Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [66]
‘The Middle Wonders,’ West said, nodding. ‘And you say Lily has now read the entries for them?’
‘Yes. And in doing so, she has revealed some very serious problems.’
Wizard told West the situation.
After he’d done so, West sat back in his chair and frowned, deep in thought.
‘Damn. . . ’ he said. Then he looked up. ‘Assemble everyone in the main cabin. It’s time to make a tough decision.’
The entire team gathered in the main cabin of the Halicarnassus.
They sat in a wide circle, variously sitting on couches or at the desk-like consoles that lined the walls. Even Sky Monster was there, leaving the plane to fly on autopilot for a while.
West spoke.
‘Okay, here’s the state of play. We’re 0-for-2 after two efforts at the plate. In those two missions, three Pieces of the Capstone have been unearthed and we have none of them.
‘But we’re not completely dead yet. We may not have got any of the Pieces, but so long as we keep seeing the Pieces and accumulating the lines of the positive incantation carved into them, we still have a chance, albeit a very slim one.’
‘Very, very slim,’ Stretch said.
West threw Stretch a look that would’ve frozen water. Stretch retreated immediately. ‘Sorry. Go on.’
West did. ‘So far the Callimachus Text has been an excellent guide. It has led us accurately to the Colossus and to the Pharos Pieces, and the Mausoleum Piece.
‘But now,’ West said seriously, ‘now Lily has managed to translate the next two entries, and we have a problem.’
He flicked a switch, projecting Lily’s translations of the next two entries of the Callimachus Text onto a pull-down screen. They read:
The Statue of cuckolded Zeus,
Cronos’s Son, the false deity.
While his statue was immense, his power was illusory.
No thunderbolts did he wield, no wrath did he bear,
No victory did he achieve.
Indeed, it was only the Victory in his right hand that made him great,
Oh winged woman, whither didst thou fly?
The Temple of the Huntress,
In heavenly Ephesus.
The sister of Apollo, Ra’s charioteer,
Has never let go of her Piece,
Even when her Temple burned on the night of Iskender’s birth.
Through the exertions of our brave brothers,
It has never left the possession of our Order.
Nay, it is worshipped every day in our highest temple.
Zoe saw the first problem immediately. ‘There are no clues in these verses. . . ’ she said with dismay.
‘There’s nothing for us to go on,’ Fuzzy said.
‘More than that,’ Stretch said, ‘the writers of the first verse didn’t even know where the Statue of Zeus went. This is a total dead-end.’
‘You do always argue the negative, don’t you, Israeli?’ Pooh Bear scowled. ‘After all they’ve done, have you no faith in Wizard and Huntsman?’
‘I believe in what is achievable,’ Stretch shot back.
‘Gentlemen. Please,’ Wizard cut in. He turned to Stretch. ‘It’s not a total dead-end, Benjamin. Close, but not total. The Zeus verse is indeed disappointing, as it offers no clues at all to the location of its Piece.
‘But the verse about the Temple of Artemis—the goddess of the hunt and, in Greek lore, Apollo’s sister—is actually quite clear about the location of its Piece of the Capstone.
‘It states that, through the efforts of its priests over the ages, the Artemis Piece has never left the possession of the Cult of Amun-Ra. It even gives us an exact location: the highest temple of the Cult of Amun-Ra. Unfortunately, this means that the Piece is almost certainly already in the hands of our European competitors.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sky Monster asked. ‘I didn’t realise that the Cult of Amun-Ra was still around. I thought it died out. What is it and where is its “highest temple”?’
‘Why, Sky Monster,’ Wizard said, ‘the Cult of Amun-Ra is most certainly alive and well. Indeed, it is one of the most widespread religions in the world today.’
‘A religion?’ Big Ears asked. ‘Which one?’
Wizard said simply: ‘The Cult of Amun-Ra, my friend, is the Roman Catholic Church.’
‘Are you saying that the Catholic Church—my Catholic