by D.A. Dean
Prologue: Isis' Plight
Nearing the black river separating the land of the living from the Duat, land of spirits, Isis paused, casting her gaze behind her, searching for sign she'd been followed. She released a breath. She was alone, her secret safe.
But for how long? Anxiety surging, she pushed back her long crimson cloak and darted barefooted into the riverbank's marsh. Silty water, as if unsure whether the one who entered was ally or enemy, wrapped, cold, against her feet and calves. Had the effects of her spell, scrupulously laid, begun already to wane?
Ducking deeper into the marsh's shadow, she hastened to her hidden skiff, fastened her fingers around the golden cord lashed to its curved front, and tugged the craft from its shelter, its narrow prow cutting through the papyrus around it. Rushing aboard, she commanded, "Forward." The craft skimmed through the water, the river's obscure crosscurrent, in sympathy with her plight, offering covert assistance.
The night's tremulous clouds scattered. The moon's gleam intensified. "Faster," she whispered, fears rising. The skiff's speed increased. Turning inward, concentrating, she called forth her magic and slowly drew her hand over her face, covering it. Clouds coalesced and moved in thick fingers over the moon, pushing back its light. She gripped the skiff's slim side.
"Our secret," she instructed the bent sycamore standing sentry at the water's edge. The tree fluttered its leaves. Satisfied, she knotted the skiff's cord around the sycamore's twisted roots. In the distance, a swallow trilled. Crouching, Isis slipped on her sandals, tightened their silver laces. Was she being watched? She scanned the sky. A star flared and faded.
Heart speeding, she crept forward into dense, shrubby undergrowth and hurried along the hidden path that led circuitously to her refuge. Sharp-bladed grass, barbed brush, and thorny vine caught at her feet and hands. Longingly, she turned her gaze toward the river's bend, with its open shore and welcoming trail. But that was the way traveled by those with no need of discretion. She would hold trust with the barbs and thorns. Unlike the garrulous, well-worn trail, her concealed path demanded only trifling slivers of skin and beads of blood in exchange for its complicity. She would have paid far greater.
A thin fog reached through the tangle and caressed Isis' face.
"Yes, Beloved, I'm coming," she answered silently.
Suddenly, slabs of slate-grey stone towered before her, extending wider and lifting higher than she could see through the misty moonlight. Yes, she was almost there.
Touching her hands to the smooth, cool wall of rock, she bowed her head and focused her concentration into a burning pinpoint of light. Lips against the stone, she whispered the words that would grant admittance, "The silver of Ra's eyes."
The citadel's entry revealed, she passed, with only a slight shiver, through the doorway's layers of power-drenched stone walls and stole inside.
Shadows wavered from their halting spirals and turned to her.
Isis tugged lower her cloak's hood, hiding her face from the grey wispy forms that flitted near. "You don't know me," she directed, voice carefully compelling.
The shadows began again their aimless whirling.
She hurried onward, grateful for the castle interior's convoluted turns. Still, the soft snapping of her sandals over the hallways' slab floors worried her. Could the sound draw attention? Pausing, she tucked her sandals into the concealed pockets within her cloak's draped sleeves.
Deliberately winding and retracing, she edged through the maze of halls, turning, once, twice, a third time to be certain the trailing of her cloak brushed her footprints from the stone. Finally, she stood before a low bronzed door.
She turned her gaze up and down the hallway, confirming there was no presence but her own, then, palms moist, she inched open the door, mistrusting the oil she'd spread over its golden hinges. She dashed around the door's side. Holding tightly the door's thick handle, she quickly secured the door's bolts.
Tears of thankfulness sprang to her eyes. The fear she'd held down crested and spilled from her, releasing. She had, one time more, reached her sanctuary undetected. Leaning forward, she pressed her forehead against the door's heavy, sheltering wood. "Only I," she intoned, her fingers tracing the spell's magic into the beams. "Only I."
Intently surveying the dusty obsidian floor for sign any had discovered her hiding place, her skin alert for any tingles of unknown energy, her nose searching for scent, she stepped forward into the darkened room. The dust was undisturbed. The energy that circled back to her was only that of those she trusted. The smells within the chamber remained unaltered, cinnamon, coriander, lotus, heavy myrrh, and clove. Yes, these were the scents of her memory's greatest joys and greatest sorrow.
