#destinyosiris

And so he spoke a Word, and that word was Power, and when he looked back through the gate he he saw himself, but not himself; a shadow without a shadow, and around him in the flames danced reflections that mirrored yet did not mirror him.

In that place of Doors he met the Door-Keeper, and three times he demanded they be opened. Three times he was denied. And so he spoke, and his tongue was fire: 

O you who keeps the doors, O you who guards them and who reports, I know you and I know your names.

‘I will break the doors,’ he said.

‘I will bring the dead to eat the living,’ he said.

‘And the dead will outnumber the living,’ he said.

The Door-Keeper was afraid at this, and so it led him through nine gates, one by one. At the third gate, he stopped, and through it he saw the fields of dead, upon which the creatures of the Sky-Bride picked like vultures, and for a moment he, too, was afraid. 

Nine gates they passed, and at each gate he was forced to discard a part of himself, until he was naked, until there were no more gates and only the flame awaited him. 

‘Why have you come?’ the Door-Keeper asked him.

And he spoke:

‘I have come to be announced,’ he said.

The Door-Keeper denied him. ‘You are corrupt,’ it said.

And he spoke:

‘I come without guilt,’ he said, ‘and all evil which was on me has been removed. Witness. 

I have crossed the Garden. Witness. 

I have done that which men said I could not. Witness, and announce me, for I am pure.’

A second time the Door-Keeper denied him. ‘To whom should I announce thee?’

And he spoke:

‘Eternity is the Name of one,’ he said. ‘The Sea is the Name of another. I live on truth and I eat of truth. 

Announce me, for I am pure.’