"But..." I found myself tearing up. "You"re really dead, then?"
He chuckled. "Last I checked."
"But why? I didn"t make you-"
"No, my dear. It wasn"t your fault. It was simply the right time."
"It was horrible timing!" My surprise and sadness abruptly turned to anger. "You left us before we got trained or anything, and now Desjardins is after us and-"
"My dear, look how far you"ve come. Look how well you have done. You didn"t need me, nor would more training have helped. My brethren would have found out the truth about you soon enough. They are excellent at sniffing out G.o.dlings, I fear, and they would not have understood."
"You knew, didn"t you? You knew we were possessed by G.o.ds."
"Hosts of the G.o.ds."
"Whatever! You knew."
"After our second meeting, yes. My only regret is that I did not realize it sooner. I could not protect you and your brother as much as-"
"As much as who?"
Iskandar"s eyes became sad and distant. "I made choices, Sadie. Some seemed wise at the time. Some, in retrospect..."
"Your decision to forbid the G.o.ds. My mum convinced you it was a bad idea, didn"t she?"
His spectral wings fluttered. "You must understand, Sadie. When Egypt fell to the Romans, my spirit was crushed. Thousands of years of Egyptian power and tradition toppled by that foolish Queen Cleopatra, who thought she could host a G.o.ddess. The blood of the pharaohs seemed weak and diluted-lost forever. At the time I blamed everyone-the G.o.ds who used men to act out their petty quarrels, the Ptolemaic rulers who had driven Egypt into the ground, my own brethren in the House for becoming weak and greedy and corrupt. I communed with Thoth, and we agreed: the G.o.ds must be put away, banished. The magicians must find their way without them. The new rules kept the House of Life intact for another two thousand years. At the time, it was the right choice."
"And now?" I asked.
Iskandar"s glow dimmed. "Your mother foresaw a great imbalance. She foresaw the day-very soon-when Ma"at would be destroyed, and chaos would reclaim all of Creation. She insisted that only the G.o.ds and the House together could prevail. The old way-the path of the G.o.ds-would have to be reestablished. I was a foolish old man. I knew in my heart she was right, but I refused to believe...and your parents took it upon themselves to act. They sacrificed themselves trying to put things right, because I was too stubborn to change. For that, I am truly sorry."
As much as I tried, I found it hard to stay angry at the old turkey. It"s a rare thing when an adult admits they are wrong to a child-especially a wise, two-thousand-year-old adult. You rather have to cherish those moments.
"I forgive you, Iskandar," I said. "Honestly. But Set is about to destroy North America with a giant red pyramid. What do I do about it?"
"That, my dear, I can"t answer. Your choice..." He tilted his head back toward the lake, as if hearing a voice. "Our time is at an end. I must do my job as gatekeeper, and decide whether or not to grant you access to the Lake of Fire."
"But I"ve got more questions!"
"And I wish we had more time," Iskandar said. "You have a strong spirit, Sadie Kane. Someday, you will make an excellent guardian ba."
"Thanks," I muttered. "Can"t wait to be poultry forever."
"I can only tell you this: your choice approaches. Don"t let your feelings blind you to what is best, as I did."
"What choice? Best for whom?"
"That"s the key, isn"t it? Your father-your family-the G.o.ds-the world. Ma"at and Isfet, order and chaos, are about to collide more violently than they have in eons. You and your brother will be instrumental in balancing those forces, or destroying everything. That, also, your mother foresaw."
"Hang on. What do you-"
"Until we meet again, Sadie. Perhaps some day, we will have a chance to talk further. But for now, pa.s.s through! My job is to a.s.sess your courage-and you have that in abundance."
I wanted to argue that no, in fact, I didn"t. I wanted Iskandar to stay and tell me exactly what my mother had foreseen in my future. But his spirit faded, leaving the deck quiet and still. Only then did I realize that no one else on board had said a thing.
I turned to face Carter. "Leave everything to me, eh?"
He was staring into s.p.a.ce, not even blinking. Khufu still clung to my legs, absolutely petrified. Bast"s face was frozen in mid-hiss.
"Um, guys?" I snapped my fingers, and they all unfroze.
"Ba!" Bast hissed. Then she looked around and scowled. "Wait, I thought I saw...what just happened?"
I wondered how powerful a magician had to be to stop time, to freeze even a G.o.ddess. Some day, Iskandar was going to teach me that trick, dead or no.
