Time Off at the End of the World

As my poor ranted-at friends know, I've been writing an urban fantasy book involving mummies and ancient Egypt. While most of it is translating dialogue and researching the 12th Dynasty, it's impossible to kill my goofy tendencies for long, and this is the result.

Among other things, the jackal-god Anubis weighs the hearts of the deceased on the other side. If the hearts are heavy with sin, he feeds them to Ammet--a crocodile/lion/hippopotamus chimera goddess. People whose hearts are eaten die a second, permanent death.

Some days, especially after a whole parade of asshole sinners have been through, a god and goddess just need a chance to relax and take five. So while Thoth writes down the results and some slaves get the blood off the platform, Anubis and Ammet take a nap.

The text in the background is not actual ancient Egyptian. What I did there was have a bit of fun: I took the basic Egyptian phonetic glyphs and used them to spell out a message in bastardized English. (Bastardized by necessity, since written Egyptian didn't have much in the way of vowels or certain sounds. Want a V? Out of luck.) It was tempting to write 'Kilroy was here' or something, but instead I wound up writing part of a passage from my book.

The passage I quoted was from a supposedly lost document describing Ammet herself:

She is the eater of hearts, the great devourer, the final death . . . Though each sin burdens your heart, it makes it all the sweeter to her. Poison yourself with goodness, that she will not love the taste of your flesh, and pass you by.

That's the great thing about making up ancient documents. The writing style is so . . . so . . . highfalutin'.