On the balcony, the younger members of the royal crowd looked at each other and guffawed. What was this?
Alone among them, Lily smiled.
Beside her, Iolanthe whispered, ‘Oh, Jack, well done. Well done.’
It was then that Lily noticed that the older members of the royal crowd had begun to do something.
They had started nodding.
Hades’s eyes were locked on Jack’s.
‘You,’ he said in his deep baritone, ‘are a worthy champion of the Great Games. Like Hercules before you, you realised that this final challenge is not one of physical strength, but one of humility: the humility of a hero to seek permission, even after he has won so many battles with strength and violence. The humility of a man who could rightfully think that he owes nothing to anyone.’
Hades extended his hand. ‘You are a noble man indeed, fifth warrior. Having respectfully asked my permission, you may bring my dog to me and he will offer no resistance.’
On the stage, Cerberus dropped his weapons instantly and walked over to Jack, essentially giving himself to him.
Doors were flung open, and the way was made clear for Jack to leave the stage, walk across a bridge and through some tunnels and stairways, until he arrived at the royal balcony and stood before Hades’s throne with the huge figure of Cerberus by his side.
Jack removed the final Golden Sphere from Cerberus’s chest armour and handed it to Hades. Hades then placed it in the final bowl-shaped slot on his armrest.
‘My royal brethren,’ he said, ‘a champion has proven us all worthy! The final four spheres are now ready to be placed in the major temple atop my mountain. Let us repair to the summit and perform the final ceremony.’
He turned to face Jack. ‘Congratulations, Captain West. You just won the Great Games of the Hydra.’
The Ceremony in the Major Temple
Things moved quickly from there.
The royal crowd left the Observatory and ascended in groups in the gantry elevator to the summit of the mountain.
On the ride up, Jack stood with Lily, Iolanthe and his very proud sponsor-king, Orlando.
All the way up, Orlando was swamped by other royals. They pumped his hand and showered him with congratulations for winning the Games.
‘Good show, Orlando!’
‘Splendid stuff, Your Majesty.’
It was as if Orlando himself had survived the rising water trap, the wall-maze, the wild car race and several encounters of single combat.
Someone said, ‘Stroke of genius, Orlando, picking the fifth warrior to represent you. It looked unorthodox at first, I must say, but what a fine choice of champion he turned out to be. You’re a smart, smart man.’
Jack sensed Iolanthe stiffen, grating at the compliment to her brother and not her. After all, she had been the one to suggest kidnapping Jack to fight for their kingdom.
Jack surreptitiously checked his watch. It had been forty-five minutes. There was still a chance.
His elevator arrived at the wondrous double-levelled structure at the peak of the mountain.
It was fully night now.
The sky was clear and the stars were out. The dead-flat plain of the Indian desert stretched away in every direction, lit by starlight. To the west, way off in the distance, the waters of the Arabian Sea shimmered.
The camouflage netting encasing Hades’s kingdom stretched down from the mountaintop like an enormous tent.
Only the two temples protruded above it.
As Jack strode out of the elevator beside Orlando, Hades’s heir, Dion rushed up to them.
Dion seized Orlando’s hand and shook it vigorously. ‘Your Majesty, my friend, I’m so pleased for you, so pleased. Congratulations!’
‘Thank you, Dion,’ Orlando said.
Dion then turned to Jack and clutched his hand.
‘And my sincere congratulations to you, too, champion.’
But as Orlando and the others moved on, Dion maintained his grip on Jack’s hand and pulled him close.
‘You killed my brother, you fuck. Once this final ceremony is over and our guests have departed, I will have you brought to my favourite dungeon where I will gut you and strangle you with your own intestines in front of your pretty daughter. Then I shall marry her and, I promise you, make her life a living nightmare.’
Dion dropped Jack’s hand like a rock star dropping a microphone and strode off.
Jack was left standing there, staring after the prince. After all he’d been through, all he’d overcome, all he’d survived, it still wasn’t over.
Hades led the crowd of royals to the higher of the two temples, the major temple.
Four minotaur servants walked behind him, reverently carrying the final four Golden Spheres. They glowed ominously.
The colossal round obelisk soared into the sky from the centre of the upper temple.
Cut into its base was a man-sized recess carved in the shape of the ancient Egyptian symbol ankh.
With its T-shaped body and round ‘head’, ankh was sometimes called the Coptic cross. Now, as he saw this ankh-shaped recess up close, Jack saw how similar it was to the Christian crucifix. If a man stood inside this recess and stretched his arms out, he would look just like Jesus Christ on the cross.
Suddenly, something occurred to Jack.
He turned to Iolanthe. ‘The first ceremony caused this antenna to emerge from within the mountain. What happens this time? Your brother said something before about some mysteries being revealed to the winning king.’
Iolanthe said, ‘As the winning king, my brother, Orlando, will stand inside that recess in the obelisk while Hades sets the four Golden Spheres in place around him. Once the spheres are set in place, the antenna will send its signal out to the Hydra Galaxy and the galaxy will alter its course. The Earth will be saved.’
‘And Orlando? What happens to him inside the recess?’
