Staying in the shadows, he peered around the ancient doorway . . .

. . . and this time he actually got to see the larger area that lay beyond the door and his breath caught in his throat.

‘Okay, now that’s big,’ he said.

THE CITY-MAZE

IN THE RED SEA

(WHEN JACK ARRIVES)

The City-Maze

Jack found himself standing at the rear of a flat stone roof of a soaring stone tower overlooking a vast circular stone city.

The city was ringed by a curving eight-hundred-foot-high wall of smooth greystone.

The sheer size of the wall made it seem like this city sat at the base of the largest dam in the world, only this dam went all the way around the city in a huge perfect circle.

And it was all open to the sky.

Indeed, the sky blazed bright and blue high above the scene.

The city was a dazzlingly complex mix of towers and domes, bridges and staircases, avenues and trenches, pyramids and obelisks, and in its exact centre, rising above the metropolis around it, was a spectacular multi-spired white-and-silver castle.

At the top of this castle was a superhigh gold-and-silver pinnacle that shot several hundred feet further into the sky, until at its peak one beheld a large golden throne that glittered in the light of the sun.

Jack gazed in wonder at the sight.

‘A throne?’ he said, perplexed. ‘Here?’

It didn’t make sense. By his reckoning, they were only halfway through the Labyrinth.

Lily crept up beside him. ‘Did you say throne?’

He pointed at it and she said, ‘Oh. Whoa.’

As the two of them scanned the white-and-silver castle, the low maze of buildings and the massive grey wall, Jack couldn’t help feeling that, beyond the sheer magnitude of it all, he’d seen something like this before.

It hit him.

The Underworld.

Hades’s old kingdom, in a remote corner of India.

The style of this place was the same, the whole look and feel of it.

The mix of rough-edged natural stone and smooth greystone; the complex city nestled around the central castle; and, of course, the utterly extraterrestrial nature of it all.

This was a place that had not been made by human hands.

It was older than anything humanity had ever constructed, bigger in concept, and built in service to a mission far beyond the knowledge of modern humans, let alone societies like that of ancient Egypt.

A flash of light from the castle—from its summit, at the base of the pinnacle—caught Jack’s eye a split second before he heard the report of a gunshot, since light travelled faster than sound.

Three figures were at the top of the castle.

Jack recognised Sphinx and Mendoza.

The third man was a Knight of the Golden Eight and he was furiously firing a gun down at their rivals.