Wearily, she turned toward the platform bed upon which she'd once laid her husband's body. For a moment, she saw herself beside him, holding his lifeless hand in hers day after deadened day, night after tear-soaked night. Lilies and carnelians now lay strewn over the bed's expanse.
Miri, Isis' high servant, moved soundlessly from the anterior room into the chamber, the white folds of her floor-length gown shifting over her slender body, the candles' glow making radiant her golden-brown hair. She bowed, unfastened Isis' cloak, and handed it to Mahtaeo, the dark-haired warrior who hurried to stand behind her.
"Thank you," Isis responded softly, caught suddenly in a cascade of recollections.
Miri, her loyal companion through countless millennia. Mahtaeo, the ageless servant Osiris had welcomed into his and Isis' rooms each morning as a friend. With Isis, they had known Osiris in his glory, experienced the splendor of the Golden Days.
Those days were past.
Now Miri and Mahtaeo held with Isis among the shadows.
Mahtaeo and Miri exchanged worried glances and retreated to the edge of the chamber.
Isis returned her gaze to the bed's flowers and stones.
Wrapping her hands around her sides, she remembered afresh lifting Osiris' still form to hers, holding tight his corpse, her shaking sobs.
How long had she sat before the others returned, tentative with fear? She now couldn't say. She remembered with certainty only her desperate agony. What the others said she neither then nor now knew, seeing their lips move but hearing no words. She'd heard only the silence of Osiris' still heart. She'd seen but couldn't feel the mourners' proffered hands, moving to comfort. She'd felt only Osiris' body, drained by death. The funereal flowers had held no scent, the candles' flickering had offered no light, the wine had borne no taste. Only the body of her beloved and the spells she chanted had been real.
Again, she was abandoned, Osiris' murderer returning. Next had come her screams, Seht tearing her beloved from her arms. Her fighting, Seht binding her. Her heart rent, Seht cutting to scraps Osiris' body. Her escape, loyal priestesses and warriors dead or scattered, Seht's followers breaking to rubble Osiris' temple of carnelian, malachite, and gold.
Two years, she'd crawled along the earth, gathering Osiris' pieces, weeping over each splinter of broken bone, each fragment of violated flesh, holding them to her bosom as close as her breath.
Four months, she'd toiled, carefully re-assembling his body, laying spells, stones, and oils. Three months, she'd called his pieces to connect. Three months, she'd called them to awaken.
Then, miraculously, she'd conceived a child. The ache returned to her arms, the yearning to her heart.
She'd returned life to her husband's body, but she couldn't restore him. She'd borne a son, but she couldn't keep him.
Isis swayed.
Miri hurried to her. "O Queen? Do you need to rest?"
But what respite could she claim? Isis shook her head and turned toward the cavernous chamber's arched corner, the low-backed throne of gold and carnelian, and the one who sat upon it, still, silent, unseeing.
"Beloved, I'm here." She trailed her fingers through Osiris' ebony hair, caressed his pallid, stony face, lowered her hand to his unyielding shoulders, and t
raced the jagged scar even her magic couldn't make fade. After bending to kiss his faintly-golden black hand, she sank to rest on the slate floor beside him and laid her head on his thigh.
The angle of his knees' bend had shifted. Releasing a breath against the hard throb of hope, she brushed her cheeks, lifted herself, and turned to face him. "Today, my beloved, you moved your legs."
Osiris' golden brown eyes, dimmed and unblinking, registered no change.
"You're moving more and more. Perhaps you'll reach toward my hand again today." She slipped behind him and, resting her head against his shoulder, she caressed his hand. "You've moved your arm, as well." Wishful longing overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes, imagining him standing and taking her in his embrace. Would that moment ever come? And if it didn't? She would dwell beside him here through eternity, finding peace in being near him, his soul's subtle brush against her own.
Marshaling her emotions, Isis readjusted Osiris' heavy gold cuff, rubbed the rounded beads of carnelian embedded across its edges, and angled to gaze into his eyes. "My love? Would you like the flowers brought closer?"
