A man, tall, thin and dark-skinned, stood in front of the boat. He wore a long, bright white robe that shimmered. His head was bald, but he had a long, thick, braided beard. On his head he wore a tall crown with a red disk in the center.
“Who are you?” Megan felt no fear of the strange man. He looked down at her from the boat and gave a brilliant, beaming smile.
“Ra.”
Megan pulled her brows together. Where have I heard that name before? Diedrich? He’s told me so much stuff I can’t keep it all straight anymore.
Something told her this man would be able to help her. “Am I supposed to go with you?”
The man nodded slowly and held out his hand. There was a moment when Megan wondered if she shouldn’t be wary of this stranger, that it was another trap. But as soon as she slipped her hand into his, all thoughts were gone, and she felt nothing but peace, like she was floating. She stepped into the boat and sat on the golden bench that stretched across the center. There was no one else in the boat, and no apparent source of power. No sails—not that there was a wind to fill them—and no oars.
Ra waved his hand, and the boat slid back into the water and turned around. They crossed the lake as silently as before. Megan watched over her shoulder as the shore slipped away behind them.
She saw nothing but more water and the cavern’s walls as they glided along. Ra did not move from his place in the front of the boat.
“Where are we going?” Megan asked.
He did not turn, nor did he answer her. She got the distinct feeling she would know soon enough, and maybe she was better off that way.
It felt like hours had passed when Megan spotted something up ahead. They had finally come to the other side of the lake. Another pale beach lay ahead, and beyond it was a pair of enormous double doors. Megan gasped in wonder. The doors matched the boat—made of gold and jewels, the bird in flight engraved across the front. Her throat got suddenly tight with unnamed fear. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was on the other side of those doors.
The boat stopped so smoothly Megan wasn’t certain they had reached the beach until Ra turned and looked at her. His face was serene, and his peaceful smile calmed Megan’s nerves. He helped her out and onto the beach.
“Am I supposed to go in there?”
Ra nodded.
“Well, uh, thanks for the ride.” She gave a little wave. “I don’t suppose you could tell me what I’m supposed to do once I’m in there?”
Ra, still smiling, shook his head. He made a deep bow, and with another wave of his hand, the boat slid back into the lake and out of sight.
With a deep breath, Megan walked to the giant doors and pushed one of them. It yielded easily to her touch. She stepped into a long, white, brightly lit hall, with high ceilings and columns of gold.
“I’m in freaking Oz,” Megan muttered. “When I get to the other end of this hall there’ll be a giant green floating head and a man behind a curtain.” She knew, on some level, that wasn’t what she would find, but the thought of something familiar was comforting.
Her footsteps echoed in the vast space as she walked along the length of the hall. The walls were trimmed in gold, like the columns, and vases of brilliant color, filled with palm leaves and strange, bright flowers, stood on pedestals. The hall was more beautiful than any room in the manor, or even the palace of Byblos—this was by far the most magnificent place she had ever been in.
She approached the other end. A curved gallery of seats, like bleachers in a gymnasium, but polished and elegant, stood against both sides of the back wall. On a dais between the seats sat a single, low-backed golden chair. On the floor in the center of the gallery, was a large gold ankh. Megan stopped in front of it and bent over to see it better, but she couldn’t tell if it was painted or inlaid on the floor. She straightened up and stepped forward.
No sooner did her foot touch the ankh than a cold wind blew over her. Uh oh.
A booming voice came from no one place, but all around her.
“Who comes to the Hall of Judgment?”
Megan froze. Only her eyes moved as she looked around for the source of the voice. She didn’t know what to say, but the voice demanded an answer. “Uh, me I guess.”
The wind blew again, and was accompanied by a cloud of shimmering silver dust. It swirled like a little tornado in front of her and settled on the chair. A man wrapped from neck to toes in white bandages appeared out of the dust. On his head sat a tall golden crown with a disc in the center, not unlike the one Ra wore. In one hand he held a blue and gold striped crook, in the other a long stick with strands of blue and gold beads hanging from the end. They crossed over his chest.
