Now, it was just him and Sphinx and he sprang upward, leaping for the handholds on the underside of the overhang, just as on the other side of the pinnacle, Sphinx did the same.

30 seconds . . .

Jack swung hand-over-hand and then hauled himself around and over the lip of the overhang.

20 seconds . . .

Then he rose to his feet on the summit of the pinnacle, right in front of the Throne of Death.

At that moment, Sphinx appeared on the opposite side of the wide silver-floored platform.

The pink sky above them was suddenly shot through with celestial lightning. The very fabric of the universe was cracking, about to rush inward in a cataclysmic singularity.

10 seconds . . .

Between Jack and Sphinx stood the Throne of the Tree of Death.

It was both stunning and frightening.

It sat on a podium of three broad steps and was made of the same black-and-gold stonework as the castle.

It was high and wide, with broad armrests. Its backrest had been carved in the shape of a goldman: his faceless beaked head poised above it, the armrests fashioned in the shape of his arms.

The effect was that whoever sat on the throne would be sitting in the embrace of the fearsome alien being.

Sit in the embrace of Death . . .

Jack was fractionally closer to the throne, maybe a metre.

Sphinx shook his head at the sight of him: at his broken nose, his bloodied face.

‘Do you even know what sitting on that throne will do to you?’ he called.

Jack frowned. Had he missed something? Something he’d needed to do before ascending this throne?

8 seconds . . .

‘Life is rule and death is life, so death is rule, too!’ Sphinx shouted. ‘I am ready for that! Are you? How about this? I will make you a prince in my new regime. I will give you a whole continent to rule as your own. You’ve done enough, Jack. It’s time to stop. Let me take my place on the throne and do what I was born to do.’

6 seconds . . .

Through his bloodstained teeth, Jack gave Sphinx a crooked smile.

‘You clearly don’t know me, do you? I didn’t come this far, just to come this far.’

4 seconds . . .

Sphinx bolted off the mark, diving for the throne.

Jack sprang forward, too, with his metre head start.

He bounded up the three broad steps with Sphinx lunging close behind him, crying, ‘No!’

3 . . .

But Jack got there first and with two seconds till the end of all things, he hurled himself onto the Throne of the Tree of Death, into the embrace of the goldman carved into it.

A blaze of blinding light sprang up all around the throne, engulfing Jack and throwing Sphinx back to the floor.

A hurricane of wind whipped all around Jack as a deep resonating thrum began to grow within the castle structure beneath him.