‘That recess is the most holy place in this entire kingdom,’ Iolanthe said. ‘Arguably, it’s the most important place on Earth right now. This ceremony is the third in a series of five trials the Earth must overcome in order to save the universe.
‘Re-erecting the Capstone of the Great Pyramid was the first, rebuilding the Machine was the second. This ceremony is more important than those, because it involves the acquisition of knowledge required to survive the remaining two trials.
‘For the man who stands inside that recess at the moment the antenna sends out its signal will be imbued with the “Mysteries”, vital sacred knowledge that is required to guide the Earth through the final two ancient trials.
‘Because his champion—you—won the Games, that man will be my brother. This will make Orlando all-powerful, the king of kings, the governor of the world for the duration of the trials.
‘The last king of kings was the one who sponsored Hercules himself sometime around 1,250 B.C. That, of course, was Zeus, who became known to history as the “king of the gods”.
‘But Zeus only repelled the Hydra Galaxy during one of its preliminary passes. He did not live through an Omega Event. When he died, the knowledge of the Mysteries died with him, unneeded and unused. This king of kings, however, will govern at a unique time in history. This is why every king so desperately wanted his champion to win these Games.’
Jack glanced from the ankh-shaped recess to Orlando standing beside Hades.
Then he asked his big question: ‘Hades was ready to let the Earth and the universe be destroyed if the spheres were not found and set in place. But what if the spheres are set in place and nobody is standing inside that recess during the ceremony? What happens then?’
Iolanthe gave Jack a look. ‘Nobody? I don’t think anyone’s ever contemplated that.’
‘What would happen?’
Iolanthe thought about that for a moment. ‘I suppose, in that case
, the Hydra Galaxy would be diverted but no-one would receive the Mysteries, and surviving the final two trials would be significantly harder. That vital ancient knowledge would have to be refound, much like you refound the Seven Ancient Wonders and the Six Sacred Stones.’
Jack stared at the ankh-shaped recess in the base of the massive antenna, thinking about what it entailed, the power it gave.
Iolanthe said, ‘Such a question is academic, Jack. There is nothing that can stop my odious brother now. You have won the Games for him and now he shall rule the world.’
And so the ceremony—an extremely ancient ceremony—began.
Like a priest of old, Hades stepped forward slowly and reverently and, one by one, he placed the Golden Spheres into receptacles cut into the antenna around the ankh-shaped recess.
One sphere went above the ‘head’.
Two were placed at the ends of the recess’s spread-eagled ‘arms’.
And one went below the ‘feet’.
When all four spheres were in place, their glowing intensified and the entire area around Jack was illuminated by their otherworldly light.
And then the great black obelisk came alive.
It began to thrum ominously with some kind of inner power.
Jack gazed up at it.
Thrummmmmm . . .
The noise came from deep within the mountain and it seemed to literally rise up through the body of the mighty antenna, gathering in intensity as it did so.
Hades called above the din: ‘The Age of Trials is upon us and with the revelation of the Mysteries to our chosen governor, we shall overcome those trials. Would the successful king please step forward and take his place inside the sacred tabernacle!’
Beaming with pride, Orlando strode forward. He stopped in front of the ankh-shaped recess and smiled at the royal crowd, gave them a wave, and then—
—an explosion rang out and the mountain shook and Orlando wobbled where he stood. Indeed, all the royals on the major temple were almost thrown off their feet.
Someone at the edge of the stage pointed downward, through the camouflage netting covering the crater: ‘Look! The minotaurs!’
Jack peered down that way and saw something that totally shocked him.
He saw the entire population of minotaurs—a swarming mass of figures, four thousand strong—come charging out of the gates of the minotaur kingdom, rushing toward the Grand Staircase at the base of the mountain-palace.
They looked like an army of ants pouring out of their subterranean city.
Jack squinted.
There was something at the head of the column of charging minotaurs.
A vehicle.
A black Typhoon truck.
And then, with a roar, a helicopter came shooting in low over the mountaintop temple, its rotors thumping, its side-guns blazing, strafing the flanks of the mountain.
The chopper’s bullets sheared through the cables anchoring the camouflage netting to the peak of the mountain and the netting dropped away, billowing like a parachute, exposing the entire spectacular crater around the mountain.
The chopper was an Alligator gunship, just like the one Jack had destroyed earlier, and as it thundered by, zooming close to the summit, Jack glimpsed three figures inside its cockpit.
At the controls was Sky Monster.
Sitting in the gunner’s seat beside him, squeezed together in the one seat, were two people Jack had never expected to see here.
Stretch and Pooh Bear.
And at the sight of his friends, Jack’s heart leapt.
Of course, Jack didn’t know what had happened out on the beach before.
As the second Alligator gunship had caught up with the fleeing Typhoon truck containing Alby and the others, it had swept into a deadly hover in front of it, forcing the truck to stop.
A voice over a loudspeaker had commanded, ‘Get out of the vehicle with your hands raised!’
Totally outgunned, Alby, Mother, Sky Monster, E-147 and Tomahawk had done as instructed and stepped out of the truck.
