I caught my breath. “Those hieroglyphs floating in the Hall of Ages. They seemed to gather around Iskandar. Was he summoning them?”
“Not exactly,” Zia said. “His presence is so strong, he makes the language of the universe visible simply by being in the room. No matter what our specialty, each magician’s greatest hope is to become a speaker of the Divine Words—to know the language of creation so well that we can fashion reality simply by speaking, not even using a scroll.”
“Like saying shatter,” I ventured. “And having a door explode.”
Zia scowled. “Yes, but such a thing would take years of practice.”
“Really? Well—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carter shaking his head, silently warning me to shut up.
“Um...” I stammered. “Some day, I’ll learn to do that.”
Zia raised an eyebrow. “First, master the scroll.”
I was getting tired of her attitude, so I picked up the stylus and wrote Fire in English.
Zia leaned forward and frowned. “You shouldn’t—”
Before she could finish, a column of flame erupted in her face. I screamed, sure I’d done something horrible, but when the fire died Zia was still there, looking astonished, her eyebrows singed and her bangs smoldering.
“Oh, god,” I said. “Sorry, sorry. Do I die now?”
For three heartbeats, Zia stared at me.
“Now,” she announced. “I think you are ready to duel.”
We used another magic gateway, which Zia summoned right on the library wall. We stepped into a circle of swirling sand and popped out the other side, covered in dust and grit, in the front of some ruins. The harsh sunlight almost blinded me.
“I hate portals,” Carter muttered, brushing the sand out of his hair.
Then he looked around and his eyes widened. “This is Luxor! That’s, like, hundreds of miles south of Cairo.”
I sighed. “And that amazes you after teleporting from New York?”
He was too busy checking out our surroundings to answer.
I suppose the ruins were all right, though once you’ve seen one pile of crumbly Egyptian stuff, you’ve seen them all, I say. We stood on a wide avenue flanked by human-headed beasties, most of which were broken. The road went on behind us as far as I could see, but in front of us it ended at a temple much bigger than the one in the New York museum.
The walls were at least six stories high. Big stone pharaohs stood guard on either side of the entrance, and a single obelisk stood on the left-hand side. It looked as if one used to stand on the right as well, but it was now gone.
“Luxor is a modern name,” Zia said. “This was once the city of Thebes. This temple was one of the most important in Egypt. It is the best place for us to practice.”
“Because it’s already destroyed?” I asked.
Zia gave me one of her famous scowls. “No, Sadie—because it is still full of magic. And it was sacred to your family.”
“Our family?” Carter asked.
Zia didn’t explain, as usual. She just gestured for us to follow.
“I don’t like those ugly sphinxes,” I mumbled as we walked down the path.
“Those ugly sphinxes are creatures of law and order,” Zia said, “protectors of Egypt. They are on our side.”
“If you say so.”
Carter nudged me as we passed the obelisk. “You know the missing one is in Paris.”