The Three Secret Cities

by Matthew Reilly

  Two figures stood before his slab, shadows in the darkness.

  One was Yago.

  ‘Here he is,’ he said.

  Jack squinted against the glare of Yago’s flashlight.

  The second figure didn’t move as he stared hard at Jack. He was about the same build as Yago, which was to say he was burly, tall and strong.

  When he spoke, he had a deep, gravelly voice.

  ‘So this is him,’ the man said. ‘The one who has caused so much trouble. The hero.’

  ‘You don’t have to talk about me in the third person,’ Jack said. ‘I’m awake.’

  The man smiled at that: an indulgent smile. ‘Given your reputation, Captain West, I thought you’d be . . . bigger.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I am but a humble lighthouse keeper,’ the man said. He stepped forward so that his face came into the light inches away from Jack’s.

  He had broad leonine features and everything about his face was big: large eyes, large nose, broad mouth. He also, Jack saw, had two ghostly grey eyes.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain,’ he said. ‘You may not know it, but by doing what you did at the Great Games, you upset the natural order of the royal world and created an opening for those of us who would like to institute a new kind of rule on this planet.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Jack asked again.

  The man with the pale grey eyes seemed to ponder that question.

  Then he smiled his wide leonine grin.

  ‘My name is Hardin Lancaster XII. I am the Lord and Keeper of the Watchtower of the City of Atlas, the Third of the Trismagi. Those who know me call me Sphinx.’

  He turned on his heel.

  ‘Intriguing as you are, Captain, I must go. I have an appointment to keep with the gentleman who paid for the capture of your adopted daughter and with the Knights of the Golden Eight.’

  Jack’s eyes sprang wide at the mention of Lily. The man with the pale eyes seemed to enjoy the reaction.

  ‘Enjoy the rest of your life, Jack West Jr, wretched as it will be. And know that this is what becomes of heroes.’

  Then the flashlight went out and the two visitors’ footsteps faded away into the darkness, and soon the cavern around Jack was silent once more.

  Airspace over the Atlantic Ocean

  Orlando’s private jet

  27 November, 1800 hours

  Orlando Compton-Jones lay with his hands clasped behind his head on the sumptuous king-sized bed in the master suite of his Gulfstream private jet, naked, watching as Chloe Carnarvon, also naked except for a pair of red high-heeled shoes, strode into the bathroom.

  They had just had hard passionate sex, up against the wall.

  Orlando liked sex with Chloe. Still in her twenties, she was young and fit. Her body was firm and pert in all the right places. And the way she moaned with delight at his moves, he wondered if young men knew how to pleasure a woman any more.

  And she was clever, too—

  His computer pinged. The secure line. The monarch’s line.

  He threw on a robe and clicked on the keyboard.

  On the screen, he saw the faces of two of the other kings, plus that of Yago, the royal jailer.

  Both of the other kings on the screen were visibly younger than Orlando was, colts in their thirties.

  Due to the chaos at the end of the Great Games, they were both new to their thrones.

  The Caldwell lad from America was the new Sea King. His father had been cut down in the riot at the conclusion of the Games.

  And the Xi fellow from China was the new King of the Sky. Xi’s Tibetan-born predecessor had been killed in the same melee; he had also died without an heir, his two sons having fought and died in the Great Games. His crown had passed, in accordance with his specific instructions, to Xi.

  There was no King of the Underworld on the call. After Hades had failed in his solemn duty to produce a winning king from the Games, he had been stripped of his crown, but evidently no new King of the Underworld had been named yet.

  ‘Your Majesties,’ Yago said formally. ‘I am pleased to report to you that, in accordance with the royal warrants issued for them, the fugitives Lord Hades and Captain Jack West Jr have been apprehended and taken into custody.’

  Orlando grinned. This was excellent news. He didn’t want West running around ruining his plans to get to the three cities.

