The Complete Kane Chronicles (49 page)

I also thought Zia Rashid would approve. The first time Sadie and I trained with Zia, she’d told us that magic couldn’t be learned from classrooms and textbooks. You had to learn by doing. So for Magic Problem-Solving 101, we headed to the training room and blew stuff up.

Today I had four students. The rest of the trainees would be off researching their own paths of magic, practicing enchantments, or doing regular schoolwork under the supervision of our college-age initiates. As our main adult chaperone while Amos was gone, Bast had insisted we keep everyone up-to-speed on the regular subjects like math and reading, although she did sometimes add her own elective courses, such as Advanced Cat Grooming, or Napping. There was a waiting list to get into Napping.

Anyway, the training room took up most of the second floor. It was about the size of a basketball court, which is what we used it for in the evenings. It had a hardwood floor, god statues lining the walls, and a vaulted ceiling with pictures of Ancient Egyptians rocking that sideways walk they always do. On the baseline walls, we’d stuck falcon-headed statues of Ra perpendicular to the floor, ten feet up, and hollowed out their sun-disk crowns so we could use them as basketball hoops. Probably blasphemous—but hey, if Ra didn’t have a sense of humor, that was his problem.

Walt was waiting for me, along with Julian, Felix, and Alyssa. Jaz almost always showed up for these sessions, but of course Jaz was still in a coma…and that was a problem none of us knew how to solve.

I attempted to put on my confident teacher-face. “Okay, guys. Today we’ll try some combat simulations. We’ll start simple.”

I pulled four
shabti
figurines from my bag and placed them in different corners of the room. I stationed one trainee in front of each. Then I spoke a command word. The four statuettes grew into full-size Egyptian warriors armed with swords and shields. They weren’t super-realistic. Their skin looked like glazed ceramic, and they moved slower than real humans; but they’d be good enough for starters.

“Felix?” I called. “No penguins.”

“Aw, c’mon!”

Felix believed that the answer to every problem involved penguins; but it wasn’t fair to the birds, and I was getting tired of teleporting them back home. Somewhere in Antarctica, a whole flock of Magellanic penguins was undergoing psychotherapy.

“Begin!” I yelled, and the
shabti
attacked.

Julian, a big seventh grader who’d already decided on the path of Horus, went straight into battle. He hadn’t quite mastered summoning a combat avatar, but he encased his fist in golden energy like a wrecking ball and punched the
shabti.
It flew backward into wall, cracking to pieces. One down.

Alyssa had been studying the path of Geb, the earth god. Nobody at Brooklyn House was an expert in earth magic, but Alyssa rarely needed help. She’d grown up in a family of potters in North Carolina, and had been working with clay since she was a little girl.

She dodged the
shabti
’s clumsy swing and touched it on the back. A hieroglyph glowed against its clay armor:

Nothing seemed to happen to the warrior, but when it turned to strike, Alyssa just stood there. I was about to yell at her to duck, but the
shabti
missed her completely. Its blade hit the floor, and the warrior stumbled. It attacked again, swinging half a dozen times, but its blade never got close to Alyssa. Finally the warrior turned in confusion and staggered to the corner of the room, where it banged its head against the wall and shuddered to a stop.

Alyssa grinned at me.
“Sa-per,”
she explained. “Hieroglyph for
Miss.
”

“Nice one,” I said.

Meanwhile, Felix found a non-penguin solution. I had no idea what type of magic he might eventually specialize in, but today he went for simple and violent. He grabbed a basketball from the bench, waited for the
shabti
to take a step, then bounced the ball off its head. His timing was perfect. The
shabti
lost its balance and fell over, its sword arm cracking off. Felix walked over and stomped on the
shabti
until it broke to pieces.

He looked at me with satisfaction. “You didn’t say we had to use magic.”

“Fair enough.” I made a mental note never to play basketball with Felix.

Walt was the most interesting to watch. He was a
sau,
a charm maker, so he tended to fight with whatever magic items he had on hand. I never knew what he was going to do.

As for his path, Walt hadn’t decided which god’s magic to study. He was a good researcher like Thoth, the god of knowledge. He could use scrolls and potions almost as well as Sadie, so he could’ve chosen the path of Isis. He might have even chosen Osiris, because Walt was a natural at bringing inanimate things to life.

