by Kristen Pham
“We can’t leave without finding him! What if Venu really hurt him? You know what he’s capable of!”
“We don’t even know where to begin to look. I swear to you that I will not rest until I find Chisisi, but right now you need to get off this planet.”
Cyrus popped back into view. “He’s alive, Val. He’s not in good shape, but he’s alive. Amun called an ambulance.”
“I have to see him, to help him!”
“There’s nothing you can do for him now. And Venu is not going to stop trying to hurt you and those around you until you get out of here. Once you’re gone, he’ll have no reason to hurt Chisisi or anyone else.”
“I bring everyone around me nothing but misery,” she said with despair.
“That’s not true! Please, don’t give up on me now, when you’re so close to making it to the Globe. For everyone’s sake, you have to hold it together,” Cyrus demanded.
She took several deep, steadying breaths, staring into Cyrus’s blue eyes. “All right. Let’s go.”
As soon as they had made it off of the hotel grounds, Valerie and Thai put on their night vision goggles.
“I don’t see anything,” she said.
Thai pressed a button on the side of her goggles, and the world appeared before her in green and black. “They have a heat sensor, so we’ll be able to see the guards coming from a mile away. Speaking of which, drop to the ground, one’s about to pass us!” he hissed.
Valerie looked to her right and saw a glowing red figure walking closer. The guard was humming a tune, clearly not expecting to find anyone trying to sneak onto the Giza Plateau at this time of night. Still, she held her breath as he passed a few yards from where she lay on the ground, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to see her or Thai in the faint moonlight coming through the clouds.
“Thank goodness it’s a cloudy night, or we’d be caught for sure,” she whispered to Thai after the guard was out of sight.
Thai scanned the landscape in every direction. “Okay, it looks like the coast is clear, so lead the way.”
Valerie and Thai hurried across the plateau, keeping a sharp eye out for any security guards—or threats like Venu, she remembered with a shudder. The sight of Chisisi’s sash covered in yellow slime flashed through her mind. Would he survive? She didn’t know how she could live with herself if he died because of her.
“Stay with me, Val,” Cyrus said, seeing her expression.
“You can do this. I’ll go back for him, and he’ll be okay,” Thai added.
She nodded and forced herself to focus on their mission. Finally, they reached the Sphinx. The sight took her breath away, and she was temporarily distracted from her worries. When she had seen the Sphinx from a distance earlier that day, it had seemed like a piece of ancient history whose story had already been told. But in the moonlight, the Sphinx came alive, and she was reminded that this was a living monument that still had a role to play, particularly in her own future.
Valerie took off her night vision goggles as she approached the Sphinx. Up close, she could see that the half lion, half man was wearing an ancient Egyptian headdress. Despite the fact that his face had been battered by time and he was missing his nose, the Sphinx’s wise and regal expression soothed Valerie’s troubled mind.
His stone eyes looked as if they held a fascinating secret, and they seemed to follow her as she approached closer and closer. It was like he could see inside of her mind, and her scalp prickled with apprehension.
“Unbelievable,” Thai said. “You can’t understand the power of these places by looking at pictures.”
Only Cyrus wasn’t awestruck. “So where’s the entrance to the tunnel, Val?”
“I think I have to ask—well—him,” she said, looking into the searching eyes of the Sphinx.
Almost as if she was in a trance, Valerie approached the Sphinx. She circled the entire monument without speaking and then stopped at the base, right beneath his head. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch the stone. Beneath her fingers, she felt warm muscle covered in soft fur. Gently, she stroked the fur, and she almost gasped in surprise when she heard a gentle, contented purr. She looked up and saw that the Sphinx’s eyes were softly glowing blue, just like the face at Stonehenge. Valerie’s feeling of eerie trepidation vanished.
The Sphinx was a guardian, protecting the magic of this place. His eyes saw in her, through her, and a tide of magic rose up inside her. It was so powerful, she could drown in it—it could sweep her away. The Sphinx may have awakened it, but it was up to her to tamp it down inside her before she was killed by the immensity of her own magic, breaking the rules set upon it.
