The mushroom-shaped pinnacle was even farther away than Jake had thought. In the desert, distances proved to be deceptive. He and the others were marched slowly, their ankles bound in rough bronze shackles. Their hands were weighted down in front of them by cuffs.
While they were being chained, the princess had momentarily been attracted to their magnetite wristbands. “What pretty slave bracelets …”
Nefertiti had examined them all, and had even tried removing Kady’s. Jake’s sister looked ready to slap off the girl’s tattoos.
Of course, the bands couldn’t be removed.
The princess gave up with a shrug. “We can always cut them off,” she decided.
Jake feared she wasn’t talking about the bands but about their hands.
As they were marched toward the towering rock, Kady wore a sour expression. “How come whenever we land here, we end up prisoners?”
Jake didn’t bother answering as he shuffled in his shackles. He had more important questions in his head. Where exactly are we? And why did we end up here instead of in Calypsos?
He guessed it had to do with the door they used to get here. Last time, the gold Mayan pyramid at the British Museum had dropped them into the shadow of the great Temple of Kukulkan in the valley of Calypsos. This time they’d been transported from an Egyptian tomb exhibit to the middle of a desert.
He stared over at the arrogant princess. According to Jake’s history books, Nefertiti had been a queen of Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty. Though not of noble birth, she was so beautiful that the pharaoh married her. Over time, she grew to be one of the most powerful women in Egyptian history. Then at the age of thirty, she suddenly vanished. Archaeologists had been puzzling over this mystery for ages. Had she died? Had she fallen out of favor with the pharaoh? Where had she gone?
Jake believed here was the answer. Queen Nefertiti and some of her people must have been transported to Pangaea, like all the other Lost Tribes. But these people hadn’t landed near the valley of Calypsos. They had ended up in this desert. He studied his captors. They must be the direct descendants of that lost group. Perhaps Princess Nefertiti was even from the queen’s own bloodline.
As they crossed the desert, Nefertiti turned her attention to Bach’uuk. She fingered his brow, pinched his ear, and pulled on his hair, as if he were some prized pig she was judging.
She finally concluded, “What a strange creature. He’ll be quite the amusement at the palace.”
“He’s not a creature!” Marika piped up. “He’s just as much a person as you or me.”
This earned an arched eyebrow from Nefertiti. “Perhaps as much a person as you, but certainly not me.”
Jake realized that these people must not have met a member of the Neanderthal tribe; but from the princess’s total lack of surprise at seeing Jake’s party, he figured that other foreigners must have crossed through occasionally or been dropped into this harsh land. Clearly those lost newcomers were never accepted as equals.
Nefertiti confirmed this. “I will find what village you slaves escaped from and make sure your masters are punished for letting you go.”
“We’re not escaped slaves,” Marika said. “We’re not slaves at all.”
Pindor tried to wave her to be quiet by clinking his chains. He clearly did not want to upset their captors. Or maybe it was something else. Jake’s Roman friend had not taken his eyes off Nefertiti since first seeing her. He didn’t even seem to mind being shackled, going all moon-eyed.
Marika looked to Jake for help.
Jake spoke firmly, knowing the princess’s arrogance could only be met with strength. “My friend speaks the truth. We’re not from any village here, but from another land. Far from here.”
“From Calypsos,” Marika added.
The name caused Nefertiti to trip a step. She swung to face them, stopping the entire party with a wave of her arm. “Did you say Calypsos?”
Marika seemed taken aback by the vehemence of her response. Under the steely-eyed gaze of the princess, she merely nodded and nudged Pindor, who also bobbed his head.
Jake didn’t bother explaining where he and Kady had come from.
Nefertiti stalked back over to them. “You say you’re from beyond our borders. No one has come through the Great Wind since before my great-great grandmother’s time. When we were still living in the great city of Ankh Tawy.” She pointed toward the strange, blurry horizon. “Those outlanders came to my ancestors and claimed that they, too, were from a cursed place named Calypsos.”
