How It All Goes Down
Professor Thoth's Final Exam
- Sadie claims the mic, saying that Carter dropped it in a pit of—never mind, back to the story.
- Sadie's human again by the time Carter wakes up on the plane. Carter pouring out his soul to her when she was a bird did actually help her regain human form.
- However, that wasn't what caused Sadie return to human form: it was imagining their mother alive—and imagining being able to walk around with her doing normal things like shopping—that reminded Sadie of what's important in life.
- Carter tells them about his vision about Set. Bast thinks something sounds weird about Set's plan to destroy a good chunk of the continent in a bid for power. Yeah, Set always wants more power, but if he destroys the earth, there'll be no one for him to rule.
- Still sounding disturbed, Bast says to ask Thoth about it. She'll accompany them to Thoth's place in Memphis but won't go with them to meet him, since apparently they don't get along.
- Bast rents a convertible and she, Carter, and Sadie cruise through Memphis.
- As Sadie gets her first glimpse of the South, she is totally weirded out (exhibit A: chicken and waffles).
- Sadie and Carter ask Bast where they're likely to find Thoth, and she instructs them to look for a center of learning, like a library, or the stash of books in a dead magician's tomb. Sadie points out the University of Memphis, and so they drive there. The campus is deserted (winter break?).
- Carter leads them toward the sounds of basketball. All the players turn out to be baboons. No, really. They recognize Khufu and have a joyful reunion.
- Bast translates for them, so that the kids can tell Khufu where they've been, and Khufu can tell them where he's been.
- After the Brooklyn house was destroyed, Khufu waited around for Amos. When Amos didn't come back, Khufu made his way to Memphis, since baboons are under Thoth's protection.
- Khufu says he'll take them to Thoth once Carter keeps his promise to play a round of basketball with him.
- Bast then takes off, saying that she'll find them afterward—if they survive their encounter with Thoth.
- Sadie watches Carter get whooped by the baboons, and even though she knows little about basketball, she can see that Carter's screwing up left and right. Schooled by monkeys!
- Khufu leads them into a science building, and into an office with "Dr. Thoth" on the door. They go into a giant lab with equipment and experiments lying around. There are also half a dozen ibises (long-necked birds) typing up manuscripts.
- When Khufu cries out, a lanky man in a lab coat comes down to meet them. First he says to Khufu that he's figured out that this is not Memphis, Egypt, and that there are magical things called blues music and barbecue.
- Next he looks at the kids and greets Isis and Horus, saying that they've found new bodies.
- Sadie says that they're not like that, and the man says that he's not fooled—Isis always finds a way to be in control.
- Again, Sadie protests: Isis is not in control. After Thoth gets sidetracked going on about names and scholarship, Sadie tells him that they need help defeating Set.
- This offends Thoth again, since last time he tried to fight Set, it went poorly. Thoth relates how Horus challenged Set to a duel, and Set stabbed out Horus's eye. Thoth replaced it with an eye made out of moonlight, which became the symbolic Eye of Horus.
- Then Isis tried to convince Horus not to fight Set while he was recovering from the injury, but Horus got mad and chopped off Isis's head. Must've been just a flesh wound.
- The point is, Thoth says, that the battle nearly destroyed the world, and that Set will find a way to turn the gods against each other again using the forces of chaos.
- During this speech, Isis whispers things in Sadie's head, and Sadie tells Isis to shut up.
- This gets Thoth's attention: it looks like Sadie really is trying to keep Isis from gaining control. Thoth cautions Sadie that Isis is power-hungry and will eventually get the upper hand.
- For instance, Isis probably hasn't told Sadie that she's the reason Set got out of control in the beginning. Isis mixed a poison to put the sun god Ra in so much pain that he would agree to give her his secret name in order to get some relief.
- Isis healed Ra but forced him to retire to the heavens so that her husband, Osiris, could become the new king of the gods. Set had been serving under Ra, but he couldn't stand to see his brother Osiris have such power, so they've been fighting ever since.
- Sadie tells Thoth about her journey in an effort to convince him to help. Thoth seems to be all about keeping the balance, and if Set destroys half the world, obviously the balance is gone.
- Sadie thinks her mom persuaded Iskandar that locking up the gods was wrong, because something bad was coming—something that gods and mortals needed to work together to fight.
- Thoth asks what is coming. The rise of Set?
- Sadie admits that she doesn't know for sure. This convinces Thoth that Sadie is in fact in charge, since Isis would never admit to not knowing something.
- Thoth says that he'll explain the spell book they need to defeat Set—if the kids can pass a test proving that they are in control of their gods, not the other way around.
- The task is to retrieve an item from the tomb of a magician. Thoth summons a portal (gods can do that during the Demon Days, even if mortals can't) and sends Sadie and Carter away, promising barbecue if they succeed.