The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles #1)(50)

“Like saying shatter,” I ventured. “And having a door explode.”

Zia scowled. “Yes, but such a thing would take years of practice.”

“Really? Well—”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carter shaking his head, silently warning me to shut up.

“Um...” I stammered. “Some day, I’ll learn to do that.”

Zia raised an eyebrow. “First, master the scroll.”

I was getting tired of her attitude, so I picked up the stylus and wrote Fire in English.

Zia leaned forward and frowned. “You shouldn’t—”

Before she could finish, a column of flame erupted in her face. I screamed, sure I’d done something horrible, but when the fire died Zia was still there, looking astonished, her eyebrows singed and her bangs smoldering.

“Oh, god,” I said. “Sorry, sorry. Do I die now?”

For three heartbeats, Zia stared at me.

“Now,” she announced. “I think you are ready to duel.”

We used another magic gateway, which Zia summoned right on the library wall. We stepped into a circle of swirling sand and popped out the other side, covered in dust and grit, in the front of some ruins. The harsh sunlight almost blinded me.

“I hate portals,” Carter muttered, brushing the sand out of his hair.

Then he looked around and his eyes widened. “This is Luxor! That’s, like, hundreds of miles south of Cairo.”

I sighed. “And that amazes you after teleporting from New York?”

He was too busy checking out our surroundings to answer.

I suppose the ruins were all right, though once you’ve seen one pile of crumbly Egyptian stuff, you’ve seen them all, I say. We stood on a wide avenue flanked by human-headed beasties, most of which were broken. The road went on behind us as far as I could see, but in front of us it ended at a temple much bigger than the one in the New York museum.

The walls were at least six stories high. Big stone pharaohs stood guard on either side of the entrance, and a single obelisk stood on the left-hand side. It looked as if one used to stand on the right as well, but it was now gone.

“Luxor is a modern name,” Zia said. “This was once the city of Thebes. This temple was one of the most important in Egypt. It is the best place for us to practice.”

“Because it’s already destroyed?” I asked.

Zia gave me one of her famous scowls. “No, Sadie—because it is still full of magic. And it was sacred to your family.”

“Our family?” Carter asked.

Zia didn’t explain, as usual. She just gestured for us to follow.

“I don’t like those ugly sphinxes,” I mumbled as we walked down the path.

“Those ugly sphinxes are creatures of law and order,” Zia said, “protectors of Egypt. They are on our side.”

“If you say so.”

Carter nudged me as we passed the obelisk. “You know the missing one is in Paris.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Wikipedia. I thought they were in New York and London.”

“That’s a different pair,” Carter said, like I was supposed to care. “The other Luxor obelisk is in Paris.”

“Wish I was in Paris,” I said. “Lot better than this place.”

We walked into a dusty courtyard surrounded by crumbling pillars and statues with various missing body parts. Still, I could tell the place had once been quite impressive.

“Where are the people?” I asked. “Middle of the day, winter holidays. Shouldn’t there be loads of tourists?”

Zia made a distasteful expression. “Usually, yes. I have encouraged them to stay away for a few hours.”

“How?”

“Common minds are easy to manipulate.” She looked pointedly at me, and I remembered how she’d forced me to talk in the New York museum. Oh, yes, she was just begging for more scorched eyebrows.

“Now, to the duel.” She summoned her staff and drew two circles in the sand about ten meters apart. She directed me to stand in one of them and Carter in the other.

“I’ve got to duel him?” I asked.

I found the idea preposterous. The only thing Carter had shown aptitude for was summoning butter knives and pooping birds. Well, all right, and that bit on the chasm bridge deflecting the daggers, but still—what if I hurt him? As annoying as Carter might be, I didn’t want to accidentally summon that glyph I’d made in Amos’s house and explode him to bits.

Perhaps Carter was thinking the same thing, because he’d started to sweat. “What if we do something wrong?” he asked.

“I will oversee the duel,” Zia promised. “We will start slowly. The first magician to knock the other out of his or her circle wins.”

“But we haven’t been trained!” I protested.

“One learns by doing,” Zia said. “This is not school, Sadie. You cannot learn magic by sitting at a desk and taking notes. You can only learn magic by doing magic.”

“But—”

“Summon whatever power you can,” Zia said. “Use whatever you have available. Begin!”

I looked at Carter doubtfully. Use whatever I have? I opened the leather satchel and looked inside. A lump of wax? Probably not. I drew the wand and rod. Immediately, the rod expanded until I was holding a two-meter-long white staff.