Theodosia and the Last Pharoah

by R. L. LaFevers

  A brief smile flickered across Khalfani's face. "Do not worry on that score. Our magic will hold better than yours."

  "And they will have scouts in place to ensure Miss Throckmorton is indeed part of the exchange before they will step foot outside their compound."

  Jadwiga shouted out, "Impossible!" with such force that it made his mustache quiver.

  Khalfani swore again and Fenuku looked almost pleased. "They are not fools," he pointed out.

  "No." Major Grindle fixed him with a hard stare. "But they are evil."

  Fenuku had the grace to look away.

  "We will have to risk storming the market after all."

  "But we still have no idea where they are keeping the prisoners," Major Grindle reminded him. "You can be certain they were moved immediately after my departure."

  "Not to mention untold innocents may be harmed," Khalfani murmured.

  "I am not so certain anyone there can truly be called an innocent," the major said.

  "True. But not all are followers of these men of Set."

  "We can't risk it." My high voice cut through all their deeper ones. "We were going to trick them anyway; now we'll just add one more element to the trick—I'll be in place long enough for their scout to observe me."

  Major Grindle and Jadwiga started to argue, but I held up my hand. "It's my mother they're holding. And I feel partially responsible for Gadji's capture, although it was not all my fault." I cast a sideways look at Fenuku to be sure he heard that part. "All I have to do is be in position long enough for their advance scout to spot me, then give the signal to the rest of the Serpents of Chaos that everything is in order, correct?"

  Major Grindle nodded slowly. "Correct."

  "Or," I said, a new thought occurring to me, "we could do what they did when you asked to see Mother and Gadji. Just let them hear my voice."

  Khalfani and the major exchanged a look.

  "There's got to be tons of places where I can hide in that big temple. Then, when they show up, I'll just shout out a hello, and they'll know I'm there."

  Major Grindle stared at the map and stroked his chin. "That could work, I suppose."

  "Of course it could. And with so many wedjadeen for reinforcement, what could go wrong?" I asked brightly.

  "Everything" was Jadwiga's morose reply.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Bau Bau, Black Cat

  THE NEXT FEW HOURS WERE SPENT in a frenzy of men poring over maps and plotting out every possible route from the black market to the Luxor Temple. They wanted to allow for all possibilities, and who could blame them?

  A second group of men were busy in one of the smaller chambers, fashioning a new faux tablet. Major Grindle was hanging over their shoulders, drinking in every word. Normally, that's where I would have been, too, but for some reason, the magic wasn't holding my interest. I was too filled with a gnawing restlessness that had me pacing the long length of the chamber and practically clawing the walls.

  That's where Baruti found me. "Peace, Rekhet," he said.

  "I am at peace," I told him as I turned and began my umpteenth lap of the chamber.

  Baruti fell into step beside me. "You are making the others on edge, child. They do not like to see the Rekhet so nervous. Even your cat has given up on you."

  I looked behind me to see that Isis was no longer following. Indeed, she was no longer in sight, apparently having decided to go off and explore one of the many chambers and underground passages.

  "Well, the Rekhet's mother is one of the hostages, so forgive me if I'm not a cool, calm warrior like the others are."

  Baruti raised his eyebrows. "Come, let us sit down over here. Perhaps it would help if you talked. And talking would certainly make me feel less dizzy."

  Perhaps he was right. Perhaps if I were to sit calmly, my pulse would stop racing.

  He led me to a far corner of the chamber where thick pillows and a pile of blankets had been shoved against the wall. He creaked down onto the floor, and I joined him. The thick, cool stone of the wall felt comforting at my back. Surely many such battles and skirmishes had been planned here—and won, since the wedjadeen were still around.

  "What troubles you, child?" Baruti's face was kind and concerned and I was suddenly violently homesick for Awi Bubu and Lord Wigmere.

  "It's the Serpents of Chaos, sir," I whispered. "They always seem to get the upper hand."

