I WOKE TO A BUCKET OF ICE WATER IN MY FACE.
“Sadie! Get up,” Zia said.
“God!” I yelled. “Was that necessary?” “No,” Zia admitted.
I wanted to strangle her, except I was dripping wet, shivering, and still disoriented. How long had I slept? It felt like only a few minutes, but the dormitory was empty. All the other cots were made. The girls must’ve already gone to their morning lessons.
Zia tossed me a towel and some fresh linen clothes. “We’ll meet Carter in the cleansing room.”
“I just got a bath, thanks very much. What I need is a proper breakfast.” “The cleansing prepares you for magic.” Zia slung her bag of tricks over
her shoulder and unfolded the long black staff she’d used in New York. “If you survive, we’ll see about food.”
I was tired of being reminded that I might die, but I got dressed and followed her out.
After another endless series of tunnels, we came to a chamber with a roaring waterfall. There was no ceiling, just a shaft above us that seemed to go up forever. Water fell from the darkness into a fountain, splashing over a five-meter-tall statue of that bird-headed god. What was his name—Tooth? No, Thoth. The water cascaded over his head, collected in his palms, then spilled out into the pool.
Carter stood beside the fountain. He was dressed in linen with Dad’s workbag over one shoulder and his sword strapped to his back. His hair was rumpled, as if he hadn’t slept well. At least he hadn’t been doused in ice water. Seeing him, I felt a strange sense of relief. I thought about Iskandar’s words last night: Your brother will need your guidance.
“What?” Carter asked. “You’re staring at me funny.” “Nothing,” I said quickly. “How’d you sleep?” “Badly. I’ll…I’ll tell you about it later.”
Was it my imagination, or did he frown in Zia’s direction? Hmm, possible romantic trouble between Miss Magic and my brother? I made a mental note to interrogate him next time we were alone.
Zia went to a nearby cabinet. She brought out two ceramic cups, dipped them into the fountain, then offered them to us. “Drink.”
I glanced at Carter. “After you.”
“It’s only water,” Zia assured me, “but purified by contact with Thoth. It will focus your mind.”
I didn’t see how a statue could purify water. Then I remembered what Iskandar had said, how gods could inhabit anything.
I took a drink. Immediately I felt like I’d had a good strong cup of Gran’s tea. My brain buzzed. My eyesight sharpened. I felt so hyperactive, I almost didn’t miss my chewing gum—almost.
Carter sipped from his cup. “Wow.” “Now the tattoos,” Zia announced. “Brilliant!” I said.
“On your tongue,” she added. “Excuse me?”
Zia stuck out her tongue. Right in the middle was a blue hieroglyph. “Nith ith Naat,” she tried to say with her tongue out. Then she realized
her mistake and stuck her tongue back in. “I mean, this is Ma’at, the symbol of order and harmony. It will help you speak magic clearly. One mistake with a spell—”
“Let me guess,” I said. “We’ll die.”
From her cabinet of horrors, Zia produced a fine-tipped paintbrush and a bowl of blue dye. “It doesn’t hurt. And it’s not permanent.”
“How does it taste?” Carter wondered. Zia smiled. “Stick out your tongue.”
To answer Carter’s question, the tattoo tasted like burning car tires. “Ugh.” I spit a blue gob of “order and harmony” into the fountain.
“Never mind breakfast. Lost my appetite.”
Zia pulled a leather satchel out of the cabinet. “Carter will be allowed to keep your father’s magic implements, plus a new staff and wand. Generally speaking, the wand is for defense, the staff is for offense, although, Carter, you may prefer to use your khopesh.”
“Khopesh?”
“The curved sword,” Zia said. “A favored weapon of the pharaoh’s guard. It can be used in combat magic. As for Sadie, you will need a full kit.”
“How come he gets Dad’s kit?” I complained.
“He is the eldest,” she said, as if that explained everything. Typical.
Zia tossed me the leather satchel. Inside was an ivory wand, a rod that I supposed turned into a staff, some paper, an ink set, a bit of twine, and a lovely chunk of wax. I was less than thrilled.
“What about a little wax man?” I asked. “I want a Doughboy.”
