Chapter 14: The Vengeful Moon

"The damned GHOST OF SPARTA!?"

The angry roar echoed through the underground tomb, bouncing from stone wall to wall through the chambers and corridors. Khonsu stomped through the darkly lit halls until he reached the wide, central chamber. He had planned for nearly a decade. Plotting, organizing, aligning all the pieces into perfect position. The moon god was enraged, all of his plans now put into question by the one living soul that could realistically bring a swift end to everything. The man whose path was littered with the skulls of gods.

"That insufferable bastard. Ra… Even in death I cannot escape his overbearing reach. I finally am able to kill the self important fool and he brings a fucking god killer here, to our lands!" His frenzied fury was dripping with venom for a being no longer alive to pose a problem, but continued to cause compounding ones.

"Calm yoursssself. You enrage yourself for little reason." Khonsu heard hissed from a dark corner to his left. Its source slowly slithered out into the light spawned from the many candles circling the center of the room. Apophis was a large, golden serpent over sixty feet long and wielding glowing red slits for eyes. A row of dark blue scales spanned the length of his spine from nose to tail tip, and splotches along his sides. The cobra's hood was slightly flared, as he gazed down at the Egyptian moon god.

Here, in the stillness of the tomb, Khonsu did not need to play weak and abide by his uncle's senseless rule to not expose their godly form. Ra had gods hide in plain sight amongst the mortals as to not draw direct attention. They were gods. The god were powerful, miraculous beings, and the god of the sun would have them hide? Even worse, Ra was an arrogant, entitled overlord. The others merely let him do as he please because he kept the rest of them fat and happy. Meanwhile, the people suffered. Not the pharaoh or his kin, but the commoners. Even further in strife were the thousands of slaves either brought into Egypt or made in its sands. The mortals all suffered under the unrelenting sun's whims, but the calm moon would change that.

Khonsu's hand rose to his beak to scratch it in frustration. While his mortal form was that of a man nearly on death's bed, his god appearance was far more imposing and solemn. Like Thoth or Ra, he had the head of a bird, only this bird was without feathers or flesh. He had no eyes, nothing but the bare skull of a crow atop his neck. Whereas Ra's crown was a glowing crimson orb to represent the sun with golden cobra surrounding it, Khonsu's was a pale, glowing blue orb to reflect the moon.

"Do not preach to me, snake. Ra brought Kratos, the damned Ghost of Sparta here, before his death. I'm sure you'll remember him," the Egyptian god jabbed to the snake demon. It had been many years since the spartan's first trip into Egypt, but he had managed to slay two chaos beasts with relative ease. A feat only some of the strongest of Egypt's many gods could claim.

"Yes, I remember him. It doesss not matter, we are too far along. He'sss unable to stop it now, it changesss nothing," the serpent affirmed as he came to loom over the Egyptian. His scales chimed against the cold, stone floor as if they were made of steel.

Khonsu groaned, "That bastard. Is there any word from Set? I left the palace soon after he killed Ra. The spartan did not have the blades on him, so I searched his chambers before I left, and found nothing. I was forced into hiding in the city as they locked down the ports so I had to take the long way here when the opportunity arose. "

"Set is dead," a stern voice called out from behind. Nut strode into the room now, her wings rescinding back into her arms. Unlike most Egyptian gods, Nut's god form was that of a mortal woman. Her long black hair was braided into thin strands about her shoulders, tipped with golden caps. A regal, sanguine crown wrapped around her forehead. It was forged in such a way to appear as a row of plumed feathers. She was ever stoic, never one to mince words.

"The spartan and his child killed my son as he attempted to escape."

Khonsu had seen the ensuing sandstorm from the windows in Kratos' chambers, but did not believe Set would have been able to be stopped. He was the fastest god among them on the land, and in his element on the dunes. The news only further reinforced Khonsu's concern of the foreigners' presence.

"Nut..my sympathie-"

"Save them," she briskly cut him off with an enraged expression that would stun a lion, "my son's life is gone because you sent him in there with the only escape plan as flee. We should have called this off the moment we saw the fucking spartan and his bitch. My son's blood is on your hands, and if this plan does not work then yours will be on mine."

The goddess' chest was heaving as she glared daggers at the skeletal god. Her fists were clenched, her nose twitching with a snarl.

"I do bring good news though, Heka is dead," the goddess sighed a moment later, letting the rage drop from her face as she grew more tempered.

The moon god spun. He had no visible eyes in this form, and his skull expressionless, but his voice echoed his sense of triumph. "Well done! Do they suspect anything?"

Nut shrugged her shoulders, "They might. My husband noted my inconsistent behavior even in my grief. I acted quickly when I had a moment alone with him. Bast came to the scene sooner than expected, so I spun a tale of an assassin's fleeing and I'd give chase. Regardless of if the tale is believed or not does not matter, we have the book, and now it is open."

