Chapter 30: The Light Guiding You Home
It had taken them much longer exiting the underground maze than it had sprinting in. Their slowed pace from the injuries, and Kratos' lack of supernatural sensing didn't help. They were drained, and each step ached their bones and bit at their wounds with more fire than the last. Eventually the pair made it back into the open air though, leaning against each other helping prop themselves up. Few words were spoken on their trip out, still processing everything that had happened since they were jolted awake many hours before by a frightened Thoth.
When they finally emerged from the desolate temple, it was nearly sundown. The sky was a dark bluish-violet seared on their right with a vibrant pink-orange as the sun's light died. Curiously, there was no moon to replace it above them. Although, perhaps the phenomena was not so puzzling on second thought, given the raven god's death. The sky was calm, riddled with twinkling stars, but the large, pale sphere mirroring the sun was absent.
Kratos looked at Freya now, taking her appearance in as they were bathed in the waning light. She was coated in dried blood and sweat, her hair even more wild than usual, but her eyes shone the most stunning, fiery orange against their amber brown in the sun's diminishing glow. He did not know the true nature or identity of the strange god that had brought her back to him, but that didn't matter now that she was back in his arms.
Freya had been gazing at the setting sun when she turned back to him, noticing his staring. She smiled and snorted, "What?"
"I'm glad I get to look upon your face once more."
She blinked in surprise, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. "Don't count your blessings yet, we have a long walk to go yet, and we've both lost a good amount of blood. Also, ugh, you're a great deal heavier than I. Maybe we'll both die here in the desert. That'd be an unfortunate irony. Both of us skirt death in battle only to fall to it walking."
Kratos nodded, stiffening his back and standing up straighter. "Where you go, I go."
The goddess' smile grew wider as her hand bracing his chest patted it a few times as she shifted forward. "Where you go, I go."
They walked another mile or so, but it felt like they had walked several hundred. The pace was increasingly slower, and even with bracing against each other for support they felt their little remaining strength withering quickly. Fortunately, they need not walk much farther as small, dim lights blinked into the dark horizon. There were several of them, and as they grew closer Kratos could see they were torches being wielded by a band of mortals. When they were two hundred paces away Kratos saw there were roughly twenty of them, all dressed in golden armor and white clothing.
The injured pair of gods had stopped their progress forward, instead choosing to stay and wait for the oncoming party to come to them. If they were allies it would be much needed aid, and if they were enemies then…well they would hopefully be easier to kill then Khonsu.
As the group of mortals finally arrived at their location their ranks parted, revealing a relieved and beaming Thoth. The old Egyptian approached the two foreign gods braced against each other and leaned forward to take them in a light hug. "Thank you, my friends. Thank the both of you."
"My son," Kratos pressed once the greeting had ended, "have you found him? Is he alive?"
Thoth nodded with a thin lipped smile. "He is alive, him and his giantess partner. We found the pair of them resting against the hollowed out remains of a home, sleeping against one have yet to regain consciousness since we found them, but I would say the two of you are in worse shape than they are by far."
With a flick of his hand, the mortals behind the scribe god broke rank and revealed some stretchers. They were long beams of wood with cloth tightly suspended between them. The men helped Kratos and Freya onto their respective transports and were lifted as they began their return to Memphis. Their eyes looked across to one another as they were suspended and whisked through the desert. Freya extended her hand across the gap between them into the open air, and Kratos shifted with a pained grunt to reach his fingers out to meet hers.
After another hour or so of their quickened trudge through the dunes, they arrived at Memphis, or what remained of it. The aftermath was even worse than Giza's had been. Very few buildings remained standing, and fewer left untouched. The massive, monstrous corpses of chaos beasts littered the city, and limbs or bodies of mortals were never far from them. Scorch marks from ravenous flames, and streets swamped in water and blood seemed to alternate along their path.
"Thoth," Kratos croaked through his dry lips. "Were there any survivors?"
The Egyptian's expression grew somber, his eyes falling to the ground as they walked. "A few hundred were able to flee as the creatures emerged, but from what we gather the city was practically surrounded. That number is but a fraction of the population that flourished here yesterday. Of my kind…none. We have seen no signs of Geb, but did find the remains of the most others. They fell fighting the monsters. Most were all demigods or lesser among our ranks. Sadly, we did find Bast as well, she was cut clean through the middle.. I'm sure when your son regains consciousness he'll be able to fill in the grim details we lack. I tried my best to observe what I could through my mind but it was so blurred, as if viewing through a fogged mirror. I think one of our enemies must have been shrouding my gaze."