“Are you ready to be judged?” the man asked.
Megan felt the blood drain from her face. She gave an involuntary shudder, and her lips felt numb. That was a loaded question if she ever heard one. “What do you mean?” she mumbled.
Beside the man appeared another figure. This one Megan recognized from the wall of Nefertari’s tomb—a man with the head of a dog. In the gallery seats beside her, more strange-looking beings materialized out of the air. Like the dog-man, many of them had human bodies, but their heads were those of animals—Megan saw a cow, a cat, a ram with curled horns and…a falcon. She gasped, and felt both wonder and terror fight inside her.
These were the gods of Ancient Egypt.
“Please, sir,” Megan said nervously to the man on the throne. “Where am I? Why am I here?” It can’t hurt to ask, right?
The man looked down at her, and his face was not hard, but kind. Megan thought he looked a little sad. “You are in the Duat, the place where all souls come to be judged.”
“Souls?” Megan gaped at the man. “But I’m not…dead.” She thought back to the tomb and looked down at her right index finger. There was no trace of the small red dot. “Am I?”
There was no time to think about it, or ask further questions. The dog-headed man clapped his hands, and a set of golden scales, easily as tall as Megan, appeared between her and the man on the throne. Then the dog-man—Anubis, Diedrich said his name was—came down from the dais and took Megan by one trembling hand.
“It is time for the weighing of the heart.” His voice was low and gruff, but not cruel.
Megan was speechless. She tried to comprehend what was happening to her, but rational thought was too difficult. She stood in front of the scales, her mind blank.
The man on the throne was Osiris. The name flashed across her thoughts. He was the God of the Underworld. He bowed his head, and on one of the scales’ gold plates appeared a long, blue feather. If the scales dipped under the weight of it, it was imperceptible to human eyes.
“The feather of Ma’at,” Osiris said. “If your heart weighs less than the feather of Truth, you shall pass into the Underworld.”
Megan snapped out of her fugue state. “But I don’t want to pass to the Underworld.” She fought the urge to run, screaming, from the Hall. “I am looking for the Ankh of Isis. That’s all I want—to find it and take myself and my friends home.”
Anubis smiled, and it was a strange sight. All of his sharp, canine teeth showed. Megan almost found it funny. “But you must be proved worthy.”
Megan’s hands shook, and tears streamed down her face. This couldn’t be happening. Diedrich’s voice, telling her the story from the Book of the Dead, rang inside her head. She knew what would happen if she proved unworthy. To Osiris’s left, a terrifying creature appeared. It had the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion and the rear end of a hippopotamus. She knew what this was—the Ammut. If her heart was heavier than the feather, it would be fed to the beast, and her soul would never pass to the underworld. It would wander the world aimlessly forever.
“This isn’t real, this cannot be real,” Megan said quietly. She closed her eyes, hoping the nightmare would end and she would wake up still inside Nefertari’s tomb, or even better, back in the Library or her own bed. She opened her eyes and the hall r
emained.
I’m still inside the book, aren’t I? This is another of Sir Gregory’s tests, it must be. I’m not really dead, just playing a part.
Behind her there was a loud bang. She spun around—Josef Hemmlich was pushing open the doors of the long hall and striding toward her. He wore a look of utter triumph.
“What are you doing here?” Megan said. “How did you get past Diedrich, Rachel and—”
“Your friends and my misled son are no longer a problem,” he said with an evil sneer. He swept over the assembly of gods with his gaze, one eyebrow arched high. “This cannot be—the Hall of Judgment?”
Megan said nothing—she was too busy thinking about what he had done to her friends. If he’s hurt them, I’ll…I’ll… She couldn’t finish the thought.
Anubis took Mr. Hemmlich by the arm, the same as he had done to Megan, and brought him before the golden scales. Mr. Hemmlich eyed the bright blue feather. He pulled his head back and looked up at Osiris.
“I must have my heart weighed?”
Osiris nodded.
Sweat broke out on Mr. Hemmlich’s forehead in large beads. He was obviously nervous about what would happen to him once his heart was on the scales. Megan didn’t blame him. Not one bit. It was odd, but she almost sympathized with him.
