As neither of the others made to move, Simon took the first step into Necropolis, City of the Dead. His feet had barely touched the black, gold-and-blue-shot floor before a million pairs of sightless eyes settled upon him, their gazes rippling down his back like a gust of icy wind. The vault in front of him was filled with spectres, their near transparent bodies filling the air with a sort of gloomy, greenish glow. Next moment, the attention of the spirits was diverted by two more living people as Nefertari and Horus joined his sides.

  “Well that wasn't so hard,” said Simon coolly.

  There was a podium on a raised platform in the center of the plaza, giving it, with its tall boundaries and domed ceiling, the impression of a spacious auditorium or a gathering place. Uneven stone ramps led downward and further into Necropolis in the back, and its walls were lined with torches in brackets, which had flickered to life as they had entered the vault-like place. A rushing noise like water falling came from somewhere behind them, breaking off abruptly when it was swallowed by the bottomless void beyond. If they weren't in hell yet, Simon could only guess where the pit ended.

  At that moment, ghostly whispering noises erupted around them, adding to the electrical, humming noises, as though hundreds of people were talking in hushed voices. Simon thought that they probably were.

  “I don't like this,” said Horus suddenly.

  “Me neither,” said Nefertari, and Simon felt a strange satisfaction that they both seemed to have doubts.

  “Well, I think it's lovely,“ Simon said nastily, ignoring Horus' scowl.

  He inspected the akh, streaming all around them, closely: Their haunted faces were ashen grey and taut, their ancient clothes plasmic and gaseous rather than fabric, and there was no emotion in their dim eyes, no recognition that they were dead. Not even hostility, nor envy for the living. Simon suddenly felt a pang of pity for those eternally trapped souls, wondering how they came to be here. Why had they not, as per common perception of death, gone to some place else? Why were they still stuck here on Earth?

  “Let's move,” said Horus. “This is spooky.”

  “It's this way to the hall,” said Nefertari, pointing at the ramp on the right side. Yet again Simon noticed how the Book of the Dead seemed to be a map, guiding them through the Duat. “Careful not to touch the akh, though, there's so many of them...”

  Is there anything that girl is afraid of? thought Simon.

  It turned out being careful wasn't necessary: Just like in the Hall of Gates, the akh melted away in front of their small group, as though the spirits were just as frightened by the prospect of a collision than the living were of touching them.

  The Infinity Key lay heavily against Simon's chest, glowing, its hourglass-shaped outline just barely visible through his shirt, and pulsing in time with his heartbeat. It was a strangely empowering feeling, a rush of energy tingling through his veins, as though anything in the world was possible as long as he had it... no wonder his companions wanted it to destroy their enemy.

  Heart thrumming wildly, his extremities frozen by the extreme cold of the Duat, Simon started across the plaza, toward the ramp, which was decorated with even more hieroglyphs and fading pictures of the funerary and death deities. Leaving the auditorium and the ramp behind, they descended another set of stairs, following the intricate stone path beyond until they came to a smaller room lined with pillars, in between each stood a statue of a sphinx with ruby eyes. Simon felt uneasy and exposed under the unwavering gazes of the chimaeras, as though their stone replicas could see right into his soul and didn't approve of what they found there. He hurried along, desperate to get away from their severe, judgemental stares.

  At the end of the chamber was an archway, and behind it lay the largest room of Necropolis yet: Simon, Nefertari, and Horus were standing in on of the peaks of a four point star. In each of the other three stood a golden pyramid, and a massive black statue of Anubis, holding his customary scythe-sceptre, with eyes of precious gems dominated the center. There wasn't a single spirit inside this room, the cold of it so intense it might just have frozen their ethereal bodies had they tried to enter.

  All three of them shivered as they approached the sculpture in the middle, puffs of air freezing in front of their faces.

  “We'll have to split up now, each of us to one of the pyramids, where there'll be a task to fulfil, a riddle to be solved...” Nefertari whispered, as though she didn't want to disturb the cold. She was reading from the Book of Dead, gleaming in the air before her again. “After that, we'll be able to see Anubis, and there's a chance he'll be willing to answer our questions.”

  “A chance?” hissed Simon.

  “It's the best we can do!” Nefertari hissed back, somewhat defensively. Then she stowed the Book of the Dead away inside her tunic.

  “I don't know if – Will you be okay on your own?“ she asked Simon.

  He thought that was rather rich, coming from the girl who had been ready enough to let her lapdog sacrifice him to some or other spirit just a few hours ago.

  “I'll be all right,” he said shortly.

  “Just – just try get past the riddle without – er –“

  “Loosing your limbs?” suggested Horus.

  “Well, that does sound rather horrible...”

  “It's what'll happen if he doesn't manage,” said Horus flatly.

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  Simon, determined to prove himself, took the path straight up to the middle pyramid before they could continue, approaching it without hesitation. He hadn't thought it possible but, as he walked away from Horus, it became even colder until he could barely feel his limbs and hear anything over the sound of his chattering teeth. The biting temperature did something to his brain, too. His fear was slowly ebbing down, leaving his body together with the warmth, to be replaced by excited anticipation, a sudden sharpness of mind that was almost painful. When he reached the golden pyramid inside the topmost peak of the star, he felt as though there was no problem he could not solve.