Kratos' view drifted back to the darkened city streets he was being carried through, staring at the blood and body parts that speckled them amidst the torches. The smell which he recognized all too well was starting to settle into the emptied city. Carnage, bloodshed, exposed flesh that had been sitting under a hot sun. There appeared to be a sizable militia of mortals toiling to clear what corpses and damage they could. If they were unaware that the gods truly did live among them, the spartan wondered what the mortals actually thought of what had happened. Did the gods come down from their palaces in the skies to smite the monsters and save them? Kratos' eyes rolled as his head turned over to look at Freya once more. She was sleeping now, and looked quite serene.
Their mortal transporters brought them up onto a ship docked at one of the few remaining boardwalks still in the port. They were taken downstairs into the heart of the vessel, where a strung of makeshift beds were set up. A few groaning or unmoving humans slept in some, but the men continued through these halls into a room towards the back of the ship. Once inside, Kratos saw there were only four beds, two of which already were claimed. After their stretchers were set on the ground, Kratos stood and gently scooped up his still sleeping love. Then, he carried her to the vacant bed between Atreus' and what would be his.
"Thank the gods," Freya whispered as they looked down at the sleeping Atreus and Angrboda, who were flat on their backs with slowly swelling and falling chests.
"Sorry, I did not mean to wake you."
Freya's gentle hand reached around to gently rub the small of his back. "You have nothing to be sorry for. But I can take things from here." He let her down, and bracing her palm to the cot she slid into a sitting position upon the bed. Rather than going to his own cot, he sat beside her, and the two of them continued to stare at the two sleeping giants as their mortal carriers left them to their silent solitude.
"We should rest, I'll-" Freya moved to speak but Kratos laid back, gently tugging at her wrist once he was comfortably positioned. The goddess smiled, looking down at the man she had so much respect, admiration, and warmth in her heart for. She laid down beside him, resting her head into his shoulder and palm on his chest.
After a few moments she whispered, surprised, "We survived. All of that death and destruction, and we survived. We lived through Ragnarok and now this. I died, I met their god of death, or one of them anyways. I shouldn't be here, with you, and yet…"
"You are," Kratos plainly stated, his left arm wrapping around her shoulder, holding her close to him.
A few more minutes passed in silence before the goddess whispered once more. "You know, now that we survived, I haven't forgotten what I told you, about you telling me your feelings when it was all done."
The teasing tone in her voice was apparent, Kratos knew she wasn't being serious for him to divulge everything now, but he still wanted to reply in some earnest manner to her.
"I think given our current position you could discern some of it. But, I would like to rest first, if it's agreeable to you."
Her head nuzzled into the crook of his neck more as her eyelids fell. A small smile traced along her lips as she took a deep, contented sigh. "It is."
They drifted off into slumber then. The pair of foreign gods lying together drenched in dried blood, reeking of death, but they had each other and were alive. The rest mattered little.
Kratos did not dream. He saw no visions of his dead wife or child. There were no words echoing to him through the darkness. Kratos just..slept. His body needed the rest. Channeling the unknown, golden power he had for the first time that night was a new rigorous experience his body had never wielded before. When next his eyes opened, they were not on the dark innards of the ship.
Sun cracked through the curtains of the window. The curtains were a dark indigo with golden trim, pulled across to shield the room from the light. As he groggily looked around he saw the whitish stone of Thoth's palace, and the bed he rested on was far more comfortable than the cot he and Freya fell asleep on. His hands flexed, the left coming up to his chest realizing Freya was not there.
Suddenly, he heard movement behind his resting head. He was not alone in this room. There was not much else in it, a table with some vials and cups. A few candles littered the right wall opposite the window to give some light to the sun deprived room. He was in a medical chamber of some sort, clearly he had slept past their arrival to Giza.
"How long have I been asleep?" He posed to whoever was in the room with him.
A warm, gentle voice replied, one that he was not familiar with. "Four days, sir. Freya was worried about you but they were certain you'd awaken in time. She's downstairs having a late breakfast with your family."