  Yago said, ‘Both fugitives were taken to the prison at Erebus and I personally oversaw their entombment in the Wall of Misery. I was there until the stone fully hardened. I would like to extend my thanks to the Kings of Sea and Land who gave me full freedom of access in New York and London, and who also provided me with police and military resources. Thank you, sires.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ the King of the Sea said.

  ‘Of course,’ Orlando said.

  Yago said, ‘Then it is done. Order has been restored. Majesties, I remain your humble servant.’

  They all hung up.

  Orlando nodded with great satisfaction.

  Chloe came out of the bathroom, grabbed a flimsy satin gown off a hook and began to put it on over her lithe body.

  ‘Good news?’ she said.

  ‘Fantastic news,’ Orlando said. ‘West is imprisoned at Erebus. Our way is clear. When we land, you will continue on to Ra in South America, unhindered by West. And I will soon have the Mace and go to Atlas.’

  Chloe nodded slowly. ‘You will soon be the ruler of the world. As you deserve.’

  She gave him a look . . . and slipped the flimsy little gown off, revealing her spectacular naked body once again.

  ‘Would His Majesty like a reward?’ she said coyly, slipping into his bed again.

  ‘Indeed,’ Orlando said. ‘Oh, indeed.’

  London, England

  26–28 November

  Zoe burst into the flat and went straight to Iolanthe. Mae was still there, watching over the battered princess.

  ‘Where is the royal prison!’ Zoe demanded. ‘The Knights got Lily and then that Yago bastard turned up and grabbed Jack.’

  Mae’s face went pale. ‘The royal jailer captured Jack?’

  ‘Yes, and if we’re going to rescue Lily and Alby, we need to get Jack back and we need to do it now. Where is the royal prison, Iolanthe?’

  ‘Like I said before,’ Iolanthe said, ‘I don’t know. No-one knows the location of Erebus except for the royal jailer himself.’

  ‘You said it’s believed to be somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. Crete, Malta or even Troy,’ Zoe said desperately. ‘Can we try any of those? Any of them?’

  ‘We can try,’ Iolanthe said, giving Zoe a genuinely sympathetic grimace. ‘But I don’t want to give you false hope. Others have attempted this before and all of them failed.’

  Putting aside for the moment their task of finding the coffin of Sir Francis Drake—and in the case of Zoe and Iolanthe, their prior battles—the three women spent the next two days chasing up every lead they could find on the location of the Prison at Erebus: from reading the entire history of Crete, to examining ancient family lines whose members had been royal jailers, to dissecting the Great Siege of Malta by Ottoman forces in 1565.

  But, in the end, they found nothing.

  No mention of a location. Not a single trace of information.

  The location of the fabled prison at Erebus was indeed one of history’s most closely guarded secrets.

  After forty-eight hours of solid searching, Mae sighed. ‘Zoe, it’s hopeless. We can’t find him.’

  ‘We have to find him,’ Zoe said. ‘He’d do it for us.’

  Iolanthe shook her head. ‘If only it were that easy. Finding lost ancient places can be done when you have the information at hand and particular references to guide you, but not in this case. I’m sorry, Zoe, I really
am, but if Jack’s been taken to Erebus, he might as well have vanished from the face of the Earth.’

  ISCHIA ISLAND &

  ARAGON CASTLE

  The Castle of the Golden Eight

  Ischia Island, Amalfi Coast, Italy

  28 November, 1500 hours, local time

  It had taken the Knights of the Golden Eight two whole days to return with Lily from England to their castle on the west coast of Italy.

  It could have been done faster, but on this occasion, given the value of their prize, the Knights opted for stealth over speed. Travelling by submarine was slower, but it made discovery exceedingly difficult.

  Their initial escape from London, for instance, had been accomplished by travelling almost the entire length of the Thames underwater.

  They had used an eight-man propeller-driven sled used by the British SAS and US Navy SEALs known as a wet combat submersible. The Knights had ridden on the sled in their scuba gear, clipped to it, gripping Lily in their midst, also in a full-face mask and also clipped on. Built by Lockheed Martin at a cost of about $80 million, the wet combat submersible was lean, fast, state-of-the-art and very, very quiet.

