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    The Six Sacred Stones
    The Six Sacred Stones
    The Six Sacred Stones
    Ebook573 pages7 hours

    The Six Sacred Stones

    By Matthew Reilly

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    After the thrilling exploits in Matthew Reilly's action-packed New York Times bestseller, Seven Deadly Wonders, supersoldier Jack West Jr. and his loyal team of adventurers are back, and now they face an all-but-impossible challenge.

    A mysterious ceremony in an unknown location has unraveled their work and triggered a catastrophic countdown that will climax in no less than the end of all life on Earth.

    But there is one last hope.

    If Jack and his team can find and rebuild a legendary ancient device known only as the "Machine," they might be able to ward off the coming armageddon. The only clues to locating this Machine, however, are held within the fabled Six Sacred Stones, long lost in the fog of history.

    And so the hunt begins for the Six Sacred Stones and the all-important knowledge they possess, but in the course of this wild adventure Jack and his team will discover that they are not the only ones seeking the Stones and that there might just be other players out there who don't want to see the world saved at all.

    From Stonehenge in England to the deserts of Egypt to the spectacular Three Gorges region of China, The Six Sacred Stones will take you on a nonstop roller-coaster ride through ancient history, modern military hardware, and some of the fastest and most mind-blowing action you will ever read.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateJan 8, 2008
    ISBN9781416553755
    The Six Sacred Stones
    Author

    Matthew Reilly

    Matthew Reilly is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of numerous novels, including The Four Legendary Kingdoms, The Tournament, The Great Zoo of China, The Five Greatest Warriors, The Six Sacred Stones, Seven Deadly Wonders, Ice Station, Temple, Contest, Area 7, Scarecrow, and Scarecrow Returns, as well as the children’s book Hover Car Racer and the novella Hell Island. His books have been published in more than twenty languages in twenty countries, and he has sold more than 7.5 million copies worldwide. Visit him at MatthewReilly.com and at Facebook.com/OfficialMatthewReilly.

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    Reviews for The Six Sacred Stones

    4/5

    343 ratings27 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Another rip-roaring read! Probably not quite as good as "Seven Ancient Wonders" (only because Jack wasn't in the entire book) but still fabulous. I loved the new characters that Reilly brought into this book, especially Solomon and little Alby, Lily's friend and maths genius, whom I feel in love with.
    • 5/5
      5 stars and a favourite.
    • 4/5
      Another rollicking fast-paced thriller by Reilly. "The Six Sacred Stones" is the sequel to "Seven Deadly Wonders." The Jack West Jr. series is Indiana Jones on crack. You have to suspend reality while reading these, but they're so much fun and adrenaline-filled who cares?In this book, our heros discover that what they thought was the end was only the beginning. Six Pillars (magical stones) must be attached to six Vertices to activate "The Great Machine" so a soon-to-appear anti-sun will not destroy the earth. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but again, it's just too much fun to put down. The booby traps are imaginative, the pace relenting, and the protagonists have a surprising bit of depth (for a Reilly book).Bottom line: if you liked "Seven Deadly Wonders," you'll like "Six Sacred Stones."
    • 5/5
      Great read!! Plenty of twists and turns.
    • 4/5
      It may be a fanciful yarn and not 100% accurate
      but the West books are FUN and you find things to start your OWN research on. And that is worth the price of admission
    • 4/5
      Action packed, good light reading, a summer blockbuster in your head, this book ends however in a cliffhanger.
    • 3/5
      Much like the first one. Some decent action but too much Fistory. Too much research being done by all characters at all times.
    • 2/5
      See my review on Seven Deadly Wonders. This book was more of the same, except it ended on a cliff hanger. Apparently, this is the second book in the series. I'm not sure I'll read the third when it comes out next year...
    • 5/5
      Book Description THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE  Unlocking the secret of the Seven Ancient Wonders was only the beginning...  After their thrilling exploits in Matthew Reilly's rampaging New York Times bestseller, 7 Deadly Wonders, super-soldier Jack West Jr. and his loyal team of adventurers are back, and now they face an all-but-impossible challenge.  A mysterious ceremony in an unknown location has unraveled their work and triggered a catastrophic countdown that will climax in no less than the end of all life on Earth.  But there is one last hope.  If Jack and his team can find and rebuild a legendary ancient device known only as the Machine," they might be able to ward off the coming armageddon. The only clues to locating this Machine, however, are held within the fabled Six Sacred Stones, long lost in the fog of history.  And so the hunt begins for the Six Sacred Stones and the all-important knowledge they possess, but in the course of this wild adventure Jack and his team will discover that they are not the only ones seeking the Stones and that there might just be other players out there who don't want to see the world saved at all.  From Stonehenge in England to the deserts of Egypt to the spectacular Three Gorges region of China, The 6 Sacred Stones will take you on a nonstop roller-coaster ride through ancient history, modern military hardware, and some of the fastest and most mind-blowing action you will ever read.

