Moses' hair stood in attention....
The crystal crackled with the flow of those intensive blue waves (he couldn’t call them lightning bolts because they looked calm and contained, unlike lightning). They formed thousands of branches of divine white light... Moses' heart fluttered as he saw the image of a leafless bush within the vibrating intensity, burning bright with the light of God. The ark seemed to be vibrating so hard that it seemed to be floating above the air. And suddenly, Moses had a feeling that someone was there. Suddenly the absoluteness of this godly entity caused Moses to fall down to the ground prostrating before him.
Moses stuttered: "My Lord. Please do not do me any harm." Tears streamed down his eyes not because of fear but with the sheer awe of the presence, and the feeling was simply overwhelming.
"Stand up." A soft voice said.
A hand touched his shoulder and it lifted him up in the air. Moses stood there floating and saw a being in front of him. There was only a face that he could see, the face of an old man, and the rest of his body shone with a radiating fire.
Moses stuttered: "Are… Are you God?"
"I Am who I Am." The soft voice said, "It is of no consequence." The being blinked and Moses looked at him, noticing blue waves of light coming out of his back like two wings on a bird.
"What... What have you done to my uncle?" Moses said, pointing at the collapsed wall section with a trembling finger.
There was no answer.
Suddenly, Moses remembered the time several hours ago when Jethro said something about him feeling that the time was right. "Why have you brought me here?" Moses asked; feeling that suddenly, he understood the meanings of fate and destiny.
"You have been selected, son of Abraham, to deliver the children of Israel from the one who calls on others to worship him rather than God." The voice explained.
"You mean the Pharaoh Ramesis?" Moses asked.
There was no answer.
"And why would the Israelites trust me when I have in fact presented myself as an Egyptian onto everyone?"
The man spoke, "That fact will only serve for your own good. As for the sons of Israel, tell them that the God of Abraham has sent you. We have heard their prayers and We have come to deliver them from the House of Bondage through you."
Moses, though amazed beyond all belief, asked the old man, "How am I to deliver the children of Israel when the Pharaoh has an army and I am but one man."
"Fear not but cast your token onto his court and show the power of God that soars above the dark arts of the demons that he worships." The man said as he pointed to the Staff of Abraham.
"Why... Me?" Moses asked.
There was no answer.
Moses sighed, a deep sound that escaped from the pits of his soul. "And if it doesn't work?"
The voice remained stern yet caring to his plight, "Have no doubts, Moses. We will be with you. If Pharaoh's heart is hardened then We will deliver upon Egypt the wonders unlike those that another nation has seen, and that is how they will know, the power of God. Deliver them from Egypt and return here to Us."
Moses felt the presence leave.
As he stood there wondering what to do next, the vibration on the ark increased, the bright branches of light grew more and more frenzied and shot out in every direction.
Suddenly there was an explosion and Moses was flung to one side of the chamber, causing several heavy slabs to fall on him. As the dust settled, he pushed the slabs aside and examined himself. Only minor scratches, he exhaled with relief as he stood up, wiping the dust from himself. He looked at the exploded ark and sighed. For a moment he wondered whether this was all a dream, but he looked at the staff, lying nearby, full of dust, yet untouched, and realized that it was all real.
He picked up his staff and walked towards the fallen priests. He touched one of them and noticed the burn wounds on them. As Moses examined them closely he almost jumped in fright as he saw the burn wounds disappearing as if they never happened. He then looked at his staff and noticed that the letters were glowing brighter. The staff was healing them.
Two months later.
Only a few months ago did he admonish the fact that Akhenamen had instituted the worship of the God of the Sun, Aten, rather than "Amen-Ra" and the usual pantheon of gods. But today, Pharaoh himself claims that he and Aten are one and the same!
"Prostrate down to me and be my priests. Or suffer under the hands of my executioners." Pharaoh warned. The people prostrated on the marble floors of the palace. They shouted "Aten! Aten!" rather than the traditional "Amen!" chant. The plan had succeeded.
Ramesis smiled as he realized how magnificent the power of mass intimidation was.
"Pharaoh!" Moses shouted as he approached the throne.
Pharaoh frowned as the figure came closer. "Prince Minios! So the stories are true, you have returned to Egypt, have you? Tell me, do you come to swear allegiance to me and abide by my laws? Trust me; I will have all your past iniquities on Egypt forgiven and your life begun anew."
"You have sneakingly assassinated my half brother Akhenaten and caused even more suffering to the Hebrews. I have come to ask you to free the Hebrews and let me take them eastwards, back to the land of Canaan where God has ordained them to be." Moses said, approaching with his staff.
Pharaoh laughed. "GOD? This God that you have taught us about, this ONE GOD... You are looking at him."
Moses sighed.
Pharaoh shrugged, "Besides... I cannot let go of the slaves before completing the final touches on the gateway to the afterlife."
"The afterlife? You mean the one that was told to you by the priests of Midian?" Moses asked.
One man, wearing a gold-lined cloak and standing in the crowds, suddenly raised his head with the mention of the priests.
