The Ankh of Isis: The Library of Athena, Book 2

by Christine Norris

  “Before we go any farther,” Megan said. “We should take a look at that clue and figure out where we have to go next.”

  Diedrich reached into the bag, which was tied to his saddle, and pulled out the wooden scarab. He flipped it over and tilted it until the letters scratched into the bottom caught the scant light.

  “Avenging son quells evil’s wrath, the Eye of the Raptor shows the path. Wisdom’s book is what you seek.”

  Rachel groaned. “It’s not a very good poem. More like a haiku. What the bloody hell does it mean?”

  “Only so much fits on the bottom of a scarab,” Megan reasoned. “And if we knew what it meant it wouldn’t be much of a challenge, would it?”

  “No, but our lives would be far easier.”

  Megan shook her head at Rachel. “Diedrich, you’ve led us this far. Any ideas?” She had learned through experience how to deal with the fact she didn’t always understand the clues. Everyone had their something they were good at, and she wasn’t good at this. Relying on her friends didn’t make her weak or stupid.

  Diedrich shook his head. “I can guess, but I’m not positive. The avenging son might be Horus.”

  “And just who was he?” Rachel said.

  Diedrich looked at the stars, as if the answer were written among them. “He was Osiris’s son, but only a baby when his father was killed. I think the story goes that Osiris’s spirit visited him while he was a child and Horus killed Set when he grew up. Cut off his head or something.”

  “Why must every one of these stories be so gross?” Megan asked.

  Diedrich stared at the scarab. “I’m trying to remember. There was something about a God who helped Horus.”

  “Can we move this along?” Rachel said. “Who knows how long your dad is going to be unconscious.”

  Megan pulled her lips in tight and narrowed her eyes.

  Rachel shrugged. “What?”

  “Could you chill, for just a minute?”

  Rachel’s mouth fell open, and Megan could hardly believe she spoke to her best friend like that. “Badgering him won’t help. It’s okay, Diedrich, take your time.”

  Rachel glared at Megan briefly, and then looked away. “Yeah, sorry, Miss Librarian. I’m a little on edge. Can’t imagine why.”

  Her attitude toward Megan stung. “That was mean.”

  Rachel shrugged, but said nothing.

  Diedrich leaned against the flank of his horse and smacked himself on the top of his head. “Think, think.”

  “Come on, come on,” Rachel muttered, with a nervous glance behind them. “Please.”

  His head popped up. “I know where we have to go. Come on, we’ve got a ride ahead of us.”

  The sun came up as they rode out of the city and into the fields and farmland that surrounded it. With Byblos miles behind them, Diedrich started talking.

  “I remember the whole story now. Once Horus was old enough to avenge his father’s death, he sought out Thoth, the God of Wisdom. Horus asked to look into Thoth’s eyes, for it was said that one could see the future there. Set saw what Horus was about to do, and changed himself into a black boar. The boar distracted Horus, and his eye was burned out.”

  “Ouch,” Rachel said. “So what’s the rest of the story?”

  “Thoth put him into a dark room and cared for him for three days. His eye, the eye of Horus, is a symbol of protection to the Egyptians. There’s even some mathematical equation that goes along with it. It’s all very scientific.”

  “But the clue said the Eye of the Raptor,” Claire said. “Not the eye of the son.”

  “Ah, but Horus is represented by a falcon-headed man, or sometimes just a falcon,” Diedrich said.

  “And a falcon is a raptor?” Megan said.

  “Yes,” Rachel said, with a bit of attitude. “You know, a bird of prey?”

  “I’m not the birdwatcher,” Megan said. Why is she still mad at me? I apologized for snapping at her twice already!

  “Where does all this lead?” Rachel asked. “And what’s this book of wisdom that we’re supposed to be seeking?”

  “I’m just guessing here,” Diedrich said. “But there’s a temple dedicated to Horus, at Edfu. It’s along the west bank of the Nile, south of Thebes. If we keep a good pace, don’t lose our way and cut cross-country, we should be there by nightfall. We’ll have to find someone to take us across the river.”

