The Three Secret Cities

by Matthew Reilly

  ‘But it’s been lost since antiquity,’ Hades said to Jack. ‘How can you hope to find it quickly when so many others have failed?’

  Jack said, ‘History leaves us clues, breadcrumbs, random lines of breadcrumbs, so to speak. Somebody, at some time in the past, wrote about the Mace and its final resting place. In my experience, it’s not the amount of research you do that unearths an ancient place. It’s the quality: finding relevant clues. Two of them, in fact. They can have been written centuries apart, but if you can find two clues about something and you can connect them—and let them help you zero in on your target—then you can do in a day what others have failed to do for centuries.’

  ‘You just have to find the two clues,’ Hades said, ‘in a mountain of historical data.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘Fortunately, having people like you and me around with lifetimes of historical expertise in their heads helps.’

  And so, with Alby’s and Hades’s help, Jack had settled in for some intense research, reading deep into the night, research that had led him here, to Santorini.

  The Cliffs of Oia

  Santorini, Greece

  30 November, 1200 hours local time

  The glaring noonday sun pounded down on the island of Santorini.

  Jack squinted up at the many white-painted hotels and homes that cascaded down the wild cliffs of Oia above him.

  Santorini—the Isle of St Irene, or, as it was known to the ancient Greeks, Thera—is a member of the group of islands called the Cyclades.

  It is actually a gigantic water-filled crater left by one of the greatest volcanic eruptions of all time, the Minoan Eruption that occurred sometime between 1650 and 1550 B.C.E. The earth-shaking eruption caused two sections of the caldera’s walls to collapse, allowing the waters of the Mediterranean to flood into it.

  What remains is a devastatingly beautiful island shaped like a reverse-C, with dramatic thousand-foot-high cliffs ringing its seven-kilometre-wide central lagoon.

  It is a wildly popular tourist destination. Every day, a dozen cruise liners stop in the lagoon. On the island’s many steep cliffs one finds a chaotic jumble of chapels, homes and hotels (many of which burrow back into the cliff in search of coolness and almost all of which are painted white). Some of the chapels, famously, have gorgeous sky-blue domes.

  The structures tumble down the cliff faces in no discernible order, never quite reaching the water’s edge, since at their lower levels the cliffs become vertical and unstable. Crumbling staircases and dangerous old ladders give access to the few docks and jetties at the bases of the cliffs.

  It was on one of those jetties that Jack and Aloysius now stood, gazing upward.

  In his search for Poseidon’s Mace, Jack had trawled through all manner of references to Poseidon and his trident and places devoted to him.

  A scroll by the famed Greek historian Herodotus written in 430 B.C.E. stood out. It claimed that ‘the Great Mace of the Sealord was buried with him, in a tomb defended by his son and the Sealord’s cursed lover’.

  ‘Who was Poseidon’s son?’ Aloysius asked.

  ‘Triton,’ Jack said. ‘Poseidon’s son was named Triton. He’s a relatively obscure god. In the myths, he’s always been depicted as a merman: a man with the tail of a fish.’

  ‘And Poseidon’s cursed lover?’

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s another story entirely. She was a very famous woman, one of the most famous women in all of mythology. Her name was Medusa.’

  ‘The chick with snakes for hair?’ Aloysius said. ‘The one who turned people to stone when they looked at her?’

  ‘The very same,’ Jack said. ‘One of the three Gorgons. Although, to be fair, she may not have been the vicious monster history has made her out to be.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, Medusa wasn’t always ugly. According to the original Greek texts, she was a beautiful young virgin. But she was seduced by Poseidon and they made love inside the temple of Athena, thus angering Athena.

  ‘As punishment, Athena made Medusa hideous to look upon, with a wrinkled face and snakes for hair. And then, of course, there was the whole turn-them-to-stone thing, which kept Medusa from any kind of human contact.’

