CHAPTER
21. We Buy Some Time
AFTER 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?”
I started to sit in the chair farthest from Ra, since I didn’t want him slobbering all over me while he gummed his food, but Mom said, “Oh, not there, dear. Sit by me. That chair is for…another guest.”
She said the last two words like they left a bitter taste in her mouth.
I looked around the table. There were seven chairs and only six of us. “Who else is coming?”
“Anubis?” Sadie asked hopefully.
Dad chuckled. “Not Anubis, though I’m sure he’d be here if he could.”
Sadie slumped as if someone had let the air out of her. [Yes, Sadie, you were that obvious.]
“Where is he, then?” she asked.
Dad hesitated just long enough for me to sense his discomfort. “Away. Let’s eat, shall we?”
I sat down and accepted a slice of birthday cake from a ghostly waiter. You wouldn’t think I’d be hungry, with the world ending and our mission failed, sitting in the Land of the Dead at a dinner table from my past with my mom’s ghost next to me and my dad the color of a blueberry. But my stomach didn’t care about that. It let me know that I was still alive, and I needed food. The cake was chocolate with vanilla ice cream. It tasted perfect. Before I knew it, I’d polished off my slice and was loading my plate with pepperoni pizza. The statues of the gods stood behind us—Horus, Isis, Thoth, Sobek—all keeping silent watch as we ate. Outside the pavilion, the lands of Aaru spread out as if the cavern were endless—green hills and meadows, herds of fat cattle, fields of grain, orchards full of date trees. Streams cut the marshes into a patchwork of islands, just like the Nile Delta, with picture-perfect villages for the blessed dead. Sailboats cruised the river.
“This is what it looks like to the Ancient Egyptians,” Dad said, as if reading my thoughts. “But each soul sees Aaru slightly differently.”
“Like our house in L.A.?” I asked. “Our family back together around a dining table? Is this even real?”
Dad’s eyes turned sad, the way they used to whenever I’d ask about Mom’s death.
“The birthday cake is good, eh?” he asked. “My little girl, thirteen. I can’t believe—”
Sadie swept her plate off the table. It shattered against the stone floor. “What does it matter?” she shouted. “The bloody sundial—the stupid gates—we failed!”
She buried her face in her arms and began to sob.
“Sadie.” Mom hovered next to her like a friendly fog bank. “It’s all right.”
“Moon pie,” Ra said helpfully, a beard of cake frosting smeared around his mouth. He started to fall out of his chair, and Bes pushed him back into place.
“Sadie’s right,” I said. “Ra’s in worse shape than we imagined. Even if we could get him back to the mortal world, he could never defeat Apophis—unless Apophis laughs to death.”
Dad frowned. “Carter, he is still Ra, pharaoh of the gods. Show some respect.”
“Don’t like bubbles!” Ra swatted at a glowing servant light that was trying to wipe his mouth.
“Lord Ra,” Dad said, “do you remember me? I’m Osiris. You dined here at my table every night, resting before your journey toward the dawn. Do you recall?”
“Want a weasel,” Ra said.
Sadie slapped the table. “What does that even mean?”
Bes scooped up a fistful of chocolate-covered things—I was afraid they might be grasshoppers—and tossed them into his mouth. “We haven’t finished the Book of Ra. We’d need to find Khepri.”
Dad stroked his goatee. “Yes, the scarab god, Ra’s form as the rising sun. Perhaps if you found Khepri, Ra could be fully reborn. But you would need to pass through the gates of the Eighth House.”
“Which are closed,” I said. “We’d have to, like, reverse time.”
Bes stopped munching grasshoppers. His eyes widened like he’d just had a revelation. He looked at my dad incredulously. “Him? You invited him?”
“Who?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
I stared at my dad, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Dad, what is it?” I demanded. “There’s a way through the gates? Can you teleport us to the other side or something?”
“I wish I could, Carter. But the journey must be followed. It is part of Ra’s rebirth. I can’t interfere with that. However, you’re right: you need extra time. There might be a way, though I’d never suggest it if the stakes weren’t so high—”
“It’s dangerous,” our mom warned. “I think it’s too dangerous.”
