How It All Goes Down
A French Guy Almost Kills Us
- The Hall of Ages is huge and awesome: there are really high double pillars that support a super-tall ceiling; a blue carpet like a river running down the middle; and tiny hieroglyphs floating through the air.
- Most impressive and perplexing of all are the displays between the pillars. Zia warns Carter and Sadie not to look at them too long.
- Sadie steps off the rug as if in a trance, and Zia pulls her back, warning her that what they're looking at are memories so powerful they can destroy your mind.
- As Carter, Sadie, and Zia keep walking, the images change from gold to silver, and Carter recognizes Narmer, the first king who united Egypt (who kind of looks like their dad). Carter guesses that they're looking at the Old Kingdom, the first great age of Egypt.
- The light changes to copper and then bronze, indicating the Middle and New Kingdoms. Carter recognizes historical figures his dad had told him about: Hatshepsut (a female pharaoh) and Ramesses the Great. Another pharaoh, Nectanebo, has the same face as the ba Carter faced, and apparently could move whole armies by moving pieces on his game board.
- A scene shows a dude throwing his staff down, which becomes a serpent. Zia says that it's Moses, the only foreigner to defeat the House of Life at magic.
- As Sadie, Carter, and Zia keep walking, they see the Ptolemaic times, then the Arab, Turkish, Napoleonic, and British invasions.
- Sadie, Carter, and Zia reach a throne with the symbols of the pharaoh on it (a flail and shepherd's crook), but no one's on the throne. Instead, a very, very old dude is sitting on the step below the throne.
- Carter notices that all the hieroglyphs swirling around in the air seem to be coming from the old dude.
- When the old dude turns his milky old-dude eyes to Carter, something inside Carter tenses, as though he should hide from this guy. The old guy raises an eyebrow, then speaks to someone behind him.
- Out steps the guy in cream robes with a forked beard who'd been at the British Museum.
- The bearded guy says in French-accented English that he is Desjardins, and his master, Chief Lector Iskandar, welcomes them to the House of Life.
- Carter asks: if Iskandar can understand English, why isn't he speaking for himself?
- Desjardins replies that the Lector understands many things but prefers to speak his birth tongue: Alexandrian Greek.
- Sadie interjects to say: wouldn't that make Iskandar really freakin' old? Like, from the times of Alexander the Great?
- Carter thinks back to something Amos had said about a magicians' law forbidding magicians from summoning gods. It's a law that has been in place since Roman times, and it was made by someone named Iskandar. Could this be the same guy?
- Iskandar looks at Carter as though he knows what Carter is thinking. Creepy.
- Desjardins says that the Kanes shouldn't worry, as they won't be held accountable for their family's crimes… yet.
- According to Desjardins, Julius broke the law twice by summoning gods at Cleopatra's Needle: once with their mother, and once at the British Museum.
- Desjardins says they're looking for Amos. But for now, the kids have to stay here to be trained. Moreover, they have to keep the kids safe, since the Demon Days begin tomorrow.
- Carter exclaims that they have to find Julius—and that there are dangerous gods on the loose, like Set and Serqet.
- The kids narrate their story to Iskandar. However, they leave out the parts where they're able to unexpectedly do magic. It's almost as though there's a voice in Carter's head telling him to edit his account of things.
- Desjardins accuses them of lying, since Set couldn't possibly be released.
- Sadie retorts that Set is totally out there, and Desjardins probably saw him too, as he was at the British Museum, as well. Sadie's on a roll, so she adds that Serqet was real, too, and their friend Bast died protecting them from her.
- This annoys Desjardins: he accuses the kids of consorting with gods. It's forbidden to call on the gods, since they caused the downfall of Egypt.
- Sadie retorts that Bast had said magicians were paranoid.
- Desjardins becomes so enraged that it begins to smell like a thunderstorm around him.
- But Zia steps in and says that something weird is going on: her ribbon spell should have banished Serqet, but it didn't. Perhaps there's something to the rumors of gods all over the world escaping from the artifacts where they'd been imprisoned.
- Desjardins argues, but Zia pleads with Iskandar for a chance to work with Carter and Sadie.
- Iskandar agrees to let Zia test Carter and Sadie, and Desjardins storms off.
- Sadie asks what testing is like, and Zia informs her that failing the test means dying. Tough test.