The Final Kingdom

by Michael Northrop

  “And then our conquest begins in the west,” added Peshwar.

  Conquest.

  The leader nodded. “Yes, where this all started.”

  “Then let it begin.” Peshwar’s tall wraithlike figure stepped toward the false door. As the sun-bleached snout of the lioness skull touched the recessed doorway, the painted stone shimmered like the surface of a lake. Peshwar stepped forward into the rippling gateway — and disappeared.

  The orange ripples faded and the stone regained its solidity.

  Then the leader turned his huge body and cruel bird eyes toward the doorway.

  But there was no longer anyone to see there.

  Where this all started … The words echoed in Ren’s head. That’s where The Order’s conquest of the world of the living would start, and she didn’t like the sound of that one bit. Because she’d been there when it had all started.

  She’d been home, in New York City. Her parents were still there.

  Was Peshwar headed for New York? She needed to know for sure. As she and Alex slipped back through the outer chamber, she reached up for her amulet once again.

  This was the trickiest of the ibis’s tricks, and she’d struggled with it in the past. Now she reminded herself that it didn’t provide answers, just information. It’s like extra credit. A bonus: Anything it gives you is more than you have now. And the girl known as Plus Ten Ren back at school had plenty of experience with extra credit.

  Her pulse racing with the power of the amulet, she began to form the first question in her mind: Where — But before she got any further, she was rocked by a wave of images.

  A panicked crowd on the run, with tall buildings burning behind them.

  A horde of ragged figures advancing down a broad street at night.

  Flashing police lights seen through wafting smoke.

  The intensity of it buckled Ren’s knees, and she released the amulet with a gasp as she wobbled forward.

  Alex reached out to catch her. “What is it?” he whispered.

  Ren blinked twice, refocusing her vision on the world around her. She noticed that he had plucked a jewel-topped staff from the wall of the heavily decorated chamber. She ignored the treasure and looked him straight in the eyes. This involved him, too. Because the buildings, the streets, and even the police cars: She’d recognized them all. She took another deep breath and tried to calm herself for what she had to tell him.

  “It was New York,” she said. “And it was burning.”

  Alex and Ren told the group what they’d seen and heard as they continued up the tunnel.

  Alex heard his mom’s labored breath catch as he told them about the leader.

  “So he’s dead, then,” she said. Even through the pain, her voice sounded far off. He could tell that she was asking about the present but remembering the past.

  “Yes and no,” said Todtman, using the jeweled staff Alex had given him like a five-dollar walking stick. “He is a Death Walker. The same Spells that allowed the first Walkers to escape have now created new ones.”

  But Maggie Bauer had a more human take. “Amir is gone.”

  Amir … The word ricocheted through Alex’s mind. He had learned his father’s name only in death, as if reading it from a tombstone.

  It was too much to process, and there was still so much Alex didn’t know. He wanted answers, but he knew this was not the time. His mom needed to save her breath — and he needed to save his mom.

  “And Peshwar is going to New York?” Luke asked Ren. “I mean, good riddance, but that cannot be good.”

  As Ren eyed the former spy suspiciously, Todtman answered.

  “Not good at all,” he said. “She stepped through a false door, and that can only mean she is traveling through the afterlife — just as Ren and Alex did to escape the Valley of the Kings. She left the false door in her own tomb to travel to one in New York. In advance of — what did you call it?”

  “An undying army,” said Alex.

  “So wait,” said Ren, something occurring to her. “That false door leads to New York?”

  Alex knew what she was thinking — and how much she missed home. Todtman nixed the idea immediately. “The door leads to the afterlife, where there are other doors that lead to other places in our world,” he said. “But there is danger there, and you must know the way.”

  “But —” Ren protested.

  “But our work still lies in front of us, here in Egypt,” said Todtman.

  Homesick and stressed, Ren wouldn’t let it go: “But if we could —”

  She was cut off again, but this time the voice was quieter and the tone softer. It was Alex’s mom: “If we don’t stop them, there won’t be a New York to go back to. There won’t be any place to go back to.”