  Jack gave Aloysius a look. ‘A modern interpretation of this would be that after sleeping with King Poseidon, young Medusa caught some kind of skin disease, probably leprosy, and was banished by the queen of the time—Poseidon’s furious wife—who was named Athena.’

  During his late-night research session, Jack had followed up on the Herodotus lead, but he couldn’t find other references to any such tomb or its location. He briefed Alby and Hades on what he needed and they went off, searching.

  Then, long after midnight, Hades brought Jack something.

  It was a letter from a Venetian noble who had gone to the Holy Land during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

  It was a note from the noble to his wife back in Venice and it said:

  As payment for my participation on this foolish Crusade, I was given land on the island of Thera, which the Franks call the Isle of St Irene. My parcel of land is at the northern end of the crescent-shaped island.

  It is useless. Barren, rocky and steep, all high cliffs and gorges. It is most unpleasant, fit for nothing of use: not grazing, not planting, nothing.

  It is dotted with the crumbling ruins of native huts and old pagan temples that delve into the cliffs to hide from the punishing sun.

  One such temple down by the waterline bears a cracked inscription of a man with the tail of a fish and the fearsome visage of snake-headed Medusa.

  What a miserable place. I have been duped by the Pope. This grant of land is entirely unworthy of my efforts on his behalf.

  Jack had zeroed in on the line:

  One such temple down by the waterline bears a cracked inscription of a man with the tail of a fish and the fearsome visage of snake-headed Medusa.

  Triton and Medusa.

  Jack gave Hades a look. ‘Two clues, on the surface entirely unrelated, written 1600 years apart, both referring to an ancient structure with a singular image on its entrance. Thanks, Anthony, you just gave me the crucial second clue that I needed.’

  Within ten minutes, Jack and Aloysius were in the air, heading for Santorini.

  THE TOMB OF POSEIDON

  SANTORINI, GREECE

  They found the tomb’s entrance at the extreme northern tip of Santorini, in a steep V-shaped gorge below the clifftop town of Oia.

  When he saw the little temple’s faded stone entrance, Jack could see why it had never been found.

  It lay in a cleft a short way up from where the waves battered the cliff’s rugged vertical base: one natural defence. And the water here was deep, meaning small boats could not lay anchor. To stray too close meant being dashed against the cliff: a second natural defence.

  But the ancient tomb’s main defence against discovery by explorers and archaeologists was actually far more mundane than that.

  Rubbish and debris.

  Decades worth of modern trash—cola cans, chairs, doors and dirty plastic bags, all of it faded by many years in the sun—had been tossed into the gorge from above, concealing the passage in it.

  Amid that tangle of rubbish, Jack and Aloysius found the temple’s entrance with the carving of a merman and Medusa on it, and thus the long-lost tomb of Poseidon.

  After penetrating the tomb’s entrance, they climbed down a tight vertical shaft cut into the rock.

  Crude ladder-holds had been chiselled into its rough stone walls. Using them, they descended for a good hundred feet—well below sea level, Jack guessed—before they arrived at a horizontal tunnel.

  This tunnel was dead straight, perfectly square in shape, and it ran away from them for maybe thirty metres before opening onto a wider, darker space.

  It
was high enough for them to stand in and wide enough for the two of them to walk down side-by-side.

  Guided by the beams of their flashlights, they ventured into the tunnel, Jack leading the way.

  A short way down the tunnel, he stopped, peering upward.

  There was a square hole in the ceiling. It spanned the entire width of the passageway.

  ‘A problem?’ Aloysius said.

  ‘In my line of work, booby traps are an occupational hazard,’ Jack said.

  He peered at the floor below the hole in the ceiling, searching for any kind of trigger stone, but found nothing.

  He jumped across the section of tunnel underneath the ceiling-hole.

  Nothing happened.

  No trap. No death.

  Aloysius shrugged and followed him.

  About halfway down the passageway, they found something else in the ceiling.

  Jack raised his flashlight to examine it.

  It was a circular tile the size of a dinner plate. It protruded a couple of inches from the tunnel’s otherwise flat roof, like a modern ceiling light.

