Chapter 36: On Damnatio Memoriae and Feline Energy
"All three of them have woken up!" Shehrazad cried, tears of emotion welling in the corners of her eyes. "My children are coming home!"
A shiver like a sudden breeze swept through the courtyard and through everyone gathered by the Mirror of Time. Samir was the first to sit up. Rubbing his left eye with his hand, he looked around in wonder.
"Jaddati! Have we held the meeting in the courtyard this time?" He extended a hand to his brother, whilst simultaneously feeling duty-bound to check on Remi’s condition, at least with a glance. "Are we all alright?"
Anemo, Dr Hazem El-Amin, Shehrazad, and all the cats seemed to be recovering from an uncomfortable numbness. Shehrazad went to each of them, weeping silently, untying the twine soaked in cedar resin.
Demir simply threw himself into his grandmother’s arms.
"Don't cry anymore, Jaddati! I'm back! I will never leave you again! I saw everything, Jaddati... everything. Mother made a promise to the goddess Bastet... for our salvation! Now you, my dear grandmother, can explain to us as an epigraphist how it was possible for us and our mother to be erased from the written sources of the time."
Shehrazad pressed Demir to her chest, burying her face in his hair, whilst her shoulders shook with a liberating sob. Anemo approached Remi’s small body, helping her to sit more comfortably on the carpet, while the other seven cats began to shake themselves, slowly, as if wishing to rid themselves of all the negative energy they had accumulated.
The woman wiped her tears with the back of her sleeve, looking at her grandsons with a pride mingled with deep sadness. She sat on the edge of the carpet, taking the boys’ hands between her own.
"Damnatio memoriae," she whispered in the grave voice of a scholar who has pieced together a forbidden truth. "Erasure from history, my dears, is a weapon more terrible than Ay’s needle. In Ancient Egypt, if your name was scraped off the monuments, your soul lost its immortality. After Akhenaten’s death, General Horemheb and the high priests of Amun wanted to raze from the face of the earth everything that recalled the Amarna 'heresy'."
Shehrazad looked toward the Mirror of Time, whose water had now calmed, becoming clear once more.
"Ay orchestrated everything from the shadows before becoming Pharaoh himself. As an epigraphist, I have translated stone stelae where the names of Queen Meritmut and yours, Qaaton and Peryaton, were chiseled out with blind fury. The royal cartouches were hollowed into the rock until nothing but dust remained. Officially, for modern history textbooks, you never existed. Ay made sure that the official king lists went directly from Amenhotep III to Tutankhamun, skipping Akhenaten and anyone associated with him."
"But we survived..." Samir whispered, looking at the collar. "The mirror saved us."
"Yes, because your mother’s love and Queen Tiye’s magic were swifter than the chisels of Ay’s scribes," Dr Hazem intervened, analyzing the equation with a glance. "They erased the stone, but they could not erase the Ether."
From the corner of the carpet, a long, faint mew cut through the silence of the courtyard. Remi was trying to stand on her four paws, but her feline body had suddenly become too heavy. Her blue gaze betrayed a profound disappointment. The spirit of the woman that the children had seen free in the Ether was once again locked away beneath the fine, white Angora fur. Anemo was by her side, but he could not stand up for her.
"Look at Remi..." Samir whispered, kneeling beside her. "On this side of the wall, she is still in a cat’s body."
Anemo placed his palm on her white fur to activate the collar and, implicitly, the communication with his lifelong friend.
"You are still burning hot, Remi! What is wrong with you? Doctor, what is the matter with her? Why isn't she recovering like the boys?"
The doctor sighed, somewhat admitting his helplessness.
"It has been a lot, a very great deal for her. We all know—and here Shehrazad can confirm—the role of an El-Beyda is to purify energy, to act as a shield for loved ones. You saw for yourselves what kind of energies were there... The boys are recovering because of her, but she still needs rest; she needs to replenish her core energy as El-Beyda, the reincarnation of the devoted priestess of Bastet. Your conclusion from the Ether is entirely real, but for Remi, the problem is even more pressing. She must catch the next portal in Ireland."
"The winter solstice must find her in the Cat’s Cave in Roscommon, Oweynagat. Modern jamming will be practically deactivated there for... For how long, Shehrazad?"
"Twenty-four hours," the woman replied, now feeling guilty about the state Remi was in. "But of those twenty-four hours, the final ten minutes are completely free of jamming."
Remi fixed her gaze upon the Mirror of Time, and in her mind echoed the sound of the dark cave, the smell of damp moss and ancient rock from the Emerald Isle, as if she had visited that place before in the flesh, and not just by looking at the images Professor Simoon had shown on the internet.
From the Mirror of Time, a distinct sound began to flow, like water droplets falling onto the surface of a lake or a puddle, and the air filled with the scent of fresh earth and grass.
The seven cats drew closer to Remi-Bise, and Maat lowered herself onto her front paws, bowing her head before her.
"We are with you, El-Beyda! Now and in all lifetimes, we submit to you and to the Great Bastet."
"What day is it today? What... what date?" The White One asked with the last of her strength, after which she collapsed again, utterly exhausted.
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