The Throne of Fire

Page 9

That just made me feel worse. I should never have allowed Jaz to put herself in danger. Six years ago, my mother had died channeling too much magic. She’d burned up closing the gate to Apophis’s prison. I’d known that, and yet I’d allowed Jaz, who had much less experience, to risk her life to save ours.
As I said…I’m a horrid teacher.
Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I squeezed Jaz’s hand, told her to get better soon, and left the infirmary. I climbed to the roof, where we kept our relic for opening portals—a stone sphinx from the ruins of Heliopolis.
I tensed when I noticed Carter at the other end of the roof, feeding a pile of roasted turkeys to the griffin. Since last night, he’d constructed quite a nice stable for the monster, so I guessed it would be staying with us. At least that would keep the pigeons off the roof.
I almost hoped Carter would ignore me. I wasn’t in the mood for another argument. But when he saw me, he scowled, wiped the turkey grease off his hands, and walked over.
I braced myself for a scolding.
Instead he grumbled, “Be careful. I got you a birthday gift, but I’ll wait until…you come back.”
He didn’t add the word alive, but I thought I heard it in his tone.
“Look, Carter—”
“Just go,” he said. “It’s not going to help us to argue.”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel guilty or angry, but I supposed he had a point. We didn’t have a very good history with birthdays. One of my earliest memories was fighting with Carter on my sixth birthday, and my cake exploding from the magical energy we stirred up. Perhaps, considering that, I should’ve left well enough alone. But I couldn’t quite do it.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I know you blame me for picking up the scroll last night, and for Jaz’s getting hurt, but I feel as if I’m falling apart—”
“You’re not the only one,” he said.
A lump formed in my throat. I’d been so worried about Carter’s being mad at me, I hadn’t paid attention to his tone. He sounded absolutely miserable.
“What is it?” I asked. “What happened?”
He wiped his greasy hands on his trousers. “Yesterday at the museum…one of those spirits—one of them talked to me.”
He told me about his odd encounter with the flaming bau, how time had seemed to slow down and the bau had warned Carter our quest would fail.
“He said…” Carter’s voice broke. “He said Zia was asleep at the Place of Red Sands, whatever that is. He said if I didn’t give up the quest and rescue her, she would die.”
“Carter,” I said carefully, “did this spirit mention Zia by name?”
“Well, no…”
“Could he have meant something else?”
“No, I’m sure. He meant Zia.”
I tried to bite my tongue. Honestly, I did. But the subject of Zia Rashid had become an unhealthy obsession for my brother.
“Carter, not to be unkind,” I said, “but the last few months you’ve been seeing messages about Zia everywhere. Two weeks ago, you thought she was sending you a distress call in your mashed potatoes.”
“It was a Z! Carved right in the potatoes!”
I held up my hands. “Fine. And your dream last night?”
His shoulders tensed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on. At breakfast, you said Apophis would escape from his prison on the equinox. You sounded completely certain, as if you’d seen proof. You’d already talked to Bast and convinced her to check Apophis’s prison. Whatever you saw…it must’ve been bad.”
“I…I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“I see.” My irritation rose. So Carter didn’t want to tell me. We were back to keeping secrets from each other? Fine.
“We’ll continue this later, then,” I said. “See you tonight.”
“You don’t believe me,” he said. “About Zia.”
“And you don’t trust me. So we’re even.”
We glared at each other. Then Carter turned and stomped off toward the griffin.
I almost called him back. I hadn’t meant to be so cross with him. On the other hand, apologizing is not my strong suit, and he was rather impossible.
I turned to the sphinx and summoned a gateway. I’d got rather good at it, if I do say so myself. Instantly a swirling funnel of sand appeared in front of me, and I jumped through.
A heartbeat later, I tumbled out at Cleopatra’s Needle on the bank of the River Thames.
Six years before, my mother had died here; it wasn’t my favorite Egyptian monument. But the Needle was the closest magic portal to Gran and Gramps’s flat.
Fortunately, the weather was miserable and there was no one about, so I brushed the sand off my clothes and headed for the Underground station.
Thirty minutes later, I stood on the steps of my grandparents’ flat. It seemed so odd to be…home? I wasn’t even sure I could call it that anymore. For months I’d been longing for London—the familiar city streets, my favorite shops, my mates, my old room. I’d even been homesick for the dreary weather. But now everything seemed so different, so foreign.
Nervously, I knocked on the door.
No answer. I was sure they were expecting me. I knocked again.
Perhaps they were hiding, waiting for me to come in. I imagined my grandparents, Liz, and Emma crouching behind the furniture, ready to jump out and yell “Surprise!”
Hmm…Gran and Gramps crouching and jumping. Not bloody likely.
I fished out my key and unlocked the door.
