Agent with a History (20 page)

I turned from him, as he let my arm go, and
approached the dividing chain. I picked up the golden chain and
jerked hard on the left side wall anchor. The entire grid of marble
floor tiles flipped and stood on end. I jerked hard on the right
wall anchor. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the sound of
rushing air flooded into the chamber, from where it was being
captured by the use of funnels located on the African plain
above.

The sound increased to a blaring roar. An air
gate flipped and the air was dispersed through different flute like
channels throughout the room and a lilting mysterious melody of
musical notes began to play. The melody was an old one.

It was said that Solomon himself had composed
it for the Queen of Sheba. Its name was simply ‘The Queen’s Dance’
and I had hoped to never have to dance it for real. The old Candace
had never let me attempt it for real, but she had laid out a
pattern on the floor and had made me practice it over and over.

I was grateful for that repetition now, as I
listened for the key lilting high notes, as the fluted melody
filled the cavern with an ancient rhythm. What I was about to
attempt was by no means easy.

Several Candace’s had plunged to their deaths
in the quest for Sheba’s throne and seen for themselves what lay
below the floor.

I stepped out, “Lisa!”

I heard Flint call out desperately, but I
didn’t look back. All my concentration was on what I had to do that
was before me. As my foot fell downward the floor slab flipped flat
and held my weight as I swung away in a twirl. Two more slabs
flipped flat and caught me in my sideways spin.

This wasn’t a game of hop scotch, if I didn’t
bend my torso, and arch the rest of my body in the sinuousness of
the dance, just right, my timing would be thrown off and I would be
either too late or too soon, to reach a tile and thus plunge to my
own death. The dance across the shifting floor first took me to the
left and then back to the right, until I was tantalizingly close to
the other side and the overwhelming instinct was to just lunge for
it, but I didn’t. To have done that would have been fatal.

The music played on and I continued to dance,
as my bare feet landed on each tile securely. I was almost two
seconds off in my timing and I fought down the fear that was
welling up in me, as I focused hard on correcting the time
difference.

The dance brought me back towards where I had
started. I caught a glimpse of my spectator’s faces and I saw that
they were completely spellbound, as they watched me. This dance had
enthralled ancient court halls and enticed the amorous affections
of one king in particular.

Sheba had taken her special dance a step
further in the design of her private throne room. This floor’s
mechanism of revolving stone weights and complex load splitters,
all perfectly timed to the beats of a melody, was more complex than
any rubix cube could ever hope to be. The design had been yet one
more gift from her lover king to the north.

Sheba had decided that if future Queens were
worthy enough to be called Candace and wished the honor of sitting
on her throne, then they would have to dance like her too. I was
headed for the central stair on the other side and I felt the
thrill of triumph course through my veins, even as a drop of sweat
burned into my eye.

Perhaps the scariest part of the dance was
about to happen. I wielded to face the group on a spin and then I
pushed off, as I somersaulted over backwards. My hand caught me in
a head stand on a tile several feet away and in a controlled motion
my shoulders, then my back connected with recently flipped tiles,
as I rolled up to my feet and stepped onto the threshold before the
stairs of the throne.

The music stopped and every floor tile
flipped open. My eyes lifted to the throne high above me and I
started up the stairs, which only queens had ever walked upon.
There were two pedestals to either side of the throne and I reached
out for what they each held, the royal scepter and the Queens’
crown. It was my crown now by right. I placed the elegantly jeweled
creation on my head and sat down on the throne of Sheba.

I truly was Candace now and I felt like it
too. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marshawn tugging a reluctant
Flint away from the pillar I had leaned him up against and down the
hall I had indicated for them to go down. To keep the spell bound
attention of the rest; I inserted the scepter into a slot on the
throne and twisted.

The floor tiles flipped flat and I beckoned
to the group at large to approach. They seemed to break out of
their stunned amazement and came to their senses, but they didn’t
notice Marshawn or Flint’s absence, as they had been standing away
from the group. They sent my father and half brothers across the
floor first, as security for Heinrich’s men to see if the floor
would hold, if they only knew how my finger itched to send my own
family plummeting into the depths.

I had to take them all out though. Heinrich
quickly darted across the floor and started to climb the stairs up
to me. His eyes were full of the avarice of his greed and his
insane thirst for power. He took aim on my head with his pistol and
chuckled, as if from some private joke. He was going to kill
me.

“Aren’t you going to verify the existence of
your treasure?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow upward.

Remembrance flickered in his eyes and he
glanced at the darkened doorway behind me. His eyes shined with a
fiery intensity of yearning as he licked his lips, while starring
at the open doorway beyond the throne.

I shook my head, “Admittedly I don’t know my
Bible as well as I should, but I have to admit my recent
experiences in life have only illustrated the truth to be found in
1st Timothy 6:10. Are you familiar with the verse Heinrich?”

He gazed at me in sheer hatred. “I guess not
then. For your benefit, I’ll refresh your memory, it goes something
like this, ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’ Remember
now Heinrich? There’s nothing wrong with possessing such a
treasure, as lies beyond that door, but you’ve let it consume
you.”

“Shut up! Shut up I say!” Screamed Heinrich,
as he pointed the gun at me again, as I sat on my throne.

“Tisk, tisk, on the verge of your greatest
achievement and your afraid to go any further. Are you out of your
league Heinrich? Doesn’t sound very superior of you now does
it?”

“Enough!” Heinrich said truly incensed now.
“Watch her while I verify the treasure!” He said, as he stormed
past me, toward the open doorway.

He stepped into the darkened doorway and a
stone in the floor depressed, with an audible click, beneath his
foot and he stopped.

“Should have had me go on before you
Heinrich, bum move on your part this time.”

