by Dan Hunter
With thanks to Adrian Bott
First published in the UK in 2012 by Usborne Publishing Ltd., Usborne House, 83–85 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8RT, England. www.usborne.com
Text copyright © Hothouse Fiction, 2012
Illustrations copyright © Usborne Publishing Ltd., 2012
Cover illustration by Jerry Paris. Inside illustrations by David Shephard. Map by Ian McNee
The name Usborne and the devices are Trade Marks of Usborne Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or used in any way except as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or loaned or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Epub ISBN 9781409554851
Kindle ISBN 9781409554868
Batch no. 02359/2
CONTENTS
Link to QUEST OF THE GODS TV advert
Copyright
The Prophecy of the Sphinx
Manu’s Map of Ancient Egypt
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Collect all of Akori’s quests
Quest of the Gods Website info
THE PROPHECY OF THE SPHINX
THE SPHINX AM I
GUARDIAN OF THE PYRAMIDS
KEEPER OF SECRETS
THE PAST I REMEMBER
THE PRESENT I SEE
THE FUTURE I FORETELL
WHEN THE PHARAOH SHALL DIE
AT THE HANDS OF HIS SON
A PLAGUE SHALL FALL UPON EGYPT
THE LORD OF STORMS WILL RISE AGAIN
THE GOOD GODS WILL BE CHAINED
AND MONSTERS WILL WALK THE LAND
THE SACRED RIVER SHALL SLOW AND DRY
THE SUN WILL SCORCH THE LAND LIKE FIRE
THE STREETS OF EGYPT SHALL RUN WITH BLOOD
BUT HOPE WILL COME FROM THE SOUTH
A HERO OF THE WHEATFIELDS
A KING WITHOUT A KINGDOM
THE LAST OF HIS FAMILY
A LOST CHILD OF HORUS
HE SHALL BATTLE THE MONSTERS TO FREE THE GODS
HE WILL CLAIM THE WHITE CROWN
HE WILL CLAIM THE RED CROWN
HE WILL RULE ALL EGYPT
THE SPHINX AM I
THESE SECRETS I SHARE
GUARD THEM WELL
It was early morning and the sun was rising. The guards patrolling the palace walls were already sweating in the Egyptian heat. But no natural light ever reached the private bedchamber of Oba the Pharaoh. The windows were shuttered and barred. The room was steeped in darkness. The only light came from a metal fire basket in its very centre, heaped with burning charcoal. It filled the room with a ghoulish glow, making the ornate fittings gleam red and causing hungry shadows to lick at the walls. The room was piled with riches and ornaments, all stolen from Oba’s own people.
The boy Pharaoh was as vain as he was wicked. Like all young Egyptian men, he scented his body with perfume. Hundreds of bottles and ointment pots glimmered on his dressing table. The room was suffocatingly hot, and the smell of myrrh was overpowering.
Oba lounged on a pyramid of embroidered cushions, looking down into the flames with the satisfaction of a tyrant looking down at a burning city. His cruel eyes gleamed in the firelight. Across the room from Oba’s couch, Bukhu the High Priest was walking back and forth, chewing on his knuckle. From time to time he looked as if he were about to speak, but then he would shake his head and keep walking. A servant girl, biting her lip to try to stop herself from shaking with fear, was kneeling in front of Oba and rubbing scented oil into his feet. Today the Pharaoh seemed to be in a good mood but that had not been a common sight lately.
“Sit down, Bukhu, you stalking ibis,” Oba eventually said to his High Priest. “Your constant pacing to and fro will ruin my beautiful floor.”
Bukhu stopped mid-stride. “Forgive me, My Pharaoh,” he said, “but am I not your most trusted advisor, and your truest friend?”
“Of course you are,” Oba said. “I shall execute anyone who says otherwise.”
“Well, I am troubled! This plan of yours is...” Bukhu paused, the words catching in his throat.
