The templeshrine."

A hush fell over the room as the magnitude of what he was saying set in.

"So how do these statues reveal the shrine's location?" Vulture asked.

"With their third eyes," Jack said, smiling.

"Oh, Jack..." Wizard said. "You're a genius."

"What? What do you mean?" Scimitar said.

Jack's eyes glowed as he spoke. "I imagine if we go to Abu Simbel and carefully calibrate theeye lines from the third eye of each set of statues-of Rameses and of Nefertari-the meeting point of those eye lines will be the location of the first templeshrine."

THE KILLING STONE OF THE MAYA.

THE GROUP MOVE Don to Lab 2, to where the Killing Stone of the Maya sat on its workbench. They all filed in to the observation room that looked into the lab.

Leading the way, Wizard said, "In addition to the locations of the templeshrines, we need to know thedates by which the Pillars must be placed in them.

"Now, in Laozi's entry chamber in China, Tank and I discovered this reference to the laying of the first Pillar: THE 1ST PILLAR MUST BE INLAID.

EXACTLY 100 DAYS BEFORE THE RETURN.

THE PRIZE SHALL BEKNOWLEDGE.

"We had previously calculated the Return-being the full return of the Dark Sun, when its...o...b..t brings it to the outer reaches of our solar system-to be the day of next year's vernal equinox, March 20, 2008. Working backward then, we deduced that the first Pillar-duly cleansed-must be set in place by December 10, this year, by the light of the Dark Sun, which means during a t.i.tanic Rising."

"December 10," Stretch said drily. "Tomorrow."

"Yes."

"Cutting it a little close, aren't we?"

Wizard shrugged as he headed for the door. "When ancient knowledge is lost, sometimes it is never found in time. We've been very lucky so far. Tank and I were aware of the 2008 deadline, so we thought we had more time than this. We were surprised that the laying of the first two Pillars was required so soon, and so far in advance of the latter four.

Jack? Do you have the Firestone?"

Jack produced the Firestone from its pack, handed it to Wizard.

The old professor then stepped out of the observation room and into an airlocktype doorway, emerging inside Lab 2, now alone with the Killing Stone.

Everyone watched intently through the twoway mirror as Wizard brought the little golden pyramid over to the Killing Stone. Two HDV video cameras whirred in the silence, recording the scene through the gla.s.s. Four more were inside the lab with Wizard, filming the Killing Stone from every angle.

The two stones could not have been more different-the Firestone was ultrasmooth, gold, and glittering the Killing Stone rough and scratched, with dry maroon stains all over it.

And yet somehow they seemed connected. Fashioned by the same maker.

One of the two flat sections on the upper surface of the Killing Stone bore a shallow squareshaped recess that perfectly matched the base of the Firestone.

"OK,"Wizard's voice said over the speakers in the observation room,"I am now going to set the Firestone atop the Killing Stone..."

Slowly and with great reverence, he held the Firestone above the recess in the Killing Stone...

...and then he lowered the pyramidion onto it.

As he gazed through the twoway window, Jack found himself holding his breath.

The Firestone slotted into the recess perfectly, now married to the Killing Stone.

Wizard stepped back.

Nothing happened.

And then the crystal on the Firestone's peak began to glimmer.

An ominous humming began to thrum from the paired stones.

Wizard's eyes went wide.

Then, abruptly, the humming stopped.

Silence.

No one moved.

But then, in beautiful silence, some symbols on the Killing Stone-individual symbols mixed among the dozens of others carved into it-began to glow dazzling white, one after the other.

One symbol would glow brightly-in total silence-before it went dull again and another shone to life, and another, and another.

A sequence of some kind.

As it played out, the twins jotted down each symbol as it glowed.

"Numbers and Mayan epochs,"Wizard said over the intercom."Only the numerical symbols for dates are glowing. Crucial dates."

The sequence went for about forty seconds, before the glowing subsided and both ancient stones resumed their normal appearance once again.

Half an hour later, after Wizard, Tank, and the twins had watched and rewatched the video footage of the event and crunched the numbers, Wizard announced, "The date from Laozi's chamber is correct. The first Pillar must be set in place during the t.i.tanic Rising just before dawn tomorrow, the 10th of December. The second Pillar must be laid a week from now, on December 17, again during a t.i.tanic Rising."

"Can you be absolutely sure of your calculations?" Robertson asked.

Tank said, "Yes, the Mayan calendar has long been synchronized with our own. It is one of the easier primitive calendars to calculate."

"What about the other four dates?" Robertson asked.

"They are all some way off," Wizard said, "three months from now, cl.u.s.tered around the ten days immediately before the Return itself in late March 2008. It seems we face two separate periods of intense activity, one now, one later. If we survive the placing of the first two Pillars over the coming week, we get a period of relief, a hiatus, before in three months' time we face another flurry of activity requiring the placing of four Pillars in the s.p.a.ce of ten days."