  At the mouth of the Thames, they had linked up with a Russian-made Akula-class fast-attack submarine waiting in the Channel. After the sled had attached itself to the sub and the Knights had boarded it with Lily, the Akula had begun the slow journey back to Italy.

  Two days later, on 28 November, in the middle of a gloriously sunny afternoon, it arrived off the western coast of Italy just south of the industrial port of Naples, cruising silently beneath the many supertankers and cargo ships that plied their trade at the port. The mighty bulk of Mount Vesuvius loomed in the distance, towering over everything.

  The sub remained underwater as it came to a high island on which stood Aragon Castle, the home of the Golden Eight.

  The castle is truly a wonder of the world: built in 474 B.C.E., it is an imposing fortress whose ramparts flow downward over six uneven levels from the island’s high northern end to its lower southern end.

  On every side where the towering fortified island meets the sea, its rocky walls have been shaped so that they are almost vertical and unscaleable. Ships cannot land on the island. An attacking force cannot get a foothold anywhere on it.

  In medieval times, the island-fortress was unassailable. In the 21st century, despite the availability of air attack, it is still practically unconquerable, thanks to several concealed anti-aircraft emplacements.

  The current colossal fortress that sits astride the island was built in 1441, but it is known as the nuovo castello, the new castle.

  Over the centuries, castle upon castle has been built and rebuilt, new on top of old, but the only one that mattered to the Knights was the ‘old castle’, the most ancient one of them all, buried deep within the rock of the fortified island.

  The Akula-class submarine entered the island via a seagate built into its northern tip: a giant rust-covered metal portcullis that came down to the water’s surface but not below it, allowing the sub to enter the underground dock unseen.

  To the world at large, the seagate was a decrepit relic: its rusted iron bars filled in with centuries of dirt and grime, its opening mechanism long broken.

  This was not true.

  The seagate worked just fine. It was just that the Knights only operated it late at night when no-one was around to see. Today, in broad daylight, they just cruised silently under it into the dock that lay behind.

  Lily emerged from the submarine to find herself standing in a narrow superhigh stone cavern. Floodlights mounted on the walls lit the vast space.

  The five Knights who had captured her—Jack had killed two others, while an eighth and final Knight had been in New Zealand murdering Sky Monster’s parents—were met by eight younger men in combat fatigues.

  ‘Squires!’ Jaeger Eins called. ‘Tend to your masters. Those of you who have lost your masters, rejoice, you are now Knights.’

  The younger men—the squires, Lily guessed—hustled past her, leaping to assist the returning Knights.

  Jaeger Eins added, ‘Knights. Our employer has just arrived and is waiting for us upstairs.’ He turned to Lily. ‘And he is so very keen to see you again.’

  Again? Lily thought.

  A squire came up to Jaeger Eins.

  ‘Sir!’ He stood to attention.

  ‘Speak, Squire Sechs,’ Eins said.

  ‘Jaeger Sechs arrived back from New Zealand two hours ago. He is upstairs in his quarters. He said to tell you that he quite enjoyed killing the old couple in Wellington.’

  Jaeger Eins smiled knowingly. ‘That is Sechs.’

  ‘He also said to inform you that he has the extra package for the Lord of Atlas.’

  Jaeger Eins nodded. ‘I shall tell the good Lord it has been acquired. Thank you, Squire Sechs.’

  Listening to them speak, Lily felt ill. The man who had killed Sky Monster’s parents had enjoyed it.

  She also noted their naming system. It was simple German.

  Jaeger Eins translated as Hunter One.

  Jaeger Sechs: Hunter Six.

  ‘This way, please.’ Jaeger Eins ushered her off the Akula.

  Lily stepped onto a stone dock and took in the space.

  The combat submersible was still mounted on the submarine’s back. Next to the big Akula, also tied up to the dock, was another enormous vehicle: the massive Hercules seaplane Lily had fled from in Venice.

