Ch 4

Ch 4, House of Anubis, opowiadania, Paragon & Osirian, Surviving Ouroboros

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Chapter 4: The First Leg of the Journey

"Shouldn't we tell the others where we are going?" Eddie asked Nina as she met him at the bottom of the stairs with her diary in hand.

Nina merely put a finger to her lips to silence him as she pulled her bandana over her hair to keep it out of her face.

With just a glance Nina transmitted a simple follow me with her eyes, as she entered the kitchen and crouched by the disused stove. The red light of her locket shone brightly, lighting up the room with a dim crimson sheen as the oven door opened.

Without more than a backwards glance the duo slipped in and shut the door.

"To answer your question, the reason we are not telling the others is that this is personal. As in between Paragon and Osirian, personal. If this had anything to do with our quest to stop Frobisher from being resurrected, then I would tell them in a heartbeat. I'd just prefer to learn as much about whatever this is, as I can, before we let the others in on it," Nina explained as she rifled through her diary of notes until she found the page she had written the clue on.

In the journal that had informed them of their true identities, they had found a note scribbled in cursive, that said the clue adjacent to it lead to a series of currently unknown items. All of which were noted as having importance to the progress of any Paragon or Osirian, regardless of the precluding.

The week before they had discovered the first of an unknown number of scrolls and along with their newly acquired knowledge of the past, they had been practicing nonstop to hopefully become fluent in the art of thought exchange.

So far the most they had managed were simple things, such as: Come with me, Hurry up, Stop, Don't move, I need to talk to you and several more basic thoughts.

"Makes sense I suppose. By the way, have you finished translating the clue?" Eddie asked as they straightened from a crawl and readied for the blinding ray of light.

As it slowly scanned from the ceiling down, Nina snapped her fingers and as practiced Eddie shut his eyes. With practice from the frequent use during the last week, she opened her diary. Closing her own eyes, she lifted the book, which incidentally had a medium sized mirror glued onto the inside of the back cover just for this purpose.

When the light hit the mirror, it reflected back and the blinding light sizzled and turned off.

"So have you?"

"I believe I've figured it out," Nina replied as they walked side by side. Their shoulders lightly brushed in the narrow tunnel corridor.

Guilt and pleasure swirled within her as she thought of Fabian who was sleeping twenty feet above them, oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend was sneaking around in the middle of the night with his best friend.

"Well don't leave me in suspense," Eddie chuckled as they came to a stop at what seemed to a dead end.

The wall of the dead end was covered with what seemed to be a well preserved yet slightly aged slab of stone that must have been part of an ancient temple at one time or another.

"Originally it was just pictures, as you know" Nina began, "But with some books from Robert's study and some of Amneris' knowledge, I was able to translate it and in English it says, 'Where water springs from stone, truth will be known. Tears from a crocodile fill the Nile and break Denial. Find the pieces of your mind, the solutions are in the gems. Two of red, one of blue, three of yellow, and the purple to undo."

"Cryptic, but intelligible," Eddie answered, "I take it that the part about the crocodile tears is why we are at this particular junction?"

A crying crocodile was the center piece of the depiction of a portion of the Nile. Above it were seven indentations, all arrayed in an intricate circle, that looked to have been settings for items that were now long gone.

"And you'd be correct," she quipped with a small smile in the dim light of their phones. Raising her hand towards the crocodile she gently placed the locket within the matching shape of the empty eye socket.

Grinding filled the corridor as the previously dead torches flamed to life, brightening the hall. At the base of the wall a tile in the stone floor slid from sight and admitted a pedestal from the floor.

Once it came to a stop, Nina immediately crouched down as if she had been expecting something similar to happen.

"Another clue?" Eddie asked as he crouched next to her, while she patiently began using a pencil to copy the engraved markings on the pedestal into her diary

"Yep, and this one is easy enough to translate," Nina announced, "If we hurry we can find the first gem and still get in a few hours of sleep before everyone wakes up."

Eddie looked into her eyes, 'What are we waiting for?' he exchanged with his eyes as he smiled.

'Nothing,' she returned before turning and racing down the hall.

He didn't need thought transmission to decipher the expression on her face. She was frustrated.

Following the clue, had lead them to a wall with the mark of Anubis', the crook and flail, embossed on it. Upon touching the symbol, the wall slid sideways and opened to show them an underground cavern with an enormous and seemingly deep lake. However there wasn't anything else in the room that they could see and the clue didn't really say what it was they were looking for.

"Help me go over the clue again," he asked, "The X of Anubis marks a door to a place, where not all who drown stay dead, the gem of Shen lays at the place where life and death cross," Eddie read aloud from the diary as he paced the shore of the lake.

"The X was the Crook and Flail, when they cross they make the letter X, the bit about drowning would explain the lake but I can't figure out the part about where not all who drown stay dead. I do know that Shen means Eternity or Infinity to the Ancients so the gem here would be the Gem of Immortality. Which if Amneris' memories are correct, is one of the Seven Stones of Rebirth. All seven of which are needed to complete the transition of higher beings from one mortal life to another over a period of time."

Eddie stared at her with a raised eyebrow as he bent over and picked a number of flat stones of the floor of the cave.

"What? I have memories of an entire childhood filled with learning mythology and then over a year's worth of study as a priestess in my head. You really think I wouldn't know anything?" Nina replied amused.

"Point taken," he laughed, "Now, my all-knowing priestess, what information do you have on retrieving a gem from a lake?"

Her face scrunched slightly as she conveyed bad news, "Well…according to legend the 'gems' are actually seven sacred artifacts, made of precious stones, that when put together during a special ritual, will put the users fully into their reborn bodies. Essentially, the ritual is the final portion of a ritual done by a past counterpart. Unfortunately, that means that the blue center piece, a turquoise ankh entwined with a Was* is the first piece of the puzzle."

"How is that unfortunate?" Eddie asked as he began skipping his handful of stones on the black surface of the lake.

"Well…."

"Well what?" he asked letting a hint of impatience through.

"Well, according to legend the Ankh was hidden at the bottom of an underground lake that covered an entrance to the underworld. Our problem is that the entrance and the Ankh are guarded by ferocious servants of Sobek, the god of water, virility and crocodiles."

"That would be a problem wouldn't it?" Eddie responded with wide eyes.

"Eddie?" Nina asked as she took in his horrified face. Her partner wasn't moving an inch as he transmitted an order for her to do the same with his eyes.

Disregarding his request she spun around and found herself face to face with an eight foot tall behemoth of a man with a crocodile head.

"Be ye a seeker of the Ankh?" it asked in a low growl that echoed.

"Yes," Nina squeaked at first before clearing her throat, "Yes, brave guardian, I am the Priestess Amneris and I am in need of the Sacred Ankh of Shen."

"Very well, and the boy?"

"BOY?" Eddie snapped indignantly.

"Shush, Khai," Nina snapped quickly, "He is my Osirian," she answered for him.

"So be it. Boy! As the Paragon's Osirian you are bid to protect her and fight me for her right to the Ankh. Only through my utter and final defeat will you be allowed to retrieve the Ankh," the guardian explained, "NOW FIGHT!"

Spears appeared in the new opponents hands as the crocodilian's visage transformed into a snarl.

Instinct took over Khai as he launched himself at the charging creature and faked a left evasion as he spun to the right and slashed the enormous beast on the forearm.

"Good tactic, young one," the beast informed, "but sloppy form. That move should have left me decapitated."

The beast's hand flew out and attached itself to his throat. Before he could react the creature's mouth opened to become a gaping maw that suddenly released a vile looking green mist, "Try again another night, little godlings."

Eddie's vision began fading along with his consciousness. His line of sight blackened as the crocodile headed man dropped him and flashed to Nina who also collapsed from the dense green fog.

Amneris was in trouble.

No, trouble did not truly belie the actual nature of her predicament.

"Why is it you will not perform the ritual?" high priestess Amunitep asked confused, "Without the ritual of the Inundation the Nile will not over flow with Hep's blessings and our people will have no sustenance but rice from the famine stores."

"I understand this, but why is it that I have to do it? Can't one of the other priestesses do it? I am a mere initiate of one year. I am unskilled and untried in this ritual. I could accidentally start a plague, instead of giving us good crops."

Her mentor, "It must be you because the ritual calls for a virgin of measurable power. Any other priestess of equal or greater power is either away attending blessings or no longer a virgin from participation in rituals calling for the sacrifice of a maidenhead."

Under normal circumstances she would have gone through with the ceremony and merely taken the brunt of the magical backlash that came from a non-virgin performing the ritual. However, the sickness the backlash brought would kill anything not of her power level and she could not risk the child she carried within her.

"Mistress…I-I'm n-not a..," tears rolled down her cheeks as her mentor's eyes widened in understanding.

