Seven Ancient Wonders (7 page)

Right in front of it, however, separating the great bronze head from the low-ceilinged entry hall, was a moat of perfectly calm crude oil that completely surrounded the Colossus’ head.

The great god-sized head rose up from this oil pool like a creature arising from primordial slime. It sat on no holy pedestal, no ceremonial island, no nothing.

Suspended
above
the pool was an extra problem: several flaming torches now blazed above it, lit by ancient flint-striking mechanisms. They hung from brackets attached to the end of the entry hall’s lowering ceiling—meaning that very soon they would touch the oil pool . . . and ignite it . . . cutting off all access to the Colossus’ head.

‘Time to run,’ West said.

‘You bet, sir,’ Lily replied.

They ran.

Down the length of the entry hall, beneath its wide lowering ceiling.

Smoke now began to enter the chamber from outside, creating a choking haze.

They came to the oil moat.

‘If Callimachus is correct, it won’t be too deep,’ West said.

Without missing a step, he strode into the pool—plunging to his waist in the thick goopy oil.

‘Jump,’ he said to Lily, who obliged by leaping into his arms.

They waded across the moat of oil—West striding with Lily on his shoulders—while above them the fiery torches continued their descent toward the pool, the entry hall’s ceiling coming ever lower.

With his exit fast diminishing, Jack West Jr stopped a few yards short of the head of the Colossus of Rhodes.

It towered over him, impassive, covered in centuries of mud.

Each of its eyes was as big as Lily was.

Its nose was as big as he was.

Its golden crown glimmered despite its mud coating, while three golden pendants hung from a chain around its neck.

The pendants.

They were each about the size of a fat encyclopaedia and trapezoidal in shape. Embedded in the exact centre of each pendant’s upper surface was a round diamond-like crystal.

On the front slanting side of each pendant was a series of intricately carved Symbols: an unknown language that looked kind of like cuneiform.

It was an ancient language, a dangerous language, a language known only to a chosen few.

West gazed at the three golden pendants.

One of them was the Second Piece of the Golden Capstone, the mini-pyramid that had once sat atop the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Comprised of seven horizontal pieces, the Golden Capstone was perhaps the greatest archaeological artefact in history—and in the last month, it had become the subject of the greatest worldwide treasure hunt of all time. This piece, the Second, was the segment of the Golden Capstone that sat one place below the fabled First Piece, the small pyramid-shaped pinnacle of the Capstone.

Three pendants.

But only one was the correct one.

And choosing the correct one, West knew, was a do-or-die proposition that all depended on Lily.

He had to take one more step forward to reach them and that meant triggering the final trap.

‘Okay, kiddo. You ready to do your thing? For my sake, I hope you are.’

Tm ready,’ Lily said grimly.

And with that, West stepped forward and—

—
cbunk!
—

—an unseen mechanism
beneath
the surface of the oil pool clamped tightly around his legs, pinning them in an ancient pair of submerged stone Stocks.

West was now immobile . . . within easy reach of the three pendants.

‘Okay, Lily,’ he said. ‘Go. Make your choice. And stay off me, just in case you’re wrong.’

She leapt from his arms, onto the half-submerged collarbone of the great statue just as—

Whoosh!

A huge 10-ton drop-stone
directly above
West came alight with flames and . . . lurched on its chains!

Imhotep V’s final trap in the quarry mine was what is known as a ‘reward trap’. It allowed the rightful claimant to the Second Piece to have it,
if
they could identify the correct one.

Choose the right ‘pendant’ and the flaming drop-stone remained in place and the submerged leg-clamps opened. Choose the wrong one, and the drop-stone fell, crushing you
and
igniting the oil pool.

Lily stared at the strange text on each pendant. It looked extremely odd, this little girl evaluating the incredibly ancient symbols.

West watched her, tense, expectant . . . and suddenly worried.

‘Can you read it?’ he asked.

‘It’s different to the other inscriptions I’ve read. . . ’ she said distractedly.

‘
What
—?’ West blanched.

Abruptly Lily’s eyes lit up in understanding. ‘Ahh, I get it. Some of the words are written
vertically
. . .’

Then her eyes narrowed . . . and focused. They blazed in the firelight, scanning the ancient symbols closely now.

To West, it seemed as if she had just entered a trance-like state.

Then the flaming drop-stone above him creaked again. He snapped to look up.

The torch-riddled ceiling above the moat kept lowering.

Smoke was now billowing into this area from the main cavern.

West swivelled to see the entry chamber behind him getting smaller and smaller . . .

Lily was still in her trance, reading the runes intently.

‘
Lily
. . .’

‘Just a second . . .’

‘We don’t have a second, honey.’ He eyed the hazy smoke-filled chamber closing behind them. The smoke was getting denser.

Then, abruptly, one of the flaming torches attached to the descending ceiling dislodged from its bracket . . .

. . . and fell.

Down toward the oil moat where West stood helpless!

‘Oh, God no—’ was all he had time to breathe.

The flaming torch dropped through the air, into the oil moat—

—before, six inches off the surface, it was plucked from the air by the swooping shape of Horus, his falcon.

The little bird gripped the flaming torch in its talons, before dropping it safely in the closing entry hall.

