Holding a sealed papyrus up to the king, he asked "Can anyone here read this letter without opening it? If there is none wise enough to do so, all of Nubia shall know of Egypt's shame." Perplexed, Ramses called for Prince Setna, the most learned of his sons. Setna too, was baffled; but, rather than admit defeat, he asked for ten days' grace to wrestle with the problem. Setna had no idea how to read the strange letter, and simply fretted anxiously at hme, lying on his bed and hiding his face in his garments.
His wife asked what was wrong, but he gruffly told her that it was nothing a woman could help him with. When his young son Siosire tried to comfort him, he said "You are only twelve. A child cannot help me here." Eventually, however, Siosire persuaded his father to explain the problem. "But that's easy," laughed the boy.
"I can do that!" To prove it, he asked Setna to bring a papyrus scroll from his bookchest. As the boy promised, he was able to read it while his father held it still rolled up. The next day Siosire went with his father to meet the pharoah and the arrogant Nubian. At once, th boy proceeded to read from the scroll tied to the Nubian's belt.
And what he read shocked the court. It was a tale from the distant past, one and a half thousand ears before, when the Prince of Nubia had used the powers of his great magician Sa-Neheset to bring Egypt's pharoah to the Nubian court. There he received a brutal and shameful beating. The pharoah in turn sought magical aid from his own master magician, Sa-Paneshe, and the struggle between the two nations turned into a battle of wills between the two great magicians. In the end, Sa-Paneshe triumphed and the humiliated Nubian sorcerer swore by all his nation's gods not to return to Egypt for one and a half thousand years.
The young Siosire reached the end of his reading. "Now, O king," said the boy, "I can tell you why this Nubian is here. For he is Sa-Neheset, born again after one and a half thousand years. But I, too, have been reborn: I am Sa-Paneshe, and I challenge him once again!" For hours the two sorcerers fought spell against spell, the one seeking to destroy Egypt's court, the other to save it.
At last, Siosire (or Sa-Paneshe) sent a fire spell the other could not resist, and Sa-Neheset was consumed in flames. Victorious Sa-Paneshe vanished too, called back to the underworld by Osiris.
