The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles #2)(115)

“Holy Horus,” Carter said.

In fact, Horus was about the only thing not doing battle in the Great Room. Khufu, our intrepid baboon, was riding an old magician around the room, choking him with his own wand and steering him into walls as the mage turned blue. Felix had unleashed a squad of penguins on another magician, who cowered in a magic circle with some sort of posttraumatic stress, screaming, “Not Antarctica again! Anything but that!” Alyssa was summoning the powers of Geb to repair a massive hole the enemy had blasted in the far wall. Julian had summoned a combat avatar for the first time, and was slicing demons with his glowing sword. Even bookish Cleo was dashing about the room, pulling scrolls from her pouch and reading random words of power like “Blind!” “Horizontal!” and “Gassy!” (which, by the way, work wonders to incapacitate an enemy). Everywhere I looked, our initiates were ruling the day. They fought as if they’d been waiting all night for the chance to strike, which I suppose was exactly the case. And there was Jaz—Jaz! Up and looking quite healthy!—knocking an enemy shabti straight into the fireplace, where it broke into a thousand pieces.

I felt an overwhelming sense of pride, and not a small amount of amazement. I’d been so worried about our young trainees’ surviving, yet they were quite simply dominating a much more seasoned group of magicians.

Most impressive, though, was Amos. I’d seen him do magic, but never like this. He stood at the base of Thoth’s statue, swirling his staff and summoning lightning and thunder, blasting enemy magicians, and flinging them away in miniature storm clouds. A woman magician charged at him, her staff glowing with red flames, but Amos simply tapped the floor. The marble tiles turned to sand at her feet, and the woman sank up to her neck.

Carter and I looked at each other, grinned, and joined the fight.

It was a complete rout. Soon the demons had been reduced to sand piles, and the enemy magicians began scattering in panic. No doubt they’d been expecting to fight a band of untrained children. They hadn’t counted on the full Kane treatment.

One of the women managed to open a portal in the far wall.

Stop them, the voice of Isis spoke in my mind, which was quite a shock after such a long silence. They must hear the truth.

I don’t know where I got the idea, but I raised my arms and shimmering rainbow wings appeared on either side of me—the wings of Isis.

I swept my arms. A blast of wind and multicolored light knocked our enemies off their feet, leaving our friends perfectly unharmed.

“Listen!” I bellowed.

Everyone fell silent. My voice normally sounds bossy, but now it seemed magnified by a factor of ten. The wings probably commanded attention as well.

“We’re not your enemies!” I said. “I don’t care if you like us, but the world has changed. You need to hear what’s happened.”

My magic wings faded as I told everyone about our trip through the Duat, Ra’s rebirth, Menshikov’s betrayal, the rising of Apophis, and Desjardins’ sacrifice to banish the Serpent.

“Lies!” An Asian man in charred blue robes stepped forward. From the vision Carter had described, I supposed that he was Kwai.

“It’s true,” Carter said. His avatar no longer surrounded him. His clothes had reverted to the normal mortal ones we’d bought him in Cairo, but somehow he still looked quite imposing, quite confident. He held up the leopard-skin cape of the Chief Lector, and I could feel a ripple of shock spread through the room.

“Desjardins fought at our side,” Carter said. “He defeated Menshikov and execrated Apophis. He sacrificed his life to buy us a little time. But Apophis will be back. Desjardins wanted you to know. With his last words, he told me to show you this cape and explain the truth. Especially you, Amos. He wanted you to know—the path of gods has to be restored.”

The enemy’s escape portal was still swirling. No one had stepped through yet.

The woman who’d summoned it spit on our floor. She had white robes and spiky black hair. She shouted to her comrades, “What are you waiting for? They bring us the Chief Lector’s cape and tell us this crazy story. They’re Kanes! Traitors! They probably killed Desjardins and Menshikov themselves.”

Amos’s voice boomed across the Great Room: “Sarah Jacobi! You of all people know that isn’t true. You’ve devoted your life to studying the ways of Chaos. You can sense the unleashing of Apophis, can’t you? And the return of Ra.”

Amos pointed out through the glass doors leading to the deck. I don’t know how he sensed it without looking, but the sun boat was just floating down, coming to rest in Philip’s swimming pool. It was quite an impressive landing. Zia and Walt stood on either side of the throne of fire. They’d managed to prop up Ra so that he looked a bit more regal with his crook and flail in his hands, though he still had a goofy grin on his face.

Bast, who’d been standing on the deck frozen in shock, fell to her knees. “My king!”

“Hel-llo-o-o-o-o,” Ra warbled. “Goood-bye!”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but Bast shot to her feet, suddenly alarmed.

“He’s going to rise into the heavens!” she said. “Walt, Zia, jump off!”

They did, just in time. The sun boat began to glow. Bast turned to me and called, “I’ll escort him to the other gods! Don’t worry. Back soon!” She jumped on board, and the sun boat floated into the sky, turning into a ball of fire. Then it blended with the sunlight and was gone.