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The Two Lost Mountains is Matthew Reilly's sixteenth novel, and the sixth story to feature Jack West Jr as the main protagonist. It is the sixth and penultimate novel in the Jack West Jr series.

Synopsis[]

AN INCREDIBLE VICTORY

BUT AT A TERRIBLE PRICE...

Against all the odds, Jack West Jr found the Three Secret Cities but at a heartbreaking cost.

His beloved daughter Lily, it appeared, was slaughtered by Sphinx in a cruel ancient ritual.

TO THE MOUNTAINS AND THE FALL!

With his rivals far ahead of him, Jack must now get to one of the five iron mountains - two of which have never been found-and perform a mysterious feat known only as 'The Fall'.

Although what is this object on the moon that is connected to it?

A NEW PLAYER ARRIVES

Amid all this, Jack will discover that a new player has entered the race, a general so feared by the Four Legendary Kingdoms they had him locked away in their deepest dungeon.

Only now this general has escaped and he has a horrifying plan of his own...

Summary[]

On December 23rd, Lily West awakens in, bound to a chair next to a pair of horribly decapitated corpses. Looking around, Lily sees that she is in front of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square, with the bodies of several Russian soldiers, police officers and civilians scattered around. As she tries to remember how she got there, Lily starts to recall what happened during the ceremony at the Altar of the Cosmos within the Rock of Gibraltar...

Three weeks earlier, Lily was resigned to her fate of being sacrificed by Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster and his people in order to complete the Trial of the Cities, but as Sphinx raised the Sword of the Rock, he was hit in the shoulder by a bullet fired an unseen assailant. When the assailant was brought down, Lily soon found that it was her twin brother, Alexander, who had been captured by Sphinx but escaped and attempted to enact revenge for the deaths of the only people who had ever cared for him (Sky Monster's parents). The furious Sphinx had the dying Alexander take Lily's place in the sacrificial pool, and once the young man was killed, a crimson light revealed writing in Thoth on one of the chamber's walls related to the Trial of the Mountains. Additionally, five rings known as the Rings of Command were revealed, which Sphinx took and empowered from the Mace of Poseidon's gem, giving him complete command of the armies of the Bronzemen. Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza confirmed that the first iron mountain was ready for Sphinx's arrival, however, Sphinx insisted on collecting certain bells despite Mendoza and Chloe Carnavon's concerns, as they are necessary for his ruling plan.

Stopping in at the Royal Prison of Erebus on the way, Sphinx had Yago DeSaxe freed from his entombment on the Wall of Misery. During this process, a Serbian Father named Miroslav Cilic slipped away unnoticed, and headed to a hidden dungeon containing a lone prisoner in a cage suspended over a pit. Reverently, Cilic declared himself a loyal disciple and tossed the prisoner, known as General Rastor, a key to the cage. The grateful Rastor ordered Cilic to rejoin his companions, intending to follow soon, and Cilic returned to Sphinx's group, where Yago and eight other prisoners had been freed.

Three weeks later, during which Sphinx consolidated him newly-acquired resources, Lily was brought to the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow, which the Trismagi assaulted using numerous bronzemen. As the other nuns cowered in fear before the eight horrific-looking Erebus prisoners known as Vandals, their leader, Sister Beatrice, exchanged harsh words with Sphinx and claimed that the Siren bells he sought were not there. Knowing the truth, however, Sphinx had Eins open the vault, revealing 14 huge gold-and-silver bells, and set the cannibalistic Vandals on Beatrice and executed the other nuns. Deciding to test one of the bells, Sphinx had one suspended from a Chinook over Moscow and rung, causing a melodious tone that made everyone within a 30 mile radius collapse into a coma-like state. Sphinx explained to Lily that those people affected by the bell will eventually die if left like this for too long, and that he intends for them to wake to a new world when he is the one ruling it. Having discovered that Jack West Jr survived at Atlas, Sphinx now intends to use Lily to draw him out, and had her knocked out and left on the steps of the Cathedral.