‘Why don’t you leave it to the last second next time, bird,’ West said.

Sitting now, Horus just returned his gaze, as if to say:
Why don’t you stop getting into stupid predicaments like this, human
.

In the meantime, Lily’s eyes glinted, staring now at the symbols on the rightmost of the three pendants:

She read in a low voice:

‘ Beware. Atone. Ra’s implacable Destroyer cometh, And all will cry out in despair, Unless sacred words be uttered .’

Then Lily blinked and returned to the present.

‘It’s this one!’ she said, reaching down for the pendant she had just read.

West said, ‘Wait, are you sure—’

But she moved too quickly and lifted the golden pendant from its shallow recess on the Colossus’ neck.

The flaming drop-stone lurched.

West snapped up and winced, waiting for the end.

But the drop-stone didn’t fall and—
chunk!
—suddenly his legs were released from their submerged bonds.

Lily had picked the right one.

She jumped happily back into his arms, holding the heavy golden trapezoid like a newborn baby. She threw him a winning smile:

‘That felt really weird.’

‘It looked really weird,’ West said. ‘Well done, kiddo. Now, let’s blow this joint.’

The Outward Charge

Back they ran.

West charged through the waist-deep oil pool, pushing hard with every stride, the torch-edged ceiling descending above him.

They hit the floor of the entry hall as the lowering ceiling hit 70 centimetres in height.

The smoke coming in from outside was now choking, dense.

Lily crouch-ran across the wide low-ceilinged space, while Horus swooped through the haze.

West was the slowest, scrambling on all fours, slipping every which way in his oil-slicked boots, until at the very end of the chamber, as the ceiling became unbearably low, he dived onto his belly, sliding headfirst for the entire last 4 metres, emerging just as the ceiling hit the floor with a resounding
boom
and closed off the Colossus’ chamber.

Wizard was waiting for them outside on Level 4.

‘Hurry! Del Piero’s men have almost finished their crane—they’ll be on Level 2 any second now!’

Level 4

The other members of the team—Big Ears, Stretch and Princess Zoe—were also waiting on Level 4, covering the first three traps on the way back down.

When he reached them, West handed Big Ears the priceless golden trapezoid, which the big man placed inside a sturdy backpack.

Down the giant rockwall they went, again in leapfrog formation, sliding down ladders, dancing across booby-trapped ledges, all the while dodging flaming waterfalls and fire-rain. Giant drop-stones now fell constantly from the upper regions of the cave, tumbling dangerously down the rockface, blasting through the smoke.

Level 3

West scooped up Fuzzy as they came to Level 3. ‘Come on, old friend,’ he said, hoisting the big Jamaican onto his shoulder.

They ran down the sloping ledgeway, across the face of Level 3, covering their mouths to avoid inhaling the smoke.

The Europeans had almost finished their crane by now. It was lined with armed men, all waiting for the last piece of the crane to be screwed into place, thus giving them access to Level 2—where they would cut off West and his team.

The last piece of the crane fell into place.

The Europeans moved.

Level 2

West led the way now, leaping down onto Level 2 ahead of Fuzzy, where he landed like a cat—

—and was confronted by a crossbow-wielding French paratrooper, the first member of the European force to step off the now-finished crane.

Quick as a gunslinger, West drew a Glock pistol from one of his thigh holsters, raised it and fired it at the French trooper at point-blank range.

And for some reason
his
bullet defied Wizard’s Warblers and slammed into the Frenchman’s chest, dropping him where he stood.

No blood sprayed.

In fact, the man didn’t die.

Rubber bullet.

West fired another rubber round—similar to those used by police in riot situations—at the next French paratrooper on the nearby crane, just as the Frenchman pulled the trigger on his crossbow.

West ducked and the arrow-bolt missed high, while his own shot hit its mark, sending the French commando sailing off the crane and into the lake below, still crowded with panicking crocodiles.

Screams. Splashing. Crunching. Blood.

‘Move!’ West called to his crew. ‘Before they switch to rubber rounds, too.’

Now everyone in his team had their guns drawn and as they passed the crane’s arm, they traded shots with the two dozen French paratroopers on it.

But they got past the crane just as fifteen French paratroopers came streaming off it, and headed down to Level 1—

Level 1

—where they saw the Europeans’
second
effort to cut them off.

Down on the ground level, a team of German Army engineers had almost finished building a temporary floating bridge across the croc lake—in an attempt to get to West’s manhole entrance on the southern side of the cavern before West and his team did.

They had two segments of the bridge to put in place, segments that were being brought across the half-finished bridge right now.

‘Go! Go! Go!’ West called.

The flaming cavern—already alive with smoke and flames and falling boulders—was now zinging with crossbow bolts and rubber bullets.

The aluminium crossbow bolts were only mildly affected by the Warblers—they flew wildly, but their first few metres of flight were still deadly.

West’s team was running across Level 1, racing the bridge-builders on the ground level.

Big Ears carried Lily. West helped Fuzzy. Princess Zoe and Stretch fired at the paratroopers behind them, while Wizard— coughing against the smoke—led the way, nullifying the traps ahead of them. Above them, Horus soared through the hazy black air.