Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx

by James Rollins

  “You made it out alive!” Pindor shouted.

  Jake kept staring up. “Did you see …?” He made a wiggling motion with his arm, shooting it up in the air.

  “What?” Marika asked.

  Bach’uuk gave him a worried look, as if Jake had lost his mind.

  Jake sagged. Maybe he had. Besides, they’d never believe him.

  His friends hugged him and drew him around a spit of rock to where the others had gathered. Jake noted two things immediately. The party seated in the sand was far smaller. Many had not escaped the Crackles alive. Jake noted a particular absence. Skymaster Horus, always stately and tall, was nowhere in sight. Politor stood a step away, his head hung in grief.

  All this death to bring me here.

  Too heavyhearted to speak, Jake faced the second sight that caught his gaze. How could it not? It demanded his attention.

  Fifty yards ahead, the desert ended. A massive dark storm rose like a swirling wall of sand, stretching up toward the stars that were just beginning to twinkle. Sand spit from the maelstrom, stinging Jake’s cheeks and eyes. As he watched, lightning crackled silently across the storm’s surface in violent, spectacular displays.

  Jake knew that sandstorms occasionally sparked with static electricity, but never on this scale. How could they even consider entering that savage storm? It was pure madness.

  He turned away and watched Politor fall to his knees, covering his face, grieving. There was his answer. Lives had already been lost. He could not balk now.

  Still, he suddenly felt hopeless.

  “You all might want to see this,” Shaduf called behind him. “Since it’s about the bunch of you.”

  Jake was happy to turn away from the storm. Shaduf and Nefertiti stood before a sheer cliff, the same spit of rock he’d rounded a moment ago. The old man held a torch up toward the stone’s surface.

  Curious, Jake and his friends joined Nefertiti and her uncle. Lit by the torch, a few lines of hieroglyphics that were carved into the stone glowed. Unadorned and without paint, they looked crude and hastily written. Still, there was a simple artistry that Jake found appealing, deeply so. For some reason, his eyes welled with tears.

  Feeling stupid, he wiped them away, but he could not escape a feeling of profound loss. The grief hit him unexpectedly. He shook his head. A part of him still struggled to cope with Kady’s death. He had bottled it away, plugged it with the thought of killing that murderous witch—but it was still there.

  Shaduf held up his torch. “Here is written the Prophecy of Lupi Pini.”

  Jake stepped forward. He kept hearing about this prophecy and wanted a closer look. Shaduf’s torchlight reflected off a prominent cartouche carved at the top.

  Such ringed sets of hieroglyphics were used by the Egyptians to highlight special names: pharaohs, queens, and gods. In this case, the cartouche enclosed the name of the one who had written this prophecy.

  Running his torch along the writing below the cartouche, Shaduf translated. “The prophecy states: ‘There shall come from Calypsos another group of wanderers. When that day rises, the great storm will blow its last, and new worlds will open for all the peoples of Deshret.’”

  Shaduf faced them, his eyes glistening. “That is why so many good people shed their blood, not only for freedom, but for the hope of a new world.”

  Seeing the shine in the old man’s eyes, Jake felt ashamed for his momentary lapse in faith. These people had been waiting for so long. He could not fail them.

  “But who wrote that?” Marika asked. “How do we even know it’s talking about us?”

  “Maybe it was just some crazy scribbling,” Pindor agreed.

  Bach’uuk looked to Jake for an answer, some final judgment before they risked entering the storm because of the words of a dead fortune-teller.

  But what do I know about any of this?

  Jake stared at the cartouche. In his mind’s eye, he translated the hieroglyphic letters, eight in all, written in two lines.

  He shook his head. It was just as Shaduf had stated. It was the Prophecy of Lupi Pini. It meant nothing to him. He began to turn away when he noticed that the hieroglyphic figures—the lion, the quail, the reeds—were all facing left. That nagged him for some reason. He turned back to study the cartouche more closely, scratching his head. The direction in which hieroglyphs face often indicate the way in which they should be read. But even that changed over time. In the New Kingdom of Egypt, hieroglyphs were read from top to bottom; but in the Old Kingdom, it was the reverse.

