The Complete Kane Chronicles (72 page)

The old man gasped. Smoke spiraled into his mouth like he’d become a vacuum cleaner, and the magic of the spell funneled into him. My temperature dropped to normal. I almost collapsed with relief.

Ra’s eyes fluttered open. With horrified fascination, I watched as blood began to flow through his veins again, slowly inflating him like a hot air balloon.

He turned toward me, his eyes unfocused and milky with cataracts.
“Uh?”

“He still looks old,” Carter said nervously. “Isn’t he supposed to look young?”

Tawaret curtsied to the sun god (which you should not try at home if you are a pregnant hippo in heels) and felt Ra’s forehead. “He isn’t whole yet,” she said. “You’ll need to complete the night’s journey.”

“And the third part of the spell,” Carter guessed. “He’s got one more aspect, right? The scarab?”

Bes nodded, though he didn’t look terribly optimistic. “Khepri, the beetle. Maybe if we find the last part of his soul, he’ll be reborn properly.”

Ra broke into a toothless grin. “I like zebras!”

I was so tired, I wondered if I’d heard him correctly. “Sorry, did you say zebras?”

He beamed at us like a child who’d just discovered something wonderful. “Weasels are sick.”

“O-h-h-kay,” Carter said. “Maybe he needs these…”

Carter took the crook and flail from his belt. He offered them to Ra. The old god pulled the crook to his mouth and began gumming it like a pacifier.

I started to feel uneasy, and not just because of Ra’s condition. How much time had passed, and where was Vlad Menshikov?

“Let’s get him to the boat,” I said. “Bes, can you—”

“Yep. Excuse me, Lord Ra. I’ll have to carry you.” He scooped the sun god out of bed and we bolted from the room. Ra couldn’t have weighed very much, and Bes didn’t have any difficulty keeping up despite his short legs. We ran down the corridor, retracing our steps, as Ra warbled,
“Wheeee! Wheeee! Wheeee!”

Perhaps
he
was having a good time, but I was mortified. We’d been through so much trouble, and
this
was the sort of god we’d woken? Carter looked as grim as I felt.

We raced past other decrepit gods, who all got quite excited. Some pointed and made gurgling noises. One old jackal-headed god rattled his IV pole and yelled, “Here comes the sun! There goes the sun!”

We burst into the lobby, and Ra said, “
Uh-oh. Uh-oh
on the floor.”

His head lolled. I thought he wanted to get down. Then I realized he was looking at something. On the floor next to my foot lay a glittering silver necklace: a familiar amulet shaped like a snake.

For someone who’d been smoking hot only a few minutes before, I suddenly felt terribly chilly. “Menshikov,” I said. “He was here.”

Carter drew his wand and scanned the room. “But where is he? Why would he just drop that and walk away?”

“He left it on purpose,” I guessed. “He wants to taunt us.”

As soon as I said it, I knew it was true. I could almost hear Menshikov laughing as he continued his journey downriver, leaving us behind.

“We have to get to the boat!” I said. “Hurry, before—”

“Sadie.” Bes pointed to the nurses’ station. His expression was grim.

“Oh, no,” Tawaret said. “No, no, no…”

On the sundial, the needle’s shadow was pointing to eight. That meant even if we could still leave the Fourth House, even if we could get through the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Houses, it wouldn’t matter. According to what Tawaret had told us, the gates of the Eighth House would already be closed.

No wonder Menshikov had left us here without bothering to fight us.

We’d already lost.

C A R T E R

A
FTER SAYING GOOD-BYE TO
Zia at the Great Pyramid, I didn’t think I could possibly get more depressed. I was wrong.

Standing on the docks of the Lake of Fire, I felt like I might as well do a cannonball into the lava.

It wasn’t fair. We’d come all this way and risked so much just to be beaten by a time limit. Game over. How was
anyone
supposed to succeed in bringing back Ra? It was impossible.

