The doors swung open with barely a touch, unveiling an even more grand entrance room beyond. Pillars lined one side, casting whatever lay behind them into intermittent shadow. The other side of the room was bare; a sloping roof leading down to the floor, unmarked stone showing a few hanging tapestries and a couple of raised plinths, but nothing else of note. Heshtat’s attention was captured by what lay directly in front, anyway.

  Darkness. A wall of it. Nothing natural—torchlight flickered at regular intervals, lighting the room, but the moment any light touched the wall of shadow, it simply melted away. Impenetrable, unassailable, an empty space separated the front of the entrance hall from whatever lay behind it.

  Most important were the two people standing only a dozen feet from his position. One was a thick-set man who looked to have spent every day of his short life throwing bags of sand around a yard, standing tall and proud with his thick forearms crossed over a moon-bladed battleaxe, not dissimilar in design to Harsiese’s prized weapon. This was no doubt the man with the deep voice that had so recently declared his pre-eminence.

  Opposite him stood a thin man with a pointed nose and a pointed chin. Everything about the man was pointed, from his two gleaming knives to his too-wide smile. This was likely the other side of the argument Heshtat had overheard. They looked dangerous, and the knife-wielder had claimed to be an adept, but that still wouldn’t explain the massacre outside.

  “I apologise for the interruption,” Heshtat said to the room at large. “We mean no harm to anyone present.”

  “Oh, this is just what we need!” groused the big man. “More competition.”

  “I would worry about yourself, were I you,” replied the sharp man, twirling his knives in a pointed threat. Both turned back to one another, and the air crackled between them with the charge of impending doom.

  “Now, now,” came that familiar lilting, teasing tone. Masculine, amused, contemptuous perhaps? “It would be ever so rude to engage in such barbarity in front of guests. Why don’t you enlighten them as to your shared predicament?”

  The voice rebounded from every corner of the room, and Heshtat looked around for its source, finding no other figures present. Until his gaze alighted on a stone plinth on the left-hand side. Upon the plinth, sitting daintily on a crimson cushion with golden thread lining it, sat a gold and black cat. From the power thrumming subtly beneath its words though, Heshtat suspected this was the guardian responsible for turning the corridor outside into an offal house, no matter its appearance.

  “Oooh, now I like this one,” it continued, though its mouth didn’t move.

  The two men that had been on the verge of blows instantly wheeled on Heshtat, and he took a cautious step back.

  Maatkare hovered at his shoulder, and whispered, “if this comes to violence, leave the big one to me.”

  “An honour to meet you, guardian,” Heshtat said with a bow towards the cat. “May I ask about this shared predicament?”

  “Only one can get through,” the big man interrupted, turning their way. “Simple enough.”

  “I would hear it in his own words,” Heshtat said.

  The man shrugged and gestured him forwards, and Heshtat took a couple of careful steps, though he kept an eye on the sharp one with the daggers as he did so.

  “Greetings guardian,” he called to the creature that perched upon the plush pillow.

  The cat simply eyed them both as they approached and waited until they reached some invisible perimeter before standing. It was a lazy and graceful motion, an unfolding of its front paws and a big stretch of its spine, but when it stood to its full height, Heshtat realised he had misjudged.

  This was no simple house cat, no timid mouser. This was an ocelot. If normal cats held a veneer of superiority in all their actions, this one wore it like a cloak. Disdain dripped from the creature with every slight adjustment of its stance and every movement of its eyes. After rising unhurriedly, it sat, tail curled around its feet and posture prim and proper.

  “No further, if you please.”

  The voice was smooth, cultured, and ancient. It held within a confidence that Heshtat could only aspire to, though privately he suspected such a mien would get him punched within an hour of meeting anyone. He wasn’t a cat, after all. Though he was technically blessed by Bestat now, so perhaps that counted for something.

  “A thousand thanks to your grace. May I assume you are guardian to this grand hall?” Heshtat asked carefully.

  “You may assume what you wish, human,” the ocelot said mildly, disinterest clear in its tone. It even raised a paw to inspect its claws, the smug bastard.

  He tried again. “Would you mind us passing through?”

  “No, not at all,” the creature said, words rebounding off the many tall pillars that lined the hallway. “I will need one of your limbs though.”

  It was said as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world, a level of indifference to the statement that Heshtat could hardly summon even for his third favourite sandals.

  “One of my limbs?”

