Isis raised her wings, enveloping both of them inside their span. They held on to one another desperately, both of them knowing the risk they were taking. And then, after a last searing kiss, they reluctantly parted. Osiris watched Isis leave first, her blue vase with his heart scarab inside tucked under her arm.
“Be safe, my beloved,” he whispered as his eyes traced her path across the sky. When she was gone, he took up the alabaster vase and placed it in the satchel he always traveled with. Then Osiris raised his arms and sank below the ground, passing through the dark divide between the realm of the gods and the Earth.
The long hours of the day passed slowly for Osiris, and his thoughts often drifted to Isis and the spell she would weave. They were both risking much. Perhaps Amun-Ra would take away their abilities after he discovered what they’d done. Maybe he’d banish them to the Earth and make them eke out a life as mortals. The idea didn’t bother him as much as it perhaps should have.
With his knowledge of agriculture and hers as a healer, they could live a very fine life together, even if it was only in the time span of a mortal. He rubbed his jaw and adjusted his pack as he strode forward through the city, heading toward the farmland and the green growth rising along the borders of the Nile.
Isis might regret the loss of her wings if she became mortal. If he was honest with himself, he would regret the loss of her wings, too. They were glorious to behold, and the feel of them was a sensory experience he couldn’t begin to describe. But the wings, though a part of her, weren’t the whole of her.
He’d still have the woman even if she wasn’t a goddess. And a woman such as Isis was all a man could ask for. Even as mortals they’d be happy. Osiris stopped in his tracks as he suddenly realized that with mortality there was the possibility of more than just being with the woman he loved.
Osiris had never considered having children. But now the idea took root in his mind. A son? A daughter? A whole houseful of children? He thought of all the things he’d learned as a god. All the things he could share with and teach his offspring. His heart raced as he realized how badly he wanted a family.
Just as he hadn’t acknowledged his desire for Isis until she proposed the idea of a relationship, he’d never allowed himself to ponder the idea of fatherhood. Isis had been right. Vulnerability, in this case being stripped of powers and becoming mortal, was freeing.
Every instinct inside him said there was more. That he could do more, be more, than what he was. Was it wrong for him to reach for it? Maybe. But he’d reach anyway. He wasn’t worried about the consequences. If the worst thing that could happen was staying with Isis as a mortal, Osiris thought he could live with that.
Having reached the Nile, Osiris raised his arms and recited the spell that would cause the river to swell and flood out of its bed. He couldn’t help welcoming the smile that lifted his cheeks as he looked up at the sun. When the muddy water reached his feet and lapped at his ankles, he laughed and happily thought of his own overreaching. Whether the path he trod with Isis hurled him up among celestial realms or led him to toiling in the muck of mortality, it didn’t matter as long as they were together.
The water of the Nile kissed the parched soil. When it dried, the rich slurry it left behind would nourish the crops that grew on the riverbanks. Thousands would be fed. It wasn’t a little thing, the swelling of the Nile. The decaying things the river carried would bring new life. It was a completely natural process. He might have to take away a part of himself to be with Isis, but by doing so, he’d nourish the new thing developing between them.
Amun-Ra had always harangued them about sacrifice, Osiris thought as he waded through the water back toward the fields. He’d taught them that sometimes a thing needed to be lost before others could gain. Maybe if he explained his beliefs to Amun-Ra, the great god would understand. Then again, maybe not.
After shaking the mud from his sandaled feet, he walked through the fields at a mortal’s pace. The grain was thick and golden and the air carried the sweet scent of warm hay baked in the morning sun. The day was beautiful, and he spent the hours thinking of his love and of the coming trials that they needed to hurdle so they could become one.
#
The hours passed quickly for Isis. She wrote her spell over and over again, mumbling it to herself and then scratching out the words, testing each term for potency. When Isis was satisfied, she ate heartily, knowing she’d need all her energy to enact the spell. She then flew toward the setting sun and let the light fill her frame. She gathered its might in her wings, and as the sun lit each feather, she felt healing warmth trickle into her veins.