Marika found her voice again. “We are from Calypsos. And it’s not cursed.”
“Not cursed.” This earned a harsh laugh. Nefertiti’s face darkened. “It was those same outlanders who disturbed the sleeping Sphinx of Ankh Tawy. The monster woke and howled to the skies, casting the Great Wind down upon us. It blew us like pebbles into these blasted lands, exiling us forever from our true home.”
Jake didn’t understand what she was talking about, but it didn’t sound good for them. He was right.
“If you are from Calypsos, then you are evil. And such evil must be destroyed.” Nefertiti turned on a heel and strode away.
Jake and the others were prodded with spears at their backs. They were driven faster, harder. He stared around at the other Egyptians. Before, there had been mostly amusement on their faces. Now fear glinted, and outright hostility.
“Great,” Kady said, noting the same. “You all couldn’t just keep your mouths shut.”
By the time they reached the rocky pinnacle, the blistering sun had climbed directly overhead. Exhausted and worn-out, Jake swore that the temperature dropped fifty degrees as he stepped into the thin shadow of the peak. He glanced back the way they’d come. Sunlight scorched the desert. He imagined that hell was probably cooler.
The hike had taken over an hour. They’d been given water, and Jake was allowed to share his sunblock spray—until Princess Nefertiti snatched it away, sniffing at it with suspicion.
Despite the sunblock, he still felt like a burned French fry.
At the rock, an unusual sight greeted them. Two muscular black men, both wearing bronze slave collars, flanked a winding staircase that climbed the peak. Each held a leash attached to a calf-sized dinosaur. The four-legged beasts with tall, spiny fins sprouting from their backs like Chinese fans looked like Komodo dragons.
Dimetrodons, Jake realized, the carnivorous sail-backed dinosaurs from the Permian period.
Their handlers tugged the leashes as the pair hissed and slashed with their claws at the approaching group.
Nefertiti strode between the beasts as if they weren’t there. One of the slaves cast her a withering glance as she passed, but this was also missed.
Probably just as well.
A spindly limbed man came running down the steps to meet the princess at the lower landing. He wore a white, ankle-length tunic and had bangles of gold on his wrists.
“The Glory of the Dawn has returned to us!” he squeaked in a fawning voice. He bowed deeply, then straightened. “I saw your majestic approach from the sentry roost and ran all the way down to greet you.”
She swept him aside with an arm and set about climbing the stairs. “See to the prisoners, Ammon.”
Prisoners, Jake thought dourly. At least we’re no longer slaves.
Ammon stared over at them. His eyes, framed by black eyeliner, grew wider with shock at the sight of the newcomers. Apparently he’d not counted the number of people returning. He waved for the group to follow him, then scurried after Nefertiti.
“I also come with a message from the skymaster!” he called after the princess. “He received a message from the royal palace at Ka-Tor. Your father has woken from his great slumber. He calls for his daughters.”
Shocked, Nefertiti tripped and sprawled across the steps. Ammon rushed forward to help her. She would have none of it and shoved him away. Jake caught a glimpse of her face. For a moment, all haughtiness had vanished. She looked like any girl—both
scared and hopeful—then her expression hardened again.
“Father awakes! After two years! And you don’t tell me this from the start! Why didn’t you send a runner to me with the news?”
“Forgive me,” Ammon pleaded, bowing his head to the steps. “We just received word from the city. Only moments ago. Then I saw you coming and ran as fast as I could to bring you these glad tidings. Already the skymaster prepares his ships to sail back to Ka-Tor.”
Nefertiti turned away, her face starting to crumble again. She fled up the steps, her cloak billowing out like the wings of a hawk.
Ammon followed with a grumble under his breath now that he was out of earshot of the princess.
With spears still at their backs, Jake’s group was led up the steps. The stairs wound around and around the peak. The climb offered Jake a good view of the desert in all directions. It stretched endlessly, interrupted by more of the steeplelike pinnacles and ending at that hazy line at the horizon.