“If you mean a figurine, you must make one yourself. You will be taught
how, if you have the skill. We will determine your specialty later.” “Specialty?” Carter asked. “You mean like Nectanebo specialized in
statues?”
Zia nodded. “Nectanebo was extremely skilled in statuary magic. He could make shabti so lifelike, they could pass for human. No one has ever been greater at statuary…except perhaps Iskandar. But there are many other disciplines: Healer. Amulet maker. Animal charmer. Elementalist. Combat magician. Necromancer.”
“Diviner?” I asked.
Zia looked at me curiously. “Yes, although that is quite rare. Why do you
—”
I cleared my throat. “So how do we know our specialty?”
“It will become clear soon enough,” Zia promised, “but a good magician
knows a bit of everything, which is why we start with a basic test. Let us go to the library.”
The First Nome’s library was like Amos’s, but a hundred times bigger, with circular rooms lined with honeycomb shelves that seemed to go on forever, like the world’s largest beehive. Clay shabti statues kept popping in and out, retrieving scroll canisters and disappearing, but we saw no other people.
Zia brought us to a wooden table and spread out a long, blank papyrus scroll. She picked up a stylus and dipped it in ink.
“The Egyptian word shesh means scribe or writer, but it can also mean magician. This is because magic, at its most basic, turns words into reality. You will create a scroll. Using your own magic, you will send power into the words on paper. When spoken, the words will unleash the magic.”
She handed the stylus to Carter. “I don’t get it,” he protested.
“A simple word,” she suggested. “It can be anything.” “In English?”
Zia curled her lip. “If you must. Any language will work, but hieroglyphics are best. They are the language of creation, of magic, of Ma’at. You must be careful, however.”
Before she could explain, Carter drew a simple hieroglyph of a bird.
The picture wriggled, peeled itself off the papyrus, and flew away. It splattered Carter’s head with some hieroglyphic droppings on its way out. I couldn’t help laughing at Carter’s expression.
“A beginner’s mistake,” Zia said, scowling at me to be quiet. “If you use a symbol that stands for something alive, it is wise to write it only partially— leave off a wing, or the legs. Otherwise the magic you channel could make it come alive.”
“And poop on its creator.” Carter sighed, wiping off his hair with a bit of
scrap papyrus. “That’s why our father’s wax statue, Doughboy, has no legs, right?”
“The same principle,” Zia agreed. “Now, try again.”
Carter stared at Zia’s staff, which was covered in hieroglyphics. He picked the most obvious one and copied it on the papyrus—the symbol for fire.
Uh-oh, I thought. But the word did not come alive, which would’ve been rather exciting. It simply dissolved.
“Keep trying,” Zia urged.
“Why am I so tired?” Carter wondered.
He definitely looked exhausted. His face was beaded with sweat. “You’re channeling magic from within,” Zia said. “For me, fire is easy.
But it may not be the most natural type of magic for you. Try something else. Summon…summon a sword.”
Zia showed him how to form the hieroglyph, and Carter wrote it on the papyrus. Nothing happened.
“Speak it,” Zia said.
“Sword,” Carter said. The word glowed and vanished, and a butter knife lay on the papyrus.
I laughed. “Terrifying!”
Carter looked like he was about to pass out, but he managed a grin. He picked up the knife and threatened to poke me with it.
“Very good for a first time,” Zia said. “Remember, you are not creating the knife yourself. You are summoning it from Ma’at—the creative power of the universe. Hieroglyphs are the code we use. That’s why they are called Divine Words. The more powerful the magician, the easier it becomes to control the language.”
I caught my breath. “Those hieroglyphs floating in the Hall of Ages.
They seemed to gather around Iskandar. Was he summoning them?”
“Not exactly,” Zia said. “His presence is so strong, he makes the language of the universe visible simply by being in the room. No matter what our specialty, each magician’s greatest hope is to become a speaker of the Divine Words—to know the language of creation so well that we can fashion reality simply by speaking, not even using a scroll.”
“Like saying shatter,” I ventured. “And having a door explode.” Zia scowled. “Yes, but such a thing would take years of practice.” “Really? Well—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carter shaking his head, silently warning me to shut up.
“Um…” I stammered. “Some day, I’ll learn to do that.” Zia raised an eyebrow. “First, master the scroll.”
