Chapter Text
Egypt, 1914
Shadows seemed unable to touch the lone ancient structure standing sentinel among the shifting dunes of sand, its natural weathered stone camouflage amongst the shining brilliance of the desert sun allowing it to remain hidden for millennia. Under the careful stewardship of the unbroken line of priests chosen by the Mondoshawan themselves, it had gone undiscovered for generations until a wandering shepherd stumbled upon it, notified the nearest archaeologist, and unleashed chaos upon the site.
Elder priest Savoia let out a rare curse as he passed the makeshift tents and excavation equipment that now littered the surroundings. Children greeted him with excited tugs on his robes and he absently pressed his hands to their foreheads as he passed further into the recesses of the temple, toward the sound of muttering voices that marked his target. Rounding one last corner he stopped and peered around the stone wall.
Dismay flooded through him as he took in the sight beyond the wall. A white-haired man in a lavender suit, apparently the professor on the archaeological team, stood on a crate tapping a brush against a portion of the inscription on the far wall, muttering to himself. A second, younger man reclined on the dusty floor amongst bags of equipment, sketching something in his notebook, while a young boy standing near the entryway leaned sleepily against a mirror nearly as tall as he was, reflecting light onto the wall guided there by other such children stationed along the halls of the temple.
Savoia closed his eyes and sent out a prayer that his apprentice would get to the city in time to prevent more outsiders from descending upon the area. This was too much already.
A gruff voice rang out from the room, and Savoia peered back around the corner to see it had grown dark. “Aziz, light!”
The young boy jerked awake and adjusted the mirror, shining light onto the wall once more. The man with the sketchbook turned to a dog-eared page, muttering “Aziz, light…” to himself as he added another line to a page full of crossed tally marks.
Ignoring both of his companions, the professor resumed his translation. “When the three planets are in eclipse…” His brush moved along the symbols carved into the stone. “The black hole is open… Evil comes… sowing terror and chaos.” The brush paused on a particular symbol and he raised his voice slightly, getting the attention of the younger man. “See? The snake, Billy, make sure you get the snake. The ultimate evil.”
“And when is this snake supposed to come?” Billy asked, dutifully sketching the symbol.
The professor traced along some more hieroglyphics, brow furrowed. “It makes itself known… every five centuries, out among the stars. But on Earth…” His fingers tapped along the wall, counting to himself. “Every five thousand years.”
Billy looked up, paused in his sketching. “So, I've got some time.”
Savoia’s irritation only grew at the younger man’s irreverence. A child holding a water skin approached, a mildly terrified expression on his face, and Savoia did his best to put on an avuncular smile. “I’ll take it to them, my son,” he said, holding out his hand. The boy handed him the water and Savoia smiled down at him, placing his other hand on the boy’s forehead for a moment before the child took his opportunity and ran away.
He flattened his back against the wall, hiding himself from view as he pulled a small vial out of his robes. The voice of the professor continued to echo through the stone chamber as Savoia contemplated the vial for a long moment, before taking a deep breath and pouring its contents into the water skin. “Forgive me, Divine,” he murmured, “they already know too much.”
In the chamber, the professor was still translating the symbols. “The four elements of life, aligned against the great Evil. Water, fire, earth, air,” he tapped his brush against each of the four symbols in turn, each comprised solely of a series of lines, then circled around the symbol in the center, shaped vaguely like a human. “Around a fifth… A Fifth Element.”
There was a clatter behind him as the mirror fell to the ground and the wall was once more hidden in shadow. The professor let his head fall forward in exasperation as he growled again, “Aziz, light!”
Already startled awake by the noise of the mirror, Aziz quickly repositioned the mirror as Billy made another tick on his paper, and the professor moved onto the next section on the wall, freshly reilluminated by reflected sunlight. “Imbued with the spirit of the Divine, both human and not… All the strength… All the knowledge of the universe… To protect life from death.”
“Amen,” Savoia interrupted, stepping into view while pouring water into a cup he had retrieved from one of the piles of equipment littering the room. The professor’s surprise quickly turned into delight when he saw Savoia, someone new to share his academic enthusiasm with.
“Father, it’s the most extraordinary thing, the greatest find in history. Can you imagine the implications?”
“All too well,” Savoia said, and held the cup of water out to him. “You look parched.”
The professor took the cup and absently raised it to his lips, eyeing the inscription before him. “I mean, look!” Water sloshed over the side of the cup as he gestured in excitement. “It is a weapon, a weapon against evil. The four elements, focusing the Divine essence within the fifth… A Divine light, to stop evil in its tracks.” He paused, blinking. “I’m going to be famous.”
“Then… let us toast to your fame,” Savoia suggested, pouring another cup of water for Billy. The professor’s words only made him more sure of what he had to do; men seeking fame and fortune could only lead to ruin for the entire population of Earth if the knowledge contained in the temple spread beyond its walls.
The professor saluted the priest with his cup, swirled it under his nose, then paused. “We can’t celebrate with water,” he pronounced, jerking his wrist to let the water splash to the ground. “Billy, the wine in my bag!”
Savoia looked on in dismay as Billy cast his water aside as well and left the room. The professor continued to drone on about his impending fame but Savoia paid him no attention, searching for a way to eliminate the threat he posed without alerting the others outside the temple. Distant shouts echoed down the corridors, breaking through his awareness, and he heard a rumble in the air that cut deep into his bones - he had never heard the sound of a Mondoshawan ship before, and never was supposed to, but there was only one explanation for the shouting, and that noise, and the shadow that fell upon the temple and blocked the sun.
