The Throne of Fire

Back in Brooklyn, Carter thinks about a vision he had the night before. His consciousness visited Horus, who showed him Apophis’s prison—a pit of dung beetles the serpent is eating his way through to freedom. One of Apophis’s enormous red eyes peered through the pile of beetles, and even in Horus’s form, Carter felt the “power of Chaos washing over [him] like lethal radiation” (72). Horus stabbed the serpent, sending it back into its prison, and told Carter to join with him again, rather than take his chances waking Ra. Carter doesn’t know if he can trust Horus, and he wonders if Ra will be strong enough to defeat Apophis after sleeping for so long.

Bast leaves to check on Apophis’s prison, and feeling numb, Carter goes on with his day teaching the trainees. During combat practice, Walt unintentionally turns a shabti to dust, but before Carter can figure out how, one of the statues turns into a mass of dung beetles that forms a three-headed serpent. The serpent demands Carter give it the scroll or it “will destroy the girl [he] seek[s], just as [it] destroyed her village” (82). “Village” means the girl is Zia. With help from his students, Carter crushes the serpent.