The voice sounded somehow, almost familiar, to Kratos. Was this another of the Egyptian gods? He began trying to turn his head up to see her, but it proved unnecessary as she stepped to his side into view. She wore long, black robes with golden weaving across the chest. The material stretched down her arms and dipped in between her fingers to cover her entire wrists. She had a dark skin tone, a shade lighter than Bast's had been, and tightly curled, unruly hair as black as her attire reaching just past her shoulders. There was a kind smile on her lips, and an intimately perceiving look in her eyes. Around her neck on a thin rope hung a golden piece of metal forged into some seemingly Egyptian symbol Kratos did not recognize.
"Who-"
The woman raised her hand now, within it was the glass orb Thoth had made to translate for them. "I love this, it's quite brilliant. A way for everyone to speak, no matter where they call home, or which tongue they speak in."
"Who are you?" Kratos pressed again.
Why is she in black? None of Thoth's servants, or even the other gods, have been in black. They all wear white and gold. Is this for mourning the dead?
"It was my duty to watch over you while you slept and the others were gone. Now that you're awake, I suppose I'm not needed here," she chimed as she turned to step to the window.
Kratos studied her movements intently, but everything from her that he could discern just gave off this warm, peaceful essence.
"I did not catch your name."
The stranger turned to him as her hands rose for the curtains and coyly smiled. "Because it wasn't given. Be seeing you, Kratos."
With that, she swiftly opened the curtains letting bright light blast into the dim room. The spartan's hands shot up to shield his face from the unrelenting sun, his eyes slamming shut from the sudden assault. When his eyes opened, the woman was gone, and the glass key was resting on the window sill, brilliantly reflecting the light in magnificent cascades along the far wall.
His head was still foggy, and his eyes ached. They closed once more, and awakened some time later. The sun was near setting now, and the orange hue of the late afternoon sky gently illuminating the room. Gazing to the window sill, he saw the orb was not where the unknown woman had placed it.
Must have been a dream, but why did I dream of a face I did not know?
A few minutes later, Freya and the others arrived, stirring Kratos from his thoughts. She leaned down, looking into his golden eyes and brought her palm gently across his bald forehead. Leaning further, she planted a light kiss on his bearded lips before pulling back. His son and Angrboda were there behind her, standing even with his legs as he remained laying in the bed. Atreus' arm was wrapped in a sling, and the trio of them all had a variety of bandages along their limbs or chests.
As Kratos moved to sit up, his torso alit with pain, and he fell back to the bed breathless. A soft hand slid behind his shoulders, and Freya helped him up as he attempted a second time.
"Careful, the healer said you have a multitude of broken bones that even your powers haven't fully healed yet. Not to mention…" Freya's eyes turned down to his stomach, and his gaze followed.
There was tight bandaging coating his abdomen, but he could feel it underneath. The deep stab he had taken from Khonshu clean through him with the same cursed blade Set had pierced the side of his abdomen with. That wound had knocked him out for nearly a week, this one he was awake within a few days. Progress of some measure, perhaps the new power he awakened of wielding peoples' worship had something to do with it.
"Are you both alright?" Kratos asked after a few moments of silence.
"Yeah, we're fine, a little banged up but we'll be okay," his son assured, moving to sit on the bottom corner of Kratos' bed. The spartan turned his gaze towards the standing giantess and shrugged his brows to her.
"Yes, we're fine Kratos. All of us," she replied with a smile as her hand rubbed Atreus' shoulder.
"What happened?"
The younger pair then proceeded to explain everything that had transpired in their half of the battle that night. Geb's sacrifice, Whiro's appearance, and how they finally defeated the foreign god.
"You..transformed into a dragon?" Kratos uttered in bewilderment.
Atreus nodded, and retrieved a small stone figure from his pocket and handed it to his father. Turning it over in his fingers a few times, he realized it was a small dragon forged in jade, and could feel the magic residing in it on his fingertips.
"I use that, channel the magic, and it melds with my own. Most I've been able to do in training was a single arm but, with Angr's help and the desperation of the moment, it worked out," his son breathed with a shy smirk as he took the talisman back from his father.
"I heard a loud explosion. How did you avoid it if you were practically unconscious?"
Atreus' eyes fell to the floor as he scratched the underside of his chin. "I think…Sindri, saved me. My sight was fuzzy, but I recognized his voice. His hair and beard weren't tightly braided anymore and were wild and graying, but I'm pretty sure it was him. One moment I was being picked up, the next I was leaning against Angr on some wall far away from the blast. He came and went, he must have been watching from a distance. His power with transporting himself in the blink of an eye is the only thing I could think of that could get me out of there that fast."
