The Two Lost Mountains - Jack West Jr Series 06 (2020) Page 12

  Jack gave Iolanthe another sideways look. ‘Should I tell him that you did try to kill me once? And seduce me.’

  ‘Shush. Let me have my moment—’

  The roar of a helicopter cut her off, loud and close.

  The wobbling yet powerful beam of a chopper’s searchlight came spearing down through the moon shaft, lighting up the space.

  Jack leaned back further into the shadows.

  ‘I’m guessing that’s Sphinx,’ he said.

  It was Sphinx.

  At that moment, high in the sky above Mont Saint-Michel, an aerial motorcade was arriving at the island monastery.

  Five choppers, flying in an arrowhead formation—their searchlights playing over the fortified mountain—arrived at its summit.

  The lead chopper, Sphinx’s, was an Mi-4000, identical to the one he’d used in Rome.

  It was followed by four big double-rotored Chinooks. Normally a Chinook would have been the biggest bird in any aerial motorcade, but not this one. With its steel crossbeam and four mighty rotors, the Mi-4000 was the alpha dog in this pack.

  The lead chopper touched down on a broad balcony at the summit of Mont Saint-Michel and, followed by silvermen and bronzemen, the tiny figure of Sphinx strode out from it and headed inside.

  On his balcony, Jack saw Bertie reappear beside Mendoza, Dion and Rasmussen down by the Falling Temple.

  Even from this distance, he could hear Rasmussen shout, ‘Brother Dagobert! How dare you keep the cardinal waiting!’

  Humiliated, Bertie bowed apologetically.

  Jack empathised with the old monk and saw him glance furtively up at their balcony.

  A minute later, there came a commotion—

  —and suddenly four silver automatons marched into the temple chamber, followed by fifty bronzemen who were followed by—

  —Sphinx.

  It was a procession, the procession of the most powerful man in the world, the King of Kings, the Emperor, escorted by his loyal guards.

  He was also accompanied by Yago DeSaxe, Chloe Carnarvon and Jaeger Eins.

  Jack gazed hard at Sphinx.

  He hadn’t seen Hardin Lancaster XII since their meeting at Sphinx’s mansion in Morocco on the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea; a mansion that sat atop the lost City of Atlas and across the strait from the Rock of Gibraltar.

  Jack would remember that meeting for a long time.

  It was where Sphinx, holding Lily hostage, had forced Jack and Aloysius Knight to do his dirty work for him at the City of Atlas.

  Back then, Sphinx had been wearing the clothing of a landed aristocrat: collared shirt, pressed trousers, smart shoes. Tall and powerfully built, he was fit for a man in his late fifties. With his broad leonine face, he cut a striking figure.

  Now he wore a military shirt, cargo pants and sturdy boots. He was dressed for action.

  For her part, Iolanthe glared at her old assistant, Chloe Carnarvon.

  Mendoza rushed to meet his lord and master. ‘Sire! All is in readiness. Jaeger Vier is at the observatory in the Alps. His rover team has exposed the pedestal on the lunar surface. Jaeger Vier says it will be in position in exactly seven minutes.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Sire, would you like Dion to do the Fall with you? It is permitted.’

  ‘No,’ Sphinx said firmly. ‘This is historic, Cardinal, and when the history of it is written, it must record that I did it alone, with only courage as my companion. Come. It is time for me to do the Fall.’

  THE FALLING TEMPLE

  Sphinx marched onto the hanging temple, alone.

  Some steps ascended the slanted sides of the temple’s upper half, leading to the large obelisk at its tip. He climbed them steadily.

  ‘Sire, it is 8:35,’ Mendoza’s voice said in his ear. ‘Jaeger Vier and the observatory team report that the pedestal on the moon is almost in position. 90 seconds to start time.’

  Sphinx eyed the shaft of moonlight lancing down through the ceiling of the cavern, illuminating the towering obelisk.

  He took a deep breath.

  He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Studying it, training for it.

  He cannot be emperor who does not risk his own blood.