“Val, are you okay?” Cyrus asked her.
She didn’t have the space in her mind to answer. Sweat beaded her forehead and trickled down her temples. She concentrated, imagining that her magic was like a room inside of her. The Sphinx had opened the door, and it was up to her to shut it. She fought against her instinct to embrace this part of herself that had been hidden away for so long, and slammed the door shut.
A tingle began in the back of her mind, and she knew that she had passed the first part of the Sphinx’s test. The second part, she suddenly understood, was to face the rest of her journey without her friends or her magic to aid her. She had to prove that she was worthy of traveling to the Globe not only because of her magic, but also because she was brave enough to seize her destiny.
“Valerie?” Thai said, echoing Cyrus. He gripped her shoulder, and her mind snapped back to the present.
“The entrance is through the top of the back right paw. And I have to go in alone,” she said, looking at Cyrus and Thai for the first time. Thai started to shake his head, but she walked away before he could form any words.
She walked to the Sphinx’s back right paw, where the lion’s tail curled over the hindquarters. The top of the paw was rough stone that looked very different from the finished, exact lines of other parts of the Sphinx. It was the only part of the Sphinx’s paw that hadn’t been repaired over the years by people trying to preserve the landmark.
“Why wouldn’t they fix the top of the paw, too?” Thai wondered.
“Let’s say that your Egyptian benefactor can do more than get you a room with a view. He made sure that the entrance was never touched,” Cyrus said. Valerie couldn’t help thinking that it was too bad that the benefactor, whoever he was, hadn’t been able to protect Chisisi.
Cyrus continued, “The top of the paw looks so old because it is—it has never been changed, not since when it was originally built.”
“Duck!” Thai said suddenly, and he and Valerie crouched behind the paw. She put her night vision goggles back on and saw that another guard was doing his rounds. Minutes later, he was gone, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
They removed their goggles again to examine the stone. Thai turned on his flashlight and shined it on the rough stone. Then he turned the flashlight on her face. “I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t. I have to go it alone from here or not leave at all. It’s part of the test.”
“I thought the test was over at Stonehenge!” he said, a deep chord of protective worry making his mouth tense.
“I’ll be okay.”
“She’s right, man. I don’t know what Val learned from the Sphinx, but it can be dangerous to be too close to the launch chamber when she takes off, so you have to stay out there.” Cyrus said. “And I need to be mentally back on the Globe during her journey. It’s up to her now.”
Thai nodded, but the worry didn’t leave his face. “Ready?” he asked her.
Valerie nodded, took a deep breath, and pushed on the stone paw with all her strength. Nothing happened. Thai added his muscles to the struggle, and they both turned red from the effort. Just as she thought her muscles would collapse, the ancient stone groaned and then swiveled, turning sideways. It opened to a set of stairs that disappeared into the darkness.
“That’s my cue. I’ll see you on the other side,”
Cyrus said. His voice sounded light, but she knew him well enough to recognize the tension in his smile.
“Wait!” Valerie said, feeling panicky. “What if this thing accidentally launches me to the wrong place? I don’t want to wind up floating around in space for eternity, all alone.”
Cyrus laughed. “It doesn’t work like that—it’s not a rocket! From what I’ve heard, it creates a kind of bubble around you that moves super fast. And you steer it with your thoughts. All you have to do is concentrate on me, and in minutes, you’ll be by my side, standing on the Globe. Don’t worry—it will all make sense when you’re here.”
“Okay,” she said, somewhat reassured. Then she turned to Thai. “I guess this is goodbye,” she said, and hugged him tightly, memorizing the way his arms felt around her. He pulled back slightly and looked down at her with a look that made her breath catch. For one crazy second, she thought he was going to kiss her.
Cyrus cleared his throat loudly. “We don’t have all day.”
