I shivered. I’d heard about the troubles in Egypt lately, along with all the strange natural disasters, but I hadn’t thought of it as part of Apophis’s plan.
If this was his chosen battleground…
I focused more closely on the plains of Giza. Peering into the Duat, I realized the area wasn’t empty after all. Encircling the base of the Great Pyramid was an enormous serpent formed from a swirling tornado of red sand and darkness. His eyes were burning points of light. His fangs were forks of lightning. Wherever he touched, the desert boiled, and the pyramid itself shook with a horrible resonance. One of the oldest structures in human history was about to crumble.
Even from high above, I could feel the presence of Apophis. He radiated panic and fear so strongly, I could sense the mortals across Cairo cowering in their homes, afraid to go out. The whole land of Egypt was holding its breath.
As we watched, Apophis reared his massive cobra head. He struck at the desert floor, biting a house-sized crater in the sand. Then he recoiled as if he’d been stung, and hissed with anger. At first, I couldn’t tell what he was fighting. I called on Isis’s bird-of-prey sight and spotted a small lithe figure in a leopard-skin leotard, knives flashing in both hands as she leaped with inhuman agility and speed, striking at the serpent and evading his bite. All by herself, Bast was holding Apophis at bay.
My mouth tasted like old pennies. “She’s alone. Where are the others?”
“They await the pharaoh’s orders,” Ra said. “Chaos has left them divided and confused. They will not march to battle without a leader.”
“Then lead them!” I demanded.
The sun god turned. His form shimmered, and for a moment I saw Zia in front of me instead. I wondered if she would blast me to cinders. I had a feeling that would be quite easy for her now.
“I will face my old enemy,” she said calmly, still with Ra’s voice. “I won’t let my loyal cat fight alone. Sobek, Bes—attend me.”
“Yes, my king,” Sobek said.
Bes cracked his knuckles. His chauffeur’s outfit vanished, replaced by only his Dwarf Pride Speedo. “Chaos…get ready to meet Ugly.”
“Wait,” Carter said. “What about us? We’ve got the serpent’s shadow.”
The ship was descending rapidly now, coming in for a landing just south of the pyramids.
“First things first, Carter.” Zia pointed to the Great Sphinx, which stood about three hundred meters from the pyramids. “You and Sadie must help your uncle.”
Between the Sphinx’s paws, a trail of smoke rose from a tunnel entrance. My heart missed a beat. Zia had once told us how that tunnel was sealed to keep archaeologists from finding their way into the First Nome. Obviously, the tunnel had been forced open.
“The First Nome is about to fall,” Zia said. Her form shifted again, and it was the sun god standing before me. I really wished he/she/they would make up their mind.
“I will hold off Apophis as long as I can,” Ra said. “But if you don’t help your uncle and your friends immediately, there will be no one left to save. The House of Life will crumble.”
I thought about poor Amos and our young initiates, surrounded by a mob of rebel magicians. We couldn’t let them be slaughtered.
“She’s right,” I said. “Er, he’s right. Whichever.”
Carter nodded reluctantly. “You’ll need these, Lord Ra.”
He offered the sun god the crook and flail, but Ra shook his head. Or Zia shook her head. Gods of Egypt, this is confusing!
“When I told you the gods waited for their pharaoh,” Ra said, “I meant you, Carter Kane, the Eye of Horus. I am here to fight my old enemy, not to assume the throne. That is your destiny. Unite the House of Life, rally the gods in my name. Never fear, I will hold Apophis until you come.”
Carter stared at the crook and flail in his hands. He looked every bit as terrified as he had when Ra had crumbled to sand.
I couldn’t blame him. Carter had just been ordered to assume the throne of creation and lead an army of magicians and gods into battle. A year ago, even six months ago, the idea of my brother’s being given that kind of responsibility would’ve horrified me as well.
Strangely, I didn’t mind it now. Thinking of Carter as the pharaoh was actually comforting. I’m sure I’ll regret saying this, and I’m sure Carter will never let me forget it, but the truth was I’d been relying on my brother ever since we’d moved to Brooklyn House. I’d come to depend on his strength. I trusted him to make the right decisions, even when he didn’t trust himself. When I had learned his secret name, I’d seen one very clear trait woven into his character: leadership.
“You’re ready,” I told him.
“Indeed,” Ra agreed.
Carter looked up, a bit stunned, but I suppose he could tell I wasn’t teasing him—not this time.
Bes punched him in the shoulder. “’Course you’re ready, kid. Now, stop wasting time and go save your uncle!”
Looking at Bes, I tried not to get teary-eyed. I’d already lost him once.
As for Ra, he seemed so confident, but still he was confined to the form of Zia Rashid. She was a strong magician, yes, but she was new to this hosting business. If she wavered even slightly, or overextended herself…
“Good luck, then.” Carter swallowed. “I hope…”
He faltered. I realized the poor boy was trying to say good-bye to his girlfriend, possibly for the last time, and he couldn’t even kiss her without kissing the sun god.
