JACK TOOK IN the monumental task ahead of him.
First he assessed Wolf’s position, over on the other side of the cavern.
They must have entered via the main western harbor some time ago, because they were standing on a tower roughly halfway between their harbor and the ziggurat.
A big head start.
But as he looked more closely at them, Jack frowned. Wolf’s troops seemed to be laying long bridging planks over the rooftop in front of them and then running across each plank to the next tower.
Jack then looked at his own situation and instantly he saw the reason behind their unusual method of travel.
The tower on which he stood had no roof. In fact,all of the tower tops he saw from up here were roofless.
They were all completely hollow, like smokestacks.
And yet, curiously, nearly every rooftop was connected to two or three more rooftops by the dizzying network of bridges.
“Oh, man,” Jack said, realizing. “It’s a huge trap system.”
Every roof that Jack could see from here was the same.
On each one there was a tongue-like platform stretching out from the leading edge of the roof to its middle, out over that tower’s black hollow core.
Ringing this tongue-like platform were three smaller stepping-stone-like platforms, each situated exactly halfway between the central platform and the roof’s three other edges, and each requiring a substantial jump of about five feet to land on them.
Jack examined the rooftop on which he was standing.
Carved into the stone tongue on which he stood was some text written in the Word of Thoth. On each stepping-stone was a similar carving.
“How does it work?” the Sea Ranger asked.
“Question and answer,” Jack said. “This carving here, on the tongue, is the question. You jump on the stepping-stone carved with the correct answer. If you’re right, the stepping-stone holds your weight.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Lachlan asked.
“If you’re wrong, I imagine it doesn’t hold your weight and you fall down the hollow of the tower.”
The Sea Ranger looked down into the black void inside the tower before them. Its walls were sheer and slick. You’d never be able to climb out, if you hadn’t already landed in something deadly.
Jack said, “I imagine the struts holding up the false stepping-stones are made of a brittle material. They look strong, but they’re not.”
“But you have to get every riddle right all the way across,” Julius said. “Would you stake your life on your ability to answer all those riddles correctly?”
But Jack wasn’t listening anymore.
He was staring into space.
“Riddles,” he said aloud. “Aristotle’s Riddles…”
He turned sharply to the Sea Ranger. “Have you got any sat phones on the Raider, video-capable? We need to call in some expert help.”
Of course, the Sea Ranger had several satellite phones on board the Raider. He even had some small helmet-mounted cameras that could be connected to them. He had them brought out.
Handing one to West, he said, “Jack, if you put out a call on that thing, anyone in the area with even a basic scanner is going to know we’re here.”
“Believe me, they’ll know we’re here soon enough. And if we’re going to survive this, we need help.”
With that, Jack called The Halicarnassus on the videophone.
WHEN THE SATELLITE PHONE console on The Halicarnassus suddenly started ringing, everyone on board exchanged worried glances.
Zoe picked up the phone and cautiously said, “Hello?”
“Zoe! It’s me.”
“Jack!”
Quick greetings were exchanged and an overjoyed Lily blurted out a brief summary of their quest through Africa before finishing with the explosive arrival of Wolf’s forces at the kingdom of the Neetha and the loss of Alby and the Pillar to him.
Wizard leaned in to the mike. “Jack. It was great to get your message. We didn’t know if you were alive. But now we’re in dire straits. We can’t get into South Africa. We’re sitting on an airstrip in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, just north of South Africa, while Wolf has gone to the Second Vertex. Where are you?”
“I’m at the Second Vertex,”Jack said.
Wizard’s jaw dropped.
“And I need all of your help.”