  Painted on it was the face of Medusa: snarling and angry, with her trademark snakes for hair.

  Looking closely, Jack saw that the pupils of Medusa’s furious eyes were made of a pair of small raised stones the size and shape of two tiny pills or pellets.

  ‘Friendly, isn’t she?’ Aloysius said wryly.

  ‘Careful,’ Jack said. ‘That gaze can turn you to stone.’

  They pressed on.

  At the far end of the passageway, they emerged into a wide circular chamber with a high domed roof and beautifully curving walls, all cut from solid grey stone.

  The round walls of the space were covered in gorgeous blue bas-reliefs: raised images of Poseidon wielding his three-pronged Mace, causing the seas to rise and cities to fall.

  In the exact centre of the chamber was a high round platform that rose like a wedding cake in four broad steps.

  The steps were themselves unusual: they were each cut in the shape of a trench, a circular trench, sort of like the pool at the base of a fountain. One climbed them by leaping from edge to edge.

  And on the platform atop the steps was the centrepiece of the place.

  A waist-high oblong stone tomb covered in three thousand years’ worth of dust and stone flakes.

  It looked like an altar: squat, sturdy and old.

  ‘Captain, what is that?’ Aloysius said, looking up.

  He shone his flashlight at a round hole cut into the curving wall of the ceiling. It was maybe three feet in diameter.

  ‘Looks like a light shaft,’ Aloysius said. ‘Seems to go up at an angle. But no sunlight is getting through.’

  ‘I’d guess it’s more likely a star shaft,’ Jack said. ‘Like the ones inside the pyramids at Giza. They tend to get blocked up over the years with dirt and sand, but thousands of years ago, you might have been able to look up through that shaft at night and see a certain constellation.’

  Jack took in the rest of the dome-shaped chamber.

  And he spotted something.

  It was at the highest point of the chamber, at the very peak of the domed ceiling: a single round tile just like the one back in the passageway.

  On it was painted the snarling face of Medusa, complete with the small dark pills as her blazing eyes.

  Slowly, reverently, by the light of their flashlights and beneath the angry glare of Medusa, Jack and Aloysius strode up the odd-looking steps and onto the platform at their summit and beheld the ancient tomb.

  Jack risked a smile.

  Cut into the top of the oblong slab, caked in a thick layer of grit but clearly visible, was a raised life-sized carving of the Mace of Poseidon.

  Jack gazed at the carving, entranced.

  The Tomb of Poseidon, he thought.

  As he looked at the raised image of the Mace more closely, he saw that it was very detailed, amazingly detailed, in fact.

  ‘Nice carving,’ Aloysius said.

  ‘Sure is,’ Jack said, and suddenly he realised. ‘Only it’s not a carving.’

  ‘What?’ Aloysius said.

  ‘It’s the Mace.’ Jack leaned close and gently blew the dust off the ‘carving’.

  The layer of dust and stone flakes that had landed on the tomb over the millennia scattered, revealing slivers of glimmering gold.

  Ever so delicately, Jack brushed away the remaining dust layer with his fingers.

  And there it was.

  Resting in a recess that had been perfectly shaped to accommodate it.

  The Trident of the Sealord, the Mace of Poseidon, the King of the Sea.

  It was simply stunning to behold.

  Its thick handle was made of burnished gold and its three blades—all pointed slightly inward—were made of silver. They looked as sharp as daggers.

  The three blades, however, were not laid out laterally like a fork or trident, but rather they were arrayed in a circle—officially making the weapon a mace, not a trident.

  ‘It really is a mace,’ Jack said softly. ‘A sceptre.’

  The Mace’s golden handle was inlaid with six glistening gems: two rubies, two emeralds and two sapphires. The gems alone would have been priceless.

  In between the three blades was an empty setting.

  In it would be placed another gem of some sort, a blue gem, Jack knew, that would be found in the sacred vault of the third secret city, the City of Atlas.

