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

by Christine Norris

  “None of you happens to have a rooster in their pocket, do you?” Rachel fumed. “Can’t we just once have something be simple?”

  From the shadows came the sound of something sliding across stone.

  Not sliding. Slithering. Megan felt her heart skip a beat, and then speed up. Oh. No.

  “Listen,” Claire said. The slithering echoed through the room. “It’s behind the walls. It might not know we’re even here. Let’s get the box and be gone before it does.”

  “There’s probably at least one booby trap between here and that box,” Diedrich said. “Besides, there’s got to be a way for it to get out here. The snake could still jump out and bite us, or spit its venom at us.”

  The slithering noise sounded much closer this time.

  “We’re going to die here.” Rachel choked back a sob.

  Megan was inclined to agree. I can’t see how we’re going to get out of here. If we leave now, we don’t get the book, which probably has the clue. And if we go for the book, we’ll probably get killed by the snake. This sucks.

  Claire cleared her throat. “No, we’re not. We’re going to do the best we can. Everyone just needs to pay attention to what’s around them. If you see something moving, look away.”

  Rachel’s voice squeaked—Megan heard the panic and fear behind it. “How can we?”

  Megan took a deep breath, reached for Diedrich’s hand. It was strong, warm and comforting. “We do it together, and we watch out for each other.”

  They started toward the far side of the room. Megan kept her eyes to the floor, but the view wasn’t pleasant. The torches revealed bones, large and small, sitting in piles and strewn across the floor. The leftovers of Basilisk’s Meals Past. It reminded her of the Minotaur’s cave, except it didn’t smell half as bad.

  “Something’s over there,” Rachel said. Her head was bowed, but her eyes were shifted to the right.

  Megan peeked. She shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t help it. A glint of something shiny—gold, or perhaps brass—leaning against the wall caught her eye.

  “What is it, do you think?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Claire said. “We need to keep on task.”

  Quiet as mice they continued across the room. The slithering stopped, and the only sound Megan heard was Diedrich’s breathing. She kept close to his side.

  They reached the other end of the room safely.

  “So much for booby traps,” Rachel said.

  “We’re not out of the woods yet,” Claire remarked. “We still have to get out—with the book.”

  “I’ll get the book,” Megan said.

  “No,” Diedrich said. “I’ll do it.”

  Megan shook her head. “I’m the Librarian. This is my job, okay? Just…let me. You guys back up, just in case.” If she managed to get the book, they’d be a step closer to getting home, and maybe Rachel would stop being mad at her.

  “In case of what?” Rachel said. “Oh wait, never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  Megan’s heart thundered in her ears as she reached out and grasped the handles on either side of the box. She tugged, but the box didn’t budge.

  “It’s too heavy, I can’t move it.”

  She felt Diedrich beside her.

  “I told you not to,” Megan said.

  “We’re all in this together. The only reason you’re in here is because of my father. So…let me.” He grabbed the handles, and the muscles in his forearms strained. There was a small grunt as he hoisted the box from its place.

  “I’ve got it,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Go out the same way we came in,” Claire said. “Seems safest.”

  They hadn’t yet turned away from the pedestal when they heard the slithering sound—this time extremely close. Megan couldn’t look up. She also couldn’t move. She was terrified.

  “Where is it?” Rachel whispered.

  “Can’t tell,” Diedrich said. “But this box is very heavy. We can’t stay—”

  There was a grinding sound as the pedestal sank into the floor.

  “Booby trap,” Claire said.

  “Thanks for the update,” Rachel replied.

  A door—a large door—slid open in the rear wall.

  “It’s coming! Run!” Claire yelled. “Keep your eyes down, and head for the exit.”

  They had no sooner turned around than one of the columns that supported the roof burst into a thousand pieces.

  Megan’s body was on autopilot. Her legs propelled her across the room. The rustling of the basilisk was right behind them. Rachel kept pace with Megan easily—they were in good shape from playing hockey. But Claire was much slower, and Diedrich carried the heavy chest, and they fell behind.