  Ren looked back at her, stunned. Then her eyes narrowed and she nodded. “Okay,” she said.

  It was just one word, but Alex didn’t doubt the fierce determination behind it. Ren would fight for her home.

  Alex would, too. And yet, his feet suddenly felt heavier and his shoulders slumped under the weight of it. Up until now, he’d been concentrating on escape, on getting out of this hole they were in — literally — and getting his mom to safety.

  But that was just the first step.

  There was only one way to stop The Order now. They needed to recapture the Lost Spells. They needed to use their power to close the portals they’d opened, and to stop the Walkers they’d created. Ten-foot-tall Death Walkers, burning cities, advancing armies … It seemed too huge a task for so small and battered a crew. But there was something else he knew all too well: that this had all started when his mom had used those Spells to save him.

  He lifted his shoulders and thought back to what he’d heard.

  “The leader said he was going to the ‘seat of power’ to consult the Spells,” said Alex, unwilling to say his father’s name.

  “The seat of power,” said Todtman. The phrase seemed to mean something to him, and Alex was relieved. Back in Peshwar’s tomb, the scarab had allowed him to understand the meaning of the words intuitively. But as he was repeating them out loud, he’d felt himself hesitate, unsure whether to say “seat of power” or “seat of the soul.” He’d picked the one that made the most sense to him, and he was glad it seemed to make sense to the others, too.

  “Do you think he means Cairo?” said Ren. “I mean, that is the capital.”

  “And the site of The Order’s headquarters,” said Todtman.

  “Wait,” said Luke, “isn’t this their headquarters?”

  “This is where they build their tombs,” said Todtman.

  Ren clarified: “It’s their dead-quarters.”

  Alex took one last look back at the quiet depths behind them. They were close to the surface now; he could feel it. No one was chasing them out, and no one was stopping them from leaving. The Order was unthreatened: invulnerable monsters leading ruthless men with limitless resources. They didn’t seem to think there was any force left on earth that could stop them. But there was one force that was at least willing to try.

  There was sunlight up ahead now, and Cairo beyond that.

  As the friends scrambled out of the tunnel mouth, the brutal Egyptian heat pounced on them like a waiting animal. The afternoon sun bore down with laser-beam intensity; after long, dark days underground, no one minded at all.

  “Man, do I need this vitamin D!” crowed Luke, spreading his arms and turning his face toward the bright sky.

  Alex eyed the sun-scalded landscape. Worn and weathered stone ruins jutted up from the sand. Directly in front of him, a stone foundation was just visible, the building that had once stood atop it lost to the ages. All around the phantom foundation, broken columns and shattered stone rose from the pale sand, like the bones of some great beast.

  “They’re ruins,” said Alex’s mom, “but I don’t recognize them.” Alex could practically hear her mind whirring through a lifetime of scholarship and travel.

  “Nor do I,” s
aid Todtman. “Recently uncovered, I think.”

  “Yes,” agreed Dr. Bauer. “Under the sand for a very long time. And modest.”

  “Definitely not a pharaonic site. A temple?”

  “Maybe, maybe, but nothing fancy.”

  “Certainly not. A temple for commoners, then.”

  The two scholars nodded sagely, and Ren threw in a quick: “That’s what I was thinking!”

  “Yeah, uh, those sound like some real good points,” said Luke. “But maybe we should be looking for a parking lot? You know, cars, roads? So we can get out of here?”

  “Yeah,” agreed Ren. “Last time we escaped from one of these thingies, there was a parking lot full of cars to steal.”

  Dr. Bauer gave her a surprised look.

  “I mean borrow,” said Ren with a shrug.

  “This complex was bigger. There must be a lot of entrances,” said Alex.

  As the group scanned the broken landscape, the ground beneath them began to shake once more. Alex looked over at his mom with wide-open uh-oh eyes. The sand around them began to dance like flour tossed in a pan. The other tremors had been quick, beginning to subside almost as soon as they started. But this one kept gaining strength.