The living room was dark and empty. The stairwell light was off, which Gran would never allow. She was mortally afraid of falling down stairs. Even Gramps’s television was switched off, which wasn’t right. Gramps always kept the rugby matches on, even if he wasn’t watching.
I sniffed the air. Six in the evening London time, yet no smell of burning biscuits from the kitchen. Gran should’ve burned at least one tray of biscuits for teatime. It was a tradition.
I got out my phone to call Liz and Emma, but the phone was dead. I knew I’d charged the battery.
My mind was just beginning to process a thought—I am in danger—when the front door slammed shut behind me. I spun, grabbing for my wand, which I didn’t have.
Above me, at the top of the dark stairwell, a voice that was definitely not human hissed, “Welcome home, Sadie Kane.”
5. I Learn to Really Hate Dung Beetles
THANKS A LOT, SADIE.
Hand me the mic right when you get to a good part.
So yeah, Sadie left on her birthday trip to London. The world was ending in four days, we had a quest to complete, and she goes off to party with her friends. Really had her priorities straight, huh? Not that I was bitter, or anything.
On the bright side, Brooklyn House was pretty quiet once she left, at least until the three-headed snake showed up. But first I should tell you about my vision.
Sadie thought I was hiding something from her at breakfast, right? Well, that was sort of true. Honestly, though, what I saw during the night terrified me so badly I didn’t want to talk about it, especially on her birthday. I’d experienced some bizarre stuff since I started learning magic, but this took the Nobel Prize for Weird.
After our trip to the Brooklyn Museum, I had a tough time getting to sleep. When I finally managed, I awoke in a different body.
It wasn’t soul travel or a dream. I was Horus the Avenger.
I’d shared a body with Horus before. He’d been in my head for almost a week at Christmas, whispering suggestions and otherwise being annoying. During the fight at the Red Pyramid, I’d even experienced a perfect melding of his thoughts and mine. I’d become what Egyptians called the “Eye” of the god—all of his power at my command, our memories mixing together, human and god working as one. But I’d still been in my own body.
This time, things were reversed. I was a guest in Horus’s body, standing at the prow of a boat on the magical river that wound through the Duat. My eyesight was as sharp as a falcon’s. Through the fog, I could see shapes moving in the water—scaly reptilian backs and monstrous fins. I saw ghosts of the dead drifting along either shore. Far above, the cavern ceiling glistened red, as if we were sailing down the throat of a living beast.
My arms were bronze and muscular, circled with bands of gold and lapis lazuli. I was dressed for battle in leather armor, a javelin in one hand and a khopesh in the other. I felt strong and powerful like…well, a god.
Hello, Carter, said Horus, which felt like talking to myself.
“Horus, what’s up?” I didn’t tell him I was irritated by his intrusion into my sleep. I didn’t need to. I was sharing his mind.
I answered your questions, Horus said. I told you where to find the first scroll. Now you must do something for me. There is something I wish to show you.
The boat lurched forward. I grabbed the railing of the navigator’s platform. Looking back, I could see the boat was a pharaoh’s barque, about sixty feet long and shaped like a massive canoe. In the middle, a tattered pavilion covered an empty dais where a throne might once have sat. A single mast held a square sail that had once been decorated, but was now faded and hanging in shreds. Port and starboard, sets of broken oars dangled uselessly.
The boat must’ve been abandoned for centuries. The rigging was covered in cobwebs. The lines were rotten. The planks of the hull groaned and creaked as the boat picked up speed.
It is old, like Ra, Horus said. Do you really want to put this boat back into service? Let me show you the threat you face.
The rudder turned us into the current. Suddenly we were racing downstream. I’d sailed on the River of Night before, but this time we seemed to be much deeper in the Duat. The air was colder, the rapids faster. We jumped a cataract and went airborne. When we splashed down again, monsters began attacking. Horrible faces rose up—a sea dragon with feline eyes, a crocodile with porcupine bristles, a serpent with the head of a mummified man. Each time one rose up, I raised my sword and cut it down, or speared it with my javelin to keep it away from the boat. But they just kept coming, changing forms, and I knew that if I hadn’t been Horus the Avenger—if I had just been Carter Kane trying to deal with these horrors —I would go crazy, or die, or both.
Every night, this was the journey, Horus said. It was not Ra who fended off the creatures of Chaos. We other gods kept him safe. We held back Apophis and his minions.
We plunged over another waterfall and crashed headlong into a whirlpool. Somehow, we managed not to capsize. The boat spun out of the current and floated toward the shore.
The riverbank here was a field of glistening black stones —or so I thought. As we got closer, I realized they were bug shells—millions and millions of dried-up beetle carapaces, stretching into the gloom as far as I could see. A few living scarabs moved sluggishly among the empty shells, so it seemed like the whole landscape was crawling. I’m not even going to try to describe the smell of several million dead dung beetles.
The Serpent’s prison, Horus said.