Seven Ancient Wonders

on the way and coming to the fiery body of the Scar. Here West fired an extendable aluminium awning into the Scar's flame-covered surface with his pressure-gun.

The awning opened lengthways like a fan, causing the fire-waterfall to flow over it, sheltering the mini-ledge. The team bolted across the superthin ledge.

Then it was up another ladder to the Fourth Level—the second-highest level—and suddenly six 10-ton block boulders started raining down on them from way up in the darkness above the giant rockface.

The great blocks boomed as they landed on the diorite ledge of Level 4 and tumbled down the rest of the massive tiered wall.

'Get off the ladder!' West yelled to the others. 'You can't dodge the boulders if you're on it—'

Too late.

As West called his warning, a boulder smacked horribly into the last man on the ladder, Fuzzy. The big Jamaican was hurled back down the rockface.

He landed heavily on the Third Level—setting off a trap of spraying flaming oil (it looked like a flamethrower) but he snap-rolled away from the tongue of fire—in the same motion avoiding a second boulder as it slammed down on the ledge an inch away from his eyes!

His roll took him off the ledge, but Fuzzy managed to clasp onto the edge with his fingertips, avoiding the 30- foot drop down to Level 2.

The final wall-ladder was embedded in the centre of the Scar itself, flanked by two fiery waterfalls.

Wizard erected another awning over the mini-ledge leading to the ladder, then allowed West and Lily to rush past him.

'Remember,' Wizard said, 'if you can't get the Piece itself, you must at least note the inscription carved into it. Okay?'

'Got it.' West turned to Lily, it's just us from here.'

They crossed the mini-ledge, came to the rough stone-carved ladder.

Drops of fire rained down it, bouncing off their firemen's helmets.

Every second or third rung of the ladder featured a dark gaping wall-hole of some kind, which West nullified with 'expand-and-harden' foam.

'Jack! Look out! More drop-stones!' Wizard called.

West looked up. 'Whoa shit. . . !'

A giant drop-boulder slicked with oil and blazing with flames came roaring out of a recess in the ceiling directly above the ladder and came free-falling towards him and Lily.

'Swear jar . . .' Lily said.

'I'll have to owe you.'

West quickly yanked an odd-looking pistol from his belt—it looked like a flare gun, with a grossly oversized barrel. An M-225 handheld grenade launcher.

Without panic, he fired it up at the giant boulder freefalling towards them.

The grenade shot upwards.

The boulder fell downwards.

Then they hit and—BOOM!—the falling boulder exploded in a star-shaped shower of shards and stones, spraying outward like a firecracker, its pieces sailing out and around West and Lily on the ladder!

West and Lily scaled the rest of the ladder, flanked by flames, until finally they were standing at the top of the Scar, at the top of the giant rockface, past all the traps.

They stood before the trapezoidal door at the peak of the fire-filled cavern.

'Okay, kiddo,' he said. 'You remember everything we practised?'

She loved it when he called her kiddo.

i remember, sir,' she said.

And so with a final nod to each other, they entered the holy inner sanctum of Imhotep V's deadly labyrinth.

The Innermost Cave

And still the traps didn't stop.

A wide low-ceilinged chamber met them: its ceiling was maybe two metres off the floor . . . and getting lower.

The chamber was about thirty metres wide and its entire ceiling was lowering! It must have been one single piece of stone and right now it was descending on the dark chamber like a giant hydraulic press.

If they'd had time to browse, West and Lily would have seen that the chamber's walls were covered with images of the Great Pyramid—most of them depicting the famous pyramid being pierced by a ray of light shooting down from the Sun.

But it was what lay beyond the entry chamber that seized West and Lily's attention.

At the far end of the wide entry chamber, in a higher-ceilinged space, stood a giant mud-covered bead.

The head was absolutely enormous, at least sixteen feet high, almost three times as tall as West.

Despite the layer of mud all over it, its features were stunning: the handsome Greek face, the imperious eyes, and the glorious golden crown fitted above the forehead.

It was the head of a colossal bronze statue.

The most famous bronze statue in history.

It was the head of the Colossus of Rhodes.

Right in front of it, however, separating the great bronze head from the low-ceilinged entry hall, was a moat of perfectly calm crude oil that completely surrounded the Colossus' head.

The great god-sized head rose up from this oil pool like a creature arising from primordial slime. It sat on no holy pedestal, no ceremonial island, no nothing.

Suspended above the pool was an extra problem: several flaming torches now blazed above it, lit by ancient flint-striking mechanisms. They hung from brackets attached to the end of the entry hall's lowering ceiling—meaning that very soon they would touch the oil pool . . . and ignite it . . . cutting off all access to the Colossus' head.

'Time to run,' West said.

'You bet, sir,' Lily replied.

They ran.

Down the length of the entry hall, beneath its wide lowering ceiling.

Smoke now began to enter the chamber from outside, creating a choking haze.

They came to the oil moat.

'If Callimachus is correct, it won't be too deep,' West said.

Without missing a step, he strode into the pool—plunging to his waist in the thick goopy oil.

'Jump,' he said to Lily, who obliged by leaping into his arms.

They waded across the moat of oil—West striding with Lily on his shoulders—while above them the fiery torches continued their descent toward the pool, the entry hall's ceiling coming ever lower.

With his exit fast diminishing, Jack West Jr stopped a few yards short of the head of the Colossus of Rhodes.

It towered over him, impassive, covered in centuries of mud.

Each of its eyes was as big as Lily was.

Its nose was as big as he was.

Its golden crown glimmered despite its mud coating, while three golden pendants hung from a chain around its neck.

The pendants.

They were each about the size of a fat encyclopaedia and trapezoidal in shape. Embedded in the exact centre of each pendant's upper surface was a round diamond-like crystal.

On the front slanting side of each pendant was a series of intricately carved symbols: an unknown language that looked kind of like cuneiform.