A/N: Thanks to all you lovely readers: Aqua girl 007, Kiterious and YamiBakura1988! Yeah, updates are going to be super-sparse from now on. And, erm, sorry for being so slow to update, especially when considering the cliffhanger left last chapter. This story won't go on hiatus, it just...yeah, it's just going on the backburner while I panic-revise.

Many thanks,

LadyCathy. x

ooOoo

Chapter 14: The Final Guardian

"You can't throw your voice, can you?" Mana asked desperately.

"I didn't just then, if that was what you were thinking."

"Yeah, that was what I was afraid of."

The two slowly turned around. Casually resting between them and their exit, was a large...

"Spider," Mana croaked.

"Come, come now; is that any way to address a new acquaintance?" The... creature tutted, grinning at the two startled humans. "I would have at least expected some manners from any humans who had managed to reach as far as Apep's shrine."

It... wasn't a spider. At least, it wasn't just a spider. It was part human – a woman's face was situated where the spider's head should have been; the sharp, female features of the face seemed a stark contradiction to the arachnid body surrounding it. When it grinned, sharp, pincer-like teeth grinned out from its mouth.

"Um, Mana? What is that thing?"

Mana's mouth opened and closed several times, but no words were emitted. Eventually, "I don't know."

"You don't..."

"I don't know, alright?" she snapped.

The creature, however, was sick of being ignored, because at that point web strands appeared from the sides and caught them, heisting them into the air to hang helplessly before it. The creature scurried forward, its all-too-human eyes peering at its captives. Despite the coarse exterior, the creature's voice was smooth, silky even. "Rude, so rude. And after all the restraint I'm having to use to resist eating you right now. You would think a little gratitude wouldn't go amiss."

"No, no; we're very, very grateful," Bakura quickly assured. His smooth talking habits apparently kicked in when danger such as this aroused. "We'd be even more grateful though if we were let go and could just go about our business..."

"Entering Apep's Realm, you mean?" The creature laughed. "Sorry, but I can't allow that. As the final guardian, it's part of my job."

"Can't we come to an understanding?"

"Oh, you are just so full of hot air, aren't you? Alright, I'm feeling very generous today – plus I'm bored. Eating you would be so quick, so why don't we have a little competition – a game, a test, if you will?" Another smile; the pincers became visible, looking too spider-like. "You haven't got anything to lose."

"What's the game?"

"I'll give you a riddle; you answer correctly."

"And if we do answer correctly?"

"Who knows? I might even let you go. Depends how I feel." The same grin.

A gasp caught in the back of Mana's throat; a noise of comprehension, of understanding. Both the other two occupants looked to her with mild surprise; Bakura more so than the creature. "You're a sphinx, aren't you?"

Another, all-too-wide grin.

Bakura wasn't so quick to accept it. "Hang on – I'm not an expert, but even I've seen sphinxes – I've seen the statues and everything – and they're half lion creatures. Not... bugs."

"Oh, the male is so narrow-minded, isn't he?" the creature tutted. The grin this time was directed to Mana, as if sharing a private joke. "So very stuck within the lines. And, for your limited information, boy, I'm an arachnid. Not a bug."

"Sphinxes were known for giving riddles," Mana quietly informed her companion. "And, I guess, they could be another half-creature, not just lions."

"Congratulations. Ever heard of the chimera, boy?"

"What?"

"Chimera. Chimera, boy. Part lion, part goat and part snake traditionally, but there were other species too. Some chimeras were known for being part monkey or part tiger. My point is that there are variations from the well-known. I'm impressed, girl. Perhaps I will release you if the riddle is answered correctly."

"Oh goody," Bakura muttered.

Mana would have elbowed him if she could have reached him. As things were, she just hissed his name at him before turning to the sphinx. "Please, just give us the riddle."

"Alright. You can see it, but you can't see it."

There was a deafening pause.

"That's it?" Bakura reddened, but with ire. "That's the whole riddle? I could mean anything! A... A..."

"A puzzle," Mana offered.

"Right," Bakura agreed. "Or something abstract, like death..."

"Love, friendship," Mana added.

"Sheesh, the friendship option would be cheesy," Bakura muttered. "You cannot expect us to get the answer just from that."

Another grin. Mana was beginning to feel unsettled – more than before – from the grin. "Alright, you can have a longer clue, but only because the female has proven herself to have a brain."

Bakura threatened to splutter protests, but something – either Mana's non-verbal hint or a general survival instinct – stopped him.

