by Rick Riordan
SADIE, YOU DOLL, THANKS FOR THE TIP! JUST PAID DEAR OLE DAD’S MONUMENT A LITTLE VISIT, AND I GOTTA SAY, I FEEL RECHARGED!—SETNE
Many Egyptian gods appear with the heads of recognizable animals—an ibis, a falcon, a crocodile, a jackal. Set has an animal head too, but unlike the others, no one has ever been able to identify the animal it comes from. Somehow, this just makes him seem all the more evil to me.
Fill in the blanks:
1. Set is a lowdown, nasty, manipulative, vicious, scheming snake in the grass!
While this is an accurate summation of Set’s character, the answer we were looking for is the god of evil. Points off, though, for calling him a snake. That description is reserved for Apophis, the serpent of Chaos.
2. Set’s favorite color is red, red, and more red, from the darkest shade to…well, not pink, but maybe fuchsia, if he’s in the mood to make a bold fashion statement.
This is the correct answer. As for fashion, however, it should be noted that his three-piece suit was black the last time we saw him.
3. Set’s three most recent hosts were Uncle Amos, the red pyramid of Arizona (destroyed in DC), and, um, the malachite jar in Vladimir Menshikov’s office?
This is a trick question aimed at revealing other hosts Set may have sneaked into during his last stay in the mortal world. Uncle Amos and the red pyramid were two; “malachite jar” is a surprisingly good response.
4. Set’s avatar is half sandstorm, half fire, all lowdown, nasty, manipulative, vicious, scheming giant red warrior.This is the correct, though somewhat hyperbolic, answer.
5. Set has a special monster called Leroy.
Leroy is the name I gave the monster. Its actual name is the Set animal. A weird mash-up of creatures, it has an anteater-shaped head with razor-sharp teeth and conical ears that swivel in all directions, a body as muscular as a greyhound’s but as big as a horse, and a reptilian tail with triangular points at the end. Am I surprised that such a grotesque creature is named after the god of evil? I am not.
6. Though their names sound alike, Set should not be confused with Leroy.
Excuse me, but in what universe does Set sound like Leroy? The correct answer is Setne. It’s easy to confuse them since both are nasty and manipulative. But Set is a god; Setne is a magician. Or was. Now he’s a ghost stuck inside a plastic snow globe.
Bonus question: Set has suggested two alternatives, Rockin’ Red Reaper and Glorious Day, to his true secret name, Evil Day. Can you suggest others? I think “Murray” would put a crimp in his style. I’m going to call him that from now on.
FROM THE DESK OF AMOS KANE, CHIEF LECTOR, FIRST NOME, SOMEWHERE BENEATH CAIRO
TO: Initiates of the Twenty-First Nome
RE: Curses-in-Waiting
Initiates:
Welcome to Brooklyn House. I look forward to meeting you in person. Right now, though, I have to throw you in the deep end of the pool. Not Philip of Macedonia’s pool—it’s just a figure of speech, meaning I’m sending you on your first assignment.
I have inside-my-head knowledge that Set Murray, the god of evil, planted curses of annoyance throughout the Twenty-First Nome as payback for the Kane family’s interference in his quest for world destruction. If unleashed one at a time, they would have only minor impact. But Set being Set Murray being Murray, he programmed them for simultaneous detonation on his next birthday—December 29, the fourth Demon Day. If these magical ticking time bombs explode as planned, the level of irritation in your sector will immediately jump from moderate to extreme, resulting in anger-induced havoc.
Which brings me to your job: defuse the curses, and soon. My close association with Set Murray prevents me from using my own magic directly against his. But I’ve identified the known threats and outlined suggestions for neutralizing them. I’m nearly positive the solutions are legitimate. If not…well, try not to curse me too severely.
Threat: Foot-Traffic Jam
Harried pedestrians making their way through crowded hallways, corridors, and sidewalks will suddenly find their way blocked by people sauntering, meandering, or coming to a stop directly in front of them. The harried pedestrians will attempt to pass. They will fail. They will then try to shove through those blocking them. The blockers will take offense. Name-calling, chest-poking, and other acts of righteous vexation will ensue.
