“What?” I protested. “How are we supposed to get that?”
“With difficulty, I’d imagine. You can’t simply read a secret name from a book. The name must come from the owner’s own lips, in his own pronunciation, to give you power over him.”
“Great,” I said. “So we just force Set to tell us.”
“Or trick him,” Thoth said. “Or convince him.”
“Isn’t there any other way?” Sadie asked.
Thoth brushed an ink splotch off his lab coat. A hieroglyph turned into a moth and fluttered away. “I suppose...yes. You could ask the person closest to Set’s heart—the person who loves him most. She would also have the ability to speak the name.”
“But nobody loves Set!” Sadie said.
“His wife,” I guessed. “That other goddess, Nephthys.”
Thoth nodded. “She’s a river goddess. Perhaps you could find her in a river.”
“This just gets better and better,” I muttered.
Sadie frowned at Thoth. “You said there was another ingredient?”
“A physical ingredient,” Thoth agreed, “a feather of truth.”
“A what?” Sadie asked.
But I knew what he was talking about, and my heart sank. “You mean from the Land of the Dead.”
Thoth beamed. “Exactly.”
“Wait,” Sadie said. “What is he talking about?”
I tried to conceal my fear. “When you died in Ancient Egypt, you had to take a journey to the Land of the Dead,” I explained. “A really dangerous journey. Finally, you made it to the Hall of Judgment, where your life was weighed on the Scales of Anubis: your heart on one side, the feather of truth on the other. If you passed the test, you were blessed with eternal happiness. If you failed, a monster ate your heart and you ceased to exist.”
“Ammit the Devourer,” Thoth said wistfully. “Cute little thing.”
Sadie blinked. “So we’re supposed to get a feather from this Hall of Judgment how, exactly?”
“Perhaps Anubis will be in a good mood,” Thoth suggested. “It happens every thousand years or so.”
“But how do we even get to the Land of the Dead?” I asked. “I mean...without dying.”
Thoth gazed at the western horizon, where the sunset was turning blood-red. “Down the river at night, I should think. That’s how most people pass into the Land of the Dead. I would take a boat. You’ll find Anubis at the end of the river—” He pointed north, then changed his mind and pointed south. “Forgot, rivers flow south here. Everything is backward.”
“Agh!” Khufu ran his fingers down the frets of the guitar and ripped out a massive rock ’n’ roll riff. Then he belched as if nothing had happened and set down the guitar. Sadie and I just stared at him, but Thoth nodded as if the baboon had said something profound.
“Are you sure, Khufu?” Thoth asked.
Khufu grunted.
“Very well.” Thoth sighed. “Khufu says he would like to go with you. I told him he could stay here and type my doctoral thesis on quantum physics, but he’s not interested.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Sadie said. “Glad to have Khufu along, but where do we find a boat?”
“You are the blood of pharaohs,” Thoth said. “Pharaohs always have access to a boat. Just make sure you use it wisely.”
He nodded toward the river. Churning toward the shore was an old-fashioned paddlewheel steamboat with smoke billowing from its stacks.
“I wish you a good journey,” Thoth said. “Until we meet again.”