Consequences

"I didn't have a choice!" he yelled, the words echoing through the chambers of his uncle's hall. It almost seemed that the gilded onyx pillars echoed his guilt back at him, mocking him. The Underworld was an unforgiving place indeed. He knew that, of course. He guarded its very gates, weighing the heart of every soul that passed through. And today, he was in the hall of the King of the Dead for a very different reason. Something he had never thought would come to pass.

Shackles of Electrum bound his hands and feet together, with Cold Iron chains linking them to fastenings on the floor. A similar electrum collar was bound tightly around his neck, with four chains extending from it to the ground. His jackal crown had been stripped away from him, stashed in some unholy cellar within the court. Similarly, his symbols of power had been taken away from him, his ankh seized, and his was sceptre destroyed. Maybe the latter's case was just as well. He didn't exactly want a sceptre with his father's blood on the head.

He stared straight ahead, at the Lord of the Dead, who was also his uncle. His green skin shone pale in the dim light of the court, bandages covering most of it. His outlined eyes stared straight at the shackled Anubis, but somehow seemed to be looking past him, as if something else were on his mind. On the thrones beside him were the rest of his brothers and sisters, in turn, with one throne being conspicuously empty. His mother, Nephthys, sat beside the king. Isis sat next to her. Horus the Elder sat on the other side of Osiris, with the throne on the far right being empty.

Along the sides of the court, the thrones of the forty-two judges of the Underworld were full, all of them staring intently at their king. Osiris stroked his false beard with one hand while the other idly toyed with the crook and flail on the armrest of his throne. After seemingly deciding his words, he asked, "What happened?"

Anubis bowed his head, then began his tale;

It had been a swelteringly hot day in the desert west of the Nile, as it usually was. Acrid winds swirled sand in mini tornadoes, changing the shapes of the desert's dunes. The deserts had never bothered Anubis, of course. His father was Seth, the god of deserts. Homefield advantage, one could say. His father was also the god of chaos, so Anubis took what aspects he found nice and left out others.

That day, though, he had been forced to leave the duties of the divine scales to Thoth, for something much graver had called his attention away. His jackals roaming about the mortal planes had come back with distressing news. His father had found a new host to call his. Considering Anubis was the one who had originally sealed Seth away in the Houses of the Night, he had been more than concerned knowing that he had been released. After he had dealt with his father, he would have to deal with the idiot who had managed to free his father halfway on the path through the Duat. Questions of how that was even possible had been plaguing him, but he had more important things to deal with at the moment.

As unpredictable and chaotic as Seth's actions were, there was one semblance of routine he always followed whenever he inhabited a host.

Now, on the day of the summer solstice, Anubis had to venture in the middle of the afternoon through the hottest desert around because of that. After a bit of looking, he found what he was looking for. It resembled a trapdoor in the sand, easily mistaken for an entrance to a tomb or some sealed-away basement, but that was anything but that simple. He grabbed the iron handle of the trapdoor and hoisted it up, the hinges groaning with age. The sand around flooded in, coating the first few steps leading down. Anubis stepped through, closing the door above him. That plunged the corridor into darkness, and he had no choice but to navigate through that.

Thankfully for him, he had spent most of his time in the dark and dingy underworld, so his divine jackal-like eyes adjusted in seconds. Soon after, it was just as bright as it had been above ground. He descended the winding corridor for several minutes until he got to the bottom. A dull red light came from the chamber at the base of the stairwell. He walked through the entrance and into the ancient throne room of Seth, his very centre of power. As he had seen several times before, brainwashed worshippers were interspaced throughout the columned hall, all kneeling and facing the throne.

The pillars were made of red sandstone and contained scenes of violence and carnal indulgence, accented with Lapis Lazuli, gold and emeralds in random patterns. The floor itself was made of packed sand, solid enough to walk on, but with one command from Seth, the solidity would give way, and the unfortunate soul who had caught his father's ire would sink into the infinite depths below, never to be heard from again. At the end of the grand hall was a raised dais with steps leading to a singular golden throne, this too gilded with gems and semi-precious stones. Beside it, on the right side lay a typhonic beast, called Sha, shaped like a canine with a pointed snout, long ears and longer legs, capable of crossing miles in a single bound. On the left lay a sleeping crocodile, a particular variety from the Nile, representing his marriage to Anubis's mother, Nephthys.

On the throne was a tall and built man with tanned skin and short black hair. Tight-fitting formal clothing clad his body, and sunglasses covered his eyes. His was sceptre leaned against the throne on one side, and his ankh lay on the armrest on the other side of the throne. His father held the very same symbols of power that Anubis did.

