The Red Pyramid

Page 43

Desjardins found her and gathered her in his arms. “Quickly,” he told his colleagues, “the mortals will wake soon.”
They dragged Zia out of the cockpit, and my ba was swept away through a blur of images.
I saw Phoenix again—or at least some of the city. A massive red sandstorm churned across the valley, swallowing buildings and mountains. In the harsh, hot wind, I heard Set laughing, reveling in his power.
Then I saw Brooklyn: Amos’s ruined house on the East River and a winter storm raging overhead, howling winds slamming the city with sleet and hail.
And then I saw a place I didn’t recognize: a river winding through a desert canyon. The sky was a blanket of pitch-black clouds, and the river’s surface seemed to boil. Something was moving under the water, something huge, evil, and powerful—and I knew it was waiting for me.
This is only the beginning, Horus warned me. Set will destroy everyone you care about. Believe me, I know.
The river became a marsh of tall reeds. The sun blazed overhead. Snakes and crocodiles slid through the water. At the water’s edge sat a thatched hut. Outside it, a woman and a child of about ten stood examining a battered sarcophagus. I could tell the coffin had once been a work of art—gold encrusted with gems—but now it was dented and black with grime.
The woman ran her hands over the coffin’s lid.
“Finally.” She had my mother’s face—blue eyes and caramel-colored hair—but she glowed with magical radiance, and I knew I was looking at the goddess Isis.
She turned to the boy. “We have searched so long, my son. Finally we have retrieved him. I will use my magic and give him life again!”
“Papa?” The boy gazed wide-eyed at the box. “He’s really inside?”
“Yes, Horus. And now—”
Suddenly their hut erupted into flames. The god Set stepped from the inferno—a mighty red-skinned warrior with smoldering black eyes. He wore the double crown of Egypt and the robes of a pharaoh. In his hands, an iron staff smoldered.
“Found the coffin, did you?” he said. “Good for you!”
Isis reached toward the sky. She summoned lightning against the god of chaos, but Set’s rod absorbed the attack and reflected it back at her. Arcs of electricity blasted the goddess and sent her sprawling.
“Mother!” The boy drew a knife and charged Set. “I’ll kill you!”
Set bellowed with laughter. He easily sidestepped the boy and kicked him into the dirt.
“You have spirit, nephew,” Set admitted. “But you won’t live long enough to challenge me. As for your father, I’ll just have to dispose of him more permanently.”
Set slammed his iron staff against the coffin’s lid.
Isis screamed as the coffin shattered like ice.
“Make a wish.” Set blew with all his might, and the shards of coffin flew into the sky, scattering in all directions. “Poor Osiris—he’s gone to pieces, scattered all over Egypt now. And as for you, sister Isis—run! That’s what you do best!”
Set lunged forward. Isis grabbed her son’s hand and they both turned into birds, flying for their lives.
The scene faded, and I was back in the steamboat’s wheelhouse. The sun rose in fast-forward as towns and barges sped past and the banks of the Mississippi blurred into a play of light and shadow.
“He destroyed my father,” Horus told me. “He will do the same to yours.”
“No,” I said.
Horus fixed me with those strange eyes—one blazing gold, one full-moon silver. “My mother and Aunt Nephthys spent years searching for the pieces of the coffin and Father’s body. When they collected all fourteen, my cousin Anubis helped bind my father back together with mummy wrappings, but still Mother’s magic could not bring him back to life fully. Osiris became an undead god, a half-living shadow of my father, fit to rule only in the Duat. But his loss gave me anger. Anger gave me the strength to defeat Set and take the throne for myself. You must do the same.”
“I don’t want a throne,” I said. “I want my dad.”
“Don’t deceive yourself. Set is merely toying with you. He will bring you to despair, and your sorrow will make you weak.”
“I have to save my dad!”
“That is not your mission,” Horus chided. “The world is at stake. Now, wake!”
Sadie was shaking my arm. She and Bast stood over me, looking concerned.
“What?” I asked.
“We’re here,” Sadie said nervously. She’d changed into a fresh linen outfit, black this time, which matched her combat boots. She’d even managed to redye her hair so the streaks were blue.
I sat up and realized I felt rested for the first time in a week. My soul may have been traveling, but at least my body had gotten some sleep. I glanced out the stateroom window. It was pitch-black outside.
“How long was I out?” I demanded.
“We’ve sailed down most of the Mississippi and into the Duat,” Bast said. “Now we approach the First Cataract.”
“The First Cataract?” I asked.
“The entrance,” Bast said grimly, “to the Land of the Dead.”
Chapter 27. A Demon with Free Samples
ME? I SLEPT LIKE THE DEAD, which I hoped wasn’t a sign of things to come.
I could tell Carter’s soul had been wandering through some frightening places, but he wouldn’t talk about them.
“Did you see Zia?” I asked. He looked so rattled I thought his face would fall off. “Knew it,” I said.
