The Serpent's Shadow

Page 38

I tried to hand them over, but she curled my fingers around them.
“Keep them,” she said. “You’re right: they didn’t appear by accident, but they appeared in your hands. They may be Ra’s, but Horus must be pharaoh.”
The weapons seemed to heat up, or maybe that was because Zia was holding my hands. The idea of using the crook and flail made me nervous. I’d lost my khopesh—the sword used by the pharaoh’s guards—and gained the weapons of the pharaoh himself. Not just any pharaoh, either…I was holding the implements of Ra, the first king of the gods.
Me, Carter Kane, a homeschooled fifteen-year-old who was still learning how to shave and could barely dress himself for a school dance—somehow I’d been deemed worthy of the most powerful magic weapons in creation.
“How can you be sure?” I asked. “How could these be for me?”
Zia smiled. “Maybe I’m getting better at understanding Ra. He needs Horus’s support. I need you.”
I tried to think of what to say, and whether I had the nerve to ask for another kiss. I’d never pictured my first date being on a bone-littered riverbank in the Land of Demons, but at that moment there was no place I’d rather be.
Then I heard a bonk—the sound of someone’s head hitting a thick piece of wood. Setne let out a muffled curse. He’d managed to inchworm himself right into a broken section of keel. Dazed and off-balance, he rolled into the water and started to sink.
“We’d better fish him out,” I said.
“Yes,” Zia agreed. “We don’t want the Book of Thoth to get damaged.”
We hauled Setne onto the beach. Zia carefully dispelled just the ribbons around his chest so she could pull the Book of Thoth out from under his arm. Thankfully, the papyrus scroll appeared intact.
Setne said, “Mmm-hmmpfh!”
“Sorry, not interested,” I said. “We’ve got the book, so we’ll be leaving you now. I don’t feel like being stabbed in the back anymore or listening to your lies.”
Setne rolled his eyes. He shook his head vigorously, mumbling what was probably a very good explanation of why he’d been within his rights to turn my demon servant against me.
Zia opened the scroll and studied the writing. After a few lines, she began to frown. “Carter, this is…really dangerous stuff. I’m only skimming, but I see descriptions of the gods’ secret palaces, spells to make them reveal their true names, information on how to recognize all the gods no matter what form they try to take…”
She looked up fearfully. “With knowledge like this, Setne could have caused a lot of damage. The only good thing…as far as I can tell, most of these spells can only be used by a living magician. A ghost wouldn’t be able to cast them.”
“Maybe that’s why he kept us alive this long,” I said. “He needed our help to get the book. Then he planned on tricking us into casting the spells he wanted.”
Setne mumbled in protest.
“Can we find Apophis’s shadow without him?” I asked Zia.
“Mm-mm!” Setne said, but I ignored him.
Zia studied a few more lines. “Apophis…the sheut of Apophis. Yes, here it is. It lies in the Land of Demons. So we’re in the right place. But this map…” She showed me part of the scroll, which was so dense with hieroglyphs and pictures, I couldn’t even tell it was a map. “I have no idea how to read it. The Land of Demons is huge. From what I’ve read, it’s constantly shifting, breaking apart, and reforming. And it’s full of demons.”
“Imagine that.” I tried to swallow the bitter taste from my mouth. “So we’ll be as out-of-place here as demons are in the mortal world. We won’t be able to go anywhere unseen, and everything that meets us will want to kill us.”
“Yes,” Zia agreed. “And we’re running out of time.”
She was right. I didn’t know exactly what time it was in the mortal world, but we had descended into the Duat in the late afternoon. By now, the sun might have gone down. Walt wasn’t supposed to survive past sunset. For all I knew, he might be dying right now, and my poor sister…No. It was too painful to think about.
But at dawn tomorrow, Apophis would rise. The rebel magicians would attack the First Nome. We didn’t have the luxury to roam around a hostile land, fighting everything in our path until we found what we were looking for.
I glared down at Setne. “I’m guessing you can guide us to the shadow.”
He nodded.
I turned to Zia. “If he does or says anything you don’t like, incinerate him.”
“With pleasure.”
I commanded the ribbons to release just his mouth.
“Holy Horus, pal!” he complained. “Why did you tie me up?”
“Well, let’s see…maybe because you tried to get me killed?”
“Aw, that?” Setne sighed. “Look, pal, if you’re going to overreact every time I try to kill you—”
“Overreact?” Zia summoned a white-hot fireball into her hand.
“Okay, okay!” Setne said. “Look, that demon captain was going to turn on you anyway. I just helped things along. And I did it for a reason! We needed to get here, to the Land of Demons, right? Your captain would never have agreed to set that course unless he thought he could kill you. This is his homeland! Demons don’t ever bring mortals here unless they’re for snacks.”
I had to remember Setne was a master liar. Whatever he told me was complete and utter Apis-quality bull. I steeled my willpower against his words, but it was still difficult not to find them reasonable.
“So you were going to let Bloodstained Blade kill me,” I said, “but it was for a good cause.”