Today he was taking his time, fingering his amulets and considering his options. As the
shabti
approached, Walt retreated. If Walt had a weakness, it was his cautiousness. He liked to think a long time before he acted. In other words, he was Sadie’s exact opposite.

[Don’t punch me, Sadie. It’s true!]

“C’mon, Walt,” Julian called. “Kill it already.”

“You’ve got this,” Alyssa said.

Walt reached for one of his rings. Then he stepped backward and stumbled over the shards of Felix’s broken
shabti.

I shouted, “Look out!”

But Walt slipped and fell hard. His
shabti
opponent rushed forward, slashing down with its sword.

I raced to help, but I was too far away. Walt’s hand was already rising instinctively to block the strike. The enchanted ceramic blade was almost as sharp as real metal. It should’ve hurt Walt pretty badly, but he grabbed it, and the
shabti
froze. Under Walt’s fingers, the blade turned gray and became webbed with cracks. The gray spread like frost over the entire warrior, and the
shabti
crumbled into a pile of dust.

Walt looked stunned. He opened his hand, which was perfectly fine.

“That was cool!” Felix said. “What amulet was that?”

Walt gave me a nervous glance, and I knew the answer. It wasn’t an amulet. Walt had no idea how he’d done it.

That would have been enough excitement for one day. Seriously. But the weirdness was just beginning.

Before either of us could say anything, the floor shook. I thought maybe Walt’s magic was spreading into the building, which wouldn’t have been good. Or maybe someone below us was experimenting with exploding donkey curses again.

Alyssa yelped. “Guys…”

She pointed to the statue of Ra jutting out from the wall, ten feet above us. Our godly basketball hoop was crumbling.

At first I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. The Ra statue wasn’t turning to dust like the
shabti.
It was breaking apart, falling to the floor in pieces. Then my stomach clenched. The pieces weren’t stone. The statue was turning into scarab shells.

The last of the statue crumbled away, and the pile of dung beetle husks began to move. Three serpent heads rose from the center.

I don’t mind telling you: I panicked. I thought my vision of Apophis was coming true right then and there. I stumbled back so quickly, I ran into Alyssa. The only reason I didn’t bolt from the room was because four trainees were looking to me for reassurance.

It can’t be Apophis,
I told myself.

The snakes emerged, and I realized they weren’t three different animals. It was one massive cobra with three heads. Even weirder, it unfurled a pair of hawklike wings. The thing’s trunk was as thick as my leg. It stood as tall as me, but it wasn’t nearly big enough to be Apophis. Its eyes weren’t glowing red. They were regular creepy green snake eyes.

Still…with all three heads staring right at me, I can’t say I relaxed.

“Carter?” Felix asked uneasily. “Is this part of the lesson?”

The serpent hissed in three-part harmony. Its voice seemed to speak inside my head—and it sounded exactly like the
bau
in the Brooklyn Museum.

Your last warning, Carter Kane,
it said.
Give me the scroll.

My heart skipped a beat. The scroll—Sadie had given it to me after breakfast. Stupid me—I should’ve locked it up, put it in one of our secure cubbyholes in the library; but it was still in the bag on my shoulder.

What are you?
I asked the snake.

“Carter.” Julian drew his sword. “Do we attack?”

My trainees gave no indication that they’d heard either the snake or me speak.

Alyssa raised her hands like she was ready to catch a dodgeball. Walt positioned himself between the snake and Felix, and Felix leaned sideways to see around him.

Give it to me.
The serpent coiled to strike, crushing dead beetle shells under its body. Its wings spread so wide, they could’ve wrapped around us all.
Give up your quest, or I will destroy the girl you seek, just as I destroyed her village.

I tried to draw my sword, but my arms wouldn’t move. I felt paralyzed, as if those three sets of eyes had put me into a trance.

Her village, I thought. Zia’s village.

Snakes can’t laugh, but this thing’s hiss sounded amused.
You’ll have to make a choice, Carter Kane—the girl or the god. Abandon your foolish quest, or soon you’ll be just another dry husk like Ra’s scarabs.