Finally.

"Whiro!" Khonsu called out to the darkness.

The room was large, three hundred feet long and half that wide. It was also quite tall, nearly thirty high. The hundreds of candles in the middle did a thorough enough job lighting the center of the chamber, but all of its corners were darkened with only a few, sparing candles lining the walls. Those candles were snuffed out now, as the shadows themselves began to move. The darkness slid across the floor like the outline of a crocodile beneath the water's surface. As it grew nearer, the shadow began to wave and ripple above the stones of the floor, and it grew up vertically.

The shadows changed form into a horrible, nightmarish creature. It had the pale torso of a human corpse, and one plain arm. Its other arm was cut off at the elbow; a large, long scythe-like blade spanning ten or so feet attached in place of a forearm. Where legs should have sprouted from its waist, instead was a massive dress of skulls and darkness. Hundreds of skulls coated the robe of shadows as it stretched back behind the figure, overlapping each other like the scales of a snake's body. Lastly was the being's head. A lone skull sat atop the human shoulders, black flame engulfed it. When it spoke, all of the skulls' jaws opened in unison, but no voice came from their widened jaws. Instead, a ghostly voice spoke directly within the Khonsu and the other's minds.

"The book is ready."

Reaching into the shroud of skulls and shadows below its waist, Whiro withdrew the Book of the Dead with its mortal, non-bladed hand. The book cracked open, revealing its papyrus parchment for the first time since Khonsu had laid eyes upon the book some years ago. Whiro handed the tome to the moon god, and soundlessly shifted back into the darkness.

Impatient fingers flew through its pages, turning them over and over again. "Why are so many of these pages written in other tongues? Was this not inscribed by one of Horus' damn priests in his name? How could an Egyptian write in these other languages!?"

Another voice called out from the distant wall now. It was hoarser, older sounding. "Perhaps, you should broaden your gaze, my friend."

Khonsu's beak snapped up in retort, "Do not lecture me you useless blight upon my life. I only tolerate you for this reason. Cease your prattling and decipher it!"

With a violent throw, he flung the book to the dark corner the voice echoed from. The footprints came now, the sound of claws against the stone. Nergal now joined them in the light of the many candles, an unmistakable smirk of arrogance on his lips.

Nergal was a truly powerful, and contemptuous, god Khonsu needed to ally himself with to see the plan through. Above the waist, he appeared as a normal mortal. Bronzed skin covered his muscled body, and a long, gray beard hung from jaw to stomach. He lacked proper eyes, instead having glowing, white light coming from between his open eyelids. The book sat opened in his hands as those eyes perused the tome's contents. He was nearly twice the height of Khonsu as well, thanks to the quadrupedal lion body attached to his waist. Dark fur coated its form, with golden armor on each shin and a wide golden belt with a lion's toothed visage on it where fur met skin. A long tail tipped with a plume of fur swayed behind him as he began to pace around the central stand of candles.

"Please, don't be so arrogant. You know you lack the power to actually fight any of your kin. You're weak Khonsu, that's why you spawned this plan to begin with. Should we be discovered, you would cower and hide, leaving the fighting to Whiro, Apophis, Nut and I. You already sacrificed Set. I agree with Apophis, the Ghost can do nothing now. Even if his woman and son are here. We have the book, and we outnumber them. Your kind can do us no harm. We have all the advantages, fortunate for you," the Babylonian god taunted with a smirk. As his mouth parted, the jagged teeth of a lion glimmered from behind his bearded lips.

"Read the damn book," Khonsu growled as his boned fist began to glow with a dark, purplish fire.

Nergal's smirk cracked wider into a pleased smile as his glowing eyes returned to the book's pages. "Hmm, it says here we need to excise the souls of ten thousand mortals as a sacrifice to open the gates. Take their blood and dump it into the nile…we have the temple. Ah, the heart of a god, I trust you brought Heka's heart with you?"

Nut handed the bloodied heart to Khonsu, its dripping upon the stone being the only sound as Nergal continued to read. "It appears we have everything we need, at the right time when these conditions are met, we read these pages at the crypt and it should work," the lion-man surmised as he closed the book and looked up to the rest of the group.

"There are several villages along the river nearby, that should get us most of the way. Memphis would be the fastest course, but surely grab the attention of the others the quickest as well. We're only a few hours' ride from Giza by boat, they'd be on us soon… It cannot wait, we'll aim for Memphis. Apophis, your beasts can be a distraction for us. Perhaps you'll buy us some time from intrusion. Is he ready?"

A wicked smile crossed the giant serpent's scaled lips, if it could be called such. "He shall be."

Somewhere deep below where they stood now, loud, tortured roars echoed out from the dark for no one but the group of conspiring gods to hear.

Reference for Whiro appearance: xoxotheghostlight/art/Whiro-693357665

Reference for Nergal appearance: . ?1496705443