Page 34 of No Escape

I thought about Lexi and how their team would do as the gamemaster led us up the right-side staircase and down the end of the hall past our bedrooms. I reminded myself that being separated on to different teams was the right decision. She was the smartest woman I’d ever met. I had full confidence that if anyone could lead the team to success, it was Lexi.

On the other hand, my amazing wife also had a little black cloud of trouble that followed her around like a favorite pet. That worried me. But I put that aside for now to focus on the task at hand.

The gamemaster stopped in front of a large, wood-paneled door with a keypad mounted on the wall. He turned to type a code on the panel. I slightly shifted my position to try to catch a glimpse of the code, but he effectively blocked the view, and the door swung open. He invited us to enter, so one by one, everyone filed in.

I waited until last to go in. Brando’s eyes met mine as I walked past, but that didn’t stop me from glancing at the keypad. One brief look told me everything I needed to know. Standard security cipher lock. Not top-of-the-line. Given some time, I could bypass it. Clearly, the purpose of this keypad was merely to serve as an effective lock to keep guests from peeking into a room ahead of a challenge.

Brando followed me in and left the door open behind us. I did a quick sweep of the room. Medium-size, with a high ceiling and no windows. Only one obvious exit, the one we’d just entered.

What was in the room, however, was most curious. Sitting directly in the center was an enormous bronze statue of a bull, dwarfing everyone. Brando guided us so that we were facing the right side of the bull. The statue had been placed on a raised dais with two steps leading up to the platform. Everyone stood in awe, looking at the bull. I remained near the door, leaning back against the wall and watching the gamemaster carefully. He seemed very confident and in control. However, in my experience, such individuals were occasionally betrayed by their confidence and unintentionally gave away more than they intended.

“This challenge is quite straightforward,” Brando said. “All you must do is remove the gold ring from the bull’s nose and use it to exit the room.”

Several of the team began chattering excitedly and wandered toward the head, pointing at a large golden ring that had been placed through the nose of the bull statue and pulled tight with several interlocking ropes. I adjusted my position so that I could better see the bull’s head. After a quick glance at the ring, I kept my eyes on Brando.

“You will have two hours to complete the challenge and exit,” he continued. “When I leave, closing the door, the clock over the exit door will illuminate with a two-hour countdown. This will help you keep track of the time and coordinate your actions in an effective manner. If you have not exited by the allotted two hours, I will return and will retrieve you. Good luck, orin bocca al lupo, as we say in Italian.”

He gave a short bow and then headed for the door, his gaze meeting mine one more time, acknowledging my scrutiny without betraying any secrets, before the door shut behind him. As soon as he was gone, the clock started counting down.

Everyone started throwing out ideas. Gio and Stefan immediately mounted the platform to take a closer look at the ring. I stayed where I was, taking in the big picture, compartmentalizing what we were up against with this challenge.

Since I currently viewed the bull from the side, I could see its dominant feature was a heavy leather harness that wrapped around its chest and was secured by a rope that ran along the side of its head, attaching to the harness with a massive, complex knot.

I walked around to the front of the bull. The large gold ring sat directly in its snout, set into the statue amid flaring nostrils. The ring’s diameter appeared to be the span of a man’s large hand, and it was as thick as a finger. Looped through and around the gold ring were three ropes of different thicknesses. The thinnest rope ran from where it attached to the harness on both sides and was looped twice through the ring. The huge knot sat directly at the point where the rope attached to the harness on either side. My gaze flicked back to the ring. The two loops on the ring for the harness’s rope were at the three and nine o’clock positions.

Interesting.

The fattest rope appeared to be about one inch in diameter and dropped from the ceiling, running through the top of the ring, directly next to the bull’s nose. It did not make an additional loop before returning to the ceiling. The ends of that rope were secured in the ceiling at least ten feet above the head of the bull by separate heavy metal collars that were bolted into the ceiling. Through the bottom of the ring, there was a medium-size rope about three-quarters of an inch across. This rope looped through the ring, and both ends ran through a hole in a four-foot-high wooden hitching post. The two ends were knotted on the far side with a complicated set of knots and rings.

Stefan, who had been examining the hitching post, threw me a glance over his shoulder. “Looks like we have to remove all those ropes in order to free the gold ring.”

“We’ll have to do more than that,” Stefan’s girlfriend, Alessa, corrected him. “Because as far as I can see, in addition to the ropes holding the ring tightly in place, it’s also still inside the bull’s nose. How are we going to free the ring from his nose even if we unravel the knots and remove the rope?”

It was a good question. “I presume there’s a latch or some mechanism on the ring that’ll permit us to separate it and remove it from the bull’s nose once we loosen the ropes,” I said. “But first things first.”

“How are we going to loosen all the ropes? Vittoria asked. “One of those ropes is attached to the ceiling. We don’t have anything to cut it and, unless I’m missing something, I don’t see any ladders in here.” She looked around the room as if to confirm that statement. “In fact, there isn’tanythingelse in this room but thisenormebull.”

That was my cue to get things going.

I pushed off the wall. “There’s a way to solve this puzzle, we just have to find it. In fact, the best puzzles usually seem impossible until you know the secret. Our job is to find that secret. So, let’s start by going over this room and the bull very carefully. The time spent evaluating this puzzle will be well spent. Gio and Stefan, let’s get a closer look at that bull and the ring. The rest of you, check the platform, the walls, the doors, and the floor. Every inch of this space needs to be examined.”

I climbed the platform and stood next to my two brothers and my mother, who had also decided to join us on the platform. Everyone else stayed below, looking around.

“This is not bronze,” my mother said to me in Italian. “It’s wood. But it’s solid wood and seems quite thick.”

I touched the side, realizing she was right. I mobilized my brothers, and we tried to lift or move the bull. It didn’t budge, clearly well anchored.

I turned my attention to the leather harness that encased the bull’s shoulder and wrapped around its belly. The straps were thick and attached to each other with rivets. I tried to pry off a rivet without success. There were no obvious buckles or way to remove the harness short of cutting it off. Gio started methodically checking the rivets, looking for one that might be loose, and I left him to it.

Vittoria had started examining the knot on the back of a hitching post at the front of the bull. “This is odd,” she said. “After passing through the hole in the hitching post, one end of this rope stops within a ring that’s approximately the same size as the hole in the hitching post. The other end is embedded in this long, thin piece of wood. There’s no way the ring can fit through that hole, so it must be the piece of wood that has to be freed to pass through the hole.”

“Agreed. Keep working that angle,” I said. Mama joined Vittoria. I liked seeing her and Vittoria working together. I hoped to see the same level of comfort with her and Lexi.

Turning my attention back to the task at hand, I decided to take the bull by the ring—literally. I reached up and grabbed it, pulling hard, but it would neither rotate nor move. It was pulled so tightly against the upper part of the nose by the ropes, I was unable to budge it at all. I knew it couldn’t have been that easy, but it had to be eliminated as a possibility. Just the same, I checked every inch of the wood around the bull’s nose and the ring itself in case there was a way to snap the ring or pull it from the nose, but I found nothing. That meant any unlocking mechanism on the ring would be hidden beneath that tight band of ropes holding it against the top of the bull’s nose.

I glanced around and saw Alessa carefully examining the walls of the room, looking for any hidden opening that might provide a ladder or a hidden compartment that might contain a cutting tool.

She reached the exit door and took a step back. “There’s no doorknob here,” she called out in her clipped British accent. “How did our gamemaster get out of here?”

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