  He sighed. “As far as the book is concerned, it could be the Book of Thoth. It’s like the Book of the Dead, but made of gold. It’s filled with spells used to enchant the heaven and earth, and to learn the language of the birds and beasts.”

  “What makes you think that’s the book we’re looking for?” Megan asked.

  He shrugged. “Thoth’s the God of Wisdom, remember? It’s the best I could come up with. I’m probably not right anyway. The book is a myth—it doesn’t exist.”

  Megan clucked to her horse and sped up. “Haven’t you learned yet? In Sir Gregory’s world, Diedrich, nothing is a myth.”

  Twilight settled over Edfu. Four horses clopped along the streets, which glistened after a short shower that passed through a short while before. It had been a long, hot journey from Byblos. In Thebes, they stopped to rest the horses and get some food. Thebes was a huge city, crowded, filled with people off all races and from all places; no one bothered them or gave them strange looks like they had in Byblos.

  They kept an eye out for Josef Hemmlich, knowing he would follow them, and try as they might to blend in, the four of them stuck out. They would have to try extra hard to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

  Rachel traded her necklace to the owner of a pole barge to get them across the Nile.

  “It’s not like it’s actually mine,” she said to Megan as she handed over the lapis and turquoise collar. “I won’t miss it.” Once across, they rode south.

  At Diedrich’s suggestion, they stayed outside of Edfu proper until nearly dark. Edfu was smaller than Thebes, and they would be more easily seen. They would wait until they could slip inside the temple unnoticed.

  The temple stood high above the city, with its two flat-topped, rhomboid-shaped pylons that reached into the velvet twilight sky. Megan was awestruck by the size of it. It was easily fifteen stories, the size of a small skyscraper and sand-colored.

  “How did the Egyptians build something so big without any machines,” she said.

  “Very slowly,” Diedrich said. “Although there are about as many theories about the exact method as there are stars in the sky. My father told me most scientists think the Great Pyramid at Giza took over twenty years to complete.”

  “Twenty bloody years?” Rachel said, aghast. “Talk about job security.”

  Claire pushed her glasses up her nose. ““Actually, it was mostly slave labor that built them. So, yes there was job security, but it wasn’t like they were paid. There was also a good chance you could die in the process.”

  Rachel shuddered. “I’m so very glad I live in the twenty-first century.”

  Shallow bowls of flaming oil stood on either side of the temple steps to light their way. Megan, Claire, Diedrich and Rachel dismounted and climbed the stairs to the huge front doors. No one was there. On the other side of the door was an open-air colonnaded courtyard, lit only by the stars and moon. At the opposite end was a tall stone statue of a falcon.

  “We need to find that book,” Megan whispered. Although they were out in the open, and no one else was around, the temple exuded an air of mystery. The shadows seemed to whisper secrets of the ancient world. She didn’t want to disturb whatever it was that lived here.

  Claire must have been thinking the same thing, because she whispered back. “Remember the treasury in the Parthenon? This temple might also have a place where they keep all their treasures and sacred objects, I should think. We need to look there first.”

  Holding hands, they walked across the courtyard and found a door at the far end, behind the falcon statue. Inside was a room supported by
smooth, round columns with tops that were carved to look like lotus blossoms. It was wider than it was long, and empty.

  “This is one of the hypostyle halls,” Diedrich said. “I don’t remember what it’s used for, just the name.”

  “Fabulous,” Rachel snapped. “Let me get you a little flag and you can lead this tour.”

  “Sorry,” Diedrich said. “I just thought you might be interested.”

  “The only thing I’m interested in is going home, thanks.” Rachel’s shoulders drooped and she closed her eyes. “Geez, sorry, I tend to bite people’s heads off when I’m nervous. It’s a defense mechanism. This place is quite eerie. Makes my skin crawl.”

  There was a second hypostyle hall on the other side of the first. Three doors led from the hall—one directly across from the columns, and one on each end. Megan opened the one on the left and found a library. This one wasn’t like any library she had been in before. Instead of shelves, hundreds of small cubicles lined the walls. Scrolls, rolled tightly, were stuffed inside each one. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of pages. The Library of Athena held cubby-hole shelves just like these, but on a much smaller scale. Bailey mentioned once that the scrolls were from some library in Alexandria.

