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Shifting the stone’s power from trying to create a steel barrier to blasting the ghoul, I drove it back with as much light as I could. It withdrew beneath the ground—but as before, just far enough to get out of the light. I could hear others behind it, scratching at the tunnel walls, eager to find a way to the surface and rend our flesh.
The flames were almost upon us. I didn’t dare shift any of the stone’s power away from the ghouls. Instead, I tried to open a portal between us and the blaze. If I succeeded, the part of the fire that was set to hit us would flow into the portal and end up somewhere else instead.
I couldn’t do such sophisticated magic so quickly. I could feel the heat on my face and smell hair burning when Urania’s magician deflected the flames, which bent violently and shot back toward their caster like a shower of comets.
After such an amazing feat, the magician looked pale and translucent. He wouldn’t last much longer. Urania looked pale herself, scarcely capable of renewing him or of conjuring a third archetype in so short a time. Lian looked somewhat better, but the Saturnine energy she tried to maintain was a much lighter brown than it had been. Aside from the light I drew from the stone, Mateo’s magic was the only force that looked as if it were still at full power, but even his stoic face looked pinched.
“Are you up to another portal?” he asked. “We need to get out of here.”
I nodded and started to open a portal as fast as I could. Portal magic required high skill but not as much power. The casting only gave me a dull ache right behind my eyes.
The familiar pearl-gray magic of the portal formed like a cloud in front of me, then gradually opened to reveal what amounted to a doorway. On the far side was New Colchis, our home. The bright sunlight of midmorning poured out through the portal. All we had to do was step through, close the portal, and we’d be safe.
But before any of us could step through, lightning struck the portal, disrupting my magic and causing the doorway to collapse. At the same time, a figure cloaked in black, visible only because of the magic that radiated from him in waves, charged in our direction. He had to be the sorcerer who’d been attacking us.
Based on how much power he possessed, the four of us would not be able to defeat him. But he was too close to make escape practical, either.
Unless we could do something he wasn’t expecting.
We hadn’t yet learned how to access the plane of existence where the former Egyptian gods were. But as the reincarnation of Jason, descendant of Hermes, I had the ability to request access to the plane the former Greek gods inhabited.
“Hermes—” I began. At that moment, we were hit by a wind so powerful that I was knocked backward. I didn’t feel Hermes’s attention focused on me yet. I hit the sand so hard that for a moment I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. The others were no better off. Lian’s Saturnine energy faded to nothing. Urania’s sunlight and Mateo’s protection remained, but none of us seemed to have the energy left to mount any kind of offensive. All we could do was wait until the sorcerer succeeded in wiping out our defenses.
“Halt!” The order came not from the advancing sorcerer but from someone I couldn’t see in my current position. I shoved myself up a little and saw another figure, this one wearing a green robe and riding a black bull with white markings. He raised a sword, but that gesture was less threatening than the way he made his power flare. He looked like at least an equal to the black-robed sorcerer.
“Who are you to tell me to halt?” replied the black-robed sorcerer, who continued to approach.
“Who do I have to be?” replied the green-robed sorcerer. His bull snorted and lowered his head as if to charge. “I am the human embodiment of Ptah, and I carry with me part of the power of life and creation.”
That was enough to surprise me. I already knew that, if they wished to be fully present in the human world, the old gods needed a voluntarily given or freshly created body. But human bodies were too fragile to contain such powerful souls for too long. It had taken me less than an hour before the presence of Hermes nearly killed me. Even now, with a body made immortal by the Philosopher’s Stone, I could endure the former god’s magic, but I doubted I could endure the former god himself for more than a few hours.
Had the Egyptians solved this problem? I looked as closely as I could at the person claiming to be Ptah.
“Even if you are who you claim, I am the embodiment of Apep,” said the black-robed sorcerer. “I hold the power of destruction.” He paused for a moment and looked up at the sky. “Though, of course, I would use such power now only in the pursuit of benefitting the human race.”
“Nonsense!” replied the self-proclaimed Ptah. “Such power is inherently evil.”
Quick observation told me a few things about Ptah. He seemed as powerful as the supposed Apep, though it was difficult to be precise about levels of magic power. His skin was a darker green than his robe, which, if I recalled correctly, matched the way Egyptian artists portrayed Ptah.
As for his body, I had a hard time reading measures of physical health. It seemed to be alive, but I couldn’t tell whether it was human or not. The magic that pulsed within it was strange to me, difficult to interpret.
“Gentlemen,” said Urania, her voice remarkably calm. “You may have reasons to fight, but we are not a party to your disputes. Allow us to depart in peace.”
Apep, if that’s really who he was, produced a long wooden staff from nowhere and leveled it at Urania. “You have invaded my land. I have a right to defend it.” I noticed his skin was as black as his robe.
I’d have preferred it if Urania had kept quiet rather than draw such a powerful being’s attention. But there was nothing I could do about that now.
“Far from being invaders, we were invited here by the Alexandrian government,” I said. My voice shook only a little.
That drew both Ptah’s and Apep’s attention. “I was just at Alexandria to visit the new library,” said Ptah. “I met with the Pharaoh personally. He said nothing to me about inviting visitors.”