Kratos thought back to when the blades of chaos had suddenly appeared in Giza after Nut dragged him from the battle with the massive lion. Also the odd instance when he thought he sensed movement in he and Freya's chambers their first night in Egypt when dinner had arrived.
Sindri…thank you.
Nodding, the spartan accepted the likely reality that the dwarf had followed them to Egypt. "Then we owe him even more than we did previously. Perhaps some day he'll feel ready to speak with us face to face, so we might begin to thank him and mend the past."
After another brief pause, Freya helped Kratos sit up more as she breathed a sigh. "Kratos, there's something else you should know.."
A few floors below, the newly formed Amun-Ra was having a meeting with some of the remaining Egyptian gods that gathered. Ma'at, Horus, Nepthys, and a handful of others were seated in chairs opposite each other down the sides of a long table. Amun-Ra sat on a higher throne at its head. Whatever sentence the sun god had been saying was interrupted by the twin doors to the private chamber being flung open, with a furious spartan interrupting their proceedings.
"You're forcing us home!?" Kratos bellowed, angered eyes focused solely on the god leading the meeting.
Amun-Ra stood from his throne and spoke with the combined voices of Amun and Ra in unison. "We thank you for your service to our people, spartan, but it is time for you to return home.'
Kratos' fists clenched tighter as he took several paces closer to the emotionless king of the Egyptian deities. "We saved your lands. YOU brought us here! I am barely awake a few minutes and am told that we are to be on our way home by tonight? Even if I was not awake!?"
The sun-god nodded. Their face was still littered with wrinkles, but now the sleek black hair was streaked with far more white hairs than it had been before. The visage was still close to Ra, but the nose was a tad sharper, as was their chin. "You have done my people a great service, and we thank you. Now go, return to your people, your job here is done."
Freya spoke now from behind the fuming spartan, "My lord, we all nearly died in the battle. Please, just a few more days to rest and heal before we take our leave. Kratos only just awoke, he isn't ready for travel."
Amun-Ra now resumed their seat as they raised their hand to issue a command. They spoke coldly, and sternly. "You will go, this night. We will have a ship ready for you in the harbor. Leave these lands, you will not be needed back."
Looking to the others now, the enraged spartan glanced from one god to the next. They were all in their mortal forms, as they were here hiding amongst their people. All of them averted Kratos' gaze, seemingly fearful to meet eyes with him. Nepthys' cheeks were caked with dried tears, as she had lost both her parents, Geb and Nut, and her brother Set in the conflict. Kratos remembered meeting Hathor and Isis at the party, and they too did not look up from the table.
"Fine, we will go." Kratos' glare returned to the cold, emotionless Amun-Ra with hooded eyelids as he turned to leave. "Do not set foot in my lands."
Whatever had happened in the days and nights following Ra's assassination, the being sitting before them now had no shred of warmth in his soul or behavior. Ra had been a bright, radiating source of kindness and wisdom. Whoever this amalgamation sitting on the throne was now, they were an apathetic shell of his former self.
The spartan stood, and guided Freya, Atreus, and Angrboda back out into the hall. They returned to their original chambers overlooking Giza to make final preparations before they departed. Looking out at the ruined city as the sun dipped lower in the sky, the devastation the monsters had caused was still clearly apparent. The mortals had finally cleared the streets of blood and bodies, but there was still much work to be done to rebuild.
Memphis fairs far worse than even this. And yet the powerful, all knowing gods of Egypt sit in a small chamber discussing trivial matters rather than aiding their people.
Their peaceful calm was interrupted as a mortal servant entered the room. She looked young, probably no more than fourteen years old. Dark hair pulled back in a single braid behind her head, and she was wearing a fairly simple robe of white and gold cut off at her shins. "Lord Kratos, my lord wishes to speak with you."
"I do not wish to see him," the Greek god grunted as he turned to look back out the window.
"Not the king, Lord Kratos, the lord of this palace."
Kratos turned and nodded, as Freya fell in line beside him to follow.
The girl stuttered, "M-my lord, wished to only see Lord Kratos at the present time. Apologies, my lady."
Freya and Kratos shared a surprised glance before she relented and whispered, "Go, just…hurry back so we can leave. Somehow I feel less welcome here now than when we arrived and knew there were hostiles wishing us dead in our midst."
Nodding, he gave her arm a quick squeeze before following the small child down the stairs to Thoth's chambers.
The scribe's room was even more a mess than it had been previously. Parchment now openly coated the majority of the floor. Kratos could have been careful and strived to step between the gaps of paper, but he did not care to. The spartan stomped directly across the room, papers be damned.