  Megan wondered what was written on these. Carefully she pulled one out and unrolled it. Rows of tiny pictograms covered the page. She rolled it back up and put it in its place.

  Rachel stuck her head in the room on the other end and reported it was nothing more than a storeroom.

  Through the third door was a small room Diedrich said was a vestibule. The walls here were inscribed with the story of Horus and Hathor, Horus’s wife and the Egyptian Goddess of Goodness and Love.

  “Why couldn’t we be looking for something of hers?” Rachel said. “Goodness and love sounds like a lot more fun than this.”

  They passed through a second vestibule, where there were more hieroglyphs. “I wonder where all the priests are,” Diedrich said. “I didn’t think they left the temple at night.”

  “Maybe they sleep somewhere else,” Megan said. “Like in a dormitory or something.”

  The next room was large and square. The sanctuary. Lit braziers, hung from the ceiling, painted the walls with an eerie pattern of light and shadow. A brass branch of four candles, all lit, stood inside the door. The right-hand wall, like the vestibule, was covered by a series of drawings.

  Set into the back wall, which was made of polished granite instead of sand-colored stone, was an alcove as tall as Megan and three feet wide. The outer edge was decorated with small hieroglyphs carved in the stone. In front of the recess sat another statue of Horus, this one made of gold.

  “Okay, no book in here,” Rachel said. “Now what?”

  “Look,” Megan said. Directly above the alcove, a large, colorful eye was painted onto the wall. Megan had seen it before, in textbooks and on Web sites about Egypt. “Is that the Eye of Horus?”

  Diedrich nodded. “The eye of the Raptor. The clue said it guards the path. We just have to figure out which way it’s leading us.” He turned from the niche and studied the painted wall. “I think we have a problem.”

  “That’s not new.” Rachel left the statue and stood next to Diedrich. “What kind of problem?”

  He pointed to the drawings. “This says that in order to get the book, we have to defeat the monster that guards it.”

  “Do you know what the monster is?” Megan asked.

  Diedrich shook his head. “But that’s not our only problem. I’ve been thinking about the Book of Thoth itself.”

  “I thought it was a myth,” Claire said.

  “Yeah, it is. There’s an obscure story that surrounds it, that says the book is kept in an iron box and guarded by a snake that cannot die.” He ran a hand over part of the painting. “According to this, Sir Gregory’s taken that story to heart.”

  Megan put a hand on her hip, and the other she ran through her hair. “So we have to kill a snake that can’t die, to get a book that doesn’t exist.” She slapped herself in the leg, annoyed. “This sucks. Once again, time to try and avoid death. La, la, la. Who thinks this stuff up? Fine. We might as well get started.”

  “First we have to find the path.” Diedrich looked around the perimeter of the room. He pushed in various places on the wall with the hieroglyphs, but it didn’t budge. He went around the room, pushing and pulling on things.

  Something tugged at Megan’s thoughts. She pulled the scarab out of the bag, and put the bag on the floor.

  “The eye is here,” she pointed at it, above the recess. “So I’m thinking wherever we have to go is here too.”

  “Isn’t that kind of obvious?” Diedrich said.

  Megan pursed her lips. “Well, yes, obvious to where the path is, but not how to get in.”

  Rachel sighed. “This is unbearable. My brain hurts.” In her most dramatic way, she gave another sigh and leaned her arm on Horus’s golden beak, her forehead on her arm.

  There was a click, and the great bird’s beak dropped. Behind it, the back of the granite niche swung inward.

  “Brilliant,” Claire said.

  “Clever girl.” Megan mussed Rachel’s hair. She swatted Megan’s hand away, like it was a gnat.

  So-rry. Sheesh. What’s gotten into her, anyway? She should have forgotten all about our teeny, tiny fight by now.

  Diedrich stuck his head inside the opening and pulled it back out.

  “What’s it look like in there, Diedrich?” Megan said.

