"By the Eye of Horus I am delivered. My stride is made long.
I am the Avenger. The road of souls is opened.
Ye shall not hold captive my soul.
Heaven shall not shut thee in."
- The Book of the Dead

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5
Arise, Avenging Protector
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The light of the stars washed over the broad expanse of desert that stretched away until it merged with the sky in the distance. The sand lacked everything under the starlight- warmth, color, life. Kagura turned away from the emptiness and back to the small group that followed Momiji along a ridge of rock down into a valley of sand. The six people moved slowly, like dream walkers, but surely, as if their feet were guided by an outside force. Well, Kagura knew hers were. That whispering voice in the back of her head was getting louder, more insistent, but she brushed it away and followed after Kyou.

Momiji lead them down into the valley, but then he stopped. His head turned, scanning the walls of sand, but his movements were stilted and strange. Kagura shuddered, knowing that it was Thoth she watched. "This is as far as I know," he said, his voice not quite Momiji's. "The doorway to the path to the underworld, to where Seth waits, is closed. Only Anubis can find it when it is hidden." Bright eyes turned to regard Kyou and Harakhte. "Or Horus."

Kyou bristled. Harakhte turned to him, his face void of expression. They stared at each other for a long moment. "Fine," growled Kyou. "What am I supposed to do?"

"You do not do anything." Thoth frowned. "You must act together."

Snarling under his breath, Kyou stalked over to Harakhte. "Well?" he demanded of the other man. "What do we do?" he said, contemptuously emphasizing the pronoun.

Harakhte shrugged. "I know as much about this as you do. This part of the ceremony is… somewhat out of my experiences."

Kyou almost hit him, but Kagura grabbed his arm. "Kyou-kun," she murmured. "I do not think that is the way."

With great difficulty, Kyou reined in his temper. "Fine," he said again, his voice more even-tempered now. "Do you have any suggestions?" he asked of Harakhte, or Thoth, or anyone else who cared to respond.

Harakhte frowned thoughtfully. "Well, it's something of a stretch, but it couldn't hurt…" He held up his hands to Kyou, who placed his own palm to palm with Harakhte's. "Now," the falcon hissed, his eyes closing, "think about the door, and perhaps we can find it together."

Kyou followed his example, his eyes falling shut as his chin came up, his head tilting back as if he was listening for something. The door… Where is the door? There was no answer.

"Hmmm," Harakhte murmured after several minutes.

Kyou's eyes flew open. "What?"

"Are you getting anything? Any clues?"

The cat frowned. "No."

"Oh well." Harakhte shrugged, dropping his hands. "Guess that didn't work."

Kyou might have murdered him on the spot if something hadn't distracted him.

Laughter. Bizarrely familiar, yet markedly unlike anything any of them had ever heard.

"Poor little children. Have you lost something? A doorway perhaps? To a path?"

Six pairs of eyes turned to the source of the voice.

He was sitting on the top of one of the dunes that surrounded them, making the little valley in which they stood. Two jackals sat, one to either side of him, the starlight only outlining the shapes of their dark bodies and catching their glowing eyes. He stood and ran lightly down the dune toward them, his four footed shadows not far behind. He jumped the last few feet, landing crouched in a small spray of sand, then stood level with them. He took a step forward, toward them. His eyes were shining with an unnatural light, and Kagura growled under her breath when his face became clear to her.

"Shigure." Kyou's voice was pleading, desperate for the other man to hear him. Harakhte said nothing, but Kagura could have told her beloved that it was a hopeless gesture. The man's eyes were wild, glowing with a strange light, and he was dressed in the official robes of Anubis- the short pleated linen kilt, the pectoral with the simple design of lapis and carnelian, and the bands that twisted like snakes around his upper arms.

The figure's head tilted to one side, as if he was listening for something. "Shigure," he mimicked Kyou's call, and chills ran down Kagura's spine. "Who is this Shigure you speak of? I do not think I know him." He fell easily into a crouch, grinning widely at them. "But if you are looking for a doorway… I think I can help you with that one!" His fingers stroked the fur of his companions and they cackled almost humanly, turning their glowing eyes on the group. "However… there are far too many of you. Only one at a time may enter through the doorway." His eyes narrowed. "Such is the decree of Seth, Ruler of Storms. So Anubis shall see it done."

