They wound their way down the mountainside to the cave, then crept inside single file, bending at the waist to avoid hitting their heads on the low ceiling. They clicked their flashlights on, following the widening yellow beams as their footsteps crunched over the rocky surface, echoing off the cave walls. The narrow path opened into a wide chamber where they could finally stand upright and relieve their aching backs.
“Watch out for scorpions,” Leila warned, waving her flashlight around. She eyed the cracks in the walls.
“This way,” Drake said in a hushed voice. She motioned for them to follow her around a sharp corner, then deeper into the cave. Leila could vaguely remember going this direction. There were so many twists and turns, she hadn’t been able to keep any of it straight.
The rough cave walls bulged out in places, forcing them to take off their backpacks to squeeze by. They ducked their heads to avoid stalactites, stubbed their toes on protruding rocks, and crunched over a scorpion or two.
Leila lost all track of time as they wandered the mountain’s veins. It seemed impossible that they would ever find the scrolls in this labyrinth. While Drake seemed to know where she was going, they took turns scratching marks into the walls, just in case.
They came to a split in the tunnel, and Drake looked back at Leila questionably. “Straight or turn?”
“Uh… I thought you knew where it was?”
Drake smirked. “I’m just guessing.”
It figures. Leila pondered for a moment, then shrugged. Without any signs that said this way to the secret Scrolls of Lysias, she didn’t have the faintest idea, either. They couldn’t risk splitting up, so they had one choice. They had to search the entire cave until they found it.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Xander asked, tapping a fist against the wall.
“I’ve been here before. It’s here somewhere,” Leila reassured him. “Let’s just go straight for a few minutes, then double back if we have to.”
They trudged on, but the dark, twisting passageways gave no indication there were secret scrolls anywhere. After a few minutes, they decided to turn around and try the tunnel on the right. Or was it left?
They took a left. This tunnel twisted right, then left again. More tunnels branched off, adding to the confusion.
Leila swallowed, trying to push back the growing feeling that they were wasting their time. She glanced back at Xander, who still brought up the rear. He gave her a dark look that was anything but amused. His eyes looked strained, as if he were certain they were stuck in this cave forever. She knew exactly how he felt. Maybe it was time to call it quits?
Her fingers slid over the wall as she walked, the raw surface scratching at her skin. Strange shadows loomed in and out of view. Then, the wall flattened. Purposeful, by design.
Leila stopped and looked the wall up and down, roving her flashlight across the surface, the beam revealing columns of hieroglyphics.
Finally. “Here! This is it,” Leila said, her heart fluttering. Xander and Drake came to a stop behind her and shined their flashlights on the wall.
“Fascinating.” Xander’s eyes narrowed as he studied the hieroglyphics. “Why on earth would they put a wall like this here? Do you think there’s more in the cave?”
“I only saw a glimpse of this last time I was here.” Leila shrugged. “I wasn’t given a chance to have a closer look. We got distracted by a scorpion.”
“The question is, where are the scrolls?” Drake stood back a few feet and held her chin. “This is just a solid wall. There should be a chamber here.”
Leila scrunched her lips to one side as she examined the wall. The hieroglyphics had been carved into the stone surface rather than painted—a permanent record. As she silently translated, she traced an engraving of an ankh.
“If I’m reading this correctly, it’s laying out the details of some sort of agreement.”
“A protection agreement,” Xander added, pointing at a shen symbol—a loop of rope—clutched by Mut, a goddess wearing a vulture-shaped headdress.
“Seems promising,” Drake said.
“And look,” Leila breathed, “they even threw in a curse for good measure.” She ran her finger down a column of hieroglyphics. “‘He who dishonors this contract: He will be persecuted, and the rest of his lifetime shall not exist on earth.’”
“Well, that sounds like fun.” Xander lifted his eyebrows. “Sign me up.”
“Perfect.” Leila didn’t even try to contain the smile that spread across her face. “This has to be it. The scrolls have to be here somewhere.”
“They seem to have conveniently forgotten to mention where,” Xander muttered.
Leila pursed her lips and kept reading. She wasn’t surprised. Obviously, they wouldn’t advertise something like that.
“My question is, why did they only write on this wall?” she asked no one in particular. Needing to get a better view of the wall as a whole, to see the bigger picture, she took a step back.
“Maybe there are others in the cave,” Drake suggested. “We haven’t been down all the tunnels yet.”
“But we’ve searched this place for a solid hour,” Xander scoffed.
Then Leila noticed it. Two paper-thin grooves followed the wall perpendicularly at about a shoulder’s width apart, disguised by the carvings. She stepped forward and traced the grooves with her fingertips.
“I think this is a door.” She glanced at the top and bottom—a thin, straight crack lined the panel horizontally.
“A door?” Drake gave her a quizzical look. “But there’s no way to open it.”
“Are you sure?” Xander asked, placing a hand flat against the surface. He gave it a few pushes. “Not going to budge like this.”
Leila frowned, certain her hypothesis was correct. She crossed her arms, her fingers wrapped around her chin. There had to be a way past that wall.
“Hang on a second.” Drake slid her hands over the stone surface. “If this really is a door, it should be here somewhere.”
“What?” Leila asked, frowning.
“The keyhole.”
