“Stop.” The anger in Walt’s voice took me by surprise. His hands were shaking. “Carter, I’ve come to terms with my fate. I won’t get my hopes up for nothing. Menshikov is the enemy.
Even if he could help, he wouldn’t. If you cross paths with him, don’t try to make any deals. Don’t try to reason with hi
m. Do what you need to. Take him down.”
I glanced at Sadie. Her eyes were gleaming, like I’d finally done something right.
“Okay, Walt,” I said. “I won’t mention it again.”
But Sadie and I had a very different silent conversation. For once, we were in total agreement. We were going to visit the Duat. And while we were there, we’d turn the tables on Vlad Menshikov. We’d find him, beat the crud out of him, and force him to tell us how to cure Walt. Suddenly, I felt a whole lot better about this quest.
“So we’ll leave at sunset,” Zia said. “Walt and I for Brooklyn. You and Sadie for the Duat. It’s settled.”
“Except for one thing.” Bes glared at the senet sticks Sadie had dropped on the floor. “You did not roll that. It’s impossible!”
Sadie looked down. A grin spread across her face. She’d accidentally rolled a three, just what she needed to win.
She moved her last piece home, then picked up Menshikov’s white glasses and tried them on. They looked creepy on her. I couldn’t help thinking about Menshikov’s burned voice and his scarred eyes, and what might happen to my sister if she tried to read the Book of Ra.
“Impossible is my specialty,” she said. “Come on, brother, dear. Let’s get ready for the Great Pyramid.”
If you ever visit the pyramids, here’s a tip: the best place to see them is from far away, like the horizon. The closer you get, the more disappointed you’ll be.
That may sound harsh, but first of all, up close, the pyramids are going to seem smaller than you thought. Everybody who sees them says that. Sure, they were the tallest structures on the earth for thousands of years, but compared to modern buildings, they don’t seem so impressive. They’ve been stripped of the white casing stones and golden capstones that made them really cool in ancient times. They’re still beautiful, especially when they’re lit up at sunset, but you can appreciate them better from far away without getting caught in the tourist scene.
That’s the second thing: the mobs of tourists and vendors. I don’t care where you go on vacation: Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, or the Roman Coliseum. It’s always the same, with vendors selling cheap T-shirts and trinkets, and hordes of sweating tourists complaining and shuffling around trying to take pictures. The pyramids are no different, except the crowds are bigger and the vendors are really, really pushy. They know a lot of English words, but “no” isn’t one of them.
As we pressed through the crowds, the vendors tried to sell us three camel rides, a dozen T-shirts, more amulets than Walt was wearing (Special price! Good magic!), and eleven genuine mummy fingers, which I figured were probably made in China.
I asked Bes if he could scare away the mob, but he just laughed. “Not worth it, kid. Tourists have been here almost as long as the pyramids. I’ll make sure they don’t notice us. Let’s just get to the top.”
Security guards patrolled the base of the Great Pyramid, but no one tried to stop us. Maybe Bes made us invisible somehow, or maybe the guards just chose to ignore us because we were with the dwarf god. Either way, I soon found out why climbing the pyramids wasn’t allowed: it’s hard and dangerous. The Great Pyramid is about four hundred and fifty feet tall. The stone sides were never meant for climbing. As we ascended, I almost fell twice. Walt twisted his ankle. Some of the blocks were loose and crumbling. Some of the “steps” were five feet tall, and we had to hoist one another up. Finally, after twenty minutes of sweaty, difficult work, we reached the top. The smog over Cairo made everything to the east a big fuzzy smudge, but to the west we had a good view of the sun going down on the horizon, turning the desert crimson.
I tried to imagine what the view would’ve looked like from here roughly five thousand years ago, when the pyramid was newly built. Had the pharaoh Khufu stood up here at the top of his own tomb and admired his empire? Probably not. He’d probably been too smart to make that climb.
“Right.” Sadie plopped her bag on the nearest block of limestone. “Bes, keep an eye out. Walt, help me with the portal, will you?”
Zia touched my arm, which made me jump.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
She climbed a little way down the pyramid. My pulse was racing, but I managed to follow without tripping and looking like an idiot.
Zia stared out over the desert. Her face was flushed in the light of the sunset. “Carter, don’t misunderstand. I appreciate your waking me. I know your heart was in the right place.”
My heart didn’t feel in the right place. It felt like it was stuck in my esophagus. “But…?” I asked.
She hugged her arms. “I need time. This is very strange for me. Maybe we can be…closer some day, but for now—”
“You need time,” I said, my voice ragged. “Assuming we don’t all die tonight.”
Her eyes were luminous gold. I wondered if that was the last color a bug saw when it was trapped in amber—and if the bug thought, Wow, that’s beautiful, right before it was frozen forever.
“I’ll do my best to protect your home,” she said. “Promise me, if it comes to a choice, that you’ll listen to your own heart, not the will of the gods.”
“I promise,” I said, though I doubted myself. I still heard Horus in my head, urging me to claim the weapons of the pharaoh. I wanted to say more, to tell her how I felt, but all I could get out was “Um …yeah.”
Zia managed a dry smile. “Sadie’s right. You are…how did she put it? Endearingly clumsy.”