The wind began to pick up, whipping the sand around them up into miniature dust storms, obscuring the air, making it thick with sand so that they could not see each other. Kagura's hackles started to rise; she reached out through the dusty air and grabbed Kyou by the wrist. She felt his grip tighten in response. On her other side, she reached for Tohru's hand. Joined together, they backed into a circle so that they stood with their backs together. Now the blinding wind could not separate them. But the worst was yet to come, Kagura could see, as she peered out of her slitted eyes. Dark shapes were moving through the sand. Kagura could sense the dunes around them; slowly she drew the group toward one, out of the middle of the valley. Luck, or some sixth sense had made her choose the dune where Anubis was currently engaged in opening the path to the underworld.

He stood, braced against the howling wind, his companions crouched at his feet, his arms held out as if to embrace the storm. Sand fell away from the side of the dune, pulled up into the storm to spin and whirl around and around. Underneath the sand was rock, pitted limestone. And as the sand melted away, a dark hole appeared in front of Anubis, a hole that was a tunnel, a pathway leading down into the earth. He stepped forward, his arms held out to each side as he passed through the doorway and still there was room for someone to walk to either side of him. The wind died down, and he paused and turned back to them.

"What do you seek here among the dead, O Horus of the Sky?"

"The one we seek is among the dead," Harakhte answered him, his voice flat and cold, his expression steely. Anubis' eyes flickered over him and rested on Kyou.

Kyou snorted, glaring at Anubis. "I don't want to fucking seek the dead! I just want everything back to normal. And let me tell you, when I find Seth I'm going to kick his ass!"

Harakhte sighed, rubbing a hand against his temples.

Anubis chuckled. "Foolish children. You oppose Seth? He is master of the desert itself. Everything within it obeys his whim." He lifted a hand. The wind caused sand to curl around his upraised fingers. "I am the Mouth of Seth. Hear his decree." With a flick of his fingers, he sent the sand flying out. It zipped behind Kagura and the others. "Seth is bored with you. He does not think that he will allow you to speak with him," Anubis sneered. His eyes seemed to roll back into his head, and his lips moved as if he was speaking to someone who wasn't there. As if in response, the wind picked up again. Kagura snarled at it insolently, but even to her ears her defiance sounded tired. Anubis chuckled, and, looking at that face that had once been so dear brought an overwhelming despair to her heart. "Prepare yourselves, if you can."

Kagura heard a noise behind her. Almost afraid to do so, she turned around. The others turned with her. And by the dim light of the stars they could see that the wind had not been idle.

The figure stood about ten feet tall, and its forked tail whipping through the now still skies was at least 4 feet long itself. In body, it vaguely resembled a mule or deer, but the lips it pulled back revealed pointed teeth and the paws featured wicked, curved claws. Dark, pale green glowing eyes peered at them from a face, which like the body it was connected to, was entirely composed of hard packed sand.

Kagura took a step back, her own lip curled in a reflexive snarl; the voice in her head battered loudly at her mind. "What is it?" she whispered, trying to ignore the voice.

"It has no name." Momiji/Thoth's voice was eerily calm. "It is the Creature of Seth. That is all. No other name can describe such a being."

"Oh yeah?" Kyou walked up to the sandy monster and glared at it. "Get the fuck out of my way before I feed you your goddamned tail." The creature cocked its head and regarded Kyou. Apparently it decided that the cat would taste good, and started to follow up on this observation. Kyou's fist in its nose put an end to that attempt.

But the creature was not to be defeated so easily. With a growl that made no noise but rumbled over the hills like thunder, it swiped at Kyou with one paw, connecting with its target.

Kyou went tumbling head over heels, but a lifetime of such experiences gave him some cushion. "Feh," he rolled to his feet and spat blood. "That damn rat hits harder than you!" He would have charged the creature again, but suddenly he bent double, his hands going to his head. "What... the…" The voice in his head was getting louder, resisting it… more and more difficult. Perhaps, more difficult than was worth it. Giving in… "No!" Kyou growled, and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet.

"Give in, Kyou-san." Harakhte placed a hand on his shoulder. "Harsiesis could fight this, Horus would make short work of such a creature. But you cannot fight Seth and Harsiesis at the same time my friend."

Kyou brushed his hand away. The pain in his head intensified, then suddenly abated. He sighed in relief. Wait… There had to be a reason Harsiesis was giving up… Behind him, Kagura snarled and Kyou turned to her worriedly.

