The Four Legendary Kingdoms

by Matthew Reilly

Jack’s head didn’t explode.

  Vacheron frowned, hit the button on his remote repeatedly.

  Still nothing.

  And then Jack saw the Alligator assault helicopter sweep around beneath him, and he saw what it had been shooting at moments before:

  The antenna array on top of the second-highest castle on the mountain.

  ‘Sky Monster, you’ve been talking to Alby,’ Jack said aloud.

  The array was now torn to shreds, ripped apart by the chopper’s gunfire—which meant the radio link between Vacheron’s remote to the explosive in Jack’s neck was no longer operating.

  Vacheron saw this and with a final furious glare at Jack, discarded the useless remote and bolted for the gantry elevator, following the other royals.

  Jack hurried over to Lily and took her by the hand, ‘Come on, we gotta get out of here—’

  He cut himself off when he saw Hades. The Lord of the Underworld was staring blank-eyed and open-mouthed at the empty recess.

  ‘The Mysteries have not been revealed,’ he said in disbelief. ‘The sacred knowledge has not been received . . .’

  He locked eyes with Jack. ‘Do you know what you’ve done? Now the knowledge will have to be refound. Before the Omega Event. Before the end of the universe itself. Now, to overcome the two trials ahead, someone will have to find the three secret cities and somehow open their vaults. That is the only option remaining for us to obtain the required sacred knowledge and avert the Omega Event. Do you understand?’

  Jack nodded firmly. ‘The world can still survive, it just won’t be doing it under some all-powerful king. We find that sacred knowledge. You and me.’

  Hades frowned, genuinely confused. ‘You and me? You want my help?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jack said.

  Hades blinked uncomprehendingly. ‘You would accept me after all I put you through?’

  ‘You did your job. You held your Games without fear or favour,’ Jack said. ‘Of the four kings, you’re the only one who’s not in this for himself. You’re not a bad man, you’re not evil like Dion. He is bad; he is evil. Zaitan, too. They were planning to kill you right now.

  ‘But you’re smart. You’re stubborn and unyielding, sure, but you’re honourable. If I’m going to try and save the universe, I’ll need your knowledge. Come with me. There’s nothing for you here now, only a son who wants you dead. Help me.’

  The look on Hades’s face was one of profound confusion now. He was a man who was seeing everything he had ever stood for—ancient rituals, ironclad traditions, divine royal rule—come crashing down around him.

  ‘Our way would have saved the world . . .’ he said desperately.

  ‘But it was the wrong way,’ Jack said. ‘It’s better to lose everything the right way than win the wrong way.’

  Hades stared deep into Jack’s eyes . . .

  . . . and then he thrust out his hand.

  The two men shook.

  ‘We do it your way then,’ Hades said solemnly.

  Jack nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Jack,’ Iolanthe said. ‘The minotaurs are swarming up the mountain. When they get here, I don’t think they’re going to differentiate between good guys and bad guys. We have to go. We have to get down to the high castle with the helipad. The hangars are there with a few choppers in them.’

  Jack spun. Lily stood with Iolanthe, alongside Iolanthe’s royal doctor, Dr Barnard.

  Once again, Jack checked his watch. ‘Okay. But we have to make one stop first.’

  ‘What? Where?’ Iolanthe asked.

  ‘It’s something I have to do,’ Jack said as he snatched Barnard’s medical suitcase and took off at a run. ‘Follow me.’

  There was movement all over the mountain-palace.

  At its base, the teeming mass of minotaurs was rising up the lower slopes. They had reached the battlement level that ringed the waist of the mountain and now swarmed through the guest quarters there.

  The rising horde just surged upward, scaling stone staircases or using elevators. They charged through the Observatory and up a curving stone staircase that led to the second-highest of Hades’s high castles: the one that contained the Underworld’s helipad and chopper hangars.

  As the minotaurs rushed upward, the various royal guests fled downward toward the high castle with the helipad.