Thai released her. “Be safe, Valerie,” he whispered. Then he turned to Cyrus. “You’ll project back here to tell me she’s safe?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll stay right here until I see you take off, and then I’ll find Chisisi,” Thai said. He turned to Cyrus. “I will see her leave, right?”
“I think so. Look for a blue light that’s moving fast. In less than a second, she’ll look like a shooting star. And then she’ll disappear.”
Her heart raced. This was really it. “See you soon,” she said to Cyrus with a smile, and his face lit up. With one last glance at Thai, she put the flashlight in her pocket, then put on her night vision goggles and disappeared down the stairs.
Chapter 13
Valerie reached the bottom of the stairs and saw a long, narrow tunnel stretching ahead of her. Her heart thumped wildly as she stepped inside. She was only a few steps in when she tripped, catching herself against the wall at the last second. Her night vision goggles slipped off and landed beside her with a crunch. When she picked them up and put them back on, she saw only blackness. They were broken. She panicked for a second, and then remembered the flashlight in her pocket. She pulled it out and frantically pointed the beam in all directions.
The tunnel was completely empty, and the walls were lined with rough stones. The air inside smelled stale, as if it had been stagnating in here for years—which it probably had, she realized. The passage was only a few inches taller than she was, and so narrow that she could touch both sides of it without extending her arms completely.
She was being squeezed by the close space, and she struggled to keep her breathing steady so that she wouldn’t hyperventilate from her fear. Ever since a terrifying experience of being locked up at one of her foster homes, small spaces always robbed her of her self-control.
It took all of her strength not to turn around and race back outside to safety with Thai. But she considered the life that was waiting for her back there—the sickness that was sucking her strength away and the emptiness inside her that made her heart ache. At least if she moved forward, she had a chance of a fresh start.
So she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, and her body obeyed even as her mind was tortured by thoughts of what was lurking further ahead. Without her flashlight, she would be in complete darkness. She wondered what could be hiding in the darkness beyond the circle of light.
Her panic swelled inside of her, and she began to run, faster and faster, hoping that the tunnel would finally widen. She started to wonder if it would ever end, and she had somehow failed the Sphinx’s test and this was her punishment. Abruptly, the tunnel narrowed and the ceiling began to taper down so that she had to crouch in order to move forward. Her breathing came in gasps, and she scraped her hands against the sides of the walls as she tried to propel herself forward. The lack of oxygen made her dizzy.
She had a sense that she was directly under the Great Pyramid, and the vibrating of its magic rattled her to the bone. It was as if the entire weight of the massive monument was upon her shoulders, bearing down on her. The tunnel curved sideways and angled upward.
Finally, she crashed into a barrier and collapsed to the ground. Her head was spinning as her lungs ached to breathe something other than the musty air of the tunnel. Her flashlight had shut off when she fell, and she frantically, blindly felt around the ground until her hand closed around the handle.
She turned the flashlight on and said a silent prayer of thanks that it hadn’t broken from her fall. She shone the flashlight beam on the barrier and realized that it was the door that marked the entrance to the launch room. At last.
The door was covered in symbols and numbers that made up hundreds of complex equations. She recognized some of the symbols from her algebra class, though most of them appeared to be in a language that she couldn’t understand. She realized that some of the symbols were the same as the ones embroidered on Chisisi’s sash, and her anxiety for him, which had been driven out of her mind by her harrowing journey through the tunnel, returned.
She rested her flashlight on the ground and wiped the sweat off her forehead. Then she pressed both of her hands against the door, ready to push. But she didn’t have to do a thing. She watched in wonder as light poured out of her fingers and traveled through the entire door, illuminating the equations with a translucent, neon blue light. Slowly the stone door disappeared, leaving only the glowing equations like a veil between the tunnel and the room behind it.
She stepped through the veil and into the chamber. As soon as she entered, the room lit up brightly, temporarily blinding her. She realized that more equations covered the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room, and they were all glowing brightly. She stretched, relieved to finally have room to breathe.
