Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [111]
Very quickly. In fact, there was not a single trap on the structure’s ceremonial stairway.
At first, West was surprised by this, but then he realised that this was the first Ancient Wonder they had actually entered on this mission.
All of the other Pieces they had encountered so far—those of the Colossus, the Pharos, the Mausoleum, the Statue of Zeus and the Temple of Artemis—had been removed from their original structures. They had all been guarded by trap systems built after the original structures had been lost or destroyed.
Not so the Gardens.
They alone remained in their original condition. And therefore the Piece they contained also remained in its original resting place.
But what West also realised as he climbed the ziggurat was that Imhotep III had shown respect for the Wonder he was defending: sure, he had surrounded it with booby traps, but out of deference to its original architect, he hadn’t laid any traps on the Wonder itself.
Gunfire continued to ring out from the two Israeli rear-guards stationed on the Giant Stairway, still holding off the American force.
West and his group arrived at the peak of the ziggurat, and found themselves standing seven feet below the jagged point of the stalactite.
It was truly mind-bending to stand beneath such an enormous natural formation. It was just too big, too immense to comprehend. It was like standing underneath an ocean liner hanging from its stern, its bow pointed right at your nose.
Directly above them, a tight circular shaft bored up into the tip of the stalactite, driving up into its core.
But there was also a notable feature below them.
The peak of the ziggurat was flat and square—about five by five metres—but taking up nearly all of its floor space was a wide square hole that disappeared down into the ziggurat, into inky darkness.
Ladder handholds ran down into this square well-like shaft, and, of course, the square shaft was perfectly aligned with the round one in the stalactite directly above it.
Zaeed bent to read an inscription on the rim of the ziggurat’s square well-shaft.
‘It is the Priests’ Entrance,’ he said to West. They both glanced at Avenger.
The Israeli commander did not seem to recognise the term—or its importance—and by some unspoken agreement neither Zaeed nor West felt the need to enlighten him.
West, Pooh Bear and Stretch unloaded their caving equipment from their packs and started constructing a large tripod-like ladder over the square shaft.
Within minutes, they had an A-shaped ladder standing astride the square shaft and reaching up to the tip of the stalactite above it.
‘Move,’ Avenger nudged West forward.
West climbed the ladder, and disappeared up into the bore-hole carved into the great stalactite.
This tight vertical shaft had ladder-like handholds, too, making progress quite easy.
But it wasn’t for the claustrophobic. Glistening wetness trickled down its close, tight walls.
Guided by the flashlight on his fireman’s helmet, West climbed cautiously upwards until he emerged in a flat man-sized tunnel that led out to the exterior of the stalactite.
There he stepped out onto the path that spiralled up the outside of the Gardens.
By the light of his previously fired flares, he beheld the supercavern from above. The view was breathtaking. He saw the ziggurat far below him, its steps fanning outward, with the quicksand lake all around it, and—in the middle of the lake—the Well of the Winged Lion, with its star-like series of paths radiating out from it.
Interestingly, he saw that the Well had a twin on the other side of the ziggurat—complete with an identical semi-submerged path.
He recalled Imhotep III’s words: the Gardens had been constructed as a mirror image, where both entrance and exit were alike.
There must be another exit out that way, he thought. And now that he thought about it, he realised that Avenger and the Israelis knew of this exit: that was how they intended to leave all along, without being caught by the Americans.
So Avenger wasn’t entirely ignorant about this