Hi guys! Oh my gods! Thanks for the awesome feedback and favs and such! Yes, there will be Zarter…as you will start to see in this chapter. Anybody check Rick Riordan's blog? Well, I did today, and I found out the freakiest thing: the next book is about the BOOK OF RA! Oh Thoth! Can you believe it? And I've had this idea since June! Some strange magic is afoot if you ask me. ;) Anyway, enjoy!
This is dedicated to Pony for being my first review (I'll overlook the fact they like sanubis better than zarter... ;)
C
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The problem with sleeping as a magician is that you never actually get to stay under your covers. Some outside force just has to rip your ba out of a peaceful dream and drag you halfway across the world, which is exactly what happened the moment I shut my eyes.
My ba basically looks like a flying chicken, so I adjusted its form before I got pulled out the window into the night. All I had to do was imagine myself in whatever form I wanted, and poof! You're ba changes into whatever you thought of. Now at least I looked normal with a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Anything was better than a flying chicken man.
I flew over New York, dodging a couple of buildings and a large McDonald's advertisement. The last thing I needed was my soul splattered on an enormous cheeseburger.
Suddenly, the New York skyline disappeared, and instead of streets and modern buildings below me, I was flying over miles and miles of endless sand. The air was dry and hot, and the soft breeze lifted grains of white sand into the air. I was soaring above a desert. I must have flown millions of miles in less than a second. Then again, I rode in an Egyptian reed boat from London to New York in a couple of minutes. I guess it's just your average form of transportation as a magician.
After a minute or so, I spotted a few houses in the distance. Well, I'm not sure houses are the best word for them. They were falling apart, some burned and others just a pile of red rock and clay against the pale desert sand. I recognized the mud brick houses; they were just like the homes my dad and I would past on our way to the next dig site in Egypt. Whatever happened here, it hadn't been pretty.
As far as I could tell, it was abandoned. Only the sound of the narrow, almost completely dry river could be heard. As hot as it was, I wasn't in the mood for a swim. I was about to try to wake myself up, when something caught my eye.
It was of a small figure standing by the bank of the river. Normally, if I saw some person standing alone in a deserted village, I'd keep my distance, but I absolutely no choice, because my ba was heading right toward them.
I instinctively reached for my dad's workbag, but then I realized I was in ba-form. I had no bag. I was about to do something smart, like start running for example, but then I actually saw the figure by the bank, and I almost had a coronary.
It was her.
She wore a white headscarf over her dark, shoulder-length hair. Her white and gold robes were covered in dust, and she had a familiar glint in her caramel colored eyes, outlined in Egyptian kohl. She looked downright beautiful, the way she does before she tries to kill you. It was…
"Zia?" I managed.
My face must have shown my shock, because she actually cracked a smile.
"It's been a long time, Carter. I've been trying to reach you, but I've had some…technical difficulties."
"I-I thought-" There was a million things I wanted to ask her, but before I could remember how to speak, Zia cleared her throat.
"Uh, and you might want to step out of the river…" Zia suggested; the corners of her lips twitching into a smile.
"Um, yeah, right," I stammered, feeling stupid. I jumped out of the river onto the bank, keeping a safe distance from Zia. Hey, the last time I saw the real Zia was when she tried to kill me. I still couldn't believe she knew my name. I mean, it was the shabti who saved us last year. Sadie and I never knew the real Zia…right?
Zia laughed. "You can come over, Carter. I don't bite."
I decided that I the only way I was going to get my answers was to actually askher, so I walked over to where she was standing; an entrance to a small, dark cave next to the bank. Zia was searching the horizon with worried eyes, which didn't exactly make me feel welcome, but when she turned back to me, she smiled, and my problems seemed to melt away.
"It took you long enough," She remarked. "Do you know how many times I tried making contact with you? It's not easy, you know."
"Wait, you were the voice at the pool today?"
"Like I said, I've been trying to contact you for weeks. That was my latest attempt," Zia answered. Then she looked over her shoulder for the second time.
"What?" I asked as I stared suspiciously at the barren landscape before me.
"N-nothing," Zia answered, turning her back to the river. "I must hurry. Time is of the essence."
"Why are you hurrying? What are you worried about?"
Zia raised a hand to stop me. "Carter! That's not important. The reason why I've been trying to contact you is because of Nyphthys."
"Nyphthys?" I remembered discovering Zia had been a host to Nyphthys last year, and that the goddess had told her Set's secret name. It never occurred to me that she'd still be hosting her. Then again, Zia's been missing for an entire year, so she couldn't get rid of the goddess, even if she tried.
"Yes, she's told me some information about..." Zia lowered her voice to a whisper. "About how to defeat Apophis."
Well, that caught my attention. This is what we've been training the other magicians for all year. He's also supposed to eat the sun and kill everyone on earth. No wonder why they locked him up for eons. He must have been a real party pooper.
