At last, the staircase disappeared into the mushroom cap of the peak. Tunnels had been burrowed through the raw rock. Slitlike windows let in sunlight, revealing chambers carved into the stone. A few men lounged about, wearing bits of leather and bronze armor. They carried javelins, swords, even a few bows made of horn and sinew. These men fell into step behind the group, clearing out of the place with the princess.

Jake stared around. This place must be some sort of temporary outpost … or maybe even a hunting lodge.

The party, growing larger as they went, continued higher and higher until at last they burst through the top of the peak. The sudden heat scorched any exposed skin. The brightness felt like a hammer blow between the eyes.

Jake stumbled a few steps, nearly blinded. He blinked away the glare and stared around at the flat summit of reddish black rock, as level as a landing pad.

And something had landed here.

Or at least almost.

Two large boats hovered a few feet off the rock, tethered in place with ropes. The crafts’ hulls looked as if they were constructed of densely woven straw. Jake knew the earliest Egyptians built their boats out of papyrus. These appeared to be similarly constructed, painted in bright stripes of crimson and blue. Even the shape—from the long, shallow keel to the upturned prow and stern—reminded Jake of the riverboat he’d seen back at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

But rather than a towering square sail, a huge black balloon floated above each boat. The material looked rubbery. Fires glowed below the opening at the bottom, keeping the air hot inside the hovering balloon.

Jake and the others were marched across the stones toward a ramp that led into one of the boats. Nefertiti had already vanished inside.

Kady dragged her feet. She wasn’t a fan of heights. “I’m not flying in that thing. It looks like it’s made of straw. I’ll fall straight out the bottom.”

Marika and Pindor looked no happier.

Bach’uuk hardly seemed to care. He kept staring toward the horizon. His focus drew Jake’s eyes out there. Again he noted that strange haziness blurring the horizon, making it hard to tell where the land ended and the sky began. Jake searched in all directions. It was the same everywhere.

Bach’uuk caught Jake’s eye. “The Great Wind.”

Before Jake could ask what that meant, the point of a spear poked his back.

“Get aboard the windrider,” one of their guards ordered. “We head to Ka-Tor. There you will learn your fate.”

Another of their captors laughed and prodded Jake sharply. “He really means to learn how you will die.”

10

UP AND AWAY

With a roar like a fiery dragon, flames shot into the open mouth of the balloon. The noise was nearly deafening. A barrel-chested man, as burly as a blacksmith, worked a set of bellows beneath the flaming copper funnel that was pointed up into the heart of the balloon. He would occasionally drop a reddish fruit into its furnace, causing the flames to belch higher. It was the same fruit that had been used to chase off the pack of raptors.