The Red Pyramid Chapter 15 Summary

A Godly Birthday Party

• Sadie takes over the story, saying that Carter has been taken to a different dormitory. She doesn't know how he slept; she couldn't fall asleep at all.
• Something's bugging Sadie while she tries to sleep, so she creeps out of bed.
• Sadie wanders into the Hall of Ages, since the images there had been so intriguing. For whatever reason, she feels a connection to these images, as if they have an answer for her. So, of course, she does what she's been told not to and steps off the carpet.
• Sadie sees a hall of people between the columns. She touches the image, and everything changes. Now she's surrounded by huge beings that morph between human and animal forms.
• On a throne in the middle of the room sits an African man who looks very strong. At his side is a pregnant woman in white.
• Sadie gasps when the woman turns toward her—she has Sadie's mother's face.
• Someone asks Sadie if she's a ghost. Sadie turns around and sees a boy who looks about sixteen. He is pale and has dark, wild hair. She thinks he's good-looking enough that she is stuck trying to figure out how to reply ("marry me" being among the options that pops into her head).
• Sadie shakes her head, and the boy guesses that she is a ba. He tells her to watch, but not to interfere.
• Sadie goes back to watching and sees that the man and woman address each other as Isis and Osiris, referring to their unborn son as Horus.
• Set appears suddenly, scaring Sadie. He looks more or less human, but with fangs. He has a pleasant laugh instead of the scary laugh she remembers from the museum.
• Set says he's there to celebrate, and he has wolf-headed minions bring in a giant, ornate coffin… just like the one that swallowed Sadie's dad in the British Museum. She's definitely freaked out.
• Set talks up the sleeping casket and the expensive materials it's made from, saying it's a gift for whomever can fit perfectly inside it.
• All the gods try this new game, yet even those who can change their shape don't quite fit.
• Set flatters Osiris, saying only the best god can fit. Osiris decides to try, despite Isis's warning.
• When Osiris lowers himself into the box, Sadie thinks that Osiris has her father's face. Then the box snaps shut, boiling lead pours over the coffin, and the coffin sinks into the ground.
• Set attacks Isis, saying her son will never be born. Suddenly a goddess in blue jumps on Set, distracting him. Set addresses her as his foolish wife and then goes after Isis.
• Isis turns into a bird and flees, and Set pursues her. Sadie starts seeing the scene as though she is the bird, and she's worried about Set closing in on her.
• The voice of Isis speaks to Sadie, telling her to escape, to avenge Osiris, and to crown Horus king.
• Sadie feels like her heart's about to burst, when she suddenly feels a hand on her shoulder.
• The images disappear, and Sadie sees Iskandar standing next to her. He says, in perfect English, that she'd been about to die.
• Sadie collapses and loses consciousness.
• Sadie wakes up at Iskandar's feet by the throne. He tells her she was lucky to survive.
• Sadie asks whether Iskandar's really that old, and he confirms that he is. He was the last magician to be trained before the House went underground, and many secrets and spells were lost in the process, including the spell used to extend his life.
• Apparently magicians already live longer-than-normal lives, but Iskandar is unique in that he's been alive for two millennia (2,000 years). Sadie asks if he's immortal, and Iskandar says no. He also has an old-sick-person coughing fit.
• Iskandar asks Sadie to tell him what she saw in the hall, and Sadie decides that he sounds like a kind person, so she tells him in detail about all the gods she saw. She leaves out the part about the good-looking boy, though, since she's embarrassed about crushing on a stranger.
• When Sadie finishes, Iskandar tells her that she saw a very old event: Set taking the throne of Egypt and hiding Osiris's body.
• Isis searched the entire world for the body, and Osiris was resurrected in the underworld, where he became lord of the dead. Horus eventually challenged and defeated Set, too.
• Iskandar says it's a very old story, one that the gods have repeated many times in their history.
• Sadie asks what he means by "repeated." Iskandar clarifies: the gods follow patterns, fighting the same fights, with only the settings and their hosts changing.
• Next Sadie asks about different versions of the story: in her vision, Isis and Osiris were married, and their son was Horus, but in Carter's version, they were all siblings, born to the sky goddess.
• Iskandar explains that the gods can't be on earth in their pure forms: they must have hosts, which can be people or powerful objects (like artifacts)—but they tend to prefer people. Humans can think creatively, whereas gods get stuck in their patterns.
• Mortal hosts wear out, though, so while Osiris and Isis were brother and sister the first time they walked the earth, they've also been incarnated in humans who were husband and wife. That time, Horus (who'd been a sibling in a previous life) was their son. Sadie says this is gross.
• Iskandar says that relationships work differently for the gods; they view human hosts like a change of clothes.
• It can be dangerous to host gods, though, since they can burn out mortals young. King Tut was an example of a pharaoh channeling a god who died young.
• Another reason it's dangerous to host gods is that they have their own agendas. Even those born to it could muck it up, leading the magicians to determine that when Egypt fell to Rome, practically no one had the strength to master a god's power anymore.
• Sadie makes a connection and asks if having the blood of the pharaohs is what makes you likely to be able to unite with a god's power.
• Iskandar says Sadie reminds him of her mother, who had trained there with him.
• Apparently Sadie's mother had excelled at divination and had turned up some things that made Iskandar rethink his beliefs. But he drifts off into memory land before clarifying this for Sadie.
• Finally, Iskandar tells Sadie that there's a hard path ahead for her and Carter, and she should do her best to guide her brother. Zia will help them, too.
• Iskandar tells Sadie that it's time for her to rest—and for him to rest, too. Sadie falls asleep instantly.