“I am exactly that old, my dear. I was born in the reign of Cleopatra VII.”
“Oh, please.”
“I assure you, it’s true. It was my sorrow to behold the last days of Egypt, before that foolhardy queen lost our kingdom to the Romans. I was the last magician to be trained before the House went underground. Many of our most powerful secrets were lost, including the spells my master used to extend my life. Magicians these days still live long—sometimes centuries—but I have been alive for two millennia.”
“So you’re immortal?”
His chuckle turned into a racking cough. He doubled over and cupped his hands over his mouth. I wanted to help, but I wasn’t sure how. The glowing hieroglyphs flickered and dimmed around him.
Finally the coughing subsided.
He took a shaky breath. “Hardly immortal, my dear. In fact...” His voice trailed off. “But never mind that. What did you see in your vision?”
I probably should’ve kept quiet. I didn’t want to be turned into a bug for breaking any rules, and the vision had terrified me—especially the moment when I’d changed into the bird of prey. But Iskandar’s kindly expression made it hard to hold back. I ended up telling him everything. Well, almost everything. I left out the bit about the good-looking boy, and yes, I know it was silly, but I was embarrassed. I reckoned that part could’ve been my own crazed imagination at work, as Ancient Egyptian gods could not have been that gorgeous.
Iskandar sat for a moment, tapping his staff against the steps. “You saw a very old event, Sadie—Set taking the throne of Egypt by force. He hid Osiris’s coffin, you know, and Isis searched the entire world to find it.”
“So she got him back eventually?”
“Not exactly. Osiris was resurrected—but only in the Underworld. He became the king of the dead. When their son, Horus, grew up, Horus challenged Set for the throne of Egypt and won after many hard battles. That is why Horus was called the Avenger. As I said—an old story, but one that the gods have repeated many times in our history.”
“Repeated?”
“The gods follow patterns. In some ways they are quite predictable: acting out the same squabbles, the same jealousies down through the ages. Only the settings change, and the hosts.”
There was that word again: hosts. I thought about the poor woman in the New York museum who’d turned into the goddess Serqet.
“In my vision,” I said, “Isis and Osiris were married. Horus was about to be born as their son. But in another story Carter told me, all three of them were siblings, children of the sky goddess.”
“Yes,” Iskandar agreed. “This can be confusing for those who do not know the nature of gods. They cannot walk the earth in their pure form—at least, not for more than a few moments. They must have hosts.”
“Humans, you mean.”
“Or powerful objects, such as statues, amulets, monuments, certain models o
f cars. But they prefer human form. You see gods have great power, but only humans have creativity, the power to change history rather than simply repeat it. Humans can...how do you moderns say it...think outside the cup.”
“The box,” I suggested.
“Yes. The combination of human creativity and godly power can be quite formidable. At any rate, when Osiris and Isis first walked the earth, their hosts were brother and sister. But mortal hosts are not permanent. They die, they wear out. Later in history, Osiris and Isis took new forms—humans who were husband and wife. Horus, who in one lifetime was their brother, was born into a new life as their son.”
“That’s confusing,” I said. “And a little gross.”
Iskandar shrugged. “The gods do not think of relationships the way we humans do. Their hosts are merely like changes of clothes. This is why the ancient stories seem so mixed up. Sometimes the gods are described as married, or siblings, or parent and child, depending on their hosts. The pharaoh himself was called a living god, you know. Egyptologists believe this was just a lot of propaganda, but in fact it was often literally true. The greatest of the pharaohs became hosts for gods, usually Horus. He gave them power and wisdom, and let them build Egypt into a mighty empire.”
“But that’s good, isn’t it? Why is it against the law to host a god?”
Iskandar’s face darkened. “Gods have different agendas than humans do, Sadie. They can overpower their hosts, literally burn them out. That is why so many hosts die young. Tutankhamen, poor boy, died at nineteen. Cleopatra VII was even worse. She tried to host the spirit of Isis without knowing what she was doing, and it shattered her mind. In the old days, the House of Life taught the use of divine magic. Initiates could study the path of Horus, or Isis, or Sekhmet, or any number of gods, learning to channel their powers. We had many more initiates back then.”
Iskandar looked round the empty hall, as if imagining it filled with magicians. “Some adepts could call upon the gods only from time to time. Others attempted to host their spirits...with varying degrees of success. The ultimate goal was to become the ‘eye’ of the god—a perfect union of the two souls, mortal and immortal. Very few achieved this, even among the pharaohs, who were born to the task. Many destroyed themselves trying.” He turned up his palm, which had the most deeply etched lifeline I’d ever seen. “When Egypt finally fell to the Romans, it became clear to us—to me—that mankind, our rulers, even the strongest magicians, no longer had the strength of will to master a god’s power. The only ones who could...” His voice faltered.
“What?”
“Nothing, my dear. I talk too much. An old man’s weakness.”
“It’s the blood of the pharaohs, isn’t it?”
He fixed me in his gaze. His eyes no longer looked milky. They burned with intensity. “You are a remarkable young girl. You remind me of your mother.”