  “Dark.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Behind the door was a long, narrow hallway made of rough-hewn gray stone. Diedrich took the lead, lighting the way with one of the candles from the stand in the sanctuary. Rachel and Claire were next, and Megan took the rear with another candle.

  Her hands shook, and her mouth was dry. She hated small, cramped spaces, but on top of that, she was afraid. She had faced monsters before. A Gorgon who could turn a person to stone, Cetus the sea monster, the Minotaur, who ate people sent as a sacrifice, and a Sphinx, who had threatened to kill them if they didn’t answer her three riddles correctly.

  Megan’s friends had known how to beat those, at least in theory, because they knew their stories. But this? A snake that could not die? That was a different thing altogether. She watched the back of Claire’s head bob along ahead of her. Claire was smart, possibly the most book-smart person she knew. Rachel had street-smarts, and she was quick on her feet. And Diedrich had turned out to be incredibly brave, much braver than she could be. Megan trusted them, even with her life.

  She hoped one of them knew how to defeat this monster, or they all could die.

  Chapter Fifteen: The Book of Thoth

  At the end of the passage, they walked into a dark chamber forty feet wide and sixty feet long. The rough, flat ceiling was held up by six plain stone columns. It was dark and shadowy, and the air was cool and damp. Somewhere nearby water dripped. A shiver ran up Megan’s spine, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. A few torches burned, and Megan wondered who had come down here to light them. At the far end, on a carved stone pedestal surrounded by tall brass candlesticks, was a box.

  “Well, this certainly has the creepy thing going for it, but I don’t see a monster,” Megan said. “Maybe he’s sleeping?”

  “There’s the box,” Rachel said. “I’ll just run over there and nip it and we can be off.”

  “Don’t move,” Claire said. “Keep your eyes on the floor. Whatever you do, don’t look up.”

  “Uh, Claire, we sort of need to see where we’re going,” Rachel said.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Claire said slowly, “and I think there’s a basilisk in here, guarding that book.”

  “A what-a-lisk?” Megan asked. How does she know all this stuff? I can’t even remember what homework is due when half the time! She was often in awe of Claire’s ability to remember the tiniest details of things they learned in class.

  The school-teacher tone in Cl
aire’s voice came through loud and clear. “A basilisk. The basilisk is a creature found in the myths of many ancient cultures. There are many different descriptions of what it actually looks like, but most agree that it’s a hooded snake of some size. A few scholars believe the basilisk is nothing more than an exaggeration of the Egyptian cobra.”

  “Sounds pretty stupid to me,” Rachel said. “Cobras are real.”

  “Yes, but the basilisk has many of the same characteristics. It’s been described as having a white mark on its head, and a hood, and it’s supposed to spit deadly venom, just like a cobra. But a basilisk is only born from a spherical egg laid by a seven-year-old cock during the time when Sirius the Dog Star is in the sky, and hatched by a snake or a toad.”

  Rachel laughed—it echoed around the chamber, and she put one hand over her mouth until the giggles subsided. “So that exhibit at the London Zoo is empty then?”

  “Rachel, I’m serious,” Claire retorted. “As I was saying. A basilisk’s breath can break rock, and it can kill with just a glance.”

  “And I thought our English professor had bad breath,” Megan knew their situation was serious, but, like Rachel, she needed something to break the terrific tension she felt growing in the pit of her stomach.

  “So how do we kill it?” Diedrich glanced around the chamber. “If it can sneak up and kill us, how can we kill it?”

  Claire continued. “I’m not sure, exactly. As far as I remember, only two things can kill a basilisk—the crowing of a cock, and its own reflection. If it sees itself, it will scare itself to death. We can’t look at the reflection though. We won’t die, but something bad will happen, I think.”

  “What do you mean, you think?” Megan said.

  “I’m not positive. I don’t remember. There are so many different stories. I never thought I would actually have to face one. ”

  “Can I ask where in the world you read about basilisks?” Rachel said.

  “I was bored one Saturday and I did an Internet search of mythical creatures. It was after our last little trip. There are some fascinating beasts. I found a listing of them and basilisk was one of the more interesting ones.”