‘You are not prepared,’ Cardinal Mendoza said simply. ‘For what is required.’
‘He’s right,’ Sphinx said. ‘You were never up for the challenge of your crown, Orlando. You were never properly prepared. Just look at your clumsy attempts to open the three cities. We all would have died were it not for West and his people.
‘Look also at West himself, your choice of champion at the Great Games. It was his actions at the Games that created this state of affairs, which means it was your mistake. You deserve to die this way. Bleeding out on the floor. Feel free to bleed slowly, cousin, for then you may at least live long enough to see the ritual performed.’
Sphinx turned to Lily.
‘For perform it now I must.’
The intricate golden gate that lay over the rectangular pool in the centre of the ceremonial chamber was opened and Mendoza placed the triangular tablet in a matching triangular recess in the base of the shallow pool.
Then, her hands and feet bound, Lily was laid in the pool on top of it.
The water filling the ceremonial pool was about eighteen inches deep. It covered her body, lapping around her jaw and cheeks, but her eyes, nose and mouth still protruded above the surface, allowing her to breathe.
Chloe filmed it all on a video camera.
Lily went to her fate in silence, her eyes dull, her spirit broken.
Jack was dead.
Her friends were scattered around the world, their heroics at the Three Secret Cities now exploited by Sphinx and Dion and their gang of cronies.
There was nothing she could do. She was going to die here, alone and afraid.
As she lay on her back in the water, Sphinx put the Helmet of Hades on her head and placed the Mace of Poseidon in a slot on the golden gate near her feet. Their blue gems glowed eerily.
‘Brave girl. This is for the world,’ he said. ‘It is a noble death and it will be quick.’
He closed the hinged gate on top of her.
‘Open the ceiling!’ he called.
Jaeger Eins spoke into a radio and in response, with a great mechanical whirring, something opened at the top of the great chimney-like shaft above the chamber.
From her captive position in the pool, Lily had a clear view straight up the sloping shaft. It must have been two hundred feet long: a dead-straight slanting shaft through which she could now see a square of the night-time sky.
Stars glistened. It was actually quite beautiful.
Somewhere up there was the centre of the universe—at the other end of a path carved by the Hydra Galaxy—facing this chamber, ready to receive the radio waves from Sagittarius A-star as they passed through Lily’s sacred spilled blood and the triangular tablet.
Lily lay stoically in the pool, wearing the Helmet of Hades: the sacrificial lamb.
She found herself thinking of Jack and his smile. The special smile he reserved for her. And of the team that had raised her . . . and of Alby, ever loyal and kind, and his last words to her: ‘I always loved you.’
She cried inwardly.
‘Damn,’ she whispered.
The section of the golden gate directly above her heart had a slit in it: a slit that matched the width of Excalibur perfectly.
Mendoza handed Sphinx the Sword, empowered by its shining blue gem.
Sphinx crossed to the pool and stood over Lily.
He carefully inserted the tip of the blade into the slot, holding it poised above Lily’s heart.
The ritual was clear: plunge the Sword through the heart of the Oracle.
Lily stared skyward.
If the stars were to be the last thing she saw, she thought, then it wasn’t a bad final sight.
Shortly after, with a sharp downward plunge of the Sword, Sphinx completed the ancient sacrificial rite.
Chloe filmed the entire terrible act.
Thus the first trial was overcome and liquid stone did not spread throughout the Earth’s oceans like a cancer and turn the planet into a barren wasteland.
The City of Atlas
Three hours earlier
As the sun began to sink in the sky, the flooded city of Atlantis lay still.
Nothing moved except for the odd strand of seaweed that swayed in the current.
Then . . . movement.
From the sunken wreck of the 707 aeroplane that lay up against the base of the giant hourglass-shaped city, its nose pointed upward.
Something shot out of the plane—moving fast and vertically, heading at rocket-speed for the surface—something that looked like a life raft with two men hanging from it: the two figures of Jack West Jr and Aloysius Knight.
When Sphinx had cut off their air, Jack and Aloysius had both had time for one last breath.
There was no way they could swim to the surface on that single breath of air. It was too far, a hundred and fifty feet away.
It was Jack who had pointed at the plane wreck and begun swimming for it. Aloysius didn’t know what he was getting at, but without a better plan of his own, he followed.
It was lucky it was an older plane, Jack thought as he came to the Boeing 707’s forward door, flung it open and swam desperately inside.
Newer planes used compressed nitrogen and carbon dioxide to inflate their escape slides, but old ones like the 707 used compressed air.
There, hovering inside the galley of the sunken Boeing aeroplane, with his final breath of air beginning to fail him, Jack pulled the plane’s tightly-packed escape slide from its compartment above the door and yanked on its emergency pull-tab.
The slide immediately sprang to life, enlarging in an instant, filling with air and becoming a life raft. It expanded to fill the tiny galley.
Jack immediately wrapped his lips around its manual-inflation valve and sucked in air, glorious air.
Then he offered the valve to Aloysius and he inhaled a lungful, too.
After that, they waited for a while, taking alternate swigs from the inflated escape slide, just in case Sphinx had left men up top to finish them off if they surfaced.