      My Review This 2nd book in Matthew Reilly's trilogy has everything: ancient history, heroes, bad guys, clever plot twists, well researched locations, great humor and non-stop action. It's a page-turner that is unputdownable which ends with a major cliffhanger. Can't wait to delve into the next book in order to find out how Jack and his team work towards saving the world. "
    • 3/5
      Enjoyable read very action packed if quite unbelievable. Like your typical "shoot-em-up" movie. No down time. One action scene after another with lots of almost cliff hangers that our main characters always pull out of.
      Certainly not a brain stimulator but engrossing enough for a long bus/plane ride.
    • 3/5
      Mr. Reilly’s book are like sneaking a piece of chocolate when you are on a diet … definitely a guilty pleasure. The second in the series brings us back in touch with Jack and Lily about a year after the previous book. Once again earth is in peril and there is no shortage of action. I did find however, that this book had a little more character development. I enjoyed it more than the first one because of that (but Mr. Reilly still loves his rolling boulders). To coin a phrase … the ending is most definitely a cliff hanger! Looking forward to the third in the series, but I think I need a little respite before I tackle it. On to other reads for a bit.
    • 3/5
      The follow-up to "the & Deadly Wonders" once again finds Jack West Jr. and his intrepid team of international commandos trying to save the world from doomsday in a race against the power-hunry military machines of opposing nations. Solving complex riddles, archaelogical booby-traps and unlocking the secrets of ancient civilizations in an adrenaline amped Indiana Jones style adventure from one impossible cliff-hanging escape to another. Believable in ANY way? Not even CLOSE! Fun? You bet. But that ending really ..........

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I hadn't read a Matthew Reilly book for a long time when we were given this one for book club. At first I felt it was rather over the top but as I continued to read I became very involved. I enjoyed the book and the adventure of Huntsmen and his crew and will now go and read some of Matthew Reilly's books that I have missed.It's very fast moving and life is worth little in their quest. As in many adventure books the unreal happens in the nick of time.
    • 4/5
      Fast paced, exciting and entertaining read. Not a deep or profound read, but it never intends to be. Well worth reading.
    • 5/5
      This was great! I am waiting for the second half!Reading it again 12-09, the next book will be out in Jan!
    • 3/5
      I have to say that Matthew Reilly is still able to keep the action going. I picked up this book without reading the first book and i have to say that i was lost. I had no idea what was going on. However the writing and action kept me from putting it down. I found myself wondering what happens next. This book held my attention even through the most out of this world stuff. I admit that all in all I enjoyed it. I would strongly recommended that you read the previous book "7 deadly wonders" first. hope you enjoy the book.
    • 3/5
      Pretty good book with a cliff hanger. No real 'got to get the next book' though. Better than 7 Wonders.
    • 1/5
      If you are truly desperate for a new end-of-the-world because of ancient technology wielded by a secret cabal novel then by all means give it a read; otherwise, avoid this novel for your own safety.
    • 4/5
      Knowing nothing of this authors work, other than he was a blockbuster novelist, I didn't know quite what to expect. What I got was a fast paced, page turner of a novel. The plot was unbelievable at times, had holes in it that you could drive a bus through, but that didn't really matter, all I wanted to do was get to the end and see what fate Matthew Reilly had in store for his characters. The linking of Six Sacred Stones with ancient stories we have all heard many times, a Hero that is bigger than Ben Hur, his fearless female counterpart, a team of loyal friends and a brilliant lot of villans, this book has it all. It reads like a Indiana Jones film, and for pure adventure fantasy you couldn't get better.
    • 4/5
      My favourite "part" in the story is the depiction of Lao's "duality" theory and the notion of "balance". In everything good there is darkness. And in all evil, there is light. The duality of all things. Whether that is true or not, I would like to think that it is.The story itself? 4.5 out of 5. It is obviously a fantasy by the mere fact that the story talks of a Tartarus power. Fantasy. But the way Reilly weaves fantasy with known archeological facts, makes the borderline between fiction and fact blur. Such that the fantasy Reilly weaves seems so real. "Suspension of disbelief"? 5 out of 5.Openning salvo has the protagonist and team running for their very lives from a military invasion complete with assault helicopters, tanks and jet fighters! And then it's non-stop action from there. First chapter and the book had me feeling like I'm short of breath trying to catch-up with events. And that pace keep up until the very end. Story-telling quality? 4.5 out of 5. Cover art? I don't know which to consider really, since different countries have their own different cover arts... The copy I've read is a US cover. The symbolism is quite appropriate to the story but not very attractive to my fantasy buff eyes. 3 out of 5.The story has a cliffhanger ending. Normally I hate cliffhanger endings with a passion. And this is the only reason this book is not a 5. But still the ending manages to close the dilemma presented in the story and thus climaxed the book well.Overall, I would say that this book has an entertainment value of 4.5 out of 5. Definitely a recommended read! Though being Book 2 in the Jack West Jr. series, it is highly recommended that you read book 1 first for a reader to understand what is going on. My review of book 1, Seven Ancient Wonders, is here.Cherry’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
    • 4/5
      In no way shape or form is this actually believable, the characters survive certain death too easily. It is entertaining and the main character seems to be superman (with a very evil dad) the deus ex machinas are scattered with abandon but, dammit, it kept me reading,Jack West Jr. has to fight again for the fate of the world, against people determined to let the world be destroyed and people determined to control this run towards keeping the world going. Again I really don't have a great mental image of the characters, they're almost sketches rather than fully fleshed humans. This is the kind of book you either like or hate and I enjoyed it a bit too much. Afterwards though the plot holes are almost too much. Still I'll be reading the next one. It's popcorn reading, like watching a cheesy movie or TV series.
    • 3/5
      Great page-turner for the holidays. Reilly's novels requiure that you suspend your disbelief and accept the roller coaster ride that you are taken on as you read this fast moving, exciting adventure. Fascinating historical theories (aka facts) with just enough credibility to make you want to continue reading. I am a fan, especially of this type of genre, and can honestly say that I will be looking for the next installment in 2010.
    • 4/5
      Like most of Matthew Reillys' novels, this one is action packed, fast paced, and never boring. As always the attention to detail is specific and authoritive, and yet he still manages to create a fantasy that is fantastic. Loved it!
    • 4/5
      Matthew Reilly is not an author to be missed. 6 Sacred Stones is the 2nd book in the Jack West Jr. series. Like all Reilly books the world and mankind is about to be destroyed unless our hero is able to stay one step ahead of impending doom. The Jack West Jr. series doesn't really compare to his Scarecrow series, oh why oh why did you have to kill off Scarecrow??? However if you like an on the edge of your seat action meets science fiction type adventure Matthew Reilly can't disappoint.
    • 2/5
      Disappointing by Mr Reilly's high standards; the book tips over that narrow line between fantasy and unbelievability.
    • 2/5
      What can I say..once again, you have to suspend all disbelief, and just go with the flow. As in his previous book in this series, the book is simply chocked full of miraculous coincidence heaped upon amazing action. Fortunately, there was much less reliance upon the authors favorite punctuation mark, the exclamation point, compared to 7 Deadly Wonders, still a tad too much reliance on italics, but it was better too. Honestly, we get it, you don't have to highlight every amazing and astounding plot twist with italics, exclamation points, or the author's newest literary ploy...........the dot dot dot, new paragraph, dot dot dot. He did change it up occasionally though. Sometimes we got----"astounding moment" action continues. That being said, I really do enjoy the clever albeit silly plot twists. And I certainly appreciated the spiffy diagrams. Numerous times throughout the book, I felt like I was reading the script for one of the old Batman tv shows, I kept expecting to see a POW!! BAM!!! SPLATT!! placed within the pages. Hmm, now that I think about it, wasn't the actor who played Batman in those old 60's shows named Adam West? .... And isn't our hero named Jack West? ..... Coincidence? ......Perhaps.....(Sorry couldn't resist, *grin*) I'm pretty sure, even though I always swear I won't bother reading another one of his books, that I'll be picking up his next new book and reading it. Kind of like going to action flicks that you know are going to be filled with "Oh please" moments, but you just can't help yourself. Maybe Mr. Reilly is sort of the Vin Diesel of literature.
    • 2/5
      Matthew Reilly was born in 1974. He is of a generation who grew up on a diet of action blockbuster movies. Reading THE SIX SACRED STONES is like reading a screenplay for one of these movies. The characters careen from one life threatening situation to another at a breakneck speed. There is an incredibly high body count as West’s friends and foes alike succumb to the danger of this latest quest. They die in all manner of grisly fashions. Fortunately the reader is spared too many details. Character development isn’t really Reilly’s thing. Why waste the words when you can have another life-threatening situation from which Jack can extricate himself? The characters all seem to have the same voice; from the learned elderly academic to Jack’s twelve-year-old daughter – they all talk in exactly the same manner.If asked to describe THE SIX SACRED STONES, I would say it is Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code on steroids. A fan of action movies looking for something to keep them entertained over the Christmas holidays will probably love THE SIX SACRED STONES. For this ageing baby boomer who prefers her plots much more sedate and with distinctive characters, it was all just a little too exhausting.

