They moved to the doorway but remained there.

Shyla went to number one and pulled her magic into her right hand. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Yell if you see or hear anything.” She placed her palm against the symbol. The rough wall was cool to the touch. Moving onto two, she repeated the action. Then three, four, and five. She kept her weight balanced, ready to dive or dash.

Nothing happened.

All right, what else was simple? “Now descending order.”

“Are you going to try all hundred and twenty combinations?” Jaft asked.

Was she? “Yes.” She touched five, then four, three, two, and one.

A deep boom rattled the room. Then, starting in the middle of the floor, a line appeared in the sand and spiraled outward, growing larger with each rotation. It looked as if a giant invisible finger was drawing it.

She looked at the others. “Can you see—”

“The creepy death spiral? Yes,” Jaft said.

Shyla joined her friends as it grew. With a thud, the middle of the room sank. Sand sizzled through the cracks in the floor as it continued to go down. The grating sound of stone scraping stone filled the air. The next spiral sank a moment later, then the next, and the next followed. Another boom vibrated through the soles of her boots. After a few heartbeats, the sand stopped. Silence descended.

Instead of a flat floor, before them was now a ramp that corkscrewed down into the blackness.

Thirteen

The five of them stared into the darkness. For the floor to just drop away…that was impressive. She’d never witnessed anything like that before.

“Who wants to climb down into the seven caverns of hell first?” Jaft asked.

“Are you always this melodramatic?” Vashi asked him.

Shyla glanced at Aphra. “Do you think there will be booby traps?”

“It depends if Tamburah believed someone could get this far. Considering only he had been able to see the symbols, I doubt it. But I’m not relaxing my guard.”

“Then you first.”

“Thanks.” Aphra approached the lip of the ramp as if a venomous snake was coiled inside. She held a druk in one hand and her knife in the other. Winding around the steps, she slowly disappeared.

The tension increased as Shyla waited. Perhaps she shouldn’t have sent Aphra down there. What if only someone with the power of The Eyes—

“All clear,” Aphra called.

Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief. With Shyla in the lead, they stepped down the series of ramps, each one smaller than the last, until they reached the end which rested on the floor a level below the hexagonal room.

Aphra waited for them. She jerked her thumb behind her. “The maze awaits.”

“What happened to your arm?” Jayden asked.

Her sleeve was ripped and blood welled. “There are nasty traps in there.”

“What a surprise,” Jaft said dryly.