An Imperceptible Ruse Indeed (The Gods' Executioner Series) (25 page)

“Heliopolis.”

Chapter 24
: Heliopolis

I arrive in a gold-plated limestone gazebo
to blue skies and a large sun. The hot, dry air fills my lungs as I look forward at a column-lined limestone path the width of a football field in front of me, leading to a massive, gold-plated pyramid that makes the ones in Giza look like stepping stones. I advance down the path unopposed, feeling no enemies nearby.

“Welcome Feros!” Osiris’s voice booms across the sky
when I’m roughly halfway to the pyramid.

“Under
the basis of Maat, I condemn you to death for upsetting the balance of this pantheon!” Osiris calls out.

“
Maat? You want to discuss Maat right now? You are siding with Loki, who is bent on destroying the world and all of the gods for the sake of petty jealousy and revenge, and you’re talking to me about a concept that is based on balance and order?” I reply.

“Silence! You have no say in this, monster!” Osiris exclaims in fury.

“Come Feros. I’ll be waiting for you at the top of the pyramid.” Osiris informs me in a more calm tone.

“Aw, but I hate dungeon-crawlers!” I exclaim.

“Or should I say that
we’ll
be waiting for you.” Osiris adds.

“Uncle Cole!” Alice cries out in the background and I get serious.

I sprint towards the base of the pyramid as it towers over me. I see an opening to the pyramid at the end of the path, so I enter it. The tunnel I enter has torches lighting each wall that continue down as far as I can see. I speed down the tunnel and reach a dead end with a brick wall. I’m not falling for the collapsible ceiling twice; I’ll just search for the brick.

I touch the wall and my hand sinks through, causing a ripple like when you jump through a painting in that Mario game for Nintendo 64. The wall leads out into a well-lit room
with a sand floor that is the size of a stadium, and at the other end is a twenty foot tall lion with a man’s head and white wings on its back; a sphinx?

“Answer my riddle, and you may pass. Fail to answer, and you will be killed.” The sphinx tells me as I approach.

“Great… more bullshit.” I reply.

“Let’s play.” The
sphinx responds and the light in the room dims as spot lights flood the area around the two of us and the music from
Who Wants to be a Millionaire
plays.

“The man who invented it doesn't want it. The man who buy
s it doesn't need it. The man who needs it doesn't know it. What is it?” The sphinx asks.

I think for all of ten seconds before Void tendrils seep out of my left hand. I jump into the air, cast my left arm forward, and the tendrils wrap around the sphinx’s neck.

“C: A coffin. Final answer, bitch.” I reply and rip my left arm back.

The tendrils tighten around the sphinx’s neck and slice through
it. Its head comes flying off as the music plays again, notifying me that I got the answer correct. Blood showers down from its neck and soaks the sand. I walk around the sphinx’s decapitated body as the blood hits me like rain drops, and I find the door out of this place.

I walk through the doorway and into another tunnel; this tunnel leads to… surprise! Another dead end wall!
Knowing the drill, I jump into the wall.

Discovering that it’s solid, I rebound off of the wall and fall on my ass. I stand up and take a long, hard look at the wall, like a drunk who has just fallen off of his bar stool.

(Master… take a few steps back)

I do as Airi instructs and
take three steps back.

(Now look right)

I do so and see a staircase leading up.

“Thank you, Airi.”

I head up the stairs that seem to go up for an absurdly long time. After finally reaching the top, I find myself in another tunnel. At the end of this tunnel is another wall, which I approach with caution instead of trying to be Super Mario. My hand sinks through the wall with a ripple and I walk through it.

I find myself in the middle of a desert, nothing but sand for miles in each direction.
All that is present is a brick wall behind me that is exactly the same as the wall I walked through; nothing but desert is behind the wall. Well, it looks like the best way to go is probably straight. I walk for close to half of a mile when I see another brick wall like the one I just came through.

