“Zia!” My head throbbed, but I managed to rise.
She turned toward me and hefted another fireball.
“Zia, no!” I said. “It’s me. Carter.”
She hesitated. “Carter…?” Her expression turned to confusion, then fear. The orange flames faded in her eyes, and she collapsed in the pool of sunlight.
I ran to her. I tried to gather her in my arms, but her skin was too hot to touch. The golden scarab had left a nasty burn on her throat.
“Water,” I muttered to myself. “I need water.”
I’d never been good at divine words, but I shouted:
The symbol blazed above us:
Several cubic gallons of water materialized in midair and crashed down on us. Zia’s face steamed. She coughed and spluttered, but she didn’t wake. Her fever still felt dangerously high.
“I’ll get you out of here,” I promised, lifting her in my arms.
I didn’t need the strength of Horus. I had so much adrenaline coursing through my body, I didn’t feel any of my own injuries. I ran right by Setne when he passed me in the hall.
“Hey, pal!” He turned and jogged along next to me, waving a thick papyrus scroll. “Good job! I got the Book of Thoth!”
“You almost killed Zia!” I snapped. “Get us out of here—NOW!”
“Okay, okay,” Setne said. “Calm down.”
“I’m taking you back to my dad’s courtroom,” I growled. “I’m going to
“Whoa, big man.” Setne led me up a sloping passage back to the electrical lighting of the excavated tunnels. “How about we get you out of here first, huh? Remember, you still need me to decipher this book and find the serpent’s shadow. Then we’ll see about the wood chipper, okay?”
“She can’t die,” I insisted.
“Right, I got that.” Setne led me through more tunnels, picking up speed. Zia seemed to weigh nothing. My headache had disappeared. Finally we burst into the sunlight and ran for the
I’ll admit I wasn’t thinking straight.
When we got back on board, Bloodstained Blade reported on the ship’s repairs, but I barely heard him. I plowed right past him and carried Zia inside to the nearest cabin. I set her on the bed and rummaged through my pack for medical supplies—a water bottle, some magic salve Jaz had given me, a few written charms. I was no
“Come on,” I mumbled. “Come on, Zia. You’re going to be fine.”
She was so warm, her drenched clothes had almost dried. Her eyes were rolled back in her head. She started muttering, and I could’ve sworn she said, “Dung balls. Time to roll the dung balls.”
It might’ve been funny—except for the fact that she was dying.
“That’s Khepri talking,” Setne explained. “He’s the divine dung beetle, rolling the sun across the sky.”
I didn’t want to process that—the idea that the girl I liked had been possessed by a dung beetle and was now having dreams about pushing a giant sphere of flaming poo across the sky.
But there was no question: Zia had used the path of the gods. She’d called on Ra—or at least one of his incarnations, Khepri.
Ra had chosen her, the way Horus had chosen me.
Suddenly it made sense that Apophis had destroyed Zia’s village when she was young, and that the old Chief Lector Iskandar had gone to such lengths to train her and then hide her in a magical sleep. If she held the secret to reawakening the sun god…
I dabbed some ointment on her throat. I pressed a cold washcloth to her forehead, but it didn’t seem to help.
I turned to Setne. “Heal her!”
“Oh, um…” He winced. “See, healing magic isn’t really my thing. But at least you’ve got the Book of Thoth! If she dies, it wasn’t for nothing—”
“If she dies,” I warned, “I will…I will…” I couldn’t think of a torture painful enough.
“I see you need some time,” Setne said. “No problem. How about I go tell your captain where we’re heading? We should get back to the Duat, back onto the River of Night as soon as possible. Do I have your permission to give him orders?”
“Fine,” I snapped. “Just get out of my sight.”
I don’t know how much time passed. Zia’s fever seemed to subside. She started breathing more easily and slipped into a gentler sleep. I kissed her forehead and stayed by her side, holding her hand.
I was dimly aware of the ship’s moving. We dropped into a momentary free-fall, then hit water with a shudder and a loud splash. I felt a river rolling under the hull once again, and from the tingling in my gut, I guessed we were back in the Duat.
The door creaked open behind me, but I kept my eyes on Zia.
I waited for Setne to say something—probably to brag about how well he’d done navigating us back to the River of Night—but he stayed silent.
“Well?” I asked.
The sound of splintering wood made me jump.
Setne wasn’t at the door. Instead, Bloodstained Blade loomed over me, his ax head having just split the doorframe. His fists were clenched.
He spoke in an angry, cold hum: “Lord Kane, it’s time to die.”
13. A Friendly Game of Hide-and-Seek (with Bonus Points for Painful Death!)
I SEE. LEAVE OFF WITH THE AX-MURDERING DEMON. Trying to make my part of the story seem boring, eh? Carter, you are
Well, as you were cruising down the Nile in a lavishly appointed riverboat, Walt and I were traveling in a bit less style.
From the realm of the dead, I ventured another conversation with Isis to negotiate a doorway into the Nile Delta. Isis must have been cross with me (I can’t imagine why) because she deposited Walt and me waist-deep in a swamp, our feet completely stuck in the mud.
“Thanks!” I yelled at the sky.
I tried to move but couldn’t. Clouds of mosquitoes gathered around us. The river was alive with bubbling and splashing noises, which made me think of pointy-toothed tiger fish and the water elementals Carter had once described to me.
“Any ideas?” I asked Walt.
Now that he was back in the mortal world, he seemed to have lost his vitality. He looked…I suppose the phrase would be
“Yeah,” he said, digging through his bag. “I have just the thing.”
He brought out a
“Oh, you didn’t,” I said. “You wonderfully naughty boy.”