Then something caught her eye that caused anxiety to subside. In the center of the room, a long, silver sword appeared to be thrust into the stone floor. The handle was gold, and the blade shone in the light of the room.
She was immediately reminded of her favorite story since she was a little girl, the tale of King Arthur, who had pulled his magical sword from a stone to prove he was king. That legend had always fascinated her, and she had read every book on King Arthur and Camelot that she could find. She couldn’t help walking over to the sword and gently grasping the hilt.
Hesitantly, she pulled, and it slid out of the floor easily. She looked at it in wonder, feeling as if she had stepped inside of her favorite tale. Winding along the blade was elaborate script. She had only read the first word—Pathos—when her nose picked up a familiar foul smell and the blade reflected someone entering the room.
Venu must have managed to sneak past Thai and follow her into the tunnel. Rage rose up inside of her with a ferocity that she had never known. Rage for attacking her, rage for almost killing Thai, and most of all, rage for what he had done to Chisisi. Seeing the look of pure hatred on his face, she knew that he shared her loathing. Sanguina stood behind him, a nasty grin spread across her face. But the usual freezing paralysis that Sanguina induced melted in the inferno of Valerie’s anger.
Venu lunged at her. Valerie cursed the Sphinx for making her bury her magic. She didn’t know if she would have beaten Venu last time without that taste of her power that Stonehenge had allowed her. But even without magic, her time on the streets had honed her reflexes. She dodged him, and he slammed against the wall from the force of his own stride. Venu shouted something in another language that sounded like a curse, and pulled a long dagger from his belt.
“Leave here now and Venu will never come near you again,” Sanguina said. Valerie knew that she was trying to distract her. “I promise you, even if you escape him, I will be waiting for you on the other side.”
But Valerie’s rage focused her, giving her an anchor to keep her from getting lost in her fear of Sanguina. She held the sword in front of her, and even though it was clumsy and awkward in her hands, it also belonged there. As Venu thrust at her with his dagger, she
awkwardly knocked his blade away, barely keeping the sharp edge from touching her skin.
It took every ounce of focus to anticipate where Venu’s next attack would come from. She concentrated on his twitching muscles, and escaped his next slash by a hair.
Sanguina put her face right in front of Valerie, blocking her view of Venu. “In the end, you know you’ll lose. Run now while you can,” she commanded.
But Valerie refused to let Sanguina’s words distract her. She knew that her life depended on being able to focus. So she said nothing and concentrated every cell of her being on the fight for her life.
She saw Venu’s blade less than a second before it came speeding toward her, ready to plunge into her stomach. She stopped it in time, but the tip of the dagger pierced her skin, and blood trickled out of the wound. For a split second, her mind registered the pain. But just as her rage had swallowed her fear, it also obliterated her pain. Nothing existed except for calculating her next move.
It was time to stop being on the defensive and attack. Every passing second was making her weaker. Valerie struck out blindly, and her sword met nothing but air. This wasn’t a strategy that would enable her to make it out of this fight alive. She forced herself to take a deep breath. She reminded herself of what a helpful foster brother had taught her about fighting—to use all her senses to guide her. She heard the sound of Venu’s heavy breathing and smelled the poison on his hands.
Letting instinct lead her, she thrust her sword and it clashed with Venu’s dagger. She flicked her wrist, and her sword nicked his flesh. She had the strangest feeling that her sword had acted on its own, giving her a tiny advantage.
Venu grunted in pain and his dagger skittered across the floor. Without over-thinking her next move, she kicked, and her foot connected with his stomach. She heard his heavy body fall to the ground.
“Are you going to let this little girl defeat you? Are you a man? Get up!” Sanguina demanded.
He looked up at Sanguina with fear, and Valerie didn’t hesitate. She hit Venu on the head with the flat of her sword, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious for the second time in three days.