“Aw, I knew you could take him,” Setne said.
Zia held up the scroll. “And that’s why you were running away with the Book of Thoth?”
“Running? I was going to scout ahead! I wanted to find the shadow so I could lead you there! But that’s not important. If you let me go, I can still bring you to the shadow of Apophis, and I can get you there unseen.”
“How?” Zia asked.
Setne sniffed indignantly. “I’ve been practicing magic since your ancestors were in diapers, doll. And while it’s true I can’t do all the mortal spells I’d like…” He glanced wistfully at the Book of Thoth. “I have picked up some tricks only ghosts can do. Untie me and I’ll show you.”
I looked at Zia. I could tell we were thinking the same thing: terrible idea, but we didn’t have a better one.
“I can’t believe we’re seriously considering this,” she grumbled.
Setne grinned. “Hey, you’re being smart. This is your best shot. Besides, I want you to succeed! Like I said, I don’t want Apophis destroying me. You won’t regret it.”
“I’m pretty sure I will.” I snapped my fingers, and the Ribbons of Hathor unraveled.
Setne’s brilliant plan? He turned us into demons.
Well, okay…it was actually just a glamor, so we looked like demons, but it was the best illusion magic I’d ever seen.
Zia took one look at me and started to giggle. I couldn’t see my own face, but she told me I now had a massive bottle opener for a head. I did notice that my skin was fuchsia, and I had hairy bowed legs like a chimpanzee.
I didn’t blame Zia for laughing, but she didn’t look much better. She was now a big muscular girl demon with bright green skin, a zebra-hide dress, and the head of a piranha.
“Perfect,” Setne said. “You’ll blend right in.”
“What about you?” I asked.
He spread his hands. He was still wearing his jeans, white sneakers, and black jacket. His diamond pinky rings and gold ankh chain flashed in the volcanic firelight. The only difference was that his red T-shirt now read: GO, DEMONS!
“You can’t improve on perfection, pal. This outfit works anywhere. The demons won’t even bat an eye—assuming they have eyes. Now, come on!”
He drifted inland, not waiting to see if we would follow.
Every once in a while, Setne checked the Book of Thoth for directions. He explained that the shadow would be impossible to find in this moving landscape without consulting the book, which served as a combination compass, tourist’s guide, and Farmer’s Almanac timetable.
He promised us it would be a short journey, but it seemed pretty long to me. Any more time in Demon Land, and I’m not sure I would have come out sane. The landscape was like an optical illusion. We spotted a vast mountain range in the distance, then walked fifty feet and discovered the mountains were so tiny, we could jump over them. I stepped into a small puddle and suddenly found myself drowning in a flooded sinkhole fifty feet wide. Huge Egyptian temples crumbled and rearranged themselves as if some invisible giant were playing with blocks. Limestone cliffs erupted out of nowhere, already carved with monumental statues of grotesque monsters. The stone faces turned and watched us as we passed.
Then there were the demons. I’d seen lots of them under Camelback Mountain, where Set built his red pyramid, but here in their native environment, they were even larger and more horrible. Some looked like torture victims, with gaping wounds and twisted limbs. Others had insect wings, or multiple arms, or tentacles made from darkness. As for their heads, pretty much every zoo animal and Swiss Army knife attachment was well represented.
The demons roamed in hordes across the dark landscape. Some built fortresses. Others tore them down. We saw at least a dozen large-scale battles. Winged demons circled through the smoky air, occasionally snatching up unsuspecting smaller monsters and carrying them off.
But none of them bothered us.
As we stumbled along, I became more and more aware of the presence of Chaos. A cold churning started in my gut, spreading through my limbs like my blood cells were turning to ice. I’d felt this before at the prison of Apophis, when Chaos sickness had almost killed me, but this place seemed even more poisonous.
After a while, I realized everything in the Land of Demons was being pulled in the direction we were traveling. The whole landscape was bending and crumbling, the fabric of matter unweaving. I knew the same force was pulling at the molecules of my body.
Zia and I should have died. But as bad as the cold and the nausea were, I sensed that they should have been worse. Something was protecting us, an invisible layer of warmth keeping the Chaos at bay.
It is her, said the voice of Horus, with grudging respect. Ra sustains us.
I looked at Zia. She still appeared to be a piranha-headed green she-demon, but the air around her shimmered like vapor off a hot road.
Setne kept glancing back. Each time, he seemed surprised to find us still alive. But he shrugged and kept going.
The demons became fewer and farther between. The landscape got even more twisted. Rock formations, sand dunes, dead trees, even pillars of fire all leaned toward the horizon.
We came to a cratered field, peppered with what looked like huge black lotus blossoms. They rose up quickly, spread their petals, and burst. Only when we got closer did I realize they were knots of shadowy tendrils, like Sadie had described at the Brooklyn Academy dance. Each time one burst, it spit out a spirit that had been dragged from the upper world. These ghosts, no more than pale bits of mist, clawed desperately for something to anchor them, but they were quickly dispersed and sucked away in the same direction we were traveling.