"WHO?! Tell me who dares to defile a priestess of Anubis!"

"I cannot tell his name," Neri lied trying to cover her tracks. She had hoped her Mentor would understand but she had not and now all she could do was protect Khai and their unborn child. Which was a daughter if the divining was to be believed. Although the spell had reacted oddly, but that was probably because she wasn't purely human.

The high priestesses eyes flashed with anger, "Who! If you tell me now the punishment will be less severe and I may even refrain from informing the Pharaoh!"

An idea flashed within her mind. An exquisite lie that would save her child and herself. She needed to act quickly. It was odd though, the thought did not feel to be her own.

"I am not afraid of telling the Pharaoh," Neri became rapidly formulating her lie, "In fact it is necessary that I inform him."

The high priestess stared in shock.

"The pharaoh is your lover?"

Amneris nearly vomited in her mouth at the idea.

"No, a son of Anubis came upon order of the gods and told me I was to birth an heir to the throne, regardless of my vow of virginity," she lied, her life and love for Khai may be coming to an end but if she could protect the precious life within her body then that was enough for her, "He said that the Pharaoh's seed was failing within a human woman and that our kingdom needed new blood. He said it was my duty to reinvigorate the royal blood with the blood of the gods. So the son of Anubis brought me to his bed and took me. He said that as I am a daughter of Isis, the next ruler would be a daughter of Isis as well. And that all Queen's and King forthwith will be children of Isis. The reason I did not tell you was that I was forbidden from doing so until the conception had fully taken place. I tell you now because I am with child. A child that will one day be the Ruler of Egypt."

Amunitep stared in wide-eyed awe, "COME! We must spread the joyous news. The King shall have an Heir at last!"

Amneris was pulled to her feet and dragged by her arm from the room as the high priestess shouted the news in celebration. The new Ruler was to be born and it was to be a 'blessed'. Good news indeed for the kingdom.

Inside Amneris silently wept as she knew this was the end to her time with Khai.

At least her daughter would live a happy, protected life as a beloved princess to her people.

Beeeep, beep, beeeep, beeeep, beeeep.

Groggily opening his eyes Eddie was happy to notice that he was still alive and even happier to see that Nina was stretched out perfectly unharmed as she snuggled into his chest.

"Ugh," Nina announced as she stirred from her sleep and looked up at Eddie, entirely blasé about the sleeping arrangement, "What is that evil noise," she asked as she buried her face into the crook of his neck.

"Uhh, I think it's my phone alarm," he replied as he used the arm not happily wrapped around Nina to fish his phone from his pocket.

He blinked exhaustedly as the phone's screen blasted light into his tired eyes.

8:10 THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO GET UP LAZY!

"CRAP! Nina wake up! We have twenty minutes to get dressed and get to school and from the sound of it there are people in the kitchen! How do we get out?" Eddie asked as he sat up

When Nina didn't reply immediately he looked down at her sitting in his lap wide-eyed. She just sat there staring at the wall as she rubbed her stomach.

"I was pregnant and we were going to be separated," Nina said a tear rolling from her eye as she remembered the dream now that she was fully awake.

"Pregnant? By who? Please don't say the Pharaoh got you?" Eddie implored as he hugged her shaking body gently to his chest. His dreams were separate from her in all instances except those times they had spent together.

"You're the father…but to protect our daughter I had to say the king was her sire. It was the only thing I could do to explain why she would be blonde and light eyed, when that only happens if both the parents are blessed or if one of the parents is a god," Nina sobbed, "Khai, I love you. I don't want to be without you, but now I'll never see you again."

"Don't worry, love, it's over now. We're together here and we'll have plenty of babies don't you worry," Eddie soothed, "Wait did you said Khai?!"

Nina looked up in surprise at the realization.

"I guess I did," she smiled widely, "I also said I loved you."

"Can I call you Amneris yet?"

"Only when we're alone. The others don't know we're any different and I want you to myself for a while. I had to share you for too long," Nina requested as she straddled her lover and quickly began unbuttoning the top of his pants, "Let's skip celebrate a little before we have to go back to real life," she suggested as she pulled him into a kiss.

"Don't need to tell me twice," he replied as he leaned forward and pushed her to the floor with a grin.

They didn't make it back to the school until third period with the flimsy excuse to the teachers of having eaten something off at dinner the night before and for Sibuna, the excuse of Nina and him having a particularly bad shared vision that lasted for hours.

It was really only half a lie. They did share something it just wasn't a vision and it wasn't bad.

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