    Book preview

    The Six Sacred Stones - Matthew Reilly

    Matthew Reilly’s ROCKET-FUELED

    (Publishers Weekly)

    New York Times bestseller

    THE SIX SACRED STONES

    is a relentless global thrill ride that will keep you reading all night long!

    "The wildly imaginative Reilly has taken inspiration from comics, video games, thrillers, and Code-style puzzle novels. . . . Thrilling."

    —Publishers Weekly

    Whisk[s] you through wave after wave of nonstop action on a cloud of exuberant improbabilities.

    —Booklist

    [T]his fast-paced international adventure will keep you turning pages. . . . Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

    —The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ)

    Matthew Reilly novels should come with health warnings. . . . [T]he non-stop life-threatening action . . . is not for the faint-hearted. It’s a wild ride.

    —The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

    Reilly increases the tension and the threat to produce another winner. The interwoven combination of action and mythology in the narrative makes for the perfect winter beach read.

    —Library Journal

    More praise for the internationally bestselling page-turning fiction of pedal-to-the-metal action novelist (Publishers Weekly) Matthew Reilly

    SEVEN DEADLY WONDERS

    An absolute bone crusher of a thriller! Seven Deadly Wonders had me turning the pages so fast I had blisters on my fingers and my heart pounded so hard it sounded like a helicopter was landing on my roof! For stay-up-late, can’t-put-down ability, Reilly is the master.

    —Brad Thor, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Patriot

    As exciting and entertaining a story as you’re likely to read.

    —Chicago Sun-Times

    Fun. . . . Reilly keep[s] the action coming.

    —Kirkus Reviews

    Ancient history, heart-stopping booby traps, and wild adventure . . . a perfect book to jump-start your vacation beach reading.

    —Library Journal

    ICE STATION

    Some of the wildest and most sustained battles in an action thriller in a long time. . . . Nonstop action, lots of explosions—and a little bit of conspiracy.

    —Chicago Tribune

    Nonstop, brain-freezing action from page 1. . . . In Reilly, we have a new thriller star, a combination of Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy. He’s that good.

    —The Tulsa World

    TEMPLE

    Reilly’s book has adrenaline in super-sized quantities.

    —Orlando Sentinel

    The action is relentless.

