The Anubis Gates

“He pulled a pistol on us, yer Honor,” one of the men explained. “I had to give him a thump in the turn.”

“I see. Well, let’s—Dungy! Bring me my stilts!—let’s lock him up in the dungeon. It’s Doctor Romany that’ll have the most questions for him, and,” the clown added with a giggle, “the most motivating questioning techniques.”

It was an odd little parade that descended four flights of stairs and walked a hundred yards down a subterranean corridor that could have been pre-Roman—the hunched dwarf Dungy limping along in the lead, carrying a flaring torch over his head, followed by the two men who frog-marched between them the chintz-curtain-robed Ahmed, whose face behind the false beard and moustache and walnut stain was gray with fear, and Horrabin, bent way over forward to avoid brushing his hat against the roof stones, bringing up the rear on his stilts.

Eventually they passed through an arch into a wide chamber; Dungy’s torch illuminated the ancient, wet stones of the ceiling and near wall, but the far wall, if indeed there was one, was lost in the absolute blackness. To judge by the echoes, the chamber was very large. The procession paused after a few paces into it, and Jacky could hear water dripping and, she was certain, faint but excited whispering.

“Dungy,” said Horrabin, and even the clown sounded a little uneasy, “the nearest vacant guest room—hoist the lid. And hurry.”

The dwarf limped forward, leaving the others in darkness. Twenty feet away he stopped and lifted a little metal plate away from a hole in the floor, and squatted down, trying to get his head and the torch both next to the hole without setting his greasy white hair on fire. “Nobody home.” He set the torch upright in a hole between the stones, hooked the fingers of both hands around a recessed iron bar in the floor, carefully rearranged his feet, and then tugged upward. A whole stone slab lifted up, evidently on hinges, exposing a circular hole three feet across. The slab came to rest at a bit more than a ninety degree angle and Dungy stepped back, wiping his brow. “Your chamber awaits, Ahmed,” said Horrabin. “If you hang by your hands and then drop, it’s only six feet to the floor. You can do that or be pushed in.”

Jacky’s captors led her forward and, when she was standing in front of the hole, let go of her and stepped back. She forced herself to smile. “When’s dinner? Will I be expected to dress?”

“Make any preparations you please,” said Horrabin coldly.

“Dungy will drop it in on you at six. Get in now.”

Jacky eyed the two men who’d escorted her, calculating whether she could break away between them, but they caught the look and stepped back, moving their arms out from their sides a little. Her gaze fell hopelessly back to the hole at her feet, and to her own humiliation she felt close to tears. “Are—” she choked, “are there rats… down there? Or snakes?” I’m just a girl! she wanted to yell, but she knew that revealing that would only add to the ordeals in store for her.

“No, no,” Horrabin assured her. “Any rats and snakes that make their way down here are devoured by other sorts of creatures. Sam, he doesn’t want to do it himself; push him in.”

“Wait.” Jacky carefully crouched and sat down on the edge of the hole, her sandalled feet dangling in the darkness. She hoped the others wouldn’t see how badly her legs were shaking under the chintz robe. “I’m going, I don’t need your… kind help.” She leaned forward and gripped the opposite edge. She paused to take a deep breath, then hiked her rump off the rim and swung down into the hole so that she hung by the grip of her hands. She looked down and could see nothing, just the most solid blackness she’d ever stared into. The floor could believably have been three inches below her toes, or three hundred feet.

“Kick his hands,” said Horrabin. She let go before anyone could. After a long second of free fall she landed on flexed knees on muddy ground, and managed not to let either kneecap clip her chin as she sat down hard. Something scurried away from her across the mud floor. Looking up, she saw the underside of the stone slab appear for one instant lit by the red torchlight, and then, with a shocking, eardrum-battering crash, fall back into place; for a few more moments there was a tiny square of dim red light above her, but then someone replaced the metal plate over the peek-hole and she was in featureless, disorienting darkness.