My anger saved me. I shook off the paralysis and yelled, “Kill it!” just as the serpent opened its mouths, blasting out three columns of flames.

I raised a green shield of magic to deflect the fire. Julian chucked his sword like a throwing-ax. Alyssa gestured with her hand and three stone statues leaped off their pedestals, flying at the serpent. Walt fired a bolt of gray light from his wand. And Felix took off his left shoe and lobbed it at the monster.

Right about then, it sucked to be the serpent. Julian’s sword sliced off one of its heads. Felix’s shoe bounced off another. The blast from Walt’s wand turned the third to dust. Then Alyssa’s statues slammed into it, smashing the monster under a ton of stone.

What was left of the serpent’s body dissolved into sand.

The room was suddenly quiet. My four trainees looked at me. I reached down and picked up one of the scarab shells.

“Carter, that was part of the lesson, right?” Felix asked. “Tell me that was part of the lesson.”

I thought about the serpent’s voice—the same voice as the
bau
’s in the Brooklyn Museum. I realized why it sounded so familiar. I’d heard it before during the battle at the Red Pyramid.

“Carter?” Felix looked like he was about to cry. He was such a troublemaker, I sometimes forgot he was only nine years old.

“Yes, just a test,” I lied. I looked at Walt, and we came to a silent agreement:
We need to talk about this later.
But first, I had someone else to question. “Class dismissed.”

I ran to find Amos.

C A R T E R

A
MOS TURNED THE SCARAB SHELL
in his fingers. “A three-headed snake, you say.”

I felt guilty dumping this on him. He’d been through so much since Christmas. Then he finally got healed and came home, and
boom—
a monster invades our practice room. But I didn’t know who else to talk to. I was kind of sorry Sadie wasn’t around.

[All right, Sadie, don’t gloat. I wasn’t
that
sorry.]

“Yeah,” I said, “with wings and flamethrower breath. Ever seen something like that before?”

Amos put the scarab shell on the table. He nudged it, as if expecting it to come to life. We had the library to ourselves, which was unusual. Often, the big round chamber was filled with trainees hunting through rows of cubbyholes for scrolls, or sending retrieval
shabti
across the world for artifacts, books, or pizza. Painted on the floor was a picture of Geb the earth god, his body dotted with trees and rivers. Above us, the starry-skinned sky goddess Nut stretched across the ceiling. I usually felt safe in this room, sheltered between two gods who’d been friendly to us in the past. But now I kept glancing at the retrieval
shabti
stationed around the library and wondering if they would dissolve into scarab shells or decide to attack us.

Finally Amos spoke a command word:
“A’max.”

Burn.

A small red hieroglyph blazed over the scarab:

The shell burst into flames and crumbled to a tiny mound of ash.

“I seem to recall a painting,” Amos said, “in the tomb of Thuthmose III. It showed a three-headed winged snake like the one you described. But what it means…” He shook his head. “Snakes can be good
or
bad in Egyptian legend. They can be the enemies of Ra, or his protectors.”

“This wasn’t a protector,” I said. “It wanted the scroll.”

“And yet it had three heads, which might symbolize the three aspects of Ra. And it was born from the rubble of Ra’s statue.”

“It wasn’t from Ra,” I insisted. “Why would Ra want to stop us from finding him? Besides, I recognized the snake’s voice. It was the voice of your—” I bit my tongue. “I mean, it was the voice of Set’s minion from the Red Pyramid—the one who was possessed by Apophis.”

Amos’s eyes became unfocused.

“Face of Horror,” he remembered. “You think Apophis was speaking to you through this serpent?”

I nodded. “I think he set those traps at the Brooklyn Museum. He spoke to me through that
bau.
If he’s so powerful that he can infiltrate this mansion—”

“No, Carter. Even if you’re right, it wasn’t Apophis himself. If he’d broken out of his prison, it would cause ripples through the Duat so powerful, every magician would feel them. But possessing the minds of minions, even sending them into protected places to deliver a message—that’s much easier. I don’t think that snake could’ve done you much harm. It would’ve been quite weak after breaching our defenses. It was mostly sent to warn you, and scare you.”

