Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [15]
‘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