Six Sacred Stones

by Matthew Reilly

  No one, it seemed, dared to challenge this mountain of a man.

  Lily spotted Ono in the back of the crowd, saw him bow his head sadly. She also spied Diane Cassidy, and saw her turn away in horror, covering her mouth.

  Then Lily turned to Zoe—only to see that Zoe’s face was as white as a sheet.

  Lily frowned, confused.

  She spun again and this time saw that all the Neetha women in the crowd were pointing ather, looking her up and down and nodding approvingly.

  And then it hit her.

  This man wasn’t claiming Zoe.

  He was claiming her.

  Lily’s blood froze.

  The crowd was still silent. The chief’s eldest son eyed her lustfully, his mouth opening slightly to reveal foul yellow teeth.

  His wife? But I’m only twelve!her mind screamed.

  “I will fight you for her,” a voice said evenly, in English, invading Lily’s thoughts.

  She turned.

  To see Solomon standing up on his platform, tall, thin, and gangly, yet firm and noble in his stance.

  “I will resist your claim,” he said.

  The chief’s first son—Warano—turned slowly to face Solomon. Clearly, he had not expected any challengers. He assessed Solomon from head to toe before snorting derisively and shouting something loudly.

  Cassidy translated. “Warano says, ‘So be it. To the Fighting Stone!’”

  PLANKS were laid out and Warano and Solomon strode across them, out onto the Fighting Stone—the wide square platform at the edge of the central lake.

  This platform was lower than the prisoner slabs, barely a foot above the surface of the water. Several large crocodiles lay at its edges, ever watchful.

  The Neetha villagers swarmed to take their places on the steps flanking the Fighting Stone, to watch the bloodsport.

  Two swords were tossed onto the Fighting Stone.

  Lily watched in horror as Solomon picked up his blade—he held it all wrong, as though he had never swung a sword in anger in his life, which so far as Lily knew, was probably true.

  Warano, on the other hand, twirled his sword easily and fluidly in one hand: seasoned and experienced.

  Ono appeared beside Lily’s platform, spoke across the tenfoot gap. “This madness. Even if thin man beat Warano, he be sentenced to maze for killing royal son. Is your friend skilled fighter?”

  Lily’s eyes were filling with tears. “No.”

  “Then why does thin man challenge Warano for you?”

  Lily couldn’t answer. She just gazed out at Solomon, standing out on the Fighting Stone on her behalf.

  Zoe answered Ono’s question. “Where we come from, sometimes you stand up for your friends, even when you can’t win.”

  Ono frowned. “I see no sense in this.”

  At that moment, a great drum was struck and the obese chief of the Neetha assumed his place in a royal box overlooking the Fighting Stone and called, “Fight!”

  It would be the most horrific spectacle Lily had ever seen.

  Warano lunged at Solomon with a flurry of powerful blows, and Solomon—gentle Solomon, kind Solomon, who had bounced Lily on his knee as a baby—parried them as best he could, staggering back toward the edge of the Fighting Stone.

  But it was clear this was a total mismatch.

  Wideeyed and venomous, with five crashing blows, Warano disarmed Solomon and then without so much as a blink, ran him through, the bloody blade of his sword protruding from Solomon’s back.

  Lily gasped.

  Solomon dropped to his knees, skewered by the sword, and he looked over at Lily, locking eyes with her, uttering, “I am sorry, I tried,” a moment before Warano sliced his head from his body.

  Solomon’s corpse slumped to the ground, headless.

  The crowd roared.

  Tears flowed down Lily’s cheeks. Zoe clutched her to her chest, holding her tight. Wizard and Alby just stood on their slab, watching in abject horror.

  Warano raised his fists in triumph, his eyes insane, before casually using Solomon’s body to wipe the blood off his blade.

  Then he kicked the body off the Fighting Stone, leaving the crocs to fight over it.

  “Are there any other challengers!” he roared. “Does anyone dare oppose me now!”

  The crowd of natives cheered.

