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

by Reilly, Matthew

The remaining three thousand bronzemen began to march toward the four other fort-monasteries arrayed around the mountain containing the four other gates to the Supreme Labyrinth, where they would assume similar defensive positions.

  Sphinx was going to perform this final trial of the Omega Event and he was determined to do it unchallenged.

  Sphinx entered his gate.

  Immediately inside the entrance was a small chapel, dusty and bare.

  That was it. That was all there was inside. Just a ruined chapel, little more than a cave with smooth walls.

  It was ten paces deep and covered in centuries of dust, sand and spiderwebs. The walls were crumbling. A sad ruin.

  At the rear of the chapel was a high stone wall.

  This wall was carved in the shape of a high arched doorway and it had a small votive altar protruding from it. This was what archaeologists called a ‘false door’, a wall carved to look like a door.

  It was all rather shabby and unremarkable.

  Unless you knew something more about this place.

  For carved into the floor at the base of the blank wall was a raised stone symbol that Sphinx recognised.

  A five-pointed symbol, roughly the size of a human hand.

  Sphinx smiled.

  ‘Welcome to the first of the Five Gates to the Supreme Labyrinth,’ Mendoza said, standing behind Sphinx with Chloe Carnarvon.

  Chloe said, ‘The plague-ridden bodies left here by those monks 1200 years ago did their job. They kept intruders away until this place was forgotten.’

  Mendoza said, ‘This middle entrance is the Emperor’s Gate. A special entrance. For once you open it and enter the Supreme Labyrinth, its outer gate and all the other outer gates will begin to close.’

  ‘We must waste no time,’ Sphinx said. ‘Others have already performed the Fall and will try to enter via the other gates. Get all our gear and gather our entry team. Let’s do this.’

  Thirty minutes later, wearing military fatigues, a helmet and carrying a pack filled with a week’s worth of food and water, Sphinx stood before the inner wall of the chapel.

  He was flanked by Mendoza, Chloe and three Knights of the Golden Eight—knights six, seven and eight—all similarly dressed and equipped for an extended journey on foot. The Knights carried large packs and rolling Samsonite cases with all manner of equipment and weapons inside them.

  A fourth Knight, Jaeger Fünf, stood to the side, brandishing only a rifle.

  Last of all were the eight short red-skinned Vandals. They shifted impatiently from side to side.

  Mendoza, bald as a cue ball, his tattooed head gleaming, said, ‘It is an honour to serve you, sire, during this momentous occasion. To bear Imhotep’s clues to the maze on my body and have you use them makes me very proud.’

  Sphinx gazed up at the inner wall of the chapel, but said nothing.

  He reached out with his right hand—his five fingers seared with the five-pointed symbol during his Fall at Mont Saint-Michel—and pressed it against the matching raised marking on the floor.

  With a deep rumble, the stone wall slid upward—dust and cobwebs falling off it as it did so—and the grand ancient gateway opened.

  It yawned wide, a high square of darkness.

  Beyond the gateway, Sphinx glimpsed broad stairs going steeply downward.

  Then suddenly there came a momentous grinding sound from behind them and Sphinx spun . . .

  . . . to see another far heavier stone slab slowly begin to lower into the chapel’s outer doorway.

  The immense slab moved slowly, gradually, by some unseen superancient mechanism.

  Mendoza said, ‘By opening the Emperor’s Gate, you have initiated the closing of all five outer gates. Just as this outer gate is now closing, so too are the outer gates at the other four gates around this mountain.’

  ‘How long until they close fully?’ Sphinx growled.

  ‘According to the ancient texts, a single rotation of the Earth. Twenty-four hours, give or take,’ Mendoza said.

  Sphinx turned to the fourth Knight, Jaeger Fünf, and handed him a signet ring. ‘Get all our forces into position outside each of the other gates. Make sure they close fully. Allow no-one to get in before they do.’

  ‘Aye-aye, sire,’ Jaeger Fünf acknowledged.

  Sphinx pulled out a sat-phone.

  ‘Jaeger Eins,’ he said into it, ‘how did you go with Dion at Mont Blanc?’

