I tied the mule to a dilapidated date tree and made my way to Noor. My feet stuttered to a stop when a black snake slithered across my path and into the sparse bushes. I let out a garbled scream, lost my balance, and fell in the dirt.
“Why did he pick such an unusual place to hide it?” I said, wincing and dusting the pebbles off my knees. My fresh kurta I’d taken from my grandmother’s was torn and I examined the light fabric as I sat back against a large boulder.
“For the same reason you are frustrated now—it is hidden well. No one will accidentally come upon this place, in fact you would probably go around to avoid it. Look around you—there isn’t much life here. There isn’t anything at all.”
She was right. The collection of rocks stretched across the horizon like an eerie stone army. You’d have to know exactly what you were looking for to find anything here.
I got up and kept walking, combing through the rocks, my eyes focusing on anything that resembled a tomb. Noor followed behind me, kicking at the stones with her feet. Something in the distance caught the corner of my eye and I stopped so quickly Noor ran smack into the back of me.
“What the—”
At the outcropping of the hillside were four towering rock tombs, so seamlessly placed that you wouldn’t notice until you stood in the exact right place. I took a step toward them, my breath caught in my chest. Noor followed behind, just as silent. The closer we got the more obvious it became that they were intentional—larger boulders on the bottom, with the smaller rocks piled higher until one blackened stone rested on top.
“It must be near here,” she breathed.
I scanned the outcropping of rocks. There was no way a cave was hidden along here. We were surrounded by boulders of all shapes and sizes that opened onto a large, desolate expanse.
“Are you sure he said ‘cave’?”
“Yes,” snapped Noor, seeming to come to the same realization I had.
Souma’s directions didn’t make sense.
Noor let out an exasperated breath. “Sorry, I just don’t believe he would lie to me. There has to be more to this.”
I moved closer to the four rock piles, examining them. A thought occurred to me.
“Noor, he said ‘tombs’?”
“Yes, why?”
Something lightened in my chest. I looked at her. “The cave is underground. Think about it—a tomb.”
She waited a beat before scrambling over to me, a giddy laugh erupting from her. “There must be an underground cave near here.”
I got on my hands and knees, sweeping my hands over the ground around the rock piles, the rush of anticipation making my fingers shake. My fingertips hooked on something—a seam in the rock below.
Rocks don’t have seams.
I exhaled a whoosh of breath.
“Here,” I called out to her.
Noor rushed over to me. “What is it?”
I studied the crack in the rock, too neat and symmetrical to be anything but intentional. “An entrance of some kind, I think.”
We worked together, sweeping the dirt and pebbles aside, our hands caking with dust.
Finally, we cleared a space about the size of a large man. A smooth stone surface was revealed under all the dust and rocks, with a circular armhole.
“It’s a door.”
Noor thrust her hand into the armhole and heaved, but the stone didn’t move.
“Let’s try both of us.”
We both gripped the latch of the stone door and coordinated our efforts. The entrance wrenched free, releasing a cloud of dust into the air, enveloping us both.
