Osiris (Original Draft) Chapter 11

Chapter 11
Stone Amemits
[Note--the last "s" in "Amemits" is uncertain due to staining and mutilation of the text.]

Now everything was ready except for two nagging thoughts--what to weigh the heart on, and where to get a feather!

A musical bird came to confess everything bad that he'd done. [Note--this bird either showed up in the original version of Horus as well, or else I just pretended it. I came up with an entire soundtrack for Horus which featured lots of Eighties tunes. One of those was Donny Osmond's "Soldier Of Love," and this bird, who gave the gods the Feather of Truth, was to sing it. *sighs with embarrassment*]

"How truthful you are!" Thoth commented.

The bird was flattered. "I'll give you anything you want."

Thoth, seeing the long, blue tail feathers, said, "Could you please give up your biggest, prettiest tail feather?" [Note--I had such a feather when I was little. Hence blue.]

The bird did so [,] and Thoth, holding it, said, "Behold--the Feather of Truth!"

"But, where do we get a scale--" Bast cut herself off and everyone looked at Anubis.

"Do you still have them?" Bast asked.

Anubis had just embalmed Osiris, who now ruled the Underworld. "I'll get them."

And they were dubbed "The Scales of Justice."

If the heart weighed more than the feather, the person [was] guilty, and the amemit would eat him. But if they were innocent, they could go on to the Afterlife or Hereafter.

But Set was still out there. One day, with two other amemits, he tried to break in--but the amemits stepped on magical stones and turned to stone themselves. [Note--this was another game my friend Mya and I played out on the playground--we stood like statues on two stones which stood on both sides of a trail, and pretended we were these Amemits.] Osiris, seeing this, appointed Set the Amemit-Keeper. He'd bring in HAL for Judgement Day.

To keep robbers and live people out, he made a tunnel and put demons and horrible monsters in it. Live people got in once in a while, but were told to leave immediately.

[Illustration: An arched tunnel with two Amemits, forepaws raised, perched on their haunches on stones on both sides of the tunnel. A sign above it reads, "THE UNDERWORLD." A sign on the arch reads, "Do Not Enter." Something--the Judgement Hall?--is barely visible way at the end of the tunnel.]