Labyrinth. Alex Archer

limbs.

       “Glad we’re out of there,” said Annja. “Not crazy about having to find my way through dark small spaces.”

       Kessel nodded.

       The room was approximately eleven feet by eleven feet with a simple table in the center. In the middle of the table sat a book.

       Kessel headed right for it.

       Annja stopped him. “Hold it, slick.”

       He paused and looked at her. “You really think that’s all there is to this?” she asked.

       Kessel shrugged.

       Annja shook her head. “You’re smarter than that, Kessel. And there’s no way Fairclough would put the book he’s trying to protect right here. There’s no challenge in this. And he did warn me of puzzles. I’m guessing this must be one of them.”

       She looked around the room again. Something seemed odd about it and the third time she looked she finally understood. “There’s no exit.”

       Kessel’s eyes blazed. And then he nodded understanding.

       Annja studied the table. “So, somewhere, there’s got to be a clue how we’re supposed to free ourselves from this place. I mean, we could go back through the crawlspace—”

       But at that moment, she heard a rumble and a cloud of dust poured into the room. The crawlspace had caved in.

       Annja sighed. “All right, so much for that. Looks like the only way out of here is to figure out how to move ahead.”

       She examined the table again. There seemed nothing special about it. It was made of wood with four simple straight legs jutting down toward the stone floor.

       “Nothing there,” she muttered.

       But what about the book?

       Annja peered at it from all angles but could detect nothing special about it, either. As far as she could tell, it was a hardcover edition of the King James Bible. Fairclough didn’t strike her as religious, but then again, she’d only just met him. He could have been a zealot for all she knew.

       But maybe he simply had an appreciation for the book and what it had done for the English language, rather than its content.

       Annja glanced at Kessel. “What do you think?”

       He shrugged.

       Annja agreed. “Yeah, we don’t have much choice, do we?”

       Kessel shook his head.

       Annja looked at the book again. She could, of course, pick it up and see what happened. But was that the wisest move?

       Overhead, a single lightbulb burned in the ceiling. It didn’t appear that some type of guillotine would drop on them if she picked up the book.

       She pointed to Kessel. “Do me a favor—check those walls for any hidden firing ports, would you? The last thing I want is to find myself impaled by a spear or projectile I can’t see.”

       Together, they ran their hands over every inch of the walls they could reach. But try as she might, Annja couldn’t find anything to suggest something lethal awaited them if they opened the book.

       At last, she sighed. “All right, let’s try it.”

       Kessel flipped open the cover before Annja could stop him.

       “Hey…”

       He stared at the book. There was nothing on the pages. Annja leafed through it but found nothing at all written in it. She glanced at the spine just to make sure she hadn’t missed something.

       “Well, that’s weird.”

       Kessel frowned.

       Annja tried to pick the book up off the table, but it didn’t budge. “Is it stuck?”

       Kessel tried, too, but it wouldn’t give. Annja nudged him out of the way and started leafing through the pages again. “There’s got to be something in here we’re missing.”

       On the fourth time through, she finally found it at the back of the book. The last page covered a small button in the upper corner. Annja glanced at Kessel. “What do you think?”

       Kessel shook his head.

       But Annja poised her finger over it. “What have we got to lose? If we don’t press it, I don’t see anything else in here we could try. We either stay here and starve or press this and take our chances.”

       Kessel nodded.

       Annja pressed the button.

       Several things happened in the next instant. First, the lights went out, plunging the entire room into total darkness. Annja heard sudden movement and a grunt.

       “Kessel?”

       And then there was nothing but silence.

       “Kessel?”

       No response.

       Wonderful, she thought. Now she truly was alone. Villain though he might have been, Annja had felt at least some small measure of comfort knowing he was with her in the maze.

       Now she was alone.

       Then the floor gave way underneath her. Annja felt herself falling past the table, past the King James Bible trap that she’d triggered. She plunged down, unaware of how far she was falling until at last she fell into water. Annja dunked under and came up sputtering, gasping for air. The sudden cold shock had stunned her almost senseless.

       She guessed that she’d fallen at least twenty feet but couldn’t be sure. It was still completely dark in the…pool she found herself in, adding to her insecurity about her position. After all, Fairclough had warned her that it would become obvious there were challenges within the maze itself. And Annja had the distinct impression that meant Fairclough might have stocked the maze with a few living surprises.

       There might even be piranha in the water with her right now.

       She wiped her eyes and tried to focus.

       In any event, she was out of the room with no exit. Now she just had to figure out where she was.

       And what had become of Kessel.

      Chapter 8

      The first thing she did was determine the size of the pool she’d dropped into. Annja swam in one direction until she bumped into stone. A wall. There, she thought, that tells me there’s at least some end to this.

       She swam back the way she’d come but grew tired partway across. It wasn’t a small pool.

       Annja took a deep breath and dove down, but again, she couldn’t find the bottom before her lungs threatened to burst. She surfaced and gasped for air.

       Not good, she decided. Better to stay close to the stone wall she’d felt. So she paddled back over and felt the cool, slimy stones, covered in mossy algae. And Annja hadn’t detected any chlorine, so this was a natural body of water.

       And that meant there might be other things living in it besides the algae.

       Almost as soon as she came to that realization, Annja felt something brush against her legs. She jerked them up and away. She wasn’t in salt water, so that ruled out sharks. And while she didn’t relish the thought of facing anything in the dark, she could control her panic.

       Now might be the time to see what it is I’m up against here, she thought. Annja visualized the sword waiting for her in the otherwhere. Instantly, the sword was in her hands, forcing her to tread water with her legs only. But the dull gray light the sword cast provided much-needed illumination.

       Annja held the blade high overhead and attempted to see where she was. She glanced up at the ceiling and saw she’d misjudged the distance she’d fallen by perhaps a dozen feet. She could see the hole in the ceiling