Agent with a History

Several Candace's had plunged to their deaths in the quest for Sheba's throne and seen for themselves what lay below the floor.

I stepped out, "Lisa!"

I heard Flint call out desperately, but I didn't look back. All my concentration was on what I had to do that was before me. As my foot fell downward the floor slab flipped flat and held my weight as I swung away in a twirl. Two more slabs flipped flat and caught me in my sideways spin.

This wasn't a game of hop scotch, if I didn't bend my torso, and arch the rest of my body in the sinuousness of the dance, just right, my timing would be thrown off and I would be either too late or too soon, to reach a tile and thus plunge to my own death. The dance across the shifting floor first took me to the left and then back to the right, until I was tantalizingly close to the other side and the overwhelming instinct was to just lunge for it, but I didn't. To have done that would have been fatal.

The music played on and I continued to dance, as my bare feet landed on each tile securely. I was almost two seconds off in my timing and I fought down the fear that was welling up in me, as I focused hard on correcting the time difference.

The dance brought me back towards where I had started. I caught a glimpse of my spectator's faces and I saw that they were completely spellbound, as they watched me. This dance had enthralled ancient court halls and enticed the amorous affections of one king in particular.

Sheba had taken her special dance a step further in the design of her private throne room. This floor's mechanism of revolving stone weights and complex load splitters, all perfectly timed to the beats of a melody, was more complex than any rubix cube could ever hope to be. The design had been yet one more gift from her lover king to the north.

Sheba had decided that if future Queens were worthy enough to be called Candace and wished the honor of sitting on her throne, then they would have to dance like her too. I was headed for the central stair on the other side and I felt the thrill of triumph course through my veins, even as a drop of sweat burned into my eye.

Perhaps the scariest part of the dance was about to happen. I wielded to face the group on a spin and then I pushed off, as I somersaulted over backwards. My hand caught me in a head stand on a tile several feet away and in a controlled motion my shoulders, then my back connected with recently flipped tiles, as I rolled up to my feet and stepped onto the threshold before the stairs of the throne.