The Complete Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan Page A

swallowed nervously and took the cylinder. “ Um …thanks.”
    The statue marched back to his pedestal, jumped on, and hardened again into regular clay.
    “I wonder…” I faced the shabti . “Sandwich and chips, please!”
    Sadly, none of the statues jumped down to serve me. Perhaps food wasn’t allowed in the library.
    Carter uncapped the cylinder and unrolled the papyrus. He sighed with relief. “This version is in English.”
    As he scanned the text, his frown got deeper.
    “You don’t look happy,” I noticed.
    “Because I remember the story now. The five gods…if Dad really released them, it isn’t good news.”
    “Hang on,” I said. “Start from the beginning.”
    Carter took a shaky breath. “Okay. So the sky goddess, Nut, was married to the earth god, Geb.”
    “That would be this chap on the floor?” I tapped my foot on the big green man with the river and hills and forests all over his body.
    “Right,” Carter said. “Anyway, Geb and Nut wanted to have kids, but the king of the gods, Ra—he was the sun god—heard this bad prophecy that a child of Nut—”
    “Child of Nut,” I snickered. “Sorry, go on.”
    “—a child of Geb and Nut would one day replace Ra as king. So when Ra learned that Nut was pregnant, Ra freaked out. He forbade Nut to give birth to her children on any day or night of the year.”
    I crossed my arms. “So what, she had to stay pregnant forever? That’s awfully mean.”
    Carter shook his head. “Nut figured out a way. She set up a game of dice with the moon god, Khons. Every time Khons lost, he had to give Nut some of his moonlight. He lost so many times, Nut won enough moonlight to create five new days and tag them on to the end of the year.”
    “Oh, please,” I said. “First, how can you gamble moonlight? And if you did, how could you make extra days out of it?”
    “It’s a story!” Carter protested. “Anyway, the Egyptian calendar had three hundred and sixty days in the year, just like the three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle. Nut created five days and added them to the end of the year—days that were not part of the regular year.”
    “The Demon Days,” I guessed. “So the myth explains why a year has three hundred and sixty-five days. And I suppose she had her children—”
    “During those five days,” Carter agreed. “One kid per day.”
    “Again, how do you have five children in a row, each on a different day?”
    “They’re gods,” Carter said. “They can do stuff like that.”
    “Makes as much sense as the name Nut. But please, go on.”
    “So when Ra found out, he was furious, but it was too late. The children were already born. Their names were Osiris—”
    “The one Dad was after.”
    “Then Horus, Set, Isis, and, um…” Carter consulted his scroll. “Nephthys. I always forget that one.”
    “And the fiery man in the museum said, you have released all five. ”
    “Exactly. What if they were imprisoned together and Dad didn’t realize it? They were born together, so maybe they had to be summoned back into the world together. The thing is, one of these guys, Set, was a really bad dude. Like, the villain of Egyptian mythology. The god of evil and chaos and desert storms.”
    I shivered. “Did he perhaps have something to do with fire?”
    Carter pointed to one of the figures in the picture. The god had an animal head, but I couldn’t quite make out which sort of animal: Dog? Anteater? Evil bunny rabbit? Whichever it was, his hair and his clothes were bright red.
    “The Red Lord,” I said.
    “Sadie, there’s more,” Carter said. “Those five days—the Demon Days—were bad luck in Ancient Egypt. You had to be careful, wear good luck charms, and not do anything important or dangerous on those days. And in the British Museum, Dad told Set: They’ll stop you before the Demon Days are over. ”
    “Surely you don’t think he meant us, ” I said. “ We’re supposed to stop this Set character?”
    Carter