  "Ah. Chaos," Baruti repeated, leaning back against the wall. There was a long moment of silence, and then he spoke again. "Chaos is not always evil, child. Sometimes it is simply chaos. And remember, chaos has many sides. Much good has come from chaos. The world itself, the gods—both were formed from chaos. It is only when men turn it to their own ends, or create it on purpose, that chaos flirts with being evil. But even then, it can be turned to good, for that is the very nature of chaos. Neither good nor bad in and of itself, merely ... chaotic."

  Isis came wandering back from her explorations and crawled into my lap.

  Baruti reached out to pet her, and she let him. "Even your cat has many sides. To you she is a beloved pet; to those she hunts, a terrifying predator. To the gods she is a vessel into which they can pour their will to have influence over the physical world."

  "She's what?" I asked.

  Baruti looked surprised. "You did not know she was a bau?"

  I stared at Isis, purring contentedly under the old priest's gnarled hand. "I guess not, since I don't even know what a bau is."

  "It is a divine messenger sent by the gods to lend aid. Or, very occasionally, harm."

  "You mean my cat has been sent by the gods?"

  "I believe so, yes. She is no ordinary cat."

  I thought back to when Isis had first walked into my life. For that's exactly what had happened. One day, she was just ... there. I'd been only seven years old and had just begun visiting the museum with my parents and experiencing the shivers and chills that I could not yet explain. We had thought one of the workmen had left a door or window open, and she wandered in out of the cold. Instead, she'd been sent by the gods. I could hardly wrap my mind around it. If I hadn't spent the past week witnessing all manner of mystical and inexplicable events, I might never have believed it.

  Major Grindle and four Weret Hekau came out of the smaller chamber. "The tablet is ready," they announced.

  "Very well." Khalfani rolled up his map and shoved it somewhere inside his robe. "It is time, then."

  "It is time," the men repeated.

  "My presence is required for this, I'm afraid," Baruti said.

  "It is?"

  "You did not think I came along merely to comfort you? I have duties I must perform. To help these men prepare for battle and pray to the gods." He patted my arm, then hoisted himself to his feet. As he crossed the long room, he seemed to grow taller, stronger, less frail. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if it was a trick of the light or some architectural illusion.

  Isis leaped off my lap and followed the men as they all filed into a separate chamber. Having nothing else to do, and not wanting to be alone in the cavernous, shadowed room, I went, too. (Oh, all right. I was abuzz with curiosity. I admit it.)

  The chamber turned out to be a chapel of sorts. A tingle of alarm went down my spine as I recognized the three statues seated at the front of the room: Sekhmet, Mantu, and Seth himself. Surely three of the most aggressive and violent Egyptian gods.

  Major Grindle, Jadwiga, and Rumpf joined me against the back wall. "This should be most enlightening," the major said quietly, taking up position beside me.

  "Ja," Jadwiga said. "If the gods don't smite us for witnessing something that is no business of ours."

  "You can always wait outside," Major Grindle pointed out.

  Jadwiga merely turned his melancholy gaze upon the major, as if disappointed in him for having pointed out the obvious.

  At a word from Baruti, the wedjadeen (about thirty of them, all told) slipped off their thick black outer robes, exposing the less voluminous
tunics they wore beneath. They pulled their arms out of their sleeves and uncovered their torsos, letting the top half of their clothing hang from where it was cinched to their waists with their belts.

  "I'm not sure you should be here for this," Major Grindle murmured.

  I gave him a look, one that essentially said, Just try to make me leave. He harrumphed and turned his attention back to the wedjadeen.

  All of them bore the distinctive Weret Hekau serpent tattoo running up the inside of their wrists. All of them were extremely powerful magicians, then. The Serpents of Chaos shouldn't stand a chance.

  Fenuku and four other priests joined Baruti up front. Fenuku lit a small pile of incense in a bronze chafing dish and a thick, sweet, spicy smell filled the room. Next the four priests went to a small shrine and collected four palettes and sistrums, which they placed on top of the shrine. They each took a palette and began moving among the wedjadeen, stopping in front of each warrior of Horus. It took me a moment to realize that they were painting symbols on the warriors' bodies. Symbols of power and strength, it looked like.

