Part 15 (2/2)
”So what's the trick?” West said.
Wizard smiled. ”What is Laozi's most wellknown contribution to philosophy?”
”The Yin Yang.”
”Yes. The concept ofduality. The idea that there are two of everything. Elemental pairs.
Good and evil, light and dark, and all that. But there's more to it: every pair isconnected.
In the good, there is some evil, and in the evil, some good.”
”Which means...” Jack prompted.
Wizard didn't answer. Let him figure it out for himself.
”...if there's two of everything, then there are two entrances to this system,” Jack said.
Wizard nodded. ”And?”
Jack frowned. ”The second entrance isconnected to this entrance?”
”Well done, my friend. Full marks.”
Wizard strode to the wide circular well shaft in the floor, the one that matched the entry shaft in the ceiling, and peered down into it.
”There is indeed a second entrance to this trap system. Down there.”
Wizard said, ”The tunnel system branching off this chamber is called the Teacher's Way.
A second tunnel system situated below us is called the Student's Way.”
”So how are they connected?”
”Simple. They must be tackled simultaneously. Two people, one in each tunnel, moving alternately through their respective traps, each disabling the other's traps.”
”You have got to be kidding me...” Jack had survived many trap systems over the years, but he had never encountered anything like this.
”It's the ultimate trust exercise,” Wizard said. ”As I set off in the upper tunnel, I trigger a trap. That trap is nullified not by me, but byyou in the lower tunnel. My life is in your hands. Then the opposite occurs-you trigger a trap, and I must save you. This is why our Chinese friends are experiencing such difficulty in there. They don't know of the lower route. So they use concrete and brute force, and in the typical Chinese way”-he nodded at the body bags-' they just weather the losses and make very inefficient progress.
They'll eventually get through, but it will cost them many lives and much time.”
Jack bit his lip, thinking. ”All right then. Stretch. You take Scimitar, and find the lower entrance. I'll enter through here with Astro and Wizard. Tank, you stay here with Pooh Bear. Keep in radio contact with Vulture up in the chopper, because I suspect we'll be needing a rapid evac. All right, everyone. Buckle up. We're going in.”
LAOZI'S TRAP SYSTEM ENTRY TUNNELS THE CYLINDRICAL DOORWAY (LOWER).
MINUTES LATER, Stretch's voice came over West's earpiece:”We've found the second entrance. About sixty feet below you. Narrow doorway, cut into the wall of the shaft.
Identical to yours. But intact. No concrete clogging its upper recess.”
”Step into it,” West instructed.
Down in the shaft, Stretch and Scimitar were hanging from individual ropes in front of a narrow recessed doorway hewn into the wall of the vertical shaft.
The shaft itself dropped away beneath them into infinite black, depth unknown. Guided by his helmet flashlight, Stretch stepped off the rope and into the doorway...
...only to see the entire doorway suddenly rotate around him on its axis, its curved walls spinning ninety degrees so that the entry gap was sealed, and he found himself trapped in the coffinsized recess, bounded on every side, with nowhere to go.
Claustrophobia gripped him. His rapid breathing echoed in his ears. His flashlight's glow was too close against the tight walls.
Then something gurgled in the void above him and Stretch's blood went cold.
”Er, Jack...”
Up in the doorway of the Teacher's Way, Jack a.s.sessed the three castiron levers in the wall, one on top of the other, next to the Chinese symbol for ”dwelling”: none of the levers boreany marks or carvings they were completely plain.
”Er, Jack...”came Stretch's voice.”Whatever you have to do up there, please do it soon...”
”Pull the bottom lever,” Wizard said. ”Now.”
Jack yanked on the bottom lever- -and at the same moment, down in Stretch's route, a slab of stone slid across the ceiling and the cylinder rotated another ninety degrees, and suddenly, Stretch saw a new chamber on the other side, a cubeshaped stone room.
He quickly stepped out of the deadly cylinderdoorway and said, ”I'm though. Thanks, guys. Scimitar, your turn.”
In the upper tunnel, Jack turned to Wizard: ”How did you know?”
Wizard said, ”Famous quote from Laozi. 'In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In dwelling, live close to the ground.' Since our clue was 'Dwelling,' I picked the lever that was closest to the ground.”
”Nice.”
After getting Scimitar through the same way, Jack, Wizard, and Astro just stepped through their open entry door, its trap disabled by the concrete of Mao's troops.
THE CRAWLING TUNNEL.
Both sets of men were now met by identical cubeshaped rooms.
Four lifesized terracotta warriors-all magnificently detailed-stood in the corners of each room. In West's room, their mouths had been plugged with cement, while in Stretch's they yawned wide, revealing only darkness within.
”Don't step near the statues,” Wizard warned. On the far side of each room was a low tunnel at floor level. Barely two feet square and pipelike, it was the only exit from the stone room.
Jack peered into his: it stretched for about a hundred yards, maybe more. Along its length were numerous tennisb.a.l.l.sized holes cut into the floor, all of which had been filled with concrete.
”Spike holes,” Wizard said. ”Stretch?”
”We got a tunnel down here, low to the ground, looks long, and it appears we can only get through it by crawling on our stomachs. Lots of holes in its floor.”
Jack said, ”Careful with those holes. Iron spikes.”
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