Since discovering that Lily had not been sacrificed at Gibraltar, Jack and the team have been attempting to locate her and figure out Sphinx's next move, as well as research the remaining trial of the Super-Ancient Beings, the Trial of the Mountains, from an estate owned privately by Anthony "Hades" DeSaxe in Alsace-Lorraine. Following a couple of side-trips - one to the Gallerie dell'Accademia to gather anything informative that the Order of the Omega may have left behind, and a return to Jack's farm in Australia to gather some documents and one of Jack's old prosthetic arms for Alby Calvin to use in place of his severed hand - the team have discovered Lily's presence in Moscow through a facial recognition program. Now, Stretch, Pooh Bear and Sky Monster race towards Moscow in the Sky Warrior, with Jack, Alby and Aloysius Knight hurrying behind them.

Stretch lands before Lily using gull wings, but, knowing that Sphinx will use the bell to render them comatose, Lily pleads for Stretch to have Sky Monster put the Sky Warrior on autopilot while she writes a note for Jack. After the pair are disabled by the bell, Jaeger Acht approaches their bodies, only to be knocked out by Jack, who had arrived via Putin's secret bullet train built beneath the city with Knight and Alby. As Jack and Knight observe a platoon of bronzemen coming for them, Knight reads Lily's message and has Jack put on his helmet, with it's protective earphones protecting Jack from the bell's next ring. As Jack struggles to get Lily, Stretch and Knight to safety, he is soon helped along by Alby, immune to the bell's tone thanks to his natural deafness. As they flee from the bronzemen, Jack is aided by Rufus in the Black Raven, while Alby receives some surprise help from a pair of nuns, giving Rufus the chance to take care of the car carriers transporting the bronzemen.

The nuns, Sisters Lynda and Agnes, explain that they and the other sisters from the Convent are known as the Order of the Serene Maidens, and that they can aid their mission with important intel such as a way to awaken those rendered unconscious by the bells and the date of the Omega Event. As they attempt to catch up to the Sky Warrior in the Black Raven, an orbit-to-air missile destroys the Tupolev, killing the unconscious Pooh Bear and Sky Monster. After Rufus narrowly dodges a second volley aimed at the Black Raven, Jack decides its time for the team to work on catching up to Sphinx in the race to complete the Trial of the Mountains.

Soon after, at St Peter's Square in Rome, Sphinx and Mendoza greet the Pope, who grants them a bronze globe which contains the locations of the iron mountains and documents regarding information on an artefact called the Orphean bell. Despite the Pope's sycophancy, Sphinx and Mendoza don protective earphones before having another Siren bell rung in the middle of the city, and Sphinx kills the unconscious Pope before declaring Mendoza the Pope for his new world order.

In the course of the three weeks before the events in Moscow, the minotaur E-147 joins the rest of the team at Hades's estate, and is cleaned up and granted the proper name of Easton. Once the news came in that Lily was not dead, Alby began working on analysing the Helmet of Hades to see if the properties that make the wearer invisible to the bronzemen can be replicated, while Stretch worked on getting slivers of the Sword of the Rock to try and make weapons to defeat the automatons, as the team expected that Sphinx had gained control of the legions of them.

Upon arriving at the estate, Mae Merriweather welcomes Lynda as an old friend and Jack is told about the event in Rome. Lynda informs the team that the Omega Event, the sudden collapse and destruction of the universe, will occur in only six days time on December 29th. The team proceeds to discuss what must happen during the Trial of the Mountains; after undertaking something known as the Fall, those who survive must make their way through the Supreme Labyrinth and sit on the throne at its center at the moment of the Omega Event, which will then be averted while whoever is on the throne is crowned the world's ruler. Sphinx intends to use the bells to choose who he wants to live and die under his rule; the only way to awaken those under the siren bells' influence is the Orphean bell. As for the Fall itself, one must stand atop a stone temple within one of the iron mountains when it is in alignment with an altar on the moon, and endure its freefall. However, Hades, Lynda and Iolanthe Compton-Jones know only one of the mountains' identities - the first, at Mont Saint-Michel - due to the Vatican Globe which Sphinx took earlier, but the others are unknown to them.