We followed Bast up to the wheelhouse, where Bloodstained Blade was studying a map while Khufu manned—er, babooned—the wheel.
“The baboon is driving,” I noted. “Should I be worried?”
“Quiet, please, Lady Kane.” Bloodstained Blade ran his fingers over a long stretch of papyrus map. “This is delicate work. Two degrees to starboard, Khufu.”
“Agh!” Khufu said.
The sky was already dark, but as we chugged along, the stars disappeared. The river turned the color of blood. Darkness swallowed the horizon, and along the riverbanks, the lights of towns changed to flickering fires, then winked out completely.
Now our only lights were the multicolored servant fires and the glittering smoke that bloomed from the smokestacks, washing us all in a weird metallic glow.
“Should be just ahead,” the captain announced. In the dim light, his red-flecked axe blade looked scarier than ever.
“What’s that map?” I asked.
“Spells of Coming Forth by Day,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s a good copy.”
I looked at Carter for a translation.
“Most people call it The Book of the Dead,” he told me. “Rich Egyptians were always buried with a copy, so they could have directions through the Duat to the Land of the Dead. It’s like an Idiot’s Guide to the Afterlife.”
The captain hummed indignantly. “I am no idiot, Lord Kane.”
“No, no, I just meant...” Carter’s voice faltered. “Uh, what is that?”
Ahead of us, crags of rock jutted from the river like fangs, turning the water into a boiling mass of rapids.
“The First Cataract,” Bloodstained Blade announced. “Hold on.”
Khufu pushed the wheel to the left, and the steamboat skidded sideways, shooting between two rocky spires with only centimeters to spare. I’m not much of a screamer, but I’ll readily admit that I screamed my head off. [And don’t look at me like that, Carter. You weren’t much better.]
We dropped over a stretch of white water—or red water—and swerved to avoid a rock the size of Paddington Station. The steamboat made two more suicidal turns between boulders, did a three-sixty spin round a swirling vortex, launched over a ten-meter waterfall, and came crashing down so hard, my ears popped like a gunshot.
We continued downstream as if nothing had happened, the roar of the rapids fading behind us.
“I don’t like cataracts,” I decided. “Are there more?”
“Not as large, thankfully,” said Bast, who was also looking seasick. “We’ve crossed over into—”
“The Land of the Dead,” Carter finished.
He pointed to the shore, which was shrouded in mist. Strange things lurked in the darkness: flickering ghost lights, giant faces made of fog, hulking shadows that seemed unconnected to anything physical. Along the riverbanks, old bones dragged themselves through the mud, linking with other bones in random patterns.
“I’m guessing this isn’t the Mississippi,” I said.
“The River of Night,” Bloodstained Blade hummed. “It is every river and no river—the shadow of the Mississippi, the Nile, the Thames. It flows throughout the Duat, with many branches and tributaries.”
“Clears that right up,” I muttered.
The scenes got stranger. We saw ghost villages from ancient times—little clusters of reed huts made of flickering smoke. We saw vast temples crumbling and reconstructing themselves over and over again like a looped video. And everywhere, ghosts turned their faces towards our boat as we passed. Smoky hands reached out. Shades silently called to us, then turned away in despair as we passed.
“The lost and confused,” Bast said. “Spirits who never found their way to the Hall of Judgment.”
“Why are they so sad?” I asked.
“Well, they’re dead,” Carter speculated.
“No, it’s more than that,” I said. “It’s like they’re...expecting someone.”
“Ra,” Bast said. “For eons, Ra’s glorious sun boat would travel this route each night, fighting off the forces of Apophis.” She looked round nervously as if remembering old ambushes. “It was dangerous: every night, a fight for existence. But as he passed, Ra would bring sunlight and warmth to the Duat, and these lost spirits would rejoice, remembering the world of the living.”
“But that’s a legend,” Carter said. “The earth revolves around the sun. The sun never actually descends under the earth.”
“Have you learned nothing of Egypt?” Bast asked. “Conflicting stories can be equally true. The sun is a ball of fire in space, yes. But its image you see as it crosses the sky, the life-giving warmth and light it brings to the earth—that was embodied by Ra. The sun was his throne, his source of power, his very spirit. But now Ra has retreated into the heavens. He sleeps, and the sun is just the sun. Ra’s boat no longer travels on its cycle through the Duat. He no longer lights the dark, and the dead feel his absence most keenly.”
“Indeed,” Bloodstained Blade said, though he didn’t sound very upset about it. “Legend says the world will end when Ra gets too tired to continue living in his weakened state. Apophis will swallow the sun. Darkness will reign. Chaos will overcome Ma’at, and the Serpent will reign forever.”
Part of me thought this was absurd. The planets would not simply stop spinning. The sun would not cease to rise.
On the other hand, here I was riding a boat through the Land of the Dead with a demon and a god. If Apophis was real too, I didn’t fancy meeting him.