  “Naturally,” the cat replied, licking one paw and then scratching its head with it. Heshtat and Maatkare traded glances.

  “Each?” Maatkare asked. “Because if you just want one for both of us then I’m sure Heshtat can spare one. He’s the most resourceful one, so he’d be the better one-armed man.”

  Heshtat shot him a venomous glance, turning back to the ocelot that continued to groom itself before them, but the cat spoke before he could.

  “A limb from each who wishes to pass. That is the price of progress.”

  “Perhaps there is some accommodation that we could make, guardian? Is there anything you desire that we can provide?”

  “Limbs, mostly,” the disembodied voice of the desert cat said conversationally, and Heshtat found himself wincing at he watched those sharp little claws flex and shrink while the cat groomed its paws.

  “Ah, but not solely?” Heshtat asked. “You do not strike me as a brute, hungering only for meat.”

  It was a gamble, but the cat had been pleasant enough thus far, excepting the violent price it demanded of course. Besides, Heshtat had always been good with animals.

  The cat paused its grooming to stare straight at Heshtat with unnerving precision. “My my, but you’re a bold one,” the cat purred. It gave a dainty sniff his way. “As to be expected by one of Bestat’s blessed. I do not like your friend though. He smells like wet dog.”

  It was said with such venom and contempt that Maatkare took a physical step back, and Heshtat hurriedly interposed himself between the cat and the object of its ire. “And if we cannot pay this price you ask…” he said carefully, unsure how to refer to the guardian but intensely aware of just how their lives teetered on the delicate edge of its whims. “Is there another way to decide who is worthy to proceed?”

  “But of course,” the guardian said pleasantly. It didn’t elaborate further.

  “Is it violent bloody combat?” Maatkare asked.

  “Precisely,” the feline confirmed. “Clever dog.”

  Heshtat laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder to still any retort.

  “I did not expect a test of strength at the end of this trial,” Heshtat said, gauging the creature’s reaction as he talked. He made sure to keep an eye on the two men still squaring up behind him as he spoke. “Did Great Amin-Ra truly leave no further qualifications for who may pass through this trial except strength of arms?”

  The cat chuckled, likely at the pun, though Heshtat hadn’t intended it. “Oh, but you mortals are so droll. Fine! The first who can answer my riddle may pass through to the Eye.”

  Heshtat raised an eyebrow. A cat with a riddle? This was becoming familiar.

  “To keep me, you must first give me it to another. What am I?”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The question rang out through the chamber before silence settled. Heshtat and Maatkare looked at one another in confusion. It was broken by the big man, who stepped forwards and puffed his chest out.

  “Love,” he declared with confidence.

  He died.

  It was so swift Heshtat couldn’t track it, even with his cat-like reflexes and acolyte cultivation of the Khet. There was simply a blur of movement, and then the large man was tumbling to the floor, limbs severed and gushing thick blood onto the stone like a grisly fountain. His head rolled to the foot of the plinth, where the golden cat sat, licking one red-stained paw.

  “Wrong,” it said, and Heshtat thought he detected a hint of laughter there behind the word.

  He beckoned Maatkare over and they spoke for a few moments. It didn’t make sense—love was a tolerable answer. It didn’t fit perfectly, but neither was it completely wrong. More than that, the riddle was simple and one he had heard many times before.

  Riddles were a great way to teach the young in Amansi, and while most soon grew out of them as adults, Heshtat had used them as a way to learn the myriad languages when he’d first been sent by the God-Queen. Why would the guardian of a holy treasure test prospects with a simple riddle of the like used in creches all over the land?

  He and Maatkare shared a frantic whispered discussion, and all the while he kept one eye on the cat and one eye on the sharp man. He didn’t trust either of them, but there wasn’t much he could do about the ancient eldritch guardian, so most of his focus stayed on the man twirling his daggers and stepping ever closer to them.

  “I was sent here by Khaemwaset,” the sharp man protested. “He would not be pleased if I do not return with the Eye in hand.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it,” the cat replied with a lazy flick of its head. “But that is no concern of mine.”

  Heshtat sighed and pushed Maatkare away a few feet. He looked up to the guardian sitting on its plinth. “I have an answer for you, guardian,” he called.

  A flicker of movement, and he leaned aside, watching the dagger pass through the air where his throat had just been. And then that strange flicker-flash motion once more and the daggers—and the man wielding them—was gone. There was a thud as the body crashed into a pillar behind them, and Heshtat didn’t need to turn to know corpse was sliced to ribbons.