  Monarchies and royal families only went so far, he thought, because hereditary rule had a fatal flaw: gifted rulers could give birth to dullards. It had been shown time and again over the centuries that they often did.

  This, however, was the test of a real ruler.

  Orlando could not have done this, Sphinx thought. He had never been tested and so he would not have been prepared for an examination like this.

  But Sphinx had been tested.

  And he was ready.

  He had analysed an old drawing of this Falling Temple many times over the years, planning his route down its slopes and ladders.

  ‘Sire,’ Mendoza’s voice said. ‘60 seconds.’

  Sphinx stepped up onto the highest level of the Falling Temple.

  The main obelisk loomed above him. The colossal ancient chains holding up the temple gripped it with a circular metal ‘collar’.

  From this position directly beneath the narrow moon shaft in the ceiling, Sphinx could actually see all the way up that shaft.

  He saw the full moon up there, blotting out the stars.

  And on the moon, directly facing him—impossible to see with the naked eye, but possible from an astronomical observatory—was a matching mountain with a pedestal on it that was at that very moment coming into perfect alignment with this ancient place.

  ‘40 seconds . . .’

  Arriving at the summit of the temple, Sphinx now beheld the magnificent altar on which the obelisk stood.

  It was a very unique kind of altar.

  Trapezoidal in shape, solid and sturdy, it was cut from a cloudy type of translucent stone that looked like unpolished diamond.

  On each of the four slanting faces of this diamond altar, one on each side, Sphinx saw a sunken impression of a human hand or palm.

  Inside each image of the hand—running up the thumb and first two fingers—was a raised marking that roughly formed the shape of a W.

  ‘20 seconds . . .’ Mendoza’s voice said. ‘Please place your hand in position, sire.’

  He held his hand above one of the four palm-shaped indentations, aligning his thumb and first two fingers with the raised W in it.

  From his balcony overlooking the hanging temple, Jack watched in silent awe.

  He didn’t quite know what to expect.

  He was still playing catch-up to Sphinx, a rival who already possessed too many advantages: men, time, resources and, most of all, knowledge of this vitally important ceremony.

  Sphinx held his palm poised above the ancient image of a human hand.

  ‘He cannot be emperor who does not risk his own blood,’ he said softly to no-one.

  Mendoza’s voice said, ‘. . . Observatory team reports that the moon pedestal will be in position in . . . three, two, one—’

  —WHAM!—

  At that precise moment, a dead-straight beam of vertical green light sprang forth from the pedestal on the moon, leaping across 240,000 miles of space in an instant, and shot down through the narrow shaft in the chamber’s ceiling, piercing the darkness of the cavern, and slammed into the top of the main obelisk!

  In response, Sphinx immediately pressed his palm flat against the image of the human hand on the diamond altar.

  It appeared as if the brilliant green light from the moon had shot right through the obelisk, because the translucent altar at the obelisk’s base—the one Sphinx was now touching—blazed with the same green glow.

  The combined action of the arrival of the green beam and Sphinx pressing his hand against the image had another effect:

 
It caused the chains and the metal collar holding up the temple to release their grip on the obelisk . . .

  . . . and the whole supersized temple, with Sphinx on it, dropped suddenly and sickeningly into the dark shaft below.

  Jack jerked up at the sight of the temple dropping from its mounts.

  He’d been so thoroughly entranced by the otherworldly green light lancing down into the chamber and hitting the obelisk that the sudden falling of the temple caught him by surprise.

  The building-sized structure—it must have weighed a thousand tons—dropped like an anvil, its enormous mass creating a whooshing sound as it scythed down through the air . . .

  . . . and whipped into the narrower shaft at the base of the chamber, disappearing from view.

  Wind battered Sphinx’s body as he stood atop the Falling Temple, his hair whipping wildly.

  With a heavy rushing sound, the temple shot into the narrow section of the shaft. The walls of this lower section rushed upward in a blur, bare feet from the edges of the huge falling thing.

