Some people might think that it was fun to ride a giant jackal across a vast, time-twisted nether-world desert.

Some people were morons.

And Nico could attest that there was nothing remotely fun about it. He had decided that he hated the Duat. It was a world with rules all its own, some of which only seemed to apply in certain parts of it, which made everything all the more confusing. There were plenty of mythical places from Greek mythology that were similar to certain parts, as far as rules or things like time speeding up or slowing down went, but at least those dimensions each had their own consistent rules.

Nico felt a little nauseous and more than a little disjointed as the world abruptly shifted from a desert to what seemed to be the inside of a huge pyramid, forgoing the normal stages of transition like doors and walls. The two segments of the world just kind of blurred together, so that one minute Anubis and Nico were traveling at top speed through the desert, then for ten seconds they were in this in between stage where giant stone blocks hung at random intervals in the air, along with a semi-transparent death mural and hieroglyphic display. Then the next they were loping down a long, long, long dark passageway like the kind found inside of pyramids.

"Stop!" Nico shouted suddenly and scrambled to jump off Anubis' back before the jackal-god even came to a complete stop.

"What's wrong?" demanded Anubis. He spun around to where Nico had leapt off and was leaning against the wall clutching his head. "Are you ill?"

"I thought I was going to throw up for a second," admitted Nico. "I didn't want to throw up on you. That would've sucked."

Anubis, still in jackal form, regarded him with an almost sympathetic expression, and it was testament to how messed up Nico's life was that he had no problem thinking that a jackal could look sympathetic.

"We should not linger here longer than we have to," Anubis said after Nico had taken several seconds to try to pull himself back together. "In this part of the Duat time is very compressed."

"What does that mean?"

"That time is passing very quickly in your world, and that if we spend an hour here then we may miss the equinox completely."

Nico swore in Italian. "Why didn't you tell me that sooner?" he demanded, climbing back onto Anubis' back as quickly as he could.

Anubis didn't answer, not with words, anyway. Nico could feel what he was thinking through their link though. Anubis was still worried about him and didn't want him pushing himself too hard. What had happened during the ritual must have really freaked Anubis out.

Unconsciously, Nico started to remember the event, but the memory that he ended up remembering actually wasn't his own, probably because Nico's own memory of the ritual going wrong had been washed in both adrenaline and magic to the point where it had dissolved like papyrus in vinegar. But when the images and memory came to the forefront of his mind, at first he didn't realize that they weren't his own, but Anubis'. Anubis had been inside Nico's head during the ritual, after all, using him as a conduit for the magic that was needed, so their memories of the event were parallel to begin with.

He'd been chanting in Egyptian as hieroglyphics appeared in the air around his host, shimmering with an unholy light that he was sure looked totally awesome. In fact, he really wished that one of the Mythomagic artists could see it, because it would have made an awesome illustration for a card.

And thinking of those cards, he really needed to find a way to get in contact with their creators, because he'd heard rumors that they were doing two cross-pantheon series, one themed around divine, life-giving, holier-than-thou gods and entities, and another around death gods and their ilk, and if it was true he did not want his new card to end up gimp. His card stats needed some major upgrades, doubly so since he was using a son of Hades as his host, and maybe that hadn't been a deliberate choice, but there was no denying that it made him epicly badass. Hundreds of Egyptian gods had failed to do what he'd done by accident, and now that it had happened he could understand why those gods had risked starting a war with the Greek pantheon.

But he needed to concentrate on the spell so that he didn't end up blasting Nico and himself further into the Duat. He realized now that he shouldn't have held off so long on this ritual, after they'd discovered the cursed snake's plans. Nico was thoroughly capable of channeling the power he needed to cast this spell. If he'd done it sooner then they could have found the book sooner, and that would have given Sadie more time to read it and figure out how to use it. And it would be her who used it, Anubis knew, since hieroglyphics were her specialty.

The ritual was going well. Nico was doing very well, letting Anubis take control of his body, even though he knew Nico hated that. But he understood the importance of the spell and so he had given up control willingly, and was being very careful not to assert his will or do anything that would take Anubis' attention away from the task at hand as Anubis chanted in Ancient Egyptian and channeled a veritable river of power through his body, compared to the steady streams he usually sent through.

Then something went wrong. Anubis felt his control over the amount of power he was channeling starting to slip, and that river turned into a raging torrent. He didn't understand what was happening at first, and tried to reign the power in, but it was no use. It was flooding through every one of Nico's veins, hammering through the stone scarab that had replaced his heart, filling his lungs and burning out through his skin, and there was nothing Anubis could do to stop it. He tried to. He tried really hard because he could see the smoke rising around Nico and he could actually smell burning, but there was nothing that could be done. He'd long ago passed the point of no return, committed to the spell, and now there would be no stopping it, and Anubis knew it, but he struggled anyway because hedid not want Nico to die.

Nico started screaming, no longer able to keep his consciousness to the side now that he was being burned up by three times the magic power Anubis had expected to channel through him, and all of it flooding through him at once. Or maybe it was Anubis who was screaming, trying to stop the spell or redirect the magic or anything that would save his host, even though he knew nothing he did would have any effect.

The magic had formed a sort of twister around Nico as it leaked out of him, swirling around his slight form violently before exploding and sending tendrils out in three different directions, tendril's that parts of Anubis' consciousness were carried along on for the ride. That was when he realized what had happened, how the Book of Ra had been split into three parts, which was why the spell had ended up using three times the magic he'd thought it would.

While those other pieces of his consciousness found where the three parts of the Book of Ra were hidden, Anubis used the largest part of his consciousness to will himself a physical form, right next to Nico who had collapsed onto the sand, face down.