“What’s too dangerous?” Sadie asked.
“Me, I suppose,” said a voice behind me.
I turned and found a man standing with his hands on the back of my chair. Either he’d approached so silently, I hadn’t heard him, or he’d materialized out of thin air.
He looked about twenty, thin and tall and kind of glamorous. His face was totally human, but his irises were silver. His head was shaven except for a glossy black ponytail on one side of his head, like Ancient Egyptian youth used to wear. His silvery suit looked to have been tailored in Italy (I only know that because Amos and my dad both paid a lot of attention to suits). The fabric shimmered like some bizarre mix of silk and aluminum foil. His shirt was black and collarless, and several pounds of platinum chains hung around his neck. The biggest piece of bling was a silver crescent amulet. When his fingers drummed on the back of my chair, his rings and platinum Rolex flashed. If I’d seen him in the mortal world, I might’ve guessed he was a young Native American billionaire casino owner. But here in the Duat, with that crescent-shaped amulet around his neck…
“Moon pie!” Ra cackled with delight.
“You’re Khonsu,” I guessed. “The moon god.”
He gave me a wolfish grin, looking at me as if I were an appetizer.
“At your service,” he said. “Care to play a game?”
“Not you,” Bes growled.
Khonsu spread his arms in a big air hug. “Bes, old buddy! How’ve you been?”
“Don’t ‘old buddy’ me, you scam artist.”
“I’m hurt!” Khonsu sat down on my right and leaned toward me conspiratorially. “Poor Bes gambled with me ages ago, you see. He wanted more time with Bast. He wagered a few feet of his height. I’m afraid he lost.”
“That’s not what happened!” Bes roared.
“Gentlemen,” my father said in his sternest Dad tone. “You are both guests at my table. I won’t have any fighting.”
“Absolutely, Osiris.” Khonsu beamed at him. “I’m honored to be here. And these are your famous children? Wonderful! Are you ready to play, kids?”
“Julius, they don’t understand the risks,” our mother protested. “We can’t let them do this.”
“Hang on,” Sadie said. “Do what, exactly?”
Khonsu snapped his fingers, and all the food on the table disappeared, replaced by a glowing silver senet board. “Haven’t you heard about me, Sadie? Didn’t Isis tell you some stories? Or Nut? Now, there was a gambler! The sky goddess wouldn’t stop playing until she’d won five whole days from me. Do you know the odds against winning that much time? Astronomical! Of course, she’s covered with stars, so I suppose she is astronomical.”
Khonsu laughed at his own joke. He didn’t seem bothered that no one joined him.
“I remember,” I said. “You gambled with Nut, and she won enough moonlight to create five extra days, the Demon Days. That let her get around Ra’s commandment that her five children couldn’t be born on any day of the year.”
“Nuts,” Ra muttered. “Bad nuts.”
The moon god raised an eyebrow. “Dear me, Ra is in bad shape, isn’t he? But yes, Carter Kane. You’re absolutely right. I’m the moon god, but I also have some influence over time. I can lengthen or shorten the lives of mortals. Even gods can be affected by my powers. The moon is changeable, you see. Its light waxes and wanes. In my hands, time can also wax and wane. You need—what, about three extra hours? I can weave that for you out of moonlight, if you and your sister are willing to gamble for it. I can make it so that the gates of the Eighth House have not yet closed.”
I didn’t understand how he could possibly do that—back up time, insert three extra hours into the night—but for the first time since Sunny Acres, I felt a small spark of hope. “If you can help, why not just give us the extra time? The fate of the world is at stake.”
Khonsu laughed. “Good one! Give you time! No, seriously. If I started giving away something that valuable, Ma’at would crumble. Besides, you can’t play senet without gambling. Bes can tell you that.”