The chamber fell dark, causing the professor to yell once more. “Aziz, light!”” The boy stared at his mirror in confusion, not having moved a muscle - but even if the children holding up the rest of the series of mirrors casting light into the heart of the temple hadn’t all fled in terror, the ship’s presence meant there was no light for him to reflect. A deep booming sound echoed across the desert and unnaturally pure bright white light flooded the room. “Much better, thank you, Aziz.”
Savoia abandoned the chamber and hurried to the entrance of the temple, passing Billy on the way, collapsed against a wall in shock. A port appeared in the side of the gleaming brass-colored ship, standing straight up into the sky as high as he could see past its outwardly curved shape. He watched in reverence at seeing the Mondoshawan with his own eyes as six of them disembarked from the ship. Round, mechanized bodies the same color as their ship, moving with no evident haste, elongated snouts tipped in a glowing red grate, ornate spikes rising from their shoulders - it was incomprehensible, and, sparing a glance at Billy as they passed by, his hand moving of its own accord across his sketchbook, it was little wonder why the ancient priests had been vague about their appearance. Potential apprentices would never have believed them.
“My Lord,” Savoia said when he finally managed to gather himself, following the group of Mondoshawan down the corridor. “I know he was about to discover everything, but I had it under control.”
“Priest,” the lead Mondoshawan said, its stilted mechanized voice echoing unnaturally amongst the stone and dust, “you and those before you have served us well. But war is coming. The stones are not safe on Earth anymore.”
The group reached the chamber with the professor, who noticed nothing, the celebration and promise of wine long forgotten in favor of studying the wall. “This… this is the most unbelievable thing I have ever seen.” A noise behind him finally caught his attention and he turned around, coming face to face with one of the Mondoshawan. He stood silent for a long moment, unable to comprehend what he was seeing and trying to blink it into something resembling reality. “Are… are you German?”
The Mondoshawan wordlessly shook its head as the lead one moved to a different section of the wall, its head moving back and forth, searching for something hidden there. Finally it pointed its finger at a particular series of lines, and an intricate gold key emerged from its mechanized glove. Stone grated against stone as the wall slid open, revealing a brightly lit chamber beyond a short dark hallway.
“This…” the professor said, pointing his brush at the empty space left by the wall he had been deciphering, “this is really interesting.”
The Mondoshawan closest to the professor stepped forward, its eyes glowing yellow, and after a short moment the professor collapsed, unconscious. The group moved forward into the chamber as one, Savoia following with great awe and trepidation. At a loss for words, he could only stand and take in the nearly overwhelming reality of the chamber before him. Four round stone pillars surrounded a central altar, upon which stood an ornate sarcophagus with its head tilted up toward the sky. “The Fifth Element,” he breathed. It was exactly as shown in the texts, but he had never believed he would see it with his own eyes.
“Gather the stones,” another of the Mondoshawan said. Four of them broke off and each made their way to one of the pillars, removing dust-covered triangular stones from atop each and placing them into a simple lined case. After the group moved toward the sarcophagus and activated a gravity field to float it out of the chamber and return to the ship, Savoia snapped out of his reverie at the realization of what had just happened.
“My Lord,” he said, approaching the lead Mondoshawan who had remained behind with him in the chamber. “If you take the weapon, we will be defenseless when Evil returns.”
“In three hundred years, when Evil returns, so shall we.”
A commotion outside of the chamber gained their attention. Billy hovered over the professor, checking his pulse, then stumbled to his feet and raised a pistol at the alien. It trembled in his hand, brain and body both in shock.
Savoia stepped in front of the Mondoshawan, trying to shield it with his much smaller frame. “Billy, no!”
“They killed the professor!”
“They are our friends,” he gently corrected, raising a placating hand out toward him as he took a step forward.
Billy clamped his other hand around the grip of the pistol, steadying his aim. “You’re… you’re with them? Father, they’re monsters!”
There was a barrage of confused and desperate shouting, Savoia advancing and Billy backing away, then - a clatter and a stumble and an accidental gunshot, stone grinding with the triggering of the mechanism for the ritual chamber door. Savoia whirled around to see the Mondoshawan still in the hallway separating the chamber from the rest of the temple as the walls on either side of it slowly slid closed. “My Lord, hurry!”
“Here is your mission now,” the Mondoshawan said, moving at the same languid pace as always. “Pass the knowledge to the next priest as it was passed on to you. Maintain the temple. Secure its safety.”
“I will do as you command, but you must hurry! You’re running out of time!”
“Time is not important.” The gap between the doors had closed to mere inches, and as the Mondoshawan rapidly became stuck between the narrowing walls beyond the doors, it raised its hand, extending the forefinger. “Only life is important.”
Savoia turned away, unable to look as the doors closed on the Mondoshawan’s hand, then the rest of its body, with a sickening crunch. After a moment he opened his eyes and saw the key to the ritual chamber sticking out from between the walls. He grabbed it and ran to the temple entrance as he heard the alien ship close its port and prepare to launch.
The ship was already in the air when he made it back outside, and he shielded his eyes against the sun to watch it shrink into the distance, holding the key up to the sky as he made his vow.
“I will pass the knowledge until your return! You can count on me!”
With a flash of light in the sky, the ship was gone.