Seven Ancient Wonders

decision.'

The entire team gathered in the main cabin of the Halicarnassus.

They sat in a wide circle, variously sitting on couches or at the desk-like consoles that lined the walls. Even Sky Monster was there, leaving the plane to fly on autopilot for a while.

West spoke.

'Okay, here's the state of play. We're 0-for-2 after two efforts at the plate. In those two missions, three Pieces of the Capstone have been unearthed and we have none of them.

'But we're not completely dead yet. We may not have got any of the Pieces, but so long as we keep seeing the Pieces and accumulating the lines of the positive incantation carved into them, we still have a chance, albeit a very slim one.'

'Very, very slim,' Stretch said.

West threw Stretch a look that would've frozen water. Stretch retreated immediately. 'Sorry. Go on.'

West did. 'So far the Callimachus Text has been an excellent guide. It has led us accurately to the Colossus and to the Pharos Pieces, and the Mausoleum Piece.

'But now,' West said seriously, 'now Lily has managed to translate the next two entries, and we have a problem.'

He flicked a switch, projecting Lily's translations of the next two entries of the Callimachus Text onto a pull- down screen. They read:

The Statue of cuckolded Zeus,

Cronos's Son, the false deity.

While his statue was immense, his power was illusory.

No thunderbolts did he wield, no wrath did he bear,

No victory did he achieve.

Indeed, it was only the Victory in his right hand that made him

great,

Oh winged woman, whither didst thou fly?

The Temple of the Huntress,

In heavenly Ephesus.

The sister of Apollo, Ra's charioteer,

Has never let go of her Piece,

Even when her Temple burned on the night of Iskender's birth.

Through the exertions of our brave brothers,

It has never left the possession of our Order.

Nay, it is worshipped every day in our highest temple.

Zoe saw the first problem immediately. 'There are no clues in these verses . . .' she said with dismay.

'There's nothing for us to go on,' Fuzzy said.

'More than that,' Stretch said, 'the writers of the first verse didn't even know where the Statue of Zeus went. This is a total dead-end.'

'You do always argue the negative, don't you, Israeli?' Pooh Bear scowled. 'After all they've done, have you no faith in Wizard and Huntsman?'

'I believe in what is achievable,' Stretch shot back.

'Gentlemen. Please,' Wizard cut in. He turned to Stretch. 'It's not a total dead-end, Benjamin. Close, but not total. The Zeus verse is indeed disappointing, as it offers no clues at all to the location of its Piece.

'But the verse about the Temple of Artemis—the goddess of the hunt and, in Greek lore, Apollo's sister—is actually quite clear about the location of its Piece of the Capstone.

'It states that, through the efforts of its priests over the ages, the Artemis Piece has never left the possession of the Cult of Amun-Ra. It even gives us an exact location: the highest temple of the Cult of Amun-Ra. Unfortunately, this means that the Piece is almost certainly already in the hands of our European competitors.'

'What do you mean?' Sky Monster asked. 'I didn't realise that the Cult of Amun-Ra was still around. I thought it died out. What is it and where is its 'highest temple'?'

'Why, Sky Monster,' Wizard said, 'the Cult of Amun-Ra is most certainly alive and well. Indeed, it is one of the most widespread religions in the world today.'

'A religion?' Big Ears asked. 'Which one?'

Wizard said simply: 'The Cult of Amun-Ra, my friend, is the Roman Catholic Church.'

'Are you saying that the Catholic Church—my Catholic Church, the church I have attended all my life—is a Sun-cultV Big Ears asked in disbelief.

Very Irish and hence very Catholic, he spun to face West—who just nodded silently, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

'Come on,' Big Ears said. 'I read The Da Vinci Code, too. It was a fun book and it had a great conspiracy theory, but this is something else.'

Wizard shrugged. 'Although its everyday followers don't know it, the Catholic Church is indeed a thinly veiled reincarnation of a very ancient Sun-cult.'

Wizard counted the points off his fingers:

'The virgin birth of the Christ character is a direct retelling of the Egyptian legend of Horus—only the names have been changed. Look at the vestments Catholic priests wear: emblazoned with the Coptic Cross. But 2,000 years before that symbol was the Coptic Cross, it was the Egyptian symbol, ankh, meaning life. Look at the Eucharistic chamber on any altar: it is in the shape of a dazzling golden Sun. And what is a halo? A Sun-disc.

'Go to Rome and look around. Look at all the obelisks—the ultimate symbols of Sun worship, pointing up at their deity. They are all genuine Egyptian obelisks, transported from Egypt to Rome by Pope Sixtus V and erected in front of every major church in the city, including St Peter's Basilica. There are more obelisks in Rome than any other city in the world, including any Egyptian city! Why, Liam, you tell me, what word do you say at the end of every single Catholic prayer you utter?'

'Amen,' Big Ears said.

'The Ancient Egyptians had no vowels in their writing. Amen is simply another way of spelling Antun. Every time you pray, Liam, you intone the most powerful god of ancient Egypt: Amun.'

Big Ears's eyes went wide. 'No way . . .'

Zoe brought the conversation back to the point: 'But the Artemis verse says that its Piece is worshipped every day in the Cult of Amun-Ra's highest temple. If what you say is true, then the highest temple of the Roman Catholic Church would be St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican in Rome.'

'That is my conclusion too,' Wizard said.

'Welcome to Problem No. 1,' West said. 'If the Artemis Piece is in St Peter's Basilica, it could be anywhere in there. The cathedral itself is a behemoth, the size of about seven football fields, and beneath it is a labyrinth of tombs, crypts, chambers and tunnels. For all we know, it could be on display in a crypt, worshipped every day by only the most senior cardinals, or it could be embedded in the floor of the main cathedral, twenty feet underground. Searching for a golden trapezoid in there would be like searching for a needle in a mountain of haystacks. It could take years, and we don't have years.'

'And Problem No. 2?' Zoe asked.

Wizard said, 'The Zeus piece. As you said before, this verse gives us absolutely nothing. Beyond the usual legends we have no way of knowing where it is.'

A silence fell on the room. This situation had not been anticipated. The Callimachus Text had served them so well so far, none of them had thought that it would completely fail them on the later Pieces.

'So what do we do?' Zoe asked.

'There is one option,' West said solemnly. 'But it's not one that I'd take lightly.'