    —Charleston Post and Courier

    AREA 7

    Reilly . . . can inspire awe. How many heroes, after all, can kill an enemy aboard the space shuttle in outer space, then return to earth and dispatch another foe by pushing him into a pool full of meat-eating Komodo dragons all over the course of less than an hour?

    —Publishers Weekly

    Reilly’s . . . most suspenseful blow-’em-up. The jet-boat chase through the blind chasms of Arizona’s Lake Powell puts the Bond books to shame.

    —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

    CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

    For John Schrooten

    A great and true friend

    A mortal battle,

    Between father and son,

    One fights for all,

    And the other for one.

    —ANONYMOUS (FROM AN INSCRIPTION FOUND IN A 3,000-YEAR-OLD CHINESE SHRINE IN THE WU GORGE, CENTRAL CHINA)

    Any sufficiently advanced technology

    is indistinguishable from magic.

    —ARTHUR C. CLARKE

    The end of all things is near.

    —1 PETER 4:7

    INTRODUCTION

    THE DARK CEREMONY

    12:00 MIDNIGHT

    AUGUST 20, 2007

    LOCATION: UNKNOWN

    IN A DARK CHAMBER beneath a great island in the most distant corner of the world, an ancient ceremony was under way.

    A priceless gold stone—pyramidal in shape, with a crystal at its peak—was set in place.

    Then an ancient incantation, unheard for thousands of years, was uttered.

    No sooner had the words been spoken than a great purple beam blasted down from the star-filled sky and lit up the pyramidal capstone.

    The only witnesses to this ceremony were five angry men.

    *  *  *

    When it was over, the leader of the group spoke into a satellite radio: The ritual has been performed. In theory, the power of Tartarus has been broken. This must be tested. Kill one of them tomorrow in Iraq.

    *  *  *

    The next day, on the other side of the world, in war-torn Iraq, an Australian special forces soldier named Stephen Oakes was shot dead by insurgents. Ambushed in his jeep at a security checkpoint, he was torn apart by an overwhelming wave of gunfire from six masked attackers. His body was riddled with over two hundred bullet holes. His attackers were never found.

    That an allied soldier should die during the occupation of Iraq was nothing new. Already over thirty-two hundred American servicemen had been killed there.

    What was unusual about this death was that it had been an Australian who had been killed.

    For curiously, since March 2006, there had not been a single Australian death in combat in any conflict around the world.

    In fact, it was well-known among the allied troops in Iraq that Australian servicemen had an uncanny luck. Over the past five months, they had survived all manner of attacks and ambushes—in some cases almost miraculously.

    Indeed, this capacity to survive practically any kind of attack was so well-known to their American colleagues that it was considered wise to stand next to an Aussie in a firefight.

    But with the death of Specialist Steve Oakes on August 21, 2007, that uncanny luck came to a bloody and conclusive end.

    *  *  *

    The day after that, an encrypted message was handed to one of the most powerful men in the world.

    It read:

    SECURE TRANSCRIPT 061–7332/1A

    CLASS LEVEL: ALPHA-SUPER

    FOR A-1’S EYES ONLY

    22-AUG-07

    BEGIN SECURE MESSAGE:

    Note death of Australian specialist Oakes in Iraq. The power of Tartarus has been nullified. Someone has the other Capstone.

    The game is back on.

    Now we must find the Stones.

    END SECURE MESSAGE.

    THE ENTRY CHAMBERS

    PROLOGUE

    WITCH MOUNTAIN

    WITCH MOUNTAIN

    OFF THE WU GORGE, THREE GORGES REGION

    SICHUAN PROVINCE, CENTRAL CHINA

    DECEMBER 1, 2007

    SITTING IN A SLING HARNESS suspended from a long rope and hanging in near-total darkness, Professor Max Epper cracked the top off his flare, illuminating the subterranean chamber around him.

    Oh my . . . he breathed. "Ooooh, my . . ."

    The chamber was simply breathtaking.

    It was a perfect cube, wide and high, cut out of the living rock, perhaps fifty feet to a side. And every square inch of its walls was covered in carved inscriptions: characters, symbols, images, and figures.

    He had to be careful.

    The amber light of his flare revealed that the floor directly beneath him contained a well shaft that perfectly matched his opening in the ceiling. It yawned wide, a dark hole of indeterminate depth.

    In some circles, Max Epper was known by the call sign Wizard, a nickname that was entirely appropriate.

    With a flowing white beard and watery blue eyes that glistened with warmth and intelligence, at sixty-seven, he looked like a modern-day Merlin. A professor of archaeology at Trinity College, Dublin, it was said that, among other feats, he had once been part of a secret international team that had located—and reerected—the Golden Capstone of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

    Swinging to the floor of the chamber, Wizard un-clipped himself and gazed in awe at the text-covered walls.

    Some of the symbols he recognized—Chinese characters and even a few Egyptian hieroglyphs. This was not unexpected: long ago, the owner and designer of this tunnel system had been the great Chinese philosopher, Laozi. In addition to being a venerated thinker, Laozi had been a great traveler and was known to have ventured as far as Egypt in the fourth century B.C.

    In pride of place in the exact center of the feature wall was a large raised relief that Wizard had seen before:

    Known as the Mystery of the Circles, it had not yet been decoded. Casual observers guessed it to be a representation of our solar system, but there was a problem with this analysis: there was one too many planets circling the central Sun.

