Amos Kane

Amos Kane is Carter and Sadie's uncle, the younger brother of Julius Kane, and the Chief Lector.

Background
He presumably grew up with his brother, Julius, and trained as a magician in the First Nome, becoming a member of the House of Life. He was the last member of the Twenty-first Nome, located in Brooklyn, before Carter and Sadie arrived. He lived in Brooklyn House with his pets Khufu and Philip of Macedonia. He was present for Sadie's sixth birthday party and was splattered with icing when the siblings accidentally made the cake explode. Julius says Amos was never his match, so if Julius wasn't dead (or exiled), he would be Chief Lector before Amos, possibly before Desjardins.

The Red Pyramid

 * When Amos begins to suspect that his brother will attempt to release Osiris, Amos becomes concerned and tracks Julius down in England. Apparently knowing that Julius intends to Try and bring back his late wife, Amos begs him to reconsider, expressing concern for his niece and nephew, but Julius ignores him. When the five gods are released from the Rosetta Stone, Amos is possessed by Set. While possessed by Set, Amos attempts to do what he can to tip off others that he is not himself, including using chaos magic, despite the fact that Set forces him to use his own magic reserves, endangering his life. The uninformed Sadie and Carter, however, do not catch on and when Carter has a vision of Set, Amos pretends to investigate and feigns capture.


 * As Carter and Sadie draw closer to Phoenix and defeating Set, Amos rejoins them and escorts them back to Set's base. Despite the fact that it has become increasingly obvious that their uncle is not himself and the fact that Zia Rashid can sense that he is possessed by Set himself, they take no action until Set reveals himself. Carter and Sadie are able to defeat Set and bring Amos back to Brooklyn, but the experience of being possessed by Set is traumatizing for Amos. When Carter and Sadie visit their father in the Land of the Dead, Julius asks for them to pass along a message for Amos, advising him to remember that the Egyptians thought of the sunrise not just as a new day, but a new world. Shortly later, Amos begins to show signs of recovery and declares that he would travel to the First Nome and visit the healers there.

The Throne of Fire

 * Having returned from the first Nome, Amos starts the book at the Brooklyn House helping out Carter and Sadie. When The House of Life attacks, Amos leads the magicians in training against the attack. At the end, he becomes Chief Lector of the House of Life as with Desjardins dead, he is the most powerful magician in the world. However, his claim is disputed among other Nomes, and magicians like Kwai and Sarah Jacobi form a band of rebels, who hate the Kanes.

The Serpent's Shadow

 * After learning of the impending threat from Sarah Jacobi and her rebels, Sadie takes a scared Leonid to see Amos. Amos is shown looking over Iskandar's old war map and admits the war is not going well and is stunned to learn from Leonid that it's because Jacobi and Apophis are working together. He is also stunned by Sadie and Carter's plan to destroy Apophis and restore Bes, but supports it, sending Zia Rashid to help. Zia believes this was to give her time away from Ra as being near him was clouding her thoughts and causing her to blackout more and more which Amos had been trying to help her with. Without Zia there, he assigns Bast to watch Ra which she does at Brooklyn House. Carter eventually realizes from various clues that Amos is now following the Path of Set and channeling that god's power. When this fact is learned, the Kanes become worried about him since Set possesed him before and it nearly destroyed him. However Set, indicating that Amos sent him, appears to Carter and reassures him that he is not manipulating or using Amos, saying that Amos summoned him not the other way around. To help with the upcoming battle, Carter sends him Brooklyn House's trainees and Bast. During the battle, Amos hosts Set directly, but is shown to be able to control Set this time while channeling his powers. Carter uses this as a convincing argument that Amos is not evil, but Amos falls after being ganged up upon and is used as a hostage by Jacobi to stop the battle. However, when she threatens Sadie, Walt Stone, hosting Anubis, steps in and kills her and defeats Kwai. When Kwai casts a spell with his own life force to bring down the Hall of Ages, Amos is unable to do anything even with the power of Set, but Sadie manages to stop the collapse by casting Ma'at. With Jacobi and Kwai dead, the rebels switch sides and Amos offers Carter his rightful position as Pharoah of the House of Life. Carter accepts and leads both the gods and magicians into battle and he and Sadie destroy ultimatelly Apophis forever by execrating his shadow. Like all of the other gods except Anubis, Set leaves Amos again and leaves the Earth for a time with the other gods. Amos later officaly crowns Carter as Pharoah of the House of Life, though Carter leaves him in charge of the House while goes to school and lives the life of a normal teenager.

Personality
Though a powerful magician, Amos is kind, easy-going, and gentle. He is very loving towards his niece and nephew and truly wants what's best for them. Amos cares deeply for his brother as well, though in previous years he seemed distant due to Julius' banishment. He also welcomed Julius' wife, Ruby, into the family without any antagonism or bad feelings, unlike the Fausts. Amos is also extremely intelligent and knowledgeable, having a great knowledge of Egyptian Mythology, and even some Greek, since he knows that Manhattan has "other gods" (the Olympians), and that Mount Olympus is located over the Empire State Building.