Solution: Place the four Sons of Horus at the cardinal points around a likely target zone—a busy sidewalk at rush hour, for instance. Touch your wand to the main walkway within the zone and cast the dual spells of “pass” (faet) and “be at peace” (ha-tep). The magic will branch like blue lightning throughout all the interconnected paths. The light will fade quickly, but the spells ensuring peaceful passage will remain in place.
Threat: Bump Her Cars
Set Murray embedded storm magic in the asphalt of major grocery store parking lots. On his birthday, violent gusts will send shopping carts speeding into unsuspecting vehicles. The resulting dings and scratches will infuriate the car owners, who will unleash words unfit for human ears. Slow-moving pedestrians may also be targeted by the wobbly-wheeled menaces. Those struck will likely suffer severe embarrassment with possible light bruising.
Solution: This curse can’t be defused ahead of time, so action must be taken on Set’s Murray’s birthday itself. Distribute hippo, camel, and vulture amulets to teams of initiates prior to sunrise. Fan out to potential curse hot spots. Hide with amulets at the ready. When a shopping cart begins its death roll, crush it beneath a hippo or camel, or send it airborne via vulture. Note: All lion, cobra, and crocodile amulets must be surrendered before returning home.
Threat: Opening and Closing of the Mouth
The sound of chewing is a hot button for many people. This curse uses a diabolical three-forked attack to magnify that irritation. First, the sounds of mastication will become juicier, stickier, crunchier, and slurpier than normal. Second, the noises will be amplified tenfold. And third, the eaters will chew with their mouths open, offering a can’t-unsee-that seen-food visual. The usual mild level of exasperation will shoot up to Sekhmet-threat rage. And we all know where that can lead.
Solution: To prevent this curse, first summon water with the divine word maw. (Not to be confused with mar, the less-than-divine word for “retch.”) Due to the vast quantity of liquid this word generates, I recommend standing in or near an empty bathtub. Enchant the water with a combination of the spells for “silence” (hah-ri) and “teeth” (sinean). Bottle the water in four-ounce recyclable containers and distribute them to the populace as free samples. With luck, you will reach enough people to minimize the testiness caused by open-mouthed chewing.
Threat: Oh, Poop
Set Murray deposited hundreds of steamy piles of fresh dog poop throughout the Brooklyn area, then hid them with a combination i’mun–n’dah “invisibility–protection” spell. Both spells will cease at precisely noon on his birthday, exposing the plops to the feet of unsuspecting passers-by.
Solution: Removing this curse will be potentially mar-inducing, so proceed with caution. Traverse the Twenty-First Nome on foot in two-person teams. As you walk, one person casts the divine word for “reveal” (sun-ah), to expose the messes. The other follows with a “clean” (nidif) spell. Note: To avoid becoming magically fatigued, bring a pooper-scooper and bags as backup to nidif.
MURRAY, YOU OLD DOG, YOU! ALWAYS AN INSPIRATION. I LOOK FORWARD TO SWAPPING EVIL STORIES WITH YOU WHEN I BECOME A GOD. IN THE MEANTIME, I’VE PLANTED A LITTLE CURSE OF MY OWN THAT’LL DETONATE WHEN I DEPART BROOKLYN HOUSE FOR GOOD.—SETNE
Since Isis is the queen of divine words, I wondered if she ever used a special magic command, like abracadabra, to give her spells extra oomph. “Why, yes,” Sadie deadpanned when I asked her. “It’s flabbergasted.” She was kidding, of course. I think.
True or False?
1. Isis is the goddess of wisdom.
True False
2. Isis is married to Osiris.
True False
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3. Isis poisoned Ra.
True False
4. Isis saved Ra from poisoning.
True False
5. Isis reassembled Osiris after Set dismembered him.
True False
6. Isis’s symbol is the bau.
True False
7. Isis’s son is Anubis.
True False
8. Isis can only fly in kite (the bird, not the aerial toy on a string) form.
True False
9. Cleopatra VII was Isis’s last host in ancient times.
True False
Answers:
1. False. Isis is the goddess of magic. As for being wise…well, let’s just say she’s made some questionable choices in her time, so maybe not.
