The line of elephants stretched from the lake to the palace gates.

Their hides carried white, blue, and yellow patterns across wrinkled skin. One by one they climbed the switchbacks to Amer Palace—each carrying a silent tourist beneath a bright canopy.

Their feet looked heavy enough to shake the hillside, yet landed without a sound.

I stopped to photograph one.

Its handler whistled, and the elephant turned its head and sprayed.

Water and mucus splattered across my camera.

The handler burst out laughing.

By the time I wiped the lens clean, the elephant had rounded the corner and disappeared into the palace.

~

Inside, Amer was busy rather than regal.

Vendors called from the courtyards.

Puppet shows blocked the walkways.

There mirrored halls were wrapped in construction tape.

The temple doors were locked.

Then a man with a broom caught my attention.

“Secret rooms, this way.”

He pointed toward a narrow doorway.

I followed him.

The passage was barely wide enough for two people. We slipped between thick walls, our shoulders brushing the stone, and came out behind the public rooms, where another corridor led past a row of small doorways.

“Bedrooms,” he said.

He pushed one open.

Inside, the room was empty except for a low platform and a small window overlooking the courtyard below.

Another doorway led somewhere deeper into the palace.

I followed him a little farther.

Then I saw Dani standing at the end of the corridor.

She looked at me.

Then at the man with the broom.

“I’m ready to go.”

I nodded.

“Me too.”

~

High above the palace walls sat Jaigarh Fort.

On the map, the two nearly touched.

From where we stood, Jaigarh disappeared into the hills.

“There has to be a way up.”

There was.

Our path began beside the reservoir.

Within minutes, the crowds disappeared.

The palace shrank behind us as the wall climbed into the hills, one steep stone step after another.

Nothing moved except an occasional monkey darting across the path.

The shade disappeared too.

By midday, the stones had soaked up the heat. At every landing we stopped, drank water, and waited for our breathing to settle.

Far below, the elephants looked like toys.

Halfway up, the wall crossed a service road.

A couple appeared ahead of us.

They were the first people we’d seen since leaving the gardens.

We started talking.

They’d spent two months crossing India with a private driver. We’d spent the last week navigating buses, rickshaws, and wrong turns.

We stayed together for the rest of the climb.

Up top, we lost them.

~

I’d read that Jaigarh contained a maze.

I expected a garden, maybe hedges. Instead, the fort itself became the maze.

A corridor split in two.

I chose the left.

A staircase climbed to a terrace and ended at a locked gate.

Dani tried the other passage.

It ended at another locked gate.

We turned around.

Another corridor.

Another staircase.

Another locked gate.

Eventually, we stopped recognizing where we’d been.

An hour later, we emerged to daylight. We stood on a balcony overlooking Jaipur.

The breeze tussled Dani’s hair and evaporated the sweat from my neck.

I traced the wall below us, making its way along the mountainside to Amer.

We couldn’t even see the tourists from here.

~

The way down seemed easier.

Then I saw a break in the wall beside the road.

A narrow staircase disappeared into a trench.

We climbed down.

The trench dropped lower until the earth closed over our heads.

“The secret tunnel.”

Cool air replaced the afternoon heat.

We followed the passage beneath the hillside. Guards sat in the shadows eating lunch and barely looked up as we passed.

The tunnel twisted once.

Then daylight appeared.

We stepped through an unmarked doorway into the same crowded courtyard we’d left hours before.

Tourists hurried past us, following men with brooms toward other parts of the palace.

I looked back.

Above them, barely visible against the sky, the walls climbed toward Jaigarh.

No one stopped.

No one even noticed the doorway.