Set by Alessa Thorn

22

Set's world stopped as blood burst from Ayla's throat, and she slumped to the dirty concrete. Abasi was still laughing as he aimed his gun at Set.

The God of War roared in primordial fury, causing magic to shoot out of him, and Abasi exploded in a rain of red against the cell wall.

Set crouched beside Ayla, pulling her up into his lap and pressing a hand over her gushing wound.

"S-Set," she gasped.

"Don't talk, my love," Set said, wishing that he had the power to heal and not destroy. "We'll get you to a hospital. Just hold on for me."

Her cold fingers reached for his face. "Love…love." The air rushed out of her, and Set felt the second her Ka snapped free of her body.

"No." Set clung tight to her. "I won't let you have her, not yet."

Kader was crying in the corner, fear keeping him from going closer to them. Set turned to him, eyes flashing. "You will guard our bodies. Don't let anything happen to them."

"What? What are you talking about?" Kader demanded.

Set found Abasi's gun amongst the gore. He didn't know if the gates of the Duat would be barred to him, so he would have to make sure Osiris had no choice but to let him in.

"Just do as I say. Keep our bodies safe," Set snapped. He turned to the dead woman in his arms. He wouldn't fail her again.

Set reached for the power to pull him to the Duat. The ankh on his chest shone brightly as a sun, his only key to entering the gates of the underworld. Set pressed a kiss to Ayla's lips. "I am coming, my Ayla. Hold on."

Then he lifted the bloody gun to his temple and shot himself.

* * *

Set hurtled through the ether,the dark and glittering space between the worlds, and landed hard on cold stone.

The tenth gate of the Duat rose in front of him, obsidian stone carved with the vicious likeness of Apep.

With a groan, Set stood up and checked himself over. In his full god aspect, he was bigger than his human guise. Thick bands of gold wrapped around his biceps, and a usekh collar sat heavily around his neck and shoulders.

Set used to guard this ninth realm of the underworld with Horus, his nephew, long-dead like the rest. He could feel the silence in the Duat like it was a living thing.

Even the demons slumber these days, Set thought as he reached for the shining golden handle of the gate. Locked. Of course. Osiris wouldn't make it easy for him, not after Set had abandoned the Duat and vowed never to return.

Set banged on the doors. "Let me in! I have to talk to you!" He pushed against the gates, black stone chips falling from above him.

"If you keep doing that, he's never going to let you in," a voice said from the darkness.

Shimmering bronze light filled the air, and Thoth stepped in beside him.

He was dressed in human clothing, the sleeves of his dirty button-down shirt rolled up to reveal the tattoos shimmering on the brown skin of his left arm. A cobra slithered through the colorful garden of magical ink and flicked its tongue at Set in disapproval.

There was a scrape on his bearded cheek that was trickling ichor and cobwebs stuck in his dark brown hair.

"You look like shit, sorcerer. What the hell are you doing here?" Set asked.

"I was fucking summoned. This better be good, Set. You've just pulled me away from a rogue ifrit hunt," Thoth complained, trying to dust the smears of dirt and black blood from his clothes. "What are you even doing here?"

"I've come to get the Ka of a woman I love. That is, I will if Osiris stops being an ass and opens the doors." Set banged it hard with his fist.

Thoth opened his mouth and shut it again. "I'm sorry, did you just say you're here for the soul of a woman?"

"Yes, my woman. Now, are you going to help me or just repeat everything I say back to me?"

Set pressed his hands through his hair, letting out a frustrated groan. "I'm sorry. I just…I need her back. She died because of me. I can't let it happen, and the longer she is here in the Duat—"

"The less time you have to resurrect her," Thoth finished for him. He waved a fussy hand at Set. "Step aside. Brute force won't work, and that's all you're good for."

"We can't all be masters of the universe, can we?"

Thoth gave him an arched look. "Well, you certainly can't."

Thoth placed his hands on the door, fingers searching the stone grooves as if looking for something.

"Osiris might be the master of this place, but I was one of the architects. He won't be able to keep me out." The bronze light of Thoth's magic seeped into the carved engravings.

"I don't know why he has to be so difficult all the time," Set muttered.

"He probably thinks you're here to finally destroy him."

"I already killed him once." Set shrugged. "What could I gain from doing it again?"

"Maybe he thinks you want to rule the underworld?"

Set laughed. "Why would I want to do that? There's a reason we all left. Only he remains because he can't leave."

"And doesn't that please you?"

"Immensely, sorcerer. Immensely."

Inside the door, there was a resounding tumble of locks, and the gate opened. Bronze magic raced from the door like smoke and back into Thoth's hand. He bowed.

"After you, Set."

"Oh, sure, let me go in first in case Apep is lurking," Set said, summoning his khopesh.

Thoth only smiled. "Brute force has to be good for something, even if it's demonic serpent bait."

Set stepped inside and struck his sword against a pool of oil. Fire leaped around the room, the grooves of oil lighting their path. At the end of the hall was another gate.

"Apep doesn't seem to be home," Set said, eyes darting to the tall columns around them.

"He's still in the Duat. I can feel him," Thoth replied, a small ball of magic glowing in his palm.

A shimmering white sheath of snakeskin blocked their path. Set cut through it with a brutal swipe of his sword, the skin parting for them like flaking curtains.

"He's gotten bigger," Set commented. "The scaly old beast might present a challenge now."

"He's had more room to grow with the lack of souls traveling through the Duat," Thoth replied, following Set but keeping a careful watch on the shadows at their back. "Speaking of which, how do you know your woman's Ka ended up here?"