  If this prophecy had been carved centuries ago, maybe the name was supposed to be read the opposite way: bottom to top. He flipped the words in his head.

  Jake mumbled the name aloud, his voice trembling, “Pini Lupi.”

  Marika wrinkled her brow, sensing his growing distress. “What?”

  His breathing became heavier, as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs. “It’s been read wrong all this time,” he said, and faced the others. “The ancient Egyptian alphabet didn’t have letters for E and O. So modern writers would often replace those letters with the hieroglyphs for I and U.”

  “I don’t understand,” Pindor said. “What does that mean?”

  It meant everything.

  In his head, Jake scratched out the wrong letters and scrawled in the right ones: turning Is into Es and the single U back into an O.

  Once done, he whispered the true name of the prophet who had carved these words. “Pene Lope.”

  He now understood why seeing the hieroglyphics had struck him so deeply, so emotionally. It had nothing to do with Kady. For as long as he could remember, he had poured over his mother’s old field notebooks filled with drawing, sketches, and illustrations. Deep inside, a part of him must have recognized her familiar style, her strokes, the way she drew. It took his brain longer to catch up.

  “Penelope,” Jake stammered. “That’s my mother’s name. She wrote this message.”

  Unable to face their stunned expressions, Jake turned to the storm. True night had fallen over the desert. In the dark, the spats of lightning blinded like a camera’s flash, crackling and coursing throughout the storm.

  Jake stared as a crescendo of bolts lit the depths of the maelstrom. For a moment, the ghostly outline of towers and shadowy structures shimmered deep within the storm’s heart.

  Ankh Tawy.

  He knew he had to reach that lost city.

  Not for freedom, not to honor any debt of blood.

  But because his mother had told him to.

  27

  KEY OF TIME

  “I should go in alone,” Jake said.

  Everyone gathered fifty paces from the whirlwind. Lightning crackled, brightening the night, while flurries of sand lashed out at them. To protect eyes and skin, cloaks had been pulled over faces and backs were turned to the storm.

  “You can’t brave those winds by yourself,” Marika argued.

  Jake held up the pocket watch. “We don’t even know if this will grant safe passage.”

  “It must,” Shaduf said. “I am willing to try. I am old. You are young.”

  Jake shook his head. It was his father’s watch. As the sole surviving Ransom, it was his responsibility to try. According to legend, his mother had called forth this storm. It was up to him to stop it. Before anyone else could protest, he headed out. Marika took a step to follow, but even she recognized the folly and halted.

  “Be careful,” she called to him.

  He glanced back, hearing her true heart in those two simple words of concern, and saw something deeper shining in her eyes, something that gave him the strength to turn and march toward the storm.

  He could not fail.

  Alone, he headed across the storm-swept margin of desert that ended at the savage wall of swirling sand. But he’d taken only ten steps when a shout rose from Politor.

  “Fire in the sky!”

  Jake stopped and looked up. The night blazed with silvery stars, but that wasn’t what rous
ed the man. Overhead, a windrider blazed like a flaming birthday cake, erupting brighter as fresh torches were lit along its rails.

  “The royal barge!” Politor yelled.

  Jake tensed. Kree had caught up with them. He must have flown in without lights and now had the barge plummet earthward, mimicking the plan that Skymaster Horus had used earlier to rescue the prisoners from the arena. But Kree did not come alone.

  A dark cloud obscured the stars behind the royal barge. The shadow spread outward, swooping down with the craft. Jake didn’t need to hear the screeching to know what it was: the horde of harpies, still bent to the will of the witch.

  “Run!” Pindor called to Jake. “Make for the storm!”

  He hated to abandon the others, but his friend was right. He had to get through that barrier if this land had any hope of escaping the yoke of the Skull King, who controlled the witch and would rule them all.

  Turning, Jake ran for the edge of the sandstorm. Flaming gourds shot from shipboard crossbows forced him back.