  A leading group of royals emerged from the gantry elevator at Hades’s own palace. As the elevator rose back up to the summit, this first group raced for a sweeping staircase that led down to the helipad castle.

  The group was led by three of the four kings: the groggy Orlando; Garrett Caldwell, the American Sea King; and Kenzo Depon, the Sky King.

  They arrived at the high castle with the helipad—the wide flat deck sprang out from the fortress that itself sprang out from the mountain.

  Inside one of the castle’s hangars were several beautiful twelve-seat Sikorsky S-76 luxury helicopters.

  The Sea King hit a button on the wall and an underfloor mechanism began to pull one of the wheeled choppers out of the hangar and onto the helipad . . .

  . . . just as the first minotaurs arrived, running at speed and roaring with fury.

  Truth be told, the minotaurs were searching for Hades’s treacherous sons, Dion and Zaitan, but in their panic—the classic panic of the well-to-do fleeing the angry masses—the personal bodyguards of the three kings did something very foolish.

  They opened fire on the advancing minotaurs.

  The first rank of minotaurs fell, shot dead.

  This only served to infuriate the ones behind them who plunged headlong into the group of royals and hacked them to pieces.

  As Orlando dived behind a chopper to avoid the melee, the King of the Sea and the King of the Sky, plus their retinues of bodyguards and courtiers, all perished in a hail of blows from the swarm of half-men.

  With those royals butchered, the frenzied mob of minotaurs charged up the stairs, desperate to find and stop the princes who wanted to murder their ancient lord.

  Up on the mountain’s summit, the gantry elevator returned and a second group of panicked royals piled into it.

  The elevator’s doors closed and it began its descent.

  Up on the top level, Jack turned to Hades. ‘Is there another way down?’

  ‘There are some old stone stairs on the other side,’ Hades said. ‘They were built in a time before elevators. They’re very steep but they switch back and forth all the way down the mountain.’

  ‘Show us,’ Jack said.

  Hades led them to the rear of the mountaintop. Sure enough, a set of stairs led down from there.

  Old was an understatement. Steep was, too.

  The rock-cut stairs descended at a frightening angle, and they were worn with age. The black stone from which they’d been cut actually shone, polished from thousands of years of use.

  Jack led the way, bounding down the steep stairway.

  No sooner had he started down the path than the gantry elevator on the other side of the mountaintop creaked loudly.

  Then it began to shake.

  The minotaurs had arrived at its base and, enraged by the gunshots down on the helipad and acting as a mob, they were wrenching the gantry elevator’s frame away from the brackets holding it against the mountain’s flank while the elevator car containing the second group of royals was still coming down it!

  With a pained metallic groan, the gantry came loose and, like a tree falling in a forest, the frame fell away from the side of the mountain, taking the elevator with it!

  Screams and shouts issued from the elevator as the whole combination of elevator and gantry frame toppled off the mountain and tumbled to the crater hundreds of feet below.

  Jack and his group hurried down the vertiginous rear stairway.

  They passed Hades’s personal castle. />
  ‘Keep going!’ Jack called.

  When they passed the castle containing the helicopter hangars, Iolanthe shouted, ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The Observatory,’ Jack said as the dome-shaped fortress came into view, with its ancient telescope chamber and its three combat stages.

  He led his group to the cells beneath the combat stages.

  Minotaur guards ran the other way, abandoning their posts, fleeing.

  Jack came to the cell he was looking for and flung open its door.

  He was hoping against hope that the body hadn’t been discarded yet . . .

  . . . it hadn’t.

  Jack checked his watch. It had been fifty-five minutes. That could be too long.

  ‘Jesus,’ he breathed, ‘I hope I’m not too late.’

  ‘Too late for what?’ Lily said as she entered the cell behind him and saw the body lying on the floor.

  It was the body of Shane Schofield.

  The Scarecrow.

  Jack slid to his knees beside Scarecrow’s body, drawing the defibrillator paddles from Dr Barnard’s medical case as he did so.

  Barnard said what everyone was thinking.