Not even the gods knew her healing power rested in her feathers. If a feather was lost, a very rare occurrence that usually only happened when she slept, she searched her bedchamber until she found it. Even detached from her body, her feathers carried great power and, on occasion, she’d gifted one to a mortal who desperately needed it.
Baniti never knew that when Isis found her as a child that she was dying. Isis had gifted her a feather that was absorbed into the mortal’s back. But even so, Isis had only been able to keep the sickness at bay for the span of her mortal life. She’d tried to channel all the power she possessed through every feather she had when she’d attempted to heal her, but the magic stayed within her and still she was unable to eradicate the sickness from Baniti’s frail and aging body.
Now she hovered in the sky, absorbing every drop of sunshine she could so that she might enact the most difficult spell she’d ever created. Isis wished she could tell her sister, but anything Nephthys knew the stars knew, too. She couldn’t risk it. Not until the thing was done.
When night fell, she flew to the dark mountain that marked the edge of Duat. Flying to the top would be the easiest path, but it was also the most dangerous one. Proximity to Mount Babel twisted the perceptions. She could easily crash into the mountain or veer off and plunge into the sea. Such a thing might not kill her, but it would raise an alarm in Heliopolis and that she could not have. The best way to reach the pinnacle was to climb and the climb would take hours.
Isis landed at the base of the mountain, clutching the vase that held Osiris’s heart scarab, and sought out a path. At first, the ascent was easy, pleasant even. The smell of sap permeated the air and the crunch of pine needles beneath her feet kept her grounded even when the whispers began.
Nephthys had explained the whispers often enough that Isis understood, at least in theory, how it worked. The stars watched over everything, knew everything, but they only shared what was important. This did not mean what they shared was important to an individual but what was important from their perspective.
The whispers made more sense when dreaming, Nephthys had told her, but seeing things that would happen in the future was maddening in its own way. Isis didn’t envy her sister’s gift. Not at all. And being on the mountain made it even worse as the stars became confused. Until she reached the peak, which functioned as a giant adder stone, she would be at their mercy.
Nothing she heard or saw on the mountain could be trusted. The only thing she could be sure of was the heart she clutched in her hands. Through it she could tell that Osiris was also on the mountain, though she didn’t know where. Not yet. The heart would beat faster when he was near. Regardless, the spell couldn’t be performed until they were together at the pinnacle of the mountain, and only at the right time.
As she climbed, following deer trail switchbacks, the whispers became more insistent. They led her once to the hollow of a tree and told her to hide. Her mind insisted she was in danger so she did what the stars told her to. She shivered inside the tree trunk, her mind erupting with the visions the stars sent.
In her churning dreams, Isis saw herself sitting disconsolate in a tomb that smelled of mold and burning incense, fat teardrops dripping from her cheeks. She screamed at the sound of a double-bit axe cutting through something, though she didn’t know what it was. Her sister was nearby but something was very wron
g with her. The unimaginable had happened.
In another vision Isis saw herself married to Seth and watched as he overthrew all the gods. Because the Waters of Chaos were then filled with the life essence of her family, she was able to conceive and brought forth twins—a boy and a girl whom Seth named Dawn and Dusk. He proudly displayed them to his retinue of henchmen, those who served him wholly and completely. Each and every one bowed, and flattered, and fell at his feet as Seth crowed about his offspring and how they would draw the eyes of all who saw them.
When Isis looked upon her children, however, there was nothing behind her eyes, for she only saw those who had been destroyed so that her children might live. As badly as she craved motherhood, her unhappiness could not be overcome, for each sunset and sunrise was tinged with blood. She found nothing beautiful in them at all.
Wrenching herself out of the tree trunk, Isis tried to cast aside the terrible vision and willed herself to press on. As she trudged ahead, Amun-Ra’s voice castigated her for her wrong choices and urged her to abandon her notions of saving Baniti. This was something that had already happened. At least, she had thought so. Now she couldn’t be sure.