  They painted the vulture, Nekhbet, protectoress of Upper Egypt, across the warriors' backs. A feather of Maat went up their necks, indicating that their fight was to restore justice and balance in the world.

  On their left arms went a flail and crook, to grant them majesty and dominion over their enemies. Over their hearts, a fiery Eye of Ra, encircled by a loop of rope with no beginning and no end.

  "Isn't that dangerous?" I whispered to Major Grindle. "Invoking Sekhmet like that?"

  The major shook his head. "That's why the eye is encased by the shen symbol—to contain her power. They want the fierceness of Sekhmet but contained, so that she does not harm the innocent," he whispered back.

  Lastly, a winged solar disk was painted on each of the warriors' foreheads, the exact form and shape that Horus took in his battles against Seth.

  No one would mistake them for Bedouin now.

  When each of the men had been covered in tattoos, the four lector priests set down their palettes, took up the sistrums, and began rattling them. The sound of the ancient rattles had been designed to call the attention of the gods. It worked.

  The atmosphere in the room grew heavy. The air was so full of heka that every hair on Isis's body stood on end. She looked far bigger and more ferocious than I had ever seen her. Shimmering forms filled the room, insubstantial ephemeral visions that I wondered if anyone else could see. The pressure of the heka built and built, pressing down on us, and I had to struggle to breathe, as if something huge were sitting on my chest. Baruti chanted some words in ancient Egyptian. The wedjadeen repeated them, and the pressure grew so heavy that it felt as though my body would implode.

  Never taking his eyes from the men, Major Grindle leaned over and whispered in my ear, "They are inviting the gods into their bodies, asking them to lend their wisdom and strength so that they may overthrow Chaos."

  "Can you feel that?" I whispered back. "All that pressure building?"

  Major Grindle pulled his eyes from the wedjadeen and looked at me. "No, can you?"

  "Yes. It's very nearly unbearable."

  Major Grindle looked distinctly jealous.

  The priests shook the sistrums once, twice, a third time, then set them down. They clapped once, and the shimmering air popped, all the pressure releasing. I looked around the room. Where had it gone?

  Baruti said another prayer, then dismissed the wedjadeen. They quickly pulled their clothes together and donned their robes. As they filed past me out of the chapel, every one of their eyes seemed to shine with a fierce light.

  Suddenly, I knew exactly where all that heka had gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The Exchange

  WE SILENTLY MADE OUR WAY DOWN the underground shaft that mirrored the Avenue of the Sphinxes above. Isis let me carry her exactly halfway before becoming restless and wanting down so she could explore on her own. I knew she would be safe enough, what with her being a bau and all, but I could have used the extra dose of reassurance that holding her always provides.

  When we emerged near the Temple of Luxor, all but five of the wedjadeen proceeded to the black market to arrange their ambush. Major Grindle and the other Chosen Keepers were in that group due to their knowledge of the streets of Luxor. Also, they had no shadowy hiding skills like the wedjadeen did and would have stuck out like a handful of sore thumbs at the Luxor Temple.

  Major Grindle was not happy about this; he didn't like leaving me. But he also recognized that he might be more of a hindrance than a help. When it was time to part ways, I felt as if we should have a solemn goodbye, just in case something went dreadfully wrong and we never saw each other again. But he was having none of that. "See you on the other side, Miss Throckmorton." He gave me a solid pat on the shoulder, then strode away.

  Jadwiga and Rumpf were more circumspect. They shook my hand solemnly, and Jadwiga patted me on the head with his big paw of a hand. I'm sure he meant it as a gesture of affection, but he nearly gave me a concussion.

  The underground passageway brought us up to the surface on the west side of the temple, just outside the outer wall near Hypostyle Hall, where the old chapel of Khons used to be. It was nothing but ruins now.

  The bulk of the party peeled off and dispersed into all directions, making their way to the streets and alleys surrounding the black market. My five wedjadeen escorts and I stepped over the rubble and entered the temple. "Where will the men hide?" I asked Fenuku. I was still not happy that he was the one in charge of our part of the mission. However, he was the second-most powerful Weret Hekau, next to Khalfani, and Khalfani was the leader of the men, so I got stuck with Fenuku. My only consolation was that he was just as unhappy about it as I was. That and he now had the Orb of Ra. Surely that would give us the upper hand with Chaos, no matter what.