At last, the staircase disappeared into the mushroom cap of the peak. Tunnels had been burrowed through the raw rock. Slitlike windows let in sunlight, revealing chambers carved into the stone. A few men lounged about, wearing bits of leather and bronze armor. They carried javelins, swords, even a few bows made of horn and sinew. These men fell into step behind the group, clearing out of the place with the princess.
Jake stared around. This place must be some sort of temporary outpost … or maybe even a hunting lodge.
The party, growing larger as they went, continued higher and higher until at last they burst through the top of the peak. The sudden heat scorched any exposed skin. The brightness felt like a hammer blow between the eyes.
Jake stumbled a few steps, nearly blinded. He blinked away the glare and stared around at the flat summit of reddish black rock, as level as a landing pad.
And something had landed here.
Or at least almost.
Two large boats hovered a few feet off the rock, tethered in place with ropes. The crafts’ hulls looked as if they were constructed of densely woven straw. Jake knew the earliest Egyptians built their boats out of papyrus. These appeared to be similarly constructed, painted in bright stripes of crimson and blue. Even the shape—from the long, shallow keel to the upturned prow and stern—reminded Jake of the riverboat he’d seen back at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
But rather than a towering square sail, a huge black balloon floated above each boat. The material looked rubbery. Fires glowed below the opening at the bottom, keeping the air hot inside the hovering balloon.
Jake and the others were marched across the stones toward a ramp that led into one of the boats. Nefertiti had already vanished inside.
Kady dragged her feet. She wasn’t a fan of heights. “I’m not flying in that thing. It looks like it’s made of straw. I’ll fall straight out the bottom.”
Marika and Pindor looked no happier.
Bach’uuk hardly seemed to care. He kept staring toward the horizon. His focus drew Jake’s eyes out there. Again he noted that strange haziness blurring the horizon, making it hard to tell where the land ended and the sky began. Jake searched in all directions. It was the same everywhere.
Bach’uuk caught Jake’s eye. “The Great Wind.”
Before Jake could ask what that meant, the point of a spear poked his back.
“Get aboard the windrider,” one of their guards ordered. “We head to Ka-Tor. There you will learn your fate.”
Another of their captors laughed and prodded Jake sharply. “He really means to learn how you will die.”
10
UP AND AWAY
With a roar like a fiery dragon, flames shot into the open mouth of the balloon. The noise was nearly deafening. A barrel-chested man, as burly as a blacksmith, worked a set of bellows beneath the flaming copper funnel that was pointed up into the heart of the balloon. He would occasionally drop a reddish fruit into its furnace, causing the flames to belch higher. It was the same fruit that had been used to chase off the pack of raptors.
Must be some sort of combustible fuel source, Jake guessed.
He and the others were corralled atop the deck near the prow of the boat. Their shackles had finally been taken off. Leaning on spears, a few guards watched them lazily. Jake understood why they were so unconcerned. There was nowhere the prisoners could escape unless they wanted to leap to their deaths.
Jake did not.
For the moment, he simply watched in fascination. The heated balloon rose up in the air. The lines attaching it to the boat grew taut. Then Jake felt the boat rise, floating away from the pinnacle of rock. He remembered the conversation between Nefertiti and Ammon. They must be heading back to her city, a place called Ka-Tor.
But not everyone was thrilled by the upcoming journey.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Kady said as she stood by the rail.
Jake joined her. His friends spread to either side to watch the liftoff.
Marika stood next to Jake. “Amazing,” she said. Her hand reached to his and squeezed tightly—not in fear, but in excitement.
Pindor looked more like Kady: pale and ready to toss his cookies. Yet even in such terror, Jake’s Roman friend never stopped searching the ship’s deck. Jake knew who he was looking for. But Nefertiti remained below. They’d not seen the illustrious Glory of Dawn since being herded aboard the ship.
Slowly the windrider climbed into the sky, followed by the second ship.
As the pinnacle shrank below them, Bach’uuk leaned far over the rail and pointed below. “Look!”