    Wizard had seen the Mystery of the Circles perhaps a dozen times around the world—in Mexico and Egypt, even in Wales and Ireland—and in various forms: from crude scratchings on bare rock walls to artistic carvings over ancient doorways, but none of those renderings was anywhere near as beautifully and elaborately carved as this one.

    This specimen was dazzling.

    Inlaid with rubies, sapphires, and jade, each of its concentric circles was rimmed with gold. It glittered in the glare of Wizard’s high-powered flashlight.

    Directly beneath the Mystery of the Circles was a narrow doorway of sorts: perhaps two feet wide and six feet high, but shallow, recessed a couple of feet into the solid stone wall. It reminded Wizard of a coffin standing vertically, embedded in the wall. Strangely its rear wall was curved.

    Carved above it was a small symbol that made Wizard’s eyes widen with delight:

    The symbol for Laozi’s Stone . . . he breathed. "The Philosopher’s Stone. My God. We’ve found it."

    Surrounded by this repository of ancient knowledge and priceless treasure, Wizard pulled out a high-tech Motorola UHF radio and spoke into it: Tank. You aren’t going to believe this. I’ve found the antechamber, and it’s positively stunning. It also contains a sealed doorway, which I assume gives access to the trap system. We’re close. Very close. I need you to come down here and—

    Wizard, came the reply. We just got a call from our lookout at the docks down on the Yangtze. The Chinese Army is snooping around. Gunboat patrol, nine boats, heading into our gorge. They’re coming this way.

    It’s Mao. How could he have found us? Wizard said.

    It may not be him. Could just be a regular patrol, the voice of Yobu Tank Tanaka said.

    Which could actually be worse. Chinese military patrols were notorious for roughing up archaeological expeditions in these parts in search of petty bribes.

    How long have we got till they get here? Wizard asked.

    An hour, maybe less. I think it would be wise for us to be gone by the time they arrive.

    I agree, my old friend, Wizard said. We’d better hurry. Get down here and bring some more lights. Tell Chow to fire up his computer: I’m going to get started recording images and transmitting them up to him.

    THE UNDERGROUND chamber in which Wizard found himself was situated in the Three Gorges region of China, in an area that very much suited him.

    This was because the Chinese character wu means wizard or witch depending on the context—and it was used often in the names of the area’s features: Wu Gorge, the second of the famous Three Gorges; Wushan, the ancient walled fortress-town that once sat on the banks of the Yangtze; and of course Mount Wushan, the colossal two-mile-high peak that towered above Wizard’s chamber.

    Translation: Witch Mountain.

    The Wu Gorge area was renowned for its history—shrines, temples, carvings like the Kong Ming Tablet, and rock-cut caves like the Green Stone Cavern—nearly all of which had now been submerged beneath the waters of the 350-mile-long lake that had formed behind the gargantuan walls of the Three Gorges Dam.

    The area was also known, however, for certain unusual events.

    The Roswell of China, for hundreds of years it had been the site of numerous strange sightings: unexplained celestial phenomena, swarms of shooting stars, and aurora-like apparitions. It was even claimed that on one gruesome day in the seventeenth century the clouds over Wushan had rained blood.

    The Wu Gorge area certainly had a history.

    *  *  *

    But now in the twenty-first century, that history had been drowned in the name of progress, swallowed by the waters of the Yangtze as the great river backed up against the largest structure ever built by mankind. The Old Town of Wushan now lay three hundred feet beneath the waves.

    Fast-flowing tributaries that had once gushed into the Yangtze via spectacular side gorges had also been humbled by the expanding Dam Lake—what had once been dramatic four-hundred-foot-high whitewater ravines were now just regular hundred-foot-high gorges with placid water at their bases.

    Small stone villages that had once sat on the banks of these little rivers, already far removed from the outside world, had now disappeared completely from history.

    But not from Wizard.

    In one partially flooded gorge, deep within the mountains to the north of the Yangtze, he had found an isolated mountain hamlet built on higher ground and in it, the entrance to this cave system.

    The hamlet was primitive and ancient, a few huts constructed of irregular stones and tilting thatch roofs. It had been abandoned three hundred years ago and the locals thought it haunted.

    Now, thanks to the ultramodern dam a hundred miles away, the deserted hamlet was flooded to knee-height.

    The entrance to the cave system had been neither guarded by booby traps nor heralded by elaborate gates. It was, rather, its very ordinariness that had kept it secret for over two millennia.

    Wizard had found the entrance inside a small stone hut that backed onto the base of the mountain. Once inhabited by the great Chinese philosopher, Laozi—the inventor of Taoism and the teacher of Confucius—this unassuming little hut possessed within it a stone well with a raised brick rim.

    And at the bottom of that well, concealed beneath a layer of foul black water, was a false floor—and underneath that false floor, had been this magnificent chamber.

    *  *  *

    Wizard got to work.

    He pulled a powerful Asus laptop from his backpack and connected it to a high-res digital camera and started clicking away, taking shots of the chamber’s walls.

    As the camera gathered its images, a rapid-fire series of computations took place on Wizard’s computer screen.

    At work was a translation program—a complex database that had taken Wizard years to compile. It featured thousands of ancient symbols, from many countries and cultures, and their accepted translations. It could also perform fuzzy translations, a kind of best guess when a symbol’s meaning was ambiguous.