  The cat eyed him with amusement. “Good instincts,” it said, once more cleaning a paw. “Do you have an answer for me truly? Or was that but a ruse to bait out your competition?”

  “I do have an answer, though I am not sure what good it would do.”

  The cat cocked its head at him. “Why don’t we put it to the test, hmm?”

  Heshtat sighed, gave Maatkare a forlorn look, and then spoke. “One's word. ‘What can only be kept once it is given away’… the answer is our word.”

  The cat blinked slowly. “Correct.” It then slipped down from its plinth and sashayed over, its tail swishing in the air. “How very impressive—you solved a riddle fit for a child.”

  Heshtat found himself backing up, but the cat only advanced, its languid gait giving way to a more focused, intense stalking.

  “You don’t intend to let us through, do you?” he asked.

  “That would be a little too easy, don’t you think?”

  Maatkare settled into a crouch. “You set the riddle.”

  “True. But I must have some amusement in here, and it has been so long since I met anyone of interest.”

  “A thousand years and that was the best you could come up with?” Heshtat asked, faintly surprised.

  The cat cut its golden eyes towards him. “I was not chosen for my artistry with words.”

  Heshtat winced, catching a glimpse of the ruined corpse nearby. No, perhaps not. “Wait,” he said. “There must be something you want from us.”

  “Must there?” the cat asked archly. “Must there really? Oh, how terribly rude I have been, assuming you mere mortals with your petty lives and silly grievances could not possibly do something for me. Now that I am listening properly, please enlighten me—what do I want from you?”

  “Head scratches?” Maatkare asked. Silence for a beat. Seeing Heshtat’s look, he threw his hands up. “What? Come, my friend, it was worth the attempt. It is clearly—-”

  He cut himself off as he saw the cat still and turn his way.

  “Wait—” Heshtat tried again, but the guardian was already arching its back in rage.

  “A joke is that? A joke? Do you find this form funny, mortal?” it said as it stalked towards Maatkare, who frantically backed up towards the plinth. “Perhaps you would prefer my other, for there is only one thing I want from your pathetic existence, and that is for it to end.”

  Every step brought Maatkare closer to the stone structure, until his back hit the plinth and the red pillow fell to the floor by his feet.

  “And now you have disrupted my bed. I would kill you for that alone, even were your smell not profoundly distasteful. Anubian’s blessing has never tasted quite so pungent,” it said, wrinkling its little nose. “Any last words?”

  A chill wind swept through the room, and Heshtat felt a familiar heat upon his neck. The Other seemed to shift, currents of power twisting upon themselves. It reminded him of when he harnessed Sekham and Nemty’s blessing to cut the world apart. But where his methods were brutish—a shunting of power into his blade, a fervent wish to part the veil and the support of a god’s own domain—this felt subtle.

  Essence was braided, worked into complex patterns and embedded within the world in a way Heshtat couldn’t even begin to comprehend. And it happened so fast. By the time his skin had begun to pimple in the wind and he felt the roiling heat behind him, whatever working had started was already complete.

  The cat whirled, its desire for Maatkare’s death immediately forgotten as it faced the new threat in the room. A man, dark-skinned and bare-footed, with deep robes draped over a chiselled frame, now stood in the room, serene as a swan at dawn.

  “’Pungent’, is it?” Anubian asked quietly, his voice showing the same hit of amusement that the guardian had earlier.

  It hissed back, and then it was swelling, its form sloughing away as the cat transformed into a towering behemoth of a creature. Fifty foot tall, corded with muscle beneath a supple hide, the sphinx glowered down at them all, its massive human head looking out of place atop its leonine body.

  The sphinx reared up onto its hind legs, its mane nearly touching the arching stonework of the ceiling high above, before it slammed down. Its paws shook the chamber, and its growl rumbled through the room.

  “I am guardian of this chamber. I will let none pass through without my sanction, whether they be mortal or Desolate, demonic or divine. Remember that it was Amin-Ra himself that bestowed upon me the power to ward this place. Even the fragment of a god cannot step without sanction, and you, Anubian, do not have my sanction.”

  The voice was thunderous, the mocking edge now gone to be replaced by an outrage as deep as the Nikea. Heshtat shrank back, huddling behind a nearby pillar and spying Maatkare doing the same. He hastened over.

  “What the fuck is happening?” his friend asked, but Heshtat had no answer.