Bes spit a chocolate grasshopper leg out of his mouth. “Don’t do it, Carter. You know what they said about Khonsu in the old days? Some of the pyramids have a poem about him carved into the stones. It’s called the ‘Cannibal Hymn.’ For a price, Khonsu would help the pharaoh slay any gods who were bothering him. Khonsu would devour their souls and gain their strength.”
The moon god rolled his eyes. “Ancient history, Bes! I haven’t devoured a soul in…what month is this? March? At any rate, I’ve completely adapted to this modern world. I’m quite civilized now. You should see my penthouse at the Luxor in Las Vegas. I mean, Thank you! America has a proper civilization!”
He smiled at me, his silver eyes flashing like a shark’s. “So what do you say, Carter? Sadie? Play me at senet. Three pieces for me, three for you. You’ll need three hours of moonlight, so you two will need one additional person to stake a wager. For every piece your team manages to move off the board, I’ll grant you an extra hour. If you win, that’s three extra hours—just enough time to make it past the gates of the Eighth House.”
“And if we lose?” I asked.
“Oh…you know.” Khonsu waved his hand as if this were an annoying technicality. “For each piece I move off the board, I’ll take a ren from one of you.”
Sadie sat forward. “You’ll take our secret names—as in, we have to share them with you?”
“Share…” Khonsu stroked his ponytail, as if trying to remember the meaning of that word. “No, no sharing. I’ll devour your ren, you see.”
“Erase part of our souls,” Sadie said. “Take our memories, our identity.”
The moon god shrugged. “On the bright side, you wouldn’t die. You’d just—”
“Turn into a vegetable,” Sadie guessed. “Like Ra, there.”
“Don’t want vegetables,” Ra muttered irritably. He tried to chew on Bes’s shirt, but the dwarf god scooted away.
“Three hours,” I said. “Wagered against three souls.”
“Carter, Sadie, you don’t have to do this,” my mother said. “We don’t expect you to take this risk.”
I’d seen her so many times in pictures and in my memories, but for the first time it really struck me how much she looked like Sadie—or how much Sadie was starting to look like her. They both had the same fiery determination in their eyes. They both tilted their chins up when they were expecting a fight. And they both weren’t very good at hiding their feelings. I could tell from Mom’s shaky voice that she realized what had to happen. She was telling us we had options, but she knew very well that we didn’t.
I looked at Sadie, and we came to a silent agreement.
“Mom, it’s okay,” I said. “You gave your life to close Apophis’s prison. How can we back out?”
Khonsu rubbed his hands. “Ah, yes, Apophis’s prison! Your friend Menshikov is there right now, loosening the Serpent’s bonds. I have so many bets on what will happen! Will you get there in time to stop him? Will you return Ra to the world? Will you defeat Menshikov? I’m giving a hundred to one on that!”
Mom turned desperately to my father. “Julius, tell them! It’s too dangerous.”
My dad was still holding a plate of half-eaten birthday cake. He stared at the melting ice cream as if it were the saddest thing in the world.
“Carter and Sadie,” he said at last, “I brought Khonsu here so that you’d have the choice. But whatever you do, I’m still proud of you both. If the world ends tonight, that won’t change.”
He met my eyes, and I could see how much it hurt him to think about losing us. Last Christmas at the British Museum, he’d sacrificed his life to release Osiris and restore balance to the Duat. He’d left Sadie and me alone, and I’d resented him a long time for that. Now I realized what it was like to be in his position. He’d been willing to give up everything, even his life, for a bigger purpose.
“I understand, Dad,” I told him. “We’re Kanes. We don’t run from hard choices.”
He didn’t answer, but he nodded slowly. His eyes burned with fierce pride.
“For once,” Sadie said, “Carter’s right. Khonsu, we’ll play your stupid game.”
“Excellent!” Khonsu said. “That’s two souls. Two hours to win. Ah, but you’ll need three hours to get through the gates on time, won’t you? Hmm. I’m afraid you can’t use Ra. He’s not in his right mind. Your mother is already dead. Your father is the judge of the underworld, so he’s disqualified from soul wagering….”
“I’ll do it,” Bes said. His face was grim but determined.
