‘Dad!’ Lily’s voice called. ‘Get outside!’

Jack hurried down a short stone passageway beyond the side exit, toward a doorway at its end and stepped out onto a tiny ledge overlooking the cavern . . .

THE SPIRALLING PATH

AND THE EXIT BRIDGE

. . . where he stopped.

He was standing at the top of a spiralling path that wound down the lower reaches of the upside-down stalactite-skyscraper.

Another explosion boomed.

The skyscraper shook again.

And suddenly Jack saw Rastor down by the exit, wearing a tactical vest and holding a Predator rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder, firing RPGs up at the upside-down skyscraper!

Another RPG struck the giant rock tower, causing a burst of fragments to rain outward and making the entire structure shake and shudder.

And then there came an awful noise.

A deep, resonating cracking.

Craaaaaaack!

It came from high above Jack as, all of a sudden, the whole skyscraper lurched dramatically.

Zoe appeared beside him, breathing hard. ‘What’s happening?’

Jack looked up in dismay.

‘Rastor’s firing RPGs at this stalactite. This whole thing is about to fall away from the ceiling. We have to get off it before it drops. Run!’

With the colossal inverted skyscraper looming behind him, Sphinx strode across the long obelisk-lined bridge with his entourage.

Once they were all across it, he heard them.

Ezekiel and his five Omega monks had entered the Labyrinth and were crossing their upper entry bridge.

Sphinx turned to his most senior Knight, Jaeger Sechs. ‘The Omega monks are here! Blow the bridge behind us!’

Jaeger Sechs—Knight Six—laid an explosive pack on the bridge and detonated it.

The blast echoed throughout the cavern, creating a billowing cloud of smoke . . .

. . . and suddenly out of that cloud fell a fifteen-foot section of the bridge. It dropped away into the abyss.

Sphinx raced out through the exit, penetrating deeper into the maze.

Trailing Sphinx by only a matter of minutes, Brother Ezekiel and his Omega monks came to the broken obelisk bridge.

But they’d anticipated Sphinx’s defensive measures and come prepared: they’d brought a carbon-fibre bridging unit with them and now they extended it across the void Sphinx had created.

They crossed the obelisk bridge and dashed further into the Supreme Labyrinth, chasing Sphinx.

Twelve hours ago.

Dion raced across the same bridging unit, flanked by his three armed Squires, desperate to catch up to Sphinx and give him help.

Rastor watched as Jack bolted down the spiralling staircase that ringed the lower half of the skyscraper, followed by Zoe and Smiley.

He could see Lily and Easton ahead of Jack, two storeys further down the same staircase.

What Jack’s people hadn’t seen yet was the stone slab lowering into the exit doorway immediately behind Rastor.

As Rastor knew, each maze had to be overcome within a day—or one rotation of the Earth, as Imhotep’s instructions had put it—before it was sealed off.