Osiris exhaled.
No. Acknowledging his signal, she said, "Of course. You can smell them from here." Her gaze moved to the offertory table and lingered over the gold trays heaped with fruit and bread, the gold bowls filled with honey, the gold pitchers holding wine and water. All were as they'd been when she'd left. "Beloved, won't you eat or drink?" She glided to the table. "Perhaps if I dipped some fruit in honey?" She caught up a small bunch of purple-red grapes and touched them to the amber liquid. "Won't you try some?"
Osiris inhaled.
The honeyed grapes shifted in Isis' hand and were still. "Yes, my love," she praised then silently gave thanks.
"Did they please, O Queen?" Miri asked. "I couldn't tell how much of their essence King Osiris drew."
"He drew enough." Isis returned to her husband. "Shall I sing to you?"
Osiris inhaled.
Night passed to day, day to night. Isis bathed Osiris' eyes, Miri and Mahtaeo holding the bowls of jasmine water and thin linen strips. Isis bathed Osiris' body, Miri and Mahtaeo holding the bowls of rose and lotus water and thick linen cloths. The third dawn, Osiris reached, unseeing, for Isis' hand. Her breath caught, halting her song. She lifted her voice again.
Day passed to night, night to day. Isis coaxed Osiris' arms and legs, hands and feet to movement. His gaze found focus then drifted. Miri and Mahtaeo held back their tears.
Osiris closed his eyes, his breathing deepening, and, one arm draping his knees, the other stretched against his forearm, Isis lowered her head to his thigh. Miri covered her sovereigns with sheets. Mahtaeo knelt and smoothed oils over their feet.
Isis slipped into slumber. In her dream, she saw Osiris before her, as he had been, vibrant, radiating power, light glimmering from within him. She heard his voice, rich and resonant, her king speaking of truth and honor. She felt his mystery and majesty, his arms around her, her husband tenderly holding her close.
Memories of their eons together fluttered within her. The sweet scent of honeysuckle filling the air the first time, when they were three, their eyes met. The brush of sea spray against her arms the first time, when they were seven, he took her hand. When they were ten, the velvet sky around them, Osiris caressing her cheek. At last, when they were fifteen, came the taste of honey, Osiris kissing her lips.
Next came memories of the wonders they saw riding together through the universe. The shimmer, glow, and contours of the heavenly court of stars and moons. The colors, smells, and sounds of the pantheon of planets. The mood and taste of the uncoiling and spiraling of time and space. Wonders upon wonders, and then followed the wonder that was humanity. But too soon came the graying of humanity's light.
Isis' dream moved to memory of the evening Osiris shared with her his longing to go to the humans, to help them in their struggles, his vision to bring them again hope, happiness.
Hope and happiness. The sunlight of mornings together, the rapture then peace of shared starry nights.
Hope and happiness. The precious morning of their decision they would that night create a child. The idyllic afternoon of anticipation interrupted by the naive evening of Seht's return.
Isis' arms twitched. The stark night of Seht's betrayal, destroying Osiris' dreams, Isis' dreams, bringing the coldness of death, taking Osiris from her. Taking the promise from her wine, the water from her seas, the sun from her skies. Taking life from an immortal. Blotting her beacon star from eternity.
But Seht hadn't understood the love she and Osiris shared.
And Isis had denied Seht a full victory. Possessing magic none but Ra could match, she'd employed all she knew, calling on Thoth's alchemy, Nephthys' enchantments, Anubis' resolve.
Thoth, Bearer of the Book of Truth, counselor, friend, conundrum, unwilling to condemn Seht but unwavering in devoting his knowledge to assist Isis in her plight.
Nephthys, Concealer and Consoler, sister, paradox, who'd aided in Seht's plot but mourned Osiris with tears of blood. Nephthys, tangled web, whose misdirections and manipulations of Seht afforded Isis freedom from interference while she secured Osiris' pieces.
Anubis, Seer of Souls, Rider of the Winds, haunted recluse. Anubis, Nephthys' child, unwanted, abandoned, the result of jealousy and betrayal. Anubis, enigma, who, with solemn eyes, had covertly defied his stepfather, offering without reservation the full range of his skills.
