zahra said, bracing herself. She smiled down at Ali. “Pray we don’t drop you.” She winked. “It’s been a long day.”
Ali rolled his eyes, but allowed the others to get into position. Naturally, Rabia was up front for this one. Baahir stood two steps up and was behind her. Zahra wrapped the line around her waist several times and gave her brother a three-step buffer. She wasn’t going to let go, no matter what happened.
The gap in the steps was the largest of what they’d need to scale. Once they passed this final test, they’d be home free.
The cavern itself cried out with the shaking earth, and it spurred Ali into motion. He took two steps and leaped out into nothing, stretching his right arm out. Rabia, knelt and their fingertips touched. She locked wrists with him and somehow held him aloft long enough for Zahra and Baahir to pull the cord tight and backpedal up the steps. Rabia bore the rest of Ali’s weight by herself and, quite literally, dragged him onto the staircase.
Once she had both hands locked around his wrist, Zahra and Baahir dove forward and grabbed whatever they could, and continued pulling him up. He fell into Rabia’s arms, and she squeezed him tight, and they rode the wave of shaking earth together. Once it subsided, the duo gingerly climbed to their feet.
“Geez,” Zahra said.
“Yeah, guys. Get a room,” Baahir finished.
It was the first time that Zahra had seen the woman look embarrassed, but she didn’t let go of Ali. They moved apart while Zahra reeled in her line, watching building after building, and Damned after Damned, disappear into the molten earth.
The thought made her shudder, and she turned and hurried to catch up to the others. If the cavern’s structure completely collapsed, they’d be royally screwed — dying by asphyxiation or getting squeezed like a lemon.
Or just swiftly charbroiled.
They eventually found themselves on the landing that overlooked the Temple of Anubis. From here, it looked like lake of liquid fire. Zahra watched as the last of the buildings, roadways, and the long-dead Anubis victims were swallowed.
“That’s it,” Zahra said, turning back and looking over her friends. “They’re all dead…” she shrugged. “For good, this time.”
They took the hike to the surface at a steady pace. All of them wanted out as soon as possible, but Zahra finally felt that they were no longer in danger, unless the magma continued to rise.
Zahra prayed it wouldn’t. She wasn’t sure she could move any faster than she was now.
“I’m not running for a month after this,” Baahir said, getting a chortle out of everyone.
Zahra agreed. “Two months for me.”
“I could go for a beer.”
They stopped and turned their attention to Ali. He shrank back. “What?”
Rabia wrapped her arm around Ali’s waist, earning a grimace from him. “I’ll buy the first round.”
They marched past the rooms of the main corridor, paying them no attention. The next room was the space they had proclaimed as a ‘torture chamber.’ Zahra refused to even look at any of the bodies. Her nerves were frayed, and she needed to stay strong until they made it outside. Then, she’d allow her emotions to burst forth, and flood like the Nile in the summer.
They walked through and reached the man-killer pit room, taking the dilapidated landbridge slowly. She didn’t know if the scorpions were back in their holes, or if the collapsing cavern down below had scared them off.
No one wanted to find out.
Zahra had been beyond lucky to survive the fall she had taken the first time, and no one wanted to run it back for a second chance.
“Watch your footing,” Zahra reminded the group. She bounded over the break in the bridge.
The group took turns leaping the small gap, then stopped for a moment just outside the next tunnel.
“Um,” Baahir said, pointing back the way they had come, “what’s that?”
Zahra felt the heat hit her face as she turned to look. The lake of magma had, indeed, risen.
“Time to pick up the pace again!” she shouted.
The first set of spiraling stairs passed by in a blur, but whatever momentum they had gained came to a screeching halt once they entered the trap room. Thankfully, all they had to do was avoid the central floor’s trigger Baahir had stepped on earlier, and they would be scot-free.
Zahra lifted her foot to begin the next phase of their ascent and felt her leg turn to mush and then cramp up. She pushed through it — it wasn’t a good time for her body to fail her.
Everyone struggled up the topmost spiral staircase. They trudged along, looking over their shoulders every few steps for the incoming sulphuric glow.
It moved toward them ominously, but slowly.
And suddenly she saw something else.
“Guys, look.”