I was getting tired of her attitude, so I picked up the stylus and wrote
Fire in English.
Zia leaned forward and frowned. “You shouldn’t—”
Before she could finish, a column of flame erupted in her face. I screamed, sure I’d done something horrible, but when the fire died Zia was still there, looking astonished, her eyebrows singed and her bangs smoldering.
“Oh, god,” I said. “Sorry, sorry. Do I die now?” For three heartbeats, Zia stared at me.
“Now,” she announced. “I think you are ready to duel.”
We used another magic gateway, which Zia summoned right on the library wall. We stepped into a circle of swirling sand and popped out the other side, covered in dust and grit, in the front of some ruins. The harsh sunlight almost blinded me.
“I hate portals,” Carter muttered, brushing the sand out of his hair.
Then he looked around and his eyes widened. “This is Luxor! That’s, like, hundreds of miles south of Cairo.”
I sighed. “And that amazes you after teleporting from New York?” He was too busy checking out our surroundings to answer.
I suppose the ruins were all right, though once you’ve seen one pile of crumbly Egyptian stuff, you’ve seen them all, I say. We stood on a wide avenue flanked by human-headed beasties, most of which were broken. The road went on behind us as far as I could see, but in front of us it ended at a temple much bigger than the one in the New York museum.
The walls were at least six stories high. Big stone pharaohs stood guard on either side of the entrance, and a single obelisk stood on the left-hand side. It looked as if one used to stand on the right as well, but it was now gone.
“Luxor is a modern name,” Zia said. “This was once the city of Thebes. This temple was one of the most important in Egypt. It is the best place for us to practice.”
“Because it’s already destroyed?” I asked.
Zia gave me one of her famous scowls. “No, Sadie—because it is still full of magic. And it was sacred to your family.”
“Our family?” Carter asked.
Zia didn’t explain, as usual. She just gestured for us to follow.
“I don’t like those ugly sphinxes,” I mumbled as we walked down the
path.
“Those ugly sphinxes are creatures of law and order,” Zia said,
“protectors of Egypt. They are on our side.” “If you say so.”
Carter nudged me as we passed the obelisk. “You know the missing one is in Paris.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Wikipedia. I thought they were in
New York and London.”
“That’s a different pair,” Carter said, like I was supposed to care. “The other Luxor obelisk is in Paris.”
“Wish I was in Paris,” I said. “Lot better than this place.”
We walked into a dusty courtyard surrounded by crumbling pillars and statues with various missing body parts. Still, I could tell the place had once been quite impressive.
“Where are the people?” I asked. “Middle of the day, winter holidays.
Shouldn’t there be loads of tourists?”
Zia made a distasteful expression. “Usually, yes. I have encouraged them to stay away for a few hours.”
“How?”
“Common minds are easy to manipulate.” She looked pointedly at me, and I remembered how she’d forced me to talk in the New York museum. Oh, yes, she was just begging for more scorched eyebrows.
“Now, to the duel.” She summoned her staff and drew two circles in the sand about ten meters apart. She directed me to stand in one of them and Carter in the other.
“I’ve got to duel him?” I asked.
I found the idea preposterous. The only thing Carter had shown aptitude for was summoning butter knives and pooping birds. Well, all right, and that bit on the chasm bridge deflecting the daggers, but still—what if I hurt him? As annoying as Carter might be, I didn’t want to accidentally summon that glyph I’d made in Amos’s house and explode him to bits.
Perhaps Carter was thinking the same thing, because he’d started to sweat. “What if we do something wrong?” he asked.
“I will oversee the duel,” Zia promised. “We will start slowly. The first magician to knock the other out of his or her circle wins.”
“But we haven’t been trained!” I protested.
“One learns by doing,” Zia said. “This is not school, Sadie. You cannot learn magic by sitting at a desk and taking notes. You can only learn magic by doing magic.”
“But—”
“Summon whatever power you can,” Zia said. “Use whatever you have available. Begin!”
I looked at Carter doubtfully. Use whatever I have? I opened the leather satchel and looked inside. A lump of wax? Probably not. I drew the wand and rod. Immediately, the rod expanded until I was holding a two-meter-long white staff.
Carter drew his sword, though I couldn’t imagine what he’d do with it.
