Yo-Yoji looked in after Max-Ernest. “There’s nothing in here!”
That was an exaggeration. Lord Pharaoh’s dressing room was large and luxurious, with a sitting area on one side; on the other side were a long counter and a mirror surrounded by vanity lights. A tall vase with an extravagant bouquet of flowers sat on an end table by a couch. (Had either Max-Ernest or Yo-Yoji bothered to look, they would have seen a card hanging from the flowers, signed Bon chance, Antoinette.) But it was true: the room looked remarkably empty.
“Dude, if you don’t come out this second, I swear—”
Max-Ernest didn’t appear to hear a word Yo-Yoji was saying. Like a hunting dog trying to catch a scent, he stood in the middle of the room with his nose in the air.
“Forget it. I’m just going to go rescue Cass by myself.”
“No, no, wait,” said Max-Ernest.
Following his nose, Max-Ernest walked slowly toward the end of the counter. He looked positively bewitched.
“Here,” he said when he reached the back corner. He held up his hand, victorious.
“What? There’s nothing in your hand.”
“Feel,” said Max-Ernest, walking out of the room. “It’s chocolate. Guess Lord Pharaoh thought he didn’t have to hide it ’cause it’s invisible. How ’bout that?”
Yo-Yoji reached for Max-Ernest’s hand. Sure enough, he felt a bar. Max-Ernest yanked it away.
“Not just any chocolate. I’ve only smelled this once before, but I’d recognize it anywhere,” said Max-Ernest, holding the invisible chocolate to his nose and inhaling greedily. “It’s Señor Hugo’s chocolate. Time Travel Chocolate. I knew Lord Pharaoh had mastered the formula! It was the only way he could have gotten here—”
With a crazed look in his eye, he moved his hand toward his mouth.
“Don’t!” Yo-Yoji grabbed Max-Ernest’s wrist. “You can’t. Plus, there’s no time to lose—”
Max-Ernest shuddered, coming to his senses. “Sorry. You’re right. I don’t know what happened. That would have been a disaster.”
“No sweat.”
“But you just gave me an idea. There is time to lose. Lord Pharaoh’s time. Five hundred years of it.”
“Say what?”
“I’ll explain on the way.” Max-Ernest started running down the hallway again.
Yo-Yoji followed close behind, keeping an eye on his friend’s hand. They had enough problems already, without Max-Ernest eating his way into another century.
As Cass pretended to look on the floor for the ring, she felt one hand grab her arm and another hand grab her necklace.
“Ow!” The chain bit into her neck. Cass could feel herself choking. She struggled, but it was no use.
“So sorry,” said Lord Pharaoh, not letting go. He tugged harder and harder, until the chain broke.
Cass clutched her throat, gasping for air. “I knew I didn’t like necklaces,” she said under her breath.
“Thank you,” said Lord Pharaoh. Holding the Ring of Thoth in his invisible fist, he let the chain drop to the floor. “Ladies and Gentlemen, can we have a hand for the young Cassandra.”
The applause track resumed. The Skelton Sisters clapped stiffly, like hosts of a game show.
“You may take a seat now, Cassandra,” said Lord Pharaoh. Two gold-painted musclemen came up behind her and gripped her from both sides.
“No, thanks, I think I’ll stay,” said Cass. She still didn’t know how she was going to stop him, but she had to try.
“All the better! You shall see my victory up close,” said Lord Pharaoh. “Men—the jars!”
At his command, two of the gold musclemen wheeled in front of her a large platform on which sat four gold jars, each about four feet tall. Before Cass could protest, one of the men opened the lid of the first jar. The other man hoisted her in the air and dropped her in. They lowered the lid—which had a hole in the middle for her head—and closed it around her, locking the lid in place with clamps. Her head stuck out the top, and she wore a furious expression on her face.
“You recognize canopic jars, of course. For storing the organs of the dead. Later, I will perform for the audience a great trick—and spread your severed parts among the four jars. But for now, please enjoy the spectacle,” said Lord Pharaoh gallantly.
“Thanks,” said Cass through gritted teeth. She could hear Lord Pharaoh’s footsteps as he walked over to the mummy.
He’s wearing boots, she thought.
“And now the moment that everyone has been waiting for, but none more so than I.”