Anubis walked down the central aisle, covered in velvet carpeting. "Father!" he called out, sceptre at the ready. The man on the throne just smiled. The beasts beside him stirred, eyes opening and ears pricking towards Anubis.

"My son!" the man said, his voice exactly like Seth's, and rose, picking up his sceptre.

"This is no place for you, father," Anubis said, "Lay down the sceptre. Come with me."

"Oh, my sweet, sweet boy. You shouldn't have come all the way. A waste of time, really."

"Don't make this difficult, father. Come. I will see to it you're treated better."

"Treated better?" Seth laughed, "Boy, I would've been glad if I'd been treated some way at all. Do you know what it's like, being trapped in endless darkness? Your voice reaches nowhere, not even to your own ears. Your eyes see, but don't comprehend. Your tongue tastes, but only your own boredom. What I would've given even to be tortured, for my skin to scream in protest and for my nose to smell my own blood, for my eyes to witness light and for me to taste life."

"I will see to it, just... come with me."

"It's far too late for that, my boy. A certain antiquity collector managed to sneak into the House of Night, which you, my dear boy, had bound me in. He found the shabti figure in which you bound my essence and brought it back to the land of the living. He put it up for sale in an auction in Australia, I believe, where I found this lad." He waved to the body he inhabited.

"The man is innocent."

"I do not inhabit the innocent. Only those who have sin in their hearts and chaos in their souls are capable of sustaining me this long. Believe me, this man is far from innocent."

"So it may be, but he does not deserve what you've done to him."

"Done to him? He was dying, Anubis. I saved him. Gave him new life."

That irked Anubis. "That is not your place. A god is not to interfere with the span of mortal lives." Being the custodian of the entrance to the underworld and the process of embalming, the proper ways of life and death were very important to him. The very ways that his father had manipulated for his own benefit.

"So you would rather this man die, my son?"

"If that is his fate, then so it must be. Release him."

"Rather cruel, I'd say," then he said to himself, "Don't you agree?"

His body language changed, the original man coming to the surface of his own body. The swagger of his father was gone, replaced with abject terror at everything of the man underneath. "Help me," he whimpered before he changed again, Seth coming back in control.

Anubis readied his sceptre. "I'll take you in by force, if I must," he said.

"Come at me, boy."

Anubis leapt at Seth and was upon him within a fraction of a second. He brought the sceptre down, a shot which Seth took on the arm, bringing all his momentum to a halt. He heard the cracking of bone underneath and saw blood pouring from the impact site. All of which healed itself almost instantly. Anubis took a wary step back as Seth began twirling his staff about him, almost lazily. His father was more than skilled in the arts of war, of course, being older than most of existence, but that ease with which he carried himself came only when the host was of a highly skilled disposition. Anubis's host was of no such disposition, so he had to be careful.

He retreated further as Seth's animals prowled behind him. In response to that, Anubis summoned his own pack of jackals, which emerged from the darkest corners of the throne room and the corridor behind. The large, muscle-bound beasts emerged, each smaller than either of Seth's animals, but they vastly outnumbered the two beasts. While the animals engaged, the gods walked towards each other, assessing the other. Seth swung first, intent on his son's head. Anubis ducked and swept at Seth's legs, who jumped to avoid the blow, bringing his staff down with it, forcing Anubis to roll away. He rose deftly on his knees and launched himself from the ground at Seth, engaging in battle again.

They went through their series of strikes, blocks and parries, occasionally intermixing their combos with punches, kicks, grapples, or headbutts. Seth held the advantage most of the fight, forcing Anubis to fight on the back foot. Around them, many of his jackals lay dead, but Seth's animals were decently injured to account for the deaths. Seth got a lucky break when Seth's crocodile tossed a dead jackal at Anubis's feet. He lost balance, and Seth got a swipe across his face, drawing blood. Seth pressed on, intent on delivering the finishing the duel quickly, but another jackal pounced on Seth, giving Anubis enough time to recover. The jackal didn't last long, though, getting its neck snapped almost instantly and being tossed aside like a sack of barley.

Again, they engaged in fierce battle, Seth pressing his host's advantage. Anubis got a few shots off before his father decided he had had enough and snapped his fingers. Instantly, the sand beneath Anubis's feet shifted as it began to give way. The few worshippers who had decided to stick around to witness the duel of the gods sank through almost instantly, their screams getting cut short when sand started to fill their throats. Anubis shifted form, taking the shape of a giant falcon. Seth changed form himself, becoming a hawk.

