The Three Secret Cities Page 3

  ‘The Word of Thoth,’ Jack said. The indecipherable ancient language that only the Oracle of Siwa—Lily and her twin, Alexander—could read.

  ‘This papyrus belongs to the King of Land. It is held in a humidity-controlled vault in the Hall of Royal Records in England.

  ‘I was privileged to see it during a dinner held there thirty years ago by a previous Land King and attended by the other three kings. This papyrus has been passed down from Land King to Land King for over three thousand years. It is known as the Zeus Papyrus since it was written at Zeus’s personal command by the Oracle at the time of Hercules’s famous victory.’

  ‘Do you want Lily to translate it?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘I don’t need her to,’ Hades said, flicking to the next photo. ‘Lily’s grandfather, a previous Oracle, already did that.’

  This next photo showed a sheet of paper with handwritten text on it in English:

  When mighty Hercules won the Games for me, my prize was an army, an indomitable force of men of bronze, to guard me on my sacred mission to the Three Secret Cities.

  I also received the Mysteries: wondrous visions seared into my mind as I stood inside the obelisk, including two odes regarding the two trials to be overcome.

  THE TRIAL OF THE CITIES

  No oceans.

  No clouds.

  No rivers.

  No rain.

  The world a wasteland

  of misery and pain.

  THE TRIAL OF THE MOUNTAINS

  Five iron mountains. Five bladed keys. Five doors, forever locked.

  But mark you, only those who survive the Fall,

  May enter the supreme labyrinth

  And look upon the face of the Omega.

  The Mysteries guided me through the first trial. That trial required me to take the Three Immortal Weapons to the Three Secret Cities, empower the weapons at them, and, thus empowered, perform the sacred ritual with the weapons at the Altar of the Cosmos before the next rising of Sagittarius over the Sun.

  Let all who follow in my footsteps know: the journey to the Three Secret Cities begins at the end.

  The second trial only begins once the first is completed—

  ‘That’s where the papyrus is torn, cut off,’ Hades said.

  ‘Take the Three Immortal Weapons . . .’ Lily said.

  ‘. . . to the Three Secret Cities . . .’ Zoe said.

  ‘. . . before the next rising of Sagittarius over the Sun . . .’ Alby said thoughtfully. He spun and started typing on his computer.

  ‘The journey begins at the end . . .’ Jack said.

  ‘I know a little about the Three Immortal Weapons,’ Hades said. ‘But not so much about the cities and nothing about the celestial event mentioned in the papyrus.’

  Jack turned. ‘Alby? The celestial event?’

  Alby looked up from his computer. ‘I have a couple of ideas. Let me do some searching.’

  Jack said to the others, ‘I heard about the Three Secret Cities during the Games. Orlando’s chief advisor from the Church, Cardinal Mendoza, mentioned them to me: Thule, Atlas and Ra.’

  ‘The fabled cities of Thule, Atlas and Ra,’ Hades said. ‘Their locations are three of antiquity’s greatest secrets.’

  ‘But Mendoza didn’t say anything about three weapons, let alone immortal ones,’ Jack said. ‘What are they?’

  ‘They are, quite simply, the three most famous weapons in history,’ Hades said. ‘The Sword of the Rock, the Trident of the Sealord and the Helmet of Hades.

  ‘They were sometimes called the Three Weapons of the Kings, since they have always been owned by three of the four legendary kings. The fourth kingdom, the Kingdom of Sky, being more spiritual than its brother realms, takes pride in not being hostile, so its military item is a shield. I don’t know the locations of the first two weapons, but given that I was until recently the King of the Underworld, I do know where the Helmet of Hades resides.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In a vault in my apartment in New York,’ Hades said. ‘It is my helmet, after all. I also keep one artefact related to the Mysteries in that same vault, a stone tablet believed to be part of the altar mentioned in the Zeus Papyrus: the Altar of the Cosmos.

  ‘But Geoffrey cannot access these two items: that vault is biometrically sealed. Only I can open it. If you want to save the world, Captain, you have to come with me to New York and open that vault right now.’

