Rick Riordan - The Red Pyramid

THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS I’d seen a lot of crazy things, but the Hall of Ages took the prize.

Double rows of stone pillars held up a ceiling so high, you could’ve parked a blimp under it with no trouble. A shimmering blue carpet that looked like water ran down the center of the hall, which was so long, I couldn’t see the end even though it was brightly lit. Balls of fire floated around like helium basketballs, changing color whenever they bumped into one another. Millions of tiny hieroglyphic symbols also drifted through the air, randomly combining into words and then breaking apart.

I grabbed a pair of glowing red legs.

They walked across my palm before jumping off and dissolving.

But the weirdest things were the displays.

I don’t know what else to call them. Between the columns on either side of us, images shifted, coming into focus and then blurring out again like holograms in a sandstorm.

“Come on,” Zia told us. “And don’t spend too much time looking.”

It was impossible not to. The first twenty feet or so, the magical scenes cast a golden light across the hall. A blazing sun rose above an ocean. A mountain emerged from the water, and I had the feeling I was watching the beginning of the world. Giants strode across the Nile Valley: a man with black skin and the head of a jackal, a lioness with bloody fangs, a beautiful woman with wings of light.

Sadie stepped off the rug. In a trance, she reached toward the images.

“Stay on the carpet!” Zia grabbed Sadie’s hand and pulled her back toward the center of the hall. “You are seeing the Age of the Gods. No mortal should dwell on these images.”

“But…” Sadie blinked. “They’re only pictures, aren’t they?”

“Memories,” Zia said, “so powerful they could destroy your mind.”

“Oh,” Sadie said in a small voice.

We kept walking. The images changed to silver. I saw armies clashing-Egyptians in kilts and sandals and leather armor, fighting with spears. A tall, dark-skinned man in red-and-white armor placed a double crown on his head: Narmer, the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt. Sadie was right: he did look a bit like Dad.

“This is the Old Kingdom,” I guessed. “The first great age of Egypt.”

Zia nodded. As we walked down the hall, we saw workers building the first step pyramid out of stone. Another few steps, and the biggest pyramid of all rose from the desert at Giza. Its outer layer of smooth white casing stones gleamed in the sun. Ten thousand workers gathered at its base and knelt before the pharaoh, who raised his hands to the sun, dedicating his own tomb.

“Khufu,” I said.

“The baboon?” Sadie asked, suddenly interested.

“No, the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid,” I said. “It was the tallest structure in the world for almost four thousand years.”

Another few steps, and the images turned from silver to coppery.

“The Middle Kingdom,” Zia announced. “A bloody, chaotic time. And yet this is when the House of Life came to maturity.”

The scenes shifted more rapidly. We watched armies fighting, temples being built, ships sailing on the Nile, and magicians throwing fire. Every step covered hundreds of years, and yet the hall still went on forever. For the first time I understood just how ancient Egypt was.

We crossed another threshold, and the light turned bronze.

“The New Kingdom,” I guessed. “The last time Egypt was ruled by Egyptians.”

Zia said nothing, but I watched scenes passing that my dad had described to me: Hatshepsut, the greatest female pharaoh, putting on a fake beard and ruling Egypt as a man; Ramesses the Great leading his chariots into battle.

I saw magicians dueling in a palace. A man in tattered robes, with a shaggy black beard and wild eyes, threw down his staff, which turned into a serpent and devoured a dozen other snakes.

I got a lump in my throat. “Is that-”

“Musa,” Zia said. “Or Moshe, as his own people knew him. You call him Moses. The only foreigner ever to defeat the House in a magic duel.”

I stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

“We would not kid about such a thing.”

The scene shifted again. I saw a man standing over a table of battle figurines: wooden toy ships, soldiers, and chariots. The man was dressed like a pharaoh, but his face looked oddly familiar. He looked up and seemed to smile right at me. With a chill, I realized he had the same face as the ba, the bird-faced spirit who’d challenged me on the bridge.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Nectanebo II,” Zia said. “The last native Egyptian king, and the last sorcerer pharaoh. He could move entire armies, create or destroy navies by moving pieces on his board, but in the end, it was not enough.”

We stepped over another line and the images shimmered blue. “These are the Ptolemaic times,” Zia said. “Alexander the Great conquered the known world, including Egypt. He set up his general Ptolemy as the new pharaoh, and founded a line of Greek kings to rule over Egypt.”

The Ptolemaic section of the hall was shorter, and seemed sad compared to all the others. The temples were smaller. The kings and queens looked desperate, or lazy, or simply apathetic. There were no great battles…except toward the end. I saw Romans march into the city of Alexandria. I saw a woman with dark hair and a white dress drop a snake into her blouse.

“Cleopatra,” Zia said, “the seventh queen of that name. She tried to stand against the might of Rome, and she lost. When she took her life, the last line of pharaohs ended. Egypt, the great nation, faded. Our language was forgotten. The ancient rites were suppressed. The House of Life survived, but we were forced into hiding.”

We passed into an area of red light, and history began to look familiar. I saw Arab armies riding into Egypt, then the Turks. Napoleon marched his army under the shadow of the pyramids. The British came and built the Suez Canal. Slowly Cairo grew into a modern city. And the old ruins faded farther and farther under the sands of the desert.

“Each year,” Zia said, “the Hall of Ages grows longer to encompass our history. Up until the present.”

I was so dazed I didn’t even realize we’d reached the end of the hall until Sadie grabbed my arm.

In front of us stood a dais and on it an empty throne, a gilded wooden chair with a flail and a shepherd’s crook carved in the back-the ancient symbols of the pharaoh.

On the step below the throne sat the oldest man I’d ever seen. His skin was like lunch-bag paper-brown, thin, and crinkled. White linen robes hung loosely off his small frame. A leopard skin was draped around his shoulders, and his hand shakily held a big wooden staff, which I was sure he was going to drop any minute. But weirdest of all, the glowing hieroglyphs in the air seemed to be coming from him. Multicolored symbols popped up all around him and floated away as if he were some sort of magic bubble machine.

At first I wasn’t sure he was even alive. His milky eyes stared into space. Then he focused on me, and electricity coursed through my body.

He wasn’t just looking at me. He was scanning me-reading my entire being.

Hide, something inside me said.

I didn’t know where the voice came from, but my stomach clenched. My whole body tensed as if I were bracing for a hit, and the electrical feeling subsided.

The old man raised an eyebrow as if I’d surprised him. He glanced behind him and said something in a language I didn’t recognize.

A second man stepped out of the shadows. I wanted to yelp. He was the guy who’d been with Zia in the British Museum-the one with the cream-colored robes and the forked beard.