Sure, I felt exhausted, and my leg and arm throbbed where I’d been bitten, but I wasn’t sick enough to be bedridden, at least not yet. I squeezed Amon’s hand and was about to reassure him when we turned a corner and came upon a sarcophagus.
As the Egyptologist hurried forward, touching his torch to ones mounted on the wall, I took a few steps closer and got a good look at the depiction of Amon’s brother. The wooden coffin was rounded and shaped similar to King Tut’s, but where the boy pharaoh’s had been decorated in gleaming gold, the final resting place of one who actually was a demigod was humble by comparison. The artistry of the coffin, however, was worth noting.
Like the walls of the tunnels, the side panels were decorated with symbols of the three brothers—the sun, the moon, and the stars—but the stars featured more prominently this time. I walked around the coffin and took in the images of three young men standing with a dog-faced man.
“Who is this?” I asked.
Amon crouched down next to me. “That is Anubis. This carving shows Anubis granting us the gifts of the gods as he breathes life into our bodies again. It is the time of our first rising.”
“And this?” I circled around to the foot.
“This shows the defeat of our enemy, Seth.”
“So Seth is the horse-faced god?”
“That is not a horse. It is a beast.”
“Which beast?”
“All of them and none of them.”
“I don’t understand.”
Dr. Hassan stepped to the other side of the sarcophagus. “Set, or Seth, as Amon calls him, is a shape-shifter.”
“Seriously?”
Amon nodded. “He can take any form he chooses, which makes him all the more dangerous.”
“He can become a hippopotamus or a crocodile,” Dr. Hassan said. “A black pig or a cobra.”
“Was Seth always bent on the destruction of Egypt?” I asked.
“He was the god of chaos from the time he was in the womb,” Amon explained. “The goddess Nut was his mother; because he was impatient, he would not wait for his time to be born. Instead, he used his already sharpened teeth and ripped his way out, escaping through his mother’s side.”
“Power and fulfillment of his dark desires is his only purpose,” Dr. Hassan further explained. “Those who follow him care not for the lives of others. Their carnality, their bloodthirstiness, their insatiable cravings are all reminiscent of the beast they follow. Seth is a monster, and is depicted as such in drawings.
“Assigning him an animal token would be callous, for all creatures simply follow their natural instincts. Even the most feared animals—crocodiles, snakes, scorpions—do not harm for evil purposes. This is why the ancients created a nonanimal—a beast—to show to the world what Seth truly is and to serve as a warning should he ever rise to power again.”
“Okay, so what’s the next step?” I asked.
“I am afraid I didn’t bring as much as I would have liked to in the way of preparation for Amon’s brother’s awakening,” Dr. Hassan said. “I have but a little food and water to refresh him.”
“He does not need those things to awaken,” Amon replied kindly. “The spell I weave will be sufficient.”
“But the traditional feasting, the music and festivities—”
“That you would have provided those things had you been able is token enough of your loyalty. The offerings you have brought will sustain him for the time being,” Amon finished.
Dr. Hassan gripped his bag and fished through its contents, pulling out a bottle of water and a wrapped pastry. Reverently, he cleared a space at the base of the coffin, spreading out a red handkerchief and placing his meager offerings on top. Seeing his distress as he rearranged the items a few times, I unzipped my bag and offered to share the fruit that Amon had stuffed into it before we left the hotel. The fruit was sad and a little bruised, but the offering seemed to please the white-haired devotee.