The Three Secret Cities

by Matthew Reilly

  He encountered no resistance, because the interior of the tank was empty.

  The only movement: dozens of blinking lights. The tank was indeed a drone, like the choppers. The Knights weren’t going to strand themselves in the middle of London.

  Jack found and yanked off the radio transponder connecting the tank to the Knights and suddenly the tank was his.

  He leapt into the gunner’s chair.

  Outside, Lily took a bounding stride up onto the railing of the bridge and launched herself off it, leaping high into the air above the river.

  She fell in a high arc, feet first, before she plunged into the Thames a few metres from the stricken bus.

  The bus was sinking, slowly but steadily.

  Its lower level was filling rapidly and the twenty or so people in it had moved to the upper level.

  Lily swam to its rear . . .

  . . . and saw some kind of gluggy industrial glue—Araldite maybe—plastered all over the edges of the bus’s rear emergency escape window, sealing it.

  Lily hauled herself out of the water and onto the roof of the bus. She came to a hatch there.

  The passengers on the bus were hammering on it from below, from the inside, but Lily could see why they couldn’t open it.

  A padlock.

  Someone had padlocked the hatch from the outside.

  Above her, the two drone choppers were still creating an almighty racket.

  They were still firing their guns—but not at her. They were firing at the police boats, keeping them away from the bus.

  And then—BOOOOM!—without warning, the bigger of the two choppers exploded, hit by . . .

  . . . a shot from the tank on the bridge!

  The great chopper rocked in the air and fell out of the sky, splashing down into the river a moment before a second shot from the tank hit the smaller one, the Black Hawk, and it too dropped from the sky.

  And suddenly Lily had the bus to herself.

  Two shots from her pistol took care of the padlock.

  Lily yanked open the hatch and before anyone could emerge from it, she leapt down into the sinking bus.

  Inside the bus, panic reigned.

  The entire lower level was underwater and the waves of the Thames lapped against the windows of the upper level.

  ‘Go!’ Lily yelled to the passengers. ‘Get out!’

  But it quickly became apparent that they wouldn’t all get out in time.

  She needed to find another way out.

  ‘Oh, to hell with it,’ she said, and she opened fire on all the windows of the bus’s upper level.

  One after the other they shattered and water began to pour into the bus through them.

  Her quick thinking had given the occupants many instant exits, and they all began diving out through the now open windows, leaping into the river outside as the bus sank lower and lower.

  Up on the bridge, Jack emerged from the tank and raced for the railing.

  He peered down at the river below him and saw the big red bus, now half-sunk, with only its upper level above the surface.

  People were leaping out of it, emerging from the shattered windows on both sides of the bus.

  ‘Good work, Lily,’ he said softly. ‘Good work.’

  But he didn’t see Lily—not on the sinking bus or among the crowd of people swimming away from it.

  He hurled himself over the railing, falling for fifty feet before plunging into the river.

  Zoe was watching all this helplessly from her position on the bank of the Thames.

  She stood.

  ‘Come on,’ she said to Julius, ‘we gotta go help—’

  It was only then that she noticed that Julius was gone.

  Inside the sinking bus, Lily now stood in waist-deep water, helping the last two passengers—an elderly couple—get to the smashed windows.

  ‘Lily!’ She heard Jack’s voice from the hatch. ‘You in there?’

  ‘I’m here!’ she called as she shoved the couple out through a window.

  The water was up to her stomach now.

  She took a final look around her. The bus was empty. The passengers were safe.

  It was time to leave.

  She turned toward the window just as something—someone—under the surface of the water gripped her firmly by the ankle and pulled her under.

  Seconds later, Jack dropped down into the interior of the sinking bus, landing in the chest-deep water.

  Only the whole bus was empty.

  Lily was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘What the hell—?’ he gasped.

  And then a strong hand gripped him by the ankle and yanked him underwater—

  —and suddenly Jack found himself struggling with a man in a scuba-diving suit, inside the still-sinking bus!

  Bubbles flew up all around them as they fought. The river water was a sickly green.

  Then the flashing blade of a knife came rushing at Jack, but he parried it away.

  At that moment, the entire bus went under and abruptly, beyond his attacker, through all the bubbles around them, he saw Lily being dragged out of the sinking bus by two more divers in scuba gear.

  They had jammed a full-face breathing mask over her head and were taking her away on a propeller-driven underwater sled.

  Jack screamed soundlessly through the water as Lily disappeared into the gloom.

  And in that instant—as he struggled against his own assassin—Jack saw the Knights’ plan.

  They’d got him hook, line and sinker.

  They’d known he and Lily would leap into the river to save the bus, and while their drones had been causing havoc up top, the Knights of the Golden Eight had been waiting here, underwater, in scuba gear, to take Lily and kill Jack.

  Anger surged through Jack.

  He rounded on the diver holding him, disarmed him and stabbed him through the throat.

  Then, his lungs burning, desperate for air, Jack swam out of the sinking bus for the surface.

  As he swam upward, his eyes searched the murky water for Lily. He saw the big red double-decker bus drifting down through the off-green haze, toward the riverbed.

  But no Lily.