Jake stared where his Ur friend pointed. A dozen men had stayed behind on the pinnacle. As Jake watched, one man leaped off the rock with a heavy pack strapped to his back. Others followed, all plummeting toward their deaths—then wings snapped open from the packs, springing wide.
The saillike wings caught the air, and the men zipped out over the desert. Like hang gliders, the wings sailed and rode thermals rising from the overheated land. Still, Jake didn’t think that the men would ever catch up with the pair of boats. The skyships had begun to rise faster and faster.
Jake was wrong.
Flames blasted out from the back of one of the hang gliders. The winged man shot skyward. The others followed in rough formation. They soon circled the pair of boats like sharks around a sinking ship.
But these ships weren’t sinking.
The boats sped higher.
A hearty shout rose from the stern. “Ready, men! We’re almost to the river! Ready the sails!”
Jake stared below and above. He saw no sign of a river under the ship. And where were the sails?
“Aye, Skymaster Horus!”
The shout came from all of the men gathered middeck. They scurried to obey, splitting into teams to take up positions near bronze cranks lined along the port and starboard sides of the ship
Jake frowned toward the skymaster. The tall Egyptian stood alone at the stern, dressed in a long tunic and cloak. Emblazoned on his cloak was the symbol for the Eye of Horus, the Egyptian god of the sky. It was also the captain’s name, quite fitting for a skymaster.
The captain’s hands gripped what looked like the handle of a giant rudder. “Here we go!” he bellowed.
The boat suddenly lurched under him as it was hit by a hard gust. Jake’s sister let out a high-pitched squeal (or maybe it was Pindor). Jake snatched the rail tightly. Marika bumped into him. Jake let go with one hand to catch her and hold her in place.
The stiff gust grew into a gale around them. Jake hunched with Marika against it. She smiled her thanks, which made his sunburned face grow even hotter. The wind blew steady and hard.
Must have reached some sort of jet stream, he realized.
Horus shouted, “We’re in it now, men! Hoist the sails!”
The men began cranking in unison, singing out to keep their rhythm.
Bach’uuk again pointed below, still leaning most of his body over the side. He plainly had no fear
of heights.
Below, massive wings opened to either side of the ship. They looked to be made of the same rubbery substance as the balloon, strutted and supported by ribs of bone.
Jake stared in awe. The ancient Egyptians had always been skilled boatmen, turning the Nile River into a lifeline for traffic and a source of food. Apparently these displaced Egyptians had found a new river to ride: a river of wind!
The wings unfurled to their widest. Cranks were locked into place. Skymaster Horus leaned hard on his rudder, and the skyship banked in that direction, gaining speed, racing over the desert.
The second ship trailed at a safe distance. The smaller skyriders flanked the crafts to either side, no longer needing their jets of flame. The stiff wind offered plenty of thrust to keep them aloft.
Jake found himself smiling as cool wind whipped his hair. He stared out at the passing desert floor, speckled with more rocky outcroppings. He spotted a herd of massive dinosaurs lumbering alongside a thin stream, as bright as silver against the golden sands and black rocks. He also spotted patches of dense trees centered on tiny oasis pools.
As he gazed beyond the rail, he wondered if his parents were out there somewhere, as lost as he was now. If so, the desert was far from hospitable.
Off in the distance, Jake spotted bursts of fire shooting up from the ground like flaming geysers. From this distance, it looked like a forest of flames.
He could only imagine how hot it was out there.
Closer at hand, a small village appeared below, barricaded and sitting atop a pancake-flat section of stone. The settlers must have found the place safer than building on the shifting sands, where all manner of nasty creatures could burrow under them.
Then, slowly, the village disappeared behind them.
“So what do you think of our lands?” someone asked.
Jake turned to find a wizened old man, his face more leather than skin. He had curly white hair as fluffy as a cloud, and his eyes twinkled blue. He wore a simple shift with as many pockets as Jake’s vest, stuffed with all sorts of strange tools.
Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx Page 7