Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx (32 page)

Jake had seen such an object before, back in the great Temple of Kukulkan. It had hung suspended in a similar chamber, rotating slowly in midair. It had glowed steadily, but Jake had felt a pulse burst out with each full spin. The crystal heart of Kukulkan had really been three spheres—
one inside the other—spinning in opposite directions: one spun left to right, the other right to left. The third spun from top to bottom. Atlantean letters had been carved across the surface of all three spheres and spun to form all manner of combination, like a crystal computer.

As Jake crossed the chamber, he saw those same letters here—but this heart had gone cold, dark, and lifeless.

As dead as the city.

The glow that drew them onward came instead from the floor. A giant triangle had been carved at the threshold to the archway. It was marked with cryptic arrows: one pointed left, another right, a third circled in on itself.

An icy blue crystal glowed in a corner, by the arrow pointing left, resting inside a bronze cup.

“The
third
timestone,” Marika said as they reached the far wall. “The sapphire one.”

The wisling slipped from around Jake's neck. Its wings blurred to a humming buzz as it snaked through the air and hovered over the sapphire, slowly circling the timestone,
studying it first with one eye, then with the other.

“What are we supposed to do?” Marika asked.

Jake stepped around the triangle, noting the empty bronze cups at the top and right edge. Plainly they were meant to hold the ruby and emerald timestones. The pattern was a match to his apprentice badge.

“I think we're supposed to return the emerald and ruby crystals here, to repair what's been broken,” Jake said.

But he wasn't sure. He turned to the others. Marika crossed her arms, worried. Bach'uuk simply shrugged. They were leaving the decision to him.

Moving to the top corner, he knelt and lowered his emerald stone toward the cup marked with the twisted arrow. The wisling sailed over to watch him, as if to make sure he took great care. When the crystal was a few inches from the empty cup, Jake felt a force pushing against him. He had to lean his shoulders, using both arms now, to try and force the emerald down into the bronze cup.

The wisling sped up to his face and hissed angrily.

“Not there,” Bach'uuk said with a shake of head. “Wrong corner.”

“Maybe he's right,” Marika said.

Jake stopped fighting the force and moved to the other corner of the triangle, the one with the arrow pointing right. He reached the crystal toward that cup, expecting the same resistance, but this time an unseen power snapped the emerald from his fingers and snagged it into place.

Jake rubbed his palm on his pants. The tug felt magnetic, and the ringing clang of crystal on metal sounded like a circuit closing. He stood and stepped back, then nodded to Bach'uuk.

“Try yours.”

His Ur friend moved to the top corner. He lowered the end of the staff toward the final cup. As the stone came close, a magnetic pull yanked the crystal from the staff and seated it firmly inside the third cup.

As that final circuit closed with a clang, they all fled back, not knowing what to expect. Even the wisling raced along with them, winging to hide behind Jake's shoulder.

A humming rose in the room. At first Jake wasn't sure if it was the snake's wings or something else. But as the sound grew louder, he knew it wasn't coming from the wisling. The glow of the three timestones became even brighter.

“Jake!” Marika said. “The heart!”

He looked up. The imbedded sphere above the archway had also begun to glow. For safety's sake, they took another few steps back. With a sandy grind of protest, the sphere began to turn—at first haltingly, them more smoothly. Soon it revealed three layers, turning in different directions, like a spinning gyroscope.

“We did it,” Marika exclaimed.

“But what have we done?” Jake asked.

“Listen.” Bach'uuk cocked his head.

Jake heard a soft pulse growing, felt it in his chest: a beat timed to each turn of the sphere. Like the crystal heart of Kukulkan. The sphere here had come to life. It was beating again.

But that wasn't what Bach'uuk was referring to. He had turned toward the exit. “Listen,” he said again. “The storm's howl.”

Jake couldn't hear anything—then realized that was exactly what Bach'uuk was talking about. The constant scream and moan of the sandstorm had died. Whatever they'd done had turned off the Great Wind. He had to see what that meant.

He hurried toward the tunnel with Bach'uuk in tow.

Marika stayed behind. She stared up at the spinning crystal heart. Its glow was so bright now that the metallic archway below looked like a churning silvery pool. Marika took a step closer to the wall.

“Jake …” she started, her voice curious.

“I'll be right back!” he said as he hit the tunnel heading up to the outside.

Jake and Bach'uuk raced back to the pyramid's opening, bright with moonlight. Reaching the open air, Jake stepped out onto the first step. From his perch, he stared beyond the city, searching the skies. The small patch of stars above Ankh Tawy had spread wider in all directions, stretching to the horizon. Past the broken walls of the city, a slight haze still clouded the desert, coming from small
particles of dust still suspended in the air. A few sparks of lightning popped and sizzled as the last of the storm's static energy dissipated.

But that was all.

The Great Wind had blown itself out.

“Jake …” Bach'uuk said, drawing back Jake's attention. His friend was not staring out—but
down
.

At the foot of the pyramid, movement drew his eye. The stone statues slowly shifted, at first almost too slowly to tell. Then the movement became more evident. Arms shifted, swords were raised. As Jake watched, color slowly returned to the guards as if some invisible hand were painting them stroke by stroke. As the color filled in, the movement grew fuller. Heads turned. One figure leaped down to the square.

