The Longest Night in Egypt, page 1
Table of Contents
Flying High 1. Best Idea Ever?
2. A Quick Study of Failing with Style
3. A Bit of a Mess
4. The Boat of a Million Years
5. Abducted!
6. The Prophecy
7. Babbel Reporting
8. A Prodigy
9. Fun Times at the Kids’ Table
10. Center of Attention
11. The Aggrieved Prince
12. Inappropriate Laughter
13. Sunbursting
14. Breathless and Clinging
15. Have You Heard the One About…
16. Worrying Too Much
17. Sweet Girl
18. It’s Just My Nature
19. The Deep Thoughts of Camels
20. A Confession
21. The Girl in the Desert
22. Again with the Grumbling
23. Thea’s Tale
24. For Egypt
Into the Underworld 25. Still Second Class
26. A Pouch Full Of…
27. A Memory?
28. The Climb
29. So Easy
30. Pretty, Pretty Bats
31. And Also, Glittery Fish
32. The Four Weary Ones
33. The Wailing Goddesses
34. The Flood
35. Servants of the Prince
36. A Water Break
37. Meerkats of the Moon
38. The One Who Asks Questions
39. A Riddle
40. Tricky, but Clever
41. An Offer?
42. A Visit from an Old Friend
43. A Crazy Idea
44. Up from the Depths
45. Annoying Little Creatures
46. Is Somebody Afraid Of…
47. Aunty?
48. The Spear of Vengeance
49. Jumpra to the Rescue
50. The Thing About the Unwashed Masses
51. The Serpent with Many Names
Prayers for the Dawn 52. The Belly of the Beast
53. A Spark of Magic
54. A Persistent Beetle
55. Spells in the Darkness
56. Iced…Serpent?
57. The Fight Ahead
58. The Keeper of Souls
59. Second Thoughts
60. Feeding Time
61. A Princess, a Few Friends, and an Eruption of Hippos
62. The Radiance of Ra
63. Breaking the Vault
64. Why the Crown Sits Heavy
65. As Bright as the Sun
Glossary of the Gods in the Shadow Prince Series
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Resources for Educators
Landmarks
Body Matter
Table of Contents
Page list
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In praise of the first book in the series!
“Wildly imaginative and thoroughly thrilling, The Shadow Prince is a Hunger Games for a big, strange, magical new world.”
—Lev Grossman, author of the Magicians Trilogy
More praise for Durham
“David Anthony Durham never disappoints. I can’t wait to read whatever he writes next.”
—George R. R. Martin
“Durham is a master of the fantasy epic.”
—The Washington Post
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by David Anthony Durham
Jacket art copyright © 2023 by Eric Wilkerson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
TU BOOKS, an imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS Inc.
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leeandlow.com
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on paper from responsible sources
Edited by Elise McMullen-Ciotti
Book design by Sheila Smallwood
Typesetting by ElfElm Publishing
Book production by The Kids at Our House
The text is set in Adobe Garamond Pro
Chapter opener art copyright © by Olga Che
Egyptian symbols by Good Studio
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
First Edition
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress
ISBN 9781643796093 (HC) • ISBN 9781643796130 (EBK)
To Gudrun, Maya, and Sage for all the years of
dreaming up and telling stories together
Flying High
1
The Best Idea Ever?
I had to shout to keep the wind from snatching my words away. “ARE YOU SURE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA!?”
Above me, Prince Khufu climbed up the rungs of what had to be the tallest spire in the world. He shouted, “IT’S THE BEST IDEA EVER!”
“But…” I gulped. “…WE’RE REALLY HIGH UP!”
So high, in fact, that the city of Abydos spread out far below us. I could make out the grid pattern of streets reflecting the glow of the night sky’s starlight. It would’ve been a great view if I was peering over the railing of the royal barge, but it was a different story hanging on for dear life to a thin metal frame that swayed in the wind.
“THE HIGHER WE GET, THE BETTER THE RIDE!” Prince Khufu shouted.
I’d figured my new job as the prince’s shadow would require a lot of dangerous things from me. But I’d never imagined this. The prince hadn’t seemed this adventuresome during the shadow testing. Worried and nervous was more like it. But since that was over and I’d become his shadow, he seemed a lot more confident. And mischievous.
“IT’S STILL DARK!” I protested. “THE SUN ISN’T EVEN UP!”
Khufu stopped and motioned for me to climb up to him. When I reached him he said, “It’s almost sunrise. We’ll get in one quick ride on the first rays of the sun. Nobody will know we haven’t slept the night away like good little kids. So stop protesting. You got to do all sorts of fun stuff during the shadow testing. Now it’s my turn.”