“It worked,” I said.

I didn’t ask Amos how he knew so much about possession and the ways of Chaos. Having had his body taken over by Set, the god of evil, had given him an intensive crash course in stuff like that. Now he seemed back to normal, but I knew from my own experience of sharing a mind with Horus: once you hosted a god—whether it was voluntary or not—you were never quite the same. You retained the memories, even some traces of the god’s power. I couldn’t help noticing that the color of Amos’s magic had changed. It used to be blue. Now when he summoned hieroglyphs, they glowed red—the color of Set.

“I’ll strengthen the charms around the house,” he promised. “It’s high time I upgraded our security. I’ll make sure Apophis can’t send messengers through again.”

I nodded, but his promise didn’t make me feel much better. Tomorrow,
if
Sadie came back safely, we’d be off on a quest to find the other two scrolls for the Book of Ra.

Sure, we’d survived our last adventure fighting Set, but Apophis was in a totally different league. And we weren’t hosting gods anymore. We were just kids, facing evil magicians, demons, monsters, spirits, and the eternal Lord of Chaos. In the plus column, I had a cranky sister, a sword, a baboon, and a griffin with a personality disorder. I wasn’t liking those odds.

“Amos,” I said, “what if we’re wrong? What if awakening Ra doesn’t work?”

It had been a long time since I’d seen my uncle smile. He didn’t look much like my father, but when he smiled, he got the same crinkles around his eyes.

“My boy, look what you’ve accomplished. You and Sadie have rediscovered a way of magic that hasn’t been practiced in millennia. You’ve taken your trainees further in two months than most First Nome initiates would get in two years. You’ve battled gods. You’ve accomplished more than any living magician has—even me, even Michel Desjardins. Trust your instincts. If I were a betting man, my money would be on you and your sister every time.”

A lump formed in my throat. I hadn’t gotten a pep talk like that since my dad was still alive, and I guess I hadn’t realized how much I needed one.

Unfortunately, hearing Desjardins’ name reminded me that we had other problems besides Apophis. As soon as we started our quest, a magical Russian ice cream salesman named Vlad the Inhaler was going to try to assassinate us. And if Vlad was the third-most powerful magician in the world…

“Who’s second?” I asked.

Amos frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You said this Russian guy, Vlad Menshikov, is the third-most powerful magician alive. Desjardins is the most powerful. So who’s second? I want to know if we have another enemy to look out for.”

The idea seemed to amuse Amos. “Don’t worry about that. And despite your past dealings with Desjardins, I would not say he’s truly an enemy.”

“Tell
him
that,” I muttered.

“I did, Carter. We talked several times while I was at the First Nome. I think what you and Sadie accomplished at the Red Pyramid shook him deeply. He knows he could not have defeated Set without you. He still opposes you, but if we had more time, I might be able to convince him…”

That sounded about as likely as Apophis and Ra becoming Facebook buddies, but I decided not to say anything.

Amos passed his hand over the tabletop and spoke a spell. A red holograph of Ra appeared—a miniature replica of the statue in the practice room. The sun god looked like Horus: a falcon-headed man. But unlike Horus, Ra wore the sun disk as a crown and held a shepherd’s crook and a war flail—the two symbols of the pharaoh. He was dressed in robes rather than armor, sitting calmly and regally on his throne, as if he were happy to watch others do the fighting. The god’s image looked strange in red, glowing with the color of Chaos.

“Something else you must consider,” Amos warned. “I don’t say this to discourage you, but you asked why Ra might want to stop you from waking him. The Book of Ra was divided for a reason. It was made intentionally difficult to find, so only the worthy would succeed. You should expect challenges and obstacles on your quest. The other two scrolls will be
at least
as well protected as the first. And you should ask yourself: What happens if you wake a god who does not want to be awakened?”

The doors of the library banged open, and I almost jumped out of my chair. Cleo and three other girls came in, chatting and laughing with their arms full of scrolls.

“Here’s my research class.” Amos flicked his hand, and the holograph of Ra disappeared. “We’ll speak again, Carter, perhaps after lunch.”

