In the deep antiquity of the world, when the gods walked among men and the sun was yet young, the great god Ra ruled as the first king of Egypt. His reign was a time of abundance, but as the eons passed, even the eternal sun felt the weight of time. His bones turned to silver, his flesh took on the hue of gold, and his hair became like the precious lapis lazuli. Seeing his physical decline, the humans who lived in the shadow of his grace began to whisper in the dark places of the desert. They believed that the Great Father had grown weak and that his grip on the scepter of power was slipping. They plotted to overthrow the divine order and claim the world for their own selfish desires, forgetting the light that had sustained them since the beginning of time. These whispers did not escape the ears of the All-Seeing. Ra, though physically aged, possessed a mind that spanned the reaches of the cosmos. He heard the seditious talk and felt the cold winds of rebellion blowing from the mountains. Deeply saddened by the betrayal of his creation, Ra summoned a secret council of the primordial deities. He called upon Nun, the ancient father of the waters from which all life emerged; Shu, the god of the air; Tefnut, the goddess of moisture; and the Earth and Sky, Geb and Nut. He gathered them in his hidden palace where the mortals could not spy upon their deliberations.
Ra spoke to Nun, asking for guidance on how to deal with the children of his own eye who now conspired against him. Nun advised Ra to stay upon his throne but to send forth his Eye—the powerful, feminine aspect of his solar energy—to strike down those who had dared to speak ill of the divine. This Eye was Hathor, the Lady of Turquoise, usually known for her beauty, music, and the joy she brought to the hearts of the living. But the Eye of Ra was a multifaceted force, capable of both warmth and searing heat. At her father’s command, Hathor underwent a terrifying metamorphosis. The gentle, cow-eyed goddess of love was consumed by a righteous fire. Her skin grew a coat of golden fur, her fingernails elongated into curved talons of bronze, and her face shifted into the snarling visage of a lioness. She became Sekhmet, 'The Powerful One,' a being of pure martial fury whose breath was the hot wind of the desert and whose gaze could turn the hills to ash. She descended upon the rebels in the desert, and the slaughter was instantaneous and absolute. The sands, once white and gold, were stained a deep, dark crimson as she hunted the conspirators through the wadis and the canyons.
Sekhmet did not stop when the immediate threat was neutralized. The taste of the hunt and the scent of iron in the air awakened an insatiable bloodlust within her. She moved from the deserts into the fertile Nile Valley, no longer distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent. For Sekhmet, the act of destruction had become an end in itself. She was the fire that purifies but also the fire that consumes everything in its path. Night after night, she waded through the blood of the people, her lioness roar echoing from the cliffs of Memphis to the Delta. Ra watched from his solar barque and felt a sudden, piercing regret. He had desired to punish the wicked, but he did not wish for the complete extinction of humanity. He realized that if Sekhmet were allowed to continue her rampage, there would be no one left to till the soil, no one to offer sacrifices to the gods, and the balance of Ma'at—the cosmic order—would be shattered forever. However, even Ra could not simply command Sekhmet to stop; she was the manifestation of his own unbridled rage, and once unleashed, that fury had to run its course or be diverted by cunning.