  Aloysius reached forward to grab the Mace. ‘Well, what are we waiting for—’

  ‘No!’ Jack pushed Aloysius’s hand away before he could touch the sceptre.

  ‘Wait now,’ Jack said. ‘Let’s just go about this very carefully—’

  The cocking of a gun made them both spin.

  By the time he’d turned around, Aloysius had one of his sawn-off Remington shotguns drawn, raised and aimed . . .

  . . . at the three men armed with AK-47 assault rifles standing in the entryway to the chamber behind them.

  ‘Now, now, let’s not be like that,’ the lead man said amiably. He was an overweight Pakistani, with wobbly jowls, sweaty armpits, and in addition to the gun, a glowing lantern hanging from his forearm.

  Sunny Malik grinned, revealing his sickly yellow teeth. ‘Well, not yet.’

  ‘Drop the gun, Captain Knight,’ Sunny said.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Aloysius asked.

  ‘No, but I know you,’ Sunny said. ‘You caught a friend of mine during a bounty hunt last year, a very perverted but reliable gun runner from Kabul who was slipping me American weapons. You collected the price on his head and in doing so, you ruined my supply line.’

  Aloysius lay his shotgun on the ground beside the tomb.

  ‘I’d say I’m sorry but I’m really fucking not,’ he said.

  Jack stepped back as Malik’s two henchmen ascended the broad trench-like stairs, their guns trained on him and Aloysius. They also appeared to be Pakistani and they both wore bulletproof vests.

  ‘I met your mother in Karachi,’ Sunny Malik said to Jack. ‘I liked her. Feisty. When I see her next, I’ll be sure to tell her that I shot you like a dog. Then I’ll kill her, too.’

  Jack noticed that Malik remained down near the entryway. He had the feeling Malik was staying down there just in case there were any close-range traps near the altar.

  ‘Grab the trident,’ Sunny Malik called to his men.

  The first henchman snatched up the golden Mace and held it aloft.

  Jack waited.

  Aloysius waited.

  Sunny Malik waited.

  Nothing happened.

  The henchman grinned . . .

  . . . and then the trap went off.

  It came blasting into the chamber through the sloping shaft situated near th
e top of the dome.

  Seawater.

  A gushing torrent of the stuff.

  It roared down all around Jack and Aloysius, pouring into the chamber with such ferocious force that it knocked Sunny’s second henchman clear off his feet.

  Down on the floor, Sunny Malik spun as more water came surging out of the entry passageway behind him—smashing into his knees so powerfully it caused him to fall to the ground.

  This body of water was thundering in through the wide square hole in the ceiling of the tunnel back near the ladder-shaft.

  Aloysius Knight was not a man to miss an opportunity.

  As the trap was triggered and the water came blasting into the chamber, he kicked his shotgun, bouncing it off the tomb and up into his hands and from point-blank range, he shot the distracted henchman gripping the Mace.

  The henchman was hurled through the air by the powerful blast, the front of his bulletproof vest absorbing the shot and saving his life.

  He flew down the trench-steps, splashing into the swirling water at the bottom, winded but alive, leaving Aloysius Knight standing at the top of the platform, gripping his gun in one hand . . . and the Mace in the other.

  Jack reacted in his own way, too.

  He was trying to figure out the trap.

  His mind raced, putting the pieces together.

  He saw the water rushing in through the ceiling-shaft. When combined with the water coming in through the entry passageway, it was rapidly filling the chamber. It was already thigh-deep and pouring over the rim of the platform’s first trench-like step, filling it.

  In the nanoseconds of time in which the mind operates, Jack made some deductions:

  Removing the Mace must have released gates in the shafts, allowing seawater to rush in.

  So what happens next?

  The entry tunnel is going to fill completely with water.

  Then this chamber is going to fill with water.

  The vertical ladder-shaft will fill with water.

  And we’ll drown.

  The water rose quickly, cascading into the next trench.