Page 45 of Tomb of Ancients
In the morning, Henry woke us at an ungodly hour. The horses had already been saddled, the packs readied, and Bartholomew fed. A traveler’s breakfast of hard biscuits, nuts, and stewed greens had been prepared, and Henry paced impatiently while I bolted down my share. Then we were riding, all of it happening so fast that neither Ara nor myself had time to stop him. That was the idea, of course, because he knew we were tired of playing along.
“Look there,” he called as we descended toward the plains. A few nomads dotted the edge of the lake. “They won’t go near the center. We must be close.”
“Henry—”
Ara and I had called out to him in unison, but he raced ahead, spurring his horse with flashing heels, the brown-and-black-spotted beast dashing down the embankment. I had spent plenty of hours in the saddle, but Henry was the vastly superior horseman. We gave chase, and now Ara did not appear angry but concerned. Her brows were permanently knit, her lower lip trembling.
“We’ll stop him,” I yelled to her over the whip of the wind.
“I don’t know that we can.” Ara’s hood fell back, her iron-gray and black hair flying free of its ribbon, streaming behind her like a pennant as we pursued Henry down to the salt.
Tuz Gölü. The sea of crystalline white stretching out before us made my breath catch and my heart throb—it was a beautiful place, unearthly, a flat glistening dish of diamonds so vast its edges could not be seen once we descended. The sky seemed bluer here, the horizon just a suggestion, almost as if we had stumbled upon the edge of the world. And there was Henry, riding right into it, the top crust of salt breaking, water splashing the knobby knees of his horse.
The nomads scattered at his approach, and by the time Ara and I caught up to him, we three and Bartholomew were alone. The place was emptiness itself, the salt and water making tricks of the light, rainbows cascading across the ground, rippling at the slightest touch.
Henry swore and jumped down from his mount, letting it go. He wandered forward into the desert of eerie white, pressing his hand to his forehead against the sun.
“Where is it?” he whispered. “This is the salt. It has to be here.”
Ara and I watched as he cut a line through the center of the salt flat, shallow water sloshing around his sandals. He trudged on, impervious to the sun and glare, determined to make his pilgrimage.
“What do we do?” I twisted in the saddle, holding Bartholomew, my hands shaking with powerlessness.
“Nothing will stop him. We can only protect him now.”
Ara dismounted, grunting under the weight of the book and the pack. I joined her, and together we trailed behind, retracing Henry’s path through the salt. When we reached him, his face glowed red with fury.
“If that idiot demon lied to me...”
“There,” Ara said, pointing. “Old tracks. They lead deeper into the salt.”
Henry hurried in that direction, the shallow water deepening as we traveled toward the center of the salt flat, his tracks swallowed up. His robes were soaked to his knees, but he ignored it, fixated on the unbroken crust and the strange imprints that were too delicate to have cracked it. He stopped a hand’s breadth from the intact salt and reached out, running his fingers lightly over the shapes. As I neared, I saw that they looked remarkably like giant paws.
“I’m willing,” he muttered, almost feverish. “I’m willing, damn you, where are you?”
There came a deep rumbling from beneath the earth. I stumbled, grabbing onto Ara as she grabbed onto me. Bartholomew whined and burrowed under my robe, hiding his muzzle under my armpit. The sun flashed off the mirror of salt, blinding me, then the brightness exploded outward, sending a hot wave acrossthe desert. The salt under and around us softened and then sank, becoming hard and flat, until we stood on a perfect alabaster disk.
The blast had knocked Henry to his knees, where he stayed, all of us silent and watchful as the tracks in the salt shook, then lowered, a gradual ramp cutting itself into the ground. I had seen such things in Egypt, smooth, glittering architecture cut neatly into limestone. At the very bottom, perhaps half a kilometer into the earth, a door appeared. Under my robes, I had begun to sweat badly, and I nudged Ara, who wouldn’t take her eyes from the door.
It was too late now, I thought, to forget this madness and go home. A simultaneous loathing and curiosity rooted me to the spot, for I wondered what might emerge from that door, and what lay beyond it.
Something moved in the darkness, a figure stepping through the square-cut door. At first I thought it was another of the scorpion creatures, but as it climbed the ramp toward us, it became clear that it was half woman, its lower half that of a lioness. That explained the paw prints. More than that, she had not two human arms but six all told, the extra two pairs folded back slightly, like wings at rest. She approached slowly, and I couldn’t help wondering if that was to give us time to change our minds and flee.
And I longed to do just that. The sun vanished, and the desert was plunged instantly into night. Gasping, I watched thedarkness light up with more stars than one sky ought to hold. Not just stars, shapes. I did not fancy myself an astronomer, but even I knew these were not ordinary constellations and that no stars in the firmament glowed so brilliantly. The moon, perfect as a pearl, hung full and fat and too close to us, nearer than I had ever seen it.
The creature finished her journey up the ramp and observed us, her eyes catlike, her skin a buttery gold, like that of her lioness half. A blue, beaded curtain hung from her neck, chiming softly when she moved. Around her neck and shoulders lay a snake, draped there, as white as the salt, though its head held no eyes and its mouth ever opened, a toothless tube that sucked at the air.
Henry stared up at her, marveling, still on his knees.
“I am Malatriss,” she said. The stars burned clearer when she spoke. “One Who Opens the Door. Who is willing?”
“I am,” Henry jumped to his feet. “I’m willing.”
“And these others?” she asked.
He turned and stretched out his hands, pleading with his eyes. I had never seen Henry look so helpless before. “Please,” he mouthed.
“I am willing, too,” Ara spoke up, taking a step forward.