  Then he broke the surface and sucked in air. Deep heaving gasps.

  The two police boats were picking up the passengers from the water near him.

  A third police boat swept in beside him and a SWAT officer reached over the gunwale and pulled Jack out of the water in one swift movement.

  ‘Please!’ Jack said, hurriedly finding his C-9 card in his pocket and holding it up for them. ‘Please! You gotta listen to me, they’ve taken my daughter and I—’

  ‘I have one of those cards, too, Captain,’ a tall hulking figure said as he stepped out from behind the SWAT cop.

  It was Yago.

  Hades’s brother and the royal jailer.

  ‘It’s a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. But trust me, it doesn’t apply to the jail you’re going to.’

  ‘Wait!’ Jack said quickly. ‘Yago, wait! Listen! Orlando is going to the first city and if he—’

  He never finished the sentence, for it was then that another SWAT officer hit Jack in the back of the head and he saw nothing but black.

  Iceland

  Thulean Plateau, North Atlantic Ocean

  400 miles northwest of Britain

  At the same time as London was roiling in chaos, Orlando Compton-Jones, the King of Land, was arriving in Iceland with Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza, Ms Chloe Carnarvon and a squad of twenty crack members of the Swiss Guard, the traditional mercenary guards of the Vatican.

  After leaving St Michael’s Mount and dispatching Sunny Malik to find Poseidon’s tomb and the Mace, Orlando and the others had come here.

  With its black-sand beaches, active volcanoes and f
orbidding mountain peaks, Iceland is one of the most isolated, rugged and spectacular places on Earth. It is assaulted by some of the most inhospitable weather found on the planet: bitterly cold winds; slashing rains; and temperatures that hover just above freezing. For three thousand years, Icelanders have been known as hardy folk.

  Its coasts are exceedingly difficult to access. Due to its violent seismic origins—Iceland sits not only at the junction of two tectonic plates but also atop a hotspot—Iceland’s mountains and volcanoes often plunge directly into the ocean. Thousand-foot-high cliffs are common.

  After spending a day in Reykjavik equipping themselves and their Swiss escorts—there was no knowing how long they might be inside the secret city of Thule, so they took food and water for three days—Orlando, Mendoza, Chloe and their troops helicoptered to the most distant corner of Iceland, its southeastern tip.

  No roads came here. It was accessible only by chopper, and then only on fine days. Communication was also limited: electromagnetic interference from the constant subterranean volcanism made satellite phones and radios all but useless.

  At length they came to a very remote and very high cliff gazing out over the raging waves of the Atlantic.

  Chiselled into the deep grey stone of the cliff just below its summit—and cut in such a way that only those who looked for it would find it—was a stone structure with three windows in it that looked like the cupola of lighthouse.

  If one looked closely at the entire cliff below this cupola, one could just discern the outline of a colossal lighthouse carved into the face of the cliff. The illusion was achieved because the stone of this lighthouse’s walls looked as if it had been melted.

  A lone man was waiting for them.

  An old man.

  The keeper of the City of Thule and this, its watchtower.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ he said as he bowed before Orlando. ‘I am Sir Bjorn, the First of the Three Watchmen, the Trismagi. Welcome to the Watchtower of the City of Thule.’

  Sir Bjorn guided Orlando, Mendoza and Chloe down a worn stone stairway inside the lighthouse.

  It ran in a tight spiral. He lit the way with a flashlight.

  Oddly, the further they descended, the fresher the air became. They felt it rushing against their faces.

  At length, they came to a stone chamber that opened onto the sea, barely ten feet above the raging waves. It was a small room, square in shape, with walls of stone; a shelf cut into the cliff, designed to look out over the furious sea.

  Waves crashed against the cliffs, sending spray into the chamber. Indeed, every surface of it was slick with wetness and stank of the ocean.

  ‘The watchtower’s entry sanctum is tidal,’ Sir Bjorn said. ‘It can only be accessed at low tide. The rest of the time, this entry cave is underwater.’

  At the back of the shelf-like room was a flight of broad stone stairs going up. Like the room, they were carved into the cliff.

  The four of them ascended the stairs.

  At the top of the short staircase—above the high-tide mark—they found themselves inside a small antechamber, in the centre of which stood a low altar made of a peculiar type of cloudy white stone. Delving into the rear wall of the chamber was a tunnel that stretched away into darkness.

  ‘Is that a diamond?’ Chloe gasped as she circled the altar.

  It did look like an uncut diamond: a waist-high slab of diamond with a single slot cut into its top.

  ‘You have the weapon?’ Bjorn asked solemnly.

  ‘I do,’ Orlando answered.

  He removed the fabled sword from its scabbard. Its silver blade glistened in the dull light.

  It had been known by many names over the millennia: the Sword of Khufu, the Blade of Christ, Caliburn, Excalibur, the Sword of the Rock, the Sword in the Stone.

  ‘Being the first of the three cities confers on Thule a singular role,’ Sir Bjorn said. ‘For the entry into Thule by one bearing the Sword marks the commencement of the First Trial. Please insert the weapon into the altar and the trial will be formally begun.’

