Then the three points of light shot in arcs like falling stars, twisting as they angled toward their brother lights. Next, they angled downward, zooming toward the pyramids. The beams shot down the pyramid shafts and emerged on the other side. The trails they left formed a series of triangles that connected everything. It’s the Impossible Triangle, I thought, as I gazed in awe.
The center filled with swirls of white, gold, and silver, and the inside grew brighter and brighter until it merged into a powerful pillar aimed directly at the crevice that had been made in the universe. A stream of light hit the storm cloud and consumed it, and with a final burst of energy, the crack sealed, disappearing in a brilliant storm of white, gold, and silver light.
Slowly, the light dimmed, and the tails creating the Impossible Triangle were reabsorbed. The white ball of light shot toward Asten, the silver floated lazily past the moon and settled upon Ahmose’s shoulders, and the gold ball zoomed back to Amon, who caught it in his hand. It sank into his body and he staggered back a step.
“It is done,” he said. “Come, Hassan. I will take you with me.”
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
“Hassan? What is wrong with you? Where are you?” Amon descended a step or two until his foot made contact with my shoulder. “Hassan?” Squatting next to me, Amon lifted my arm and tried to get me to talk. He removed my hat and slapped my face lightly, then suddenly stopped as his fingers touched my hair. He ran his hands over my face and neck. “Lily?” he gasped. “No.” He wrenched the heavy jacket off me, scooped me up in his arms, and pressed his face in my neck. “No!” he screamed.
I realized he thought I was dead. I wasn’t. At least, I didn’t think so. But there was no way for him to know that. Even I couldn’t tell if I was breathing. Maybe I was dead and was now having an out-of-body experience. Amon pressed his lips against my cheeks and forehead; his arms trembled and his breathing was ragged. If he still had his eyes, he might have been weeping. How sad not to be able to weep, I thought.
Clutching me close to his body, Amon uttered a spell, his voice breaking. The top of the pyramid became liquid and we sank into a darkness that closed over our heads.
We passed through layers of stone as if it were water, coming to a stop deep inside the pyramid. Large rocks, like the ones in Osahar’s underground tunnels, sat in the corners providing light. Amon’s feet touched the gritty soil and he staggered, but he held me close, cradling my body as gently as he could. My head hung across his arm while he stretched out a hand to feel where he was. After bumping into a raised stone slab that looked suspiciously like an altar, he carefully lowered me onto it.
Amon smoothed my hair from my forehead and folded my arms across my chest as if I were Cleopatra on her deathbed. I wanted to scream, to shout that I was alive, but I was trapped inside my own body. He knelt at my side, tremors racking his body as he pressed his forehead against my stomach, I wished more than anything to comfort him.
“I am so, so sorry, Lily,” he murmured. “I did not wish this for you. How oblivious I was in thinking I had generated enough power on my own.
“I should have known that my brothers would deceive me. They did not understand why I chose to send you home, why I would risk allowing chaos to reign, why I challenged the very reason for our existence. Now the thing I feared the most has come to pass. How could I not have sensed that the sweet energy seeping into my soul was yours?”
Lifting my hand, Amon clutched it, rubbing my knuckles with his thumb. Little pulses of sunshine ran through me—surely that was a good sign, or at least a sign that I wasn’t really dead.