"What?," He grunted with an unhidden layer of irritation.
Thoth had been scribbling away at a scroll before Kratos' displeased question, and looked up to meet the angered foreigner's gaze.
"Hello, Kratos."
Kratos' left eyebrow raised in further frustration as he flatly growled, "You summoned me."
The Egyptian gestured his quill bearing hand to the right to a chest sitting on a bench. "We collected your broken spear and shield in the desert. Unfortunately, our metal workers are not as skilled as the dwarves, so we left the repairs to them."
"Is that it?"
With a deep exhale Thoth set the quill down and stood. He turned to look out his window at the rapidly setting sun. "Kratos, what you have done for my kind, and our people, it is beyond words. Were it not for you, that sun would not be rising and setting. Nothing I can say or do can equivalate such an enormous task you have accomplished for my lands, the world, even. Had they been allowed to continue their plan, it surely would not have stopped at our borders."
The scribe turned now, his face no longer mortal, shifting to its regular bird visage. Its slim, curved beak clacked as he continued with a deep bow. "Thank you, Kratos. I am eternally grateful all those nights ago you agreed to meet with the others when I visited your home, and further agreed to come here. Thank you, I am sorry I could not have done more."
Kratos' anger simmered a touch, as even he was slightly moved by the Egyptian's gesture and words. "It is fine. Freya told me what you did, with the orb in her hand. Had you not blinded Nergal.."
Raising a hand to halt Kratos' words, Thoth shook his head. "The least I could do. As I told you, I sadly am not fit for battle. You all went off to risk your lives, many of my kind sacrificing themselves, while I was to remain here and simply keep tally of the deaths and victories..I told you before you left, I could hear everything that transpired through it. It was just a bright light."
Stepping forward, the spartan rested his palms on the smooth wood of Thoth's desk as he stared directly into the bird's beaded, black eyes. "If it weren't for what you did, Freya and I would not have won. You gave her the opening to wound Nergal. Without that, we were in no condition to fight him on even ground. He surely would have killed us without much issue. So no, I thank you."
Now it was Kratos' turn to stand tall and bow briskly at the waist. When his head returned upright to see Thoth's expression, it reflected one of unabiding gratefulness.
"Thank you, Kratos, truly. Now, you must have questions."
Various thoughts bounced around in Kratos' mind. He had clearly missed much in the few days he was unconscious. One question raced to the forefront of his thoughts as it was one of the more vexing, if unimportant, riddles of recent events.
"You have records of conversations in this palace, yes? When I woke up, was there a servant woman there? Dark skin, dressed in black and gold?"
The ibis' head tilted and jerked quizzically as it stared back into Kratos' golden eyes. "Servant woman in black?"
"The..woman, servant, stranger, I'm not sure. There was a woman there when I woke up today. She wore all black robes, had a golden emblem on a necklace around her shoulders, one of yours I believe. Unless I dreamt it."
"Kratos, there was no…" Thoth's words tapered off as his hands quickly shifted between the pieces of paper and scrolls cluttering his desk. "Ah, here. I have you sleeping, succeeded by nothing. Late morning you woke up, uttered 'who?'. Then… yes nothing until your kin arrived hours later. You're saying there was a woman there? In black? You must have been dreaming it like when you saw your departed wife and daughter the last time you were unconscious here."
Thoth looked a mix of concern, confusion, and interest. Growling, Kratos retorted calmly, "It felt..so real."
"Can you draw the symbol she wore on her necklace?" The scribe posed as he offered the spartan his quill.
Kratos' eyes reached up under his eyelid trying to recall the emblem against her chest. He took the quill and began sketching on the nearest piece of paper, over whatever notes Thoth had already covered its surface in. The symbol looked like a "t" but the top was a loop rather than straight.
"Ah, that's an ankh. Yes it is of these lands. It represents eternal life and the afterlife. I'm sorry Kratos, I have no words from anyone but you and your family before you went to see my king," the Egyptian replied, tapping his finger against the desk in thought.
Shaking his head in quiet disbelief, Kratos decided to let the matter slide. The question of whether the woman was real or not was rushed away in the racing current of his thoughts as his mind returned to more pressing matters. Anger rose in his body again as he thought of the new, cold, infuriating Ra that was casting them out.
"Ra, he combined with his sibling?"