  Orlando’s eyes gleamed as he stepped up to the white-diamond altar. Like the sword he held in his hand, the altar was beyond ancient.

  This is historic, Orlando thought. Historic on a level unheard of in any era of the world.

  He held the sword above the slot in the altar, noting that they matched in size.

  Cardinal Mendoza stared intently at his king, holding his breath in anticipation.

  Chloe gazed proudly at Orlando, her expression a mix of ambition, adoration and lust.

  Orlando plunged the sword into the white-stone altar and for a brief moment the altar blazed with other-worldly silver light, illuminating all of their faces.

  ‘Godspeed and good fortune to you all,’ Sir Bjorn said. ‘The Trial of the Cities has begun.’

  The Triple-Archways

  Instantly, a second blast of silver light blazed out from the far end of the tunnel, the inner end, from perhaps a kilometre away.

  It created a tiny dot of light at the end of the long tunnel.

  But the light also revealed something in the tunnel: a short way down it, three archways spanned its width. They looked like three open doorways side-by-side.

  Looking further down the tunnel, Orlando saw half-a-dozen more triple-archways marching down its length. One thing was clear: to reach the city, you had to pass through all of them.

  ‘What is this?’ Orlando asked.

  ‘The Great Avenue of the City,’ Sir Bjorn said. ‘It is approximately one kilometre long. Each of the three cities has such an avenue and each avenue is defended by seven triple-archways. Only one who knows their secret can pass through the arches. Those who don’t will die.’

  Orlando scowled. He looked at the triple-archway directly in front of him. ‘So one arch is safe, the other two are booby-trapped?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Orlando threw a look at Mendoza. ‘Please tell me you know how to choose the correct arch.’

  Mendoza nodded. ‘But of course, Your Majesty. Let me show you.’

  Mendoza pulled out a photo of the triangular tablet with the missing chunk and, using it in a certain way, he guided them safely through all seven triple-archways.

  Thus they passed through the Great Avenue of the City of Thule, trailed by their force of twenty Swiss Guardsmen.

  So absorbed were they all with getting past the archways, they never noticed that both the ceiling and the floor of the long tunnel were made of long grey rectangular paving stones, each about seven feet in length and a few feet across.

  Finally, after stepping safely through the last triple-archway, they emerged in a wider underground space, where the silver light was brighter.

  ‘Goodness,’ Chloe said.

  Mendoza’s jaw dropped.

  Orlando just smiled.

  THE CITY OF THULE

  They stood at the top of a gigantic funnel that delved into the Earth.

  A descending circular path wound around the edge of the funnel in a colossal spiral, crossing it at one point via a spectacular bridge with an open-sided cupola in its middle.

  Battlements and ramparts, temples and arches dotted the path until a many-levelled castle connected the curving road to the bridge.

  The source of the shining silver light came from deep within the giant abyss, way down at the bottom of the funnel, where its sloping walls went vertical.

  The ethereal glow came from within a stone door burrowed into the wall there, at the base of a vertical ladder. It was strong now but visibly dimming.

  ‘The Vault of Thule,’ Sir Bjorn said. ‘That is where you must take the Sword. That is where you will empower it.’

  Orlando spun, energised.

  ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Cardinal? Can you accomplish this task? With all the seismic interference, you w
on’t be able to radio for assistance.’

  ‘I have waited my whole life for this time, Your Majesty,’ Mendoza said. ‘We will succeed here for you.’

  Orlando nodded. ‘Excellent. Chloe, you will go to Ra with the Helmet. I shall see how Malik is progressing in his search for the Mace and once we have it, get it to Atlas.’

  And so Cardinal Mendoza stayed, and with his cohort of twenty Swiss Guards, began planning their descent into the secret city of Thule.

  Orlando and Chloe left, guided by Sir Bjorn.

  They retraced their steps through the kilometre-long tunnel, passing through the safe archways, and back up the spiral staircase inside the cliff.

  Sir Bjorn bid them farewell and soon they were in the air, heading back to Reykjavik.

  They never saw what happened inside the Great Avenue minutes after they departed.

  Never saw the polished rectangular paving stones in the floor and the ceiling fold open like doors or, rather, like the lids of the stone coffins that they really were: coffins exactly like the ones in the Underworld at the Great Bend.

  Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza and his Swiss military escorts didn’t see them open either.

  They stood at the top of the great funnel-shaped city of Thule, assessing it, figuring out how they would tackle its sweeping, descending path.

  And then they heard it.

  A deep chilling intonation from inside the Great Avenue behind them. It sounded like the chant of an unholy choir.

  Three hundred voices called as one, ‘Kushma alla?’

  ‘What was that?’ the soldier nearest to Mendoza said.

  Mendoza’s eyes went wide. ‘The guardians of this place.’

  The next thing they heard—again coming from the long tunnel—was the rhythmic stomping of three hundred pairs of heavy feet marching in time and getting louder.

  ‘Go!’ Mendoza yelled to his men. ‘Go!’

  At that same moment, in the other two cities at their secret locations elsewhere in the world, similar things happened.

  For both of those cities also contained hundreds of ancient coffins.

  And they too began to open.