  Jack stared at Hades for a long moment.

  Then, despite his exhaustion and his wounds, he stood. ‘Well, what are we waiting for? Everybody, grab your stuff. We’re wheels-up in thirty minutes.’

  Things had moved quickly from there.

  Lily and Alby grabbed some clothes and computers and dashed into the Sky Warrior.

  Sky Monster fuelled up the plane.

  Zoe threw some rugged clothes and weapons into a suitcase: guns, ammo and a hockey helmet.

  She said to Jack, ‘I’m not gonna be on the other side of the world when everything goes down this time.’

  Mae shoved past Jack and Hades and started grabbing books from Jack’s office bookshelf: textbooks, scrolls, parchments.

  ‘I gather you’re coming along, too, Mum,’ Jack said.

  ‘Bet your ass I’m coming,’ Mae Merriweather said. She jerked her chin at Hades. ‘I’ve been studying these kingdoms my whole life. Not only do I want to see his artefacts, I want to keep learning everything I can about the four kingdoms from one of their kings.’

  Twenty minutes later, everyone was ready and on board the Sky Warrior.

  Only one member of the group remained behind: E-147. He needed to rest the foot he had broken during the Games. He would remain at the farm to mind the dogs.

  ‘And remember,’ Jack said to him, ‘no eating the dogs.’

  E-147 had nodded obediently as he’d patted Roxy.

  The Sky Warrior lifted off.

  After a short time, Sky Monster switched it over to autopilot and joined the others in the main cabin.

  He sat down as Hades checked his voicemail service again, to see if his butler in New York had left him any further updates or, more importantly, warnings.

  There were three messages on the system this time.

  Hades played them on speaker so Jack could hear.

  The first was from his butler, Geoffrey: ‘Sir, all is well in the apartment, for now.’

  ‘Can you trust him?’ Jack said.

  Hades nodded. ‘With my life.’

  He keyed the second message . . .

  . . . and out of the speaker came a voice that, by the look on his face, Hades clearly had not expected to hear, that of Minotus, the King of the Minotaurs at the Underworld in India.

  He was shouting desperately.

  ‘My Lord! It is Minotus! After the Games ended, one of the silver coffins in the hanging tower opened!’

  A gunshot rang out behind him, loud and sharp.

  ‘A . . . a thing . . . emerged from it: a man made of armour, impenetrable bronze armour. He has killed fifty of my minotaurs so far and we are trying to contain him! Help us! Please!’

  The call cut off abruptly, crashing to static.

  Hades grabbed another phone and tried calling Minotus immediately, but the line was dead. It didn’t even ring.

  Hades swallowed. ‘Good Lord . . .’

  Jack eyed him closely. ‘Any idea what’s in those coffins, Anthony?’

  Hades nodded. ‘Later.’

  ‘Jesus, Jack,’ Sky Monster breathed. ‘There were hundreds of those coffins there.’

  Of all the members of Jack’s team, only Sky Monster had been with him through the entirety of the Great Games. It had been an illuminating and tough experience for him, especially given that he was a touch overweight and more used to waiting in the plane r
eading luxury jet and yacht magazines while Jack ran around in dangerous places.

  Notably, Sky Monster had been at Jack’s side during the dramatic car race of the Fifth Challenge, when they had seen the tower hanging above the abyss, the one containing countless coffins in rectangular recesses.

  Jack said, ‘I’ll call Stretch and Pooh Bear. They’re back in Dubai, so they’re pretty close to the Underworld in India. I’ll send them there while we go to New York.’

  And then Hades played the third message.

  A slow measured voice came from the speaker.

  When it did, Hades visibly stiffened, his eyes widening with unconcealed fear.

  ‘Lord Hades,’ the deep voice said, ‘this is Yago, the Governor of the Royal Prison. You have been charged with treason against the four thrones. A valid royal warrant has been issued for your arrest. Once apprehended, you are to be conveyed to the prison at Erebus and imprisoned there for the rest of your natural life.’

  There was a pregnant pause before the voice added: ‘I’m coming for you, brother dearest.’

