The Six Sacred Stones
Matthew Reilly
ALSO BY MATTHEW REILLY
7 Deadly Wonders
Contest
Scarecrow
Ice Station
Temple
Area 7
Copyright © 2008 by Karanadon Entertainment Pty Ltd.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
THE SIX RAMESEAN STONES
THE MYSTERY OF THE CIRCLES
A mortal battle,
Between father and son,
One fights for all,
And the other for one.
—ANONYMOUS (FROM AN INSCRIPTION FOUND IN A3,000-YEAR-OLDCHINESE SHRINE IN THEWUGORGE, CENTRALCHINA)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—ARTHURC. 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:
