Jake did not know what sort of alchemy was being cast, but it couldn’t be good. He lowered the spyglass.

Pindor held out a hand for his turn. “Is it as bad as it looks?”

“Worse.”

Pindor stared down at the spyglass—then handed it over to Marika. He plainly would rather not look.

“Make ready to turn to starboard!” Horus bellowed from the stern, keeping a hand on the ship’s rudder. “On my mark! Go!”

Gears were cranked, the wings below shifted, and the ship tilted to the right.

“Why are we turning?” Jake asked. “That’s only going to slow us down.”

Nefertiti leaned over the rail and pointed ahead of the ship. “The Flame Forest. No one flies over it. We must circle around it to reach the Great Wind.”

Jake didn’t see the danger. In fact, he didn’t see any forest. The land ahead was covered thickly with white crystalline rock formations, like giant versions of the salt crystals he grew in his earth science classes. Some climbed hundreds of feet up in the air, reflecting the setting sun.

As he studied the strange landscape, he saw that the air above the formations shimmered with heat and had a greasy pall to it. Then a pillar of flame shot into the sky, twisting like a fiery tornado. It hovered in the air for several seconds, then fell away. Moments later, another two blasted skyward, one reaching nearly as high as the ship.

He remembered the danger zone marked with a flaming skull on the map. Now he understood why they were turning. Curious, he borrowed the spyglass from Marika and took a closer look.

Before he did so, he spotted the royal barge making the same slow turn. No one wanted to fly over that flaming field. Focusing down on one of the rock formations, Jake saw why it was called a forest. The branches of giant crystals, tangled and sticking out at all angles, did sort of look like tortured trees. There even seemed to be clusters of berries hanging in rows from the lower branches.

“It is where we harvest our firefruit,” Nefertiti said, nodding to the red gourds used to fuel the ship’s forges. “But it is dangerous work. Takes a steady hand and great skill. Pluck one that’s too ripe, knock one cluster into another, and boom.”

Jake lowered the spyglass and stared at the roaring flames shooting into the balloon.

“According to the old stories, the forest used to be far larger and much tamer, planted and tended by the Grand Magisters of Ankh Tawy. Since the city’s fall, the forest has grown wilder, slowly consuming itself.” Another twisting tower of flame blasted into the sky. “Eventually it will burn itself out.”

Shouts rose from the front of the boat and drew everyone’s attention forward. A black storm rose ahead of them: smoky thunderheads that climbed high into the sky. All knew it to be unnatural.

Jake remembered the spell cast by Heka, dark shadows driven into the wind. It seemed that those seeds had taken hold and grown into something monstrous. But what was it?