Seven Ancient Wonders

Also by Matthew Reilly

ICE STATION

TEMPLE

CONTEST

AREA 7

SCARECROW

HOVER CAR RACER

HELL ISLAND (FOR BOOKS ALIVE, 2005)

MATTHEW REILLY

SEVEN

ANCIENT

WONDERS

For Natalie

This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.

First published 2005 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited St Martins Tower, 31 Market Street, Sydney

Copyright © Karanadon Entertainment Pty Ltd 2005

The author hereby asserts his moral rights.

All rights reserved.

In ancient times, at the peak of the Great

Pyramid at Giza, there stood a magnificent

capstone made of gold.

It disappeared in antiquity.

A COLLECTION OF WONDERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

TITLE OF A COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS WRITTEN BY

CALLIMACHUS OF CYRENE, CHIEF LIBRARIAN OF THE

ALEXANDRIA MUSEION, LOST WHEN THE FAMOUS

LIBRARY WAS DESTROYED IN 48 BC.

COWER IN FEAR, CRY IN DESPAIR,

YOU WRETCHED MORTALS

FOR THAT WHICH GIVETH GREAT POWER

ALSO TAKES IT AWAY.

FOR LEST THE BENBEN BE PLACED AT SACRED SITE

ON SACRED GROUND, AT SACRED HEIGHT,

WITHIN SEVEN SUNSETS OF THE ARRIVAL OF RAS

PROPHET,

AT THE HIGH-POINT OF THE SEVENTH DAY,

THE FIRES OF RAS IMPLACABLE DESTROYER WILL

DEVOUR US ALL.

4,500-YEAR-OLD HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTION FOUND

ON THE SUMMIT OF THE GREAT PYRAMID AT GIZA IN

THE PLACE WHERE THE CAPSTONE ONCE STOOD.

I HAVE BOTH HELD AND BEHELD UNLIMITED

POWER AND OF IT I KNOW BUT ONE THING.

IT DRIVES MEN MAD.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

THE GREATEST STATUE IN HISTORY

It towered like a god above the mouth of Mandraki harbour, the main port of the island state of Rhodes, much like the Statue of Liberty does today in New York.

Finished in 282 BC after twelve years of construction, it was the tallest bronze statue ever built. At a stupendous 110 feet, it loomed above even the biggest ship that passed by.

It was crafted in the shape of the Greek Sun-god, Helios— muscled and strong, wearing a crown of olive leaves and a necklace of massive golden pendants, and holding a flaming torch aloft in his right hand.

Experts continue to argue whether the great statue stood astride the entrance to the harbour or at the end of the long breakwater that formed one of its shores. Either way, in its time, the Colossus would have been an awesome sight.

Curiously, while the Rhodians built it in celebration of their victory over the Antigonids (who had laid siege to the island of Rhodes for an entire year), the statue's construction was paid for by Egypt—by two Egyptian Pharaohs in fact: Ptolemy I and his son, Ptolemy II.

But while it took Man twelve years to build the Colossus of Rhodes, it took Nature 56 years to ruin it.

When the great statue was badly damaged in an earthquake in 226 BC, it was again Egypt who offered to repair it: this time the new Pharaoh, Ptolemy III. It was as if the Colossus meant more to the Egyptians than it did to the Rhodians.

Fearing the gods who had felled it, the people of Rhodes declined Ptolemy Ill's offer to rebuild the Colossus and the remainder of the statue was left to lie in ruins for nearly 900 years—until 654 AD when the invading Arabs broke it up and sold it off in pieces.

One mysterious footnote remains.

A week after the Rhodians declined Ptolemy Ill's offer to re-erect the Colossus, the bead of the mammoth fallen statue—all sixteen feet of it—went missing.

The Rhodians always suspected that it was taken away on an Egyptian freighter-barge that had left Rhodes earlier that week.

The head of the Colossus of Rhodes was never seen again.

ANGEREB SWAMP

BASE OF THE ETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDS

KASSALA PROVINCE, EASTERN SUDAN

14 MARCH, 2006, 4:55 P.M.

6 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS

The nine figures raced through the crocodile-infested swamp on foot, moving fast, staying low.

The odds were stacked against them.

Their rivals numbered in excess of 200 men.

They had only nine.

Their rivals had massive logistical and technical support: choppers, floodlights for night work, and boats of every kind—gunboats, houseboats, communications boats, three giant dredging barges for the digging—and that wasn't even mentioning the temporary dam they'd managed to build.

The Nine were only carrying what they'd need inside the mine.

And now—the Nine had just discovered—a third force was on its way to the mountain, close behind them, a much larger and nastier force than that of their immediate foes, who were nasty enough.

By any reckoning it was a hopelessly lost cause, with enemies in front of them and enemies behind them, but the Nine kept running anyway.

Because they had to.

They were a last-ditch effort.

The last throw of the dice.

They were the very last hope of the small group of nations they represented.

Their immediate rivals—a coalition of European nations—had found the northern entrance to the mine two days ago and were now well advanced in its tunnel system.