  "In here," he said shortly, then led me through the ruined chapel and portico into the second antechamber. A tiny annex opened off the west wall. Fenuku poked his head in to examine it. "Here is where you and the tablet will wait.

  "The others," he said, indicating the four trailing wedjadeen, "will hide over here." He led us into the next antechamber, which had once been the sanctuary of the barque but had been plastered over and remade into a shrine of Alexander the Great. Pictures of him dressed as pharaoh decorated the walls. Fenuku stopped and pointed to the lintel over the doorway. I looked at him, a faint flutter of panic stirring in my breast. There was no hiding place here! He was trying to sabotage this, wasn't he? "They'll be spotted, sir."

  He gave me a disgusted look, then waved at the men. They leaped forward and removed a series of stone panels from the wall, revealing a rather large hidey-hole. "It was built to hold two men, but four can fit in a pinch, if they won't be there too long."

  Without a word of complaint, the men found footholds in the wall and shimmied up to the hiding place. "What is the compartment for?" I asked. Did they really have that many occasions to hide hostages or extra soldiers in the ruins?

  Fenuku gave a wry grimace. "It was used for our oracles, once upon a time," he confessed. I wondered if they'd had one of these in the Temple of Horus at Qerert Ihy, where we'd just come from. Was that how the Seer of Maat had spoken to all of us?

  "Once the followers of Set have confirmed you and the tablet are here, they will send off a messenger to tell the others to proceed. I will move with the remaining follower of Set to wait out in the vestibule. You will then slip out of the annex and take your place up there in the hidden chamber. The men will come down and wait in the annex with the tablet. The followers of Set will have an unpleasant surprise waiting for them, I think. You"—he speared me with a look—"shall remain hidden until you are told to come out. We do not need you making things more complicated."

  I wanted to protest that I never made things more complicated, but I was learning that that wasn't as true as I'd once hoped. "How long do we have until the scheduled rendezvous?"
<
br />   "Their first scouts should be here shortly. It would be wise to get you and the tablet in position, in case they are early."

  I tried not to feel claustrophobic in the small room, but it was hard. The walls were thick, crumbling stone and there were no windows. The only light came from the narrow doorway. I felt like a sitting duck with no avenue of escape should things go wrong.

  Sensing my distress, Isis returned from exploring parts unknown and came to sit in my lap. Her warm presence calmed me somewhat. As I petted her soft black fur, I told myself that it wasn't that I didn't trust the wedjadeen. It's just that in my experience, things invariably go wrong.

  I pushed that thought from my mind and concentrated on petting my cat and praying it would all be over soon.

  ***

  The verification scouts were indeed early and arrived not ten minutes after we'd all taken our positions. I heard their voices out in the vestibule. "Where is the tablet? And the girl?"

  "Right this way," Fenuku said politely.

  A moment later, Fenuku ushered two men into the annex. One of them was Carruthers, from the museum. "Hello," I said, trying to look scared and defeated. It wasn't difficult, to be honest.

  Carruthers sneered. "You are not so very precious, then, are you?"

  "No, sir," I said in a meek voice, wishing I could slap that smile off his face.

  He glanced at Isis, curled up on my lap. "Your cat will not be coming with us. Best say your goodbyes while you can." He jerked his head and the second man came forward and knelt by the tablet. He took a small knife from his pocket and scraped the surface of the Emerald Tablet. I winced, both worried that the magic would give way and insulted that he would risk defacing such a priceless artifact.

  Apparently satisfied, Carruthers sent the other man back to von Braggenschnott with a message that all was as agreed upon. The idea of coming face-to-face with von Braggenschnott again made me feel ill. I had to remind myself that it was all a ruse. He wouldn't even make it to the temple, not with scores of wedjadeen waiting to ambush him in the streets of Luxor.