  ‘All right,’ Jack said as they sat in a circle in the Sky Warrior’s main cabin almost twenty-one hours later.

  They had flown almost halfway around the world and were now only an hour out of New York.

  He looked at Hades. ‘I want to know three things: first, everything you can tell me about the Three Immortal Weapons—in particular, this helmet in your New York apartment; second, what’s going on at the Underworld; and third, why that prison-governor-Slave-King guy called you “brother dearest”?’

  Hades bowed his head, nodding.

  ‘The three weapons have wended their way through tales and folklore for centuries. The Greek myths say that they were forged by Cyclops—the master blacksmith and weapon maker—for the three greatest gods of his age, the brother-kings Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. But according to my history books, the three weapons pre-date those men.

  ‘The first weapon is the Sword of the Rock, the blade of the Land King, an ancient sabre that has been wielded by many great Land Kings throughout the ages: from Zeus to the pharaoh Rameses II to Jesus the Nazarene to the British king known as Arthur. It has had many names over the centuries—Calibor, Caliburn, the Burning Blade, the Sword of the Rock, the Sword in the Stone, the Sabre of Fire—but the name that most know it by is Excalibur.’

  ‘Oh, my . . .’ Mae whispered.

  ‘Is its location known?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘It is. The Sword resides in the same place it has lain for the last 1,200 years, the Tomb of Arthur in the crypt of the castle of Avalon,’ Hades said. ‘The ancestral home of the Land King.’

  ‘And the second weapon?’ Jack asked.

  ‘The Trident of the Sealord,’ Hades said, ‘famously wielded by the man known to history as Poseidon. Strictly speaking, it is actually a triple-bladed mace, not a trident. Its location, however, is not known.’

  ‘And the helmet?’ Jack said.

  ‘The Helmet of Hades,’ Hades said, ‘my unique crown. It is a wondrous thing, forged from a strange other-worldly alloy. Like bronze but not. As strong as steel, but lighter. It is fashioned in the style of a Corinthian helmet, with a sharply pointed noseguard, cheekplates and a plume. In fact, there’s a good picture of it—and the Sword, in fact—on the coat of arms of the US Military Academy at West Point.’

  A quick Google search on Alby’s computer brought up the West Point coat of arms:

  Jack gazed at the helmet in the centre of the image and the sheathed sword behind it.

  Hades went on. ‘Like the Sword, over the aeons the Helmet of Hades has attained other names and mythical capabilities. It has been called the Helm of Darkness and the Helmet of Invisibility, but in my experience, it confers no such fantastical ability.’

  ‘And it’s in your vault in New York?’ Zoe said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, then,’ Jack said. ‘What about the Underworld? What’s going on there with the silver coffins?’

  Hades said, ‘Of course, as the King of the Underworld, I have long known about those coffins in the hanging tower. On my father’s death, when I inherited his kingdom, my father left me a long note about the kingdom and, especially, that tower. Regarding the silver coffins, he wrote, Do not even attempt to open them, for you will not be able to. They will unseal of their own accord when the time comes. And do not stand in the way of their occupants.’

  Hades looked away into the distance, remembering.

  ‘I followed my father’s advice and did not try to open those coffins. But I was curious. On a few occasions I tried to peer into them using modern techniques like X-ray and sonic resonance imaging.

  ‘I saw man-shaped figures in them, lying on their backs, completely still. Scans showed that they were both inanimate and inorganic. Statues. Statues made of a dense metal of some kind. In all the years that I was King of the Underworld, they lay there silent and unmoving, so I eventually assumed they were simply votive or decorative. I never knew they could come alive.’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘And the governor of the royal jail, this Slave King, he’s your brother?’

  ‘My younger brother, yes. Yago DeSaxe. In age, we are only four years apart. When we were growing up, we were close. We did everything together. But we were competitive, competitive at all things.

  ‘Jack, in the last week, a metaphorical curtain has been pulled aside for you, allowing you a glimpse of the true royal power system that runs the world. I have a feeling that as things progress, you’re going to see more of that system. As you have seen already, it is based on a strict order of heredity. Well, let me tell you, in royal households younger siblings can be deadly.