  Lily sobbed.

  But as she did so, in a distant corner of her mind, she heard a strange voice coming from Ono’s radio saying,“—picked up a residual heat signature about a half hour ago. Just found it. Looks like a downed Huey, UN markings. Near a strangelooking forest.

  Sending you my coordinates now, sir—”

  The cheering died down and suddenly there was silence around the Fighting Stone.

  Long silence.

  The only sound was the foul crunching of the crocs tearing Solomon’s body apart.

  “So there is no one then!” Warano shouted again, quickly translated by Cassidy.

  “Excellent! I shall take my new woman and enjoy her…!”

  But then someone spoke.

  “I challenge you.”

  This time it was Zoe.

  THE RESPONSE from the assembled Neetha said it all. They had never seen anything like this.

  Awoman challenging a royal son.

  They murmured animatedly, aghast.

  “Unless the chief’s son is too cowardly to do battle with a woman,” Zoe said.

  Sensing the moment, Diane Cassidy immediately translated Zoe’s words for the others and the crowd went into total apoplexy.

  Zoe shouted to Warano, adding the sweetener. “If he defeats me, this Warano can have two white wives.”

  When Cassidy translated this, Warano’s eyes lit up like lightbulbs. To own a white woman might have been the ultimate status symbol, but to owntwo…

  “Bring her to me!” he called. “After I beat her, I shall keep her, but as a master keeps a dog.”

  Zoe was released from her platform, and she strode down the long plank that gave entry to the Fighting Stone.

  Once on the Stone, the plank was withdrawn, and she faced off against the giant Warano.

  Wearing only a singlet, cargo pants, and boots, she wasn’t exactly big. But her lean muscular shoulders, glistening with sweat, contained a wiry strength.

  Standing before the Neetha chief’s number one son, the top of her blond head came level with his shoulders. The great black warrior loomed over her.

  He kicked Solomon’s sword across to her, saying something derisive in his own language.

  “Is that so?” Zoe picked up the sword. “But I don’t think you’ve ever met a woman like me before, asshole. Let’s dance.”

  With a roar, Warano lunged forward, swinging his sword in a crushing downward motion that Zoe parried away with some difficulty before sidestepping out of the way.

  Warano stumbled and turned, snorting like a bull.

  He engaged Zoe again, raining a flurry of blows down on her, only for Zoe to desperately deflect each one, her sword vibrating terribly with each thunderous hit.

  Warano was obviously stronger, and he seemed to gain confidence with every volley of blows he unleashed. Zoe was doing all she could to defend herself, so much so that she hadn’t even been able to attack once. This, it seemed to the assembled Neetha, would be easy.

  But as they continued to fight—as Zoe continued to parry all of Warano’s lunging blows—it soon became apparent that it wasn’t going to be so easy at all.

  Five minutes became ten, then twenty.

  As she watched the fight tensely, Lily could see Zoe just weathering the storm, blocking blows and then retreating and waiting for the next flurry.

  And gradually, Warano’s attacks became slower, more labored.

  He was sweating profusely, tiring.

  And Lily began to recall a movie she’d watched with Zoe once—a documentary about a boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Africa. Foreman had been bigger, stronger, and younger than A
li—but Ali had just weathered his punches for eight whole rounds, letting Foreman grow tired in the process, and then Ali had pounced—

  Zoe pounced.

  As Warano lunged wearily in another attack, quick as a flash, Zoe dodged out of the way and plunged her shortbladed sword into his fleshy throat, right through his Adam’s apple, all the way up to the hilt.

  The big man froze where he stood.

  The entire crowd gasped.

  The chief leaped to his feet.

  The warlock turned to his priests and nodded. Some priests dashed away.

  Warano wobbled unsteadily on the Fighting Stone—alive but incapable of movement, speechless on account of the sword lodged in his throat, his bulging eyes staring incredulously at her, at this woman—thiswoman! —who had somehow bested him.