Jack said, "So unless we get it right this week, we don't even get to play next year?"

"That is correct," Wizard said.

There was a silence as everyone present took this in.

"Okay, then..." Jack said. "Our next step is to cleanse the Pillars we have. Which brings us to the last lab."

THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE LAST OF ALL, the group moved into Lab 1, where the Philosopher's Stone sat proudly and silently on its workbench.

Once again, the larger group remained in an observation room while Wizard, Vulture, and Stretch entered the lab itself: Wizard carrying the Firestone Vulture bearing the velvet case containing the Saudi Pillar and Stretch carrying Iolanthe's velveteen case with the British Pillar.

Again, cameras recorded everything.

And although no one noticed it, a security camera inside the observation room was observing them.

In a darkened room elsewhere on the island base, others were watching.

In the lab, Vulture opened his velvet case and placed his family's Pillar on the workbench.

Stretch did the same with Iolanthe's, so that the two Pillars stood side by side.

They were almost identical: two bricksized blocks of uncut diamond, extraordinary in size, hazy and translucent.

As Jack knew, all diamonds looked this way until they were cleaved by an expert and polished to sparkling brilliance.

He also knew that these two raw diamonds far exceeded any diamond previously found on Earth.

The largest diamond ever found was the Cullinan, a huge gem found in South Africa in 1905. Cut into nine smaller gems, labeled Cullinan I to IX, its largest gem-the Cullinan I-was the size of a baseball and now formed part of the British Crown Jewels.

It was only then that Jack noticed something else about these Pillars. Most peculiarly, each of the Pillars possessed an ovalshapedvoid in its core, a little round chamber that appeared to contain a liquid of some sort.

A clear, colorless liquid.

"But how can that be-" he whispered.

"It can't be explained," Iolanthe said from beside him. "It defies explanation."

"What can't be explained?" Lily asked.

Jack said, "Diamonds are made from carbon that has been crystallized under intense pressure and heat. This makes a diamond one of the hardest and most dense substances known to man."

Zoe added, "The word 'diamond' itself comes from the Greek,'adamas,' and its equivalent in Latin,'diamas,' meaning-"

"Unconquerable," Lily said.

Jack said, "Which means that a true diamond, so violently compressed during its formation, shouldnever have any kind of void inside it, let alone one that's filled with liquid." He keyed the intercom. "Vulture. Do you have any idea what kind of liquid is inside the diamond?"

From inside the lab, Vulture replied: "An a.n.a.lysis by our scientists suggests that it is a form of liquid helium known as helium3, He3."

Lachlan Adamson whispered, "A substance not found on Earth. Although it was found in solid form on the Moon.Apollo 15 brought some back."

"Very curious," Jack said.

There was one other thing about the two Pillars that he noticed. On each one's uppermost flat end was a marking.

On Vulture's it was a single horizontal line: On Iolanthe's, there were four.

Even Jack could count in Thoth: these were the First and Fourth Pillars.

Inside the lab, Wizard approached the Philosopher's Stone, carrying the Firestone. Then, reverently, he slotted the Firestone into the flat square section on top of the Philosopher's Stone's lid.

It clicked into place.

"OK." He nodded to Vulture. "Place your Pillar inside the Philosopher's Stone."

Vulture stepped forward and held his oblong diamond block above the rectangular slot in the Philosopher's Stone. The dimensions of the slot matched those of the Pillar exactly.

With both hands, Vulture lowered the Pillar horizontally into the slot until it rested on its side, its long flat upper surface lying flush with the rim of the slot.

Then he stepped away and, with Wizard, gently picked up the lid and-with the Firestone now incorporated into it-slowly lowered the lid back into position, covering the Pillar.

Jack watched intently.

Beside him, so did Paul Robertson and Iolanthe.

The lid slotted into place, concealing the Pillar.

Now the two pieces of the Philosopher's Stone were one-with the charged Firestone crowning it and with the Saudi Pillar within it.

All the watchers waited in silence.

No one knew what this socalled cleansing would entail- A blinding flash of light startled them all.

It flared out from the slit between the lid of the Philosopher's Stone and its trapezoidal base, and yet it easily illuminated the entire lab.

The watchers stepped back, shielding their eyes.

The dazzling white light continued to blaze out from within the Philosopher's Stone.

Some incredible kind of transformation was taking place inside it.

The crystal at the peak of the Firestone flared like a purple beacon.

From beside West, Tank spoke quietly: "Throughout the ages, the Philosopher's Stone has always been a.s.sociated with transformation. Some say that it can perform the act of alchemy, or as scientists would say today, elemental trans.m.u.tation-Isaac Newton was notoriously obsessed with this property. Others have claimed that it can change water into an elixir that can grant long life. Always the key word has been 'change.' Incredible, astonishing change."

Then as suddenly as it had appeared, the blazing light from the Philosopher's Stone went out, as did the purple light atop the Firestone.

Silence again. Normal light.

Everyone blinked.