  ‘For it is the eldest son who inherits their father’s title, castles and lands. Younger siblings get little or sometimes nothing at all. To make matters worse, very often they find themselves having to obey without question someone who was once their childhood playmate.’

  ‘Like Iolanthe and Orlando,’ Lily said. ‘During the Games, Iolanthe wasn’t happy at all when he tried to sell her off into a strategic marriage.’

  Hades nodded. ‘It’s exactly like that. Keep an eye on Iolanthe, though. She’s a clever one. She is also the Keeper of the Royal Records for the Kingdom of Land, a modest position, to be sure, and one that many dismiss as a glorified librarian. But her twin libraries are very old and very comprehensive. I have a feeling that keepers of historic knowledge like Iolanthe will assume tremendous significance in the coming days.’

  Hades sighed.

  ‘Orlando and Iolanthe’s relationship is positively sweet compared to mine and Yago’s.

  ‘When I inherited my father’s throne in the Underworld, Yago stopped speaking to me, even though I gave him many properties and enormous amounts of money. After our competitive childhood, that wasn’t enough. Yago saw me only through a lens of resentment, bitterness and envy.

  ‘As our father aged and it became clear that I would inherit his crown and kingdom, Father arranged for Yago to be appointed Governor of the Royal Prison. The Prison at Erebus is remote, but Yago’s is an important position and in certain circumstances, a very powerful one.’

  ‘Like now,’ Zoe said.

  ‘Yes, like now,’ Hades said sadly. ‘For now my brother is the royal jailer who has orders to hunt me down. He will do it and he will do it with pleasure, because for many years Yago has believed himself to be not merely my equal but my superior, and with my kingdom stripped from me, now he is correct.’

  A long silence followed.

  Alby broke it.

  ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Lily and I have something to add.’

  They had been busily working on Alby’s computer for most of the flight.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘We’ve been looking up the celestial event mentioned in the papyrus: the “rising of Sagittar
ius over the Sun”. As everyone knows, Sagittarius is a constellation of stars and a sign of the Zodiac. What fewer people know is that, when you look at it, Sagittarius is the closest constellation to the galactic centre, the supermassive black hole at the core of our galaxy, the Milky Way.’

  ‘Astronomers call that supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* or Sagittarius A-star,’ Lily said. ‘As well as being the densest object in our galaxy, Sagittarius A-star is also a rich source of radio waves: a constant outflowing stream of them. Right now, owing to the time of year, Sagittarius A-star is hidden behind the sun.’

  ‘Right,’ Alby said, ‘and according to our calculations, in exactly seven days—on 1 December, starting at 8:05 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time—for approximately twelve minutes, Sagittarius A-star will rise from behind the sun and bombard the Earth with its stream of radio waves. Then it will retreat back behind the sun.

  ‘Don’t worry about the radio waves; they won’t hurt us. They’ll just pass right through the planet and our bodies. But, do you remember that runaway galaxy that was charging toward Earth before the Great Games? The Hydra Galaxy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jack said. It was hard to forget the image of the swastika-shaped spiral galaxy speeding toward Earth.

  ‘Do you remember how it carved a perfectly straight swathe through other galaxies on its way toward us? Like an empty path through the stars?’

  ‘I do,’ Jack said. ‘During the Games, Iolanthe even told me that the Hydra Galaxy was “clearing the way” for something, something connected to Isaac Newton’s writings about some kind of “return call”.’

  ‘She was absolutely right,’ Alby said. ‘Get this: that perfectly straight path will be positioned right behind Earth when Sagittarius peeks over the sun. The result: its radio waves will pass through our planet and then out along that path of empty space right to the source of the Hydra Galaxy, way out in the centre of the universe. The Hydra Galaxy was literally paving the way for this event.’

  ‘So the radio waves won’t hurt us themselves,’ Lily said. ‘But when they pass through the Earth, they will somehow confirm that the Trial of the Cities has been fulfilled?’