I nodded, though even then I had a suspicion we’d never get to finish our conversation. When I looked back from the door of the library, Amos was greeting his students, casually wiping the ashes of the scarab shell off the table.

I got to my room and found Khufu crashed on the bed, surfing the sports channels. He was wearing his favorite Lakers jersey and had a bowl of Cheetos on his stomach. Ever since our trainees moved in, the Great Room had gotten too noisy for Khufu to watch TV in peace, so he’d decided to become my roommate.

I guess it was a compliment, but sharing space with a baboon wasn’t easy. You think dogs and cats shed? Try getting monkey hair off your clothes.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Agh!”

That’s pretty much what he always said.

“Great,” I told him. “I’ll be on the balcony.”

It was still cold and rainy outside. The wind off the East River would’ve made Felix’s penguins shiver, but I didn’t mind. For first time that day, I could finally be alone.

Since our trainees had come to Brooklyn House, I felt like I was always onstage. I had to act confident even when I had doubts. I couldn’t lose my temper with anybody (well, except Sadie once in a while), and when things went wrong, I couldn’t complain too loudly. The other kids had come long distances to train with us. Many of them had fought monsters or magicians on the way. I couldn’t admit I had no idea what I was doing, or wonder aloud whether this path-of-the-gods thing was going to get us all killed. I couldn’t say,
Now that you
’
re here, maybe this wasn
’
t such a good idea.

But there were plenty of times when that was how I felt. With Khufu occupying my room, the balcony was the only place I could be depressed in solitude.

I looked across the river to Manhattan. It was a great view. When Sadie and I had first arrived at Brooklyn House, Amos had told us that magicians tried to stay out of Manhattan. He said Manhattan had other problems—whatever that meant. And sometimes when I looked across the water, I could swear I was seeing things. Sadie laughed about it, but once I thought I saw a flying horse. Probably just the mansion’s magic barriers causing optical illusions, but still, it was weird.

I turned to the only piece of furniture on the balcony: my scrying bowl. It looked like a birdbath—just a bronze saucer on a stone pedestal—but it was my favorite magic item. Walt had made it for me right after he had arrived.

One day, I’d mentioned how nice it would be to know what was going on in the other nomes, and he’d made me this bowl.

I’d seen initiates use them in the First Nome, but they’d always seemed pretty difficult to master. Fortunately, Walt was an expert with enchantments. If my scrying bowl had been a car, it would have been a Cadillac, with power steering, automatic transmission, and a butt warmer. All I had to do was fill it with clean olive oil and speak the command word. The bowl would show me anything, as long as I could visualize it and it wasn’t shielded by magic. Places I’d never been to were hard to see. People or places that I’d seen personally or that meant a lot to me—
those
were usually easy.

I’d searched for Zia a hundred times with no luck. All I knew was that her old mentor, Iskandar, had put her into a magical sleep and hidden her somewhere, replacing her with a
shabti
to keep her safe; but I had no idea where the real Zia was sleeping.

I tried something new. I passed my hand over the saucer and imagined the Place of Red Sands. Nothing happened. I’d never been there, had no idea what it looked like apart from possibly being red and sandy. The oil showed me only my own reflection.

Okay, so I couldn’t see Zia. I did the next best thing. I concentrated on her secret room in the First Nome. I’d been there only once, but I remembered every detail. It was the first place where I’d felt close to Zia. The surface of the oil rippled and became a magical video feed.

Nothing had changed in the room. Magic candles still burned on the little table. The walls were covered with Zia’s photographs—pictures of her family village on the Nile, her mother and father, Zia as a small child.

Zia had told me the story of how her father had unearthed an Egyptian relic and accidentally unleashed a monster on their village. Magicians came to defeat the monster, but not before the entire town was destroyed. Only Zia, hidden by her parents, had survived. Iskandar, the old Chief Lector, had taken her to the First Nome and trained her. He’d been like a father to her.

Then, last Christmas, the gods had been unleashed at the British Museum. One of them—Nephthys—had chosen Zia as a host. Being a “godling” was punishable by death in the First Nome, whether you meant to host the god’s spirit or not, so Iskandar had hidden Zia away. He’d probably meant to bring her back after he sorted things out, but he had died before that could happen.