Carter, this isn’t a game,
the voice of Horus said inside my head.
It isn’t
supposed
to be possible. You must keep going.

I didn’t see why. The gates of the Eighth House were already closed. Menshikov had sailed on and left us behind.

Maybe that had been his plan all along. He’d let us wake Ra only partially so the sun god remained old and feeble. Then Menshikov would leave us trapped in the Duat while he used whatever evil magic he’d planned to free Apophis. When the dawn came, there would be no sunrise, no return of Ra. Instead Apophis would rise and destroy civilization. Our friends would have fought all night at Brooklyn House for nothing. Twenty-four hours from now, when we finally managed to leave the Duat, we’d find the world a dark, frozen wasteland, ruled by Chaos. Everything we cared about would be gone. Then Apophis could swallow Ra and complete his victory.

Why should we keep charging forward when the battle was lost?

A general never shows despair,
Horus said.
He instills confidence in his troops. He leads them forward, even into the mouth of death.

You’re Mr. Cheerful,
I thought.
Who invited you back into my head?

But as irritating as Horus was, he had a point. Sadie had talked about hope—about believing that we could make Ma’at out of Chaos, even if it seemed impossible. Maybe that was all we could do: keep on trying, keep on believing we could salvage something from the disaster.

Amos, Zia, Walt, Jaz, Bast, and our young trainees…all of them were counting on us. If our friends were still alive, I couldn’t give up. I owed them better than that.

Tawaret escorted us to the sun boat while a couple of her
shabti
carried Ra aboard.

“Bes, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I wish there was more I could do.”

“It’s not your fault.” Bes held out his hand like he wanted to shake, but when their fingers touched, he clasped hers. “Tawaret, it was never your fault.”

She sniffled. “Oh, Bes…”

“Wheee!”
Ra interrupted as the
shabti
set him in the boat. “See zebras!
Wheee!
”

Bes cleared his throat.

Tawaret let go of his hands. “You—you should go. Perhaps Aaru will provide an answer.”

“Aaru?” I asked. “Who’s that?”

Tawaret didn’t exactly smile, but her eyes softened with kindness. “Not who, my dear.
Where.
It’s the Seventh House. Tell your father hello.”

My spirits lifted just a little. “Dad will be there?”

“Good luck, Carter and Sadie.” Tawaret kissed us both on the cheek, which felt sort of like getting sideswiped by a friendly, bristly, slightly moist blimp.

The goddess looked at Bes, and I was sure she was going to cry. Then she turned and hurried up the steps, her
shabti
behind her.

“Weasels are sick,” Ra said thoughtfully.

On that bit of godly wisdom, we boarded the ship. The glowing crew lights manned the oars, and the sun boat pulled away from the docks.

“Eat.” Ra began gumming a piece of rope.

“No, you can’t eat that, you old git,” Sadie chided.

“Uh, kid?” Bes said. “Maybe you shouldn’t call the king of the gods an old git.”

“Well, he
is,”
Sadie said. “Come on, Ra. Come into the tent. I want to see something.”

“No tent,” he muttered. “Zebras.”

Sadie tried to grab his arm, but he crawled away from her and stuck out his tongue. Finally she took the pharaoh’s crook from my belt (without asking, of course) and waved it like a dog bone. “Want the crook, Ra? Nice tasty crook?”

Ra grabbed for it weakly. Sadie backed up and eventually managed to coax Ra into the pavilion. As soon as he reached the empty dais, a brilliant light exploded around him, completely blinding me.

“Carter, look!” Sadie cried.

“I wish I could.” I blinked the yellow spots out of my eyes.

On the dais stood a chair of molten gold, a fiery throne carved with glowing white hieroglyphs. It looked just like Sadie had described from her vision, but in real life it was the most beautiful and terrifying piece of furniture I’d ever seen. The crew lights buzzed around it in excitement, brighter than ever.