    Every time a symbol was captured on the digital camera, it was scanned by the computer and a translation found. For example:

    ELEMENT TRANSLATIONS: shi tou (stone) si (temple)

    FULL SEQUENCE TRANS: The Temple of Stone

    FUZZ TRANS POSSIBILITIES: Stone shrine, Stone Temple of the Dark Sun, Stonehenge (Match Ref. ER:46–2B)

    Among the other glyphs and reliefs on the walls, the computer found Laozi’s most famous philosophical invention, the Taijitu:

    The computer translated: "Taijitu; Ref: Tao Te Ching. Western colloq. ref: ‘Yin-Yang.’ Common symbol for the duality of all things: opposites possess small traits of each other: e.g., in the good there is some evil, and in the evil there is some good."

    On other occasions, the computer found no prior record of a symbol:

    In these cases it created a new file and added it to the database, so that if the symbol in question was ever found again, the database would have a record of it.

    Either way, Wizard’s computer whirred, absorbing the images hungrily.

    After a few minutes of this scanning, one particular translation caught Wizard’s attention. It read:

    THE 1ST PILLAR* MUST BE INLAID EXACTLY 100 DAYS BEFORE THE RETURN.

    THE PRIZE SHALL BE KNOWLEDGE.**

    ____________

    AMBIGUOUS TERMS:

    * bar, diamond block

    ** wisdom

    The First Pillar . . . Wizard breathed. Oh my goodness.

    *  *  *

    Ten minutes later, as Wizard continued to feed more photos into his computer, a second figure descended into the chamber.

    It was Tank Tanaka, a stocky Japanese professor from the University of Tokyo, Wizard’s research partner on this project and longtime friend. With soft brown eyes, a kind round face, and wisps of gray at his temples, Tank was the professor every history student wanted.

    As he swung himself to solid ground, Wizard’s computer pinged loudly, alerting them to a new translation.

    The two old professors peered at the screen. It read:

    THE COMING OF RA’S DESTROYER

    THE COMING OF RA’S DESTROYER SEES THE STARTING* OF THE GREAT MACHINE** AND WITH IT THE RISE OF THE SA-BENBEN.

    HONOR THE SA-BENBEN, KEEP IT CLOSE, KEEP IT NEAR, FOR IT ALONE GOVERNS THE SIX AND ONLY THE EMPOWERED SIX CAN PREPARE THE PILLARS AND LEAD YOU TO THE SHRINES AND THUS COMPLETE THE MACHINE BEFORE THE SECOND COMING.***

    THE END OF ALL THINGS IS NEAR.

    ____________

    AMBIGUOUS TERMS:

    * commencement or trigger or set off

    ** Mechanism or World

    *** the Return

    MATCH REFERENCE:

    Ref XR:5–12 Partial inscription found at Zhou-Zu Monastery, Tibet (2001)

    "The Sa-Benben . . . ?" Tanaka said.

    Wizard’s eyes went wide with excitement. "It’s a little-used name for the uppermost and smallest piece of the Golden Capstone of the Great Pyramid. The entire Capstone was called the Benben. But the top piece is special, because unlike the other pieces, which are all trapezoidal in shape, it’s a mini-pyramid and so, essentially, a small Benben. Hence the name, Sa-Benben. The Eastern name for it is a bit more dramatic: they call it the Firestone."

    Wizard gazed at the symbol above the translation. The Machine . . . he whispered.

    He scanned the translation carefully, saw the match reference at the end of the entry. "Yes, yes, I’ve seen this before. It was on a cracked stone tablet unearthed in northern Tibet. But because of the damage to the tablet, only the first and third lines were readable: ‘The coming of Ra’s Destroyer’ and ‘And with it the rise of the Sa-Benben.’ But this is the full text. This is momentous."

    Wizard began muttering quickly to himself: "Ra’s Destroyer is Tartarus, the Tartarus Sunspot . . . But Tartarus was averted . . . Only . . . only what if the Tartarus Event started something else, something we didn’t anticipate . . . And if the Firestone governs the six sacred stones, empowers them, then it’s fundamental to everything . . . to the Pillars, to the Machine, and to the Return of the Dark Sun—oh dear Lord."

    He snapped up, his eyes wide.

    Tank. The Tartarus Event at Giza was connected to the Machine. I never suspected . . . I mean, I should have . . . I should have seen it all along but I— A frantic look crossed his face. When did we calculate the Return?

    Tank shrugged. Not until next year’s vernal equinox: March 20, 2008.

    "What about the placing of the Pillars? There was something here about the First Pillar. Here it is: ‘The 1st Pillar must be inlaid exactly 100 days before the Return. The prize shall be knowledge.’ "

    One hundred days, Tank said, calculating. "That’s . . . damn . . . December 10 this year—"

    Wizard said, Nine days from now. Good God, we knew the time was approaching, but this is—

    "Max, are you telling me that we only have nine days to set the First Pillar in position? We haven’t even found the First Pillar yet . . ." Tank said.

    But Wizard wasn’t listening anymore. His eyes were glazed, staring off into infinity.

    He turned. Tank. Who else knows about this?

    Tank shrugged. Only us. And, I guess, anyone else who has seen this inscription. We know of the tablet in Tibet, but you say it was only partial. Where did it end up?

    The Chinese Cultural Relics Bureau claimed ownership of it and took it back to Beijing. It hasn’t been seen since.

    Tank scanned Wizard’s frowning face. Do you think the Chinese authorities have found the other pieces of the cracked tablet and put it back together? You think they already know about this?

    Wizard stood suddenly.

    How many gunboats did you say are coming up this river gorge?

    Nine.

    Nine. You don’t send nine gunboats on a routine patrol or a shakedown. The Chinese know, and they’re coming for us now. And if they know about this, then they know about the Capstone. Damn! I have to warn Jack and Lily.