Appearance
Amos is described as being tall, barrel-shaped with skin the color of roasted coffee. When the Kanes first see him he is wearing a trench coat and a fedora. He wears pinstriped suits, coats and hats; he also tends to braid his hair with gems to match. Carter considers him to have 'style', and adds that Amos reminds him of a jazz musician. Sadie describes him as smelling of 'old timey' spices, like an incense shop, and looking like an African American version of Al Pacino. Both Carter and Sadie say he has a twinkle in his eyes, but they're always full of sadness. In The Throne of Fire, Amos becomes Chief Lector and starts wearing the traditional long leopard-skin cape. When he finally coronates Carter after Apophis' defeat, Amos changes into a crimson suit, red-tinted sunglasses, and braids his hair with garnets. This was probably due to his being a former host of Set.

Magic
Although only a limited amount of Amos's power is seen, he is undoubtedly an extremely powerful magician. Amos was the second-most powerful magician at the beginning of the The Throne of Fire. After Desjardins, the most powerful magician and Chief Lector, sacrificed himself execrating Apophis, Amos became the most powerful magician in the world.

Hieroglyphic Spells: Like almost every other magician, Amos can cast normal hieroglyphic spells. However, his level of skill is equivalent to that of Desjardins. He also has a good knowledge and understanding of the different glyphs and symbols. He can check and loosen traps as well, such as those at his own house when he was under Set's influence.

Divine Words: He can speak Divine Words such as A'max to summon a fire, hi-nehm to re-create objects, llen En-mar to make the target approach you, and Med-wah to communicate with a foreign magician. Since he is the Chief Lector, it is presumed that, next to Sadie, Amos can speak the most number of Divine Words in the world.

Telepathy: Amos' mind is very concentrated and resilient. He managed to bend the mind of a security guard and made him blank. This is again shown when Set possessed him and even then, he controls some of his actions to an extent. Set mentions that Amos demanded a lot of energy from him despite the god being in control. He also tries to give hints to Carter and Sadie that he was being manipulated.

Magical Persuasion: Amos can lace his words with magic, to use magical persuasion. He used this to calm down the initiates of Brooklyn House when they were panicking from the quest to revive Ra. Amos is quite famous with this skill as Kwai and Jacobi have stated in their speeches that Amos spoke 'with the voice of Chaos', which was ironic since Apophis was controlling them in the same way.

Duat Travel: In The Red Pyramid, Amos displays the ability to travel through the Duat from London to Brooklyn in a magical boat, even with Sadie and Carter. After talking with Carter and Sadie and jumping from his mansion's terrace, Amos uses this to reach the ground.

Storm Cloud Transformation: This is a disguise transformation like Carter and Sadie's bird morphs. Set mentions that he came up with this by himself, and says this transformation is old. The cloud reflects the mood of the transformed person. Being the Chief Lector, it is possible that Amos can transform himself into other animals as well.

Path of Set
Storm Magic: By channeling the power of Set, Amos can project red lightning, cast massive waves of sand, summon tornadoes and hurricanes. Despite only using this type of magic for a short amount of time, Amos is proficient enough to conquer almost every magician he fought with storm magic and was able to fight evenly with Michel Desjardins with it, despite the latter being more powerful. He displays this during the Battle of Brooklyn House and the final fight against Apophis, while hosting Set and using the Set avatar.

Eye of Set Abilities
Amos used to be the former host of Set. He was twisted against his will and his sanity became at risk after the hosting. Even though Amos despises Set, he admits that he needs his full powers to fight Apophis and becomes the Eye of Set once again. These are the abilities he could only do when being the host of Set:

Combat Magic: In the final battle against Apophis, Amos hosted Set and used the Set avatar. His appearance is a mix between a sandstorm and fire, much like Apophis except less chaotic. When using the Set avatar, Amos has a high resistance to storm magic and can use his own whilst maintaining the combat avatar. This is displayed when he shrugged off Kwai's lightning and retaliated with his own red bolt. However, Amos can only use the Set avatar for a short time as he also has to restrain Set from destroying everything.

Fruit Bat Transformation: When he was possessed by Set, Amos was able to transform in to a fruit bat on whim. It is possible that he could transform in to other creatures while hosting Set.

Fire Magic: Because Set has certain control over fire, Amos was able to use powerful fire magic to distract demons and set their boats alight while under the influence of Set.

Relationships
Julius Kane: Although the details of their relationship are scarce, the brothers seem to care very much for one another. Amos attempts to dissuade Julius from going to the British Museum and releasing Osiris for fear of his brother's life. Likewise, Julius was concerned for his brother when he became traumatized by being possessed by Set and offers him wisdom and kind words. When asked about the fight they had over Julius' plan, he dismisses it, saying that they used to fight a lot, indicating that though they were close, they had their disagreements but didn't let that get in the way of their relationship. He also told Carter and Sadie that after Julius was banished from the House of Life and Amos was banned from seeing him, it was difficult for him as he cared a lot about his brother and niece and nephew.

Carter and Sadie Kane: Amos is shown to love his nephew and niece very much and cares for them deeply.

Trivia

 * Upon arriving in New York City, Amos makes a reference to Rick Riordan's other series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians. He states that Manhattan has "other gods" and looks at the Empire State Building, implying he knew some deal of knowledge about the Greek gods and where they currently reside. In the Percy Jackson series, the Greek gods lived in Mt. Olympus, on top of the Empire State Building.