Ra didn’t seem to notice the chair, or he didn’t care. His hospital gown had changed into regal robes with a collar of gold, but he still looked like the same withered old man.

“Have a seat,” Sadie told him.

“Don’t wanna chair,” he muttered.

“That was almost a complete sentence,” I said. “Maybe it’s a good sign?”

“Zebras!” Ra grabbed the crook from Sadie and hobbled across the deck, yelling,
“Wheee! Wheee!”

“Lord Ra!” Bes called. “Careful!”

I considered tackling the sun god before he could fall out of the boat, but I didn’t know how the crew would react to that. Then Ra solved our problem for us. He smacked into the mast and crumpled to the deck.

We all rushed forward, but the old god seemed only dazed.

He drooled and muttered as we dragged him back into the pavilion and set him on his throne. It was tricky, because the throne gave off heat of about a thousand degrees, and I didn’t want to catch fire (again); but the heat didn’t seem to bother Ra.

We stepped back and looked at the king of the gods, slumped in his chair snoring, and cradling his crook like a teddy bear. I placed the war flail across his lap, hoping it might make a difference—maybe complete his powers or something. No such luck.

“Sick weasels,” Ra muttered.

“Behold,” Sadie said bitterly. “The glorious Ra.”

Bes shot her an irritated look. “That’s right, kid. Make fun. We gods just love to have mortals laughing at us.”

Sadie’s expression softened. “I’m sorry, Bes. I didn’t mean—”

“Whatever.” He stormed to the prow of the boat.

Sadie gave me a pleading look. “Honestly, I didn’t—”

“He’s just stressed,” I told her. “Like all of us. It’ll be okay.”

Sadie brushed a tear from her cheek. “The world is about to end, we’re stuck in the Duat, and you think it’ll be okay?”

“We’re going to see Dad.” I tried to sound confident, even though I didn’t feel it.
A general never shows despair.
“He’ll help us.”

We sailed through the Lake of Fire until the shores narrowed, and the flaming current turned back into water. The glow of the lake faded behind us. The river got swifter, and I knew we’d entered the Fifth House.

I thought about Dad, and whether or not he’d really be able to help us. The last few months he’d been strangely silent. I guess that shouldn’t have surprised me, since he was the Lord of the Underworld now. He probably didn’t get good cell phone reception down here. Still, the idea of seeing him at the moment of my biggest failure made me nervous.

Even though the river was dark, the throne of fire was almost too bright to look at. Our boat cast a warm glow over the shores.

On either side of the river, ghostly villages appeared out of the gloom. Lost souls ran to the riverbank to watch us pass. After so many millennia in the darkness, they looked stunned to see the sun god. Many tried to shout for joy, but their mouths made no sound. Others stretched out their arms toward Ra. They smiled as they basked in his warm light. Their forms seemed to solidify. Color returned to their faces and their clothes. As they faded behind us in the darkness, I was left with the image of their grateful faces and outstretched hands.

Somehow that made me feel better. At least we’d shown them the sun one last time before Chaos destroyed the world.

I wondered if Amos and our friends were still alive, defending Brooklyn House against Vlad Menshikov’s attack squad and waiting for us to show up. I wished I could see Zia again, if only to apologize for failing her.

The Fifth and Sixth houses passed quickly, though I couldn’t be sure how much time actually went by. We saw more ghost villages, beaches made of bones, entire caverns where winged
ba
flew around in confusion, bonking into walls and swarming the sun boat like moths around a porch light. We navigated some scary rapids, though the glowing crew lights made it look easy. A few times dragonlike monsters rose out of the river, but Bes yelled, “Boo!” and the monsters whimpered and sank beneath the water. Ra slept through it all, snoring fitfully on his burning throne.