  One exploded a yard away, blinding Jake, sending him diving and rolling in the sand. Overhead, jets of flame marked the flights of skyriders rolling off the barge’s deck and heading down.

  But they were not the first to the ground. Like crows flocking into a cornfield, the gnarled forms of harpies hit the sand all around. And they kept coming and coming, swirling in the air and scrabbling across the sand. They encircled the small camp and trapped everyone inside, including Jake.

  He had no choice but to retreat toward the others.

  Before he could reach them, a larger shape struck the earth between him and the others, claws digging deep, wings snapping wide. Jake skidded to a stop. At the sight of the grakyl witch, a fury as hot as molten magma flowed through his veins. He wanted to rip the emerald crystal from his pack and pound it into the sand, turning her to dust; but he knew that the resulting blast wave would take out his friends as well as his enemies.

  A moment later, Kree joined Heka. As he landed, ferried down from the barge by a skyrider, he took in the situation with a steely-eyed glance. More fliers unloaded the rest of his shadowy cult. Jake was shocked at how much he had changed. Kree’s once-handsome face was now raw and swollen, both eyebrows missing, burned away. But the middle eye remained on his forehead.

  As Kree spotted Jake, he stalked angrily toward him. He pulled something from his robe and tossed it onto the sand. It was Kady’s cell phone. “That was not the Key of Time.”

  So Kree had finally caught on to Jake’s earlier ruse. From the condition of his face, Jake guessed that the master of the Blood of Ka had tried to use it to enter the Great Wind and had been rebuffed.

  “I will have the Key!” Kree waved at the others. “Or do you wish all your friends turned into statues for my new palace?”

  Heka hobbled forward, bearing her staff topped by the ruby crystal. Her eyes shone in the firelight, wicked with delight.

  “And this time I will not be denied!” Kree declared. “I will summon Ka, who will make you obey.”

  Kree stepped to Heka, who lifted her small wand in her other claw. She bit into a knuckle and let the blood run onto the black crystal at its tip. With the bloodstone fueled, she turned to Kree, who spread his arms and bared his forehead. Reaching out, she touched the bloodstone to his tattooed eye.

  Kree gasped and fell to one knee, dropping his head in agony. Jake held his breath, knowing what was coming. Kree slowly raised his face and turned to Jake. The third eye had opened, blazing with black fire.

  The true master had arrived.

  But it was not the Egyptian spirit god, Ka. In this matter, too, Kree had been deceived. In this case, by the witch. But at least Kree got the first two letters of the name correct. Unfortunately, he did not know who he truly worshipped.

  Ka was Kalverum Rex.

  “No more games …” the Skull King said, his voice scratching out of Kree’s voice box. An arm rose and pointed toward Jake’s friends. “Kill one of the Calypsians …”

  A pair of Blood of Ka priests grabbed Bach’uuk by the arms and dragged him forward. It was rare to see the Ur show fear; but at the moment, his eyes were huge, bright with terror. And with good reason.

  Heka hobbled toward Bach’uuk, lifting her staff topped by the ruby crystal.

  “No!” came a cry from among the prisoners. “Please don’t!”

  Marika burst from the group and ran forward. She fell to her knees between Jake and the creature that inhabited Kree. Her eyes swung between that monster and Jake.

  “Just give him what he wants,” Marika pleaded with Jake. “Enough have died.”

  Jake balked at obeying, but he saw the tears shining in her eyes and knew she was right. In the end, they’d rip him apart, find the pocket watch, and have the Key of Time. Enough blood had been spilled. He stared at the army around him and recognized the truth.

  They had lost.

  Jake reached out his arm and opened his fingers. The gold watch rested in his palm, reflecting the firelight. “Take it,” he said.

  Kree came forward. “The Key of Time … at last …”

  Fingers clawed the timepiece from Jake’s hand.

  “Mine at last …”

  Jake let his arm drop, defeated. He did not fight as a guard shoved him toward the other captives. Marika came with him, hunched and withdrawn. But once among the others, she snatched Jake’s hand and drew him more deeply into the group, almost tugging his arm out of its socket in her haste.