  ‘Lord Dion successfully performed the Fall, sire,’ Jaeger Eins’s voice replied. ‘We are ready to assist you if you need us.’

  ‘Get here. The outer armoured doors have begun to close. They will seal completely in twenty-four hours. I’ll take some precautions of my own just in case any of our rivals penetrate the Labyrinth. But if they do, I want Dion and some squires to come in and assist me. You will command the defence outside with the assistance of Jaeger Fünf.’

  ‘Copy that, sire.’

  ‘Are all the bells in position?’ Sphinx asked.

  ‘Yes, sire, they are. We sent Siren bells to London, New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Shanghai, Beijing, plus the ancient and religious centres of Jerusalem, Mecca and Cairo. The men manning the bells await your command.’

  ‘Put them all to sleep,’ Sphinx said firmly. ‘Then get here.’

  ‘As you command, sire.’

  Sphinx clicked off the sat-phone and turned to Chloe.

  ‘Ms Carnarvon. Take some squires and find the blue bell. It is vital to my new world, for it will determine whom I wake from the sleep.’

  ‘It will be done, sire,’ Chloe said, bowing respectfully.

  Sphinx turned back to face the entry to the maze.

  ‘This is the final trial to be completed in advance of the Omega Event: the long journey through the Supreme Labyrinth to the World Throne. Come, it is time.’

  And with those words, followed by Mendoza, his three remaining Knights and the eight diminutive Vandals, Sphinx passed through the Emperor’s Gate.

  On the floor on the inner side of the gate was a second raised five-pointed asterisk symbol.

  Once all his people were through, Sphinx bent down and pressed his hand against it. Once again the seared markings on his palm matched it perfectly.

  Immediately, the inner gate slid shut behind him and his team.

  No-one else could pass through this gate. Anyone else desiring to enter the maze would have to access it through one of the four other gates, soon to be guarded by Sphinx’s massive force of bronzemen and silvermen, and which in a day’s time would be shut off forever when their outer gates closed completely.

  The inner gate boomed loudly as it slid shut, cutting off the view of Sphinx and his team descending into the gigantic maze.

  Inside the maze, Sphinx keyed his radio. ‘Jaeger Fünf, do you copy?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘We can’t get a signal in here?’ Sphinx said.

  ‘It’s the Labyrinth,’ the cardinal replied. ‘It emits a peculiar electromagnetic field which is inimical to radio waves. The maze is not of this planet, sire. Radio signals mean nothing to it.’

  Which was why, moments later, Sphinx never heard Jaeger Fünf shout into his radio, ‘Missile teams! Get a lock on that incoming jet and fire, fire, fire!’

  For at that moment, outside the entrance to the Labyrinth, a Learjet came zooming in low over the desert, crash-landed and skidded across the dusty ground toward the entrance gate to the left of the one Sphinx had used.

  It kicked up a tornado of sand and dust as it roared forward, aimed right at the gate.

  Sphinx’s bronzemen had not yet reached the other gates and they broke into a run as the jet slid to a halt in front of the second gate and six figures burst out of its cockpit and raced desperately inside the gate.

  It was Brother Ezekiel and five Omega monks.<
br />
  They were inside the second gate before anyone knew what was happening and by the time Jaeger Fünf’s people got there, that second gate’s inner slab was firmly closed behind them.

  ‘Fuck!’ Jaeger Fünf growled. He turned to the man behind him. ‘Call Lord Dion and Jaeger Eins. Tell them to get here as soon as possible. Dion is now officially required inside the maze.’

  As Christmas Day dawned around the world, several drone Chinook helicopters rose, unnoticed, above nine major cities of the world—London, New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Shanghai, Beijing, Jerusalem, Mecca and Cairo—and rang their Siren bells.

  And those cities joined Moscow and Rome in the mysterious slumber of the bells.

  In New York City, just before the bell rang, Sphinx’s people hacked into the many television screens of Times Square, replacing their advertisements with a final taunting message that blazed from every single screen:

  YOU

  WILL

  WAKE

  AS

  SLAVES

  French countryside near Dijon

  25 December, 1000 hours

  23 hours till Labyrinth gates close

  It was Christmas Day but it didn’t feel like it.