  As the friends did their best to keep their balance — knees bent, arms out — the stone ruins began to faintly groan. A moment later, a nearby column crashed to the ground.

  “I feel like a scrambled egg!” contributed Luke, a half-baked metaphor that somehow proved his point.

  Then there was a “Yip!” of pure surprise from Todtman. The German had been knocked to his knees and a broad crack was growing in the sand next to him. He began crawling away as best he could. But the crack spread, a jagged black opening in the earth that sucked in hundreds of pounds of sand as it grew.

  Alex watched in horror as the foundation of the old building began to tip and slide sideways into the ground.

  Another jolt knocked Alex and his mom to the ground. Alex felt his body beginning to slide down into the sand as it vibrated all around him. His mom was seated on the ground next to him with her eyes closed and a grimace of pain on her face as she clutched her side. “Mom!” he shouted.

  Another crack opened up, closer and spreading outward like a slow smile. Alex was terrified it would swallow him whole.

  But almost immediately, everything changed.

  It stopped being about what the dancing sand would swallow and became about what it would reveal.

  A ragged hand thrust itself out of the ancient earth and into the broad, clear light of day.

  The hand clawed at the edge of the spreading black gap. The hand, and then the forearm, and then the elbow appeared and hooked itself over the edge. Falling sand washed over it — catching here and there in the time-yellowed linen that wrapped the arm — but still it kept clawing forward.

  Alex was so mesmerized by the sight that he barely noticed the tattered hand breaking through the sand right next to him. It was only when the bony fingers hooked the cuff of his jeans that he snapped out of it.

  “What the —” he blurted. He shook his leg, but that just made the thing latch on tighter. Alex grabbed his leg with both hands and tried to tug it free, but the hand tugged right back, using the motion to help pull itself up, a fish that wanted to be caught.

  He dropped his calf and reached for the scarab. As soon as his hand closed around it, he sandblasted the mummy’s hand free with a whipping lash of desert wind.

  As he did, a bright white flash lit his vision like a camera flash. Ren’s amulet.

  He risked a quick look over, in case she needed help — and that’s when he saw it.

  He had broken the grip of one hand, but what about the next? And the next? And the thousand after that? Because the entire landscape had transformed from one of sand and stone to one of clawing hands and grasping arms.

  Soon, the first heads emerged: time-stained linen pulling free, eyeless sockets staring upward at the sun, and mouths full of jagged brown teeth spitting sand.

  Mummies. Everywhere.

  The tattered corpses pulled themselves from the earth, grabbing the edges of the old stone blocks, the bases of the old columns, and anything else that seemed solid.

  Grabbing anything at all that remained of this commoners’ temple. This mass grave.

  The undying army had arrived.

  Alex pushed his hand down into the shifting sand — nearly shaking hands with an emerging mummy in the process — and struggled to his feet. He took hold of his mom’s wrist. “Ready?” he shouted over the rumbling din.

  She nodded, and he leaned back and heaved her to her feet. Her face was stoic and determined despite the pain, and that gave Alex strength, too.

  “Here,” he said, holding out the scarab. “It’s yours, and you’re better with it, anyway. Maybe you can hold them off.” Alex had seen what his mom could do with the scarab during their last clash with The Order, and it was awesome. His mom reached out, but as soon as her hand closed around the ancient artifact, her eyes rolled back in her head and she tipped backward toward the shifting sand.

  Alex reached out and grabbed her arm just in time to keep her from falling. Her pulse was racing like a drum solo beneath her skin. The supercharged boost the amulet imparted — the pounding pulse and surging adrenaline — was too much for his mom’s weakened system. The realization that she was hurt even worse than she was letting on hit him like a baseball bat. He reached over and pried the scarab from her hand.

  As she recovered from the rush, gasping for breath, Alex hooked his arm around her waist and led her forward gently — or as gently as he could in the rumbling tumult all around. After years of her taking care of him — worrying over every ache and cough and fall — it was his turn. He kept his grip tight and his eyes on the death-torn ground.