Luckily, Iolanthe still has a contact in an old tutor of hers, Brother Dagobert 'Bertie' de Montreuil, who has seen the Vatican Globe. When the Jesuit responds to Iolanthe's message for aid, he reveals that the globe only shows three of the mountains, and that there is the option of a journal in the Vatican's vaults, but cannot remain in contact long and requests they meet at Mont Saint-Michel, where Sphinx is already heading. Jack decides to take Hades, Iolanthe and Nobody to the first iron mountain to try and stop Sphinx or get ahold of one of the keys to the Labyrinth, and tasks Zoe, Mae, Rufus, Lynda and Agnes with going to Rome to see if they can find any information on the Orphean bell's location and find the journal. Finally, Alby and Easton are to look after their unconscious friends, as well as look into the Supreme Labyrinth, the altar on the moon and any other data on the mountains, particularly the two lost ones since they may be their final option.

Before they head out, Jack takes a moment to read Sky Monster and Pooh Bear's Messages from the Other Side (the former's revealing his name to have been Ernest Sheperd) and Alby tells him that Mont Saint-Michel will be in alignment with the moon altar that night. Speaking with Mae, Hades wonders how she managed to raise Jack so well, and is concerned that he is outmatched and may die trying to stop Sphinx, though Mae is certain that as long as Jack has his friends he should never be counted out.

Utilising a secret undersea tunnel running from the nearby Tombelaine island to the Mont, Jack and Iolanthe meet Bertie, who informs them that Sphinx's advance team, comprising Mendoza, Dion and Father Felix Rasmussen, are preparing for the Fall. Bertie tells the pair that the Globe is incomplete because when the priests of the Cult of Amon-Ra at Siwa found out it was being moved to Rome they attempted to deface it by removing the iron mountains' locations, but only managed to finish two before they were caught. The locations of the second and third mountains are only relatively known; one in the French Alps, the other in Central Asia. Upon arriving at the Hall of the Falling Temple, Bertie explains that upon the temple suspended over the shaft, the claimant to the ultimate throne must release the structure, place their hands upon a mark on the temple's center-most obelisk the moment it passes a metal ring, and hurry to a second mark at the bottom of the temple before it passes a second ring; this stops the temple's descent and completes the Fall.

Sphinx then arrives, prepared to undertake the Fall with no assistance. As Jack and Iolanthe watch, the moment the mountain's moon shaft lines up with the moon altar, a green light strikes the temple, and Sphinx initiates the Fall, successfully meeting the requirements and being branded with the "key" to qualify him for the Supreme Labyrinth. As the temple is winched back up to the top of the shaft, Mendoza suggests to Sphinx having Dion perform the Fall as well as a precaution should their enemies find another iron mountain and create a contest through the Labyrinth, to which Sphinx agrees. Meanwhile, Hades, having learned of Dion's presence, reaches out to his son and apologises for making his son into the man he is and asks for forgiveness. Dion, however, is uninterested, and the Knights of the Golden Eight bring the former King of Underworld before Sphinx. The Trismagi mocks Hades for not doing what he should have for his brother and son, and once Yago and Dion decree that Hades deserves death, Sphinx has a silverman decapitate him and toss his body into the shaft, to Jack and Iolanthe's horror.

Knowing of their presence, Sphinx calls them out, and declares his insane plan for world rule, which involves culling the human race and advancing it by awakening only the most intelligent people from the Siren bells' effect and leaving the rest to die in their sleep. Denouncing Jack's belief in fighting for others, Sphinx champions people knowing their station, then orders Dion to oversee the bronzemen killing Jack, Iolanthe and his own priests before departing for the Labyrinth. As the bronze and silver automatons begin tearing into the priests, Jack manages to rescue Bertie and destroy the collar holding up the temple, sending it crashing into the shaft and preventing Dion from getting the chance to perform the Fall. Jack, Iolanthe and Bertie manage to evade the bronzemen and reunite with Nobody and leave.

