In the dawn of time, when the world was young but the gods were already ancient, Ra reigned supreme from his throne in Heliopolis. As the great sun god, he was the source of all light, life, and heat. Every morning, he rose from the east in his solar barque, the Mandjet, to traverse the sky and illuminate the Two Lands of Egypt. By evening, he entered the Mesektet, the evening boat, to battle the forces of chaos in the underworld of Duat before being reborn at dawn. For eons, this cycle remained unbroken, and Ra was the undisputed master of the universe. However, as the ages rolled by, even the father of the gods began to show signs of decline. His limbs grew heavy, his golden skin began to lose its luster, and his speech became halting. He was the Lord of the Ennead, yet he had become an old man who occasionally trembled and whose saliva would sometimes trickle from his lips to the ground.
Observing this decline was Isis, a goddess of immense wisdom and ambition. Isis was not merely a deity of protection; she was the cleverest of all women, possessing a mind more piercing than a million men and more cunning than a million gods. She knew everything there was to know about the heavens and the earth, save for one thing: the secret name of Ra. In ancient Egyptian belief, a name was not simply a label; it was the essence of a being's power. To know the true, hidden name of a god was to have absolute authority over them. Ra had many names—Khepri in the morning, Ra at noon, and Atum in the evening—but these were his public titles. His secret name, the source of his divine 'heka' or magic, was hidden deep within his breast, known to him alone. Isis realized that if she could obtain this name, she would become the mistress of the gods, and her son, Horus, would be destined for an inheritance greater than any other.
Isis watched Ra carefully as he walked through the fields of Egypt one afternoon, as was his custom. She followed his path until she saw him falter, and a drop of his divine spittle fell upon the dusty soil. This was the opportunity she had been waiting for. With her knowledge of the black arts, she took the saliva and kneaded it with the earth, shaping it into the form of a serpent. This was no ordinary snake; it was a creature born of the god's own substance but animated by Isis's specific enchantments. Because it was made from his own essence, the snake was invisible to Ra's divine senses—he had not created it, yet he could not detect it as a foreign threat. Isis placed the serpent in the tall grass beside the path where Ra walked every day, and then she withdrew to wait.
As the sun reached its zenith, Ra passed the spot where the snake lay coiled. Without warning, the magical serpent struck, sinking its fangs into the god's ankle. The bite was shallow, but the venom was potent beyond measure. Because the poison was derived from his own divinity but turned against him by Isis's magic, Ra had no natural immunity to it. The effect was immediate and catastrophic. A fire seemed to ignite within his veins, a burning heat that was paradoxically accompanied by a bone-chilling cold. Ra, the master of the sun's fire, found himself consumed by a flame he could not quench. He let out a cry that reached the ends of the earth, a sound so terrible that the foundations of the world shook. The gods of his retinue rushed to his side, asking, 'What is it? What has happened?' but Ra could not answer at first. His jaw was locked in agony, and his breath came in ragged gasps.