The Pyramid of Souls (13 page)

   Eventually, Irina was surrounded by the animals. The music changed, and she danced with the tigers. A polar bear leaped into the circle of big cats and lifted her. Together, the polar bear and Irina performed a
pas de
deux. Symbolically, as she danced, she was less alone, unti
l finally, she was transformed in front of everyone's eyes into an icy princess

   Nick watched, as spellbound as the rest of the family. But soon his eyes began to droop from exhaustion. Eventually, despite the spectacle of the new show, he nodded off. He wasn't sure how long he slept, but he was suddenly very aware of Damian's voice.

   "Are we disturbing your nap, Kolya?"

   Nick sat up with a start. "Nope. I'm just—" And then he realized he had better not finish the sentence. I'm just so tire
d
because Isabella and I broke into Boris's training room last night
and were sword fighting.

   "Well, you, Penelope, and Isabella are due onstage. I hope in between your napping, you have been practicing."

   "Of course I have," Nick lied.

   He stood in the wings and looked out at the cavernous theater. He took a deep breath, and strode onstage, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness. He found his mark. Isabella and Sascha ran onstage, just as during the other rehearsals. They climbed on Penelope's back. They did everything they were supposed to do. Isabella pirouetted.

   And then it was Nick's turn.

   He felt a surge rising inside of him, starting with the familiar pins-and-needles feeling in his fingers and a fluttering in his stomach. He pushed the energy out of himself and…Penelope and Isabella disappeared.

   "
Ha!
" he cried triumphantly.

   "Not bad," Damian said, as he strode across the shining wooden stage. "The best part about the magic in our show is the total lack of props. No sheets or smoke to block the audience's view. No
illusions,
no
mirrors." He grinned. "The
y have no idea how we do it. One minute, an elephant is there. The next," Damian snapped his fingers, "she is gone."

   "This time, it was so easy," Nick agreed. "I didn't feel Penelope pushing against me at all. It was as if she was lighter than Vlad. It was so easy it was almost…"

   All at once, a panicky feeling overcame him. He reached out to hold on to something, but nothing was there and he dropped to his knees. Irina ran to his side. "What is it Kolya? What is it?"

   He felt like he couldn't breathe, and he clutched his throat. "It was
too
easy."

   "Nonsense," Damian said with a shake of his hair. "You have worked hard. That is what practice accomplishes."

   "But I haven't practiced."

   "Then you are simply gaining confidence. You are coming into your own as a magician. Now stand up, and bring them back."

   Irina helped Nick stagger to his feet, but in his heart, he already knew the outcome. He wouldn't be able to bring them back. He shut his eyes and felt his blood surging through his body. He pulled on Penelope and Isabella, as if racing through space and seizing some sort of invisible magical rope to pull them back to the stage. Only when he pulled, there was nothing there. It was like pulling in a fishing line after feeling a tug on the hook and instead finding nothing—not even seaweed or an old shoe.

   "I can't, Damian." He whispered the words.

   "Try again," Damian commanded.

   Nick looked at him. He saw the shadows beneath his cousin's eyes for the first time, saw how the missing Pyramid of Souls was worrying not just him and Isabella, but everyone. "I know I can't." A wave of nausea rose into his throat.

   "No…" Damian said hoarsely.

   Nick nodded. "I know I can't get them back. I can't tell you how, but I can't. And it's not
my magic.
It's dark magic." He uttered the words emptily, not from a place of shame, but from a place of grief.

   Damian nodded, his face turning white. "They have been stolen from us. By the thief who stole the Pyramid of Souls."

Theo!" Damian shouted for his brother.

   Theo ran onstage. "Let us go to Sanctuary, see if they are there."

   "I'm coming!" Nick said.

   "Absolutely not!" said Theo. "I can't let anything happen to you." He put his hands on Nick's shoulders. Theo was one of the bravest men Nick had ever met, but he felt a tremble in his cousin's grip.

   "If you don't take me, then I'll come anyway," Nick said. "This is my fault."

   "No, it's not. If this is the Pyramid of Souls at work, then perhaps…we should have canceled the convention, the competition, until we knew we had it safe in our hands again."

   "If my magic was stronger…" Nick's voice trailed off.

   Theo bent over slightly. "Your magic is plenty strong, Kolya." He stood again and glanced at Damian. "We'll bring Nicholai."

   "No," Damian shook his head. "
Nyet
.
Nyet!"

   "You can't make me stay here, Damian," Nick breathed.

   "I will cast a spell of stone on you and freeze you right where you are until we return."

   "No! Listen to me…! You talk about how the family members have to take care of each other, but now you won't let me come with you?" Nick returned his cousin's glare.

   "He's as stubborn as you are, brother," said Theo.

   Finally, Damian's expression softened. "Fine. But stay close."

   The three of them stood onstage before Theo sent them hurtling through space and time. Sometimes, Nick had nightmares of falling through the sky, so that in his dream, it really
felt
like he was dropping down, hurtling through the air; now he experienced that same sensation in real life. In the time it took to breathe a single breath, they disappeared and reappeared in the desert outside the pyramid. Running awkwardly through the sand, Nick fell but picked himself up in seconds. The three cousins ran into the cool of the pyramid. Immediately, they heard a cacophony of nervous chatter, like crickets and tree frogs.

   "What is that?" Nick asked.

   But then, in the corridor of the pyramid he could see that the hieroglyphics were moving, twittering, scattering in a crazed panic. They were no longer orderly, but zigged and zagged, bumping into each other.

   "What is going on?" he asked one of the hieroglyphics.

   "Shadowkeepers," it hissed.

   Cautiously, yet swiftly, the three cousins—Nick in the middle, Theo in front, and Damian in the back—turned sideways and slid down the hall into the large chamber.