  Bach’uuk and Pindor joined them.

  Marika waved them all down, shielded by the other prisoners.

  “Did you get it?” Pindor asked.

  Marika opened her hand, revealing Kady’s cell phone. Jake’s eyes widened, surprised. She must have snatched it from the sand as she dropped to her knees. The shock in Jake’s eyes drew a crooked smile from her.

  “We’re not giving up that easily,” she said.

  She still had hold of his hand and gave it a squeeze before letting go. She wiggled and removed something from a pocket. Between her fingers, she held a piece of green crystal.

  “The farspeaker,” Jake said. He remembered he’d dropped it in their dungeon cell, but Marika must have recovered it.

  She handed both the phone and the crystal to Jake.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Call for help.”

  “We certainly need it,” Pindor added.

  Marika kept her attention on Jake. “We’re swimming in water that’s much too deep. We can’t do this alone.”

  Despite her bravery a moment ago, he read the fear in the paleness of her face. He didn’t know if he could get any help over the phone; but if nothing else, he could let Marika hear her father’s voice one last time. That alone would be worth the effort.

  Kneeling in the sand, Jake flipped over the cell phone, saw that the battery was still in place. Hopefully there was enough charge to make one call.

  He snapped the farspeaker crystal against the battery pack, held his breath, and flipped open the phone. Again a glowing picture of Kady’s cheerleading squad appeared. Kady stood at the center, holding her sword aloft, defiant and bold. He flashed to his sister as she stood frozen forever in gray stone. As if caught by that same spell, he couldn’t move, couldn’t take his eyes off the photo.

  Then the phone vibrated and a weak voice whispered up at him. “Jacob … Jacob, is that you?”

  He snapped back to the moment and raised the phone to his ear, ducking lower. The others all leaned their heads closer, listening in.

  “Magister Balam, it’s me.” Marika’s father must have been glued to his farspeaker after the last call had been interrupted. “We’re in trouble. We’ve reached the storm barrier around Ankh Tawy, but creatures of the Skull King have us trapped. We don’t know what to do.”

  There followed a long pause. Jake couldn’t blame Marika’s father. It was a lot to digest at once.

  “Magister Balam …”

  “Yes, J
acob … a moment.”

  Jake peered between bodies. The Skull King, wearing Kree’s body, crouched with the grakyl witch. Jake didn’t know if he even had a moment. It looked as if Kalverum Rex was preparing to move through the storm. Straining with his ears, Jake heard Balam talking to someone in the background—then he was back.

  “After we spoke last, Magister Zahur has been sifting through the legends of Ankh Tawy. He found one scroll, as old as his tribe. It spoke of the storm, supposedly written by one of the ancient Magisters of that lost city, a fellow named Oolof. The writer had clearly gone mad, but he was firm on one point.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The storm you speak of … it’s not a storm, but something unnatural.”

  That was not news to Jake. He glanced at the bolts of lightning shooting through the howling winds.

  “At its heart,” Balam continued, “the barrier is not a storm but a river.”

  Jake frowned. “A river?”

  “That’s right. A river of time, a torrent of past, present, and future all muddled together, sweeping around and around that cursed land.”

  Jake considered the Magister’s words, sensing the strange truth to them. It always came back to time. He remembered Kady using the exact same words. Time is fluid, like a river.

  Balam explained more. “Anyone from this period of time—from the present age—who tries to enter that storm will be shredded out of existence. But there is a key—”

  Jake closed his eyes, despondent. “The Key of Time. I know. My father’s pocket watch.”

  “What? No. According to the ancient text, the key is nothing one can build or construct.”

  Jake opened his eyes, surprised. “Then what is it?”

  A crackle of static ate away the last of the Magister’s words. The battery was running low, the connection weakening.

  “How do we get across?” Jake asked loudly, risking being heard but needing an answer.

  “The question is not how, Jacob … but who.”