Sadie and I continued to chant. The serpent’s shadow steamed as the figurine heated up. Gold and blue light swirled around us as Isis and Horus did their best to shield us. Sweat stung my eyes. Despite the frosty air, I began to feel feverish.
When we came to the most important part of the spell—the naming of the enemy—I finally began to sense the true nature of
the serpent’s shadow. Funny how that works: sometimes you don’t really understand something until you destroy it. The sheut was more than just a copy or a reflection, more than a “backup disk” for the soul.
A person’s shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries. I thought about what the ghost Setne had said—how he and I had each grown up in the shadow of a famous father. I realized now that he hadn’t just meant it as a figure of speech. My dad cast a powerful shadow that still affected me and the whole world.
If a person cast no shadow at all, he couldn’t be alive. His existence became meaningless. Execrating Apophis by destroying his shadow would cut his connection to the mortal world completely. He’d never be able to rise again. I finally understood why he’d been so anxious to burn Setne’s scrolls, and why he was afraid of this spell.
We reached the last lines. Apophis dislodged Bes from his fang, and the dwarf sailed into the side of the Great Pyramid.
The serpent turned toward us as we spoke the final words: “We exile you beyond the void. You are no more.”
“NO!” Apophis roared.
The statue flared, dissolving in our hands. The shadow disappeared in a puff of vapor, and an explosive wave of darkness knocked us off our feet.
The serpent’s legacy on the earth shattered—the wars, murders, turmoil, and anarchy Apophis had caused since ancient times finally lost power, no longer casting their shadow across our future. Souls of the dead were expelled from the blast—thousands of ghosts that had been trapped and crushed within the shadow of Chaos. A voice whispered in my mind: Carter, and I sobbed with relief. I couldn’t see her, but I knew that our mother was free. Her spirit was returning to its place in the Duat.
“Shortsighted mortals!” Apophis writhed and began to shrink. “You haven’t just killed me. You’ve exiled the gods!”
The Duat collapsed, layer upon layer, until the plains of Giza were one reality again. Our magician friends stood in a daze around us. The gods, however, were nowhere to be seen.
The serpent hissed, his scales falling away in smoking pieces. “Ma’at and Chaos are linked, you fools! You cannot push me away without pushing away the gods. As for Ra, he shall die within me, slowly digested—”
He was cut short (literally) when his head exploded. Yes, it was just as gross as it sounds. Flaming bits of reptile flew everywhere. A ball of fire rolled up from the serpent’s neck. The body of Apophis crumbled into sand and steaming goo, and Zia Rashid stepped out of the wreckage.
Her dress was in tatters. Her golden staff had cracked like a wishbone, but she was alive.
I ran toward her. She stumbled and collapsed against me, completely exhausted.
Then someone else rose from the smoking ruins of Apophis.
Ra shimmered like a mirage, towering over us as a muscular old man with golden skin, kingly robes, and the pharaoh’s crown. He stepped forward and daylight returned to the sky. The temperature warmed. The cracks in the ground sealed themselves.
The sun god smiled down at me. “Well done, Carter and Sadie. Now, I must withdraw as the other gods have done, but I owe you my life.”
“Withdraw?” My voice didn’t sound like mine. It was deeper, more gravelly—but it wasn’t Horus’s voice either. The war god seemed to be gone from my mind. “You mean…forever?”
Ra chuckled. “When you’re as old as I am, you learn to be careful with that word forever. I thought I was leaving forever the first time I abdicated. For a while, at least, I must retreat into the sky. My old enemy Apophis was not wrong. When Chaos is pushed away, the gods of order, Ma’at, must also distance themselves. Such is the balance of the universe.”
“Then…you should take these.” Again I offered him the crook and flail.
Ra shook his head. “Keep them for me. You are the rightful pharaoh. And take care of my favored one…” He nodded at Zia. “She will recover, but she will need support.”
Light blazed around the sun god. When it faded, he was gone. Two dozen weary magicians stood around a smoking, serpent-shaped mark in the desert as the sun rose over the pyramids of Giza.
Sadie rested her hand on my arm. “Brother, dear?”
“Yeah?”
“That was a bit too close.”
For once, I had no argument with my sister.
The rest of the day was a blur. I remember helping Zia to the healing rooms of the First Nome. My own broken hand took only minutes to fix, but I stayed with Zia until Jaz told me I needed to go. She and the other healers had dozens of wounded magicians to treat—including the Russian kid Leonid, who, amazingly, was expected to pull through—and while Jaz thought I was very sweet, I was very much in the way.
I wandered through the main cavern and was shocked to see it full of people. Portals around the world had started working again. Magicians were flooding in to help with cleanup and pledge their support to the Chief Lector. Everybody loves to show up at the party once all the hard work is done.