“Is what?” said Oba, with a slow smile that made the servant girl shudder. Silently, she wondered what his “plan” could be.
“It is reckless!” Bukhu burst out. “Reckless and foolish! Surely you can see that you are risking everything we have worked for?”
“Ah,” Oba said, with mock sadness. “Perhaps I should change my mind, then, and listen to my dear old friend Bukhu, who has always been so wise.”
“That would be for the best, My Pharaoh,” Bukhu said with a smile.
Oba narrowed his eyes. “No, it would not!” he shouted. “I have listened to you once too often, Bukhu! Always you come up with some clever plan, and tell me the same thing! ‘This time we will not fail’, you say to me! ‘This time we will kill Akori!’ You bring me powerful Gods, like Wadjet the Cobra Goddess, Nekhbet the Vulture Goddess and Sobek the Crocodile God, claiming they will finish him! And what happens?”
Bukhu was lost for words.
Oba leaped up and kicked the bottle from the servant girl’s hands. She ducked for cover as it shattered and a spray of oil flew into the fire basket. A great sheet of flame shot up. Bukhu cowered as Oba snarled at him.
“We fail every time,” Oba hissed. “Wadjet was defeated, Nekhbet was banished to the Underworld, and Sobek was turned into a baby crocodile no bigger than a newt! I took your advice, and where am I now? Worse off than when I started! The pretender to my throne has freed four of the five good Gods!”
“That is hardly my fault,” Bukhu blustered. “The help he has received—”
Oba spat on the floor. “Silence. I will listen to you no more, High Priest. From now on, I make my own plans. I will not let our Dark Lord Set down.”
Bukhu swallowed hard. “But the danger in your plan is so great—”
“Another word from you, and it will be your last,” Oba said. “You have work to do. Get out.”
Bukhu and the servant both hurried from the room.
Oba looked deep into the flames. The red light flickered in his eyes, as if he were a demon in Oba’s shape.
“Come forth from the fire, Lord of Darkness, mighty Set,” he whispered. “It is nearly time for our supreme victory! You have spoken to me many times from the smoke and the thunderclouds – now come to me in person!”
The embers trembled, heaped and spilled as a tall, dark shape began to rise from them. Two red animal eyes glared from the figure’s huge head, burning more fiercely than the fire. Foul stenches filled the air. Sulphur, and the stink of wild pigs.
Oba laughed in evil delight. “Welcome, mighty Set!”
“Pharaoh,” replied a voice as thick and dark as a bubbling tar pit. “What news of the pretender to your throne, Akori the farm boy? Is he dead?”
“Not yet,” Oba smi
rked. “But he will be soon! I have a plan...”
The trainee priest, Manu, looked anxiously into the leaping flames.
“Do you really think this is a good idea?” he asked.
Ebe, the slave girl, looked just as nervous. Akori was sitting with his two closest friends by the great fire at the heart of the Temple of Horus. Behind them, the old High Priest sat on a chair, his frail hands clasped together. There was nobody else around to disturb them, for the other priests had all been sent away on duties. That was for their own sake as much as Akori’s. What Akori was about to try could go badly wrong.
“We have to try!” Akori answered. “If Horus could still contact me on his own, he would have done so by now. I have to try to contact him.”
“I say we wait a little longer,” Manu said with a worried frown.
“He’s not contacted me since we freed Sekhmet,” Akori reminded him. “It’s been almost a week. He’s never been silent for this long before.” Akori turned to the blind High Priest, who was nodding gravely.
“For all you know, he might appear in the next five minutes!” said Manu.
“But what if he doesn’t?” Akori replied. “We can’t sit and wait for ever, just hoping!”
Akori felt Ebe reach up to touch the falcon-shaped birthmark on his arm. Although Ebe was unable to speak, her eyes showed courage. Akori knew she was agreeing with him. He had to try and summon Horus.
