…and beheld the space in which he stood.
“Hoo-ah…” he breathed.
In his time, Jack West Jr. had seen some big caverns, including one in the southeastern mountains of Iraq that had housed the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
But even that cavern paled in comparison to this one.
It took seven more flares to light it fully.
The cavern that West saw was immense —utterly immense; roughly circular in shape and at least five hundred yards in diameter.
It was also a masterpiece of structural engineering: it was a natural cave, sure, but one that had been shaped by the work of men—tens of thousands of men, Jack guessed—to be even more impressive than Nature had originally made it.
Eight towering pillars of stone held up the cavern’s soaring ceiling. They had clearly once been limestone stalactites that, over thousands of years, had eventually met their matching stalagmites on the floor of the cavern, forming into thick roof-supporting columns. But somewhere in history, a Chinese work-army had shaped them into beautifully decorated columns, complete with faux guard balconies.
But it was the column in the very center of the cavern that dominated the scene.
Thicker than the others and entirely man-made, it looked like a glorious tower, a great twenty-story fortified tower, reaching all the way to the cavern’s superhigh ceiling, where it joined with it.
It was easily the most intricately decorated of all the columns: it bore many balconies, doorways, archer slits, and at its base, four sets of rising stone stairs leading to four separate stone doorways.
Surrounding the tower and each of the other columns was a wide perfectly still lake of a dark oil-like liquid that was certainly not water. It glinted dully in the light of West’s flares. Stretching across it from West’s position all the way to the tower in the middle of the cavern was a long series of seven-foot-high stepping-stones—a bridge of sorts, but one that no doubt possessed its own nasty surprises.
“Liquid mercury,” Astro said, raising his gas mask to briefly sniff the lake’s fumes. “You can tell by the odor. Highly toxic. Clogs your pores, poisons you right through the skin. Don’t fall in.”
As he rejoined West and the others, Wizard recited:
“In the highest room of the highest tower,
In the lowest part of the lowest cave,
There you will find me.
“From Confucius,” he said. “Third book of eternal maxims. I never really understood it till now.”
Near their position, a red-and-black cast-iron archway spanned the first stepping-stone. Carved into it was a message in ancient Chinese script:
A journey of a thousand miles
Begins with a single step.
So too this final challenge
Begins, and ends, with a single step.
Wizard nodded. “Appropriate. ‘Every journey begins with a single step’ is a quote attributed to both Laoziand Confucius. Historians are unsure which of them came up with it. So here, where their two paths join to become one, there is just one quote.”
“So what’s the catch?” Scimitar asked.
West eyed the stepping-stones, the tower, and the great cavern, the intent of it all becoming clear.
“It’s a time-and-speed trap,” he said softly.
“Oh, God, you’re right,” Wizard said.
Astro frowned. “A what? What’s a time-and-speed trap?”
“A big one,” Wizard said.
“That usually begins with a single step,” West added. “Your first step sets off the trap. Then you have to get in and out before the trap completes its sequence. You need accuracy and speed to get through it. I imagine that as soon as one of us steps on the first stepping-stone, the sequence is set off.” He turned to Wizard. “Max?”
Wizard thought for a moment. “‘In the highest room of the highest tower in the lowest part of the lowest cave.’ I imagine it’s up there, in the highest room of that tower. I think we need your skill and speed from here, Jack.”
“That’s what I figured,” West said wryly.
He removed his heavy garments, until all he wore was his T-shirt, cargo pants, boots, and the lower half of his gas mask, leaving his eyes clear. His metal left arm glinted in the dull light. He put his fireman’s helmet back on his head and gripped a climbing rope in one hand. He also kept his gun belt with its twin holsters on.
“He’s going alone?” Scimitar asked, surprised, and perhaps a little suspiciously.
“For this test, the most important thing is speed,” Wizard said, “and in places like this, there’s no man in the world faster than Jack. From here, he must go alone. He’s the only one who can.”
“Yeah, right,” West said. “Stretch, if it looks like I’m in trouble, backup would be appreciated.”
“You got it, Huntsman.”
