I wasn’t just being harsh. The cat was terribly beaten up. Large chunks of its fur were missing. It might once have been beautiful, but I was more inclined to think it had always been feral. Its remaining fur was dirty and matted, and its eyes were swollen and scarred almost as badly as Vlad Menshikov’s.
Bast—or the cat—or whatever was in charge—dropped back on all fours and sniffed indignantly. “Sadie, dear, I believe we’ve talked about battle scars on cats. This old tom is a warrior!”
A warrior who loses, I thought, but I decided not to say that.
Walt slid off Hindenburg’s back. “Bast, how—where are you?”
“Still deep in the Duat.” She sighed. “It’ll be another day at least before I can find my way out. Things down here are a bit…chaotic.”
“Are you all right?” I asked.
The cat nodded. “I just have to be careful. The abyss is teeming with enemies. All the regular paths and river ways are guarded. I’ll have to take a long detour to get back safely, and since the equinox starts tomorrow at sunset, the timing is going to be tight. I thought I’d better send you a message.”
“So…” Walt knit his eyebrows. “That cat isn’t real?”
“Of course it’s real,” Bast said. “Just controlled by a sliver of my ba. I can speak through cats easily, you know, at least for a few minutes at a time, but this is the first time you’ve been close to one. Did you realize that? Unbelievable! You really need to hang around more cats. By the way, this mau will need a reward when I’m gone. Some nice fish, perhaps, or some milk—”
“Bast,” I interrupted. “You said you had a message?”
“Right. Apophis is waking.”
“We knew that!”
“But it’s worse than we thought,” she said. “He’s got a legion of demons working on his cage, and he’s timing his release to coincide with your waking Ra. In fact, he’s counting on your freeing Ra. It’s part of his plan.”
My head felt like it was turning to jelly, though that may have been because Katrina the camel was sucking on my hair. “Apophis wants us to free his archenemy? That makes no sense.”
“I can’t explain it,” Bast said, “but as I got closer to his cage, I could glean his thoughts. I suppose because we fought so many centuries we have some sort of connection. At any rate, the equinox begins tomorrow at sunset, as I said. The following dawn, the morning of March twenty-first, Apophis intends to rise from the Duat. He plans to swallow the sun and destroy the world. And he believes your plan to awaken Ra will help him do that.”
Walt frowned. “If Apophis wants us to succeed, why is he trying so hard to stop us?”
“Is he?” I asked.
A dozen small things that had bothered me over the past few days suddenly clicked together: why had Apophis only scared Carter in the Brooklyn Museum, when the Arrows of Sekhmet could have destroyed him? How had we escaped so easily from St. Petersburg? Why had Set volunteered the location of the third scroll?
“Apophis wants chaos,” I said. “He wants to divide his enemies. If Ra comes back, it could throw us into a civil war. The magicians are already divided. The gods would be fighting each other. There would be no clear ruler. And if Ra isn’t reborn in a strong new form—if he’s as old and feeble as I saw in my vision—”
“So we shouldn’t awaken Ra?” Walt asked.
“That’s not the answer either,” I said.
Bast tilted her head. “I’m confused.”
My mind was racing. Katrina the camel was still chewing on my hair, turning it into a slimy mess, but I hardly noticed. “We have to stick to the plan. We need Ra. Ma’at and Chaos have to balance, right? If Apophis rises, Ra has to as well.”
Walt twisted his rings. “But if Apophis wants Ra awakened, if he thinks it will help him destroy the world—”
“We have to believe Apophis is wrong.” I remembered something Jaz’s ren had told me: We choose to believe in Ma’at.
“Apophis can’t imagine that anyone could unite the gods and magicians,” I said. “He thinks the return of Ra will weaken us even further. We have to prove him wrong. We have to make order from chaos. That’s what Egypt has always done. It’s a risk—a huge risk—but if we do nothing because we fear we’ll fail, we play right into Apophis’s hands.”
It’s hard to give a rousing speech with a camel licking your head, but Walt nodded. The cat didn’t look quite so enthusiastic. Then again, cats rarely do.
“Don’t underestimate Apophis,” Bast said. “You haven’t fought him. I have.”
“Which is why we need you back quickly.” I told her about Vlad Menshikov’s conversation with Set, and his plans to destroy Brooklyn House. “Bast, our friends are in terrible danger. Menshikov is possibly even more insane than Amos realizes. As soon as you’re able, go to Brooklyn. I have a feeling our last stand is going to be there. We’ll get the third scroll and find Ra.”
“I don’t like last stands,” the cat said. “But you’re right. It sounds bad. By the way, where are Bes and Carter?” She looked suspiciously at the camels. “You didn’t turn them into those, did you?”