  But such was the precision of the temple’s construction—such was its perfect balance—that it never touched those walls. It just fell through the shaft as it would have fallen through empty sky.

  As the Falling Temple rushed into the lower shaft, it passed through a colossal silver ring embedded in the shaft’s round wall.

  Sphinx made sure to keep his hand pressed against the diamond altar as the temple plummeted through the ring . . .

  . . . and as it did, he roared in pain as the raised W beneath his palm suddenly became scalding hot and something was seared into his hand and he knew that the first part of the ceremony had been completed.

  And then he was off . . .

  . . . moving fast . . .

  . . . bolting down the stairs on the upper half of the Falling Temple . . .

  ‘You’re through the first ring. 52 seconds to the second ring,’ Mendoza’s voice informed him.

  Sphinx bounded downward on the fast-falling structure.

  Wind blew all around him.

  The green light from the moon bathed him in its eerie glow.

  The sixteen-storey structure fell down the shaft like a giant out-of-control elevator.

  He arrived at the midpoint of the falling structure, at a ladder-hole cut into the temple’s waist level giving access to the lower half.

  ‘40 seconds, sire . . .’

  Sphinx clambered down the ladder, gripping its hand- and footholds.

  He’d practised this on a mock-up at his mansion many times.

  The massive temple whooshed down the shaft, accelerating . . .

  Down Sphinx went, climbing to the lower levels of the Falling Temple.

  It was a curious sensation to be descending so frantically while the temple itself fell. Sphinx didn’t have long: when the temple stopped accelerating, both he and it would be in perfect freefall and he would experience weightlessness and it would be impossible to move . . . if he didn’t hit the bottom first.

  ‘26 seconds . . .’

  Sphinx pushed downward, hurrying to the next level, ignoring the walls of the shaft zooming upward in a blur of speed.

  ‘15 seconds . . .’

  And then he was there.

  At the bottommost level . . .

  . . . where he found a waist-high diamond altar, with four more indented hand images on it, and inside those images were different raised markings, this time resembling a V.

  ‘10 seconds to the second ring . . .’

  Sphinx slammed his right palm down on one of the hand images, feeling the raised image press into the skin of his two unscalded fingers . . .

  . . . as with a whoosh, the Falling Temple shot down through a second enormous annulus embedded in the circular wall of the shaft . . .

  . . . and the altar under Sphinx’s hand came alive with heat and a second image was seared into his hand . . .

  . . . as, with a deafeningly loud screech, a circular section of thick shiny metal extended out from the waist of the Falling Temple—in an instant making that waist a few feet wider all the way around—and thus it acted like a brake, grinding against the sheer walls of the shaft, kicking up thousands of sparks . . .

  . . . and slowing the fall of the temple.

  A few moments later, the temple came to a grinding, shuddering halt, with Sphinx still standing on its lowest level.

  He looked down.

  A few hundred feet beneath him was the base of the shaft: a floor of solid rock.

  Adrenalin surged through him.

  He looked at his right hand.

  Five red-hot lines now ran up his five fingers, seared deeply into them: the three prongs of the W and the two prongs of the V had become one five-pronged symbol branded into the five fingers of his hand.

  He had done it.

  He had survived the Fall.

  And acquired the key to enter the Labyrinth, burned into his palm.

  ‘Sire, are you there?’ Mendoza’s voice invaded his consciousness. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Sphinx said. ‘It is done. Lower the chains and haul me up.’

  As the mighty chains were lowered into the shaft, clanking and clattering from some unseen mechanism in the ceiling, Dion DeSaxe felt his cell phone buzz.

  He glanced at it. It read:

  MY SON,

  I AM HERE. UP IN THE NAVE.

  PLEASE, LET US SPEAK AGAIN.

  YOUR FATHER

  Dion looked around himself to see if anyone near him had seen the text, but no-one had.

  As the others all watched the great chains descend into the gargantuan pit, he slipped out the nearest door.

