DISCLAIMERS:
The Mummy and The Mummy Returns © Stephen Sommers and Universal Studios
Catherine Ashlar, Andrew Delaney, Erica Ashlar, and Baron William Ashlar © Sleepwalking Dreamer
THE MYTH THAT INSPIRED THIS:
The lion goddess Sekhmet was sent by the gods to destroy mankind. She approached the slaughter with zest. The carnage was well underway when Ra had second thoughts. To slow down the destruction, he took seven thousand jars filled with red beer and poured it on the ground until it resembled a lake of blood. Sekhmet paused to take a sip. Soon, too drunk to threaten anyone, she turned into the cow goddess Hathor and humanity was saved. Sadly, death and disease came into the world at that time.
- taken from page 94 of The Friendly Guide to Mythology by Nancy Hathaway
NOTES:
The artifacts I have mentioned here are not real, though they have been based on actual finds. What I mention also about Mayan religious practices and sacrificial implements is more or less true as well. Still, the magical properties I have given these said artifacts are not grounded in truth, and belong firmly in the realm of the imagination.
As for the idea of the beginnings of Wing Chun, I took it from the Shaolin Gung Fu Institute at www.shaolin.com.
TEASER:
It has been a year since the incident at Ahm Shere and the defeat of the Scorpion King. Richard O'Connell, his wife Evelyn Carnahan-O'Connell, and their son Alex have been living quite peacefully, shuttling between Egypt and London, living the good life of archeologist-adventurers.
It is during this time that Evie receives news that her dear friend and fellow archeologist Catherine Ashlar is arriving from Mexico, to fulfill a long overdue promise that the two of them would somehow find time to meet again. Catherine, who has been in Mexico and China looking for ruins and antiquities, has come to Egypt to see the land that her best friend loves so much – and, of course, to go exploring herself. Accompanied by her friend and fellow archeologist Andrew Delaney, she, Andrew, the Carnahan-O'Connell family, and Ardeth Bay make their way into the desert in search of any ruins that remain to be explored.
They strike gold – in a manner of speaking – at Dendera, where they manage to uncover the entrance to a tomb that lies deep underneath the temple complex. However, the explorers are unaware that the priestess buried in the tomb was the keeper of a powerful and deadly secret, long forgotten even by the Med-jai.
Soon, Catherine finds herself in the middle of a storm of powerful and horrible consequences, a storm that threatens to throw light on the Ashlar family's darkest secret.
It has been said that humanity is the root of all the evil in this world. But sometimes, humans are not the source of wickedness. Sometimes, even the gods can make mistakes.
Long ago, Ra sent down Sekhmet, the dread lioness goddess, to destroy humankind, for they had sinned against him and the other gods, and thus he sought vengeance for the slight. Now would humanity know that to treat the gods with disrespect is folly, for they are mighty in their power and can do more harm than any could ever imagine.
And it was so. Sekhmet descended to the world of humans, accompanied by pestilence, disease, death, and a rain of fire and blood. Dark storm clouds followed in her wake, and every evil thing that the earth ever produced came forth onto the world. Dragons that had slumbered in the desert sands roused themselves from their sleep, and ranged beside Sekhmet their mistress as she wandered the earth, slaughtering and killing tens of thousands. Wherever she stepped the earth welled with blood, and every time she swung her sword she killed a hundred able-bodied warriors.
Her rage was at its height, and as the gods watched on, they grew fearful. They feared that if they did not do something, Sekhmet would eventually turn upon them. The gods gathered in council, and all attempted to think of a plan that would stop Sekhmet. Bastet, in whose eyes rise the sun and moon, stepped forth, volunteering to encounter Sekhmet and stay her rampage. But Ra forbid her from doing so, for she was his most favored daughter, and he would not have her do battle against Sekhmet.
And then Isis, wife of Osiris, mother of Horus, and the most beloved goddess of all, came up with a plan. When she put it forth to the gods in council they did not believe that such a simple plan would work, risky in its simplicity. But Ra saw the wisdom in it, in spite of the risks, and so put it into action.
So it was that Ra took several vats of beer, tinted them with red ochre, and poured them all out onto the plains, where it pooled into a great lake. In the hot glow of the fires that rose in the wake of Sekhmet's rampage, it looked like a pool of blood.
Isis' plan worked. Upon seeing what she assumed was a lake of blood, Sekhmet knelt down beside the lake, and began to drink, and drink, and drink some more. In no time, she was intoxicated, and all of her bloodlust left her. As her rage faded away from her, she changed her form, and became she who is now known as Hathor.
Glad to have narrowly escaped an apocalypse, the gods once more met in council to decide what to do with Hathor. It did not take long for them to agree on what should be done. They kept Hathor always in a state between inebriation and sobriety by constantly giving her beer, and they distracted her with music and dance. She especially delighted in the rattle of the sistrum, and the gods were all too willing to give her the music of the instrument.
It was in this manner that the worship of Hathor was established. The gods urged the humans to build a temple in her honor - the temple that is now located at Dendera. And while most of the people of Egypt believed that Hathor was a benevolent goddess, her priestesses knew otherwise. They knew of Hathor's other side, and they aided the gods by offering beer and good food, as well as dancing and music. Most of the common people believed that this was because Hathor represented these pleasures, but nothing could have been farther from the truth.
Still, the priestesses were glad to keep it that way, glad that the other people of Egypt were ignorant of the truth behind Hathor's identity. For they also had in their keeping an artifact that, if it fell into the hands of the wrong people, would awaken the fell war goddess in Hathor, and this time, there would be very little the gods could do to stop her.
Times have changed and fortunes have turned. The priestesses of Hathor no longer live, and they have taken Hathor's secret with them. The last High Priestess' tomb was sealed, and with her was the artifact that could have brought Sekhmet back into the world.
But nothing ever remains secret for long, especially if it is entrusted to humans. And so, in this new age of exploration and discovery of Egypt's past, so the old secrets must come to the light once more. Two have already been opened and quelled - Imhotep and the Scorpion King have been defeated.
Yet the secret of Hathor still slumbers, waiting for a time when she will shake off her stupor and rise once more, not as the laughter-loving goddess of Pleasure and Delight, but as the fell goddess of Destruction.