Page 62 of Asher

“When you say mechanical puzzle,” Garrett starts, “do you mean one of those handheld puzzles where you have to move the parts in a certain sequence?”

Micah nods, relief crossing his face that one of us understands. “Exactly. They have different levels of difficulty. Some you just have to move the parts in the right order. Some you have to move the parts a certain way in the right order. And some…” He turns back to the wall. “…you have to work out where the extra pieces go, and in what order, while moving the existing parts in the right order.”

“Fuck me,” Lon says. “Just thinking about it gives me a headache.”

“Yeah, this one is kind of big and complicated,” Micah admits. “If I’m right about what it is, we’re going to need an expert.”

Dammit. “Do we think someone’s gone to this much trouble and expense to create such a complicated key to a door in a cave at the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere just because?” I ask, and get a lot of blank looks.

“That’s a complex sentence,” Garrett says at last. “But I’m going to go with no. If this was just a fun puzzle they were in the mood to create, they’d have done it close to home. There used to be a settlement where Hortplatz is now, right? Any chance those people did this?”

“No,” Micah replies. “It was tiny and not that sophisticated. Plus, I can’t see how they would have gotten this stuff up here nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, if we couldn’t easily do it today.”

“They could have built the crates in the caves and carried in the components a few at a time,” Lon suggests, but he sounds doubtful.

“So the more likely option,” I say, bringing things back on track, “is that someone went to a lot of effort and spent a lot of money to hide something up here.”

A murmur of reluctant agreement goes around the group.

“Which means…”

“…we have to report this,” Zac says. “We have to hand the whole thing over to the government.”

He sounds about as disappointed as I feel. Our exciting adventure amounted to looking in a box and finding some spare parts. Garrett’s face is a picture of tragedy, but he squares his jaw.

“It’s the right step,” he insists. “We don’t know what’s behind the door or even if the door is booby-trapped. I’m not willing to risk that we might blow up half this mountain and injure the children in the village. Not to mention,” he adds, “I have to go in to work tomorrow and won’t have time to play with the puzzle.”

I stifle my chuckle. “Think of it this way. You get to ruin your cousin’s Sunday by making him come out to a frozen mountain and look at bits of metal.” Because when you’ve got connections at the top of the government, you don’t call the local Enforcement office. Which is miles down the mountain anyway.

That cheers him right up.

“Let’s get the winch set up and unstack the crates,” Zac suggests. “Maybe there’s something in one of them that will give us more clues. And this way, we’ll have more photos to send to Gideon and Alistair, because you know they’re going to ask for them.”

We all agree a little too quickly. Nobody’s ready to let go of the adventure just yet.

* * *

“What the actualfuck did you find?” Gideon grumbles, swiping through the photos on Zac’s phone. He’s in a shitty mood and has been since I called and told him he had to bring Alistair and come out here on his day off. Apparently this is the first weekend in about six weeks that Sam hasn’t had work obligations, and Gideon’s not thrilled to be called away. We’ve already been up to the cave so they could see everything in person, and now we’re sitting at our kitchen table, looking at the pictures in more detail.

“And why didn’t you call me sooner?” Alistair adds in an injured tone. “I can’t believe you hogged this to yourself, Garrett. You’ve always been selfish.”

A growl rips from my throat as I turn toward him, but Garrett pats my arm, grinning wide. “He’s just being a sore loser, Asher, because I am the king of treasure discoverers and he’s just another hellhound.”

The gasp Alistair gives is worthy of a Hollywood movie, and for a second I think he’s going to swoon like a golden-age heroine. He even puts the back of his hand to his forehead. “You take that back,” he whispers dramatically.

Garrett just smirks gleefully. “Prove me wrong.”

“Alistair, I swear if you don’t stop fucking around and pay attention, I am going to kill you, and I don’t even care how mad Sam will be,” Gideon threatens, and for a second, we all gape at him. He won’t care how mad Sam will be? He must be at the end of his tether.

Like a switch has been flipped, Alistair is suddenly in professional mode. “So the crates had different combinations of items, but some of them were repeats. Like there were bolts of the same size in four different crates.”

I shrug. “So?”

“When you match that with every crate having a different symbol on it, I’m guessing the components have been laid out in the order they need to be used. The reason they didn’t put all of the same items in the same crate is because to open the door, you’ll need, say, a dozen of that item at one point, but then won’t need the rest until later. Whoever did this was trying to make it easier to open.”

“You agree it’s a door, then?” Garrett asks, and Alistair and Gideon exchange a glance.

“Almost definitely,” Gideon says. “You did the right thing calling us before you tried to open it. We’ll get David out here to see if there are any wards or sorcery booby-traps, and then some specialist equipment to see if we can get a sense of what’s on the other side.”

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