   It was empty…

   Except for Sergei.

   "Where is everyone?" Theo asked.

   "I do not know," said Sergei, who was carrying a large brown paper bag that smelled suspiciously like Chinese takeout. "I got an order from D. B. Cooper for a quart of hot and sour soup, barbecued spare ribs, an order of Peking duck, and fortune cookies—magical ones. I come with the food. He is not here. No one is here. But"—he pointed with his free hand toward a wall of chattering hieroglyphics—"they say that Shadowkeepers were here. They were looking for a little girl and an elephant."

   "That little girl was Isabella," said Theo softly.

   "She would
hate that you're calling her a little girl. She'
d tell you herself. She's not little," snapped Nick. Fear and anger threatened to choke him.

   Sergei dropped the bag of Chinese food, took out a handker chief, and blew his nose. "I was worried about being paid for the Peking duck! I was worried about the money— only now I discover Isabella is missing!" He honked into the handkerchief again and dabbed at his eyes. "Who could even eat at a time like this?"

   Theo marched over to the wall of hieroglyphics. "Did the Shadowkeeper have the Pyramid of Souls?" he demanded.

   The chattering grew louder—a chorus of "Yes, yes, yes, yes!"

   Grim-faced, Theo turned around. "We must go home. I don't think the fiends are done yet. Sergei, you come with us. You'll be safer."

   Dejectedly, Theo, Damian, Sergei, and Nick vanished from the pyramid. When they returned to the Winter Palace Casino, it was not to the stage that they reappeared, but to Theo's classroom.

   "Something isn't right about this," said Theo. "How could the Pyramid of Souls be taken from Jahi?"

   "How do the Shadowkeepers take anything?" Nick wondered aloud.

   "No. Something is wrong here!" Theo was suddenly like a madman. With crazed eyes, he frantically raced from ball to ball, searching for something.

   "What is it?" Nick asked.

   Theo touched one ball, then the next, then the next, shaking his head each time. Finally, he came to the largest crystal ball in his collection.

   "This one will tell us."

   Nick stared at the ball. It was enormous. And it looked familiar. "Is that…?"

   Theo nodded. "Yes, it is, Kolya. Behold: P. T. Barnum's crystal ball."

Alexander the Great strode out of his tent, long hair flowing, his infamous temper flashing. With his long-fingered hands, he grabbed a man in white robes.

   "Panos! I want that soul house. Do you understand me? Either you retrieve it for me, or I will sentence you to death—by trampling."

   The man shrunk back. "Please…no, I beg you!"

   But Alexander would not listen. "You will be trampled to death by my herd of elephants unless you get me that soul house."

   The other man pleaded, "You have all the power a man should have!"

   "I want the power of the gods!" Alexander bellowed.

   "But you are now known as master of the universe. You are known as the king of Asia. In Tyre, you crucified your enemies and sold their children and wives into slavery. No one is more feared, more honored, more revered, more powerful. You command the whole of the world. Is that not enough? Is your appetite for power so enormous that it cannot be filled?"

   "How dare you question my power?" Alexander gestured at the two hundred elephants lined up in the distance. "Don't you see? I want to collect the very souls of my enemies even after their deaths. I want to hear their cries of agony. I want to own them for all eternity. Get me that soul house, or face the elephants' stampede."

   The man in the white robes fell to his knees and bowed before Alexander. "Oh, great king, please have pity on me."

   With an icy voice devoid of any emotion, Alexander said, "The soul house or your life."

   Leaving the man prostate on the sand, Alexander strode away, his thighs like sinewy tree trunks.

   The man in the white robes remained face down in the sand for many moments. Finally, he stood and walked into his tent. There, on a wooden table, sat the Pyramid of Souls. It was made of gold and shimmered magically, even in the pale light of the tent.

   The man wept. "I fear Alexander grows madder by the day. In his hands, this soul house will bring ruin and even more despair."

   He sat quietly, as if forging a plan, steeling himself for what lay ahead.

   At sundown, he wrapped the soul house in plain cloth, then placed it in a basket woven from reeds. As the sun set over the desert, he peered out of the tent and then scurried past soldiers and guards to the elephants.

   "You there!" said one general. "What are you doing?"

   "Tending to the elephants."

   "We have men for that. We do not need the king's personal magician and soothsayer tending the elephants."

   The magician straightened, trying not to betray his fear. "Those are Alexander's wishes. Dare you defy the master of the universe?"

   The general looked wary. "All right, then."

   "Thank you." The magician hurried past and ran through the desert night to the elephants. They stood in family groups. He touched one elephant, than another, soothing them with his voice. "I have come for the matriarch." Rejecting one after another, carefully stepping between the large beasts, he finally found the elephant he was searching for.

   "Please," he said to the elephant. "You must carry me through the desert. I must return to my people with the Pyramid of Souls, and we must ensure that it never falls into the hands of the king. I need a brave elephant—one who is a mother, who understands the fragility of life; one who has children and a family. Such an elephant would understand the need for compassion and not destruction, for a world without war so that children may be brought up to walk as peacemakers. Please. I beg you, wise elephant. Please carry me through the desert!"

   The elephant's eyes were, indeed, compassionate and understanding. She lowered her trunk into a perfect "U" and lifted the man onto her back.

   With a mournful look at her elephant family, she touched her trunk first to one elephant, then another. She came to her mate. She bowed her head and pressed her forehead to his. Then she started out into the desert on the long trek to safeguard the Pyramid of Souls.

***

"The elephant…" Nick whispered. "Please tell me that wasn't Penelope. I knew she was ancient, but…the magician must have cast a spell on her so she would live this long."

   Theo touched the ball. "What I fool I've been."