Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger (25 page)

Before them was the inside of the Shrine and their senses could not at once take it in. At first it was all shimmering and light, sparkling and glittering.

Then they began to put it together and realized the room was immense, a vast chamber filled with wonders. It was dreamlike and unlike anything any of them had ever seen. The four interior walls of the pyramid reached up, tilting and slanting to the metallic apex, which was decorated with a brilliant fan vaulting of enormous icicles. The very walls sparkled and shone, for they, too, were covered with a protective layer of ice—dripping stalactites.

In the center of the vast floor was a high, round platform with several layers. On the highest level, enclosed in a circular pool, they could see a whirlpool spinning. There was also a humming sound that vibrated through the icicles like a violin.

From the metallic cone that capped the pyramid a column of brilliant light shone down. This light column sparkled and flashed in many colors, a perpetually active shaft of brilliance that played upon the center of the whirlpool.

“Almost beyond belief!” Melanthius said in an awed voice.

Dazzled by the sparkling magnificence, it took Sinbad a moment to remember to look around for Zenobia or any other enemy. His instincts of survival were being assaulted by the sheer shining walls, the unusual architecture, the unfamiliar shapes.

Farah took Sinbad’s arm and clung to him. She looked up at the radiance. “It’s . . . it’s as if the Aurora was being . . . was being filtered down through that metal cap . . . through that cone and into the whirlpool . . .”

Melanthius took a few steps more into the great room. His eyes sought to absorb everything at once. The humming sound that seemed synchronized to the whirlpool was not the only sound he heard. There was a strange, droning hum that was unlike anything the old philosopher had ever heard. It seemed artificial, a steady, even sound, and not the moaning of a creature or the sigh of wind.

“That must be the source of energy . . . up there,” Sinbad said.

Melanthius looked up at the undulating smoke that obscured the apex, and at the emanation of rays that poured down their light. “Drawn from the Crown of Apollo itself,” he said. “The princess was correct . . .”

“The secret of the Arimaspi . . .” Dione said in a whisper.

But Melanthius was ignoring his companions, his eyes darting about trying to make order out of the chaos of impression. He noticed at one side of the platform, leaning against the pyramid wall, was a complicated loop of gigantic golden chains which supported a cage large enough to contain a human. The cage was metalwork, and finely done. The old Greek’s eyes went along the chains and he saw they were counterweighted and controlled by a chain that passed through a hole in the staircase that lead up to the pool in the platform’s top.

Around the big circular platform Melanthius saw four niches, and guessed that each one faced the four cardinal points of the compass. He had noted that the pyramid itself was aligned that way and the niches corresponded properly. Within each niche was a huge beast of some sort, frozen into protective blocks of ice.

Melanthius limped around the platform, inspecting everything. He saw that each of the strange beasts was positioned
couchant,
sitting or squatting within the niche. One was a griffon, another a sphinx. The Greek walked on, seeing that the next one was another heraldic beast and the last a gigantic primitive creature.

“Are those their gods?” Farah asked, her voice hushed.

Melanthius looked at the beasts in the niches and saw that one of them was a monstrously large saber-toothed tiger encased in a prison of ice.

“The Guardian of the Shrine,” Melanthius said, touching the smooth, uneven surface of the frozen water. Sinbad joined the wise man and wiped his palm across the ice.

“The ice is melting!” he said in surprise. There was a roll of thunder heard distantly through the funnel of the passage to the outside. Sinbad became aware that there was water beginning to drip from the thousands of hanging ice knives over their heads. He knew they didn’t have much time.

Maroof was nervous and he kept gripping and re-gripping his scimitar tightly, although he didn’t think whatever dangers this place contained would be much deterred by one man’s blade. He saw that at the lower edges of the slanted walls, in the shadows, were bodies frozen in ice. There were Egyptian-style support columns lining the walls, and between them were massive blocks of ice that contained the shadowy and frozen bodies.

There was a sharp crack as one of the great icicles broke loose and fell toward the floor. “Look out!” Hassan shouted. The icicle crashed into the stone floor like the falling of a hundred windows, and Sinbad’s party eyed the glittering ceiling nervously.