They went at each other in those forms, changing forms when one side gained the advantage, becoming something bigger and stronger with each turn. When Anubis's ibis form managed to pin down Seth's heron form, he was forced to release the spell that caused the floor to turn to quicksand. The floor soon turned solid again, and Anubis took his humanoid jackal-headed form. Seth shifted form, too, mirroring Anubis's form, an animal-headed humanoid. By that time, all the animals had been taken out of play by the quicksand, both Anubis's and Seth's. Any remaining straggling worshippers had been swallowed too, leaving just father and son.

They engaged again, Anubis pressing this time. Seth allowed him to overextend himself, tire himself out, and Anubis failed to see through his father's tactics. In his exhaustion, Seth got a shot off, planting the butt end of the staff in his gut, then pinning him to the floor with it. Anubis let out a huff and held the shaft of the sceptre as Seth began pushing it downward. Though blunt, the end was small enough that it might pierce through Anubis's skin.

"Where's your bravado, son?" Seth demanded, "Weren't you going to take me back?"

"You will answer for your crimes, father," Anubis grunted out in a strained voice, "The blood of scores is on your hands."

Seth laughed. "I have not stained my skin with their blood, boy. I have bathed in it, revelled in it, but yet, all of it falls on the shoulders of my host. I have only whispered in his ears. He has done his deeds on his own volition."

"You have bent his mind beyond fixing. The burden of those lives will still weigh against your soul."

"You cannot weigh those, boy, for you will never take me back."

"Then let the darkness you witnessed hold you again."

With those words, Anubis released the spell he had been building. An instant wave of darkness overtook the throne room, the torches in their sconces being swallowed by an unforgiving sea of black. The weight against Anubis's guts immediately let up as he heard his father stumbling back. Anubis had hoped not to use such a filthy tactic, but he deemed it necessary. He imagined the panic that was flooding Seth's mind, the memories of his prison flooding his brain again. Anubis could see perfectly, of course, and seized the advantage, cracking his sceptre against the side of his father's head.

Seth fell to the ground, blood leaking from his wound. Anubis didn't let up. He brought the staff down again, and again, and again until he was sure Seth was subdued. He let the darkness remain. Seth began laughing when Anubis stopped raining down blows. "Too weak to finish the job, boy?" he taunted in a weak voice, "I thought I raised you better than this."

"I am also my mother's child," Anubis said, "She taught me restraint." He pulled a shabti figure so that he may bind Seth to it again.

"You won't have me again, boy," he said as his features started to warp and crack. He would sacrifice the body to let his essence escape to the Duat, resulting in a massive explosion that would level Egypt and dry the Nile. Binding Seth would take much more time than it would take Seth to escape. Seth's laughter echoed in the chamber while Anubis's mind raced for an answer. In all his simulations, he could only come across one solution. Kill his father, through and through, but he refrained. Who knew the consequences that came with killing a god?

"Don't do this, father," he said, "don't force my hand."

"Make your choice, son," Seth said, the mirth evident in his eyes, "Kill me and save Egypt and avenge countless lives, or spare me, and destroy Egypt with it."

Anubis's hands trembled as he gripped his sceptre and raised it, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't. For all his faults, it was still his father. There had to be a better way. Seth's taunting didn't help him think. But he started to crack and splinter further, the body slowly giving way to allow Seth to escape.

"Don't do it!" Anubis cried out.

Seth let out a taunting laugh. "You don't have the stomach to kill me, boy. You're weaker than I ever raised you to be," he spat.

Anubis raised his sceptre again. "Do it!" Seth screamed as his body began to glow, starting to dispel the darkness around them. He was about to escape. With no time to reflect on a decision, he brought his staff down swiftly, the tip piercing his father's forehead. The host died immediately, and with a final burst of divine power, the glowing stopped. A second later, a massive shockwave erupted from the site of the wound, tearing the body apart and pushing Anubis back. The throne room started to rumble and crack, forcing Anubis to flee to the surface as the darkness was broken by sunlight.

When he reached the surface, he saw the entirety of the divine army gathered there, waiting to take him away.

Anubis's throat was tight with emotion when he was done with his tale. "You still took a life, Anubis," Osiris said, "both of a mortal and a god, before their time. You broke your own laws."

"I know, uncle," Anubis whispered.

"Though you may be justified, I cannot allow this to pass. Ma'at would cry out at the imbalance of the universe."

"I understand."

"And so I declare you to be imprisoned in true darkness for the remainder of the millennium. Thoth is to overtake your duties. Dismissed."

Horus the Younger, King of the Overworld, himself came to escort Anubis through the Houses of Night. With one final farewell, the gold-and-silver-eyed god shut the gate of his prison, leaving Anubis alone with only darkness his company.