The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles #1)(88)

This is only the beginning, Horus warned me. Set will destroy everyone you care about. Believe me, I know.

The river became a marsh of tall reeds. The sun blazed overhead. Snakes and crocodiles slid through the water. At the water’s edge sat a thatched hut. Outside it, a woman and a child of about ten stood examining a battered sarcophagus. I could tell the coffin had once been a work of art—gold encrusted with gems—but now it was dented and black with grime.

The woman ran her hands over the coffin’s lid.

“Finally.” She had my mother’s face—blue eyes and caramel-colored hair—but she glowed with magical radiance, and I knew I was looking at the goddess Isis.

She turned to the boy. “We have searched so long, my son. Finally we have retrieved him. I will use my magic and give him life again!”

“Papa?” The boy gazed wide-eyed at the box. “He’s really inside?”

“Yes, Horus. And now—”

Suddenly their hut erupted into flames. The god Set stepped from the inferno—a mighty red-skinned warrior with smoldering black eyes. He wore the double crown of Egypt and the robes of a pharaoh. In his hands, an iron staff smoldered.

“Found the coffin, did you?” he said. “Good for you!”

Isis reached toward the sky. She summoned lightning against the god of chaos, but Set’s rod absorbed the attack and reflected it back at her. Arcs of electricity blasted the goddess and sent her sprawling.

“Mother!” The boy drew a knife and charged Set. “I’ll kill you!”

Set bellowed with laughter. He easily sidestepped the boy and kicked him into the dirt.

“You have spirit, nephew,” Set admitted. “But you won’t live long enough to challenge me. As for your father, I’ll just have to dispose of him more permanently.”

Set slammed his iron staff against the coffin’s lid.

Isis screamed as the coffin shattered like ice.

“Make a wish.” Set blew with all his might, and the shards of coffin flew into the sky, scattering in all directions. “Poor Osiris—he’s gone to pieces, scattered all over Egypt now. And as for you, sister Isis—run! That’s what you do best!”

Set lunged forward. Isis grabbed her son’s hand and they both turned into birds, flying for their lives.

The scene faded, and I was back in the steamboat’s wheelhouse. The sun rose in fast-forward as towns and barges sped past and the banks of the Mississippi blurred into a play of light and shadow.

“He destroyed my father,” Horus told me. “He will do the same to yours.”

“No,” I said.

Horus fixed me with those strange eyes—one blazing gold, one full-moon silver. “My mother and Aunt Nephthys spent years searching for the pieces of the coffin and Father’s body. When they collected all fourteen, my cousin Anubis helped bind my father back together with mummy wrappings, but still Mother’s magic could not bring him back to life fully. Osiris became an undead god, a half-living shadow of my father, fit to rule only in the Duat. But his loss gave me anger. Anger gave me the strength to defeat Set and take the throne for myself. You must do the same.”

“I don’t want a throne,” I said. “I want my dad.”

“Don’t deceive yourself. Set is merely toying with you. He will bring you to despair, and your sorrow will make you weak.”

“I have to save my dad!”

“That is not your mission,” Horus chided. “The world is at stake. Now, wake!”

Sadie was shaking my arm. She and Bast stood over me, looking concerned.

“What?” I asked.

“We’re here,” Sadie said nervously. She’d changed into a fresh linen outfit, black this time, which matched her combat boots. She’d even managed to redye her hair so the streaks were blue.

I sat up and realized I felt rested for the first time in a week. My soul may have been traveling, but at least my body had gotten some sleep. I glanced out the stateroom window. It was pitch-black outside.

“How long was I out?” I demanded.

“We’ve sailed down most of the Mississippi and into the Duat,” Bast said. “Now we approach the First Cataract.”

“The First Cataract?” I asked.

“The entrance,” Bast said grimly, “to the Land of the Dead.”

Chapter 27. A Demon with Free Samples

ME? I SLEPT LIKE THE DEAD, which I hoped wasn’t a sign of things to come.

I could tell Carter’s soul had been wandering through some frightening places, but he wouldn’t talk about them.

“Did you see Zia?” I asked. He looked so rattled I thought his face would fall off. “Knew it,” I said.

We followed Bast up to the wheelhouse, where Bloodstained Blade was studying a map while Khufu manned—er, babooned—the wheel.

“The baboon is driving,” I noted. “Should I be worried?”

“Quiet, please, Lady Kane.” Bloodstained Blade ran his fingers over a long stretch of papyrus map. “This is delicate work. Two degrees to starboard, Khufu.”

“Agh!” Khufu said.

The sky was already dark, but as we chugged along, the stars disappeared. The river turned the color of blood. Darkness swallowed the horizon, and along the riverbanks, the lights of towns changed to flickering fires, then winked out completely.