Manu let out a sigh. “You’re right. If Set really has broken Horus’s power to reach you, then we can’t bury our heads in the sand about it. I just wish it didn’t have to be in the fire, that’s all.”
“Horus appeared in the fire last time, so it makes sense to try the fire again,” Akori explained. “It might make it easier for him.”
Akori remembered the last time Horus had appeared to him in the flames. The noble God had been exhausted, almost unable to speak at all. Now that the four other good Gods had been freed, passing on their magical gifts to Akori in gratitude, he was finally ready to free the leader of the good Gods, Horus himself. But how could he do that if he wasn’t able to find him?
Akori took a deep breath and laid his hand on his birthmark. “Mighty Horus, Avenger, Lord of Light,” he prayed, “please hear me! It is I, Akori, your Chosen One!”
Nothing happened, and Akori felt bitter disappointment creeping over him.
“See, I told you we ought to wait,” Manu said. “Why don’t we—”
But then, all at once, the flames rushed together, causing Manu to jump in fright. The radiant figure of a man appeared in the heart of the fire, a man with the powerful muscles of a warrior and the head of a hawk.
Akori bowed his head, Manu fell to one knee, and Ebe clapped excitedly. Horus had heard Akori’s call!
But as the image grew clearer, they saw something terrible. Horus’s body was hanging limp, held up by seething black energies that swirled and clutched like enchanted snakes. Horus struggled in their grasp. He lunged forward, one arm upraised, reaching out to Akori, but the living darkness held him back.
Akori, Manu and Ebe looked at one another in horror. What they had feared was true, and it was even worse than they had imagined. Horus seemed to have lost all of his power.
“My Lord!” Akori called desperately. “Tell me where to find you!”
Horus opened his beaked mouth to speak, but a writhing tentacle of darkness wound itself around his face. His words were lost.
Enraged, Akori reached for his golden khopesh sword, the magical gift from Horus that could cut through any material. He would slice that black tentacle in half!
But Manu placed a hand on Akori’s arm to stop him. “It’s only a vision, Akori – you can’t help him from here!”
Horus made a fresh attempt to escape the black energies, tearing and straining with all his might, but Akori could see he was too weak. As Horus sagged back, the flames in the hearth leaped wildly for a moment, dazzling everyone.
When the flames died down again, the figure of Horus was gone. In its place was a huge snout-faced head, eyes glinting with rage.
“Oh no!” Manu cried.
Ebe let out a strange hiss of terror, and dived behind a bench.
Akori gripped his sword, feeling a deep dread in the pit of his stomach.
After all of his battles to free the good Gods, he was finally face-to-face with their captor, Set, the Lord of Darkness.
“As you can see,” Set gloated, “my guest is in no condition to talk to his Chosen One.” He laughed like a braying ass. “And what a Chosen One you are, farm boy! You dare to challenge me, with dung and straw still in your hair?”
Akori had thought a hundred times about what he would say to Set when he finally saw him, but the sight of Set’s hideous face made his throat close up in fear and he could not say a word. All at once, it seemed Set was right. He felt just like a stupid, useless farm boy, and he wanted to turn and run away without ever looking back.
Akori clenched his jaw hard. He would not let Set see he was scared. Reaching deep within himself, he searched for the courage he needed.
“Yes!” he yelled. “I do challenge you, swine-face! I beat your servants, didn’t I? Every single last one! Wadjet, Am-Heh, Sobek, Heket and Nekhbet! And I’ll beat you just the same!”
Set sneered. “You were lucky for a short time. But now your luck has run out. Run back to your fields, boy. You dare not face me.”
Akori strode towards the edge of the flames, determined to answer Set’s threat. He swallowed down his fear once more and looked the terrible beast-face right in the eyes. “Oh yes I do!” But his defiance had made him reckless…
“Akori, look out!” Manu yelled.
Jets of fire blasted from Set’s nostrils. Akori dived to one side, avoiding the stream of flames by a whisker. Searing, painful heat reddened his arm. Ebe gave a moan.
