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.
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.