“What’s happening to her?” screamed Iole, prying a rock loose from the entryway to the chamber.

  “I don’t know!” cried Homer, pacing again rapidly back and forth. “Something’s making her move like that. Usually people . . . prisoners and stuff . . . don’t have to be told, they just kneel and pray before they’re killed. But she doesn’t know the custom, so something’s making her do it anyway.”

  “They pray?” cried Alcie, now hitting the barrier with her pouch while Iole was smashing it with a rock and Dido was pawing at the ground, trying to tunnel underneath.

  “They want to be safe in the realm of the dead! I don’t know. It’s just what I learned at . . .”

  “Gladiator school!” they all cried together.

  Suddenly Iole stood very still and looked straight up.

  “Homer—put me on Alcie’s shoulders!”

  “Huh?”

  “Put me on Alcie’s shoulders!” said Iole again. “I want to see how high this wall goes. Maybe that thing out there didn’t make the wall quite as high as it should have. If I can get over, I’m gonna try to get around behind the eye . . . and . . . disturb it . . . distract it somehow. Maybe it will be enough to rescue Pandy.”

  “Or send us into a fiery death,” said Alcie.

  “Yes, fine! Maybe! Whatever! Homer, now . . . please?” said Iole, looking at Homer, who was staring at Pandy flopping wildly.

  “Oh . . . yeah, got it,” he said, turning back.

  Over and over, Pandy was being forced by some power to bow and scrape. With each thrust forward, her face was scratched by shards of bone and small rocks. She lost track of how many times she bowed; lost track of time, lost track of her friends. She tried to keep her eyes open, but the alternating between light and dark made her nauseated. She was on the verge of passing out when, suddenly, the flopping stopped. She was bent over forward and her legs shot out from underneath. Lying facedown in the dirt, her mouth filling with dust, her body was as inflexible as a piece of marble. The chanting, she realized, had never ceased. But now it had altered. It didn’t matter, because she still had no idea what it meant.

  And then she was off the floor.

  She felt herself lifted into the air, her limbs now limp and dangling. She was being raised as if she were on an invisible platform. Pandy opened her eyes and saw the ground fading away. She didn’t think to scream, but she was vaguely aware of her stomach making small gurgling noises. She drifted past the skeletons hanging on the poles, rising above them and seeing just how sharp and fine the pole points were. Now she saw the entire chamber. In the dim light, surrounded by long-unused oil lamps, were enormous colored murals on three of the walls. Strange figures with arms at sharp angles seemed to be walking in a line toward a large figure seated on a chair. Their hands held plates of food stacked like little pyramids. There were hundreds of bizarre bird profiles and dozens of eyes, including a symbol that resembled the terrible eye now far below her.

  Suddenly she was being pushed backward. She looked underneath her as best she could.

  “Oh no!” she cried.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Aloft

  5:11 p.m.

  “I can’t even stand up straight as it is. How am I gonna carry—oof,” said Alcie, as Homer, as if he were picking up a kitten, scooped Iole off the ground and sat her square on Alcie’s shoulders.

  “Now, Homer, put Alcie—”

  “I know, I know. I’m not . . . like . . . totally without brains, okay?” said Homer, who lifted Alcie by her knees and placed her two left feet on his shoulders. He locked his hands around the backs of her knees to hold her in place.

  “Now walk forward slowly,” said Iole, her arms in front of her.

  Homer inched his way toward the invisible wall, balancing the two girls as if they were a basket of feathers on top of his head.

  “I’m not even gonna ask where you learned to do this,” said Alcie, her arms tightly gripping Iole’s legs.

  “Take a guess,” said Homer, stepping forward on his right foot. “Ow!” he cried, “I hit something . . . and I stubbed my toe.”

  “Oh, puh-leeze,” said Alcie.

  “Did you hit the wall?” asked Iole.

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s there! It’s right in front of me,” said Alcie, extending her hand.

  “I don’t feel anything,” said Iole, excitedly, wiggling her fingers. “I’ve got nothing up here! It doesn’t go all the way up!”

  She felt around the space in front of her, finally locating the top of the invisible wall. From touching it at every possible angle, she determined that it was about one meter in width; enough room to sit on comfortably before she dropped to the other side.

  “Okay, I’m going over!” Iole said, pulling herself onto the wall and accidentally kneeing Alcie in the neck.

  “Ow! Apricots. Wait!”

  “Yeah, wait,” said Homer.

  “Why?” Iole asked.

  Homer and Alcie paused.

  “I’ve got nothing,” said Alcie.

  “Me neither,” replied Homer.

  “I’m gone!” and Iole sat on the wall for only a moment before she lowered herself down, coming face-to-face with Alcie on the other side. Their eyes locked and Iole saw Alcie mouth the words, “good luck.” But knowing Alcie, Iole thought, she probably yelled it at the top of her lungs.

  “So,” Iole mused, “the wall is a sound barrier from this side.”

  She dropped easily to the main floor of the chamber just as Alcie began to pummel Homer to put her down again.