  Usually December 25th was a day of gifts, joy, family and frivolity but today the world was silent, quiet, cowed.

  After seeing almost a dozen major cities felled by the mysterious sleep and the Tibetan city of Lhasa obliterated by a nuclear strike, people around the world hid in their homes, afraid.

  No-one knew which city would be next.

  Jack’s team regrouped at an airport outside Dijon, France.

  The gigantic Super Galaxy cargo plane—flown there remotely by Alby earlier—was parked at one end of the airport’s runway.

  Beside it, dwarfed by it, was the black Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van that Alby had driven here from Alsace-Lorraine plus two smaller planes: the little seaplane named Sexy Prince Two which had landed on a set of roll-out wheels and Rufus’s Sukhoi Su-37, freshly returned from Rome with Zoe and Sister Lynda.

  Stretching away from the little airport to the horizon on every side were farms and fields of classic French countryside. It was all empty. Whoever lived here was remaining in their homes.

  Lily, Stretch and Aloysius Knight all lay on gurneys in the Sprinter van, still gripped by the sleep of the bells.

  Mae was gone: taken by Rastor who hopefully saw a benefit in keeping her alive. And they feared the worst for Agnes.

  A sombre silence hung over the group.

  At least, Jack thought, Pooh Bear and Sky Monster are here, alive and well, and back with the team.

  Jack whispered to Sky Monster, ‘I read your Message from the Other Side. Thought you were dead. Nice stuff.’

  Sky Monster nodded. ‘I meant every word.’

  Jack turned to the others. They were all gathered around the communications console of the Super Galaxy.

  ‘Play it again,’ he said.

  The recent exchange between Sphinx and Jaeger Eins came through the speakers one more time:

  Sphinx: Get here. The outer armoured doors have begun to close. They will seal completely in twenty-four hours. I’ll take some precautions of my own just in case any of our rivals penetrate the Labyrinth. But if they do, I want Dion and some squires to come in and assist me. You will command the defence outside with the assistance of Jaeger Fünf.

  Jaeger Eins: Copy that, sire.

  Sphinx: Are all the bells in position?

  Jaeger Eins: Yes, sire, they are. We sent Siren bells to London, New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Shanghai, Beijing, plus the ancient and religious centres of Jerusalem, Mecca and Cairo. The men manning the bells await your command.

  Sphinx: Put them all to sleep. Then get here.

  The group stared at the speakers in grim silence.

  ‘So, here’s how things stand,’ Jack said. ‘Sphinx has entered the Labyrinth. By entering the maze, it looks like he activated some outer protective doors which will seal completely in one day. Which means we now have twenty-four—no, twenty-three—hours to find one of the two lost mountains, perform the Fall at one of them and get to that Labyrinth.’

  Alby added, ‘Don’t forget, to perform the Fall, we also need to make sure the pedestal on the moon is uncovered.’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ Jack said. ‘It’s no understatement to say we’ve got our work cut out for us. Okay, everybody, tell me what you got.’

  The team members laid out the various pieces of ancient knowledge they had accumulated over the last few days.

  Zoe mentioned the strange reference to ‘Albano’s emissary’ that she had found in the Pope’s private study. ‘According to the Pope, the Church’s notes about the location of the blue bell were taken to Albano’s emissary, whoever that is. We’ll have to figure this out since I have a feeling we’ll be needing that bell.’

  Lynda described the enormous sandstone cobra statue that she and Mae had seen in Vault XXII of the Vatican Secret Archives: the lost uraeus from the head of the Great Sphinx.

  ‘The Omega monks who were examining it were comparing it to two old pictures of the Great Sphinx: the Denon sketch and an old aerial photo of the Sphinx from the 1920s.’

  Alby nodded. ‘That uraeus had supposedly never been found. Not even Napoleon’s army of scientists could find it when they did detailed studies of the Sphinx and the pyramids in the 1790s. Turns out the Church had it all along.’

  Iolanthe turned to Bertie. ‘Were you aware of this?’