“They're not stone,” Jake said.

“Time's river is unfreezing,” Bach'uuk said, recognizing the truth, too.

The warriors below hadn't been turned to stone but had simply been frozen in time, so thoroughly that flesh refused to move. Even sunlight must have been trapped by the spell, unable to reflect back color, turning all to a dark gray.

Jake understood. The spell of the ruby timestone wasn't one of petrifaction. It simply stopped time, freezing the assaulted so solidly that they appeared to be stone.

Hope surged as Jake pictured Kady, frozen into a gray
statue with a sword. Was the same resuscitation occurring to her right now?

But his hope was short-lived.

A trumpeting screech made him jump. It wasn't only the warriors who were coming back to life. As he stared, the Howling Sphinx slowly lowered its head, one black eye rolling toward Jake.

Below, cries of the wounded rose from thawing throats.

Warriors yelled.

Bach'uuk tugged Jake back toward the shelter of the pyramid as a battle—centuries old—restarted anew. A flash of fire drew his eyes to the west. Off in the distance, a blazing craft drifted up from the desert floor.

The royal barge.

It rose higher and higher, swinging toward the city. Even without a spyglass, Jake knew who captained that windrider. He pictured Kree standing at the prow, his middle eye blazing with black fire. With the Great Wind vanquished, nothing stood between Kalverum Rex and Ankh Tawy. Though it was centuries overdue, he intended to have his victory here.

As Jake fled back into the pyramid, he swore he could hear cold laughter flowing across the desert. Or maybe it was his own guilt.

What have I done
?

Jake's only hope was to reverse what he'd started. If he could get the Great Wind blowing again, he'd have some
chance. He could use the ruby crystal to refreeze the growing battle at the foot of the pyramid, returning all to what it had been.

But what then?

The people of Deshret would still be trapped, ruled by the black fist of the Skull King. He'd promised Nefertiti he'd help her people. But how? And what about Pindor? Was he a prisoner aboard that barge?

All these thoughts and questions, laced with bitter guilt, tumbled through him as he fled down the tunnel and back into the inner chamber. Another bellowing cry of the pteranodon chased after him, stronger and more potent. The sharper screams of warriors followed amid the cries of the dying.

Across the chamber, Marika swung around. “Jake!”

She stood in the middle of the triangle of timestones, bathed in the brilliance of Ankh Tawy's heart. The crystal sphere spun wildly above the metallic archway, blazing with light. Below it, the archway itself had turned into a shining mirror—reflecting the room, the triple glow of the timestones, even Marika's robed form.

He yelled to her as he ran. “Marika, take out the ruby stone! Now!”

She lifted her arms, confused. “But, Jake—!”

“Do it!”

Instead she stepped out of the triangle and pointed toward the mirrored archway. He didn't understand her
hesitation. No matter what she was trying to tell him, nothing else mattered for the moment. He had to get to those timestones and rip them out before it was too late.

Only steps from the triangle, he realized something odd.

The mirror in the archway continued to reflect the room, but Jake wasn't in it. In fact, a robed reflection continued to stand within the triangle, her back to the room—even though Marika stood off to the side.

Confusion drew him to stop.

The figure in the mirror turned, dressed in an Egyptian dress, her face painted beautifully.

“Jake,” the woman said, her voice full of love, her eyes shining with tears and astonishment.

Stunned, he fell to his knees at the impossibility of it.

“Mom …”

“You've gotten so big,” his mother said, stepping out of her triangle and coming forward.

Choking on tears, Jake struggled to his feet and rushed toward her—only to hit the mirror. He pressed his palms against the metal. His mother did the same, but they were unable to touch, separated by centuries. She was in the past, standing in the same spot, but hundreds of years ago. Still, Jake swore he could feel the heat of her palms through the cold metal.

He soaked in her every feature as if she were the sun and he was some starving plant: how her dark blond hair curled at her cheeks, how her blue eyes sparked when she smiled, how tiny sun freckles glowed through the tan of her skin.

In turn, she studied him just as deeply.

“How … how long has it been since we left you?” she asked, struggling to compose herself, to push back her shock.

“Three … three years,” he stammered out.

Her body sagged in disbelief mixed with a bone-deep sadness. “So long …” she mumbled breathlessly to herself. “What have we done?”

“I don't understand. Where's—?”

His words were cut off by the trumpeting screech of the pteranodon—but it didn't come from behind him. It echoed through the mirror from his mother's side. She glanced over her shoulder toward the exit of her pyramid's chamber. Jake heard screams and clashes behind him. The war that had started during her time was ending during his.

When his mother turned back, her eyes shone with concern.

“He's almost breached the last bastion. Cornelius's forces will not hold him back much longer. He's almost here.”

“Who?” Though Jake knew that answer.

“Kalverum,” she said, using the name in a frighteningly familiar manner. “He's come for the timestones and Thoth's mirror.”

Jake's palms still rested on that mirror. The Egyptian god Thoth was the deity of wisdom and
time
.

“The timestones are potent weapons,” she said, stepping back, speaking fast, glancing often toward the exit, judging how much time she had left before the Skull King's forces came storming inside. “I can't let him have them.”