"She's half Egyptian, half Greek. It should've been enough to grant her passage."

"And if she's traveled to Elysium with Charon?"

"Then I'll go to Styx and beg Hades instead. Although the last time I saw the ferryman, he was also in Styx with the rest of Hades's court." Thoth opened his mouth again, but Set waved him off. "Stop. I don't know how or why, but I know she is here. She's yanked my Ka around since the moment I met her, and I can feel hers close."

"No ordinary woman then," Thoth said quietly. "Especially if she managed to awaken your decrepit soul."

Set gave him a grim smile. "That's right. She woke it up, and now, think about what I'll do to get her back."

"There is a possibility that Osiris will want to keep her out of spite," Thoth said as they reached the tenth gate.

"I know. Which is why I'll offer him something he's always wanted in exchange for her."

Set looked up at the doors of the eleventh gate, carved with cat likenesses. He raised a hand to test the door, and four of the cats came alive, swiping and hissing at him.

"Really, Osiris?" Set called out. Every second they delayed, Ayla got further and further away from him.

"You distract them, and I'll get the doors open," Thoth said, moving him aside. He fished about in his pockets and drew out a white ibis feather. "Here, distract them with this."

"It better not have been plucked from your ass," Set muttered, taking the feather.

"That's where all my best feathers grow," Thoth replied with a grin.

"Why are you helping me, Thoth?"

The sorcerer's smile widened. "Because it'll mean you'll owe me a favor, and I might have need of a brute soon. Also, you're in love. It hasn't happened since you married Nephthys. It's an event not to be missed."

"So you're here for entertainment purposes."

"Naturally. Now distract the kitties. There's a good boy."

Set turned back towards the still carvings. "I don't think this is going to work."

Feeling like an idiot, he tickled the cat nearest to him under the chin. Quick as lightning, the cat swiped at it, hissing and colliding with the cat next to it.

"You were saying?"

"You don't need to be smug," Set said, leading the distracted cats away from him.

"I don't, no, but it feels natural when you're right all the time."

Thoth went to work on the lock. Set was too busy trying not to lose his fingers to the stone cats to watch what the sorcerer was doing.

All of the cats yowled as the locks in the gate turned, and it swung open.

"Well done. Here's your butt feather back," Set said, tickling Thoth under the chin with it. He swiped it out of his hands.

"You're going to regret not hanging onto it," Thoth replied. They stepped through the gates into the eleventh realm and were instantly swarmed with cats of all shapes, sizes, and colors. They rubbed against their legs, mewing plaintively.

"Don't listen to them. I'm sure they have been fed by Osiris," Thoth said, tiptoeing around sleeping balls of fur.

"Where is Meeyuty?" Set asked.

The cat-headed god was in charge of the eleventh realm, and Set had no doubt that all the cats in the room were his offspring or descendants of them. They had nothing to do except eat, sleep, and fuck their way through eternity.

"Who knows? I think he likes to go and walk the human realm when he gets bored. Knowing Meeyuty, he probably has four different human families looking after him, all thinking he belongs to them alone," Thoth said, distracting the cats with his feather.

By the time they reached the twelfth and final gate, Set had a cat on each shoulder and another two curled up and sleeping in his arms. He patted them idly as he stood in front of the statues of Isis and Nephthys.

Not so long ago, Set would've struggled to look at the likenesses of the goddesses, but Ayla's words drifted back to him, Let the guilt and the past go, Set. Choose to be something better, and stop punishing yourself.

"I don't suppose you've seen Isis recently?" he asked Thoth. The sorcerer bent down and lit the candles by the goddess's feet.

"Not for over a century. She said she needed to go and find purpose again, so she left Egypt," Thoth replied, gazing at the statue. "She must have found it to keep her away for so long."

"Maybe that's why Osiris is so pissed." If Isis hadn't been returning to Egypt, Set doubted she would have been returning to the Duat.

"Probably. You know, she never held it against you…what you did for Nephthys," Thoth said. Set placed the cats back on the floor.

"Sure she didn't."

"No, really. Isis understood Nephthys wanting to die and even thought it was a blessing that you did it. You just stayed so far away from everyone afterward that she never had the chance to tell you that for herself," Thoth explained. Set closed his eyes, a weight lifting from his shoulders.

"Maybe it's time I changed that."

"Is that your way of saying you would like to hang out sometime?" Thoth chuckled, and Set joined him.

"I've been told I'm acceptable company, if you're willing to give me a chance."

"That woman of yours has definitely been lying to you if she's convinced you of that," Thoth teased.

"When I get her back, I'll ask her to tell you herself." Set turned back towards the doors carved in snakes. They slithered and curled over the golden handle. "I think you should try this one. I don't fancy an asp bite."

Thoth rolled his eyes. "You're not convincing me to become your friend with that attitude."

"Small steps. Tickle it with your feather and see if that helps?"

Thoth made an archaic and offensive hand gesture at him. "I have a better idea."

Bronze magic shivered around his head and shoulders. His lean brown face turned black, a long beak sprouted from his face as white and grey wings flew out from his back to form a halo around his head.

He cawed threateningly at the asps, who scattered and slithered to the far edges of the door.

"Well, that worked," Set said with a laugh.

With a hand tipped with black claws, Thoth sketched symbols around the lock. The door swung open, and Thoth shifted back into human form.

"I believe you can go first through this one. I don't fancy getting shot with one of his arrows today."

Fighting the urge to pull out his sword, Set straightened his shoulders.

For Ayla, he would break his promise to never return to Osiris's halls. For Ayla, he would surrender to Osiris's will. For Ayla, he would sacrifice his very soul.