  Minutes later, Dion DeSaxe entered the nave of the church at the summit of Mont Saint-Michel.

  It was a beautiful old cathedral, with a soaring ceiling, stained-glass windows and dozens of high medieval pillars.

  Right now, the whole space was lit by the eerie green glow of the moon.

  By that light, Dion could see that the tip of the church’s spire had been removed to allow the brilliant green light from the pedestal on the moon to shoot into the cathedral and down through a hole in the floor, a hole that had until today been hidden beneath the altar, which itself now lay askew.

  There was no-one here.

  Everyone was downstairs inside the Hall of the Falling Temple.

  Then the green light moved on and pale silver moonlight illuminated the nave once again.

  Hades emerged from behind a pillar, his eyes locked on Dion’s.

  ‘Son.’

  ‘Father,’ Dion said evenly.

  Hades stepped out fully into the moonlit nave.

  ‘I failed you, Dionysius. I made you into the man you have become.’

  Dion said nothing. His disfigured jaw twitched beneath the half-mask.

  Hades said, ‘I was too stern, too unyielding. I put my duty ahead of my family and I made you hate me.’

  He paused, swallowing back tears. ‘By God, I never even had a nickname for you. Dion, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.’

  Dion stared at his father, uncomprehending.

  Then, slowly, he removed his facemask.

  Hades couldn’t help doing it. He winced at what he saw.

  The lower left half of Dion’s face was a mess of twisted skin and bone: the result of a gunshot fired by Alby Calvin in the Underworld during the chaos after the Great Games. It looked like foul melted plasticine.

  ‘This is the man I have become, Father,’ he said, lisping slightly as he spoke, a consequence of the wound.

  ‘Disgusting and grotesque, both on the outside and within. Do not overstate your role in my making. You did not make me hate you. For years, I have been in contact with Sphinx. It was he who convinced me—with Zaitan—to plot your
death at the conclusion of the Games. It was he who became our surrogate father and made us both hate you.’

  ‘I forgive you, son,’ Hades said, suddenly and passionately. ‘I forgive you for that. I suppose, as the world rushes toward the end of all things, I just . . . I just seek your forgiveness.’

  Dion glared at him, blank-faced and cold.

  ‘Forgiveness, Father? I’ll give you forgiveness.’

  Dion clicked his fingers and out of the shadows sprang Jaeger Eins and three of his Knights, with their guns raised.

  Down in the Hall of the Falling Temple, Jack watched in awe as the temple rose into view, hauled up by the mighty chains of the chamber, with Sphinx standing triumphantly on it beside the main obelisk.

  He smiled broadly, waved a fist.

  He leapt off the temple to be embraced by Mendoza. Yago slapped him on the back. Chloe clapped vigorously as she smiled broadly.

  As Jack watched, Sphinx showed his hand to his companions, displaying an image of some kind that was now seared onto his fingers.

  ‘My hand is the key . . .’ he heard Sphinx say. ‘The translation really was burned not bladed.’

  Mendoza said, ‘Sire, would you like to have Dion also do the Fall as a back-up? If any of our rivals find another iron mountain and the maze becomes a competitive situation, it could be helpful. We can have Dion do the Fall here or at the second iron mountain near the observatory.’

  Sphinx thought for a moment. ‘I must go. Have him do it here after I leave.’

  ‘As you command,’ Cardinal Mendoza said, bowing.

  Sphinx started striding for the exit. ‘To the Labyrinth, then. Ms Carnarvon, Cardinal, you come with me. Cardinal, do you have Imhotep the Great’s notes for overcoming the maze? Just in case the Emperor’s Way is closed to us.’

  Jack perked up at that.

  Imhotep.

  The ancient Egyptian architect and adept of Amon-Ra had made a guide to the Labyrinth?

  ‘I carry the Church’s copy of his notes with me everywhere I go, sire,’ Mendoza said.

  Sphinx kept walking. ‘We mustn’t linger. The Omega Event is coming in a matter of days. It is time to claim my throne.’