The compass spun wildly in my hand.
“Wildly” wasn't quite right. It was more like the spasms of something at death's door. The needle slammed against the edge of the dial with a sharp clacking sound, as if something were trying to claw its way up from beneath the earth.
I crouched at the end of the tomb passage, my flashlight beam sweeping over the bronze door ahead. It had no lock, not even a keyhole, only densely packed reliefs of twisted human faces, mouths agape as if screaming soundlessly. When I first started out, I had followed an old hand into a few Song-dynasty tombs and seen tomb guardians and stone servants, but never anything like this. Those faces looked too real, as if living people had been doused in molten bronze and cast right onto the door.