  The Hercules’s giant wings were folded back on hinges, a feature that had allowed it to fit through the seagate.

  Other smaller vehicles were parked on adjacent docks: a Humvee, a jeep and a Mosquito helicopter.

  A skyscraper-sized slab of rock stretched upward from the dock, disappearing into darkness high above the watery floor of the cavern.

  The slab was absolutely huge: slick, rectangular and about three hundred feet tall.

  An old switch-backing staircase scaled the perfectly sheer flank of the rock tower, but the stairs clearly hadn’t been used in some time. A modern yellow gantry elevator like the kind found on a construction site had been bolted to the face of the rock tower, and it was into this that Lily was shoved by her captors.

  The gantry elevator rose up the side of the rock tower, arriving at its summit.

  The top of the tower was bare, polished to a sheen and rail-less at its frightening edges. The submarine dock lay far below it: three hundred feet straight down.

  As Lily stepped off the elevator, surrounded by Knights, she beheld a large octagonal table mounted on an octagonal stage that sat atop a set of eight stairs.

  A wide viewing balcony cut into the northern wall offered a panoramic view of Naples and Vesuvius, both gorgeous in the afternoon sun.

  Two small medieval cages hung suspended from a T-shaped wooden frame near the octagonal table, beside the vertiginous drop. One was empty, the other contained—

  ‘Alby!’ Lily cried.

  She tried to run to him—confined within the tight little cage—but the two Knights on either side of her held her back.

  ‘Now, now,’ Jaeger Eins said. ‘You were not brought here to be reunited with him. No . . .’

  Eins nodded at a platform on the other side of the chasm.

  Two men stood on it, waiting patiently.

  ‘. . . you were brought here to be reunited with them.’

  Lily gazed across the chasm at the two men on the platform.

  The taller of the two was a man she had not met before: he was perhaps fifty, with a broad lion-like face and pale grey eyes.

  The second man wore a translucent plastic medical mask over the lower right quarter of his face. Above the mask, his eyes blazed with hate and fury.

  He was younger than the first man, and despite the mask on his face, Lily recognised him instantly.
/>
  She had most certainly met him before.

  It was Dion DeSaxe.

  Lily’s mind raced.

  The last time she had seen Dion was during the chaos at the end of the Great Games.

  Dion had ambushed her, Jack and Scarecrow on the slopes of Hades’s mountain-palace and aimed a pistol at Jack—only to be shot from behind, through the head, by Alby, who had appeared at the last moment from the other side of the mountain path.

  The round had exited through Dion’s face and Dion had fallen. Lily had assumed he was dead, and in the rush to flee the mountain, she certainly hadn’t bothered to check.

  ‘The bullet went through my cheek, Lily,’ Dion said from across the chasm, as if guessing her thoughts. His voice was slurred. The bullet must have sheared off part of his upper palate.

  Dion—once so handsome and rich, and full of himself for being both—was now the very thing he scorned the most: ugly and disfigured, with a mouth that couldn’t speak properly.

  ‘The bullet fired by him,’ Dion pointed at Alby, trapped in the hanging cage. ‘Your father ruined the Games and he’—he jabbed an accusing figure at Alby again—‘ruined my face! You didn’t think I would let these outrages go unavenged, did you?’

  ‘Dion, I—’

  ‘Soon you will call me by another name, you little bitch,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, I will dial in to a conference call with the other three kings. And as the true and confirmed heir of the disgraced Lord Hades, I will be given my father’s crown, title and kingdom. Then you will address me as Your Majesty.’

  Dion, crowns, kings . . .

  Lily’s brain was still catching up.

  So it had been Dion who had paid the Knights of the Golden Eight to kill Jack. But he’d wanted her and Alby alive. And now he would be a king. It all made her skin crawl.

  But she wasn’t going to let it show.

  She jerked her chin at the older man beside Dion.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  The man smiled, his eerie grey eyes glittering.