Chapter 13: The Floating Temple of Alexandria Part 2

“I can’t believe that Anubis hurt you!” Taweret told Ammit. “Why? Did he felt that you would be useless to him now that you became a mother?”

The demoness shook her head as if she was unsure.

“Anubis and Ammit were always close in the past,” Sekhmet said. “I wouldn’t be surprised that he was angry at her for becoming a mother.”

“You just wanted to do something different,” the hippo goddess added. “You didn’t want to feel like you were his lap dog. No offense, Ammit, but I know that people looked at you that way. That wasn’t fair. I always knew that you were more than that. You had your own path to carve out.”

Ammit nodded her head as they took the turn that continued to lead down. The hippo goddess put her hand on the mane part of her head as they were walking together.

“Look, Ammi,” the hippo goddess said butchering her name. “I think that I am going to have a talk with Anubis after all this. I might give him a backhand of my own when I am done.”

“He is way more powerful than you or any of us,” Sekhmet responded.

“You know what I mean. I don’t care. I am going to give him a piece of my mind. He shouldn’t attack his own like that. As a former mother, you deserve better,” Taweret said, looking at Ammit.

“ ... Thank you...” Ammit said in her deep voice. The words reverberated through the declining stairway.

They reached the next ninety-degree turn. The lioness goddess stopped as she looked at the others near her.

“We know what is coming,” Sekhmet told the other two. “This is the final trial. This final third trial will be the trial of combat. We need to be ready for battle.”

“Maybe this one is a combat of wits or a training combat sort of thing?” Taweret replied with some nervousness.

“No, this will most likely be an actual battle. The past sleeper temples would have this sort of thing. Even my husband reported something similar on his run awhile back. It was a battle in which the temple draws something from the past and brings it into an arena. Once we defeat it, the trial should be complete, and we will complete the last trial.”

“Ah... , why does the last one have to deal with violence?” the hippo goddess said with a little bit of anxiety. “I keep saying this. I am a goddess of childbirth and fertility. I am not exactly a fighter.”

“All of us can fight,” the lioness goddess said sternly. “You can fight too. I already know Ammit can fight even if she is pregnant. Knowing her, she could still take down an entire army of men easily. You just need to be ready for all this.”

“Can’t I just sit back and...”

“No!” Sekhmet said, waving her furred hand at her. “You have been more than useful in helping us through these last trials. This one is just as important to have your participation in this. Knowing this trial, this one may be your hardest, but it will be the ones we will be good at. We still need you on this.”

“Did I hear a little bit of praise from you?” Taweret chided back.

Sekhmet looked at the torches. “We don’t have much light left. We don’t have time to go back. This temple must be complete, so we can set others free. The only way is forward. We will do this. Now, you said that you had a weapon. Let me see it.”

“Umm...” The hippo goddess reacted as she let go of Ammit and held her hand open. A little bit of smoke-filled her hand as it materialized into a small blade not much bigger than her hand.

“Wait...” Sekhmet responded as she saw what she was holding. “That’s it?!”

“Yeah, I told you I had a weapon, but I am no fighter.”

The lioness goddess face palmed herself and got angry with her. “You had all the weapons you could have chosen from the armory. We have the greatest legendary weapons and armor that anyone can have, and you chose a fucking knife?!”

“Yeah ... I am sorry Seky poo. I wanted something for self-defense, and I thought this thing would do it. You never know if I found some angry parent that didn’t want to be one or somebody that was going to kidnap a child. Thankfully I never had to use it yet.”

“The Dagger of Rostam!” Ammit reacted, breaking the argument up. The voice reverberated through the walls that shut both of them up. Her gaze was focused on the weapon that the hippo goddess carried.

The words caused Sehkmet to take a second look at the knife as well. She noted the red gem at the end of the handle. Taweret’s hands were so large that she almost barely held it right. The blade was small, being scarcely the size of a typical ruler. The blade was curved though virtually like a little scimitar. The hippo’s fingers moved a little bit as the lioness took a closer look at the detail of the gold like handle. There was a unique emblem that made the lioness goddess back up upon confirming it.

“It is the Daggar of Rostam! Perhaps I was too quick to judge you on your choice.”

Taweret smiled a little bit. “What? I choose a good weapon?”

“You don’t know what that weapon is?” Sekhmet sighed. “The Dagger of Rostam was a weapon used by the hero Rostam. The dagger was used to cut off the head of the demon Div-e Sepid. It is a magical, beheading knife.”

“Ewww...” The hippo goddess replied as she dropped the curved dagger to the stone floor. She had a look of absolute disgust on her face. “I have been holding onto that thing for five hundred years. Gross...”

Ammit went and used her snout to push the dagger back to Taweret to pick it up.