A spotlight illuminated the Ring of Thoth as his invisible hand held it over the mummy. The ring appeared to hover in the air.
Again Lord Pharaoh spoke in ancient Egyptian, and again he translated. “Mighty Thoth, for what—why—must you take the life of this man?”
Burning hieroglyphs appeared behind Lord Pharaoh. Two of them Cass recognized: they were the first two hieroglyphs of the Secret.
For what…? Lord Pharaoh’s question echoed in Cass’s ear…. For what?… Why?
She had thought the first two words of the Secret were because what, but what if a better translation was for what? That is to say, why. Why hadn’t she seen that before?
Suddenly, it struck her: all along, she’d simply assumed that the Secret was the answer to all of life’s mysteries, but the Secret wasn’t an answer at all. The Secret was a question.
Or was it just that to find the answer, one first had to ask the question?
Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji ran as fast as they could, huffing and puffing, until the stage came into view—along with all the complex machinery and sets and props one finds behind a stage of this size. Yo-Yoji stopped, seeing Lord Pharaoh’s gold cape draped like a blanket over a chair. It would work for catching a bird, he thought. Why not a ghost?
Cass had had a breakthrough, but it had come too late. Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed by the hopelessness of her situation. Question or answer, it no longer mattered what the Secret was, because Lord Pharaoh was going to learn it first.
Where were her friends? she wondered in despair. Were they imprisoned in canopic jars, too?
“With this ring, your ring, the Ring of Thoth, we take back this man’s life.” As Lord Pharaoh pronounced these words, the gold ring appeared to float through the air until it reached the tip of the mummy’s gold finger. “Live again, Doctor, live—”
“Hey, Lord Pharaoh, remember me?”
Yo-Yoji came running out of the wings, holding Lord Pharaoh’s gold cape behind him. When he reached the center of the stage, he threw the cape into the air. It dropped only a foot before landing on what was clearly Lord Pharaoh’s head. Now the invisible magician was visible—albeit looking a bit like a badly costumed ghost on Halloween.
The audience applauded before the applause track could even roll. It was a great effect.
“Aah!” Lord Pharaoh cried in surprise. They could hear him stumble.
“Kiyah!” Before Lord Pharaoh could remove the cape from his head, Yo-Yoji threw his shoulder into the unseen enemy, tackling him to the floor. From the way Yo-Yoji grimaced, he must have hit Lord Pharaoh rather hard. But Yo-Yoji recovered, pinning Lord Pharaoh to the stage while Max-Ernest ran up to them.
“Let go, you cretin!” Lord Pharaoh growled.
“Not a chance,” said Yo-Yoji.
On the stage and off, guards and audience and dancers alike watched in confusion, unable to tell what was planned and what wasn’t.
But Lord Pharaoh refused to call for help. Instead he shouted, “All part of the show, Ladies and Gentlemen! Take a bow, young sirs.”
Max-Ernest quickly bowed, his mind racing. Clearly, Lord Pharaoh didn’t want to cause an alarm. But why? Max-Ernest wondered. Then he realized: the mummy was stolen property. Lord Pharaoh didn’t want security officers sniffing around the stage any more than Max-Ernest and his friends did. If the authorities were tipped off, they might confiscate the mummy before Lord Pharaoh had his way with it. Well, t
hat was all to the good—Lord Pharaoh’s concern worked to the trio’s advantage.
Meanwhile, the wily ghost, still caught in the cape, was wriggling beneath Yo-Yoji on the floor. The invisible chocolate in his hand, Max-Ernest crouched down beside them. He pulled the cape off Lord Pharaoh’s head. Then he felt around for Lord Pharaoh’s face.
“Aaargh!” Lord Pharaoh grunted. “You two are going to pay.”
Wincing with distaste, Max-Ernest pried Lord Pharaoh’s mouth open with his fingers. He tried not to think about what Lord Pharaoh’s teeth must look like; dental hygiene was not very advanced in the sixteenth century.
“Help me keep his mouth open,” he said to Yo-Yoji. “Here—” Max-Ernest guided Yo-Yoji’s hand to Lord Pharaoh’s mouth.
“This is disgusting,” complained Yo-Yoji, keeping his hand in place despite Lord Pharaoh’s struggling.