"Yeah," I said. "I reckon there was a ba. Gone now."
The baboon statues began to rumble and grind as their arms lowered. The bronze sun disk in the middle of the river sank below the surface, clearing the way into the lake. The boat shot forward, straight into the flames and the boiling red waves. Through the shimmering heat, I could just make out an island in the middle of the lake. On it rose a glittering black temple that looked not at all friendly.
"The Hall of Judgment," I guessed.
Bast nodded. "Times like this, I"m glad I don"t have a mortal soul."
As we docked at the island, Bloodstained Blade came down to say good-bye.
"I hope to see you again, Lord and Lady Kane," he hummed. "Your rooms will be waiting aboard the Egyptian Queen. Unless, of course, you see fit to release me from service."
Behind his back, Bast shook her head adamantly.
"Um, we"ll keep you around," I told the captain. "Thanks for everything."
"As you wish," the captain said. If axes could frown, I"m sure he would have.
"Stay sharp," Carter told him, and with Bast and Khufu, we walked down the gangplank. Instead of pulling away, the ship simply sank into the boiling lava and disappeared.
I scowled at Carter. ""Stay sharp?""
"I thought it was funny."
"You"re hopeless."
We walked up the steps of the black temple. A forest of stone pillars held up the ceiling. Every surface was carved with hieroglyphs and images, but there was no color-just black on black. Haze from the lake drifted through the temple, and despite reed torches that burned on each pillar, it was impossible to see very far through the gloom.
"Stay alert," Bast warned, sniffing the air. "He"s close."
"Who?" I asked.
"The Dog," Bast said with disdain.
There was a snarling noise, and a huge black shape leaped out of the mist. It tackled Bast, who rolled over and wailed in feline outrage, then raced off, leaving us alone with the beast. I suppose she had warned us that she wasn"t brave.
The new animal was sleek and black, like the Set animal we"d seen in Washington, D.C., but more obviously canine, graceful and rather cute, actually. A jackal, I realized, with a golden collar around its neck.
Then it morphed into a young man, and my heart almost stopped. He was the boy from my dreams, quite literally-the guy in black I"d seen twice before in my ba visions.
In person, if possible, Anubis was even more drop-dead gorgeous. [Oh...ha, ha. I didn"t catch the pun, but thank you, Carter. G.o.d of the dead, drop-dead gorgeous. Yes, hilarious. Now, may I continue?]
He had a pale complexion, tousled black hair, and rich brown eyes like melted chocolate. He was dressed in black jeans, combat boots (like mine!), a ripped T-shirt, and a black leather jacket that suited him quite nicely. He was long and lean like a jackal. His ears, like a jackal"s, stuck out a bit (which I found cute), and he wore a gold chain around his neck.
Now, please understand, I am not boy crazy. I"m not! I"d spent most of the school term making fun of Liz and Emma, who were, and I was very glad they weren"t with me just then, because they would"ve teased me to no end.
The boy in black stood and brushed off his jacket. "I"m not a dog," he grumbled.
"No," I agreed. "You"re..."
No doubt I would"ve said delicious or something equally embarra.s.sing, but Carter saved me.
"You"re Anubis?" he asked. "We"ve come for the feather of truth."
Anubis frowned. He locked his very nice eyes with mine. "You"re not dead."
"No," I said. "Though we"re trying awfully hard."
"I don"t deal with the living," he said firmly. Then he looked at Khufu and Carter. "However, you travel with a baboon. That shows good taste. I won"t kill you until you"ve had a chance to explain. Why did Bast bring you here?"
"Actually," Carter said, "Thoth sent us."
Carter started to tell him the story, but Khufu broke in impatiently. "Agh! Agh!"
Baboon-speak must have been quite efficient, because Anubis nodded as if he"d just gotten the whole tale. "I see."
He scowled at Carter. "So you"re Horus. And you"re..." His finger drifted towards me.
"I"m-I"m, um-" I stammered. Quite unlike me to be tongue-tied, I"ll admit, but looking at Anubis, I felt as if I"d just gotten a large shot of Novocain from the dentist. Carter looked at me as if I"d gone daft.
"I"m not Isis," I managed. "I mean, Isis is milling about inside, but I"m not her. She"s just...visiting."
Anubis tilted his head. "And the two of you intend to challenge Set?"
"That"s the general idea," Carter agreed. "Will you help?"
Anubis glowered. I remembered Thoth saying Anubis was only in a good mood once an eon or so. I had the feeling this was not one of those days.