Rather hard to hit me from ten meters away.
I wanted this over, so I raised my staff like I’d seen Zia do. I thought the
word Fire.
A small flame sputtered to life on the end of the staff. I willed it to get bigger. The fire momentarily brightened, but then my eyesight went fuzzy. The flame died. I fell to my knees, feeling as if I’d run a marathon.
“You okay?” Carter called. “No,” I complained.
“If she knocks herself out, do I win?” he asked. “Shut up!” I said.
“Sadie, you must be careful,” Zia called. “You drew from your own reserves, not from the staff. You can quickly deplete your magic.”
I got shakily to my feet. “Explain?”
“A magician begins a duel full of magic, the way you might be full after a good meal—”
“Which I never got,” I reminded her.
“Each time you do magic,” Zia continued, “you expend energy. You can draw energy from yourself, but you must know your limits. Otherwise you could exhaust yourself, or worse.”
I swallowed and looked at my smoldering staff. “How much worse?” “You could literally burn up.”
I hesitated, thinking how to ask my next question without saying too much. “But I’ve done magic before. Sometimes it doesn’t exhaust me. Why?” From around her neck, Zia unclasped an amulet. She threw it into the air,
and with a flash it turned into a giant vulture. The massive black bird soared over the ruins. As soon as it was out of sight, Zia extended her hand and the amulet appeared in her palm.
“Magic can be drawn from many sources,” she said. “It can be stored in scrolls, wands, or staffs. Amulets are especially powerful. Magic can also be drawn straight from Ma’at, using the Divine Words, but this is difficult. Or”—she locked eyes with me—“it can be summoned from the gods.”
“Why are you looking at me?” I demanded. “I didn’t summon any gods.
They just seem to find me!”
She put on her necklace but said nothing.
“Hold on,” Carter said. “You claimed this place was sacred to our family.”
“It was,” Zia agreed.
“But wasn’t this…” Carter frowned. “Didn’t the pharaohs have a yearly festival here or something?”
“Indeed,” she said. “The pharaoh would walk down the processional path all the way from Karnak to Luxor. He would enter the temple and become one with the gods. Sometimes, this was purely ceremonial. Sometimes, with the great pharaohs like Ramesses, here—” Zia pointed to one of the huge crumbling statues.
“They actually hosted the gods,” I interrupted, remembering what Iskandar had said.
Zia narrowed her eyes. “And yet you claim to know nothing of your family’s past.”
“Wait a second,” Carter protested. “You’re saying we’re related to—” “The gods choose their hosts carefully,” Zia said. “They always prefer
the blood of the pharaohs. When a magician has the blood of two royal families…”
I exchanged looks with Carter. Something Bast said came back to me: “Your family was born to magic.” And Amos had told us that both sides of our family had a complicated history with the gods, and that Carter and I were the most powerful children to be born in centuries. A bad feeling settled over me, like an itchy blanket prickling against my skin.
“Our parents were from different royal lines,” I said. “Dad…he must’ve been descended from Narmer, the first pharaoh. I told you he looked like that picture!”
“That’s not possible,” Carter said. “That was five thousand years ago.” But I could see his mind was racing. “Then the Fausts…” He turned to Zia. “Ramesses the Great built this courtyard. You’re telling me our mom’s family is descended from him?”
Zia sighed. “Don’t tell me your parents kept this from you. Why do you think you are so dangerous to us?”
“You think we’re hosting gods,” I said, absolutely stunned. “That’s what you’re worried about—just because of something our great-times-a-thousand grandparents did? That’s completely daft.”
“Then prove it!” Zia said. “Duel, and show me how weak your magic
is!”
She turned her back on us, as if we were completely unimportant. Something inside me snapped. I’d had the worst two days ever. I’d lost
my father, my home, and my cat, been attacked by monsters and had ice water dumped on my head. Now this witch was turning her back on me. She didn’t want to train us. She wanted to see how dangerous we were.
Well, fine.
“Um, Sadie?” Carter called. He must’ve seen from my expression that I was beyond reason.
I focused on my staff. Maybe not fire. Cats have always liked me.
Maybe…
I threw my staff straight at Zia. It hit the ground at her heels and immediately transformed into a snarling she-lion. Zia whirled in surprise, but then everything went wrong.