After hours of wandering, the heart in the jar leapt, meaning Osiris was even closer. Isis quickened her pace. She knew she’d lost too much time in the tree and hoped they weren’t too late. If they could find each other, they could navigate the insanity of the mountain more easily.
Osiris was, in fact, much higher on the mountain than Isis. He’d been able to use his power over growing things to stabilize his mind, but now the swirling stars were too much even for the larger trees of the forest to help. As he climbed, Osiris heard a woman’s voice telling him that Isis’s affection for him would flicker and the flame of her love would extinguish and die. He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t. The stars had to be spreading falsehoods.
Bracing his arm on a thick tree branch, he panted as his mind was overtaken. He saw Isis in a vision, her skin as radiant as the glittering Nile at sunset, and he had to lift his hand to shield his eyes when she looked upon him. The beauty of her face was nothing compared to the beauty that radiated from inside her. It was like staring directly into the sun.
Osiris was dazzled and blinded by her. Isis was a being so powerful, so resplendent, he gasped in awe, and marveled that such a creature should desire one such as him. Then his eyes widened when he saw her kneel over a lifeless form and raise her wings around him. She was trying to revive the person, and he knew doing such a thing would kill her. “No!” he cried, his voice echoing over the mountain. “No, Isis, I forbid it!”
The stars spun the vision away and showed him a man—no, a god. He was straight and tall and he looked familiar, though Osiris knew he’d never seen him before. The god was cast into the desert, where he was plagued with all manner of hardships. He was stung by scorpions and attacked by wild beasts, and he suffered the bites of poisonous serpents. Osiris longed to go to his aid but something restrained him, and when he took a step forward, he stumbled and his legs shook as if he were a newborn colt.
His mind was spinning dizzily, and when it stopped, he stood in a new place, one he recognized. It was Earth. Stark pyramids rose from the sand. Three young men stood atop them. There they drew forth power, so much that he knew their bodies couldn’t contain it. As energy rushed toward them from all parts of the cosmos, the pyramids acted as conduits, swallowing the light at their bases and channeling it up to the men who stood on the tops.
Then the men did something he’d never seen before. They summoned the light into themselves and it exploded from their outstretched arms, creating an impossible triangle in the night sky. Why they did this, he did not know. Who they were was a mystery to him. He’d never met these gods before, but he couldn’t deny they held the power of the cosmos in their hands. Despite this ability, the three men staggered and fell dead, and he watched as Anubis guided them to the afterlife.
One of the disembodied looked at Osiris as if he, too, could see him in the vision. It startled Osiris, but he felt no malice from the watcher. The young man nodded at him and then turned to follow the others. He reached out his hand to touch the larger man’s shoulder, but as he did, Osiris felt a hand on his own shoulder. It startled him from his vision and he spun around.
“Isis,” he said, blowing out a breath in relief. “I was . . .”
“Lost in a dream?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t think of it now,” she murmured. “We’ll speak of it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he echoed with a nod. There would be a tomorrow for the two of them. There had to be. He took hold of her hand and together they managed to finish the climb without becoming lost. Being close to each other grounded them like the trees had done for him farther down. “Why couldn’t we climb the mountain side by side?”
“The stars couldn’t see us together. Not until we were high enough that the madness obscured us from their sight.”
“But won’t they suspect what we’re doing here? Since we’re both climbing Mount Babel on the same night?”
Isis shook her head. “Nephthys explained to me that the stars don’t see things linearly. All they know is that I have climbed the mountain and you have climbed the mountain. To them this could have happened centuries apart. And now that we are close to the adder stone, our forms will be obscured. Besides, the stars are reactionary. They won’t move against us until we have sealed our union. When it is a sure thing, they will respond.”