2. True, though I want to be clear she’s married to the god Osiris, not my dad, who is Osiris’s host!
3. True. Isis wanted Osiris to be king of the gods. But Ra, her father, had the throne. So she sicced a snake on him that had venom with no known antidote. Like I said, she’s made some questionable choices….
4. True. Surprise, surprise, there was an antidote, but only Isis knew it! She agreed to use it in exchange for Ra’s ren, figuring that his secret name would give her power over him.
5. True. After curing him, Isis “encouraged” Ra to give up the throne to Osiris. Set wanted the throne, though, so he sliced and diced his brother to bits. Isis put Osiris back together again, with her sister Nephthys’s help. Probably the worst jigsaw puzzle ever.
6. False. A bau is an evil spirit, and while Isis might be conniving and power-hungry, she’s not evil. Her symbol is the tyet knot, an emblem of protection.
7. True, sort of. She adopted Anubis after Nephthys gave him up.
Just realized how weird it would be for me to date Anubis if I was still hosting Isis!—Sadie
8. False. The kite is her sacred bird, but Isis can fly quite nicely thanks to her beautiful iridescent wings.
9. Might be true, but possibly false. Read my story about Horus and you’ll understand.
WHEN it comes to spells and divine words, no one beats Isis, goddess of magic. Back when I was her host, I had ready access to her vast knowledge. I still draw on her powers when I need to—that’s the whole deal with the path of the gods, remember—but I’ve had to turn elsewhere to add to my magical library. Scrolls are a good source, and I can always portal-pop over to the First Nome to consult with Uncle Amos, the greatest living magician, or Duat-chat with the ba of Chief Lector Iskandar, the greatest dead magician.
Scrolls, Amos, and Iskandar are rubbish, though, when it comes to channeling Isis in her goddess of motherhood mode. It’s not an aspect of her power I tap into often, but now and then our youngest initiates—ankle-biters, as we call them, a name that is sometimes painfully accurate—need mothering. That’s when I grab hold of my tyet amulet and reach out to my own mum, who, despite being a ghost, is the best mother I know. Plus, she has communed with Isis, too, so I can get a double dose of maternal instincts from one source.
Recently I was in touch with Mum to seek advice about Shelby, our youngest and most powerful initiate. Here’s how that conversation went:
ME: Mum! Mum! Mum! You there?
MUM: Yes, darling, I heard you the first time. How are you?
ME: Terrible. Shelby is driving me bonkers again.
MUM: What is it this time—lashing out with a ha-wi strike spell, or scaring people with crayon drawings that come to life?
ME: Worse. She went on a ha-di rampage. Destroyed her scrying bowl, her room, and then a good chunk of the fourth floor before I stopped her.
MUM: How did you stop her, may I ask?
ME: Um…
MUM: Oh, sweetie. You didn’t bind her up with a tas spell, did you?
ME: I untied her right away. Well, almost right away. I just can’t figure out what set her off.
MUM: Hm. She targeted her scrying bowl first? Had she been talking to anyone, do you know?
Quick interruption: Scrying is an ancient method of communication wherein you huddle uncomfortably over a shallow bronze bowl filled with olive oil, ask to see someone or someplace, then stare into the dish, hoping that the person or place appears. Inconvenient, unreliable, and not at all mobile, scrying can literally be a pain in the neck.
ME: Shelby might have been talking to her parents. I heard they just had another baby.
MUM: Ah. That explains it.
ME: It does?
MUM: Sadie, Shelby is jealous. She’s acting out to get attention. Carter did the same thing after you were born.
ME: He did? But I was so adorable! How could he not love me?
MUM: Obviously, he came to love you. But at first, he threw jealous fits, kicking and punching anyone and everything. Come to think of it, that should have clued us in that he’d be a good host for Horus.
ME: Kicking and punching I can deal with. Total destruction like Shelby’s been doing…not so much. Any advice for dealing with her?
MUM: Try the magic touch. It helped me with Carter…and Isis with Horus.