  Something was sitting in front of the pyramid. A feline chimaera with a lion's body and a human head. This sphinx, however, unlike the earlier ones, was alive. It had a man's head with blood-red runic patterns around its shrewd, equally red eyes, and straight, shiny black hair, and towered over Simon even while it was sitting, causing a certain dryness of his tongue. The sphinx contemplated him with the dusty sort of apathy a librarian might portray, as though it couldn't wait to be rid of him again.

  “Well hello there,” said Simon, his breath hitching as he saw the ten inch claws of the creature.

  The sphinx rolled its eyes dramatically from underneath long eyelashes.

  “To enter the Hall of Two Truths, a riddle you must solve,” the chimaera drawled, obviously bored beyond caring, and Simon's panic began to vanish again.

  It didn't seem as though the sphinx was going to have him for dinner, which was a greatly reassuring thought. He felt a pang of sympathy, even. It had to be rather tedious, sitting here for all eternity, waiting for victims, thinking up riddles for each person who came its way.

  “The riddle is your greatest fear. If you fail to answer correctly, your soul is mine. If you succeed, well, then you're no longer my problem,” the sphinx blinked at him, obviously waiting for a response.

  “Right,” said Simon, who'd done loads of crosswords with his grandfather and didn't think another quiz could be that hard.

  “You see only what you want,

  I may be harsh,

  And twisted in your mind,

  Although I never change.”

  “That's it?” said Simon, when the creature's voice had dwindled. “Four lines of gibberish?”

  The sphinx merely continued to stare at him, still with the air of somebody bored beyond weeping.

  Well, tough. He had no idea what to do with this riddle, although it was easy enough to remember. He decided to break it apart for good measure, and to stall time before he was (most likely) ripped to shreds.

  You see only what you want. Those long claws were totally not what he wanted. In fact, they were quite the opposite of what he wanted.

  I may be harsh. He thought that might be true, though the sphinx had been rather polite so far.

  And twisted in your mind. His mind was twisted too, especially because he couldn't wrap it around those four sentences that would decide on his life. Why did he think this was funny, again? He tried for some seriousness, but it wouldn't come. If he was going to die, and it looked as though he was, he might as well have fun during the process.

  Although I never change. There were many things that would never change, Simon could name quite a few: Morgan's perfection, war, tea cooling too quickly, and how he always came last for everyone.

  Suddenly it wasn't as funny any more at all. He didn't want to die. Not before he had told Horus just what he thought about him, Nefertari what a hypocrite she was, and Morgan – he didn't even know what he wanted to tell his cousin, though he was certain he would be able to come up with something if they were face to face. One thing was certain: He couldn't just vanish without seeing Morgan one more time, a thought that was infuriating and painful in equal measure, and yet it was the truth.

  The Truth.

  “It's the truth,” Simon said to the sphinx. “Truth is harsh, and people always only see what they want to see. They twist it for their purposes, but in essence, it never changes, because it's – well – the truth.”

  “Very well,” drawled the sphinx, and it stepped aside as the surface of the pyramid behind it began to shift and ripple, and hole appeared in the metal, behind which he could see nothing but gloom.

  “That's it?” said Simon, slightly taken aback and thinking that this was rather anticlimactic, especially since he had been gambling with his life (or soul, whatever, there wasn't much difference if he ended up dead in both scenarios) barely twenty seconds ago.

  “What did you expect?” said the sphinx dryly. “Drums and trumpets? Make haste, now, before I change my mind.”

  “Can you do that?” said Simon doubtfully, but the glare he received in return sent him flying through the hole at once. There was no need to poke the chimaera. Before darkness closed around him entirely, he thought he could hear a dry chuckle, but then the pyramid sealed itself behind him, and he was alone again.

  He climbed down through a narrow, pitch-black tunnel, entering at its end into another hall.

  It seemed as though he was the first to arrive, and he took a moment to look around the Hall of Two Truths: Its floor was mirroring black stone, and broken by veins of electric blue ore that gave it an unearthly, otherworldly feeling. At the far end was an iron throne made of nine bows (he counted them to be sure), in front of which stood a narrow stone sarcophagus, its sides flanked by two life sized statues of Anubis, behind which hung a pair of iron shackles on the inscribed walls. A ledge ran around the whole of the hall, a sill filled with flickering blue, softly crackling flames. Everything about the Hall of Two Truths was highly reminiscent of a ritual room he had once seen on television, complete with the scent of smoke and incense in his nose.

  Next moment, the silence was broken by a set of light footfalls on the blank stone floor, and Nefertari stumbled into the room from his left. Her eyebrows rose as she saw him, then flit around the room, no doubt looking for Horus.

  “What did you get?” she said finally, seeing that the deity wasn't there yet.

  “The truth,” said Simon, who didn't feel like talking to her at all, having forgotten nothing about their ride in Ra's boat. He didn't have to anyway, because at that moment, Horus emerged from the right, his scowl even more gloomy than was usual.

  “Trust,” Horus snapped at them angrily. “Out of all things, he asks me about trust.”

  And then, out of the corner of his eyes, Simon saw movement. Simon turned hastily, and Nefertari and Horus dropped to their knees, the latter with some restraint, as though the upholding of traditions was beneath him, their heads bent.

  A majestic figure had appeared on the vast throne.