Set’s hee-hawing laughter echoed through the hall.
Fighting to keep his shock and pain hidden, Akori yelled, “Tell me where you have imprisoned Horus!”
Set laughed even harder. “Very well! If you had more wit than a dung beetle, you would have worked it out for yourself! The weakling God Horus is trapped deep within the dungeons of my own sacred place.”
“The Temple of Set!” Manu whispered, obviously terrified.
“Indeed, little priest,” said Set. “Though it will soon have a new name – the Tomb of the Farm Boy!”
Set roared with menacing laughter. The flames surged as if they were laughing too. Then the laughter and the image faded away together, leaving only silence.
Akori gulped as Set’s words continued to echo in his ears. Was he really about to die after everything he had been through?
Akori’s heart was beating fast and his bones felt as if they had turned to jelly. Ebe fetched a pail of water, dipped a rag in it and began wrapping it around his injured arm. It throbbed where the flame had scorched his skin but Akori didn’t let the pain show. Instead, he forced out a laugh. “I can’t see what everyone’s so afraid of...” His voice trailed off. The High Priest was shaking his head, an expression of deep sorrow etched on his face.
“You are not speaking from the heart, Akori,” he said. “Do you think your friends cannot tell? You are afraid to be afraid, and so you act brazenly. That is not wise of you.”
“But I have to stand up to Set!” Akori insisted.
“Yes, but be brave, not stupid! Control your hot head!” The blind High Priest stood, shaking his staff in Akori’s direction. “Set is a force of evil as old as the universe, and he is cunning! Through his trickery he was able to murder Horus’s own father, Osiris – the legends have told this. You must not let him trick you into doing something reckless. Did you not see how easily he taunted you?”
“But I—”
“He provoked you into losing your temper, and nearly burned you to a cinder! If Manu had not seen what Set was trying to do and warned you in time, you would be dead now!”
“Thanks, Manu,” Akori
said, taking the High Priest’s words to heart. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
Manu just nodded. He was sitting white-faced, still staring at the flames where Set had been only moments before. Ebe’s hands were trembling as she bandaged Akori’s arm. Akori knew they were just as shaken as he was. None of them had been prepared for Set’s appearance. He promised himself he would be braver than ever before. Not just for himself, but for his friends too.
“True bravery does not mean denying your fear,” said the High Priest, as if he had read Akori’s thoughts. “Only a fool or a madman would not be afraid in the presence of Set.”
“Then...what do I do?”
“A brave man,” the High Priest said simply, “is one who accepts his fear without allowing it to master him. You have to focus on what you need to do rather than worry about what might happen.”
Akori nodded and tried to imagine himself freeing Horus from Set’s power. He had a sudden thought. “High Priest, when the vision of Horus has appeared to us before, there have been strange black energies holding him back. Do you know what they might be?”
“Spirits of the Underworld,” the High Priest replied solemnly. “Lesser demons who serve Set. They hold Horus prisoner and drain his strength, like leeches. At first, he would have been able to resist them, but even Horus does not have endless power. The weaker he becomes, the more they can feast upon him.”
Akori was aghast. “Do they...hurt?”
The High Priest’s face creased in sorrow. “I will not lie to you, Akori. I believe Horus is in great pain.”
The thought filled Akori with cold rage. It was bad enough imagining the mighty God Horus trapped like a broken-winged bird, but the thought of him in pain was almost too much to bear.
Manu had once told Akori how the very first Pharaoh had had to choose between Horus, who offered wisdom, and Set, who offered power. The Pharaoh had chosen Horus and rejected Set, who had been cast out. Now Set was enjoying a revenge that had been many centuries in the making. Akori clenched his fists. Well, not any more. Akori was going to put a stop to Set’s evil ways once and for all.
“We’re leaving for the Temple of Set as soon as we can,” he announced. “Where is it, Manu?”