  Zoe just stood in front of the paralyzed giant, looking him right in the eye.

  Then, slowly, she took his sword from his useless right hand and held it in front of his horrified eyes.

  She addressed the crowd: “That sword in his throat is for all the little girls this man has ‘married’ over the years.”

  Diane Cassidy translated in a quiet voice.

  The crowd watched in stunned silence.

  “And this is for the friend of mine he killed today,” Zoe said, grabbing the grip of the sword lodged in Warano’s throat and gruesomely pushing on it, driving him back toward the edge of the Fighting Stone, where he fell, landing on the very edge.

  Zoe then kicked his useless legs out over the rim, allowing Warano to watch in paralyzed terror as the nearest crocodile saw them. With a fearsome lunge, the croc launched itself out of the mud and brought its jaws down on Warano’s feet with a crunching sideways bite.

  A second croc joined in, and before he was dragged into the muddy pool, Warano got towatch as the two crocodiles ripped two of his limbs from his body, literally eating him alive.

  His blood washed across the Fighting Stone before the crocs took him under and the muddy waters were still once again.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Alby gasped, breaking the stunned silence that followed.

  The chief stood in his box, speechless with rage. His firstborn was dead, killed by this woman.

  But the warlock beside him still had his wits about him. He called out in his native tongue, shouting in a shrill voice.

  Diane Cassidy translated: “A member of the royal clan has been slain! All know the punishment for such an outrage! The murderer must face the maze.”

  ZOE’S CHALLENGE: THE MAZE

  PLANKS were thrown down onto the Fighting Stone and Zoe was suddenly surrounded by warriormonks. She dropped her sword and was immediately shoved at spear point off the Stone toward the templefortress, the only point of entry to the giant maze on the other side of the lake.

  The warlock stood beside Zoe at the gate to the templefortress.

  “This woman has taken royal blood!” he called. “Her sentence shall be as follows: she will be condemned to the maze, where she will be hunted by dogs. Should the gods in their eternal wisdom allow her to emerge from the other side alive and unscathed, then it is not for us to deny the great gods their will.”

  “Such an old conceit,” Wizard spat. “Since she can’t escape the maze, the gods will be assumed to have sanctioned her death. It’s like dunking a woman accused of witchcraft in a river and saying if she drowns, she’snot a witch. It’s a nowin situation for her and an allwin situation for the priest who claims a connection with the divine.”

  Standing at a discreet distance, Diane Cassidy said formally to Zoe, “The maze has two entrances, one to the north, another to the south. It also has many dead ends. Both entrances have separate routes that lead to the center. You will be thrown in at the northern end—a few minutes later, four warriormonks with hyenas will enter behind you.

  To live, you must navigate your way to the center of the maze and from there, successfully negotiate the southern half to the south entrance. That is the only way to survi—”

  The warlock barked something at Zoe. Cassidy translated: “The warlock asks if you have any final requests.”

  Zoe gazed out from the gate of the templefortress. She looked out at Lily and Wizard on their platforms, their eyes wide with horror, and at Alby as well—when suddenly she spotted something hanging from Alby’s neck.

  “As a matter of fact, I do have a request,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I would like one of my group to accompany me in the maze: the boy.”

  Wizard and Lily both blurted,“What?”

  Alby pointed at his own chest. “Me?”

  Diane Cassidy frowned with surprise, but relayed Zoe’s words to the warlock.

  The warlock glanced at the little figure of Alby and, apparently seeing no danger in him, nodded his assent.

  Alby was taken from his prison platform and led to the steps of the templefortress, where he joined Zoe.

  “Zoe…?”

  “Trust me, Alby,” was all she said as the gate to the templefortress rumbled open, lifted on chains.

  Just before the two of them were led inside it, Zoe called back to Lily: “Lily! Keep listening to your friend’s radio!”

  “Huh?” Lily said.

  But by then the great gate to the templefortress had rumbled ominously shut behind Zoe and Alby.