“Old buddy!” Khonsu cried. “I’m delighted.”
“Stuff it, moon god,” Bes said. “I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
“Bes,” I said, “you’ve done enough for us. Bast would never expect you—”
“I’m not doing it for Bast!” he grumbled. Then he took a deep breath. “Look, you kids are the real deal. Last couple of days—for the first time in ages I’ve felt wanted again. Important. Not like a sideshow attraction. If things go wrong, just tell Tawaret…” He cleared his throat and gave Sadie a meaningful look. “Tell her I tried to turn back the clock.”
“Oh, Bes.” Sadie got up and ran around the table. She hugged the dwarf god and kissed his cheek.
“All right, all right,” he muttered. “Don’t go sappy on me. Let’s play this game.”
“Time is money,” Khonsu agreed.
Our parents stood.
“We cannot stay for this,” Dad said. “But, children…”
He didn’t seem to know how to complete the thought. Good luck probably wouldn’t have cut it. I could see the guilt and worry in his eyes, but he was trying hard not to show it. A good general, Horus would have said.
“We love you,” our mother finished. “You will prevail.”
With that, our parents turned to mist and vanished. Everything outside the pavilion darkened like a stage set. The senet game began to glow brighter.
“Shiny,” Ra said.
“Three blue pieces for you,” Khonsu said. “Three silver pieces for me. Now, who’s feeling lucky?”
The game started well enough. Sadie had skill at tossing the sticks. Bes had several thousand years of gaming experience. And I got the job of moving the pieces and making sure Ra didn’t eat them.
At first it wasn’t obvious who was winning. We just rolled and moved, and it was hard to believe we were playing for our souls, or true names, or whatever you want to call them.
We bumped one of Khonsu’s pieces back to start, but he didn’t seem upset. He seemed delighted by just about everything.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” I asked at one point. “Devouring innocent souls?”
“Not really.” He polished his crescent amulet. “Why should it?”
“But we’re trying to save the world,” Sadie said, “Ma’at, the gods—everything. Don’t you care if the world crumbles into Chaos?”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be so bad,” Khonsu said. “Change comes in phases, Ma’at and Chaos, Chaos and Ma’at. Being the moon god, I appreciate variation. Now, Ra, poor guy—he always stuck to a schedule. Same path every night. So predictable and boring. Retiring was the most interesting thing he ever did. If Apophis takes over and swallows the sun, well—I suppose the moon will still be there.”
“You’re insane,” Sadie said.
“Ha! I’ll bet you five extra minutes of moonlight that I’m perfectly sane.”
“Forget it,” Sadie said. “Just roll.”
Khonsu tossed the sticks. The bad news: he made alarming progress. He rolled a five and got one of his pieces almost to the end of the board. The good news: the piece got stuck at the House of Three Truths, which meant he could only roll a three to get it out.
Bes studied the board intently. He didn’t seem to like what he saw. We had one piece way back at the start and two pieces on the last row of the board.
“Careful now,” Khonsu warned. “This is where it gets interesting.”
Sadie rolled a four, which gave us two options. Our lead piece could go out. Or our second piece could bump Khonsu’s piece from the House of Three Truths and send it back to Start.
“Bump him,” I said. “It’s safer.”
Bes shook his head. “Then we’re stuck in the House of Three Truths. The chances of him rolling a three are slim. Take your first piece out. That way you’ll be assured of at least one extra hour.”
“But one extra hour won’t do it,” Sadie said.
Khonsu seemed to be enjoying our indecision. He sipped wine from a silvery goblet and smiled. Meanwhile Ra entertained himself by trying to pick the spikes off his war flail. “Ow, ow, ow.”
My forehead beaded with sweat. How was I sweating in a board game? “Bes, are you sure?”
“It’s your best bet,” he said.
“Bes best?” Khonsu chuckled. “Nice!”
I wanted to smack the moon god, but I kept my mouth shut. I moved our first piece out of play.
“Congratulations!” Khonsu said. “I owe you one hour of moonlight. Now it’s my turn.”
