Chapter 27 — The Forgotten Stone

The dry burning sands of the desert were starting to cool down as the purple evening was falling slowly from the sky. The tamed sun was now setting behind the dunes. 

This was millennia ago. It was the day when Bastet triumphed against her enemy, the evil pharaoh Gebseth.

Her enemy had claimed to be the one true god. He wanted to force his people to worship him as such. He tried to suppress the sacred tradition that they had received from their forefathers. For this, all the past had to be erased. How else could a new world be created? A better world, of course, for everyone. Because what could be better for the slaves than to be guided by such a wise and benevolent leader as he was? 

But his plans did not prevail. The cat goddess had come to shatter them. Now, the Pharaoh had run away, and she was enjoying her victory.

That evening, her warriors and her supporters were all gathered around the temple of Nisraldûm. The old shrine, present since time immemorial, with its tormented, almost organic, architecture, so different from Gebseth's planned pyramid, was still standing.

In front of her, the divine dark cat with golden eyes had her two most loyal followers. At her right stood Hermenoptes, the young victorious leader of her army. At her left, Persenet, Hermenoptes' younger sister who was also the high priestess of Bastet.

"My Lady…" spoke Hermenoptes with a hint of sadness in his voice "Why do you have to leave us already?" 

Bastet chuckled softly.

"I have accomplished what I came to accomplish. Thanks to you. Now I can leave serenely, knowing that the throne is yours. I know you'll be a fantastic ruler."

"But, my Lady, you have trained me to be a soldier. I am the general of your armies. I am no king. I don't want the throne. You are the one who deserves to reign."

"They also need me in another galaxy. You will rule in my name. Just like I myself rule in the name of someone higher than me. You are the most suitable to rule because you don't crave power."

Hermenoptes bowed with humility.

"And to you, my dear priestess, I leave the task of protecting my temple. Watch its old sacred stones, and keep the faith in me alive."

Persenet also bowed. 

Then, the goddess walked up to the temple. She approached one of the precious blue gemstones that were inlaid in the walls. It was almost nighttime. The sky had turned dark.

"It is time." she said.

And with her paw, she softly touched the gemstone.

All of a sudden, it started to radiate a more intense blue light than usually. It went vibrating with incandescent indigo flashes. The gemstone was seemingly growing bigger, as it was getting filled with power, and all the other gemstones of the temple started also to pulsate in the same rhythm.

Then, the goddess took off her paw from the stone, and suddenly a great beam of blue light departed from the roof of the temple and formed, during several seconds, a huge bright column ascending to the stars.

After that, the column faded away in the night. All the stones of the shrine went extinct, and recovered their usual brightness.

But something, up in the sky, somewhere between the constellations of the Great Bull and the Crocodile, started to shimmer with golden sparkles.

At the beginning it looked like nothing more than a few small stars of surprising yellow color. But then, whatever was up there, seemed to come down towards the Earth. It grew more and more visible and materialized at first as five golden spots. Then, the five spots merged together to form a bigger ovoidal and shiny object.

Everyone was looking with astonishment at what was going on overhead.

The egg-shaped vessel was coming down with high velocity and landed finally in the near dunes, making a small crater in the sand.

For everyone, the object fallen from the sky was now looking like a giant egg of gold planted in the sand, softly glowing in the darkness. But from it was emanating some kind of powerful wind that was blowing the sand away and whipping the faces of the attendants. It was something akin to a solar wind, a blast of warm golden air, full with energy.

Then, it seemed that five tiny silhouettes appeared one by one around the egg. They remained but indistinguishable shadows because they were backlit by the glow of the vessel, and because the strong wind was preventing everyone from seeing them clearly. But one could make out that they had pointed triangular ears and wavy tails.

"Farewell, my children." said Bastet to the new king and the high priestess. Then she ran away gracefully.

When she arrived at the place where her space companions were waiting for her, she was no more than a shadow with pointed ears. After that, all the small feline shadows disappeared inside the egg, as if absorbed by it.

Soon, the solar wind became even more intense. The vessel lifted a few feet above the ground, stood levitating there for a short moment, spinning slowly. Then it accelerated immensely and disappeared in the sky with a great flash of blinding light.

With the reign of Hermenoptes, a long period of peace and prosperity began. Because he had reestablished freedom, the people respected and admired him and his heirs.

But nine generations later, an unprecedented earthquake destroyed the temple of Nisraldûm. A great fault opened in the earth, swallowing the old temple and burying it in rough sands. 

Brutal invaders coming from far away defeated the dynasty founded by Hermenoptes and conquered the kingdom. This was the beginning of an era of turmoil and instability.

Some thieves came and stole the blue precious stones from the buried ruins of the shrine. But Henutmire, the young priestess, descendant of Persenet, managed to save one big gemstone.

Meditating on the ruins of the temple, the melancholic Henutmire knew perfectly well the legend of Bastet. She was asking herself why the gods even bother to defeat the tyrants and reestablish order, if all of that shall still get destroyed in the end, if chaos always threatens the existence and everything has to be started all over again to reconquer peace.

Still, she kept the blue gemstone that was as big as her clenched fist. She ordered that a brass statuette of the goddess be cast and that the gemstone be hidden inside of it. 

Years later, when she died, she had the statue buried with her in her tomb.

The time kept blowing like a continuous wind, disturbing the indolent sand, moving it from a dune to another. Many centuries went by.

In the ninetieth century of our era, a young British explorer and archeologist named Jonathan Breedlove discovered a forgotten mastaba in the high lands of Egypt. It was a sacred tomb hidden under the sand.

"Tis no doubt it was a person of high rank." said Jonathan to his assistants while inspecting the funerary place.

"Probably a priestess. Maybe a priestess of Bastet, I would say…"

When they discovered the fine statue of the cat made of dark metal, Jonathan exclaimed joyfully:

"Definitely a priestess of Bastet!"

 The ancient piece of art was of course brought to England, and later exposed at the British Museum.