Oh, don’t tell me…

I look over my shoulder and see the brick wall I came through off in the distance. Why do I always assume the worst in situations like these? The ground starts to rumble and I remember the answer to my question: expect the worst, and you won’t be disappointed when it happens, but you will be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t. I see a dot on the horizon to my left as it comes towards me. The dot quickly becomes the size of a dog, then a car, then a house, then a HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!

I start to lose my cool as the gargantuan beast with the hind legs of a hippo, the torso of a lion, and the head of a crocodile comes to a stop roughly
two hundred feet from my position and takes a seat.

“
Ammit, I presume?” I ask as I start shaking with excitement.

“I have not come here to talk, Feros.”
Ammit replies, towering over me with her crocodile mouth the size of a semi-truck hanging open as words flow out in a volume that is much softer than I was expecting.

“
Oh, yay!” I respond, completely giddy. “You know, I honestly never expected a fight like this outside of video games like
God of War
or
Shadows of Colossus
; definitely never anything real!”

Ammit
appears to have had enough conversation and tries to smash me with one of her massive paws, which she manages to move much more quickly than I was expecting given the sheer size. After narrowly avoiding her paw, the force causes a large cloud of dust and sends me flying. While tumbling through the air, I hold my left hand out and send a dozen Void tendrils at Ammit. When the tendrils break the edge of the dust cloud, Ammit quickly jumps back to dodge them, easily putting half a mile between us. I look to my right and see that the wall is only about a quarter of a mile away so I make a break for it. The ground quakes as Ammit quickly runs and intercepts my path.

Thinking back now, I’ve never understood why giants in video games and movies are supposed to move slowly… maybe it goes off the basis of overall wind resistance, but if you somehow find a cheetah that is twenty times its normal size, why would that cheetah go less than 60mph when its muscles and stride are now twenty times their original size? The answer: because they would otherwise be too damn difficult to beat
.

“The clock is ticking, Feros.” Osiris’s voice booms as I hear Alice scream out in pain.

“You’re a dead man, Osiris!” I shout towards the sky.

“
Ammit, either move out of the way, or I’ll kill you too.” I inform her.

Ammit
responds by lifting her massive paw into the air. No longer having time to mess around, Void tendrils leak out of my arm and leg and I start up the gyroscope. Ammit’s paw comes flying down and I get to see what the inside a giant lion’s paw looks like. Ammit roars out in pain as the paw goes flying back on reflex, her demon blood drenching the sand around me. I fly up and land on Ammit’s back as she’s trying to deal with pain on a level that I imagine she has never felt before, especially considering that her kids are the size of tadpoles in comparison.

Since
Ammit’s gargantuan mouth is still open, I take advantage of this; six Void tendrils shoot out of my left arm, go around Ammit’s head, through the sides of her open mouth, and back to me where I grab them with the bladed Void claw that is currently my right hand.

“I warned you,
Ammit.” I say as I rotate my wrist and wrap my left hand around the tendrils while doing the same with my right to ensure that I have a good grip.

With my hands held
behind my head, I run down Ammit’s back. When I’ve run about twenty feet, I kneel down and give a final tug, throwing my hands over my head. I retract the tendrils back into my left arm as the upper portion of Ammit’s crocodile head slides free from her body, leaving the mandible to fall down and dangle by the skin. Gallons upon gallons of blood spill from Ammit’s neck as I hover so I don’t fall with the body.

Now it’s time to go get Alice.

(Just thought I’d let you know that this area isn’t an open plane)

“What do you mean?”

(This room is still a part of the pyramid, not a separate plane. The sky is just an illusion on the rather high ceiling)

“I see where you’re going with this.”

I start up the gyroscope again and fly towards the sky. Once I’m about half a mile up, I reach the ceiling and slice my way through it to the floor above. I see that this floor contains a river and plants for a split second before I go crashing through the ceiling to the next floor: a torch-lit passageway. Next floor:

Sand and lake of fire.