  As she turned and looked up, Iole’s heart dropped into her stomach. While they had been focused on getting over the invisible wall, no one noticed Pandy being hoisted fifty meters into the air.

  The razor-sharp point of the nearest pole was coming into view underneath her, perhaps only five meters below.

  When the point was aimed directly up at Pandy’s stomach, she stopped. And hovered.

  For a second.

  And then she felt herself descend. Very, very slowly.

  She wanted to flail wildly but her body was still rigid and out of her control. She could only watch as the pole grew closer. She was going to be pushed onto the point and left there until she was nothing but a pile of bones crashing to the floor.

  And there was absolutely nothing anybody could do about it.

  Homer had tried to put Alcie down as swiftly and gently as he could. He used a right-handed, right-footed dismount assist, standard when undoing a human ladder, and it had always worked back in school. Unfortunately he hadn’t ever used it on someone with two left feet. Alcie had toppled backward on Homer and was now hanging upside down with Homer’s huge hands trying to get a firm grip on her two left ankles.

  But even hanging upside down and furious as a sea nymph on dry land, she still managed to take in what was happening beyond the wall.

  “Homer . . . looook!”

  The fear Pandy felt was unbearable. However, as soon as she realized what was in store for her, she became aware of something behind the fear.

  Anger.

  Back home in Greece she had understood all that had happened to her and her friends. At the Temple of Apollo, when Callisto, the high priestess, had been about to roast Iole over the great altar fire, Pandy understood that Callisto thought they were thieves. And Callisto had been driven to insanity by the Jealousy she was carrying inside. Pandy had at least been able to talk to, if not reason with, the high priestess. Now, here in Egypt, she had no idea why any of this was happening. And her fear turned into rage and frustration.

  At least when Callisto had ordered Iole’s death, it was in plain Greek and Pandy could do something about it. She could put out the flames underneath Iole using her newly discovered power over fire.

  She was now only two meters above the top of the wooden pole.

  The wooden pole.

  Wood.

  Which burns.

  Could she do it?

  She could flash small, cold embers into tiny fires back in her own room, but could she . . . ?

  The point was now only one meter away.

  Pandy concentrated all her thought and energy, focusing everything she had on the pole.

  “Send the force down,” she thought. “Shatter and burn. Shatter and burn. Shatter and burn.”

  And, like that day in the temple, she again went deaf. The world around her was utterly silent and she no longer heard the chanting or the shattering of bones dropping off the mounds.

  But this time she knew exactly what was happening and her heart gave a little leap in her chest.

  Her nose caught a small whiff of smoke. Something burning! Something on fire! She had no time to rejoice, though, and started concentrating even harder.

  The point of the pole, so close now, began to glow a dull red, then brightened into an incandescent orange. Pandy forced her chin into her neck as she struggled to keep the point in sight below her. Suddenly the point flared into flame and Pandy felt the heat on her belly through her silver girdle; not painful in the least, more like the gentle caress of fine silk blowing in a breeze.

  The fiery pole was now piercing the folds of her toga and pressing against her belly button. And still she was being lowered.

  She allowed herself a small, fierce smile and focused with every ounce of strength in her mind.

  Then the razor point pricked her stomach. Pandy closed her eyes and gave a yelp. Then she felt a vibration in her belly as the pole began to shake violently. Her eyes flew open and she watched in astonishment as a streak of white-hot fire split the entire shaft neatly down the middle. Her hearing returned just in time to hear the pole crash into piles of bone at either end of the chamber, sending hunks of ancient wood flying in every direction.

  “Great Aphrodite, blessed Apollo, wise and wonderful Athena,” she thought. “It worked!”

  Iole had scurried between the piles of skeletons, always keeping the eye in sight as she tried to get behind it. Approaching the wall of black mortar and bones, she crawled along its foundation for several meters. The chanting voice was close by, droning incessantly. Nearing the base of a pile of skeletons, there was suddenly a bright flash from the eye. A warm wind blew past her and she was pelted with chunks, shards, and splinters of wood. Immediately she turned her face away and threw her hands up to protect the back of her head.

  Two bony hands grabbed her wrists and Iole was yanked onto her feet, her face inches away from two bulging eyes, a row of hideous yellow teeth, and tufts of matted black hair.

  The only thing missing . . . was half of the flesh.

  The chanting had stopped. When the dust settled there was nothing but silence in the great chamber. The eye was still there, glowing a dull white, the invisible barrier was still in place, and Pandy was still hovering high in the air. The only motion in the room was the slow spread of blood across the front of Pandy’s toga.

  Pandy looked all over the chamber. A sudden movement caught her eye. Two figures, one surely that of a man and the other, a tiny figure, were struggling by the back wall of bones. Pandy quickly looked to her friends, but before she could count the shapes behind the barrier, she felt herself moving through the air—over another pole.

  And the chanting resumed.

  Something deep within her, she could not say exactly what, gave a tiny snort, which traveled up her throat, around her brain, and shot out of her mouth.

  This was ridiculous.

  “I can do it again, you know!”