“Fun stuff ? You think fighting demons was fun? Giant scorpions, baboon brothers, the Jackal-Headed Demon that Feeds on Rottenness—”
“He nearly fed on you,” Khufu said, with an amused smirk.
“Not to mention Ammut!”
“Why do people always say not to mention just before they mention something?”
“Being attacked by metal vultures, almost getting eaten by a massive slug, nearly torched by a fire-breathing monster, and having to fight Egypt’s most powerful evil magician—”
“It wasn’t really Teket. Just a spell version of him.”
“Watching other kids die in horrible ways. You call that—”
“Nobody really died.”
“But we didn’t know that at the time!”
Khufu let go of the rungs with one hand and pointed. “I can see the glow from Lord Ra.”
“Two hands, Prince!” I snapped. “Two hands, please!”
“Relax,” Khufu said, “this spire was made for climbing.” With that, he resumed the ascent. I took off after him.
I couldn’t really say just what the spire was made for or who would want to go up it. Khufu had mumbled something about it being for atmospheric experiments, whatever that meant. All I knew was that we shouldn’t be up there. Not by ourselves. Not in the dark of night. And especially not after Pharaoh Neferu had made it clear we were not to use the sunwings.
The royal family was on a big tour of Egypt. Most of the royal family, that is. Prince Rami had fallen suspiciously sick and talked his way out of going. It was pretty obvious why. The trip was all about showing Prince Khufu off to the people of Egypt. And showing me off, too, I guess. Knowing Rami, this was not stuff he wanted to be a part of. Not that I minded. He was almost as big a sourpuss as Lord Set.
Princess Sia had also stayed behind. As the youngest of the royal children, she had the ceremonial role of representing the family in the capital. She was only eight years old, but she was already making a mark on the nation. She had been the one who convinced the pharaoh to have the shadow candidates in Khufu’s testing magically transported away at the moment they would have died. She’d saved a lot of lives, including Gilli’s and Seret’s.
Because of her, Gilli and Seret were able to come along on the trip, too! As a cadet in the Royal Guard, Seret was aboard to learn about her duties when the royal family traveled. Gilli, as a novice magician, was along to meet with some star magician named Iset. Those were the official reasons they came along, but I really think that Pharaoh Neferu and Queen Heta arranged it as a way to reward them for helping to defeat Ammut when she attacked the prince.
Khufu and I finally reached the top of the spire. We climbed out into a small round basket. Khufu unpacked the bag he had slung over his back and shoved a bundle of cloth into my chest. I accepted it and watched him snap out another garment. He shimmied into it with enthusiasm and then raised his arms. “Look,” he said, a ridiculous smile on his face, “I’m a bird!”
Not exactly. He was a twelve-year-old Egyptian prince wearing a shirt made of suncloth. It fit snug to his body, except for flaps of fabric that hung between his arms and his side. Wings, so to speak. At a banquet the night before, the governor of Abydos had given all sorts of gifts to the royal family—including two brand-new sunwing suits for the princes. They’d been designed right there in Abydos. The pharaoh had thanked him politely, but after the banquet he had forbidden Khufu from using them. “Too dangerous,” he’d said. “Untried technology. I can’t have you risking your necks with such things.”
I figured that was the end of that. But Khufu had other plans. He’d woken me in the middle of the night, a huge grin on his face and the two sunwing suits clenched in his hands. Next thing I knew, we were scaling the spire, about to do the craziest thing I’d ever heard of.
As I put on my sunwings, I said, “Your father said—”
“My father may be the pharaoh, but he’s also just my dad. And”—he stretched, checking the hang of the wings—“fathers don’t always know best. He stopped having fun years ago. Hey, look, the sun’s rising.”
He was right. Lord Ra had just begun to burn up into the sky. As the first rays touched us, I felt the sunwings hum into life. Energy ran through them, making a tinkling sound. I’d seen suncloth work before, especially in the sails that powered The Mistress of Light. But feeling the energy rippling across my body was a very different thing.
“Cool, isn’t it?” Khufu asked. He pulled two pairs of goggles from his pack. He handed one to me, and then strapped his own on. “Let’s be quick, before the city wakes up.”
“Too late for that,” I pointed out. “The city’s already awake!”
The direct rays of the sun hadn’t reached the ground yet, but even the hint of it was enough for flying things to begin to hum with energy. It shouldn’t have been surprising. Abydos was a busy trade and manufacturing city. It was famed for its traffic jams, and I could see why. The moment the sun made it possible, ships and barges, skiffs and transports began to rise, along with all the flying beetles and dragonflies and sunboards that went along with them.
