And so they separated.

Aloysius, Rufus and Sky Monster headed off in the Werewolf, taking the wounded Easton and the half-melted Smiley with them, while Zoe, Lily and Alby donned scuba gear and swam into the clear blue water covering the flooded city-maze, eventually arriving here to find Jack about to be killed by the two Omega monks.

When Zoe and Alby finished their tales, Jack smiled.

‘I’m so glad you’re all here, because we’ve got a hell of a maze to get through now.’

Fourth Test of Worth: The Four-sided Maze

The Four-Sided Maze

28 December, 0406 hours (local time)

25 hours to the Omega Event

Lily gazed up at the Thoth text etched into the archway above the entrance to the four-sided maze.

‘It reads:

And so the path to Death begins.

Overcome the quadrilateral maze

Board the golden cage

And stand in judgement.

Only then can you sit in the embrace of Death.’

‘Doesn’t sound friendly,’ Zoe said.

Jack said, ‘I overheard some of the Omega monks talking about this second half of the Labyrinth. They said it was much nastier than the first half.’

Lily said, ‘There’s a final symbol carved at the end of the markings. It’s also on Imhotep’s skull. This one.’

She pulled out the skull and pointed at an image on it:

‘What’s it mean?’ Alby asked.

‘It’s weird.’ Lily frowned. ‘It’s a Thoth symbol that’s been combined with an image, so it’s hard to translate. It means something like “the turning sequence” or “the sequence of rotations”.’

Jack looked from Lily to the four-sided maze.

He scanned the high grey-walled trenches in its floor, walls and ceiling; gazed at the white blockhouses that poked up from within them and at the waterfalls flowing from the spouts jutting out from the walls.

‘That’s the catch,’ he said. ‘Each maze in here has a unique feature to it. That “sequence of rotations” must be the catch for this one—’

He cut himself off as his searching eyes zeroed in on the trenches cut into the ceiling.

He’d noticed them before, noticed that something was missing from them.

‘Hand-rungs . . .’ he whispered.

‘What?’ Zoe said.

Jack was talking to himself now, thinking aloud. ‘You don’t swing from your hands across the ceiling. You walk on it . . . because the whole maze must . . .’

As he spoke, he kept staring upward, then he snapped to look out at the larger maze and the full realisation dawned on him.

‘Dad? Hello? What is it?’ Lily said.

Jack swallowed. ‘Oh, man. We’re in for a ride on this one.’

And, right then, it happened.

A deep grinding sound echoed from within the walls around them and abruptly, as the team looked out at the superlong maze, the whole immense square-shaped cavern rotated.

It was quite a sight.