Osiris pointed the staff with the beads at Josef. “Let he who comes last be measured first.”
Josef’s face blanched. “Uh, oh, no, mighty Osiris, you honor me, but I insist the girl go first. It is only fair.”
Osiris bent forward, leaned around the scales, and looked him square in the eye. “My word is law. Let your worth be known.” He made a circular gesture with his hand, and the staff was gone, replaced by a pulsating, red mound of tissue. Josef Hemmlich gave a feeble whimper, but seemed none the worse for having his heart removed from his body.
Megan thought she was going to be sick. Osiris slipped the shiny, slick heart onto the empty plate. Josef Hemmlich’s hands shook, his sweating became more profuse, and on the scales the heart beat faster. Everyone in the gallery watched—Megan held her breath.
The scales tipped. The heart sank below the feather.
Mr. Hemmlich dropped to his knees, his head in his hands. “No! I am pure, I am pure.”
Osiris sat up straight. “The scales do not lie. Your heart is burdened with greed and evil. You shall not pass.” Anubis lifted the heart and the scales rebalanced. He turned from Megan and Mr. Hemmlich, and with one deft move, threw the heart to the Ammut, who caught it neatly in his crocodile jaws. He chewed it viciously.
Josef Hemmlich’s eyes were full of terror. He turned to Megan, pleading. “Please, help me. I’m…so sorry. I had no choice, you understand? I didn’t mean to…”
Megan was moved for about a second. She could almost forgive him, but the weight of everything he had put them through was too much to forgive. The image of him hovering over Rachel, saber in his hand, ready to strike, blocked out everything else. “You did have a choice, though. And this is the consequence of your choices.”
Josef’s expression shifted to one of malice. He glared at Megan. His arm shot out, and he pointed an accusatory finger at her. “I may have failed, but do not think this is the end. I am not the last, Librarian.”
Without warning, his body was engulfed in flames. He screamed in agony. Megan, rooted to the spot, watched in horror as his body melted away in front of her. The fire vanished as suddenly as it came, and nothing remained, not even a pile of ash. The floor was unblemished, and there was no indication anyone had ever stood in that spot, let alone burned.
Megan put a hand to her throat—her whole body trembled violently. “Please, please,” she begged. “Let me return to my friends—I don’t want to be judged.”
“You have no choice.”
Osiris raised his arm again, and Megan felt a sudden tightness in her chest. She sucked in a sharp breath—it was like someone was sitting on her. Then it was gone, and to her horror she saw another heart, this one smaller, in the god’s hand. He placed it on the empty plate.
Time seemed to stand still. What would happen if her heart was heavy? She tried to think of happy things. Her father, or riding Thunder across the empty field at a full gallop. Hanging out with Rachel, Claire and Harriet in the coffee shop after school.
Diedrich’s face swam in front of her eyes. His warm smile and the way he had looked at her when they were alone in the garden. Her mother charged into her memory. Megan was only eight, and she and her mother were at the zoo, seated on a bench eating ice cream. It ran down the outside of the cone and her hand. Her mother’s laugh, like a running brook. Megan smiled, despite herself. The memory filled her, lifted her up until she felt—
Light as a feather.
The scales tipped slowly, but the opposite way they had for Josef Hemmlich’s heart. The feather sank. Megan rubbed her eyes and looked again. The view had not changed.
Osiris’s face broke into a wide grin. “Your heart is filled with joy and love. You are worthy.” He snapped his fingers and the heart disappeared. Megan felt the tightness in her chest again, and a tingling sensation from head to toes. An overwhelming sense of well-being and wholeness washed over her.
But she was still here. “Thank you, Great Osiris. Now, can I go back to my friends? And can I have the Ankh of Isis, please, so we can all go home?”
The scales were gone. The gods gathered in the gallery disappeared in a whirlwind of silver dust. Anubis bowed deeply to Megan, and he also disappeared. Only Osiris remained. He stood, the bandages that bound him straining, stretching against his legs, and gave a respectful bow of his head.
