Rick Riordan - The Red Pyramid

“I hope to see you again, Lord and Lady Kane,” he hummed. “Your rooms will be waiting aboard the Egyptian Queen. Unless, of course, you see fit to release me from service.”

Behind his back, Bast shook her head adamantly.

“Um, we’ll keep you around,” I told the captain. “Thanks for everything.”

“As you wish,” the captain said. If axes could frown, I’m sure he would have.

“Stay sharp,” Carter told him, and with Bast and Khufu, we walked down the gangplank. Instead of pulling away, the ship simply sank into the boiling lava and disappeared.

I scowled at Carter. “‘Stay sharp?’”

“I thought it was funny.”

“You’re hopeless.”

We walked up the steps of the black temple. A forest of stone pillars held up the ceiling. Every surface was carved with hieroglyphs and images, but there was no color-just black on black. Haze from the lake drifted through the temple, and despite reed torches that burned on each pillar, it was impossible to see very far through the gloom.

“Stay alert,” Bast warned, sniffing the air. “He’s close.”

“Who?” I asked.

“The Dog,” Bast said with disdain.

There was a snarling noise, and a huge black shape leaped out of the mist. It tackled Bast, who rolled over and wailed in feline outrage, then raced off, leaving us alone with the beast. I suppose she had warned us that she wasn’t brave.

The new animal was sleek and black, like the Set animal we’d seen in Washington, D.C., but more obviously canine, graceful and rather cute, actually. A jackal, I realized, with a golden collar around its neck.

Then it morphed into a young man, and my heart almost stopped. He was the boy from my dreams, quite literally-the guy in black I’d seen twice before in my ba visions.

In person, if possible, Anubis was even more drop-dead gorgeous. [Oh…ha, ha. I didn’t catch the pun, but thank you, Carter. God of the dead, drop-dead gorgeous. Yes, hilarious. Now, may I continue?]

He had a pale complexion, tousled black hair, and rich brown eyes like melted chocolate. He was dressed in black jeans, combat boots (like mine!), a ripped T-shirt, and a black leather jacket that suited him quite nicely. He was long and lean like a jackal. His ears, like a jackal’s, stuck out a bit (which I found cute), and he wore a gold chain around his neck.

Now, please understand, I am not boy crazy. I’m not! I’d spent most of the school term making fun of Liz and Emma, who were, and I was very glad they weren’t with me just then, because they would’ve teased me to no end.

The boy in black stood and brushed off his jacket. “I’m not a dog,” he grumbled.

“No,” I agreed. “You’re…”

No doubt I would’ve said delicious or something equally embarrassing, but Carter saved me.

“You’re Anubis?” he asked. “We’ve come for the feather of truth.”

Anubis frowned. He locked his very nice eyes with mine. “You’re not dead.”

“No,” I said. “Though we’re trying awfully hard.”

“I don’t deal with the living,” he said firmly. Then he looked at Khufu and Carter. “However, you travel with a baboon. That shows good taste. I won’t kill you until you’ve had a chance to explain. Why did Bast bring you here?”

“Actually,” Carter said, “Thoth sent us.”

Carter started to tell him the story, but Khufu broke in impatiently. “Agh! Agh!”

Baboon-speak must have been quite efficient, because Anubis nodded as if he’d just gotten the whole tale. “I see.”

He scowled at Carter. “So you’re Horus. And you’re…” His finger drifted towards me.

“I’m-I’m, um-” I stammered. Quite unlike me to be tongue-tied, I’ll admit, but looking at Anubis, I felt as if I’d just gotten a large shot of Novocain from the dentist. Carter looked at me as if I’d gone daft.

“I’m not Isis,” I managed. “I mean, Isis is milling about inside, but I’m not her. She’s just…visiting.”

Anubis tilted his head. “And the two of you intend to challenge Set?”

“That’s the general idea,” Carter agreed. “Will you help?”

Anubis glowered. I remembered Thoth saying Anubis was only in a good mood once an eon or so. I had the feeling this was not one of those days.

“No,” he said flatly. “I’ll show you why.”

He turned into a jackal and sped back the way he’d come. Carter and I exchanged looks. Not knowing what else to do, we ran after Anubis, deeper into the gloom.

In the center of the temple was a large circular chamber that seemed to be two places at once. On the one hand, it was a great hall with blazing braziers and an empty throne at the far end. The center of the room was dominated by a set of scales-a black iron T with ropes linked to two golden dishes, each big enough to hold a person-but the scales were broken. One of the golden dishes was bent into a V, as if something very heavy had jumped up and down on it. The other dish was hanging by a single rope.

Curled at the base of the scales, fast asleep, was the oddest monster I’d seen yet. It had the head of crocodile with a lion’s mane. The front half of its body was lion, but the back end was sleek, brown, and fat-a hippo, I decided. The odd bit was, the animal was tiny-I mean, no larger than an average poodle, which I suppose made him a hippodoodle.

So that was the hall, at least one layer of it. But at the same time, I seemed to be standing in a ghostly graveyard-like a three-dimensional projection superimposed on the room. In some places, the marble floor gave way to patches of mud and moss-covered paving stones. Lines of aboveground tombs like miniature row houses radiated from the center of the chamber in a wheel-spokes pattern. Many of the tombs had cracked open. Some were bricked up, others ringed with iron fences. Around the edges of the chamber, the black pillars shifted form, sometimes changing into ancient cypress trees. I felt as if I were stepping between two different worlds, and I couldn’t tell which one was real.

Khufu loped straight over to the broken scales and climbed to the top, making himself right at home. He paid no attention to the hippodoodle.

The jackal trotted to the steps of the throne and changed back into Anubis.

“Welcome,” he said, “to the last room you will ever see.”

Carter looked around in awe. “The Hall of Judgment.” He focused on the hippodoodle and frowned. “Is that…”

“Ammit the Devourer,” Anubis said. “Look upon him and tremble.”

Ammit apparently heard his name in his sleep. He made a yipping sound and turned on his back. His lion and hippo legs twitched. I wondered if netherworld monsters dreamed of chasing rabbits.

“I always pictured him…bigger,” Carter admitted.

Anubis gave Carter a harsh look. “Ammit only has to be big enough to eat the hearts of the wicked. Trust me, he does his job well. Or…he did it well, anyway.”

Up on the scales, Khufu grunted. He almost lost his balance on the central beam, and the dented saucer clanged against the floor.

“Why are the scales broken?” I asked.

Anubis frowned. “Ma’at is weakening. I’ve tried to fix them, but…” He spread his hands helplessly.

I pointed to the ghostly rows of tombs. “Is that why the, ah, graveyard is butting in?”

Carter looked at me strangely. “What graveyard?”

“The tombs,” I said. “The trees.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He can’t see them,” Anubis said. “But you, Sadie-you’re perceptive. What do you hear?”

At first I didn’t know what he meant. All I heard was the blood rushing through my ears, and the distant rumble and crackle of the Lake of Fire. (And Khufu scratching himself and grunting, but that was nothing new.)