  Bertie shook his head. ‘I’d heard rumours but nothing more than that.’

  ‘There were also two stone slabs with carved images that looked like the Sephirot Tree of Life and the Norse Tree of Death,’ Lynda said. ‘I don’t know where they came from or what they refer to.’

  ‘What about the last two iron mountains?’ Jack said.

  Sister Lynda held up a photo of a page from Francis Xavier’s journal, the one that she and Mae had found in the Vatican Secret Archives, and quoted out loud:

  ‘In his secret report to the Pope, the great wandering monk, the Venerable Laurent of the Levant, wrote that “He who wields the blade of the archangel will find the fourth mountain.”

  Ignatius and I both believe this means that the fourth mount is either Sacra di San Michele in Turin or the Sanctuary to the Archangel at Mount Gargano near Foggia.’

  ‘“He who wields the blade of the archangel will find the fourth mountain”,’ Lynda said. ‘We believe this is a reference to the Sword of St Michael.’

  ‘A sword?’ Pooh Bear said. ‘You mean some kind of legendary weapon like Excalibur?’

  Lynda shook her head. ‘No. This isn’t an actual sword. It’s a metaphor. It’s actually a line, a straight line known as a ley line. Ley lines are geographical links between ancient structures—megalithic sites, churches, abbeys—often built far apart, sometimes on different continents.’

  Jack nodded. ‘We encountered this with Stonehenge, its quarry and the Great Pyramid. They all lie on a single straight line.’

  ‘This is just as impressive as that one,’ Lynda said. ‘The Sword of St Michael is a very curious line of seven churches, abbeys and monasteries that stretches all the way from Britain to Israel. The reason for its name is that all of these churches, abbeys and monasteries are dedicated to the same saint, the Archangel Michael, including the two monasteries named by Javier, the Sacra di San Michele in Turin and the Sanctuary to the Archangel at Mount Gargano. Let me show you.’

  Lynda pulled up an image from the internet:

  Jack saw some names on the image that he had already encountered: St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall and Mont Saint-Michel in France. He also noticed that the ley line passed almost directly through the Mont Blanc Massif.

  Lynda said, ‘Here’s the most common depiction of the lin
e, showing it as a sword.’

  Sister Lynda explained, ‘The Archangel St Michael was seen as God’s leader in the war against the Devil, so this line of holy places was named St Michael’s Sword. As you can see, it starts in Ireland, at Skellig Michael, and ends in the Holy Land, in modern Israel.’

  Jack gazed hard at the two images.

  ‘He who wields the blade of the archangel . . .’ he said. ‘Wields the blade.’

  He looked up sharply.

  ‘The handle. If you wield the blade of the sword, you’re gripping it by the handle. The mountain is at the grip-end of the ley line.’

  Jack pointed at both ends of the Sword of St Michael. ‘The line of holy sites extends from Ireland to Israel. You say it starts in Ireland? At Skellig Michael?’

  Lynda shrugged. ‘That’s where, historically, it has been held to begin.’

  Jack frowned. ‘Skellig Michael is a barren rock with a very basic monastery built on top of some pagan ruins. It’s been dug up many times over the years by archaeologists. There’s nothing there. But what if—what if—the sword points up, not down? What if it starts down here . . .’

  Jack pointed to the other end of the line.

  ‘. . . in Israel? What’s the holy site in Israel that sits on the ley line?’

  Lynda said, ‘There are two candidates. First, the “Our Lady Star of the Sea” monastery in Haifa. But it was sacked and destroyed by Muslim forces during the Crusades, so no-one’s quite sure where it really stood.’

  ‘And the second option?’ Jack asked.

  Lynda hesitated.

  ‘Well, I mean . . . if you extend the line further . . . well—’

  Jack leaned forward. ‘What’s the second possibility?’

  Sister Lynda swallowed. ‘It’s the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.’

  ‘The Dome of the Rock?’ Alby said. ‘The holiest site in the whole of the Jewish faith?’

  Pooh Bear added, ‘And the third holiest in Islam.’

  ‘And a place that both religions have been fighting over for more than a thousand years,’ Bertie said.