Contents

The Gutenberg Rubric

Thirty

KEITH’S DARK-SENSITIZED EYES began to tear as soon as he came fully into the light.

“Ahch!” he shouted as he shook his head. The wordless expression echoed back at him.

Something was definitely not right about this. He rubbed his good eye to get the water out and blotted his injured eye on his sleeve.

The light was not as bright as his eyes had indicated when he came suddenly into it. It came from a dozen or more torches lit around the perimeter of a large cavern. If there were torches burning, then someone must have lit them and Keith spun around to see who was in the cavern with him.

“Well, well, Dr. Drucker,” Derek said as he released Maddie and gave her a gentle push toward Keith. She rushed into his arms. “Not going to the Euphrates after all, are we?”

“Not dead, you mean,” Keith answered.

“You just can’t get good help these days,” Derek said. Maddie grabbed hold of Keith and for the first time Keith began to take in his surroundings.

The roof of the cavern was so high that it disappeared in darkness, out of reach of the torchlight. Fifty feet across the cavern from its entrance were massive doors flanked by the statues of a man and a woman that rose into darkness from the cavern floor. They were dressed in pharaohic garb holding an ankh and crowned by a serpent, barely visible above their heads. The doors were easily ten feet tall and a frieze of scenes that Keith could not quite make out spanned the distance between the figures from the top of the door to as high as Keith could see.

His wet clothes were clinging to his skin and as the adrenalin dissipated, Keith began to shake uncontrollably.

“I’d have to bring an entire team of engineers in here to open that door,” Derek was saying, “but I’ll bet you know how. Where is Joey?”

“H-he went after you,” Keith stammered.

“Keith, you’re freezing!” Maddie said.

“D-dry clothes in y-your pack,” Keith said.

“Yes, by all means get dry. You’re ruining the carpets,” Derek said sarcastically. Nonetheless he kicked the backpack across the chamber to Maddie. Keith began stripping off the plastic bags and his clothes as Maddie rummaged in the pack. She pulled his dry trousers out of the pack and as she unrolled them, the satellite phone clattered to the floor of the cavern. She looked up frantically at Keith and grabbed for the phone, but Derek snatched it up.

“What have we here?” Derek asked. Keith risked bluffing.

“It’s the tracking phone Homeland Security has been using to follow us. Since you’ve had it, they’ve been following your trail. They’re not far behind.” Somehow his bravado did not sound so brave through his chattering teeth.

“Shut up and put your pants on,” Derek snapped. Maddie helped Keith pull on pants and a sweater and then got his boots back on. At least the bags had kept his boots dry.

“Derek, we have to get him out of here and get help,” she pled. “He’ll die of hypothermia.”

“Give him a torch to hold,” Derek said. “He’ll last.” He pocketed the phone and Maddie retrieved a torch from the wall, hoping it would provide a little warmth for Keith. “You sent an S.O.S. message when we found you this morning. That’s been twelve hours ago and no rescue. Your phone has no signal down here. If help ever comes, they’ll be dragging the pond outside for days before they find this cave.”

“How did you find it?” Keith asked. He looked questioningly at Derek and then at Maddie.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” she said.

“Oh, don’t blame Madeline,” Derek said. “It was you who provided the directions. I knew all along you weren’t headed to the Euphrates.”

“How did you know that?”

“Your instructions are over 500 years old,” Derek said. “Ataturk Dam was only finished 20 years ago. There was no water near Acma 500 years ago—at least not more than a stream that wouldn’t be visible from the mountain. Then I saw your map.”

“What?” Keith asked.

“When I got pain pills out of your pack this morning I saw the map you had so kindly marked your position and direction on,” Derek grinned. “I only needed Maddie to identify which cave.”

“How did you know which cave?” Keith asked. He had stumbled upon it by sheer luck, himself.

“The stars and crescent,” Maddie said. “They are carved in the wall just inside the mouth of the cave.”

Derek suddenly dove behind Maddie and Keith, grabbing Maddie from behind and bringing his gun up to point at the entrance to the chamber.

“Come out into the light,” he commanded. Keith could now hear a shuffling in the cave. Derek must have been listening for it all along. “Come out, come out, whoever you are,” Derek sang. Agent Fry stepped into the light from the cave entrance. “Drop your gun, Agent,” Derek commanded. Fry assessed the situation and quickly dropped his sidearm. “Kick it away,” Derek said. Fry did so. “Now come on into our little party.” Fry joined Keith and Maddie, and Derek herded them toward the massive doors.

“I thought you would still be in Egypt,” Derek said.

“Finished there,” answered Fry. “Thought I’d come see what the librarians were up to.”

“What was in Egypt?” Maddie asked.

“Is Frank okay?” Keith asked at the same moment.

“Your brother bombed the new Library of Alexandria,” Derek said.

“Actually, it was local paid guns,” Fry said, “and your grandfather is fine, Keith.”

“Joey did what?” Maddie exclaimed.

“He was in Alexandria to pay locals on behalf of Derek Zayne,” Fry said. “Then he flew out here.”

“The library?”

“Is okay,” Fry said. “Mr. Zayne’s plot was foiled.”

“You don’t think I had anything to do with the bombings, do you?” Derek said. “Yousef and my assistant hatched the library plot.”

“You can quit with the feigned innocence,” Keith said. “You’ve already told us you planned it and Sophie was your executioner. Why would Agent Fry believe something else?”

“Well, that’s all over now anyway, and no one was hurt except the stupid twit who blew herself up,” Derek said. “The important thing is to open the treasure-chest and see what we’ve got. Then we can all decide how to live happily ever after. Keith, open the door.”

“Open Sesame,” Keith intoned at the door. “What do you think I am? It’s a locked door.”

“I think you are a man with a key,” Derek said. “You said so back in Kieran. And I saw it while you were changing clothes, so don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Why else would you show up here in front of these locked doors with a huge key around your neck if you weren’t going to unlock the door?”

Keith was genuinely startled. Things had been happening so fast that he hadn’t even equated his master’s key with the locked door in front of him. But on that, the writings were clear. “The master’s key unlocks the entrance,” the letter had said. It made sense. Gutenberg had the third degree master forge a key that would unlock the secret entrance to Ptolemy’s treasure. He created the locked box in the Guild chambers to test the key. But if he unlocked the door now, Derek would just kill them all and no one could stop him from robbing the tomb or library or whatever was behind the doors.

“I don’t see any reason to unlock the doors, even if I have the key,” Keith said. “You’ll just kill us anyway.”

“Kill Maddie?” Derek said in amazement. “This is all my gift to her. You love old books, don’t you Madeline? They are just on the other side of that door. You can have them all. I only want the words in them. I’m only in this for the knowledge.”

“The control of the knowledge,” Fry said. “Zayne, this has gone far enough, don’t you think? You’re known now. Homeland Security has already linked you to the library bombings and your plane has been impounded by the Turks. My men are guarding the entrance to the cave and there’s no other way out.”

“There, you see?” Derek said, waving the gun around. “You have nothing to lose by opening the doors. Now do it.” He waved the gun at Keith.

Keith turned toward the door. This was what third degree masters for 500 years had been striving for and now it was in his grasp. The keyhole was above a wrought iron handle with an intricate design of twisted metal, braided with little gaps between the pieces. A tear dripped from his injured eye as Keith suddenly jammed the key into the braided handle and twisted until it snapped.

“Oops,” Keith said.

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