For two years, these three had moved with her, held hope with her. The third year, hope had turned to despair. Finally, Thoth had shaken his head.
And then, barely discernibly, Osiris' finger had twitched.
Oh, the elation she'd felt. Yet, how quickly her sobs of joyful relief had been supplanted by a rush of fear. Osiris lived—but only barely. He wasn't restored.
And if Seht learned what had been accomplished, he would search until he found Osiris, her beloved, still so terrifyingly vulnerable. The cycle would repeat, this time with Seht making certain not even fragments of Osiris' body remained.
Swiftly, Isis acted. Alone with Miri and Mahtaeo, she concealed Osiris deep within the Duat.
Only Anubis might sense the truth Isis hid from all but Ra.
Then, as Isis was beginning to know again calm, there came the horror of Seht's demand, forcing her to cast the spells to still her husband—the pain of it—and return his body to the House of Ra to be viewed by his murderer. Rage and fright filled her as she hid, watching from within the false bottom of one of the Great Hall's columns. Seht jabbed the motionless body, and she held her breath. He hurled curses. She held her position. He pronounced Osiris dead, and, relief washing through her, she bowed her head.
He vowed to find and claim Osiris' sword.
Feverishly, she silently counted each of the multitude of spells veiling it.
Then, he laughed. Almost casually, he announced his intent to find and kill Osiris' heir.
Hand tight over her lips, she held back her scream.
Horus.
Isis twisted, moaning. No, Horus was with Nalia and Teo, the two humans Ra had clandestinely counseled her to appoint as her son's guardians. Together, the three were safely hidden on her floating island.
In her dream, she soared over ocean, saw the crags and white sand of the island's shore. Yes, the island's marshes, wide stretches of grasses, profusion of trees. The rounded hills, the white-dotted meadows. The lake and ponds. The river, its azure streams tracing through layer upon layer of green. She soared lower, black earth and grey stone intensifying the island's lushness, and found the clearing near the shore. Where was Horus?
There, near the hut. Isis saw her son running, playing, the sheen of his golden skin dazzling, just as she'd remembered. Horus, who had his father's bright laughter and clever stubbornness, unfettered curiosity and fierce determination. Her child, who possessed her husband's depth of strength and abundanc
e of mercy. Her son, wiggling in her arms, twisting to kiss her cheek, stretching to take her hand. Osiris' son, who must live to meet his father.
Sunlight fell to shadow. Horus, unaware of the threat bearing down on him, unprepared for the path twisting before him. Terror gripped her. She jerked awake.
Miri knelt to her. "O Queen? What troubles you? How may I serve?"
"It was just a dream," Isis answered. Yet her fear wouldn't leave her. She fastened her arms around herself, rose, and was still. Osiris' sword. If Horus were to survive, he must wield it. She would reclaim it from her human priestesses, unwrap the layer upon layer of spells she'd laid over it. She would find a way to go to Horus and present his father's sword without Seht's knowledge.
A hard tremor shook her. No, she mustn't allow fear to drive her to folly. Seht desired Osiris' sword, its symbolism and its power. Though the sword was meticulously veiled, it was a beacon. Placing it on the island with Horus remained far too great a risk.
The sword must remain hidden. She would journey to Horus without the weapon. She would use, instead, the weapon she'd honed over millennia. She lifted her chin. Yes, using her fiercest magic, she would turn against Seht his own wrath. She would turn against Nephthys her sister's own potions. She would protect her son.
"No."
Isis started. Who had spoken? In disbelief, she turned to Osiris, motionless upon his throne, the great symbol, bestowed by Ra, Seht had been unable to destroy. Though Osiris' body remained rigid, his eyes unblinking, something within him had shifted. She hastened near. "My love?"
Osiris' gaze, intensely focused, met hers. Silently, he spoke, "You don't have the power to save him. Nor do I. Horus must save himself and us all."
Isis pressed her hands together to halt their trembling. Quietly, she said, "What Ra hoped and feared has come to be." The room swirled to silent blackness, and she collapsed.
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