  “We have to do something.” Megan panted between breaths. “We have to help them.”

  “Distract it,” Rachel gasped. “Split its concentration.” She grabbed Megan’s wrist and pulled her to the left. They doubled back.

  Megan and Rachel ducked behind broken pieces of rock. The tail of the basilisk slithered past. This running-away thing is getting old. If it’s not a man with a big knife, it’s a giant snake with killer breath.

  “Head down.” Rachel jumped out of her hiding place and yelled.

  “Hey, over here—snake!”

  “Rachel,” Megan called. “Snakes don’t have ears.”

  “All right then, I’ll just have to get his attention another way.”

  Megan saw Rachel’s feet leave the floor—she jumped up and down on the floor, pounding her feet into the rock.

  The slithering stopped.

  “It’s coming back, Meg,” Rachel screamed. “Watch out!”

  There was a strange, terrible sound—like an angry roar. Megan saw a flash of golden, scaly hide. Another column at the front of the room crumbled in a shower of dust and falling rock. Rachel ran back to Megan and together they went to the very back of the room.

  “Make sure you stomp your feet,” Rachel said. “I want him to follow us.”

  They turned left and ran along the back wall. Megan grabbed one of the candlesticks from beside where the pedestal used to be and banged it on the floor, making a sound like a bell. The basilisk’s golden body made a wide circle as it turned to follow.

  Megan dropped the candlestick, and it made a racket as it hit the floor. She ran to the corner and cut it short. Heading back toward the front of the room, she pressed herself against one of the remaining columns. Her leg muscles were beginning to hurt. “We can’t run forever. We need to get back to the door.”

  “Claire, Diedrich, where are you?” Rachel shouted.

  Claire’s voice sounded far away. “We’re okay. Bring him back this way. Hurry.”

  “What? Are you nuts?”

  Diedrich answered. “Just do it.”

  “You’ve run farther during a hockey game,” Rachel scolded. “Come on.”

  Megan had to make it, no matter what her legs told her.

  Rachel darted toward the center of the room. Megan wiped the sweat from her forehead and followed. Up the center aisle, Megan on Rachel’s heels, they headed straight for the door. Diedrich and Claire were there. They held something large and shiny between them, and their faces were turned toward the wall.

  They were almost there. Megan felt the basilisk behind her. It was going to be close. The snake was going to have to come down to her level if it wanted to kill her. She wasn’t going to make it easy either—he was going to have to just eat her. She refused to turn her head and look at it.

  Burning pain shot through Megan’s leg. She stumbled and fell. She clutched her calf, and her first thought was the snake had shot its venom into her leg. She touched it, and found it whole. The muscle quivered and jumped. It was only a cramp.

  Megan had little time to rejoice. The basilisk was almost upon her. She stood, but when she put her full weight on the cramped leg, it buckled beneath her.

  “Megan! Come on, you can make it.” Rachel st
ood next to Claire, but her face was not turned away. She locked eyes with Megan. Megan forced herself forward. The pain seared up her leg, protesting the effort.

  She was only three feet away from Rachel’s outstretched hand when she slipped again.

  “Arghhh!”

  A high-pitched screech bounced off the stone and echoed around the room.

  Facedown on the floor, Megan laid her head against the cool stone and waited for the basilisk’s strike to come. She covered her ears and tensed her shoulders. Any second now, it would all be over. She thought about her father. How would he take losing another member of his family? She wished she could say goodbye, and she hoped, if nothing else, the monster would be so busy with her that her friends could get away and figure out how to get home.

  Bailey’s going to have to find a new Librarian.

  She heard yelling, and a thump.

  Then everything went silent.

  “Hey, Megan, you wanna get up off the floor?” Rachel said.

  Megan lifted her head. Rachel stood over her, beaming.

  “Would you like some help?”

  Megan rolled over. Diedrich and Claire stood on either side of her. In their hands they held a round, shiny, shallow bowl above her body like a shield.