Ptah looked at me with piercing eyes that made me want to tremble. I knew if I did that one or both of these alleged embodiments of gods would perceive that as a sign of weakness.
“If you are truly who you say you are, you are here only by the special permission of God,” said Mateo, glaring right back at Ptah. “That means you should be able to recognize that my power is a gift from God.” Mateo pointed to the protective energy that glowed around us. “Are you not obligated to protect God’s servants in these troubled times?”
“For all we know, you have found some way to imitate divine power,” said Apep. “In any case, I can’t be sure about your power’s nature, for I have not encountered God directly.”
“The ghouls will bear witness,” said Lian. “They can’t penetrate Mateo’s protective spell.”
Ptah looked down at the ghoul tunnel, still illuminated by the Philosophers’ Stone’s power. He looked back at me, his eyes reflecting the light.
“And are you also an emissary of God?” he asked. “Your magic has a similar signature.”
“The powers are similar but not the same,” I replied, hoping to avoid further revelations to total strangers.
His eyes narrowed. “Does that not undermine the argument that the ghouls will prove the source of your friend’s power? They cower underground, frightened by your light. Yet, by your own admission, it is not the same as your friend’s power. How then do you explain this difference?”
I didn’t have a clue, but fortunately for me, Mateo jumped in at that point.
“God’s gifts manifest themselves in many ways. Mine is a spiritual gift. My friend’s is more a physical one—God manifesting through nature.”
Apep scowled. “Many have claimed God’s powers who have, in fact, been vile frauds. But I will give you a chance to prove your claims. Just as Moses defeated Pharaoh’s magicians, so you will defeat Ptah and I—if you are who you say you are.”
For once, Mateo had no quick comeback.
“Uh, God uses different servants for different jobs,” I said. “Moses’s job was to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Ours is to—”
I stopped myself. We had many tasks, though God hadn’t directly assigned any of them. As far as I knew. No burning bushes. No angelic messengers. Just life pushing problems on us and waiting for us to solve them.
What I did know from experience was that Mateo’s power against evil had its limits. He certainly had more such power than anyone else I knew—but he wasn’t Jesus, and he was facing two enormously powerful beings who could presumably wait for him to lose concentration. From what he had told me, his divine power came from faith rather than magical ability—but it required his attention to maintain. No one could keep such tight focus indefinitely.
Despite our own constraints, we couldn’t just give the newcomers whatever they wanted. I didn’t know how well I could trust either one of these supposed Egyptian deities. Either or both could be powerful sorcerers masquerading as former gods.
“You will not accept my challenge?” asked Apep, his voice harsh, his eyes flashing.
“We come in peace,” said Lian. “We are envoys from Medea to the Pharaoh of Alexandria.”
“I thought your claim was that you represented God,” said Apep, leveling his staff at us as if he would blast us with magic. “Yet now you tell me you represent that Colchian witch. You cannot be trusted, and I must take you prisoner.”
“Stop!” said Ptah. “Have you become some patron of Alexandria, that you would take it upon yourself to act as its border patrol?”
“Interesting that you should raise the question of borders,” said Apep. “We are near the Valley of Kings—far, far south of anything that could conceivably be Alexandria’s border. If these strangers are indeed here to see the Pharaoh, why is it that they are lurking here?”
“We were told to come to this location,” said Urania. “We were supposed to meet the Pharaoh’s representatives here.”
Apep made a point of looking around, as if he might notice something he had missed earlier. “And yet I see no such representatives anywhere within many leagues of here.”
“It appears we have somehow been misled,” said Mateo.
“By the Pharaoh?” asked Ptah, his tone more suspicious than I liked.
“By someone claiming to be his representative. Evidently, that claim was false. With your permission, we will happily withdraw.”
“We have only your unsupported word for that,” said Ptah. “Though I don’t agree with Apep that you should be his prisoner, I believe that you must be taken to Pharaph, who may wish to investigate your claims further.”
“We will happily go with you,” I said. “If you will accept responsibility for our well-being.”
One of the things I’d learned about supernatural beings was that even the devious ones would not likely make any kind of promise they didn’t intend to keep. A formal oath would be best, but even without one, we might be safe enough if Ptah—or whoever he was—pledged to keep us safe.
“I can guarantee to get you to Alexandria safely,” said Ptah. “But I cannot guarantee what the Pharoah will do with you once you arrive in his jurisdiction.”
“Then you may escort us out of your territory,” said Urania. “We have been tricked into coming. We did not intentionally intrude in anyone’s realm, and apparently, we are far outside the territory of the Pharaoh to whom you wish to deliver us.”
“It was so much easier long ago,” said Ptah, sounding wistful for a moment. “Mortals then knew how to respond to gods—with unquestioning obedience. Uh, not that we claim to be gods now, of course,” he added quickly. “But we are here because God wants us here.”
“Enough conversation,” said Apep. “It is time for action!”
The sand beneath our feet shook as if Egypt had just been struck by an earthquake big enough to break the Richter scale. Even the ghouls howled in fright.
From a nearby sand dune, an enormous snake emerged. Its fangs glittered in the moonlight, and its eyes looked hungrily at us.
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