‘Kill it,’ Easton commanded.

The paleman obeyed immediately, squeezing its fist, breaking the Vandal’s neck with a sharp crack, killing the little assassin. It dropped the corpse to the floor.

Jack clambered to his feet, looking from the dead Vandal to the paleman with the scratched smile.

‘Thanks, Smiley,’ he said.

The grinding sound from within the recess above them grew louder.

‘I think I just crossed the shining stair and triggered a trap. We need to move. Go! Go!’

They bolted.

They were thirty metres down the tunnel when a massive cube-shaped stone dropped out of the recess into the tunnel—filling the square-shaped passageway perfectly—and began to slide down it after them.

Down the tunnel they bounded, running for all they were worth.

Jack led the way, eyeing the square-shaped opening at the bottom.

It still glowed with dim light. As he came closer to it, he saw that it was actually a full-sized doorway.

The others raced down the tunnel with him, while behind them the big square stone rumbled as it slid, grinding against the steps, gradually gaining speed.

The thing was huge.

It must’ve weighed thirty tons. And it filled the tunnel completely.

Imhotep had been right: once you crossed the shining stair, there was no going back.

Jack reached the doorway at the bottom end of the tunnel and he stopped with a lurch.

‘Uh-oh . . .’

Zoe arrived at his side. ‘What’s the hold-up—oh my.’

Jack stole a glance back at the thirty-ton stone block sliding down the tunnel behind them. ‘We got a serious problem.’

The problem: their tunnel just ended.

The staircase simply stopped, its bottommost step dropping away to nothing but thin air, leaving them standing on a small ledge cut into a colossal underground cliff overlooking a larger cavern . . .

. . . in which a wild battle was already taking place, with bullets flying and grenades exploding . . .

. . . all while the sliding stone accelerated down the stairs behind them, coming to hurl them off the cliff.

JACK’S ENTRY TUNNEL

AND BRIDGE

THE FIRST CAVERN

Jack figured he had about twenty seconds.

First, he took in the enormous cavern.

It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Its walls, bridges and other surfaces were made of three substances: rough uneven rock, smooth concrete-like greystone and a burnished bronze-coloured metal.

Jack and his team were high up on one side of a gigantic abyss that plummeted away into fathomless darkness.

The main feature of this space was a colossal stalactite hanging from the ceiling that was the size of a fifteen-storey skyscraper.

Up at the top, where it was widest, this upside-down skyscraper appeared to be made mostly of natural rock. But as it stretched downward and became narrower, it was fashioned from the two added-on materials: metal and greystone.

Five bridges—superlong and made of the strange bronze metal and sporting low gutters—radiated like spokes on a wheel from the upper reaches of the skyscraper.