“We must act at once,” Melanthius said. He pulled out the scrolls and unrolled them, his face serious and frowning as he studied them. He only looked up to compare a scroll to the chamber interior and orient himself. He ignored the increasing drip of water from the overhead icicles and didn’t even look up when another icicle fell. The crack of its departure from the ceiling clusters and the resulting smash on the wet floor were like the snapping of a thousand sword blades. Another fell in moments, with the same ear-splitting noise. Everyone but the old Greek watched the ceiling nervously, and kept back near the archway into the passage to the exterior.

“The chains and the cage,” Dione said. “Just as described in the scrolls, Father,”

“Yes,” muttered the sage absently. He pointed at the platform. “We must pass Kassim through the column of light, in the cage, as soon as possible . . .”

Sinbad looked up at the flashing particles of electrical energy that were cascading down the shimmering column of ethereal light into the murmuring whirlpool. He nodded in agreement and ran down the platform and examined the chains that controlled the cage.

An icicle crashed, stinging Sinbad with shards of ice and splashing him from the thin pool of ice water that now covered the chamber floor. He ignored the near hit and continued his examination, tracing the chains as they came and went, in and out of the hole in the stone steps. He followed the chains as they went up toward the apex of the pyramid, where they disappeared into a grayed yellow-green mist. In that mist there were swirling and flashing particles of electrical energy drawn from the Aurora Borealis outside. The chain reappeared and came down to the bejeweled cage large enough to hold a man easily.

Sinbad struggled with the chains, trying to decide just how they should be manipulated, while Melanthius began directing operations. He called across to Farah. “Quickly now . . . bring Kassim to the top of the platform, and into the cage.”

As Farah brought the baboon down the steps from the tunnel and across the floor, the old philosopher searched in his robes until he found a phial of liquid. Then he watched impatiently as Farah assisted Kassim up the steps of the whirlpool platform. She glanced at Sinbad and saw that he was ready, holding only a taut chain and watching.

“Come on, Kassim,” she urged. Sinbad rattled the chains as he gave the cage a test move. Suddenly a scream echoed through the icy chamber.

“Kassim will never be Caliph!”

The scream echoed around the room, making it difficult to decide where it came from, but Sinbad recognized Zenobia’s shrill voice. Releasing the chains, Sinbad’s hand went for his sword and it hissed from his scabbard, glistening in the shimmering light from the column of Aurora brilliance.

From out of the shadows streaked Rafi, running hard, a knife in his hand and an expression of fanatic vengeance on his face. Behind him Zenobia appeared from behind the ice coffins, screaming, her face contorted with hate and fury. “Not the animal! Kill
Melanthius!
They are helpless without him! Kill the Greek!”

Rafi raced down the steps as Sinbad started up from around the curve of the circular platform. The witch-woman’s son knocked Farah down as she tried to protect the screaming, gibbering baboon. The princess tumbled down the steps to the floor as Rafi launched himself on the snarling baboon. The knife flashed as they grappled, then they fell sideways and rolled bumpily down the steps.

Melanthius got in Sinbad’s way as he leapt down the steps toward the tumbling Farah and the fiercely fighting pair of Rafi and the baboon.

Rafi and the baboon splashed out upon the icy floor, snarling and biting, both of them. Rafi’s knife skittered along the stone slabs as he missed the twisting anthropoid. He uttered an unintelligible cry and raised his arm high to plunge the knife into the baboon’s breast. Sinbad leapt at them, but missed as they rolled away, again locked in battle as the baboon reached up to seize the knife hand of his assailant.

Rafi screamed in pain as the powerful hands of the snouted baboon closed over his wrist. His fingers sprang open and the knife clattered to the floor and was kicked away by their shifting feet. The baboon launched himself up Rafi’s tottering body, using the youth’s torso as a climbing pole. His mouth, dripping saliva, opened and with a guttural growl the baboon sank his yellow fangs into the throat of the witch-woman’s son.

Blood gushed forth, drenching the baboon and splashing into the melted ice water on the chamber floor. Rafi’s blood-strangled scream was muffled as his jugular vein was ripped open. He fell, pulling the baboon with him, but the animal jumped free as Rafi fell limp at the feet of the guardian tiger in its ice coffin. The youth gave a jerk, blood pumping messily onto the floor—then he died.

