The Arrival of Set
Thunder pealed in the distance. Hathor, the cow goddess, and Khnum were outside picking dead grass and putting it in the bottom of a pit so Hathor could lay [sic] down in it. Hathor was a woman now; she had the habit of changing from cow to human, like Osiris, but it was a fact of life. [Note--back then, I imagined the Egyptian gods more as anthropomorphic animals than as human; hence my Hathor was usually either a cow, or a cow-headed woman, whereas now I picture her as a beautiful woman with the EARS of a cow. I also pictured Osiris frequently changing into an Apis bull ("cow"), although the Apis is more closely associated with Ptah, I think. Now I picture him as human. Regarding the picking of grass to place it in a pit, I recall my then-best friend Mya and myself doing just this and sitting down in the little hollows out on the playground in elementary school. Our pretend heavily influenced this story--see the note following the part with the "stone amemits."]
"Hey, look, someone's coming," Khnum said, seeing a shadow advancing towards them over the plain--no, it was five shadows--four living and one being dragged behind. When it was close enough, they realized that it was something part donkey with big wings. [Note--how I visualized Set back then.] A dragonish-demon walked alongside him, a gargoyle close behind off to the side, and on his right walked a creature unlike any that Khnum had ever seen. [Note--the demon is Dally and the gargoyle is Binky, as seen in Akhenaton & Nefertiti and various other stories.]
The winged donkey came up and sat [sic] down what he was carrying--some big rusty scales, the kind to weigh one thing against another. [Note--yes--exactly what you think they are.]
"Wow," Khnum said, bending over to look at the weird creature. "I do'nt [sic] ever remember shaping this--[no, wait]--this is an amemit, is'nt [sic] it?"
The donkey nodded and extended a paw. "I'm Set."
"Osiris' brother!" Khnum said, remembering the name. [Note--I'd spell it "Osiris's" nowadays. Ditto if I use such spellings elsewhere in this story.] "You're the youngest one, I presume." [Note--recall above how Set is actually second youngest, the youngest in fact being Nephthys.]
The donkey's eyes narrowed a bit, but he took the collar off of the amemit--a creature with a crocodile's head, a wig, a lions [sic] forelegs, and a hippo's hindlegs--who went sniffing everything in sight.
"I've come here to see my brother," Set said. "I have something to tell him."
"Important, probably," Hathor said irratibly [sic]. Set glared at her so hard that her jaw dropped with shocked surprise.
A blast of thunder shook them all; it scared Hathor and Khnum, but not the demon, the gargoyle, the amemit or Set. Instead they trotted off towards Osiris' temple. Hathor saw something shiny in Set's belt catch the gleam of lightning. It was sharp and looked like a... [Note--no text missing--the chapter ends with an ellipsis.]
[Illustration: Amemit, seated. Text reads: "Amemit (A'-mem-it--pronunciation in book--A-mem'-it)--creature that ate guilty dead in Osiris' Judgement Hall."]
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