Isis and Osiris struggled together until they neared the summit and crouched beneath the branches of a tree. Osiris could tell it was more than a thousand years old. He sat at the base of its trunk and pulled her onto his lap, holding her close and murmuring words of comfort as the visions tormented her.
Then she returned the favor, stroking his brow and kissing his temple to help him discern what was true from what was not. Though, with Isis in his arms, the dreamworld visions he saw in his mind and what was real occasionally overlapped in a pleasant way, but mostly the experience was a never-ending torment he wished he could escape.
Once he thought he saw a young man, a dreamer, watching him. When he turned to look, no one was there, though he still felt the dreamer’s eyes on the back of his neck. When Isis said it was time, he breathed a sigh of relief. They both stood and took the final steps to the top.
The moment the two of them passed through the edge of the forest and onto the stony ridge at the peak of Mount Babel, their minds quieted. It was a stark contrast to the mental noise that had been plaguing them for hours. Isis half laughed, half sobbed at the relief, and she stumbled against him. The terrain was unnatural, the stones looked almost polished, and great monoliths of it jutted up into the sky. It was as if they stood on the crown atop a giant’s head.
The black sky above them was dark and thin, like space, but not a single star shone. It was like standing in . . . nothingness. It was as if he no longer had form or substance, and gravity no longer held his feet in place. Osiris swayed dizzily and panted, the breath escaping him.
Then he became aware of the shivering woman in his arms, and when he looked upon her he felt centered and whole once more. He shook her. “Isis . . . Isis . . . look at me.” She lifted her tearstained face to his and he wiped the offending drops away with his thumb. “We’re here, beloved. Just focus on me.”
Isis sucked in a few shaky breaths and nodded. “I knew this place would be different, but I never imagined . . .” Her voice dropped off as she thought of her sister and how unbearable her life must be. Osiris squeezed her hands and she looked up at his earnest face. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“I am.”
Her heart swelled at the trust and the love she saw. “Close your eyes,” Isis said, and when he did, she cast a small spell. It was one of cleansing and preparation for what was to come. Warmth trickled from the roots of her hair down her body to her fingertips and toes. When it was done, she asked him to open his eyes.
&nb
sp; When Osiris did, he saw that they were both renewed, as if they’d bathed in a golden waterfall. Isis was breathtaking in a gossamer dress spun of stars and moonlight. Her wings were tucked at her back and her hair cascaded in thick waves that ended at her waist. “You look beautiful,” he said warmly.
“As do you.”
He hadn’t noticed his own clothes. He looked down and saw he wore a tunic and breeches of sparkling white as well. Both of them had bare feet, and he realized with a start that the giant adder stone they stood upon thrummed with an energy that he could feel in his soles. “What next?” he asked.
“We must be quick,” Isis said. “The time between the night and the day is short. Take my heart in your hand as I take yours.” Osiris broke the jar holding Isis’s heart and brushed aside the shattered pieces of pottery until he spied the amethyst heart scarab. When each of them was ready, she said, “This is a threshing. The best within each of us will rise up, weave together, and become something new. Something that cannot be unraveled.”
She looked into his eyes as if asking again if this was what he truly desired. Osiris nodded assuredly, giving her an encouraging smile, and Isis began to chant. It was a complex spell that spoke of secret wishes, bindings, and the sharing of hearts. Then she called forth the power of a true syzygy. He’d never heard of such a thing being used in a spell before.
A syzygy was a common-enough celestial occurrence. It happened when three celestial bodies in the same gravitational system, such as the Earth, the moon, and the sun, aligned. But Isis spoke of a true syzygy. This had never happened before. At least, not in the time he’d been alive.
A true syzygy still involved three celestial bodies, but the alignment was of a permanent nature. Once the alignment transpired, the three would be locked together, never to move again. If Isis could call forth the power of a true syzygy, then her spells could indeed rival Seth’s abilities. Now the vision he’d seen of Isis made more sense. Her entire body was filled with light.