  ‘The man’s dead, Captain. His heart stopped beating an hour ago. There is no way you can resuscitate him now.’

  Jack ignored him.

  He was thinking of one thing.

  The thing that Scarecrow had shown him moments before they had fought, something in his hand.

  A syringe with a label on it that read: HYPOX-G4–62.

  Scarecrow had been silently telling Jack that he’d taken the hyperoxygenated blood additive. As Jack had realised, in addition to giving soldiers extra stamina in battle, Hypox could keep a man’s blood oxygenated for some time after his heart had stopped beating, so theoretically he could be resuscitated later.

  Scarecrow had let Jack kill him in the hope that he would return later and revive him. ‘See you on the other side,’ had been his exact words.

  Jack fired up the defibrillator paddles.

  Whack.

  Scarecrow’s body jolted.

  Jack zapped him again.

  Scarecrow jolted again.

  Whack!

  And suddenly Scarecrow lurched . . . and gagged . . . and coughed as he sucked air into his lungs.

  ‘Scarecrow!’ Jack slapped his face. ‘Can you hear me?’

  Another cough, then, ‘I hear you.’

  Scarecrow looked up, his eyes slowly focusing on Jack crouched over him.

  Jack smiled.

  ‘How long was I dead?’ Scarecrow asked.

  ‘Fifty-six minutes,’ Jack said.

  ‘Glad you didn’t wait any longer. Another few minutes and I’d be a vegetable. Thanks for coming back for me.’

  ‘It was the least I could do,’ Jack said. ‘How did you know it would work?’

  Scarecrow said, ‘I once fought against a renegade US Air Force General named Caesar Russell at a place called Area 7. He used Hypox to stay alive for a while after he was executed for treason. I figured it was worth a try . . . as long as you came back.’

  Jack lifted Scarecrow to his feet. As he did so, Scarecrow saw the odd group of people gathered in the cell behind Jack: Lily, Iolanthe, Dr Barnard and . . . Hades.

  ‘Look out!’ Scarecrow yelled, shoving Jack away from him, snatching the Glock pistol wedged in Jack’s belt and firing it over Jack’s shoulder.

  Jack heard the sonic sizzle of the bullet whizzing past his ear and he spun in horror at the idea that Scarecrow had just shot Hades . . .

  . . . only to see another person standing in the doorway behind Hades, gripping a pistol of his own aimed right at Jack.

  Vacheron.

  The Master of the Games just stood there, frozen in the firing position, a wet crimson patch expanding on his chest. Vacheron heaved for breath, as if willing himself to pull the trigger of his gun.

  Blam-blam-blam! Scarecrow unloaded three more rounds into him and Vacheron was hurled out of the doorway by the barrage.

  ‘Never liked that asshole,’ Scarecrow said, handing the gun back to Jack. ‘What did I miss?’

  Jack said, ‘I won the Games and saved the world . . . at least for now. My people came back in a chopper just in time and now the minotaurs are on a rampage and overwhelming the mountain.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Scarecrow nodded at Hades. ‘What about him? What’s he doing here?’

  ‘He’s with me now,’ Jack said. ‘Come on, the shit’s hit the fan and while it’s spraying everywhere, we’re gonna get out of this place.’

  Jack slung Scarecrow’s arm over his shoulder and together they raced out of the cell.

  It was a desperate run up to the helipad fortress.

  By now all the members of the minotaur army were climbing the mountain any way they could: up elevators, through internal stairs, and up the steep outer stairs that Jack’s group was using.

  After a few minutes of running, Jack and his little group came to a junction in the steep stairways: a junction marked by the ruins of a guardhouse.

  Three paths met at the ruins: Jack’s upward-leading stairway; the steep steps that he had come down earlier; and a flat path that led across to the helipad-fortress.

  The ancient guardhouse was actually strategically placed on a crag on the south face of the mountain. The crag jutted out slightly from the mount, high above a sheer drop, allowing its guards to see east and west, up and down.

  It was also seriously old.