    He hurriedly pulled a book from his backpack. Oddly, it wasn’t a reference book of any kind, but rather a well-known paperback novel. He began flipping pages and writing numbers down in his notebook.

    When he was done, he grabbed his radio and called up to their boat topside.

    Chow! Quickly, take this message down and post it immediately on the notice board.

    Wizard then relayed a long series of numbers to Chow. Okay, that’s it, go! Upload it now—now, now, now!

    *  *  *

    A hundred feet above Wizard, a battered old river barge bobbed among the half-submerged huts of the ancient mountain village. It lay at anchor alongside the stone hut that gave entry to the underground chamber.

    Inside its main cabin, an eager grad student named Chow Ling hurriedly tapped out Wizard’s code, posting it on—of all things—a website devoted to the Lord of the Rings movies.

    When he was done, he called Wizard on the radio. Code has been sent, Professor.

    Wizard’s voice came through Chow’s headset: Thank you, Chow. Good work. Now I want you to forward every image that I’ve sent up to you to Jack West via email. Then delete them all from your hard drive.

    Delete them? Chow said in disbelief.

    Yes, all of them. Every last image. As much as you can before our Chinese friends arrive.

    *  *  *

    Chow worked fast, tapping keys feverishly, forwarding and then deleting Wizard’s incredible images.

    As he tapped away on his computer, he never saw the first People’s Liberation Army gunboat glide by behind him, cruising down the submerged street of the village.

    A harsh voice over a loud-hailer made him jerk up: Eh! Zou chu lai dao jia ban shang! Wo yao kan de dao ni. Ba shou ju zhe gao gao de!

    Translation: Hey! Come out onto the deck! Remain in plain sight! Hold your hands up high!

    Deleting a final image, Chow did as he was told, kicked back from his desk, and stepped out onto the open foredeck of his barge.

    The lead gunboat towered above him. It was a modern one, fast, with camouflaged flanks and a huge forward gun.

    Chinese soldiers with American-made Colt Commando assault rifles lined its deck, their short-barreled guns pointed at Chow.

    That they held modern American weapons was a bad sign: it meant that these soldiers were elite troops, special forces. Ordinary Chinese infantrymen carried clunky old Type 56 assault rifles—the Chinese rip-off of the AK-47.

    These guys weren’t ordinary.

    Chow raised his hands—a bare second before someone fired and the entire front half of his body exploded with bloody holes and he was hurled backward with violent force.

    *  *  *

    Wizard keyed his radio mike.

    Chow? Chow, are you there?

    There was no reply.

    Then, abruptly, the harness that until now had hung suspended from the well hole in the ceiling went whizzing back up into the hole like a spooked snake, hauled up by someone above.

    Chow! Wizard called into his radio. What are you—

    Moments later, the harness came back into view . . .

    . . . with Chow on it.

    Wizard’s blood turned to ice.

    Oh, dear me, no . . . He rushed forward.

    Almost unrecognizable from the many bullet wounds, Chow’s body came level with Wizard.

    As if on cue, the radio suddenly came to life.

    Professor Epper, a voice said in English. "This is Colonel Mao Gongli. We know you are in there, and we are coming in. Try nothing foolish, or you shall meet the same fate as your assistant."

    *  *  *

    The Chinese troops entered the chamber quickly, abseiling down drop-ropes with clinical precision.

    Within two minutes, Wizard and Tank were surrounded by a dozen men with guns.

    Colonel Mao Gongli entered last of all. At fifty-five years of age, he was a portly man, but he stood with perfect poise, ramrod straight. Like many men of his generation, he’d been patriotically named after Chairman Mao. He had no operational nickname except the one his enemies had given him after his actions at Tiananmen Square in 1989 as a major—the Butcher of Tiananmen, they called him.

    Silence hung in the air.

    Mao stared at Wizard with dead eyes. When at last he spoke, he did so in clear, clipped English.

    "Professor Max T. Epper, call sign Merlin, but known to some as Wizard. Canadian by birth, but resident Professor of Archaeology at Trinity College, Dublin. Connected with the rather unusual incident that took place atop the Great Pyramid at Giza on March 20, 2006.

    And Professor Yobu Tanaka, from the University of Tokyo. Not connected with the Giza incident, but an expert on ancient civilizations. Gentlemen, your assistant was a gifted and intelligent young man. You can see how much I care for such men.

    What do you want? Wizard demanded.

    Mao smiled, a thin joyless smile.

    "Why Professor Epper, I want you."

    Wizard frowned. He hadn’t expected that answer.

    Mao stepped forward, gazing at the grand chamber around them. Great times are upon us, Professor. In the coming months, empires will rise and nations will fall. In times such as these, the People’s Republic of China needs knowledgeable men, men like you. Which is why you work for me now, Professor. And I’m sure that with the right kind of persuasion—in one of my torture chambers—you are going to help me find the Six Ramesean Stones.

    GREAT SANDY DESERT

    NORTHWESTERN AUSTRALIA

    DECEMBER 1, 2007, 0715 HOURS

    ON THE DAY his farm was attacked with overwhelming force, Jack West Jr. had slept in till 7:00 a.m.

    Normally he got up around six to see the dawn, but life was good these days. His world had been at peace for almost eighteen months, so he decided to skip the damn dawn and get an extra hour’s sleep.

    The kids, of course, were already up. Lily had a friend over for the summer holidays, a little boy from her school named Alby Calvin.