“Whatever the case is, Taweret,” Sekhmet explained. “You have a good weapon, after all. Puts a shame to my axe. I only stick with my axe since I have an attachment to the long years of using it. Perhaps I should start using guns like that one human among us keeps saying. Of course, weren’t some of your kids experimenting with guns Ammit?”

The demoness nodded her head.

“I remember seeing some of them with these big anti-vehicle guns strapped to their backs. Perhaps you are smart in raising an army ... literally.”

“I ... still don’t know about the battle,” Taweret said. “But, I do appreciate what you are trying to do.”

“Do what?” the lioness goddess reacted suspiciously.

“Cheering me up. That was the first time I saw you make a joke in a long time ... I think that is the first one you made one since Nerfertum ... err the recent Nerfertum was born.”

“I don’t even remember what the past joke was about.”

“Me neither, but I remember it took me by surprise when I heard it. I remember it being funny, though. It was something dealing with blood, I suppose. Knowing you.”

There was a smile on the hippo goddess’s face as she nodded her head. The lioness goddess looked at her sternly again as she finally shrugged.

“Whatever ... let’s go before the torches burn out. Make sure not to wave that dagger at me,” the lioness told her.

It was all they had to hear. The knife dematerialized as it rematerialized in Taweret’s hands. They continued going down the stairs as they reached the next ninety-degree turn. As they turned, they can see a little bit of light ahead of them.

“It is waiting for us,” Sekhmet commented. “The room is already lit, but I don’t see anything inside it.”

“Maybe they went home? Or maybe he ... or she?” Taweret nervously joked.

She held the dagger firmly in her hand. Sekhmet dropped her torch, seeing that there was enough light ahead of them. She then held her hands open as smoke appeared from them. As the smoke dematerialized, she held her large epsilon axe. The razor-sharp point at the end tip shimmered from the light given off from the radiating crystals in the open room they approached.

The room itself was unusual in design. Crystals lit the place so much that they can see everything inside of it. There was no clear path unless there was a hidden door in the room itself. The only way out would be the way they entered. It was clear that they were at the bottom portion of the temple pyramid. The entire temple had three massive rooms total, and now they had reached the endpoint. This room was the largest of the three. One side had a clear stone path with a massive circle etched on one side. The other side was a pool with water that seemed to be several feet deep that took up the chunk of the room. Water could be heard moving around. The room was also filled with various iconographies of the ancient Egyptians. There were hieroglyphics all over the walls and even the floor. The ceiling had a large circular disk as well.

“I believe this is it,” Sekhmet commented. “Prepare yourselves.”

The door they came from slammed shut. A blue light covered it as it indicated that it sealed the room up. Taweret tossed her torch down as she held onto the dagger with one hand and overlapped her hand with the other one. Sekhmet gained some space and distance as she spun the axe around a little bit before gripping the handles with her hands. Ammit took the right side as she extended her claws and snapped her tail to the stone. There was a look of sheer intimidation on her face as she opened her mouth and slammed it shut.

The room went solid dark. A large pair of serpentine eyes filled the place that they could all see. They saw the eyes moved as it spoke to them.

“Who daresss come to my temple?” a snake-like creature addressed them.

“It is I ... Sekhmet that has come to here to free the others trapped by the temple,” the lioness responded.

“There are two othersss here...” the serpentine snake-like voice came in. It sounded distinctly male and deep in its voice.

Ammit roared in her deep voice. It reverberated throughout the room.

“That isss the other one. I can tell that isss the Devourer of the Dead. The lassst one, though.”

“It is ... um ... Taweret, the childbearing goddess of Egypt,” the hippo goddess replied.

There was a laugh in the voice as it heard her. Taweret focused on the voice. It sounded oddly familiar.

The room suddenly lit up as it revealed who was speaking to them. He was large measuring at almost 16 feet in length from head to tip. He had black, tan, red, and brown scales that covered his body. He appeared to be a giant cobra with a massive colored hood to represent it. His tongue would flick the air as his eyes zeroed in on the hippo goddess. He stood up from his coiled body as he shifted around with his tail, almost rattling to warn them.

“Apophis...” Sekhmet said, looking up with her axe ready.

“Apep ... husband...” Taweret added. There was nothing but shock in her face.

“Taweret... , “ the snake god said, looking at her. “Yesss ... it isss you, the great traitor to me.”

“How is that possible? Bastet killed you. She used her sword to cut you in half,” the lioness told him.

“I am a part of thisss temple.”

“It makes sense ... you can’t be the real one. There is no way that you came back from the dead. You were always chasing the sun god Ra, but one day her daughter fought you to the death. Never again were you a threat to everyone.”

“Wasss I?” the snake god turned to look at her. “I wasss dead, and now I am reborn in thisss temple. I get to finally look at my wife ... the one that betrayed me.”

“No ... no, it can’t be you,” the hippo goddess said, shaking her head. “I ... no ... what you did to me.”