  Its roof was long gone, so now all that was left of the structure was a stone floor with a low marble fence and a storehouse carved into the mountain. The missing roof’s pillars and the knee-high marble fenceposts were either broken or weathered with age.

  A huge marble statue of three mighty horses, rearing on their hind legs above three fallen men, stood in the centre of the circular ruins.

  With Scarecrow still draped over his shoulder, Jack saw the flat path leading westward to the helipad-fortress.

  ‘That way! We’re almost there—’ he said just as a figure emerged from the darkened storehouse embedded in the mountain’s wall with a pistol in his hand, aimed directly at Jack’s head.

  It was Dion.

  And he was furious.

  ‘You!’ Dion screamed at Jack. ‘You ruined everything! The Games! The ceremony! The Mysteries! This kingdom was to be mine! The world was to be mine! And now you have condemned us all to die!’

  Hades stepped forward. ‘Dionysius. What were you thinking? Why are you doing this?’

  Dion’s face screwed up in a rictus of hate and rage. ‘You grew weak, Father! The Lord of the Underworld should be feared throughout the world! The mere thought of him should make men tremble. After I killed you, I planned to rule in a way that would make that happen.’

  Dion turned his gaze on Lily. ‘I may not get to marry you and make your life a misery, so I’ll do the next best thing and kill your beloved father in front of your eyes. And then I’ll kill mine.’

  He reasserted his aim at Jack.

  There was nothing Jack could do. Dion was twelve feet away from him and he himself was weighed down by Scarecrow. He couldn’t even make a desperate lunge at the prince.

  Dion squeezed the trigger and a single gunshot rang out.

  Jack winced, waiting for the bullet to hit him, but nothing did.

  Instead, Dion’s face blasted outward in a gruesome fountain of blood, shot from behind. He buckled where he stood, his left cheek torn apart, his eyes wide with shock. His gun slipped from his fingers and he fell to his knees and then flat onto his face.

  As he dropped, he revealed a group of figures behind him, standing on the flat path leading to the helipad.

  It was a cohort of about twelve minotaurs. At their head was the Minotaur King, and beside him,
armed with rifles, were Mother, Astro and E-147. And beside them was a young man gripping a smoking pistol in the firing position.

  Alby.

  Alby hurried over to the fallen body of Dion and kicked his gun away.

  ‘Alby!’ Lily leapt into his arms and kissed him all over the face.

  Alby held her tight. ‘You okay? You’re not hurt?’

  ‘I’m good,’ Lily said.

  Alby looked over at Jack. ‘We came up in an elevator with some of the minotaurs. We went straight to the helipad, looking for you. But then Stretch saw you from the chopper a minute ago and radioed to tell us you were here. Sorry it took us so long.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Don’t ever apologise to me again, kid. You’re a deadset fucking legend.’

  Hades stepped over to the Minotaur King and took his hand.

  ‘Minotus, my friend. As you know, after the Games were done, I was going to give you this kingdom, for I would not need it anymore. I give it to you now. Do with it as you wish. Stay here, and I will ensure that no people come to this place—as far as the world knows, this is all my land. Or venture out into the world, if you desire. I have always appreciated your loyalty to me, but now you are free of any obligation. You may stay, you may go. It is up to you.’

  Minotus nodded to Alby. ‘This young man told us that your sons, Dionysius and Zaitan, were planning to kill you, seize your throne and keep us as wretched slaves. We had to act.’

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ Hades said. ‘Take this kingdom. Make it yours and guard it until it is next needed. But most of all, look after your people and live.’

  The two men embraced.

  As they came apart, Minotus beheld E-147. ‘Minotaur,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, my king.’ E-147 bowed his head reverently.

  ‘Over the course of these Games, you have acquired something that few obtain in their entire lives’—he nodded at Jack—‘a true and noble friend. If you desire it, leave this kingdom now and go with this new friend of yours.’

  E-147 looked from Minotus to Jack.

  Jack nodded. ‘If you want to come with us, you’re more than welcome, buddy.’