  “Which way?” shouted Luke, hustling over to help Todtman to his feet.

  “There!” called Ren, pointing.

  Alex followed her finger and saw sunlight reflecting off a lump of glass and steel in the distance — a car!

  They hobbled toward it, not walking as much as continually falling forward. All around them, gaps and chasms yawned open in the sand, and leathery hands grabbed at anything solid. Even worse, some of the mummies were beginning to pull themselves out of the ground entirely.

  As Alex concentrated on keeping his mom upright, a squat, five-foot human husk turned to stare at him through empty, faintly glowing eye sockets. But the mummy made no move toward Alex and his mom as they labored past. It just stood in the sun, swaying slightly and dripping sand.

  “How old do you think these are?” he asked his mom, trying to keep her distracted from the pain.

  She assessed the swaying corpse. “Twenty-five hundred years. The first of these mass graves was only discovered recently, but they seem to be mostly from the Late Period.”

  Alex remembered when the first of the grave sites had been discovered. It was just a few years earlier, right before his shaky health had forced him to start homeschooling — and long before his magical recovery. It had been the talk of the Met break room: the discovery of hundreds of thousands of mummified bodies. They had no treasure or tombs of their own, just the occasional coin or trinket tucked into their wrappings and a big shared hole in the ground.

  The friends weaved their way through the legions of the dead, acres of Egypt’s former middle class.

  “Why aren’t they attacking?” called Ren.

  “Give ’em time,” hollered Luke. “They had a rough trip!”

  Alex eyed a wraithlike mummy, its long arms hanging down like willow branches. Is that it? he thought. Are they just recharging, like solar cells in the desert sun?

  Sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes. His shirt was plastered slickly against his back, and his left arm ached as he tried to carry as much of his mom’s weight as possible. Her jagged breathing gave him a sick, worried feeling that lay on top of his own fear like two feet of mud.

  The glare from
the glass washed across his eyes, snapping him back to attention. What he’d hoped was a parking lot full of sleek getaway cars was, in fact, a single battered old minivan on a small square of cracked pavement.

  Todtman limped straight for the driver’s-side door. Another jolt rocked the ground, extending the long cracks in the pavement. Alex crouched down low, but the tremors were subsiding now, the earth moving fitfully as it settled.

  The entire landscape between them and the tomb exit was now covered with swaying bodies, like a windblown grassland of the dead. Here and there stragglers clawed up from the sand to join them, the mummies already on the surface stooping down to haul them free.

  “There must be ten thousand of them,” Alex said, his voice soft with awe.

  “And it’s not over yet,” said his mom, pointing out into the desert where still more of the undead were emerging an acre or two at a time.

  “They seem to be waiting for something,” said Todtman.

  He was right. A moment later, the leader — Alex’s father — emerged from the same tomb exit they had used.

  The raggedly wrapped and mismatched bodies stopped swaying and began to line up in neat rows.

  “Groups of twenty,” said Ren, counting quickly.

  Even across hundreds of yards and with thousands of mummies between them, the leader’s massive frame stood out like a park statue. He raised one mighty hand in the air, and the tattered soldiers of the undying army snapped rigidly to attention for their general.

  A cold and exposed feeling swept over Alex: the overwhelming sensation of being watched. He couldn’t see his father’s eyes at this distance, but he could definitely feel them.

  Fuhhh-SHOOOOP!

  It was the sound of one hundred dry bodies turning as one. The five units closest to the parking lot had simultaneously dug their left heels into the sand and turned crisply toward the gawking friends.

  “I think we should go now,” said Todtman.

  Behind them, one hundred unkillable soldiers rushed forward.

  Alex helped his mom across the cracked pavement toward the battered minivan. He gripped her tight and used all his strength to haul her forward. But her injuries had taken their toll. The toe of her left boot caught in a crack as she dragged it heavily over the pavement, and they both went down in a heap.