ME: Yeah, you’re going to have to explain that.
MUM: Right. Take a look at these.
At this point in the conversation, holographic images of ancient Egyptian statues, stone carvings, and tomb paintings appeared on my bedroom wall. Each of them showed a mother cradling her young son.
ME: Not you and Carter, clearly. Isis and Horus?
MUM: Yes. They look cozy, don’t they?
ME: Never really thought of Isis as the cuddling type, but yeah.
MUM: Ah, yes, but these depictions don’t tell the whole story.
Here, a new holographic image showing a little jackal-headed god replaced the ones of Horus and Isis. I swooned when I recognized the god.
ME: Swoon! Is that Anubis as a baby?
MUM: Yes, and please don’t ever make that noise again. Anubis was Nephthys and Set’s son, you remember, but Set rejected him. So, Isis and Osiris took him in. Well, Horus wasn’t too keen on sharing his parents’ attention. He puffed up into his avatar and threw a tantrum.
ME: Yikes. So, what did Isis do, punish him?
MUM: Quite the opposite. She went into avatar mode, too, and wrapped him in her arms. He fought against her embrace, but she held on tight, murmuring how much she loved him. Eventually, he listened. They resumed their normal forms. That’s when cuddling took place.
ME: So the magic touch is the same as hugging it out.
MUM: Exactly. It worked for Isis; it worked for me. I think it could work for you, though you might want to call on Isis for a little extra hugging power with Shelby.
ME: Thanks, Mum. I’ll give it a try tonight. Love you.
MUM: Love you, too.
In case you’re curious, wrestling Shelby in a bear hug earned me a bruised rib. But it was totally worth it, because later, when I went to tuck her into bed, I found a picture she’d drawn of the two of us snuggled up together. And Shelby was smiling. So, mission accomplished—and additional destruction averted.
Nephthys is the goddess of rivers, specifically, the Nile. So, it’s surprising that she doesn’t wield more power. I mean, the Egyptian civilization grew and thrived because of the Nile, right? And yet Nephthys takes a back seat to Set, Isis, Osiris, and Ra. To me, that’s as backward as the Nile flowing from south to north.
Short answer essay question: How does Nephthys feel about Set?
Whew, this one’s complicated! On the one hand, she loves him. I mean, she married him, so she must. On the other hand, she’s afraid of him, because, as the god of evil and violence, he can be violent and evil. He chopped up his own brother, Osiris, after all, and ripped out his nephew Horus’s eye in battle. But for some reason Nephthys trusts that he won’t hurt her, even though she defied him by helping Isis recover all of Osiris’s body parts (ick). He also makes her sad. She had to give up their son Anubis because Set rejected him. So, I’m going to circle back to my original answer: Nephthys’s feelings about Set ar
e complicated!
A package came for me recently from the First Nome. Inside were a dozen ostraca—broken pottery pieces used by ancient Egyptians for writing and drawing—and this note.
Dear Zia,
These arrived for you today from Makan al-Ramal al-Hamrah. May they bring you peace and understanding.
Amos
Eleven of the potsherds were written in familiar handwriting—that of Chief Lector Iskandar. I teared up when I saw his script. History remembers him as the powerful leader of the House of Life, the magician who decreed that any mortal who hosted a god, willingly or unwillingly, would be put to death. But to me, he was a kind and gentle surrogate father. He rescued me after my village was destroyed. Years later, he saved me again, disobeying his own law and hiding me away when he discovered I was a godling.
The ostraca were his observations on the day Nephthys took me as her host. I say “took” because I didn’t know I was hosting her. Iskandar revealed her presence just before he secreted me away to the Place of Red Sands. There, he placed us, goddess and godling, in a watery tomb shielded with magical protection.
Iskandar died while Nephthys and I slumbered together for three months. I never knew why he allowed her to remain merged with me—until now. As for Nephthys, I cannot pretend to know her the way I came to know Ra. These ostraca helped me understand her a little better—especially the twelfth ostracon, which was written in a different hand. I’d never seen it before, yet it was as familiar as my own. I share all twelve now so that they may help you know her, and Iskandar, too.