“He isn’t real, Taweret!” Sekhmet told her. “He is an illusion. He is just a constructed imagery from the crystals just like the last room!”

“Oh, I am quite real enough, Sekhmet. I am real enough to inflict the deep woundsss to kill all of you, including the one that helped brought me to my doom. My own wife.”

“No ... I had to,” Taweret explained as she felt her emotions get hold of her. “I loved you ... I cared for you. You gave me a child. I wanted to live peacefully in your tender embrace ... but you ... you were horrible.”

“Oh come now, my dear Taweret,” Apep said as his snake-like tongue stuck out and went back into his mouth. “I always took good care of you.”

“No ... you weren’t. You were my husband. You loved me, but you treated Metni like he was a piece of meat. You were corrupting him. You were turning him into your little toy soldier.”

“But in the end, I treated you as any good husband should have. In the end, Ra would have...”

“That was all you cared about, my dear husband. It was all about you going after Ra. I took our son, and he started to do the cruel things you were doing to others. Our son was never the same after that.”

The enormous serpent inched closer as Sekhmet readied her weapon. He kept his gaze on the hippo goddess. Ammit lowered her legs in preparation for leaping at him.

“In the end,” Apep continued. “I was going to eliminate Ra and claim Egypt as my own. Metni, our son would have been a prince, and you would have been the queen of Egypt.”

“At the time, I did not care... , but what you did to our son was unbearable. You trained him on how to kill without mercy. You trained him to kill anything in front of him. The last straw was when you took a mother hostage and had him slay her for no reason. You were a monster husband. You made our son into a monster. I could not bear it anymore,” she looked at the other two goddesses as she continued. “I told Bastet where Apep was going to be one night. She believed me and ambushed my husband. She ended him ... I tried to keep that a secret because I betrayed the man that I loved.”

Sekhmet nodded her head to her as she looked at Apep. “Don’t worry about it, Taweret. This is not your husband. He is an illusion to break you and divide us. He will pick us apart if he can.”

“Uh ... I know Taweret doesssn’t have the gutsss to ssstrike me down,” Apep said, turning to look at the lioness. “That wasss why ssshe choossse Bassstet to do the job. Ssshe won’t help you when I kill you and your lap dog, Ammit. You will fail thisss trial, and you will all die ... and maybe,” he looked back to Taweret. “We can spend eternity together again.”

The hippo goddess closed her eyes as she began to cry a little bit. She almost dropped the dagger she held. She tried to say one sentence trying to convince herself that he wasn’t real. She backed away from the confrontation to come.

“Taweret! He is not real!” Sekhmet said again.

“Ssshe won’t lisssten to you cat goddesssss,” Apep said as his tongue flicked in the air. “You and Ammit will die. You will fail, and when I win, you will beg me for a quick death.”

Sekhmet growled in her purest lioness fashion. A glow began to emit from the blade of the axe. A red light developed from it as energy gathered from the axe. Ammit didn’t need to hear it anymore. The demoness charged with her jaws wide open towards the serpent god. Apep was much bigger than the two goddesses. He opened his jaws, and you can see venom drip from the two fangs. He was purely menacing and terrifying to any mortal. He was large enough to eat a child whole in one bite. His hood flared open as the multi-ton beast leaped at her. He moved his coils quickly, narrowly getting snapped by Ammit.

The jaws of the crocodile slammed shut, producing the sound of a thunderous clap. Apep roared as the energy on the Sekhmet’s axe was fully charged. She brought her axe up into the air and slammed it to the ground releasing a blade wave that flew towards the snake god. The slicing energy wave struck Apep as he recoiled back. The damage was superficial but enough to inflict some damage to him to make him recoil in pain a little bit.

“No ... he isn’t real...” Taweret was telling herself. She was hitting her head with her hand to try to convince herself.

Sekhmet took her axe and hoisting it as a spear flung it at Apep, but he was fast. He narrowly dodged the flying axe spear as it slammed into the stone wall behind him. The lioness with such ferocity charged towards him. She leaped into the air as the axe disintegrated on the stone floor and reemerged in the lioness’s hands. She already tried to pull an overhead swing, but the snake god had recovered enough to head butt her body before the blade connected.

She flung back as Apep swung his long tail at Ammit. The demoness with all ferocity opened her jaws to try to snap it close on the giant snake’s tail. Apep was careful with her. Ammit, even though smaller, was still vicious and dangerous. She was a truck on four feet that could snap and kill a human with relative ease.

The lioness quickly got on her feet as she turned and looked at Taweret. “Come on, Taweret, you fat ass! You can fight him!”

“He is ... he is...” she said as she shook her head in response.

Sekhmet took her axe as she focused back at Apep. He swung his head forward, narrowly hitting the lioness again. She swiped her axe and nicked his chin with the blade. A drop of blood fell to the ground as the snake pulled his neck back, ready to make another strike.

