“All my people would be doomed,” Nefertiti said. She pondered the situation, then nodded. “I will instruct Skymaster Horus to take us there.”
“Can you convince him to go along with our plan?” Marika asked.
Her question seemed to mystify Nefertiti, ever the princess. “I am the daughter of the Glory of Ra. He will do as I say.”
She stormed out through the doorway, sweeping the door closed behind her.
Pindor sighed. “Isn’t she great?”
Bach’uuk sighed, too, but with a roll of his eyes.
Returning to the table, Jake leaned both fists on it. He stared at the map. “Everything points to Ankh Tawy. Even the fate of my mother is twisted into that history.”
“And our land,” Marika added. “The histories of Calypsos and Deshret are intertwined.”
Her words reminded him of a question that had been nagging him ever since he saw his mother’s tiled face on the mural. “But why did the people here think my mother was from Calypsos?”
“Maybe she came here with others,” Pindor said. “Like you did with us.”
“But when I asked all of your Elders back in Calypsos if they’d ever seen my parents or heard any stories about them, no one had.”
“Ankh Tawy fell into ruins centuries ago,” Marika said. “If your mother and father had come to Calypsos back then, they might have been forgotten, the records lost.”
Jake refused to believe it. Who could forget his parents? He pictured them now, striding like giants across his memory. But as their son, maybe he was being biased.
Bach’uuk scowled and waved Marika’s explanation away. “Ur live always in the long time. We would know.” He turned to Jake. “They never came to Calypsos.”
Then it made no sense. It was yet another mystery, one Jake could not solve now. He returned to the map. Before he got to Ankh Tawy, he wanted to know as much about the city as possible. At some point, he would pull Nefertiti aside to pick her brain.
Pindor joined him, voicing a new worry. “Do you think that monster still lives in Ankh Tawy?”
“The Sphinx?” Jake remembered the great winged beast on the mural, breathing out destruction. “I don’t know. It might just be legend. Egyptians worship the Sphinx. There’s a great statue of one still existing in my time.”
“What sort of beast is it?” Marika asked.
“Usually it has the head of a person attached to the body of some beast. Often a lion. Sometimes a clawed snake. In some pictures and statues, it has wings. Other times not.”
Pindor looked sick and sank to the bed.
“And it’s not just Egyptians who have legends of such beasts,” Jake continued. “Stories come from all around the world, but the most famous is from Greece.”
Pindor sneered. “Greeks. Always think they know everything.”
“What’s the story?” Marika asked.
“According to Greek myths, there was a monstrous Sphinx guarding the city of Thebes.”
Marika nodded. “Like the one guarding Ankh Tawy.”
“That’s right. The Sphinx would ask a traveler a riddle before allowing the stranger into the city. If you got it wrong, she would strangle you and eat you.”
“Oh, great …” Pindor moaned.
Marika waved him silent. “What was the riddle?”
“That changes depending on the story.” Jake took a moment to remember the most common version. “‘What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening … and the more legs it has the weaker it is?’”
He stared around to see if anyone could solve the riddle. He was about to give away the answer when Bach’uuk pointed to Jake. “You! Or us. We crawl when we’re babes, walk on two legs in the middle of our ages, and use a staff or crutch—a third leg—when we get old.”
“You got it!” Jake said. “And the more legs you have—as a baby or an old man—the weaker you are.”
Marika clapped her hands, delighted. “Tell us another one.”
He knew there was another riddle tied to that myth. He had to rack his brain. “Okay. ‘There are two sisters. One gave birth to the other, and the other gave birth to the first. Who are they?’”
Pindor crossed his arms. “I don’t know, but that’s just sick.”
Jake glanced to Bach’uuk. His brow was furrowed in concentration, but finally he shrugged, giving up.
“It’s night and day,” he said.
Marika smiled. “Day leads to night, and night leads to day.”
Pindor still wasn’t happy. “That’s cheating.”
Bach’uuk didn’t look any happier. In fact, he looked worried.
“What’s wrong?” Jake asked.
“Those riddles,” he said. “They both speak of the passing of time.”
Jake stood straighter. Bach’uuk was right. Time was the crux of everything: the mysterious crystals were called timestones, his mother could be trapped in the past, and now the riddles of the Sphinx. He sensed something important behind this realization.
But before he could ponder it, the ship suddenly rolled and threw them all toward the door. Shouts and horns blared from up top.
Jake helped Marika back to her feet—only to be thrown in the opposite direction.
As they crashed into a heap, Pindor yelled. “What’s happening?”
The answer came from the doorway. Nefertiti stood braced there. Her words offered no comfort.
“We’re under attack!”
24
FOREST OF FLAMES
Jake burst topside into chaos.
The crew ran all about, readying the ship for battle. Swords and axes were being handed out. Teams assembled giant crossbows as large as cannons to the port and starboard sides. Others cranked an even larger catapult into position at the prow.
What was going on?
He searched all around looking for the enemy but saw no threat.
“Follow me!” Nefertiti said, and led Jake and the others toward the stern, where Horus, Politor, and Shaduf had their heads bent together.
As Jake climbed the flight of steps to the raised deck, he finally saw what had the crew in a frenzy. A huge ship flew a half mile behind them, silhouetted against the sinking sun.
Jake hurried to the rail to get a better look. He had seen the ship before at the airfield. With three massive balloons and a battleship-sized deck, it was the royal barge.
Shaduf joined them. “Looks like Kree and the rest of his black-robed ilk grew wings.”