Zenobia screamed like a soul in torment as a thunderclap filled the chamber with booming echoes. A half-dozen icicles broke free and smashed to the floor. Zenobia took a step toward her son, then saw that the blood no longer pumped out but merely spread thinly in the pool of melted ice water around him. Her nails ripped down her cheeks as she tottered crazily.

No one spoke as the witch-woman limped toward her dead son. Thunder came again—long, rippling and ominous. Zenobia stood looking down at her son, at the blood-splattered face now slack with death, at the beringed fingers lying in his own life’s fluid. Another icicle crashed upon the steps, sending stinging particles of ice in every direction.

The thunder increased, and when Hassan looked nervously at the arch to the passage by which they had entered, he saw blue flashes of light: distant lightning.

The sound of a high wind came, a keening, rising wind that stirred the ancient dust in the passage and sent tinkling eddies through the melting icicles overhead. More water dripped until it was almost a light rain.

Melanthius was clearly worried about the time factor. He gestured to Sinbad. “Bring Kassim. Let us pray that the gods of the Arimaspi grant us the time!” He looked again at his scrolls and muttered, “Hurry, hurry . . .”

Sinbad spoke over his shoulder to Hassan and Maroof as he took the baboon’s hand. “Keep careful watch on the witch,” he said. “Come, Kassim. This is the last time you’ll need your baboon strength and speed.”

Hassan and Maroof looked with disgust and still some fear at Zenobia, who stood like a frozen statue, head hanging down, and at her clawed foot. They exchanged glances, then looked up as another icicle snapped loose and plummeted to the floor beyond the platform, where it showered fragments of ancient ice all about.

A small icicle fell near Zenobia, splashing in the water as it broke, but she paid it no attention. The blood of her son was spreading out upon the surface of the water like a red mist.

Sinbad and Melanthius stopped briefly at the top of the platform to look down into the vortex of swirling liquid that was bathed in the light from above. The spinning whirlpool seemed to draw down the emanations, sucking up the shimmering rays of the Aurora light. Farah took a few steps toward the platform, clenching her hands together, watching Sinbad leave her brother, the enchanted baboon, and begin to manipulate the winch chains.

Even the sailors were drawn toward the drama that was about to unfold. None of them noticed that Zenobia had raised her head. None noticed the apparently shattered and defeated figure, a lonesome and pathetic creature, staring at the niche above her dead son’s corpse.

None noticed that the ice was fast melting around the saber-toothed tiger. None noticed the rising level of melted water on the chamber floor. The unfolding drama on the platform was much too compelling.

Zenobia’s face, running with blood from her fingernail scratches, was twisted with fury, grief, and defiance. The wind increased. More icicles fell, one striking Hassan on the shoulder and causing him to curse. Maroof wiped away the rainlike drippings and kept his eyes upon the platform.

Melanthius took the small phial clenched in his hand and administered the liquid contents to the baboon. Then he took its hand and led the baboon to the waiting cage. The Aurora light, reflecting from the vortex of the pool, made rippling bars of light over them. The old Greek helped the baboon into the cage, then wedged the empty phial in with him, and secured the cage door.

The old philosopher turned toward Sinbad and signaled. The husky sea captain heaved on the chains and with a rattle the cage lifted and swung out over the whirlpool and into the descending column of swirling, radiant particles of light.

The cage and the baboon were wreathed in the shimmering cloud, and thunder splashed sound over them all. Sinbad glanced at Melanthius and saw him muttering silently to himself, as if he were reciting a prayer or incantation.

Sinbad looked back at the baboon in the cage. The cage swung gently, still wreathed in the brilliant column of light. Water dripped from the ceiling, slashing into the pool that now covered the chamber floor completely. Lightning flashed blue-white down the passage to the outside, and moments later the thunder came.

Zenobia was staring hard, her eyes changing . . .

Her eyes became panther eyes . . . tiger’s eyes.

Evil eyes . . .

Slanted fierce slits, glowing fire . . .

Before her the ice that shrouded the great primitive tiger was melting fast, almost gurgling away. No one noticed, for their attention was wholly upon the cage in the shaft of sparkling light.