Zoe's group arrive in Rome - catastrophically impacted by the earlier Siren bell - and Lynda explains that the man who wrote the journal they seek, Francis Xavier, had supposedly discovered the location of one of the iron mountains. As Zoe and Agnes search the Pope's office, they uncover a lead on the Orphean bell's location, but also discover that an expert on the bells, Dr. Tracy Smith, is being targeted for assassination. Mae and Lynda find the journal in the Vatican Secret Archives, discovering that the second iron mountain is beneath one of Mont Blanc's peaks and the third beneath Potala Palace in Tibet, as well as finding a lead on the fourth mountain. They then overhear some other intruders searching the Vatican's other vaults, and see that the long-missing uraneus belonging to the Great Sphinx of Giza being examined by the intruders, monks of the Order of the Omega.

As the Omega monks notice them and take them at gunpoint, a missile strikes the basilica, and they are confronted by armed men who take them to General Rastor, who forces the monks to tell him what they learned from measuring the uraneus before having them killed. Introducing himself as a former Commander for the Elite Royal Guard of the Four Legendary Kingdoms, Rastor had a change in "philosophy" from his former masters and was imprisoned in Erebus. Mae assumes he wishes to rule the world using the ultimate throne, though Rastor instead does not wish for anyone to succeed in the trial and wants to allow the universe to end. Zoe attempts a rescue with Rufus in the Black Raven, however they are caught off-guard when a V-88 Condor commanded by Rastor appears, and Rastor fires at the group, hitting Agnes and Mae. Mae pleads for Zoe to get out of there, which she reluctantly does. While Rastor executes Agnes, he decides to keep Mae alive since, as Jack West's mother, she has value. With the information taken from the Order of the Omega monks, Rastor tells his troops that they can locate the Supreme Labyrinth, but will first set about finding an iron mountain.

Alby, meanwhile, is hard at work trying to locate the Supreme Labyrinth, but can find no solid clues in his research into Imhotep other than that the ancient architect had traversed the Labyrinth. Instead, he is drawn towards Albert Einstein following a clue Lily wrote in her note, and discovers that Einstein, while not fully aware of the nature of the Labyrinth, theorised that a quantum pulse emitted from it would send out a signal at superluminal speeds and somehow prevent the Omega Event. As the team begins reporting in, Zoe and Lynda tell Jack about Rastor taking Mae, and their findings for the second and third mountains. As Jack decides to have the two teams tackle the next two mountains, Sphinx has the worldwide television broadcasts hacked, showing the city of Lhasa and the Potala palace being vaporised by a nuclear missile. As a final taunt, Sphinx reveals he knows the location of Hades's estate, and Alby and Easton rush to evacuate Lily, Stretch and Knight as Yago arrives to attack with a squad of bronzemen. As they prepare to move out on a subterranean train, the mansion above is destroyed and Ash becomes trapped behind some rubble. Easton manages to get her onto the carriage, but is hit by one of the Knights of the Golden Eight, and Alby is forced to leave him behind.

Easton is captured and taken away by Yago, and when he reports to Sphinx that Jack's friends escaped, Sphinx orders Yago to toss the minotaur out of the plane. Before the order can be carried out, the plane is remotely hacked and its cargo door opened, allowing Jack to fly his team's seaplane inside for a rescue mission. Yago orders the bronzemen onboard to kill them, but to his shock, Jack's bullets actually penetrate the automatons' armour, having being tipped with the metal shavings Stretch extracted off the Sword of the Rock. As Jack and Nobody attempt to get through the bronzemen, Easton grapples with Yago and takes his ring, taking command of the automatons and having them secure Yago. Jack then uses the ring to command the bronzemen to throw Yago off the plane, and decides to let Easton keep the ring to command the plane's remaining automatons for their side.

Jack's team proceeds to Mont Blanc Massif, and hear radio chatter that Dion and the Knights of the Golden Eight are being attacked by the Omega monks, with backup in the form of Romanian special forces. Deciding to take advantage of the conflict, Jack takes Easton and four of their pale-blue painted bronzemen in his seaplane and flies through the Mont Blanc motorway tunnel to reach the Hall of the Falling Temple within Aiguille du Midi. Before they can do anything, however, Dion manages to initiate the Fall and successfully completes it, earning the same branded 'key' as Sphinx. In order to prevent anyone else from completing a Fall, a lunar rover controlled by the Golden Knights covers the moon pedestal with a foil sheet, while Dion and Eins have the Falling Temple destroyed.