The heavily-armed chopper had been about to open fire on them with its side cannons when without warning a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into it from the other direction, from behind . . .
. . . fired by one of three figures racing down the beach from the north in an open-topped jeep: Stretch, Pooh Bear and Mae Merriweather.
Following their discovery in Karachi, they had arrived by seaplane at the vast beach in northwestern India an hour earlier. Having acquired a jeep in the nearest town, they had begun to sweep down the beach from the north, hoping to find some kind of entry to the Underworld.
What they found was the chopper about to murder their friends.
Rocked by the impact of the RPG, the chopper had dropped to the sand, landing heavily on its belly, and its pilot and gunner were quickly apprehended and bound.
‘Are we glad to see you,’ Sky Monster said, clasping hands with Pooh Bear and Stretch.
Some quick introductions were made to Scarecrow’s Marines—including a brief explanation of who and what E-147 was; and the dogs were delighted to see people they knew. Alby briefed Pooh, Stretch and Mae on what had happened over the previous two days. He also told them how Jack had sacrificed himself to get them away, and how Lily and the Marine named Scarecrow were still in the Underworld. Whether they—or Jack—were still alive or not, he didn’t know.
Pooh Bear squinted down the beach. ‘They’re still being held captive back there, you say? Is there any way we can bust them out?’
‘Not with a handful of people,’ Mother said. ‘We’d need an army to storm Hades’s mountain.’
‘That’s right,’ Alby said, stepping forward. ‘And I think I know where we can find one.’
They’d moved fast from there.
Sky Monster had repaired the Alligator gunship as best he could and somehow got it in the air again with Stretch and Pooh Bear—the freshest soldiers among the group—on board.
Mother took the wheel of the Typhoon assault truck and, with Alby, E-147, Mae, Astro and Tomahawk with her, she sped back down the beach, heading for the supply dock they had emerged from earlier.
Their target: the minotaur city and the Minotaur King.
Arriving in the minotaur city of Dis, they had been surrounded by half-men, but then the king saw Alby and recognised him as Jack’s friend.
Alby relayed to the king what Dion had told him in the dungeon earlier: about his and Zaitan’s plan to kill Hades immediately after the Games and rob the minotaurs of the freedom Hades had promised them.
The Minotaur King had been infuriated by that and the army of minotaurs was assembled and was soon rushing en masse behind the Typhoon toward the mountain-palace.
Mayhem reigned on the mountaintop temple.
People screamed and ran for cover.
The giant stone antenna kept thrumming, louder and louder, its deep hum gathering in intensity. The thrumming had been so loud before it had prevented anyone from hearing the incoming chopper. Now it was even louder.
Hades spun, not flinching at the gunfire and helicopter noise. He was just trying to figure out what was going on.
Beside him, Orlando looked from the banking chopper to the ankh-shaped recess in the obelisk in front of him. That recess, primed by the Golden Spheres and ready to bestow the Mysteries on the king who stood inside it, was his destiny.
Heedless of the noise and chaos around him, he lunged toward the recess—
—just as someone came flying at him from the side and crash-tackled him to the ground.
‘No!’ Orlando screamed as he and Jack went tumbling to the stone floor in front of the ankh-shaped hollow.
He clawed and scratched at Jack.
‘You fool!’ Orlando screamed. ‘I must be in the chamber when the antenna emits its signal!’
&n
bsp; Jack punched him hard in the face, breaking his nose, sending blood gushing over his mouth.
‘I don’t think you should rule the world, asshole,’ he said grimly.
‘But everyone will die!’
‘I’d rather the whole world died as free people than lived as your slaves.’
‘What makes you think you, an ordinary man, can speak for the entire world?’ Orlando spat as he clumsily drew a Glock pistol from inside his coat.
But Jack was on him in an instant and he swiped the pistol from Orlando’s hand. Jack looked at the King of Land and saw the sneer in his eyes, the breathtaking sense of entitlement.
‘Better me than you,’ he said simply and he punched Orlando in the face with the pistol, knocking him out, and tossed him like a rag doll away from the recess.
Right then, as its thrumming reached fever-pitch, the black stone antenna lit up like a lightning rod and with a colossal boom, fired a magnificent white-hot bolt of energy deep into the star-filled sky.
The boom was deafening.
The shockwave of the sound threw everyone on the temple to the ground. A couple of the royals who had raced to the minor temple and stood near the gantry elevator there were hurled off the edge of the mountaintop and sailed to their deaths.
Jack didn’t need to see it to know that this was the signal that would divert the incoming Hydra Galaxy. A moment of eerie silence followed as everyone slowly got to their feet.
The only noise was the thumping of the helicopter’s rotors as it banked around the mountaintop temple. Its cannons blazed with muzzle flashes as it opened fire on something further down the mountain.
The royal spectators looked either confused or horrified.
Jack’s eyes scanned their faces before suddenly his gaze landed on Vacheron.
The Master of Ceremonies was glaring right at Jack. He smiled nastily as he raised his hand, to reveal . . .
. . . the remote control in it.
He pressed the button on the remote and Jack’s blood froze.
Nothing happened.
The Four Legendary Kingdoms Page 28