  “Where did you find that?” Megan said, ecstatic to be alive.

  “It was the shiny thing against the wall that Claire said didn’t matter,” Rachel said.

  “Would you move, please?” Claire said. “My arms are burning, and I don’t think you want me to drop this on you.”

  Megan scooted out from beneath the bowl, and her friends let it fall to the floor with a resounding crash. Megan sat up and screamed.

  The basilisk lay on the floor, dead. It was a huge beast, easily twenty feet long and four feet thick in the middle. Its eyes, the same bright yellow shade as its skin, with black slits for pupils, were frozen open. The beasts’ mouth hung open, its long fangs dripping with thick, slimy venom.

  “It was bizarre,” Diedrich said. “That thing saw its own reflection and, well, dropped dead. Just like Claire said it would.”

  “It can’t hurt us now?” Megan’s whole body shook violently as the realization of how close she had come to death settled over her. Her stomach churned—if there were anything in it, she would have thrown it up.

  Diedrich sat next to her, put a reassuring arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “No, it can’t hurt us,” he said into her hair.

  Megan burst into tears, and immediately felt stupid for doing so. She wept like a baby, big choking sobs that wracked her body. I want to go home. Diedrich rocked her back and forth, and Claire and Rachel added themselves to the embrace.

  “It’s all right now, love,” Rachel whispered, and just like that, everything between them was okay again.

  “You were right. This is all your father’s fault,” Megan mumbled at Diedrich’s chest.

  “I’ll make him pay for it too. Don’t worry.”

  There was a rumbling above and around them, like an earthquake.

  “Great bloody snake took out most of the roof supports,” Rachel said. “I think it’s going to collapse.”

  Megan’s tears subsided and they rose from the floor. She still couldn’t walk well, although the cramp had relaxed. Rachel and Claire each took an arm, supported her, and helped her to the door. Diedrich collected the box they risked their lives for.

  It was single file back through the narrow corridor that led to the sanctuary. Megan braced herself against the walls, and Rachel kept a hand on her back to steady her. There were more rumblings, each one longer and louder than the last.

  “Can we please speed things up?” Rachel said. “Sorry, Meg, but I don’t want to be in this tiny space when that room back there crumbles.”

  They squeezed around the golden statue of Horus and emerged into the still-empty sanctuary. Rachel pushed the falcon’s beak straight, and the door swung shut. Not more than three seconds later, there was a mighty crash from behind the wall.

  Megan took a grateful breath of fresh air and slumped onto the floor. She rubbed her calf vigorously. The cramp was almost gone, but the muscle still throbbed.

  Diedrich set the box in front of her. “I think you’ve more than earned the right to open it.”

  Megan scooted forward. The box was not locked—only a simple turnkey stuck out from the front of the lid. She spun it around once and two latches sprung open. With a deep breath, she lifted the lid.

  A brilliant golden glimmer washed over her face. Megan reached inside and picked the book up and out of its case. It was three-ring bound with two hard covers engraved with hieroglyphs, like the black Book of the Dead. But the covers of this book were heavy, the pages made of polished gold, hammered almost to paper thinness. This wasn’t just a book—it was a work of art.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Rachel said. “Do you think it’s the real one?”

  Diedrich cocked an eyebrow. “Are you serious? I told you, this doesn’t really exist. Sir Gregory probably wrote it into the story based on the myth.”

  “Yeah, and Pandora’s Box isn’t real either, but I’ve seen it.” Megan ran her hands over the cover. It was cool to the touch, the tiny pictographs like a miniature landscape of hills and valleys. “And like the Pandora’s Box I found in the Minotaur’s cave, this is probably a copy. The real one might be in the vault back in the Library, or in its own book for all I know.” She pushed her hair back off of her forehead. “What does it say, Diedrich?”

  He bit the inside of his cheek and inspected the book’s front cover. “It’s a spell, to understand the language of animals.” He pointed to each hieroglyph as he read the spell aloud in Ancient Egyptian.