"What's the additional clue?"

"The more you have of it, the less you see it. It cannot be seen, it cannot be felt; cannot be heard, cannot be smelt; only one colour, but not one size, stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies..." The human eyes glittered. "What am I?"

Another awkward pause; this time thought-satiated. Bakura looked to Mana. "Well? Any bright ideas, princess?"

"Why do I have to come up with the answer?"

"Aren't you meant to be the one with a brain?"

"It may surprise you, but you also have a brain – at least a partially-functioning one!"

"Oh, and that's the first time you've voiced that opinion in the last fortnight!"

"Do you need me to tell you that you have a brain?"

The sphinx was chuckling, scuttling closer to the bickering duo. "Oh, I haven't had this much entertainment for a long while... You wouldn't believe how few people ever make it this far..."

"I wonder why," Bakura muttered under his breath. "It wouldn't be the resident harpies on the doorstep that do the trick, do you think? Or the long trek here, or the caves or even the Ra-damn cockatrice we came across a week ago–"

Mana would have prodded Bakura to make him shut up; as things were though, she could only content herself with glaring at her suspended companion. "Could you at least try not to annoy her?" she hissed. "Kind of not in the position to argue."

"I'm always in the position to argue."

"Yeah, because you haven't got the foggiest idea how to keep your mouth shut. How you've lived off your wits all your life is completely beyond me. Could you just help with the riddle already?"

"Well, thanks to your comments, it's already slipped my mind."

Mana opened her mouth to snap a sharp retort, but found that she couldn't recite the puzzle either. She glanced sheepishly to the sphinx; the sphinx smiled that same sickly smile.

"The more you have of it, the less you see it. It cannot be seen, it cannot be felt; cannot be heard, cannot be smelt; only one colour, but not one size, stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies. What am I?"

"I still say it's too vague."

Mana, however, was frowning. "Still the sight theme... less you see it... cannot be heard..."

"Yeah, yeah, very nice, princess."

The sphinx was still smiling; Mana somehow felt like she'd hit the nail on the head. "Oh, very perceptive. You'd make a good student, girl." She sneered at Bakura. "Much better than the boy, anyway. Such narrow confines of the mind."

"Alright, we've established you think I'm thick," Bakura retorted. "Perhaps Mana can solve the riddle then. Since she's so smart."

"I'm trying, I'm trying," she muttered.

"Try harder then."

"You're not helping." She murmured the riddle over in her head, pausing over certain lines, taking them apart, suggesting an answer and then discarding it when it failed to meet all the criteria. Then, out of the blue, she said, "Name colours."

Bakura blinked. "What?"

"You heard me. Name colours."

"Alright. Red?"

"What would you associate with that colour?"

"I don't know. Anger?"

"Wouldn't fit with 'cannot be felt.'"

"Okay, do you want me to name another colour?" Bakura demanded irately. "Green – I suppose you can link that in with jealously?"

"Same problem."

"Sea-sickness?"

"Ditto."

"Grass?"

Mana paused. "Same again. I guess the fact it's only one colour isn't much help then. So it won't be an emotion, since all emotions can be felt. I doubt it'll be anything tangible. That leaves... concepts?"

"Great. Just great."

"At least I'm trying," Mana barked. In her irritation, she was causing the spindle fibres suspending her to slowly rotate in the air; the cavern gradually revolving around her in a hesitant circle. "Oh, for goodness sake!"

The sphinx reached out with one thin, black, hairy leg and nudged her back so she was once again facing them. Mana, instead of feeling grateful for the help, only felt vaguely nauseous at the contact. She closed her eyes; it only amplified the sickness at the slow countermovement.

'And to think I could be safely at the palace right now,' she thought miserably. 'Instead I'm dangling in the middle of a shrine in the middle of a cave in the middle of nowhere... With one thief and one bored spider... Where did I go wrong?' She came to the conclusion that everything had gone wrong when Bakura had been dragged into the hall, accused of theft. Everything had gone even more wrong when Atem had taken Bakura's place. And 'frying pan and fire' came to mind when she thought about her own decision to join Bakura's group.

"Hey, princess; you still with us?"

Mana blinked. "Oh... Sorry. I'd just..." She closed her eyes, still feeling uneasy about the whole situation. The ground below her swung lazily from side to side – or was it her who was swinging? – and she tried to concentration on the reassuring null blackness of the back of her eyelids.

Her eyes suddenly flicked open.

Black.

"That's it," she whispered.

