Great, I thought. Setne’s aw’esome magic summoned an appetizer for the devil hippo.

Then, from the boat, Setne yelled, “Wait for it! Three, two,
one...”

The Nile boiled around me. A huge mass of brown seaweed erupted beneath me and lifted me skyward. Instinctively I held on, slowly realizing that the seaweed wasn’t seaweed. It was hair on top of a colossal head. The giant man rose from the Nile, higher and higher, until the hippo looked almost cute in comparison. I couldn’t tell much about the giant from the top of Iris head, but Iris skin was darker blue than try lather’s. He had shaggy brown hair frill of river muck. His belly
was hugely swollen, and he seemed to be wearing nothing but a loincloth made offish scales.

“BRRRAAHHHHH!” The hippo lunged, but the blue giant grabbed its bottom teeth and stopped it cold. The force of the
inpact nearly shook me olf Iris head.

“Yay!” the blue giant bellowed. ‘Hippo toss! I love this game! ” He swung his arms in a golf swing motion and launched
the monster out of the water.

Few things are stranger than watching a giant hippo fly. It careened wildly, lacking its stubby legs as it sailed over tbe
marshlands. Finally it crashed into a limestone cliff in the distance, causing a minor avalanche. Boulders collapsed on top
of the hippo. When the dust settled, there was no sign of the monster. Cars kept driving down the liver road. Fishing boats
went about their business, as if blue giants fighting hippos was nothing remarkable on this stretch of the Nile.

“Fun!” the blue giant cheered. “Now, who summoned me?”

“Up here!” I yelled.

The giant froze. He carefiilly patted his scalp until he found me. Then he picked me up with two fingers, waded over to the
riverbank, and gently set me down.

He pointed to Zia, who was struggling to reach the shore, and the Egyptian Queen, which was drifting downstream, listing
and smoking from the stem “Are those friends of yours?”

‘Yes,” I said. ‘Could you help them?”

The giant grinned. “Be right back!”

A few minutes later the Egyptian Qiteen was safely moored. Zia sat next to me on the shore, wringing Nile water out
of her hair.

Setae hovered next to us, looking quite snug, even though his arms were still tied. “So maybe next time you’ll trust me,
Carter Kane!” He nodded at the giant, who loomed over us, still grinning like he was really excited to be here. “May 1 present my old friend Hapi!”


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