He tossed the sticks. They clattered on the dining table, and I felt like someone had snipped an elevator cable in my chest, plunging my heart straight down a shaft. Khonsu had rolled a three.
“Whoopsie!” Ra dropped his flail.
Khonsu moved his piece out of play. “Oh, what a shame. Now, whose ren do I collect first?”
“No, please!” Sadie said. “Trade back. Take the hour you owe us instead.”
“Those aren’t the rules,” Khonsu chided.
I looked down at the gouge I’d made in the table when I was eight. I knew that memory was about to disappear, like all my others. If I gave my ren to Khonsu, at least Sadie could still cast the final part of the spell. She would need Bes to protect her and advise her. I was the only expendable one.
I started to say, “I—”
“Me,” said Bes. “The move was my idea.”
“Bes, no!” Sadie cried.
The dwarf stood. He planted his feet and balled his fists, like he was getting ready to let loose with a BOO. I wished he’d do that and scare away Khonsu, but instead he looked at us with resignation. “It was part of the strategy, kids.”
“What?” I asked. “You planned this?”
He slipped off his Hawaiian shirt and folded it carefully, setting it on the table. “Most important thing is getting all three of your pieces off the board, and losing no more than one. This was the only way to do it. You’ll beat him easily now. Sometimes you have to lose a piece to win a game.”
“So true,” Khonsu said. “What a delight! A god’s ren. Are you ready, Bes?”
“Bes, don’t,” I pleaded. “This isn’t right.”
He scowled at me. “Hey, kid, you were willing to sacrifice. Are you saying I’m not as brave as some pipsqueak magician? Besides, I’m a god. Who knows? Sometimes we come back. Now, win the game and get out of here. Kick Menshikov in the knee for me.”
I tried to think of something to say, something that would stop this, but Bes said, “I’m ready.”
Khonsu closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, like he was enjoying some fresh mountain air. Bes’s form flickered. He dissolved into a montage of lightning-fast images—a troupe of dwarves dancing at a temple in the firelight; a crowd of Egyptians partying at a festival, carrying Bes and Bast on their shoulders; Bes and Tawaret in togas at some Roman villa, eating grapes and laughing together on a sofa; Bes dressed like George Washington in a powdered wig and silk suit, doing cartwheels in front of some British redcoats; Bes in the olive fatigues of a U.S. Marine, scaring away a demon in a World War II Nazi uniform.
As his silhouette melted, more recent images flickered past: Bes in a chauffeur’s uniform with a placard that read KANE; Bes pulling us out of our sinking limo in the Mediterranean; Bes casting spells on me in Alexandria when I was poisoned, trying desperately to heal me; Bes and me in the back of the Bedouins’ pickup truck, sharing goat meat and Vaseline-flavored water as we traveled along the bank of the Nile. His last memory: two kids, Sadie and me, looking at him with love and concern. Then the image faded, and Bes was gone. Even his Hawaiian shirt had disappeared.
“You took all of him!” I yelled. “His body—everything. That wasn’t the deal!”
Khonsu opened his eyes and sighed deeply. “That was lovely.” He smiled at us as if nothing had happened. “I believe it’s your turn.”
His silver eyes were cold and luminous, and I had a feeling that for the rest of my life, I would hate looking at the moon.
Maybe it was rage, or Bes’s strategy, or maybe we just got lucky, but the rest of the game Sadie and I destroyed Khonsu easily. We bumped his pieces at every opportunity. Within five minutes, our last piece was off the board.
Khonsu spread his hands. “Well done! Three hours are yours. If you hurry, you can make the gates of the Eighth House.”
“I hate you,” Sadie said. It was the first she’d spoken since Bes disappeared. “You’re cold, calculating, horrible—”
“And I’m just what you needed.” Khonsu took off his platinum Rolex and wound back the time—one, two, three hours. All around us, the statues of the gods flickered and jumped like the world was being slammed into reverse.
“Now,” Khonsu said, “would you like to spend your hard-earned time complaining? Or do you want to save this poor old fool of a king?”