  Anubian stood tall despite the overbearing presence of the creature. He turned to flash a smile at Heshtat, white teeth gleaming in the torchlight. “I told you we’d meet again, little mortal. Hurry along, the Eye waits to be claimed.”

  The sphinx roared and leapt forwards, but the god simply waved his hand and a wall of invisible force met the charging creature, slamming it to a standstill. “You may be right, guardian. Amin-Ra was great, and he blessed you with power. But he was not unassailable.” Anubian began to pace back and forth before the massive creature as he spoke. “Great Amin-Ra, Wise Osirion, Vengeful Wusis and Wrathful Sutekh. They are reductive, these titles, but they do have a way of immortalising the saliant aspects of the divine, do they not? Your creator was great, no doubt, but he wasn’t wise. He didn’t see.”

  “And your father did? You think you do?” the sphinx spat, his beautiful face twisted in ugly rage, needle-sharp fangs glistening in his mouth as he raged at the god. “I was blessed with the power to kill avatars, godling. Return to whence you came or suffer my wrath.”

  “It does not take a god of wisdom to witness the problems that beset our world,” Anubian replied with a sigh. He stood directly beneath the sphinx and looked up into his golden slitted eyes. “But as it so happens, I am, and that is precisely your problem.” The sphinx paused, frowning down at the man beneath it, and Anubian only grinned. “I am no fragment.”

  Then he clicked his fingers, and they both disappeared.

  Heshtat and Maatkare leaned out from behind their shared pillar, looking around the empty hall with wide eyes.

  “What the fuck just happened?” Maatkare asked again.

  “Helpful as ever,” Heshtat muttered to himself, but he had to admit that he didn’t have much of an idea either.

  The ambient essence in the room still churned, though it seemed to be settling. He didn’t know how long they had until either of the titanic presences returned—if they ever would—and so he made a quick decision.

  “Search the bodies,” he said, clapping Maatkare on the back, then stepped towards the wall of shadows and smoke.

  He couldn’t quite pierce it with his senses—it was as if all sound vanished when it reached the unnatural barrier.

  “Nothing useful on these two,” Maatkare called as he trotted over, though he did hold out a shining silver knife to Heshtat as he arrived. Maatkare had already shoved one through his belt, and Heshtat shrugged, doing the same. The more weapons the merrier, as far as he was concerned, and he had dearly missed his Hyksos axe during their battles through the temple so far.

  “What do you think?” Maatkare asked, indicating the barrier.

  “I’m not sure, and this feels more like your area of expertise than mine. What do you think?”

  “Listen, my friend, I am heartened by your faith in me. Truly. But this is not a regular tomb or temple. This is Amin-Ra’s temple, and that barrier protects quite possibly the most precious artifact in existence. I am a glorified Sesh, Heshtat. I have no fucking clue what that is or how to pierce it. Perhaps we can simply walk through?”

  Heshtat sighed. “The guardian said only one may pass… but it seemed a malicious sort, and I would not bet my life on any of its words.”

  “Could you cut through it? Send us into the Other once more?”

  Heshtat pursed his lips. “I doubt it—even with the guardian sphinx gone, the wards on this place are ancient and complex. We have time to study this. Let us not be hasty this once.”

  Maatkare nodded beside him, and they stood there together, staring into a wall of darkness. And then they heard the clicking.

  “Heshtat, my friend…” Maatkare began. “You remember the horde of Desolate we saw during our climb?” Heshtat didn’t need him to finish the thought, but he did anyway. “And now that the guardian is gone…”

  The unnatural, insectile sound shivered through the air, plucking at the skein of the world and setting the essence in the room to dancing. A low growl echoed from the darkness, causing Heshtat to step back in shock.

  Three hounds emerged through the unnatural barrier. Standing as tall as him at their shoulder, their ears flat to their heads and their lips pulled back in fearsome sneers. Heat boiled from their open mouths, the feeling intimately familiar to Heshtat now, though he wished it wasn’t. The Anubian Hounds slipped past him and Maatkare, stalking slowly to the other end of the room, and the double-doors that seemed to jump in their hinges while clicks and hisses, whistles and bangs echoed from the hallway beyond as something tried to force its way through.

  The hounds crouched as one, warning growls rumbling the floor until all at once they leapt. The growls turned to snarls, and the doors splintered open, and a horde of chimeric beasts and jackal-headed warriors flooded into the hall.

  Heshtat and Maatkare shared one last wide-eyed glance and then sprinted at the barrier.