"What do you mean by 'information'? You know how to defeat him?" I asked earnestly.
"Not exactly…but I know how to find out," Zia replied.
"I'm listening."
"We have to find the-"Zia paused, and turned around again. Okay, it doesn't take a genius to know she was hiding something from me, but at that moment, all I really cared about was figuring how to defeat Apophis, so I kept my mouth shut.
Looking satisfied, she turned back to me and whispered, "The Book of Ra."
Zia might as well have been speaking Portuguese, because it made absolutely no sense to me. "The Book of what?"
Zia rolled her eyes. "Ra, as in the sun god! The-Book-of-Ra!"
"Yeah, I know who he is," I replied, "but what is this about a book?"
Zia sighed. "Think, Carter. Ra created the serpent. If anyone knows how to defeat it, it's him."
Hmm…she has a point there.
"Well, yeah, but wasn't Ra, like, banished forever? Isis poisoned him, remember?"
Zia arched a black eyebrow. "What's your point?"
I had been staring into her eyes. For a second there, I forgot what I was saying.
What was my point again?
"My point is, wouldn't he have a huge grudge on the gods? Assuming he's alive that is. And-"
"And…?" Zia prodded.
"…And, if we were to go looking for Ra, he'd have a huge grudge on us too, right? I mean, we were hosts to the gods, so I doubt he'd even let us within a hundred miles of him, let alone close enough to ask him to borrow a book from his private collection."
"True, Ra has a grudge on the gods, but only one god in particular," Zia answered. She looked at me expectantly.
"One god in particular." I racked my brain, trying to figure out what she meant. Suddenly, a feeling of dread washed over me.
"Isis," I cursed. "Oh great. He's going to blast Sadie into space if we bring her with us, and I don't go anywhere without Sadie."
My annoying sister had been hosting the goddess last year, but after Set's pyramid was destroyed, Isis left her forever. Sadie was simply a host to the goddess of magic. Still, it might be difficult explaining that to a millennia-old, banished god who was overthrown by none other than Isis herself.
"Who said you couldn't bring her?" Zia questioned. "You're going to need your little sister on this quest no matter what. She can come along all right, but she's just going to have to wait while you see Ra. That is one thing you'll have to do alone, and from what Nyphthys has told me, it won't be the last," she concluded a matter-of-factly.
"Hold it," I argued, not liking the sound of that. "What do you mean I have to do it alone? Nyphthys never said you had to wait too. We'll just march up to wherever this ancient god is hiding and ask him for the book, together."
Zia looked like I just set off a bomb.
"C-Carter, I won't, I can't come with you."
"What do you mean? I've found you! All I have to do is wake up, summon a portal and be here in a couple of hours!"
Zia looked down at her sand-covered sandals. "Carter…I don't want to be found."
Now, I may be a little slow, but it finally occurred to me that Zia was asking to remain hidden. Please. Like that was going to happen.
"Zia, we need you! You've been gone for a whole year! I need you to come with me and Sadie! It wouldn't be a quest without you." It only took me a couple seconds to realize what I was saying, so I quickly added, "You know, for your fighting skills and everything. We need someone like you."
Zia stared sadly at me. "Carter…I can't. I would if I could, but-"
"But what?" I demanded.
"I-" she began, but before she could finish, a jaw-rattling roar erupted behind us. I turned around, but nothing was there, just the endless, dark horizon. Before I could ask what the Thoth that was, I heard the roar again, only this time I could make out another sound: footsteps. Heavy footsteps. I was sure of one thing, though. Whatever that was, it was headed in our direction. Fast.
"Zia…?" Something told me that sound was not a group of happy villagers, welcoming me to their ghost town. Zia turned as pale as the moon. She flung around to face me, and I saw something I've never seen in Zia's eyes: terror.
"We're out of time," she muttered. "Carter, go. You're the bravest person I know. You'll know what to do when the time is right. Find the Book of Ra. The goddess said something about Heliopolis. Now hurry! You are our only chance." When I didn't move, she added, "Go!" but the word was lost in the cries of the creature behind me. Then reluctantly, she turned and began to descend into the dark and humid cave before us.
I stubbornly followed. "Zia, I'm not leaving you. We need you, Zia! We can figure this out." The sound of the monster was even closer, and I knew that if I turned around, I would see it, but I couldn't leave Zia. I had finally found her, how could I lose her again?
"I-I'm sorry Carter. I'm so sorry," Zia whispered, and with that, she snapped her fingers, and everything went black.
*::*::*
Zia returns! Why would she want to remain hidden? Hm…
Any guesses? Do you have any praise or criticism? Well, let me know! Click the REVIEW button or I will throw you into the Duat! Yeah…I can do stuff like that. ;)
(:(:(:mythomagic:):):)