“Eat,” said Max-Ernest, forcing the invisible chocolate into the mouth of the invisible alchemist. “Ouch!” Lord Pharaoh had bitten down hard on Max-Ernest’s finger. Instinctively, Max-Ernest pulled his hand away, but as far as he could tell, there was still some chocolate in Lord Pharaoh’s mouth. And it didn’t take much, he knew.
The Skelton Sisters were frantic. They shouted at the six gold musclemen standing onstage like statues.
“Do something!” “Hello—are you guys deaf?!”
The dancers blinked, uncertain whether to move.
Still hunched over Lord Pharaoh, Yo-Yoji and Max-Ernest could feel the alchemist’s body convulsing under the cape.
“I think… I think… it’s working,” said Max-Ernest.
First Lord Pharaoh’s legs, then his arms, seemed to melt into the stage. By the time one of the dancers broke ranks and ran toward him, it was too late. There was nothing left where Lord Pharaoh had been—only a satin cape lying flat on the floor.
The audience applauded madly.
“Nice work, bro,” said Yo-Yoji, breathing hard.
“Wha-what happened?” asked the dancer, sweat destroying his gold makeup.
“He went home,” said Max-Ernest.
And it was true: Lord Pharaoh was now a problem for another age.
The Skelton Sisters screamed. “Antoinette!!” Then they ran off the stage.
Max-Ernest looked up to a box-style balcony on the side of the theater just in time to see a flash of blonde hair and a shimmering gown. How long had Ms. Mauvais been there? In a blink, she was gone.
For good, Max-Ernest hoped.
In the melee, the brawny dancers who had been watching over Cass rushed to the center of the stage, letting go of the jar that confined her. How to get out? She felt around, but the jar was locked from the outside. She had an idea, however. Although the jar was painted gold, she could tell by its texture that it was pottery. She wriggled around, rocking the jar until it fell to the floor with a crash. Ow! The pottery sides broke, just as she’d hoped they would, leaving her a bit banged up but free.
Cass scanned the area around where Lord Pharaoh had been. At first, she didn’t see what she was looking for. Then—there it was, right at the foot of the mummy.
She darted across the stage and lunged for the ring.
The monocle was lying nearby. For good measure, she pocketed it, too.
“Cass!” her friends called out to her, but Cass didn’t hear them. She was already standing in front of the mummy.
The ring fit perfectly on the mummy’s golden finger.
As Cass slipped it over the knuckle, the ring seemed to lock in place, sending sparks flying in all directions. She saw a flash of lightning bright enough to illuminate the entire auditorium, but—strangely—most of the room stayed dark. The noise of the theater receded. The lights around her blurred. She felt as if she were in a tunnel. A tunnel with only two people in it. The mummy and herself. Facing each other.
And then, for a moment, she was in the sky. Flying. Over a great river. The Nile.
The ibis, she thought.
Then she was in the tunnel with the mummy again. The mummy’s eyes blinked open. His dark, three-thousand-year-old eyes. They looked directly at Cassandra.
Death was staring her in the face.
Suddenly, Cass was afraid. Deeply afraid.
What had she done? She’d put the ring on the mummy’s finger almost by instinct, without thinking. Why? Because Dr. L had told her she would learn the Secret? What if that was just another trap? The final trap?
Yes, she thought feverishly, that was what everything had been leading toward—the sacrifice of Cassandra. The mummy was going to kill her. He was going to turn her into one of his own. And not only her. You cannot bring death to life without bringing death into life. He was a demon whom she had unleashed on the world.
She gave herself a little shake and forced herself to breathe. She had come too far—much too far—not to try to learn the Secret.
Because what ibis/Thoth river/Nile walk… Why ibis river walk… why ibis walk Nile… why ibis cross river…
Cass looked the mummy in the eye and carefully pronounced the words she’d been trying for so long to form in her mind. The words fell into place as she spoke them, as if they’d been there—somewhere—all along.
“Why did the ibis cross the Nile?”
The mummy stared at her, his ancient eyes seeming to penetrate her very being. For a second, she thought she’d asked the wrong question. Or that he had not regained the power of speech. Or that he was simply unwilling to answer.
He opened his mouth. Inside was only darkness.
