The Story of Osiris
or, Like Frankenstein
Osiris peered his almost-immobile head up at the ceiling. His hat fell off, and Neftis picked it up and waited for him to balance his head so she could put it back on for him, since he couldn’t use his hands.
“Why are you all wrapped up?” asked Lenna.
Osiris looked at her. “Once, long ago, Seth the deceiver invaded the mind of a mortal. Speaking lies into his mind, Seth caused the mortal to question my existence. Through doubt, the man became brave enough to face me in my own palace.”
“But me and my mouse are here in your palace,” said Lenna.
“But you are not here to challenge me for supremacy.”
“Mm. No,” she answered. “You can have supremacy. I think this is best.”
Osiris went on: “Inspired by Seth, the mortal dreamed of Khemennu, my first palace, a palace in the sun. He dreamed a staircase, winding from the sun down to the Earth. Up the staircase he walked, muttering with his madman ideas. Seth whispered to him, urging him on. When he reached the sun, he disbelieved in its heat and light and walked through them into Khemennu. He met me on my throne of light. Beside me was Isis, my wife. Seth, hiding behind the man’s eyes, fell in love with my wife and dreamed a knife. The madman killed me with it. He cut me into twenty pieces, and the pieces fell to the underworld. The madman thought he would take my throne. But Seth abandoned the madman, who was vaporized instantly by the heat of the sun. And Seth took the seat, knowing that once he had married Isis, the Egyptian world would belong to him utterly.
“But Isis would not marry Seth, and she came after me and found the twenty pieces and put me back together.”
“Like Frankenstein,” said Thoth knowledgeably.
“I became a mummy, and we left Khemennu to rule over the dead in a dead place. And I learned about love.”
What a creepy story. Omigosh, Lenna looked at Osiris and saw that he was still cut up, he was in twenty big pieces and he was only held together by the white wrappings. One tug and he would fall to pieces.
Omigoodness.
She tumbled backward and stumbled down the steps and fell splash into the cold water of the lake of the underworld. It was bitter and shocking and drenchy. Dazed, she felt the strangely sweet water close over her, gasped, and pulled the water into her lungs.
A huge pink spider was jumping on her through the water. No, it was Indaell’s hand, which had became a ladle the size of a bathtub, sieving her and poor Sabine Mouse out of the sweet deathly wash.
“ ’nks,” she mumbled, shivering. Deposited on the marble dais by Indaell, she curled up. Water poured out of her mouth in hiccups. She wasn’t getting any warmer as she weasel-crouched in her sopping slip and spiky leather dress. Colder and colder, in fact, as if she was drifting away from this place. Far away, to somewhere cold as death--
“We’d better give her her heart back,” clucked Thoth. “It’s not going to do us any good right now. Not with the scale poisoned.”
Horace rose by his sharp arched wings, glode to the scale and grasped a bundle of the flowy red tentacles from the top of Lenna’s heart. Lifting the red diamond, he let it swing, swing, swing out of his talons. It tumbled straight into Lenna and felt like a strong sip of warm strawberry tea on a cold day. Warmth and the creepy feeling of being there in the middle of reality came back to her.
“Well,” said Thoth doubtfully. “We still have to test her heart. Without the scale, we’ll have to do it the hard way, I suppose. I imagine that’s what the scoundrel wanted, after all. So. Here we go. What we’ll need to do is read off all the crimes we can think of, and you’ll have to tell the truth in answering whether and how you’ve committed them. Haven’t done this since the Nile sprouted,” the bird muttered crossly. “Listen close, young weasel--”
“Girl,” said Lenna, sitting miserable and soggy on the floor. She was warming up, but Sabine huddled in a heap on top of her head and shivered, wrapping her tailbones around herself.
“What, is she a girl, Neftis? A human girl?” asked Thoth, looking wide-eyed at Isis and Neftis.
Neftis inclined her head.
“Well,” Thoth went on, “no matter. By the end we’ll know precisely who she is.” He puffed himself up and opened the giant musty book to a new chapter with his bulbous toe.
“Come forward and for Maat’s sake stand up straight as a scepter. Osiris will know if you’re lying. Here we go.”