“Zebras?” Ra muttered hopefully.
“Where are our parents?” I asked. “At least let us say good-bye.”
Khonsu shook his head. “Time is precious, Carter Kane. You should’ve learned that lesson. It’s best that I send you on your way; but if you ever want to gamble with me again—for seconds, hours, even days—just let me know. Your credit is good.”
I couldn’t stand it. I lunged at Khonsu, but the moon god vanished. The whole pavilion faded, and Sadie and I were standing on the deck of the sun boat again, sailing down the dark river. The glowing crew lights buzzed around us, manning the oars and trimming the sail. Ra sat on his fiery throne, playing with his crook and flail like they were puppets having an imaginary conversation.
In front of us, a pair of enormous stone gates loomed out of the darkness. Eight massive snakes were carved into the rock, four on each side. The gates were slowly closing, but the sun boat slipped through just in time, and we passed into the Eighth House.
I have to say, the House of Challenges didn’t seem very challenging. We fought monsters, yes. Serpents loomed out of the river. Demons arose. Ships full of ghosts tried to board the sun boat. We destroyed them all. I was so angry, so devastated at losing Bes, that I imagined every threat was the moon god Khonsu. Our enemies didn’t stand a chance.
Sadie cast spells I’d never seen her use. She summoned sheets of ice that probably matched her emotions, leaving several demon icebergs in our wake. She turned an entire shipful of pirate ghosts into Khonsu bobble-heads, then vaporized them in a miniature nuclear explosion. Meanwhile, Ra played happily with his toys while the light servants flittered around the deck in agitation, apparently sensing that our journey was reaching a critical phase. The Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Houses passed in a blur. From time to time I heard a splash in the water behind us, like the oar of another boat. I looked back, wondering if Menshikov had somehow gotten on our tail again, but I didn’t see anything. If something was following us, it knew better than to show itself.
At last I heard a roar up ahead, like another waterfall or a stretch of rapids. The light orbs worked furiously taking down the sail, pushing on the oars, but we kept gaining speed.
We passed under a low archway carved like the goddess Nut, her starry limbs stretched out protectively and her face smiling in welcome. I got the feeling we were entering the Twelfth House, the last part of the Duat before we emerged into a new dawn.
I hoped to see light at the end of the tunnel, literally, but instead our path had been sabotaged. I could see where the river was supposed to go. The tunnel continued ahead, slowly winding out of the Duat. I could even smell fresh air—the scent of the mortal world. But the far end of the tunnel had been drained to a field of mud. In front of us, the river plunged into a massive pit, like an asteroid had punched a hole in the earth and diverted the water straight down. We were racing toward the drop.
“We could jump,” Sadie said. “Abandon ship…”
But I think we came to the same conclusion. We needed the sun boat. We needed Ra. We had to follow the course of the river wherever it led.
“It’s a trap,” Sadie said. “The work of Apophis.”
“I know,” I said. “Let’s go tell him we don’t like his work.”
We both grabbed the mast as the ship plunged into the maelstrom.
It seemed like we fell forever. You know the feeling when you dive to the bottom of a deep pool, like your nose and ears are going to explode, and your eyes are going to pop out of your head? Imagine that feeling a hundred times worse. We were sinking into the Duat deeper than we’d ever been—deeper than any mortal was supposed to go. The molecules of my body felt like they were heating up, buzzing so fast they might fly apart.
We didn’t crash. We didn’t hit bottom. The boat simply flipped direction, like down had become sideways, and we sailed into a cavern that glowed with harsh red light. The magical pressure was so intense that my ears rang. I was nauseated and I could barely think straight, but I recognized the shoreline up ahead: a beach made of millions of dead scarab shells, shifting and surging as a force underneath—a massive serpentine shape—struggled to break free. Dozens of demons were digging through the scarab shells with shovels. And standing on the shore, waiting for us patiently, was Vlad Menshikov, his clothes charred and smoking, his staff glowing with green fire.
“Welcome, children,” he called across the water. “Come. Join me for the end of the world.”