“Eternal life awaits you in the palace of the queen.”
With that he was gone, and Megan was alone. She looked up at the white vaulted ceiling.
“Excuse me, how do I get out of here?”
No answer came. Megan turned and ran toward the doors. Maybe she had to go back out to the lake, and Ra would take her back. Her strides became slower as she crossed the floor. Her feet grew heavy, like lead weights were attached to them. She fell.
Megan put out her hands to catch herself, but they went right through the floor. Her body followed, and she was plunged into utter darkness. A terrible coldness enveloped her as she plummeted through the nothingness.
Megan screamed.
Chapter Eighteen: Osiris Reborn
“I think she’s breathing.” Rachel’s voice sounded like it was at the end of a long tunnel.
“Is she? Oh, please, Megan, breathe!” Claire’s voice sounded watery, like she had been crying.
“Megan? Megan, can you hear me?” Diedrich murmured in her ear. She tried to speak, but couldn’t. Her lips and throat were frozen. Her lungs seared again, the same feeling as when she woke on the shores of the underground lake.
It must have been a dream. A crazy dream. She struggled to speak. A low grunt was all she could manage.
“I hear you, Megan,” Rachel said. “Come on, wake up.”
Her eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. Each. They fluttered, and she forced them open. Blurry faces hovered above her. Slowly they came into focus—Rachel’s hair hung down on either side of her face. The ends tickled Megan’s nose. She sneezed.
“Get your hair out of my face, please.”
Both girls breathed a deep sigh of relief. “She’s okay.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Megan put her hand to her forehead. Her headache was back. “Did anyone get the license plate of the camel that hit me?”
They were still in Nefertari’s tomb. Megan lay on top of the stone sarcophagus, her head in Diedrich’s lap.
“What happened?” she asked.
“There was a scorpion in that secret compartment,” Claire said. “When you reached in to pull out the parchment, it must have stung you. You passed out.”
“It was really weird,” Rachel said. “You turned blue, and you stopped breathing. We thought you were dead.”
I think I actually
was. Megan didn’t want to frighten them, so she kept that to herself for the moment. She sat up and looked at Diedrich. “Was your father here?”
He nodded. “He snuck up on us. We were busy trying to figure out what happened to you, and he hit me from behind. Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.”
“Claire put up a heck of a fight,” Rachel said. “She and I thought we had him, but…” She shrugged. “He had some sort of sleeping powder that he blew in our faces. When we woke up, he was over there.” She pointed to the edge of the sarcophagus. Megan leaned over and saw Mr. Hemmlich’s body on the floor. His skin looked pale, and his lips and around his eyes were tinged with blue. On his chest was the scroll Megan read from just before she passed out.
“I figure he got stung, same as you,” Rachel said. “He should wake up soon then too, right? Shouldn’t we get out of here?”
How do I tell Diedrich? Oh, god. This sucks. Megan bit her lip and shook her head slowly. The best way was just to do it, be straightforward. “I don’t think so.” She told them what happened in the Hall of Judgment. “I guess it wasn’t a dream after all, but another part of the book’s spell. I…died.”
Her face softened as she looked into Diedrich’s eyes. “Your father’s not coming back, Diedrich. I’m so sorry.”
Diedrich’s eyes watered, but his face remained emotionless, and Megan felt her heart break for him. “It’s all right.” His voice sounded ragged, and he choked on the words. “He…uh…wasn’t who I thought he was.”
He brushed the back of his hand across his eyes, then wrapped his arms around Megan and pulled her into a tight embrace. “I’m just glad you came back safe.”
“I hate to break up this heartwarming moment,” Rachel said, not unkindly. “But we’re still here. We don’t have the ankh, and we don’t know where to look next.”
Megan gave Diedrich another squeeze. She sat up. “Osiris said something to me just before I came back. I barely remember, but it could be the clue.”
“Don’t leave us hanging,” Claire said. “What did he say?”
The Ankh of Isis: The Library of Athena, Book 2 Page 18