Thirty minutes passed.
Jack figured that was enough time. He motioned for Aloysius to get a grip on the escape slide.
Then he pointed up.
Aloysius nodded. He knew what that meant.
Jack then shoved the escape slide/life raft out of the plane’s doorway and, filled as it was with air, it shot skyward, seeking the surface.
Jack and Aloysius clung to it as it raced upward at phenomenal speed. They exhaled as they rose, a standard scuba diver’s precaution, lest their lungs explode with the air expanding inside them.
Then the life raft breached the surface and Jack and Aloysius were hurled by the force of their rapid rise fully seven feet into the air above it before splashing back down.
The sand-coloured cliffs of the Moroccan coast towered above them. Sphinx’s mansion crowned one cliff alongside the ancient lighthouse.
Jack spun . . . searching for Sphinx’s motor cruiser, but he didn’t see it anywhere. It was gone.
And then Alby’s voice exploded in his ear:
‘Jack! Pooh! Stretch! Everyone! Find Lily! Find her now! They’re going to kill her! They have to kill her in the ritual at the Altar of the Cosmos because she’s the Oracle!’
They found a small motorboat tied to the dock at the base of Sphinx’s mansion and gunned it across the Strait of Gibraltar.
When they arrived at the Rock two hours and thirty minutes later, Aloysius pointed. ‘There!’
A large number of dead bodies lay beside a restricted military dock on the eastern side of the Rock: the bodies of some Royal Marines.
Jack saw the tunnel delving into the Rock at the end of the dock and hurried inside.
‘Wait! You don’t know what’s in there—’ Aloysius called, chasing after him.
Minut
es later, the two men emerged inside the sacrificial chamber.
It was empty. Well, empty of living people.
Orlando’s body lay on the floor, his chest a bloody mess, his mouth agape, his furious eyes open in a sightless stare. The bullet-riddled bodies of his two Royal Marine bodyguards lay nearby.
In the centre of the space, Jack saw the rectangular ceremonial pool sunken into the floor with the golden gate on top of it.
He raced over to it, followed by Aloysius.
‘Jesus . . .’ Aloysius gasped, seeing what was in the pool.
‘Lily . . .’ Jack said softly. ‘No . . .’
After the ceremony had been completed and the body had sunk fully under the surface of the water, someone must have tossed a greystone pill into the pool, for beneath the bars of the golden gate, the shallow pool was filled to the brim with a flat-topped slab of black-grey stone.
Jack saw the jawguards of the Helmet of Hades jutting ever so slightly above the surface of the solidified liquid stone at one end of the pool.
Saw the Mace sticking up from a slot in the gate at the other end.
And in the middle, right where the ceremonial victim’s heart would be, was Excalibur, embedded in the stone, locked in place when it had solidified. The Sword in the Stone.
A foul layer of blood stained the golden slot through which the Sword had been plunged. Arterial blood from Lily’s heart must have sprayed upward in a grisly gout when the Sword had been thrust down through the slot into her.
Jack leaned in close to the Helmet, searching for some sign of . . .
. . . and he saw them.
Several strands of long black hair curled out from the slab of black-grey stone and, being wet, they had clung to the right jawguard of the Helmet.
Jack’s heart broke.
He knew that hair.
It was Lily’s.
And there in that chamber, inside an altar the size of a mountain, watched by Aloysius Knight, Jack West Jr dropped to his knees and wept.
Airspace over the Mediterranean Sea
An hour later, Jack sat in the rear bomb bay of Aloysius Knight’s Sukhoi Su-37, his stare blank and unseeing.
Aloysius had dragged him out of the sacrificial chamber and called Rufus. They had to get out of there. Rufus had arrived shortly after in the Sukhoi and they had zoomed away.
‘Where to?’ Rufus had asked.
‘Anywhere,’ Aloysius said.
Aloysius had then contacted all the others—Zoe and Alby; Mae, Nobody and Iolanthe; Pooh Bear, Stretch and Sky Monster—scattered as they were around the world, and told them that their mission had been achieved but at a cost: they had saved the world but only because Sphinx had carried out the ritual and executed Lily.
Over the open line, Mae gasped, ‘No, that can’t be . . .’
Nobody and Iolanthe were struck silent.
Zoe had said, ‘How is Jack?’
‘He’s with me,’ Aloysius said.
‘Is he okay?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘Those bastards. Those damned evil bastards.’
Then Alby spoke.
‘It was a cruel bargain,’ he said, ‘which Lily must have known. She dies, but in doing so, she spares the whole world a terrible fate. But the world doesn’t feel her loss like we do. Only we . . .’—his voice cracked—‘. . . only we feel that.’
Sombre silence followed.
Aloysius said quietly, ‘Sphinx was gone. He must’ve moved on to the next trial with the secrets he obtained from the, er, ceremony.’
With nothing else to say, they all arranged to meet in Rome and clicked off the line.
After that, Aloysius went up front and sat in the cockpit with Rufus, occasionally turning around to check on Jack.
‘How is he?’ Rufus whispered.
‘He’s in shock. They killed his daughter.’
Then, in the back of the plane, Jack blinked out of his trance and pulled up something on his phone.