  “That’s not much help to us, now, is it,” Rachel said. “Where’s the bloody clue?”

  Megan flipped the book open and paged through the gold leaves. She couldn’t read any of it, of course, but something at the back caught her eye.

  “Wait a second, this looks promising.” The last page was not gold, but thick, soft papyrus. There were no hieroglyphs, only words written in elegant English script—Sir Gregory’s handwriting.

  “In the home of the queen who was called Goddess, she who held eternity in her hands—the path of death leads you to life.”

  “Could it be any more vague?” Rachel kicked a small rock, and it skittered and clattered across the floor.

  Megan tilted her head to one side. Something about the clue sounded familiar—it reminded her of something she had seen recently. She closed her eyes and knitted her brows, thinking. What was it?

  The answer hit her like a lightning bolt. “I know what this means.”

  She watched the eyes of her three companions grow wide. “How?” Claire said.

  Megan smiled. Ha! Claire isn’t the only one who remembers what she reads. “Because of the book that Mr. Hemmlich threw across the floor the night he was skulking around the upstairs library. The one I was looking at when you and Rachel found me the other day. It’s Queen Nefertari.”

  Diedrich smiled. “I think you’re right. Father said something about her in relation to the ankh, not long before we left for England. I blew him off, figured he was ranting again.”

  “There’s a painting on the inside of her tomb, with her holding the ankh. That’s probably why your father looked at that book in the first place. He might have thought Sir Gregory hid his notes about the ankh in there or something.”

  “And she’s the Queen that was called a goddess?” Claire said.

  “She was the wife of Rameses II, and he was totally devoted to her. At some temple, uh, Abu Simple—”

  “Abu Simbel,” Diedrich corrected.

  “Whatever. Anyway, there is a huge statue of Nefertari dressed as Hathor.”

  “That goodness-and-love chickie?” Rachel asked.

  “The book said Nefertari was also called the Wife of the Gods.” Megan sat back and smiled, happy to finally have a little control over the situation.
r />   Rachel’s face lit up as she put it all together. “Where is this temple?”

  “Abu Simbel,” Diedrich said, “is not far upriver. But we have to go the other way.”

  Megan’s shoulders slumped. What does he mean? She was so sure she knew the answer. “Wait a minute, why…?”

  Diedrich patted her on the shoulder. “You were almost right. The clue says ‘the path of death leads you to life.’ If we’re looking for Nefertari on the path of death, we have to go back to Thebes. To the Valley of the Queens.”

  “Please don’t tell me we have to break into someone’s tomb,” Rachel said.

  Diedrich nodded.

  “Figures.”

  Chapter Sixteen: Nefertari’s Secret

  “We shouldn’t have to actually break in.” Diedrich helped Megan to her feet. She slid the golden book inside the bag beside the Book of the Dead and hoisted the bag over her head and across her chest. It was heavy, but not uncomfortable. She put her arm around Diedrich’s waist, and he held her by the shoulders. Her leg felt almost normal, and she was able to keep up with her friends as they left the vacant temple.

  “I thought they were sealed,” Megan said. “Once the person was, um, put inside.”

  “It will be closed probably, but not sealed. The Egyptians were all about being comfortable in the afterlife. A queen as important as Nefertari would have servants to look after her and her tomb—make sure she had fresh food and such.”

  “Isn’t she dead?” Rachel said. “What use could she have for food?”

  “As I explained to Claire and Megan before we caught up with you, the Egyptians believed the souls of the dead walked around during the day, and returned to their tombs at night. The soul needed sustenance.”

  “These people were nuts.” Rachel shook her head. “Feeding dead people. Absolutely mad.”

  Diedrich boosted Megan onto her horse, made sure she was settled and went to his own mount, who gave a loud whinny. He froze, one foot in the stirrup. A strange look crept over his face.

  Megan looked around, thinking perhaps his father had found them again. Diedrich put his foot back down and stood beside his horse’s head. He put his ear close to the roan’s nose and listened. The horse shook his head and gave another loud whinny.