“She was strong,” I insisted. “A magician, like you. If you can fight it, she could too.”
Setne hesitated. Then he shrugged. “Sure, pal. We’re close now. Better keep going.”
Soon I heard a roar in the distance. The horizon glowed red. We seemed to be moving faster, as if we’d stepped on an automated walkway.
Then we came over the crest of a hill, and I saw our destination.
“There you go,” Setne said. “The Sea of Chaos.”
Before us spread an ocean of mist, fire, or water—it was impossible to tell which. Grayish-red matter churned, boiling and smoking, surging just like my stomach. It stretched as far as I could see—and something told me it had no end.
The ocean’s edge wasn’t so much a beach as a reverse waterfall. Solid ground poured into the sea and disappeared. A house-sized boulder trundled over the hill to our right, slid down the beach, and dissolved in the surf. Chunks of solid ground, trees, buildings, and statues constantly flew over our heads and sailed into the ocean, vaporizing as they touched the waves. Even the demons weren’t immune. A few winged ones strayed over the beach, realized too late that they’d flown too close, and disappeared screaming into the swirling misty soup.
It was pulling us, too. Instead of walking forward, I was instinctively backpedaling now, just to stay in one place. If we got any closer, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop.
Only one thing gave me hope. A few hundred yards to the north, jutting into the waves, was a single solid strip of land like a jetty. At the far end rose a white obelisk like the Washington Monument. The spire glowed with light. I had a feeling it was ancient—even older than the gods. As beautiful as the obelisk was, I couldn’t help thinking of Cleopatra’s Needle on the banks of the River Thames, where my mother had died.
“We can’t go down there,” I said.
Setne laughed. “The Sea of Chaos? That’s where we all came from, pal. Haven’t you heard how Egypt was formed?”
“It rose from this sea,” Zia said, almost in a trance. “Ma’at appeared from Chaos—the first land, creation from destruction.”
“Yep,” Setne said. “The two great forces of the universe. And there they are.”
&nbs
p; “That obelisk is…the first land?” I asked.
“Dunno,” Setne said. “I wasn’t there. But it’s the symbol of Ma’at, for sure. Everything else, that’s Apophis’s power, always chewing away at creation, always eating and destroying. You tell me, which force is more powerful?”
I tried to swallow. “Where is Apophis’s shadow?”
Setne chuckled. “Oh, it’s here. But to see it, to catch it, you’ll have to cast the spell from out there—at the edge of the jetty.”
“We’ll never make it,” Zia said. “One false step—”
“Sure,” Setne agreed cheerfully. “It’ll be fun!”
C A R T E R
16. Sadie Rides Shotgun (Worst. Idea. Ever.)
HERE’S SOME FREE ADVICE: Don’t walk toward Chaos.
With every step, I felt like I was being dragged into a black hole. Trees, boulders, and demons flew past us and were sucked into the ocean, while lightning flickered through the red-gray mist. Under our feet, chunks of the ground kept cracking and sliding into the tide.
I grasped the crook and flail in one hand and held Zia’s hand with the other. Setne whistled and floated along beside us. He tried to act cool, but from the way his colors were fading and his greased hair pointed toward the ocean like a comet’s tail, I figured he was having a tough time holding his ground.
Once I lost my balance. I almost tumbled into the surf, but Zia pulled me back. A few steps later, a fish-headed demon flew out of nowhere and slammed into me. He grabbed my leg, trying desperately to avoid getting sucked in. Before I could decide whether or not to help him, he lost his grip and disappeared into the sea.
The most horrible thing about the journey? Part of me was tempted to give up and let Chaos draw me in. Why keep struggling? Why not end the pain and the worry? So what, if Carter Kane dissolved into trillions of molecules?
I knew those thoughts weren’t really mine. The voice of Apophis was whispering in my head, tempting me as it had before. I concentrated on the glowing white obelisk—our lighthouse in the storm of Chaos. I didn’t know if that spire was really the first part of creation, or how that myth jibed with the Big Bang, or with God creating the world in seven days, or whatever else people might believe. Maybe the obelisk was just a manifestation of something larger—something my mind couldn’t comprehend. Whatever the case, I knew the obelisk stood for Ma’at, and I had to focus on it. Otherwise I was lost.
We reached the base of the jetty. The rocky path felt reassuringly solid under my feet, but the pull of Chaos was strong on either side. As we inched forward, I remembered photos I’d seen of construction workers building skyscrapers back in the old days, fearlessly walking across girders six hundred feet in the air with no safety harnesses.
I felt like that now, except I wasn’t fearless. The winds buffeted me. The jetty was ten feet wide, but I still felt like I was going to lose my balance and pitch into the waves. I tried not to look down. The stuff of Chaos churned and crashed against the rocks. It smelled like ozone, car exhaust, and formaldehyde mixed together. The fumes alone were almost enough to make me pass out.