"Nico!" he shouted, rolling him over onto his back. Nico's eyes were open but blank, and if Anubis' soul hadn't still been fused to Nico's, he would have thought his friend was dead. Nico looked that much like a corpse, enough to fool a death god.

Smoke was rising around him in small white tendrils, his hair had been singed in some places, and he was clearly unconscious, but he was alive.

Nico flinched away from Anubis' memory with a start. He hadn't intended to snoop through Anubis' memories to begin with, and seeing himself looking so much like a corpse had just been plain weird. Thankfully Anubis didn't seem to have realized that anything was amiss with Nico, or that he'd summoned one of his memories. Or if he did realize it, he didn't say anything. He seemed to be more focused on getting them out of the time compressed segment of the Duat as fast as possible.

They reached the end of the pyramid-hall-segment when it melded with a segment that seemed to be some sort of garden. Again, there was no door, no clear line dividing the two areas. The floor gradiated from huge stone blocks into the small tiles of a garden path, and the stone blocks making up the walls started to become semi-transparent and then some hung in the air without any under them, supporting them, and there were semi-transparent palm trees and shrubs. And again Nico felt sick to his stomach.

"Stop, stop, stop!" he cried and jumped off Anubis' back before his friend came to a complete halt. He managed to land on his feet but then dropped to his knees and gagged, fighting to keep from throwing up. This time he failed and ended up losing his lunch all over some weird looking bush.

A hand on his back made him jump, but he quickly realized that it was just Anubis, in human form now.

"Sorry," Nico whispered, too embarrassed to look at his friend.

"It seems that switching from areas of differently compressed time makes you sick," said Anubis. "You do not need to apologize for that."

"Is this how Percy felt when Sadie and Carter used that all-rivers-are-one spell?" Nico wondered out loud. Now he felt a little bad about having made fun of Percy for that.

"I cannot say, but it is possible," said Anubis. He gripped Nico by his shoulders and pulled him back, away from the spot where he'd been sick, then made him sit down once he was suitably far enough away. "You should rest."

Nico shook his head. "I'm ready to go. I won't throw up on you, I promise."

"That's not what I'm worried about." There was that note of anxiety in Anubis' voice again, and Nico was reminded of his friend's actions when the spell spiraled out of control. He'd given Anubis a real scare, Nico realized, and felt a little bad about it . . . but at the same time it was kind of nice to know that he did care, even if he didn't like being fussed over.

"How compressed is time in this place?" asked Nico.

"Barely compressed at all," Anubis told him. "Time actually runs much slower here than anywhere else I know of. We could spend a week here and only a few minutes would have passed in your world."

"Wow." Good news at last. "Maybe I will rest . . . just for a few minutes."

They could afford that, right? A few minutes here would only be a few milliseconds on earth. Even if he were to fall asleep and nap for an hour (which he had no intentions of doing) that would still be less than a second. So it was okay, wasn't it?

"You're going to rest longer than a couple minutes," Anubis told him. "In fact, you're going to get some sleep. It will take us about thirty-six hours of traveling in this part of the Duat to reach the point where it junctures with the area where Bast is supposed to be. Us spending a few more hours here will not make any difference one way or the other."

Nico shook his head. "I don't want to waste any time at all."

"Don't be ridiculous, Nico."

"I don't want to be selfish," Nico said. "Everyone else is out there giving this fight their all, and I'm stuck here."

"If not for you the fight would already be lost," snapped Anubis. "We would have no idea where the Book of Ra is, let alone that it was split up into three pieces, and we would have no way of finding Ra and reviving him. You have done your part, Nico. If you insist on picking up the slack for the stupid cat then you will at least get some rest first."

Nico knew he shouldn't argue . . . even though he wanted to . . . even thought what Anubis said made perfect sense, and arguing would have been ridiculous. Part of him knew that he'd passed the point of being able to stay awake and still be sensible. He was so tired now that everything seemed like crap, and losing his lunch a few minutes ago had pushed him over that edge.

"Can . . ." Nico hesitated.

"What?" asked Anubis instead of just reading his mind, because he knew Nico didn't like it when he did that.

"Can we go a little further before I rest?" he asked and quickly added, "I want some water. My throat hurts."

Anubis nodded and helped him up. "There's a stream right over here."

Nico followed Anubis to the stream, glad that Anubis hadn't tried to pick him up, or offered to carry him because that would have been most annoying. The stream wasn't very far and when they reached it, Nico realized that it was testament to how tired he was that he hadn't heard it or noticed it earlier, because it was quite a large stream. Large enough for Nico to be completely submerged if he jumped into it, which he did, because he was so damn hot after spending so long in the desert and riding around on a freaking jackal for so long, and the water was so nice and cool.

Anubis immediately grabbed him by his arm and started to haul him out. Nico whined in protest which made Anubis pause, and Nico felt the god searching his mind, then a feeling like understanding came through their link. "I thought that you had fallen in," he explained.

Nico's graceless entrance into the water with all his clothes and boots still on probably had made it look like he'd fallen in but Nico couldn't bring himself to care. He floated on his back for a moment, then drank his fill, then held out a hand to Anubis. He felt the god search his mind again, making sure that Nico actually did want help out, and had no plans to pull him in (which hadn't even occurred to Nico, but which he would definitely remember for next time) then the god seized his hand and pulled him out of the water.

"Get some sleep," Anubis told him, guiding him over to some nearby bushes that provided some shade. "I'll keep watch."

"Thanks, Anubis," Nico told him and closed his eyes, and immediately fell into a fitful sleep.

He awoke several hours later to the sounds of violent splashing, snapping jaws, and an animalistic scream of pain, as Anubis and someone or something else engaged in mortal combat in the stream.