Finally the river slowed and widened. The water turned as smooth as melted chocolate. The sun boat entered a new cavern, and the ceiling overhead blazed with blue crystals, reflecting Ra’s light so it looked like the regular sun was crossing a brilliant blue sky. Marsh grass and palm trees lined the shore. Farther away, rolling green hills were dotted with cozy-looking white adobe cottages. A flock of geese flew overhead. The air smelled like jasmine and fresh-baked bread. My whole body relaxed—the way you might feel after a long trip, when you walk into your house and finally get to collapse on your bed.

“Aaru,” Bes announced. He didn’t sound as grumpy now. The worry lines on his face faded. “The Egyptian afterlife. The Seventh House. I suppose you’d call it Paradise.”

“Not that I’m complaining,” Sadie said. “It’s much nicer than Sunny Acres, and I smell decent food at last. But does this mean we’re dead?”

Bes shook his head. “This was a regular part of Ra’s nightly route—his pit stop, I guess you’d say. He would hang out for a while with his host, eat, drink, and rest up before the last stretch of his journey, which was the most dangerous.”

“His host?” I asked, though I was pretty sure whom Bes meant.

Our boat turned toward a dock, where a man and a woman stood waiting for us. Dad wore his usual brown suit. His skin glowed with a bluish tint. Mom shimmered in ghostly white, her feet not quite touching the boards.

“Of course,” Bes said. “This is the House of Osiris.”

“Sadie, Carter.” Dad pulled us into a hug like we were still little kids, but neither of us protested.

He felt solid and human, so much like his old self that it took all my willpower not to break down in tears. His goatee was neatly trimmed. His bald head gleamed. Even his cologne smelled the same: the faint scent of amber.

He held us at arm’s length to examine us, his eyes shining. I could almost believe he was still a regular mortal, but if I looked closely, I could see another layer to his appearance, like a fuzzy superimposed image: a blue-skinned man in white robes and the crown of a pharaoh. Around his neck was a
djed
amulet, the symbol of Osiris.

“Dad,” I said. “We failed.”

“Shhh,” he said. “None of that. This is a time to rest and renew.”

Mom smiled. “We’ve been watching your progress. You’ve both been so brave.”

Seeing her was even harder than seeing Dad. I couldn’t hug her because she had no physical substance, and when she touched my face, it felt like nothing more than a warm breeze. She looked exactly as I remembered—her blond hair loose around her shoulders, her blue eyes full of life—but she was only a spirit now. Her white dress seemed to be woven from mist. If I looked directly at her, she seemed to dissolve in the light of the sun boat.

“I’m so proud of you both,” she said. “Come, we’ve prepared a feast.”

I was in a daze as they led us ashore. Bes took charge of carrying the sun god, who seemed in a good mood after head-butting the mast and taking a nap. Ra gave everyone a toothless grin and said, “Oh, pretty. Feast? Zebras?”

Ghostly servants in Ancient Egyptian clothes ushered us toward an outdoor pavilion lined with life-size statues of the gods. We crossed a footbridge over a moat full of albino crocodiles, which made me think about Philip of Macedonia, and what might be happening back at Brooklyn House.

Then I stepped inside the pavilion, and my jaw dropped.

A feast was spread out on a long mahogany table—
our
old dining table from the house in L.A. I could even see the notch I’d carved in the wood with my first Swiss Army knife—the only time I recall my dad getting really mad at me. The chairs were stainless steel with leather seats, just like I remembered; and when I looked outside, the view shimmered back and forth —now the grassy hills and glittering blue sky of the afterlife, now the white walls and huge glass windows of our old house.

“Oh…” Sadie said in a small voice. Her eyes were fixed on the center of the table. Among platters of pizza, bowls of sugarcoated strawberries, and every other kind of food you could imagine was a white-and-blue ice-cream cake, the exact same cake that we’d exploded on Sadie’s sixth birthday.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Mom said. “I thought it was a shame you never got to taste it. Happy birthday, Sadie.”

“Please, sit.” Dad spread his arms. “Bes, old friend, would you put Lord Ra at the head of the table?”