Carter began to change shape. His clothes, his pack, even the crook and flail melted into plumage. His form shrank until he was a brown-and-white falcon. Then he spread his wings and dove off the side of the boat.
“Oh, I hate this part,” I muttered.
I called on Isis and invited her in: Now. It’s time to act as one.
Immediately her magic flowed into me. It felt as if someone had switched on enough hydroelectric generators to light up a nation and channeled all that power straight into me. I turned into a kite (the bird) and soared into the air.
For once, I had no problem turning back to human. Carter and I rendezvoused at the feet of the Great Sphinx and studied the newly blasted tunnel entrance. The rebels hadn’t been too subtle. Stone blocks the size of cars had been reduced to rubble. The surrounding sand had blackened and melted to glass. Either Sarah Jacobi’s crew had used a ha-di spell or several sticks of dynamite.
“This tunnel…” I said. “Doesn’t the other end open just across from the Hall of Ages?”
Carter nodded grimly. He pulled out the crook and flail, which were now glowing with ghostly white fire. He plunged into the darkness. I summoned my staff and wand and followed him inside.
As we descended, we saw evidence of battle. Explosions had scorched the walls and steps. One portion of the ceiling had buckled. Carter was able to clear a path with the strength of Horus, but as soon as we were through, the tunnel collapsed behind us. We wouldn’t be exiting that way.
Below us, I heard the sounds of combat—divine words being cast; fire, water, and earth magic clashing. A lion roared. Metal clanged on metal.
A few meters farther, and we found the first casualty. A young man in a tattered gray military uniform was propped against the wall, holding his stomach and wheezing painfully.
“Leonid!” I cried.
My Russian friend was pale and bloody. I put my hand on his forehead. His skin was cold.
“Below,” he gasped. “Too many. I try—”
“Stay here,” I said, which I realized was silly, since he could hardly move. “We’ll be back with help.”
He nodded bravely, but I looked at Carter and knew we were thinking the same thing. Leonid might not last that long. His uniform coat was soaked with blood. He kept his hand over his gut, but he’d clearly been savaged—either by claws or knives or some equally horrible magic.
I cast a Slow spell on Leonid, which would at least steady his breathing and stem the flow of blood, but it wouldn’t help much. The poor boy had risked his life to escape St. Petersburg. He’d come all the way to Brooklyn to warn me about the impending attack. Now he’d tried to defend the First Nome against his former masters, and they’d cut him down and walked right over him, leaving him to suffer a lingering death.
“We will be back,” I promised again.
Carter and I stumbled on.
We reached the bottom of the steps and were instantly thrown into battle. A shabti lion leaped at my face.
Isis reacted faster than I could have. She gave me a single word to speak: “Fah!”
And the hieroglyph for Release shimmered in the air:
The lion shrank to a wax statuette and bounced harmlessly off my chest.
All around us, the corridor was in mayhem. In either direction our initiates were locked in combat with enemy magicians. Directly in front of us, a dozen rebels had formed a wedge blocking the doors to the Hall of Ages, and our friends seemed to be trying to get past them.
For a moment, that seemed backward to me. Shouldn’t our side be defending the doors? Then I realized what must have happened. The attack on the sealed tunnel had surprised our allies. They’d rushed to help Amos, but by the time they’d got to the doors, the enemies were already inside. Now this lot was keeping our reinforcements from reaching Amos, while our uncle was inside the hall, possibly alone, facing Sarah Jacobi and her elite hit squad.
My pulse raced. I charged into battle, flinging spells from Isis’s incredibly diverse menu. It felt good to be a goddess again, I must admit, but I had to keep careful track of my energy. If I let Isis have free reign, she would destroy our enemies in seconds, but she would also burn me up in the process. I had to temper her inclination to rend the puny mortals to pieces.
I threw my wand like a boomerang and hit a large, bearded magician who was yelling in Russian as he fought sword-to-sword against Julian.
The Russian disappeared in a golden flash. Where he’d been standing, a hamster squeaked in alarm and scurried away. Julian grinned at me. His sword blade was smoking and the turn-ups of his trousers were on fire, but otherwise he looked all right.
“About time!” he said.
Another magician charged him, and we had no further time to chat.
Carter waded forward, swinging his flail and crook as if he had trained with them all his life. An enemy magician summoned a rhino—which I thought quite rude, considering the tight space we were in. Carter lashed it with his flail, and each spiked chain became a rope of fire. The rhino crumbled, cut into three pieces, and melted into a pile of wax.
Our other friends weren’t doing too badly, either. Felix used an ice spell that I’d never seen before—encasing his enemies in big fluffy snowmen, complete with carrot noses and pipes. His army of penguins waddled around him, pecking at enemy magicians and stealing their wands.
Alyssa was fighting with another earth elementalist, but this Russian woman was clearly outmatched. She’d probably never faced the power of Geb before. Each time the Russian summoned a stone creature or tried to throw boulders, her attacks dissolved into rubble. Alyssa snapped her fingers, and the floor turned to quicksand under her opponent’s feet. The Russian sank up to her shoulders, quite stuck.