Pharaoh nodded, "Yes, and how did you come to know about their guild?"
Moses shook his head, "The last priestly messiah has died and has anointed me as the next rightful one before his death. And I can tell you that your efforts in seeing this Afterworld are in fact, in vain. There is no field of Mafkuzti. It is all a myth." The viziers and the priests of Ra standing around the throne started to murmur, obviously angry.
The cloaked man in the crowd approached. "Stranger. You claim to be the last Messiah of the priests of Horeb in Midian. The anointed one has a secret code of which to prove his identity. Show us yours if you truly are him."
Pharaoh looked on, smiling.
Moses thought for a moment. He put his hand in his pocket and held a tiny colorless crystal. He squeezed it hard and clasped it between his thumb and his palm. He took his fist out of his pocket and his hand shone with a bright light that reached the ends of the court. "You mean, the Urim, shard of the Messiah?"
The people attending didn't have a clue what was going on, but they looked on in amazement and entertainment just the same. The cloaked man nodded and bowed to Moses, "Messiah, as foretold, you have returned to free the Midianite priests from the Egyptian bondage. My name is Aaron, and let me be the first to repent and return to the magistrate of Horeb..."
Moses' eyes were raised, "Aaron? My own brother? I thought you were dead!"
Aaron stood up and stood next to his brother, whispering into his ear, "This is no time to exchange stories. I hope you have a plan."
Pharaoh slammed the court floor twice with his obscenely large staff. "What is this insolence? My own treasurer siding with a traitor and a false prophet?"
Moses and Aaron were silent.
"Very well, you bring your so-called Holy magic unto my court and so I shall show you of my own Holy sorcery, and we shall now see who the true God is." Pharaoh called for his two highest sorcerers into the court. As they walked in, they looked at Moses' staff.
Aaron turned to Moses, "They are warlocks, brother. Be careful of their evil spells."
Moses turned to Aaron slowly: "Warlocks?"
Moses shook his head, a rising authoritative tone creeping into his words, "God is with me, I will not be wronged."
The sorcerers threw ropes onto the floor in front of Moses. They raised their hands in the air, chanting in a strange demonic language and suddenly, the ropes turned into black shadowy snakes. Moses was startled; instinctively he wielded his rod and blasted the snakes with its beams of red light, consuming them into a pile of charcoaled ash.
The people in the court gasped. The sorcerers' eyes widened in horror. "What kind of Magic is that?" One of them asked the other. "Did you see that? The staff turned to a snake and devoured the snakes alive with its red tongue! All in a mere moment!" The other one shrugged.
"Wh... What kind of spell was that, Moses?" One of the sorcerers asked. "It is greater than any Sorcery that Anubis has taught us."
Moses shook his head, his features filled with complete confidence. "That is not a spell, but is the power of the one true God."
The sorcerers walked towards Moses. Moses clutched his staff in preparedness. They bowed. "We submit ourselves unto your God, Moses. Please vouch for us unto your God in repentance."
Moses ordered them to stand: "I do not need to vouch for you. You can do so yourself. God needs no links between himself and his servants."
Pharaoh stood up outraged both his features and voice betraying the same emotion. "WHAT! I AM THE GOD, FOOLS! I am visible and can be seen. Where is HIS God?!"
There was deafening silence.
"GUARDS!" Pharaoh shouted. "Take these insolent sorcerers and cut off their hands and legs, then CRUCIFY them!"
Moses immediately pointed the staff at the guards but the fifty or so guards around the court stood in attention and pointed their own pikes towards Moses and Aaron. Aaron grabbed his hand: "No, brother. That will be suicide." Moses bowed his head and lowered his hand.
The two sorcerers were taken away. Moses made a silent prayer for them, the first people to believe in his message.
"You are not getting the slaves, Moses. This project of mine is too important for me to neglect. I have spent far too much valuable time and resources to just scrap it."
Anubis grinned, watching the events quietly from his vintage point in the seventh circle of hell. "Indeed, if it wasn’t for that Devic guardian destroying the chamber, the project would have been completed by now." Eris touched his hand: "Why don’t you go? Rip this mortal’s body to shreds. The excitement of being able to see all the chaos that will happen from it will make me go crazy!" Anubis shook his head: "No. It will destroy hundreds of years’ worth of work that Satan has put on earth. I will just wait and see how it works out."
Moses sighed as he felt that there was no way to get Ramesis to submit to his request. Aaron grabbed his hand: "Let us go, brother. We shall come back."
"My people." Pharaoh Ramesis addressed the people of Egypt in his grand palace in Memphis, capital of Egypt. "I have brought you today here to tell you about the God Aten that the late Akhenaten from the prefecture of Amarna had united our Gods unto. What you need to know, people of Egypt... Is that HE and I are one and the same. I... Pharaoh Ramesis, I AM ATEN! The same Aten whom the Hebrews call Adonai. I am God." The people of Egypt gasped at this great and confusing blasphemy.