Torch-lit passageway.

Limestone-
brick chamber.

Torch-lit passageway.

Massive library.

In my blur through the floors, I notice several gods before I hit open air and blue skies.
The massive circular limestone-brick platform that I land on is ringed by giant columns, each several hundred yards from my position.

“You just had to come crashing through the ground, didn’t you? Couldn’t you just use the stairs?” Osir
is rhetorically asks behind me.

I turn around and
see him standing on a tall circular pedestal that is about a hundred yards from my position, wearing white robes. Chained to the base of that pedestal, is Alice; she has cuts on her face and a white stuffed rabbit that’s been torn to shreds lying next to her.

“Uncle Cole?” Alice asks when she sees me, eyes puffy and red while her cheeks shimmer with tear stains
; I find that her voice is familiar to me and I don’t feel the urge to kill her so that’s a relief.

“Hey, sweetie. I’ll get you out of here momentarily, but until then, I want you to keep your eyes shut.” I tell her.

“*Sniffle* Okay.” Alice replies and closes her eyes.

“Yes, you wouldn’t want your precious goddaughter to see your gruesome death!” Osiris exclaims.

“No, I just don’t want her to see what I’m about to do to you.” I coldly reply and Osiris laughs.

“I very much doubt that!” Osiris responds and pulls out a Void dagger and it dawns on me that he’s the one who killed
Xipe-Totec, as well as killing Ra.

“Looks like I’ll be taking a trip to
Aztlan after this…” I comment.

“No you won’t because you’ll be melted to ground in about three seconds!” Osiris exclaims and raises the Void dagger into the air.

The sun moves behind Osiris and grows in size, getting closer as I realize that I might be in a bit of trouble. A beam of light hits Osiris and he points the dagger at me. The sunlight is channeled through the dagger and directed at me. I sprint to the side as a beam of light that is roughly ten feet in diameter hits the spot that I was just in, melting the limestone; I probably shouldn’t chance getting hit by that. I run around the platform, getting further away from the pedestal as the sunlight chases me while Osiris laughs. Looks like the head of a pantheon fighting in their own domain comes with certain perks for them. If I can get that dagger away from him, this fight will be over, but I can’t seem to get close.

(Master, have you forgotten that Horus was a head of the Egyptian pantheon as well?)

A smile comes to my face as I figure it out.

“YES! DANCE FOR ME!” Osiris shouts as I focus on porting to the top of the pedestal.

I appear beside him, grab the Void dagger with my left hand, and rip through his wrist with my right claw before I jump up, hook his neck with the ankle of my right foot, and bring his head down into the pedestal. When it rebounds up, I bring right boot into his face as I land, sending him flying. Osiris screams out in pain as I pry his severed hand from the Void dagger and smash it against the ground. The shards get absorbed into my left hand, accompanied by the usual dose of pain, as Osiris hits the limestone platform some two hundred yards away.

I jump off the pedestal and sprint halfway to his position when
the gods of the pantheon appear in a circle around me. A variety of animal heads are on the gods, but the two that I immediately recognize are Anubis’s jackal and Thoth’s long-beaked ibis. A bout of mad laughter erupts from Osiris.

“You may think you’ve won the battle now that you’ve taken the dagger, but you are about to lose something far more important. You’ve got, what? Another thirty second before you can port again?” Osiris asks as a mad smile crosses his lips and I realize what he has planned.

Osiris pulls a Glock 19 from his robes and ports away. He appears in front of Alice as I port in behind him. Osiris looks back to where I was and sees that I’m no longer there. The gods start running towards us as Osiris turns around and I bring my right foot into the base of his jaw. He goes flying into the air and I port above him to see what porting-involved combat would be like since I don’t have a time restriction here because I hold dominion over this plane. Osiris rapidly approaches me as I rear back and bring a double hammer fist down on his face, sending him crashing back down towards the ground. I land as Osiris is picking himself up with the gods surrounding him.