Then Rastor and his men arrive, and refuses Dion's offer to join them, instead threatening to challenge them in the Labyrinth later. As Dion and the Knights escape, Jack and Eaton watch Rastor confront the remaining Omega monks, revealing that brother Ezekiel performed the Fall at Potala before it was destroyed then has these monks killed too. Speaking to Jack, Rastor explains his desire to see the Omega Event occur, believing it is the way things should be. Jack and Easton escape up the moon shaft and reunite with Iolanthe and Nobody at the Aiguille du Midi's observatory, confirming that the pedestal has been covered and the rover on the moon's uplink destroyed to prevent anyone trying to remove it. After Dion sends a missile to destroy the observatory, a surprise rescue from the still-alive Sky Monster and Pooh Bear (who had been wearing protective-headphones and parachuted from the Sky Warrior before its destruction) saves the team's lives. With the known iron mountains destroyed, Jack and the team's only option to stop Sphinx, Dion and the Order of the Omega is to find one of the two lost mountains to perform the Fall.

Sphinx arrives at the entrance to the Emperor's Gate of the Supreme Labyrinth, where he and Mendoza - the latter's head now shaven to reveal a tattoo on his scalp containing the clues to the Labyrinth, passed down in the ways Imhotep had for generations - prepare the remaining bronzemen forces to guard the other entrances. Once Sphinx opens the inner Emperor's Gate, the outer gates of all the entrances begin to close, which Mendoza notes will take a full day, so the bronzemen and Knights will guard them until Dion arrives. Sphinx is informed that the Siren bells have been positioned in major cities around the world, and orders them rung, then tells Chloe to locate the Orphean bell. With that, Sphinx, Mendoza, three Knights of the Golden Eight and the Vandals begin venturing into the Supreme Labyrinth. As they pass through the gate, however, Ezekiel and five of his monks manage to get inside another gate before they can be stopped. At this time, Siren bells suspended over New York, London, Washington, D.C., Shanghai, Jerusalem, Cairo, Beijing, Los Angeles and Mecca are rung, sending their residents to sleep.

On Christmas Day, the sleep-struck cities and the attack in Tibet are causing the world to cower in fear of what will happen next. Jack's team reunites and try to work out how they can proceed. Thanks to Javier's journal, Jack works out that the fourth iron mountain is beneath the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, however a television broadcast shows that Rastor's forces are already there preparing. Regarding the covered moon pedestal, Jack decides that they can try to piggyback on Rastor's suspected efforts to handle it, but encourages Alby to proceed with a backup plan. Bertie has a possible lead on the Orphean bell's location, and decides to head to Italy with Iolanthe and Nobody, while Lynda and Zoe are to follow up on Tracy's suspected location in Syria.

Arriving in Jerusalem, Jack finds that Rastor has already had the Dome of the Rock obliterated and the Falling Temple beneath exposed, but there is no sign of Rastor. Instead, the General's voice taunt Jack from a nearby radio, revealing he has already completed the Fall and had the pedestal on the moon re-covered. Additionally, Mae is shown to be crucified to the bottom of the Falling Temple. Knowing Jack can't save her in time, Mae calmly tells Jack to leave her and keep fighting to save the world, before Rastor remotely destroys the temple's supports, causing it to fall into the shaft and kill Mae when in crashes at the bottom. As a devastated Jack prepares to leave, a Chinook carrying the Siren bell that Sphinx sent to Jerusalem appears, and Jack, Pooh Bear and Easton succumb to the bell's tone and collapse. As Jaeger Zwei and his bronzemen move in, however, Jack is suddenly awoken and embraced by a now-awake Lily, while Zoe, Stretch and Knight take down the bronzemen.