  Quickly calculating the closest pole, she focused her mind again. From somewhere far below, she heard a shrill voice commanding something to “let go!” but deliberately ignored whatever it might be. Concentrating, she waited for the silence that would come when her powers were strongest.

  And there it was. Pure quiet.

  Five meters away, the top of the pole began to smoke, then glow, then flame. The pole quivered slightly, but this time, instead of a streak of fire splitting it down the center, the whole thing just exploded.

  A chunk of wood shot through the great, hovering eye, causing a ripple in the light.

  Her hearing returned, but there was stillness below. After a long, long pause, the light pulsed again and Pandy was moving once more.

  “Okay, now I’m mad!” she shouted.

  She destroyed five more poles before she realized she was floating much faster than before and the chanting was continuing throughout every blast.

  “Bring it on!” she cried, exploding three more. Any pain from the wound in her stomach was pushed aside as her skill at being able to concentrate quickly was growing, shaping, and sharpening itself moment by moment.

  Ten more poles shattered.

  Instead of growing weary, Pandy’s brain called upon all its energy reserves, diverting all thought to the task at hand.

  Three more poles incinerated.

  And twenty more after that.

  Wood shards were flying pell-mell all over the chamber like bats suddenly exposed to sunlight.

  Finally, every upright pole in the entire burial chamber had been reduced to ashes.

  And still Pandy hung in midair. With nothing left to burn, her brain allowed other parts of itself to open back up. Her arms and legs now ached, feeling incredibly heavy. The pain from her wound was intense. The muscles in her back and neck were strained from being forced to bow. She was completely exhausted.

  “Let go of me!” Iole yelled, trying frantically to free herself from the decaying hands. She twisted herself like a banner in a high wind, fighting the grip of the living corpse. As the first rush of hot air blasted past them, the figure glared upward at Pandora and Iole caught a snarl on the decomposing lips.

  “Your power is no match for Horus,” the figure muttered in a foreign tongue, his head craned back, exposing his cracked neck bones. He turned back toward Iole, baring yellow teeth.

  “Her blood would have met my needs. But yours will do.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying, you . . . you . . . fiend!” Iole said, trying to kick at the exposed shinbones and kneecaps. The corpse, still clutching her tiny wrists, lifted her off her feet and was pulling her toward its gaping jaws. Iole saw the lips parting again and realized in a panic that the creature meant to bite her!

  Just then a shard of wood flew through the open mouth and into the skull where it rattled around, sounding like a musical instrument.

  They were both blown backward by the force of the next pole exploding. The corpse dropped Iole and turned to look around the chamber as one by one the thick impaling poles were being decimated.

  “Bite me? I think not!” Iole said, running as fast as she could, then hiding behind a particularly large pile of bones, from which she could watch the corpse and Pandy and keep herself from being pummeled with debris.

  “Why am I still up here?” Pandy thought after the dust from the last pole settled.

  And then she saw it . . . in a far corner. Glinting with the light from the eye. One last pole she hadn’t noticed because of its dark color. This one was made of metal— bronze, she thought, from the color of the sheen, and it was engraved with hundreds of symbols, much like the murals on the walls around her. The skeleton on it was still clothed in fine, rich fabrics and a golden, multijeweled ring hung precariously at the end of a finger.

  Once more she was moved through the air. Once more she heard the chanting, only this time it was as a whisper, concentrated and fervent. Once more she summoned her will and focused, directing her power over fire at the long piece of metal.

  Nothing happened. She couldn’t even tell if the pole was getting warm. Except that, even though the pole was at least twenty meters ahead of her, she was aware of descending slightly. Pandy gave a quick glance at the terrible eye; the light around it flickered.

  “It’s weakening,” she thought.

  But so was she.

  As the power of the eye decreased, so did its ability to suspend her in midair. If she was dropped she could be killed, but she instinctively knew that this had become a fight to the very finish.

  She dropped another meter.

  She turned her focus back to the bronze pole, and saw to her utter shock that the pole was beginning to shine very brightly, small rivulets of metal beginning to run down the sides. A flash made her glance at the jeweled ring, still holding fast to the bony hand, but melting now, golden drops and gems falling to the ground below.

  “The heat is going through the bones,” she thought.

  And then she realized that something, somewhere, was totally, totally, totally . . . wrong.

  There was no way she should have been able to heat the metal that quickly, if at all. She had only concentrated for a moment before she turned away to look at the eye. And she was so, so tired.

  She dropped again with a jolt, the pole now only about eight meters in the distance. As she watched, the bronze completely washed away, revealing a smaller pole inside made of gold.

  “Stop,” she thought. “Don’t think about it anymore.” She turned her thoughts away from heating the metal, shutting off her concentration entirely.

  But it was too late. It was out of her control.

  She was heading toward the ground, fast.

  The golden pole, which even Pandy knew should have completely dissolved with such heat, was still standing upright, glowing as if lit from within.

  She looked anywhere but directly at it, and tried to think about anything else: her dad and Xander and Mount Olympus and the volcano under the amphitheater back at school and the wall murals and why wasn’t this gold pole melted already?

  Crash!

  Pandy hit the ground with a thud.