To Ancient Egyptians, I’m sure he would’ve looked regal and warlike, a fine specimen of manhood. [You see? I managed to say that without laughing.] And I suppose Carter wasn’t the worst-looking guy with his shirt off, but that didn’t mean I wanted to adventure through the underworld with a brother who was wearing nothing but jewelry and a beach towel.
As we stepped onto the sun god’s boat, Carter immediately got a splinter in his foot.
“Why are you barefooted?” I demanded.
“It wasn’t my idea!” He winced as he plucked a toothpick-size piece of deck from between his toes. “I guess because ancient warriors fought barefoot. Sandals got too slippery from sweat and blood, and all.”
“And the skirt?”
“Let’s just go, all right?”
That proved easier said than done.
The boat drifted away from the docks, then got stuck in a backwater a few meters downstream. We began turning in circles.
“Tiny question,” I said. “Do you know anything about boats?”
“Nothing,” Carter admitted.
Our tattered sail was about as useful as a ripped tissue. The oars were either broken or trailing uselessly in the water, and they looked quite heavy. I didn’t see how the two of us could row a boat meant for a crew of twenty, even if the river stayed calm. On our last trip through the Duat, the ride had been more like a roller coaster.
“What about those glowing balls of light?” I asked. “Like the crew we had on the Egyptian Queen?”
“Can you summon some?”
“Right,” I grumbled. “Throw the hard questions back to me.”
I looked around the boat, hoping to spot a button that read: push here for glowing sailors! I saw nothing so helpful. I knew the sun god’s barque once had had a crew of lights. I’d seen them in my vision. But how to summon them?
The tent pavilion was empty. The throne of fire was gone. The boat was silent except for water gurgling through the cracks in the hull. The spinning of the ship was starting to make me sick.
Then a horrible feeling crept over me. A dozen tiny voices whispered at the base of my skull: Isis. Schemer. Poisoner. Traitor.
I realized my nausea wasn’t just from the spiraling current. The entire ship was sending malicious thoughts my way. The boards under my feet, the railing, the oars and rigging—every part of the sun god’s barque hated my presence.
“Carter, the boat doesn’t like me,” I announced.
“You’re saying the boat has good taste?”
“Ha-ha. I mean, it senses Isis. She poisoned Ra and forced him into exile, after all. This boat remembers.”
“Well…apologize, or something.”
“Hullo, boat,” I said, feeling quite foolish. “Sorry about the poisoning business. But you see—I’m not Isis. I’m Sadie Kane.”
Traitor, the voices whispered.
“I can see why you’d think so,” I admitted. “I probably have that ‘Isis magic’ smell to me, don’t I? But honestly, I sent Isis packing. She doesn’t live here anymore. My brother and I are going to bring back Ra.”
The boat shuddered. The dozen little voices fell silent, as if for the first time in their immortal lives they were truly and properly stunned. (Well, they hadn’t met me yet, had they?)
“That would be good, yes?” I ventured. “Ra back, just like old times, rolling on the river, and so on? We’re here to make things right, but to do that we need to journey through the Houses of the Night. If you could just cooperate—”
A dozen glowing orbs blazed to life. They circled me like an angry swarm of flaming tennis balls, their heat so intense, I thought they’d combust my new dress.
“Sadie,” Carter warned. “They don’t look happy.”
And he wonders why I called him Captain Obvious.