The lion turned and charged at Carter, as if she knew I was supposed to be dueling him.
I had a split second to think: What have I done?
Then the cat lunged…and Carter’s form flickered. He rose off the ground, surrounded by a golden holographic shell like the one Bast had used, except that his giant image was a warrior with the head of a falcon. Carter swung his sword, and the falcon warrior did likewise, slicing the lion with a shimmering blade of energy. The cat dissolved in midair, and my staff clattered to the ground, cut neatly in half.
Carter’s avatar shimmered, then disappeared. He dropped to the ground and grinned. “Fun.”
He didn’t even look tired. Once I got over my relief that I hadn’t killed him, I realized I didn’t feel tired either. If anything, I had more energy.
I turned defiantly to Zia. “Well? Better, right?”
Her face was ashen. “The falcon. He—he summoned—”
Before she could finish, footsteps pounded on the stones. A young initiate raced into the courtyard, looking panicked. Tears streaked his dusty face. He said something to Zia in hurried Arabic. When Zia got his message, she sat down hard in the sand. She covered her face and began to tremble.
Carter and I left our dueling circles and ran to her. “Zia?” Carter said. “What’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath, trying to gather her composure. When she looked up, her eyes were red. She said something to the adept, who nodded and ran back the way he’d come.
“News from the First Nome,” she said shakily. “Iskandar…” Her voice broke.
I felt as if a giant fist had punched me in the stomach. I thought about Iskandar’s strange words last night: It seems I, too, can rest at last. “He’s dead, isn’t he? That’s what he meant.”
Zia stared at me. “What do you mean: ‘That’s what he meant’?”
“I…” I was about to say that I’d spoken with Iskandar the night before. Then I realized this might not be a good thing to mention. “Nothing. How did it happen?”
“In his sleep,” Zia said. “He—he had been ailing for years, of course.
But still…”
“It’s okay,” Carter said. “I know he was important to you.”
She wiped at her tears, then rose unsteadily. “You don’t understand. Desjardins is next in line. As soon as he is named Chief Lector, he will order you executed.”
“But we haven’t done anything!” I said.
Zia’s eyes flashed with anger. “You still don’t realize how dangerous you are? You are hosting gods.”
“Ridiculous,” I insisted, but an uneasy feeling was building inside me. If it were true…no, it couldn’t be! Besides, how could anyone, even a poxy old
nutter like Desjardins, seriously execute children for something they weren’t even aware of?
“He will order me to bring you in,” Zia warned, “and I will have to obey.”
“You can’t!” Carter cried. “You saw what happened in the museum. We’re not the problem. Set is. And if Desjardins isn’t taking that seriously…well, maybe he’s part of the problem too.”
Zia gripped her staff. I was sure she was going to fry us with a fireball, but she hesitated.
“Zia.” I decided to take a risk. “Iskandar talked with me last night. He caught me sneaking around the Hall of Ages.”
She looked at me in shock. I reckoned I had only seconds before that shock turned to anger.
“He said you were his best pupil,” I recalled. “He said you were wise. He also said Carter and I have a difficult path ahead of us, and you would know how to help us when the time came.”
Her staff smoldered. Her eyes reminded me of glass about to shatter. “Desjardins will kill us,” I persisted. “Do you think that’s what Iskandar
had in mind?”
I counted to five, six, seven. Just when I was sure she was going to blast us, she lowered her staff. “Use the obelisk.”
“What?” I asked.
“The obelisk at the entrance, fool! You have five minutes, perhaps less, before Desjardins sends orders for your execution. Flee, and destroy Set. The Demon Days begin at sundown. All portals will stop working. You need to get as close as possible to Set before that happens.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I meant you should come with us and help us! We can’t even use an obelisk, much less destroy Set!”
“I cannot betray the House,” she said. “You have four minutes now. If you can’t operate the obelisk, you’ll die.”
That was enough incentive for me. I started to drag Carter off, but Zia called: “Sadie?”
When I looked back, Zia’s eyes were full of bitterness.
“Desjardins will order me to hunt you down,” she warned. “Do you understand?”
Unfortunately, I did. The next time we met, we would be enemies. I grabbed Carter’s hand and ran.
C A R T E R