Cass felt sick with despair. Why had she assumed this creature from ancient Egypt would understand her, or she him? Why had she assumed he could speak at all?
Then, in a voice so deep it seemed to come not from the mouth of a man, or even a mummy, but from the mouth of a volcano, a voice that would rattle buildings, shake mountains, the mummy repeated her question: “Why did the ibis cross the Nile?”
She nodded, shivering.
He laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh.
“To get to the other side, of course.”
As Cass stared, frozen with fear, the laughter grew louder and louder, until it shook his entire body. Then, with a final shudder, he closed his eyes. The Ring of Thoth rattled on his finger and fell to the floor. Once again, the mummy was nothing but a pile of ragged cloth and dusty bones.
And for the first time in her still-young life, Cass fainted.
A joke?” Cass murmured. “It was all a joke?”
Yo-Yoji and Max-Ernest were crouched over their friend, just as they had been crouched over their enemy only a moment earlier.
They breathed matching sighs of relief. She was going to be fine.
“What’s a joke?” asked Max-Ernest.
“What? Oh. Nothing,” said Cass, forcing herself awake. “I guess I was dreaming. Are we still on the stage?”
“Yep, you were only out for a second,” said Yo-Yoji, helping her to her feet.
No longer worried about Cass, Max-Ernest glanced around the stage. The Skelton Sisters were gone, as were all Midnight Sun members, as far as he could tell. The gold-painted dancers stared at them, picking at the gems glued inside their belly buttons, not sure what to do. Audience members spoke to one another in nervous whispers, uncertain whether the spectacle had been planned or not. Even the guards in the aisles seemed confused. But it would only be a matter of seconds before the guards—and everybody else—wised up.
The friends needed time to get away, thought Max-Ernest.
But what to do?
Max-Ernest heard a clinking sound and looked down. One of Cass’s two remaining gold coins—it must have fallen out of her pocket. He picked it up off the floor.
Suddenly, he had an inspiration. This was a magic show, wasn’t it? And what did people always say—the show must go on?
“You guys get out of here,” he whispered to Cass and Yo-Yoji. “I’ll distract everyone. Meet you outside in a minute.”
Shakily, Max-Ernest got to h
is feet—and found himself alone in the middle of the biggest stage that he’d ever seen, let alone set foot on.
“Hi, er, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is I… the real Lord Pharaoh,” Max-Ernest shouted, trying to match Lord Pharaoh’s Old World accent. The effect was not entirely authentic; he sounded like a small child speaking into a Darth Vader–style voice-changing microphone.
He stepped to the front of the stage. From this vantage point, the room looked huge and dark. He hadn’t realized quite how many people were there. And they were all watching him! “Think of me as that little man standing behind Lord Pharaoh’s curtain—you know, like in The Wizard of Oz?”
If he was expecting a warm reception, he didn’t get it. The audience jeered:
“Yeah, right!” “Very funny, kid, sit down!” “Somebody call his parents, please!”
“Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you.” He held the gold coin above his head.
Max-Ernest’s image appeared on the big screen behind him. The cameraman, wherever he was, had decided to play along.
“I am Lord Pharaoh, the greatest alchemist of all time!” Max-Ernest tried to keep his voice steady. “I have in my hand a gold coin. Watch, and I shall make it disappear—”
This should be easy, Max-Ernest thought. He was going to do a simple sleight-of-hand trick that all magicians know, one that Pietro had shown him numerous times. But his hand was shaking with nervousness. And when he tried to slip the coin between his fingers—
—it dropped onto the stage.
The audience was predictably merciless:
“Boo!” “Go home!” “You said you’d make it disappear, not drop it!”
As he picked up the coin, he felt about as low as he possibly could. Where was the applause track when you really needed it? At that very second, he wanted to jump off the stage and run from the theater, but he told himself he had to stay where he was. He stole a look at the golden dancers, restless at the side of the stage. Most likely, Cass and Yo-Yoji wouldn’t have been able to make it all the way out of the hotel yet. He had to buy them just a little more time.
When he stood up, he did his best to smile like a boy who knew exactly what he was doing. “Of course I didn’t make it disappear!” he said gamely. “Would you want to make a gold coin disappear? No, you’d want to keep it!”