ISIS, MA'AT, NEPHTHYS, HORUS, THOTH and ANUBIS are assembled in a room in the royal palace. In the Space is a stationary, schematic KHU image of SET which HORUS uses to explain his battle plan.

ISIS:

Let's see the plan. So do we call you Chief now, or General, or Buster, or . . .

HORUS:

Only Set's army has ranks. I told you.

SET KHU:

(To ISIS:) If you are not a vision of preternatural deliciousness, I have no idea who is.

ISIS:

I would riot in the mud with the ugliest crocodile in Fayum before I would bed with you in a cloud of jasmine and tarraconia. I am going to help the Prince.

HORUS:

(To SET KHU:) To beat you, your Worthiness. (Rotates KHU to side view). Any comments before we deactivate your mouth and use you perfectly in character as a dummy?

SET:

For the first time, you disappoint me. Your sensationally attractive mother must certainly have taught you when you were a boy that when you insult another person's intelligence, you diminish your own. How did this lesson from all these able instructors not get through, and what did you do to block it? Keep up the mockery, and you'll be as brainless as a bamboo root by the time I come to slice you. If you survive, and if you intend to uphold the law in peace in your kingdom, you had best remember that when you call a man a fool, you will soon go back to school. (To NETERS:) A pleasure, as always, everyone. (To CELEBRANTS:) Good to see you again, people. Please feel free to stretch a little. Be ready to move.

 Head of SET KHU goes dark, though the full-length image of SET's body is still visible, with the torso and upper legs, then the center of the back, highlighted in what follows.

NEPHTHYS:

So we are going to strike Set's back at the full moon? The likeness is excellent, Horus. He's ticklish here, by the way. (Points to left of SET's back.)

HORUS:

You have the general area, but not the exact point of attack.

ISIS:

Wait a minute. This is your Set image. The speech he just gave us was your speech that you gave through him.

HORUS:

Yes, it's part of the entertainment, your Majesty.

ISIS:

Suddenly I feel we are going to be all right. We understand, then, that you're going to hit him in the back door of the heart with a bolt of love so strong that it will melt his fear away?

HORUS:

That's it. From here. (Flash of green/aqua blue light flashes from HORUS' chest and hits back of SET KHU.)

SET KHU:

Yagh! Love hurts, all right. Feels like trouble to me!

HORUS:

If I try to fight him with weapons and meet him in metal, there will be no end to the banging. I can only force Set to agree to a balance of life and death. He won't accept this without a fight, therefore the Prince of Egypt must ride out to the Red Land for the climactic . . .

SET KHU:

Duel with the Fool in Dunqul . . .

HORUS:

. . . that neither one can win. I can't beat Set.

HORUS:

The time for revelation is at hand, and those bowls of liquid rubies and gold. Hot life! I will introduce wine to you soon, with Osiris' reluctant blessing and your permission. What can be said about wine by the time you see this show? You'll see why we serve it in small cups. And Pointless Conflict? It's the only thing that becomes so horrible that sooner or later the experience of it will either lift people toward spirituality, or drive them insane.

THOTH:

Or both.

The Light Warrior knows the story of this young lame man who invented the chariot to make walking easier, and take him to play with his friends in the meadows and the trees. In the Charioteer is the gentleness and the equanimity of genuine love. The Light Warrior's most important weapon is his Shield, which is a Mirror on the outside. It doesn't just protect him. It also throws his opponent's fear image back into his own eyes. I will hold Set by reflecting his own fear into him from the front, while (To NETERS:) some of you and we hope (To CELEBRANTS:) all of you too, pour your love into him from the back. The Prince of Egypt will go into battle with the Mirror of Truth on his left arm and the Light Show of Creation in his right.

ISIS:

How long will this take? How long do we have to pierce the back of his heart until we joy him up?

HORUS:

Perhaps only a few breaths. It depends on our friends here. (CELEBRANTS)

ISIS:

Will this happen before or after they get the grain secret? (Pause.) After. You expect too much. Give them beer, and for some of the men, urinating will become an art form.

HORUS

We must challenge them. (To CELEBRANTS:) You people are our only way out.

ISIS:

The Humans have not yet. If they were, we wouldn't still be doing this play.

HORUS:

That is what the Dog is for.

CANIS MAJOR is highlighted. HORUS looks at ANUBIS.

ANUBIS:

Gladly.

NEPHTHYS:

No so swift, please. Do I understand that you'll also need my son, Anubis?

ISIS:

Over my dead, dry bosom!