An email from a password-protected folder.
From Lily.
Girding himself, he read it:
Dear Dad,
It’s strange to write something like this, a message from the other side. I mean, what do you write? I’ve thought about it a lot and this is the best I could do.
Life is so peculiar. According to the world, I’m this terribly important Oracle with this extraordinary ability and you’re one of the Five Greatest Warriors in all of history and yet, when I think of the two of us, I think of you calling me ‘Kiddo’ and of that Simpsons t-shirt I bought you saying ‘World’s Greatest Dad’. If only the world really knew the daggy truth about its Oracle and her warrior father!
In quieter times, though, when I think of us, I often find myself recalling one event: the time when I was five or six and you took me to the ballet in Cape Town to see The Nutcracker. Do you remember it?
Tears welled in Jack’s eyes.
‘I’ve always remembered it,’ he whispered.
It was back when we were living at the farm in Kenya with the original members of our team. I didn’t know it at the time, but you were all watching me, waiting for me to reveal my ability. For me, it was just an amazing time and an incredible childhood, surrounded by loving people.
It’ll sound really stupid now, but up until that day we went to the ballet together, I wasn’t sure you even liked me. You can get quiet sometimes and, being a little kid, I’d taken that for indifference. But after that day, I knew it. You loved me. Every daughter should get that kind of unfailing love from their dad. You were the best father any girl could have. The best.
And now, here we are.
If I can only leave you with one thought, Dad, let me make it this: keep fighting. Please keep fighting.
After all, you didn’t come this far just to come this far.
With all my love, your very, very, very proud daughter,
Lily
Xoxoxoxo
Jack bowed his head, staring at the floor but seeing nothing. Tears streaked down his cheeks.
The last thing he wanted to do was go on. From a gurgling baby to a playful girl on roller-sneakers to the poised and smiling college student she had become, Lily had been his world. His buddy, Nobody, often said that Jack had a special smile reserved solely for his daughter and that Jack—the famously tough and resourceful Jack West Jr—would do anything for her, anything she asked.
Nobody had been right. Everything Jack had ever done had been for Lily: taking on deadly rivals, fighting in the Great Games, saving the world. All for her, for her future.
And now she was gone. The very reason he fought.
Yet Lily, ever perceptive, had known this. And so in her final message she had written those three crucial words: Please keep fighting.
Now he had to keep going, if for no other reason than that his little girl had told him to.
Jack inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.
‘Keep fighting . . .’ he said to no-one. ‘Please keep fighting.’
Then he sat up. And opened his eyes.
And there was steel in them.
‘Okay, kiddo,’ he whispered. ‘I will.’
EPILOGUE
The Rock of Gibraltar
Gibraltar, U.K. Territory
4 December, 0330 hours
Three days later, in the dead of night, while the rest of Gibraltar slept, three shadowy figures in scuba gear and night-vision goggles emerged from the sea on the eastern side of the Rock.
They subdued two military guards, cut through the razor-wire fence and hustled past a sign saying restricted area: authorised military personnel only. Then they slipped inside the Rock of Gibraltar, quickly ascended several stairways and entered the ceremonial chamber.
Pooh Bear, Stretch and Alby.
T
hey found the chamber just as Jack and Aloysius had left it: dead bodies still on the floor; the fabled sword, Excalibur, lodged in the slab of liquid stone in the shallow pool; and the heartbreaking wisps of black hair protruding from one end of the slab.
They had come for the body.
Lily’s body.
They’d made the clandestine journey for their friend Jack—who at that moment was in Rome with Zoe by his side, silent and stoic, but distant, grieving—to retrieve Lily so that at least she could be given a proper burial in the presence of family and friends.
The ancient chamber with its high slanting chimney-like shaft loomed above them as, covered by Stretch and Alby, Pooh Bear lifted the golden gate and bent over the slab of liquid stone and set about chipping away at it with a hammer and chisel.
He hammered gently, delicately, considerately, so as not to damage Lily’s face when he eventually broke through.
Stretch and Alby kept an eye on the entrance, glancing back at Pooh every now and then. Stretch was armed.
As he worked away, Pooh revealed more strands of black hair threaded through the solidified liquid stone. He tried to hold back his tears.
Then, after a time, his chisel broke through the stone, revealing a sliver of human skin.
With great tenderness, Pooh Bear carefully brushed away the chips of stone, blowing off the finer bits, revealing a face—
—and he reared back in surprise.
‘Good God,’ he gasped. ‘It’s not—’
And then, most oddly, given the solemnity of his mission, he broke out in a wide smile.
‘Stretch, Alby! Come and look at this! And call Jack. Call him now!’
THE END
AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW REILLY
SPOILER WARNING!
The following interview contains SPOILERS from The Three Secret Cities. Readers who have not yet read the novel are advised to avoid reading this interview as it does give away major plot moments in the book.
All right, Matthew, for a moment there, we thought we’d said goodbye to Lily! After the infamous death of Libby Gant in Scarecrow (coincidentally the novel where the Black Knight had to break the news to Scarecrow), what are your thoughts on killing off your main characters?
The Three Secret Cities Page 31