“Taweret!” Ammit yelled in her booming voice.

“Violence ... I hate this ... I am not meant for this...” Taweret responded.

The lioness goddess took her blade and stabbed it forward as the snake flung his neck forward. His fang struck the incoming point of the spear, causing him to snap back.

“Come on, you fat hippo!” Sekhmet yelled at her keeping her vision focused on the giant serpent. “You are a hippopotamus. Do you know how dangerous they are? Do you know how powerful they can be? You can take h...”

Sekhmet was so focused on trying to get Taweret in the fight that Apep snapped his neck towards her. She wasn’t able to finish her sentence as she used her axe to deflect the opening mouth heading towards her. She managed to deflect the blow, but one of the fangs skimmed her fur and body. A small amount of blood trickled from her arm.

“Dah!” Sekhmet yelled back. She pulled back a little bit.

“Haha!” Apep said to the lioness. “Even a little bit of my venom will caussse you to feel sssome paralysssisss. Yesss ... let it flow through your body. After you weaken, I will devo ... Ah!” he said, snapping from pain.

Unable to fight two targets at once, Ammit had managed to snap her jaws hard on the base of the tail of Apep. The snake recoiled in pain. The massive ton demoness was weighing him down. Blood was pouring from the wound where Ammit clamped down.

“Ssstupid pet...” the serpent god said as he repositioned his body quickly. He flung his neck down and, with his mouth wide open, tried to bite down on the demoness. Ammit decided to let go of the tail and leap out of the way, but the mouth and fang hit the side of her front leg. She roared in pain as the dripping venom from the fangs showed a little bit of blood.

Ammit leaped back but could feel the new venom enter her system. She was in pain. She managed to get clear as Apep repositioned himself getting ready to strike one of the two goddesses.

“Taweret, we need your help!” Sekhmet yelled. “He isn’t your husband.”

“You try ssso hard lionesssss goddessss,” Apep replied to her. “You can’t convinccce her. Ssshe wasss alwaysss like that. Ssshe would alwaysss love me. What ssshe sssaid wasss all true,” he said as his tongue flicked in the air. “Taweret isss mine after thisss. Ssshe isss weak ... pathetic ... nothing but a fat!...”

“Excuse me!” Taweret replied, looking at him angrily. The words caught everyone by surprise.

Apep turned his head to look at her. Ammit and Sekhmet almost seemingly relaxed their attacks as the hippo goddess seemed to catch everyone off guard with her sudden change in attitude. The hippo had a stern look on her face.

“I sssaid that you were weak. You couldn’t faccce me long ago when it came to our ssson. You can’t even fight me now. When thisss isss all done, I will consssume your fri...”

“No!” the hippo goddess waved her dagger at him as she spoke. “They are right. You are not my husband. He would not have said what you just said right now. It might have been several thousand years, but I remember it enough. You never called me weak. I loved you more than anything. He was determined to go after Ra ... you were obsessed even, but I remember your words to me about your love towards me. You are not him...” she paused her words as she looked at the pool. An idea came to her. She gripped the handle of her dagger hard.

“Turn on me? You don’t have the courage. You are a coward. You...”

She summoned her courage as the hippo goddess sprinted towards the pool. Apep even pulled back a little bit as he watched the hippo reached the pool.

“Cannonball!” Taweret yelled as she leaped with her sturdy, stocky legs. She reached a certain height as she pulled her legs up and turned herself into a big ball of flesh straight into the water.

“What?” Apep reacted.

There was a loud splash. Water was thrown everywhere. Even the large pool felt the massive shift of mass hit it like a boulder. Water also hit Sekhmet and Ammit as the lioness goddess got some of her fur wet. She had a look of disgust on her face. Ammit, even though weakened from the venom, still had a grin on her face.

Apep was focused on Taweret. The water began to settle a little bit as she hit bottom. The darkness of the water made it hard for the snake god to see through it. His body had shifted entirely in search of her. His eyes were trying to find her, and his tongue could taste nothing.

“Where are you?” the snake god called out. “Where is she?”

Sekhmet readied her axe but looked over to Ammit to make sure she was ok. She seemed to be alright as they watched the hippo goddess take control of the situation. The water again was getting calmer and calmer. The waves began to die down more and more.

“Once I find...” Apep tried to search for her. “I will k...”

There was a massive shift in the water. A gigantic gray mass jumped out of the surface of the water as it slammed into the large snake god. He was unable to finish his sentence when a massive set of jaws clamped down on his neck.

“Yeah...” Sekhmet said quietly. “There you go...”

The jaws of the hippo are a powerful one. Capable of killing a crocodile in a single bite, the hippo was perhaps one of the more dangerous creatures of the water. Hippos were even known to snap small boats with a few chomps of their jaws. Their teeth had even better penetration than even most predators had. They were the most underestimated animals when it came to battle.