Kagura shivered. The pull of the wind seemed to pulse with her heart, with the words in her head, and she gave up on all attempts to resist the voice. Why resist? She was going to take that insolent monster and… Rend, tear, remove limbs, shred, destroy… She shook her head, trying to clear it, but the voice had a firm hold now. Her eyes glowed a bright red. Her head snapped up to fix her bloody eyes on her target. "Taueret hears your challenge, creature of sand," she spat derisively and hissed at the monster. "Seth is about to become jackal fodder!" Her fingers crooked in a parody of claws, she threw herself at the creature. May a painful death greet you for opposing Horus!

It met her; attempting to flick her aside, it found the prospect harder than it had first thought. She clung, tooth and literal nail, to its leg until it turned to sink wicked looking teeth into her. She released her hold, dropped to the ground, and rolled away from the creature ending in a crouch a few feet away.

"Kagura." Kyou touched her shoulder.

Dimly she heard Harakhte's voice. "I keep telling you, the woman you know is no longer in control of that body."

Kyou growled something in return and his hand tightened on Kagura's shoulder. "Kagura, please," he said softly. She turned toward him, eyes regarding him unseeingly, and cocked her head in an uncanny imitation of the gesture Shigure had used earlier.

"Taueret, stand down." She snapped her head toward this new voice; the others followed her gaze.

"Hathor," she murmured in recognition, and then grinned in anticipation. "Yes. Teach this upstart a lesson."

That back part of her mind, that almost responded to Kyou's word, that almost recognized her name, recognized Hatsuharu as he walked forward. But it was the new part of her, the part that seemed to be in charge of what was going on, that saw the swirl of energy that gathered around his hands and grinned even wider. "Call us fools!" she taunted Anubis. "You tempt fate when you challenge the Sky himself, the Eye of Ra, the one who subdues evil and cannot be appeased." She turned her eyes to her fellow guardian. "Destroy him, Hathor! Show no mercy." Taueret's bloodlust made her tremble all over; Hathor paused as he passed her, tossing her an amused glance.

"This fight is mine," Hathor said as he walked forward, coming between the group and the sand monster. "For Osiris, whom I love…" The energy gathered around his hands, crackled from the ends of his hair, and made his eyes bright with blue-white light. The creature hissed at him, its lips drawn back from its teeth in a travesty of a smile. Hathor returned the smile with one of dark humor. "May Seth return to the pit!"

The creature struck, swatting at Hathor with one enormous paw. Easily dodging, he raised one hand and the energy gathered there coalesced into a brilliant beam of light that forced all to look away from it. When they looked back they saw the Seth animal standing there on three sandy legs, the fourth melted into a twisted shaft of glass.

It snarled at Hathor and struck out again, this time using its deformed leg as a weapon. Dropping to the sand, Hathor rolled out of the way, though not quick enough this time. The twisted glass struck Hathor on the arm as he rolled, clipping his smartly and causing him to overbalance and roll twice more before regaining his feet.

The others had watched, spellbound, as the fight unfolded, but now that Haru looked like he might be losing, Kyou shook the spell off and took a step forward. "No," he murmured.

But Kagura's hand on his shoulder stopped him. He looked at her, but Taueret still sat in the depths of her eyes. "No, leave him. Hathor can hold his own against that filth." She sniffed contemptuously.

Sure enough, Hathor rose from his tumble and his eyes snapped with blue-black fire. He brushed carelessly at the blood that ran down his arm. "I needed that scratch to awaken me." Almost condescendingly, he raised a hand and a ball of blue light gathered in his palm. The creature snarled viciously and leapt forward, its jaws almost closing around Hathor's arm. Hathor smirked disdainfully, and released the ball of light inside the creature's mouth. "Enough playing. Be gone now, puppet."

It reared back its head and screamed soundlessly into the night sky. Blue fire licked out from the edges of its mouth. A blue glow seemed to light it from the inside. Taueret realized as she watched, that the creature was melting from the inside out. Gradually the light became brighter as the body of sand was melted into glass that was then melted down into a puddle in the floor of the desert. Hathor fixed the offending smudge beneath him with a dark look then turned to face Anubis. "Cease your games, jackal. Unbar the door."

"Games?" Anubis sounded amused. "Very well then. Let us put aside these parlor tricks." His expression darkened. "But you are fools to think that you can stand before the might of Seth, Lord of the Desert."

And then the wind picked up again, and Taueret sighed internally. It was going to be a long night. A long night indeed, before Horus rises…

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