"No," he said flatly. "I"ll show you why."
He turned into a jackal and sped back the way he"d come. Carter and I exchanged looks. Not knowing what else to do, we ran after Anubis, deeper into the gloom.
In the center of the temple was a large circular chamber that seemed to be two places at once. On the one hand, it was a great hall with blazing braziers and an empty throne at the far end. The center of the room was dominated by a set of scales-a black iron T with ropes linked to two golden dishes, each big enough to hold a person-but the scales were broken. One of the golden dishes was bent into a V, as if something very heavy had jumped up and down on it. The other dish was hanging by a single rope.
Curled at the base of the scales, fast asleep, was the oddest monster I"d seen yet. It had the head of crocodile with a lion"s mane. The front half of its body was lion, but the back end was sleek, brown, and fat-a hippo, I decided. The odd bit was, the animal was tiny-I mean, no larger than an average poodle, which I suppose made him a hippodoodle.
So that was the hall, at least one layer of it. But at the same time, I seemed to be standing in a ghostly graveyard-like a three-dimensional projection superimposed on the room. In some places, the marble floor gave way to patches of mud and moss-covered paving stones. Lines of aboveground tombs like miniature row houses radiated from the center of the chamber in a wheel-spokes pattern. Many of the tombs had cracked open. Some were bricked up, others ringed with iron fences. Around the edges of the chamber, the black pillars shifted form, sometimes changing into ancient cypress trees. I felt as if I were stepping between two different worlds, and I couldn"t tell which one was real.
Khufu loped straight over to the broken scales and climbed to the top, making himself right at home. He paid no attention to the hippodoodle.
The jackal trotted to the steps of the throne and changed back into Anubis.
"Welcome," he said, "to the last room you will ever see."
Carter looked around in awe. "The Hall of Judgment." He focused on the hippodoodle and frowned. "Is that..."
"Ammit the Devourer," Anubis said. "Look upon him and tremble."
Ammit apparently heard his name in his sleep. He made a yipping sound and turned on his back. His lion and hippo legs twitched. I wondered if netherworld monsters dreamed of chasing rabbits.
"I always pictured him...bigger," Carter admitted.
Anubis gave Carter a harsh look. "Ammit only has to be big enough to eat the hearts of the wicked. Trust me, he does his job well. Or...he did it well, anyway."
Up on the scales, Khufu grunted. He almost lost his balance on the central beam, and the dented saucer clanged against the floor.
"Why are the scales broken?" I asked.
Anubis frowned. "Ma"at is weakening. I"ve tried to fix them, but..." He spread his hands helplessly.
I pointed to the ghostly rows of tombs. "Is that why the, ah, graveyard is b.u.t.ting in?"
Carter looked at me strangely. "What graveyard?"
"The tombs," I said. "The trees."
"What are you talking about?"
"He can"t see them," Anubis said. "But you, Sadie-you"re perceptive. What do you hear?"
At first I didn"t know what he meant. All I heard was the blood rushing through my ears, and the distant rumble and crackle of the Lake of Fire. (And Khufu scratching himself and grunting, but that was nothing new.) Then I closed my eyes, and I heard another distant sound-music that triggered my earliest memories, my father smiling as he danced me round our house in Los Angeles.
"Jazz," I said.
I opened my eyes, and the Hall of Judgment was gone. Or not gone, but faded. I could still see the broken scales and the empty throne. But no black columns, no roar of fire. Even Carter, Khufu, and Ammit had disappeared.
The cemetery was very real. Cracked paving stones wobbled under my feet. The humid night air smelled of spices and fish stew and old mildewed places. I might"ve been back in England-a churchyard in some corner of London, perhaps-but the writing on the graves was in French, and the air was much too mild for an English winter. The trees hung low and lush, covered with Spanish moss.
And there was music. Just outside the cemetery"s fence, a jazz band paraded down the street in somber black suits and brightly colored party hats. Saxophonists bobbed up and down. Cornets and clarinets wailed. Drummers grinned and swayed, their sticks flashing. And behind them, carrying flowers and torches, a crowd of revelers in funeral clothes danced round an old-fashioned black hea.r.s.e as it drove along.
"Where are we?" I said, marveling.
Anubis jumped from the top of a tomb and landed next to me. He breathed in the graveyard air, and his features relaxed. I found myself studying his mouth, the curve of his lower lip.