This was confirmed by the comment about Malkuth that Jack had overheard the other Omega monk say on the carrier’s flight deck earlier.

Malkuth was the bottommost node of the Tree of Life. As such, it was also the entry point to the lower realm of existence—that of decay and wickedness, turpitude and pain—at the end of which was the fearsome Tree of Death.

In here, that meant the second Throne.

The line from Imhotep’s skull and the metal wall echoed in his mind again:

Life is rule, death is life.

Jack guessed this might mean that the reward for whoever sat on this throne, the Life Throne, was the power to rule over everyone else. And if death was life, then maybe the reward for sitting on the Death Throne was the same thing. Then again, it might be something much simpler: the privilege to keep living.

Whatever it is, he thought, now that this Throne has been destroyed, this is an entirely new race. We’re still in the game and no longer that far behind.

We . . . he thought, pausing.

He glanced back at the towertop where he had left Lily, Easton and Smiley.

Easton was still crouched over Lily. She was moving, rubbing her head. Smiley sat motionless next to her. The destroyed Russian search-and-rescue helicopter lay near them, beside the gash it had carved into the tower’s roof.

It’s not ‘we’ any more, Jack thought sadly. First Zoe had been killed in the entry maze. And now Easton and Lily had been struck down. Even Smiley was out of commission.

It was just him now.

And he couldn’t stop. He had to go on, even if he had to do it on his own.

‘Well, jackass,’ he said grimly to himself. ‘Are you gonna take your own advice? You didn’t come this far just to come this far, did you?’

And with those words, he looked out at the base of the castle: he had to get there and he had to get there before it got covered over with water.

He took a deep breath, girded himself, and then he started running down the flight deck as fast as he damn well could.

Jack raced down the length of the aircraft carrier’s downwardly tilted deck.

As soon as he emerged from behind the bow of the beached destroyer, the two nearby Omega monks saw him, but Jack just turned as he ran and shot them both in the head. He didn’t have time for that shit.

He holstered his gun as he came to the forward end of the flight deck and, without missing a step, he leapt off it onto the flat roof of a tower with a temple on it.

After that, he raced across a high bridge at full speed—all while the roiling seawater beneath him rose quickly.

Another bridge met him . . .