"What's it? Princess? Now what are you thinking?"

Mana looked to her companion thief. Her gaze unfocused as she recited the riddle once more. "'The more you have of it, the less you see it,' yes, that works... 'It cannot be seen, it cannot be felt; cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,' that too makes sense... 'Only one colour...'"

"Princess?"

"A shadow," Mana breathed. Her eyes locked on Bakura's. "That's the answer. We should have seen it immediately; what with Apep's speciality and all that... The answer's shadow."

"You're sure of that?"

"I... Yes, I'm sure."

"As sure as you were about the cockatrice's immunity to mirrors?"

Mana faltered. "Please just trust me on this."

He observed the brunette; the brunette he'd been stuck with for the last two weeks. The brunette he'd come to know and grudgingly respect over that time. He nodded. "Alright. But if we die..."

"Yeah, I know. I've heard that one before."

The sphinx approached the two hapless humans. "Shadow? That is your answer?"

Mana looked to Bakura. This was his last chance to withdraw. He nodded again. "Yeah, it is."

The sphinx's smile widened; the pincer teeth once again glittered eerily in the dim light of the cavern. For the first time Mana noticed a strange glow around the shrine; emitted from nowhere in particular, but light enough for no torches to be required. Not light enough for the elongated shadows to be discarded though. One couldn't notice the light without noticing the shadows creeping side-by-side along it.

The creature leered before them. Mana wondered how quickly death would come if the sphinx decided to eat them. Probably not quick enough.

The sphinx stepped back.

"Congratulations."

The web released them; Bakura was subsequently dropped on his back. Mana was placed upon the ground with a gentler landing.

"Well, I'm feeling gracious today; I'll let you go free." She paused, then added with a smug, lazy voice, "I must be getting soft in my old age. I'll let you both go free. I was going to snack on the male, but..." She smirked to Mana. "Well, I guess you need someone to bicker with."

Before either could add anything, the creature started to skulk back into the corners of the cavern, receding into a shadow until it disappeared entirely from view.

Her voice floated to them one last time.

"You have ten minutes. After that I may just withdraw my generosity."

Mana looked to Bakura, who looked a little frustrated by the whole affair. "I guess we should get this over and done with then." She opened her palm and turned her gaze to the ring around his neck. Her voice had softened, perhaps with nerves at finally reaching their goal. "Apep's key should do the trick."

Bakura took the ring off his neck and dropped it in Mana's hand. She moved to the coffin and placed it in the indentation so conveniently sized to fit it. Something clicked or shifted, and the mural engraving on the wall before them began to shimmer. Darkness crept across it; snaking tendrils snaked across it, swirling and infesting it until a door of shadows lay before them.

Mana shivered, unsettled by the looming absence in the wall.

"I guess that's the door, right?"

"I guess so."

Bakura stepped up, one hand reaching forward as if to touch it. He hesitated, then swooped a pebble up from the ground. It was smooth and rounded, like the stone he'd picked up before. He hurled it into the black abyss; he supposed he should be relieved that it passed straight through, rather than any... more offensive reaction occurring.

"You're going through, aren't you?"

Bakura gave a reckless, slightly uneasy smile. "After all this, it'd be a waste not to."

"I'm coming too then."

"No." He was surprised at how quickly, how instinctively he responded. He flustered for a moment, then regained some of his usual indifference. "No," he repeated, calmer this time. "You should stay here. I made this happen and I plan to resolve it. There's no point in you putting yourself in danger."

"Are you... worried for my safety?"

"I... No, of course not! I just... think it'd be a good idea to have someone here to keep guard. In case the spider lady shows up again." He wavered again. The darkness to his side rippled, swamping one side of his face in shadow. The side bathed in dim, eerie light looked... uncertain. He walked over to Mana. "Promise me you'll stay here until I return. No trips of your own."

Mana wouldn't meet his gaze.

Bakura brought one hand to her chin and gently lifted her face so their eyes met. "Hey, promise." She didn't respond. "Please, Mana."

Her eyes, blinking, looked strangely vulnerable for a moment. She slowly nodded. "Alright."

"That's my girl." Losing his previous seriousness, a cocky smirk returned to his face as he stepped away and approached the doorway, giving an offhand salute. "If I don't come back, send my regards to Atem."

Mana stepped up before he could disappear through the shifting black veil. Before her mind could rebel against her actions, she placed a quick kiss on his lips. "Send your regards yourself, you thief, because you better be coming back." She hesitated. "And not just for Atem's sake."