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 wrong 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!”