“What?” He asked sickly, only moments before
thousands upon thousands of gallons of water pounded out of the
open doorway and from the holes in the ceiling all along the length
of the throne room.

I sat in the throne, as the water sheeted out
around it and gushed down the steps carrying away Heinrich’s
henchmen. A stone slab door slammed downward into the entrance of
the treasure room, that we had come through earlier.

The treasure room was also flooding with
water, beyond the stone slab. I saw nothing of Heinrich or my
father, in the turbulent pool that was rapidly rising before me.
Those still able to make their way ran down the open doorways on
the left that water was draining out through.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of
two men slogging through the water pouring out of the single
doorway on the right. It was my father and Rocco. They were going
to get away! I couldn’t allow that.

I continued to sit, as the water rose to the
top of the steps and then it stopped. I turned the scepter in its
slot and the floor reopened and drained the water, with its
protesting human debris into the great void below. I was left alone
in the dripping wet throne room.

There was a crumbling sound and a shuddering
of the surrounding walls, as the treasure room, beyond the stone
slab collapsed and fell into the void below, that it had been
precariously supported over for centuries. All that remained was
this throne room and the rooms that lay behind the throne. Not much
to be a queen over.

I walked back down the golden stairs and
placed my crown and scepter, from where I had taken them off the
two pedestals. My rule as queen was over, because I had found
something better in life than the ancient secrets of this
place.

Perhaps one of my daughters would want to be
a Candace someday. I kind of hoped not, as the role had seldom been
a happy one through the years. Even Sheba had died separated, alone
and away from the great fling of her life.

I wasn’t going to be like that. I was going
to follow my heart instead. I climbed the stairs and went through
the darkened doorway, not giving the ornate throne and the figure
head above a second look. Solomon had said it best in two
reflections, “All is vanity and there is nothing new under the
sun.”

The hall I walked in grew lighter again and I
passed by the rooms to either side of the hall, they weren’t filled
with gold, but with treasure of a different kind none the less. At
the end of the hall I pressed several stones and the private
chambers of the Candace opened up before me.

The elegant linens of the bed and the
colorful murals of the walls held no fascination for me today, as
they had for countless hours when I was younger. An elegant burial
casket dominated the room and I went to it reflecting on the one
time wisdom of its occupant.

She had known that I was the last to rule
here and that I would finish the job of protecting the treasure
forever.

“Thank you old friend, for everything.” I
whispered, as I ran my hand over the carved outward features of the
Candace’s sarcophagus, which was overlaid with gold.

It showed her, as she had been in her youth
and not as the old crippled and weary woman that had taught me
everything I had needed to know and so much more. She had given me
a break from the harshness of my life up until then and the tools
to become free of it as well.

I pressed a golden seamed ridge on the
sarcophagus and a shallow tray slid out from the side. I picked up
the necklace, which glowed up at me from the tray and I put it on.
This I would take with me.

The necklace consisted of several shimmering
blue stones that were unadorned and not faceted. They seemed to
glow from within and I did not doubt that they were the rarest
element to be found on Earth and for a good reason too. They had
not originated here, but had fallen as part of a meteorite long ago
into the desert, the Candace had told me.

The stones had several unique properties, one
of which I intended to exploit. I stripped off my clothes, until I
was naked. I went to a chest and pulled out the embroidered linen
garments of a Queen and put them on. I pulled my hair back and
snapped a golden loop into it. I put on the jewelry and even the
makeup of a Queen. I glanced in the mirror and was pleased with
what I saw. I looked the part that I had already been living.

Nervously I turned toward the corner of the
room and the shelves that were there. I walked closer and saw her
lying there on the shelf, faithful to her master even long after
her passing.

“Hello Za’esha. I’m really hoping that you
remember me. Remember those big fat mice I used to feed you?”

The large female black Mamba’s head rose up
regally, as she regarded me. I let her study me for a moment, with
her beady eyes and flickering tongue, before I reached out my hand
to her.

The stone slid closed behind me as I stepped
out into the hall. I made my way through the dimness to the
brightness of the skylight alcove. The alcove was circular, with a
fountain in the middle of it that still flowed with water.

I glanced at the stone floor and saw drops of
blood here and there. Marshawn and Flint had passed by here not too
long ago. Flint was still bleeding. My heart squeezed and I ached
to rush after them, but I couldn’t, not yet. I heard the scrape of
a shoe on stone and I turned to see my father and Rocco step into
the light given off by the skylight high above.

My father stumbled forward, as he clutched at
his chest. His words were slurred, but still discernible. “You
destroyed the treasure! You are a disgrace!”

Turning to Rocco he screamed, “Kill her!”

Rocco smiled evilly and walked across the
space toward me. I didn’t resist as his hands closed around my
throat.

“Any last words sister?”

I smiled into his eyes, “I remember once
hearing you complain about your tattoo itching. You should feel
what a real one feels like.”

His eyes gazed at me puzzled by my words and
then I watched them go wide with terror as Za’esha’s head came out
from under my hair. His hands let go of my throat, but it was too
late. Za’esha sprang forward, sinking her fangs deep into Rocco’s
neck. Choking, his hands clutched at his throat, as he stumbled
backward, his eyes still fixed on the serpent’s head that was
watching him die.

“Kind of ironic for you Rocco, to be bitten
by your own self stylized art.”

Rocco tumbled to the floor and lay twitching
and gasping for a moment and then he was still. My eyes rose to my
father’s horrified gaze. I lifted my arm out toward him and
Za’esha’s head disappeared back inside the linen wrap I wore only
to moments later coast down my arm. She wrapped around my
outstretched arm for support, as she rose impressively up into the
air to stare my father directly in the eye.

Adult Mambas are very long and so was
Za’esha. She still had an entire coil wrapped around my waist under
my loose garments.