Nodding, the ibis replied, "Yes. My king was taken under this palace the night of the attack and brought through a corridor to the great pyramid in the distance. There, Heka as well as some other gods began the cursed magic, at Amun's behest, to bond their souls into a single body. Now they are Amun-Ra, our gods of the sun and of the sky forged into a single being. Amun was never as..warm, as his brother was. But their effort worked, as they awoke the night you went to Memphis. He flew there to assist afterwards. He stated he was the one to finally slay Apophis."
'Yes I..gathered, he was not as kind spirited as the Ra I met. He was there that night? Why did he not seek us out and assist us with Nergal or Khonsu?"
"I'm sorry, Kratos. I do not know. He went there and slayed Apophis, and returned to his own palace to the south. Amun-Ra is not the same as my king from before, the Ra you met. I worry for the future of my kind, my friend. We have suffered a great many losses of some of our most powerful gods. Bast, Geb, Set, Maahes, so many others. As you saw with your own eyes and experienced, my kind are very powerful. Your father, Zeus, would not have dared wage open war against us. Now though, we have lost many of our best warriors. Ra was the most powerful among us but now..combining with Amun, I am not sure as to the longevity of such a bond. I believe many changes are in the near future for my home. I am truly sorry for his callous disregard for your family's efforts, my friend. When I arrived at your doorstep those many weeks ago, I did not foresee, or even imagine, this would be that path's end."
The Egyptian looked sorrowful, ashamed even, through his small eyes as dark as a starless night. His expression and posture grew more rigid though, standing tall to meet eyes with Kratos. "But I know the politics of my lands are not truly what you want to know, Kratos. Go on, ask your question."
Reaching into a pouch along his belt, Kratos withdrew the small glass orb Thoth had given them all those weeks ago. 'You said you could hear everything with this. It's how you heard Freya's plea for light. You heard everything that was said down there that night. That man, the one that brought Freya back from the dead…"
"Kratos.." Thoth warned with a notably bristled tone, quite unlike the usually quite cheerful god.
"Who was he?"
With a tremendously fatigued sigh, Thoth's fingers reached for his temple and rubbed to assuage building pain. "Kratos, you know what he said. We shouldn't discuss it any further. Freya is back with you, leave it at that."
Kratos' hands clenched into fists as he stared down at the nervous god. "Who is he? He said his name was Luci, when that clearly wasn't it. Is he a threat? Do I need to prepare? Have you heard this name?"
Finally relenting, Thoth breathed deeply after a minute of silence contemplating what action he should take. "I do not know him, I only know of him. He is called.. The Fallen One. Leave it at that, I beg you. He is not a foe, I certainly would hope not. You tasted but a feather's weight of his power, Kratos. I hope for the good of both our families he is not a true enemy."
The spartan's lips parted as he moved to speak, but Thoth's hand quickly rose to silence him as he paced to join Kratos at the front of the desk. "That is all I will be saying on the matter, Kratos. You heard him as clear as I, we do not discuss it. Now, I have kept you from your family long enough. Go to them spartan, and I hope you have a safe return home. And once more, thank you, for all that you have done for us."
"Where did the book go? The Book of the Dead, that Khonsu and his allies wielded and drew power from?" Kratos sternly asked.
The scribe sighed, "We are not sure. It was not in the underground temple where Freya told us Khonsu and the other had it. Perhaps…"
"He took it."
"Kratos, let it go. Please. Thank you for everything, my friend. If you need anything else before your departure, let me know. I am sorry we are ending with..such unfortunate circumstances. I will have my servants bring your broken weapons to your chambers."
Thoth extended an arm, which Kratos clasped with a strong grip shortly after. The two gods locked eyes, and Kratos gave one final nod before turning and exiting the room. As he left, Thoth returned to his seat to study the ankh that had been sketched.
Kratos made it a few steps outside of Thoth's chamber when he felt his spine ice over. A coldness overtook him that shook him down to the core of his bones. He tried to turn and look, but could not move his head. Kratos couldn't move any part of his body, in fact. Frozen in place, unable to speak or shout. Suddenly, it felt like impossibly strong fingers were gripped around his spine and squeezing tight. It was a very intense, acute pain that forced Kratos to grind his teeth.
Then, in his mind, words simmered forth. Tsk tsk, careful, Kratos. I told you, we have a deal.
As quickly as the excruciating sensation had come, it left. Kratos clutched his chest, inhaling and exhaling strongly to return air to his lungs. Slowly, he turned around to peer about the corridor, seeing no trace that anyone else had even been there.