  Two mighty drawbridges were lowered into place and they crossed them, arriving at the edge of the vast circular maze, looking back at the village; at Lily and Wizard on their platforms; at the villagers on the amphitheaterlike seating around them; and at the sacred island with the Orb and the Second Pillar displayed on it.

  A snarling noise made them turn.

  Four warriormonks emerged from a cage dug into the wall nearby, holding four large spotted hyenas on leashes.

  The doglike animals heaved and strained—they seemed starved, just for occasions like this—and they barked and snapped, saliva spraying from their jaws.

  “Tell me again why you brought me along,” Alby whispered.

  “Because you can read maps better than I can.”

  “Because I can what?”

  “And because you have my digital camera around your neck,” Zoe said, looking at him meaningfully, “and my camera holds the secret to this maze.”

  "How?”

  Before Zoe could answer, they were brought to the northern extremity of the maze and the entrance there: a wide arch set into the outermost stone ring.

  The stonework of the wall itself was remarkable—a marblecolored rock without any visible joins or seams. Somehow the superhard igneous stone had been cut and smoothed into this incredible configuration, work that was far too advanced for a primitive African tribe.

  The warlock addressed the crowd across the lake, calling loudly: “Oh mighty Nepthys, dark lord of the sky, bringer of death and destruction, your humble servants commend this taker of royal blood and her companion to your maze. Do with them as you will!”

  With that, Zoe and Alby were thrust through the archway and into the maze, the ancient labyrinth from which no accused had ever emerged alive.

  THE MAZE OF THE NEETHA

  THE MAZE OF THE NEETHA

  A HEAVY DOOR boomed shut behind them and Zoe and Alby found themselves standing in a superlong opentopped whitewalled corridor that curved away in both directions.

  Looming above the maze’s tenfoothigh walls, rising out of its very center, was the spectacular stone staircase that led up into the volcano, into the priests’ inner sepulcher.

  Right now ten warriormonks stood on the staircase, guarding the inner sanctum in the unlikely event Zoe and Alby got to the center.

  They had three choices.

  Left, right or—through a yawning gap in the next circular wall—straight ahead.

  On the muddy floor in that gap, however, blocking the way, was the foul decaying skeleton of a very large crocodile that hadn’t quite made it out of the maze. Halfeaten, the skeleton still had rotting flesh on i
t.

  What on earth ate a crocodile?Alby thought.

  Then it hit him.

  Other crocodiles. There are other crocodiles in here…

  “Quickly, this way,” Zoe said, dragging Alby left. “Give me the camera.”

  Alby extracted the camera and gave it to her. As they ran, Zoe clicked through its stored photos, clicking back through their African adventure—shots of the Neetha’s carved tree forest, of Rwanda, then of Lake Nasser and Abu Simbel and…

  …the shots Zoe had taken at the First Vertex.

  Images of the immense suspended bronze pyramid leaped off the camera’s little screen, and then shots of thewalls in the Vertex’s massive pillared hall, including the picture of the golden plaque.

  “That one,” Zoe said, showing it to Alby. “That’s the one.”

  He looked at the photo as they hurried down the long, curved passageway:

  The photo showed two curious circular images intricately cut into a rockwall. Images of a maze.This maze. One image showed the maze empty, while the other showed two routes through it, one from the north, the other from the south, both ending at the center.

  Alby shook his head. With its ten concentric rings and the straight narrow staircase branching from its center out to the right, it certainlylooked like their maze…

  “That warlock and his priests probably have this exact carving somewhere,” Zoe said.

  “That’s how they alone know how to successfully navigate the maze.”

  “Zoe! Wait! Stop!” Alby shouted, halting suddenly.

  “What?”

  “According to this, we’ve gone the wrong way!”

  “Already?”

  Peering at the camera’s tiny screen, they checked the carving showing the route through the maze. They had gone immediately left, racing around the outermost circle of the maze—

  “We should have jumped over that crocodile carcass and taken the next circle,” Alby said.