A few hours earlier, Zoe and Lynda located Tracy in Aleppo, and the doctor explained how the Siren bells affect people and her theory on how to wake up the victims without the blue bell. Successfully waking Lily up by injecting a serum directly into her ear canal, the group proceeded to Jerusalem and woke up Stretch and Knight, though Tracy states that to wake up whole cities they will need the Orphean bell. Once the group are safely away from Zwei's forces, Alby calls in to reveal that he has also located the final iron mountain; beneath the Great Sphinx at Giza, with the entrance to the Falling Temple located in the statue's head. With that, Jack's team races to Cairo, and along the way Jack reads Mae's Message from the Other Side with Lily and Zoe, before deciding that he wants all three of them to do the Fall so as to have a better chance of at least one of them completing the Supreme Labyrinth.

Meanwhile, Alby and Rufus arrive at the Zapadny Cosmodrome in Libya, where Alby hopes to find a solution to uncovering the pedestal on the moon, only to find the spaceport in ruins thanks to Rastor. As Jack, Zoe, Lily, Stretch and Pooh Bear race to the Sphinx, they hear radio chatter from the Order of the Omega, who are attempting to use the final mountain to perform the Fall and give them another chance at the Supreme Labyrinth. At Rufus's suggestion, Alby uses the cosmodrome's intact rocket to create an uplink to a moon rover, just as a battalion of Sphinx's bronzemen land nearby with the intention of destroying them. Alby manages to control the rover into exposing the pedestal, just as it comes into alignment with Giza. Jack's team reaches the Sphinx, and pursue an Omega monk into the Falling Temple beneath, though the monk manages to initiate the Fall himself. Luckily, Jack, Lily and Zoe land on the Temple as it starts falling, press their hands to the first altar at its peak, and begin racing to the bottom. Jack knocks the monk into the shaft, and he, Zoe and Lily all successfully reach the bottom altar and are branded with the "key" to enter the Supreme Labyrinth.

At this point, Lynda has identified where the entrance to the Supreme Labyrinth is located; going from what the Omega monks' earlier examination of the Sphinx uraneus, Lynda has realised that the Great Sphinx is looking in the direction of the Labyrinth, and the uraneus provides the distance away it is. With the endgame in sight, Jack tasks Stretch, Pooh Bear, Lynda and Tracy with finding out what the Four Legendary Kingdoms (who may not all support Sphinx) are planning for after the Omega Event. Jack, not knowing how things in the Labyrinth will turn out, gives Pooh Bear a copy of his Message from the Other Side, before he, Lily, Zoe and the others head off.

As Alby and Rufus race to meet them, they approach the Siwa Oasis, and Alby realises that his earlier research into Imhotep has given him a clue to the architect's tomb. Locating the tomb, Alby and Rufus uncover Imhotep's body and find that his mummified head is tattooed with the clues to the Labyrinth (like Mendoza), and take the head with them in the hopes that it will prove useful in the Labyrinth.

Arriving at the location of the gates in the Sinai Desert, Jack's team find Rastor's forces fighting Sphinx's defences, but proceed with their own plan to enter the Labyrinth as Rastor's group make it inside one of the gates. Aided by Sky Monster, Knight, Rufus, Alby, Easton and their "palemen", Jack, Zoe and Lily barrel their way through the legion of bronze and silvermen and narrowly make it through the gate, with Easton and four palemen ending up joining them. With the mummified head of Imhotep that Alby passed to them and the clues tattooed on it, Jack, Zoe and Lily open the inner gate into the Supreme Labyrinth with their brands and proceed inside, ready to face their final mission together.

To Be Concluded in The One Impossible Labyrinth...

Characters[]

Jack's Team[]

Sphinx's Entourage[]

Other Characters[]

Mentioned-Only Characters[]

Historical Figures[]

Animals[]

Locations[]

Gallery[]

Covers[]

Misc[]

Trivia[]

  • After five novels, Sky Monster's real name, Ernest Sheperd, is finally revealed.
  • During an interview with Booktopia in late 2021, Reilly mentioned that he had considered including Temple's main protagonist William Race in The Two Lost Mountains; this idea would have seen Jack requiring a consultation with an ancient language specialist (Race).


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