    Noisy and excited and generally up to mischief, they’d played nonstop for the past three days, exploring every corner of the vast desert farm by day, while at night they gazed up at the stars through Alby’s telescope.

    That Alby was partially deaf meant little to Lily or to Jack. At their school in Perth for gifted and talented students, Lily was the star linguist and Alby the star mathematician and that was all that mattered.

    At eleven, she now knew six languages, two of them ancient and one of them sign language—it had been easily acquired and was actually something that she and Jack had done together. Today the end tips of her beautiful long black hair were colored electric pink.

    For his part, Alby was twelve, black, and wore large thick-lensed glasses. He had a cochlear implant, the miraculous technology that allowed the deaf to hear, and spoke with a slightly rounded inflection—signing was still necessary for those times when he needed to understand extra emotion or urgency in a matter—but deaf or not, Alby Calvin could rumble with the best of them.

    West was standing on the porch with his shirt off, sipping a mug of coffee. His left arm glinted in the morning sun—from the bicep down, it was entirely made of metal.

    He gazed out at the wide desert landscape, hazy in the morning light. Of medium height, with blue eyes and tousled dark hair, he was handsome in a rugged kind of way. Once upon a time, he had been ranked the fourth-best special forces soldier in the world, a lone Australian on a list dominated by Americans.

    But he was no longer a soldier. After leading a daring ten-year mission to acquire the fabled Golden Capstone of the Great Pyramid from the remains of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, he was now more a treasure hunter than a warrior, more skilled at skirting booby-trapped cave systems and deciphering ancient riddles than killing people.

    The adventure with the Capstone, which had ended atop the Great Pyramid, had forged West’s relationship with Lily. Since her parents were dead, Jack had raised her—with the help of a truly unique team of international soldiers. Soon after the Capstone mission had concluded, he had formally adopted her.

    And since that day nearly two years ago, he had lived out here in splendid isolation, away from missions, away from the world, only traveling to Perth when Lily’s schooling required it.

    As for the Golden Capstone, it sat in all its glory in an abandoned nickel mine behind his farmhouse.

    *  *  *

    A few months back, a newspaper article had troubled West.

    An Australian special forces trooper named Oakes had been killed in Iraq, shot to death in an ambush, the first Australian battle casualty in any conflict in nearly two years.

    It bothered West because he was one of the few people in the world who knew exactly why no Australian had been killed in battle these past eighteen months. It had to do with the Tartarus Rotation of 2006 and the Capstone: thanks to his performance of an ancient ritual back then, West had assured Australia invulnerability for what was supposed to be a very long time.

    But now with the death of that soldier in Iraq, that period of invulnerability appeared to be over.

    The date of the man’s death had struck him: August 21. It was suspiciously close to the northern autumnal equinox.

    West himself had performed the Tartarus ritual atop the Great Pyramid on March 20, 2006, the day of the vernal equinox, the spring day when the Sun is perfectly overhead and day equals night.

    The vernal and autumnal equinoxes are twin celestial moments that occur at opposite times of the year.

    Opposites but the same, West thought. Yin and yang.

    Someone, somewhere, had done something around the autumnal equinox that had neutralized Tartarus.

    *  *  *

    West was disturbed from his reverie by a small brown shape cutting across his view to the east.

    It was a bird, a falcon, soaring gracefully across the dusty sky, wings wide. It was Horus, his peregrine falcon and loyal companion. The bird landed on the railing next to him, squawking at the eastern horizon.

    West looked that way just in time to see several black dots appear in the sky there, flying in formation.

    About three hundred miles away, near the coastal town of Wyndham, military exercises were under way, the biennial Talisman Sabre exercises that Australia held with America. Large in scale, they involved all sections of both nations’ armed forces: navy, army, and air force.

    Only this year, Talisman Sabre came with a twist: for the first time ever, China was participating. No one was under any illusions. Under the chaperoning of neutral Australia (it had significant trade links with China and long-standing military links with the US), China and America, the two biggest kids on the block, were sizing each other up. At first, the US hadn’t wanted China’s participation, but the Chinese had exerted some considerable trade pressure on Australia to be involved, and the Australians had begged the US to allow it.

    But happily, West thought, these weren’t matters that concerned him anymore.

    He turned to watch Lily and Alby scamper around the barn, kicking up matching dust trails, when the computer in his kitchen pinged.

    Ping, ping, ping, ping.

    E-mails.

    Lots of them.

    Jack stepped inside, still gripping his coffee, and checked the monitor.

    Over two dozen e-mails from Max Epper had just come in. Jack clicked on one, and found himself staring at a digital photo of an ancient carved symbol. Chinese by the look of it.

    Oh, Wizard. He sighed. What’s happened now? Did you forget to take your extra hard drive again?

    Wizard had done this before. He needed to back something up but had forgotten to take a second hard drive, so he’d e-mailed his photographs to Jack for safekeeping.

    With a groan, Jack clicked over to the Internet and brought up a Lord of the Rings chat room, punched in his ID tag: STRIDER101.

    A little-used notice board came up. This was how he and Lily communicated with Wizard: through the anonymity of the Internet. If Wizard was sending a bulk block of e-mails, then he’d probably also sent an explanatory message via the chat room.

    Sure enough, the last message left on the notice board was from GANDALF101: Wizard.

    West scrolled down to view the message, expecting to see the usual bashful apology from Wizard . . .

    . . . only to be surprised by what he saw.

    He saw numbers.

    Lots of numbers, interspersed

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