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Maybe revisiting an old love right now may be just the shot in the arm you need.  |
I suppose there are echoes of her in the adventure thriller The Smiting Texts' - the mythic tale-within-a-novel about Hathor-Sekhmet, the female Destroyer of Humankind, who is one moment the rampaging lioness of death and pestilence and the next, a goddess of sweetness and love, and about the young Hunter who is given the impossible task of hunting her down.
(This mythic contest also features in a stand-alone Kindle read 'Hunting Hathor'*.)
'She' also haunts The Egyptian Mythology Murders in the form of the revenant Isis.
What books electrified you in your youth?
Maybe now is the perfect time to revisit the heartland of your earliest loves.
*(Excerpt from Hunting Hathor)
They ate. She
ate lustily, like one fighting to regain her strength. He wondered if she
brought the same amiable appetite to all her pleasures. She drained her cup
twice and refilled it and filled it again. She drank that too and offered him
more, but he covered the mouth of his cup.
She looked disappointed.
“Does the
good bowman not unstring his bow at night to relax it?”
“I must stay
alert,” he said.
“Do you hunt
at night?”
“Sometimes.
But I must always take care I am not the hunted one.”
“What is it
that you hunt, beautiful man? Other than poor helpless girls in the reeds who
cannot hide their nakedness."
“I'm hunting
for the cat of destruction,” he said. “I am here to end her rampage.”
“You -
hunting a goddess?” She was astonished. “With a bow and arrow? You come to hunt
a goddess and you ended up bagging me. Don't be disappointed
though. Maybe you found her after all. Maybe I am the goddess. Who knows what
she looks like? Who has seen her and lived?” She gave a playful growl,
pretending to be Sekhmet Hathor.
She was tiddly, strong beer acting on an
empty stomach, he guessed.
“Don't joke about the cat of destruction.”
“Lighten your heart, Kha. It's time to be
mirthful. We are young and alive. Can’t I pretend to be cat instead of woman if
I want to?”
“You are more kitten than cat.”
“Do you suppose there is a kitten in
Sekhmet-Hathor?”
“No, she is a merciless bitch-cat.”
“Would you really kill Sekhmet-Hathor if you
found out she were just a kitten like me?” She poured herself more beer. Her
eyes were steady in spite of the drink.
“I would have to kill her, whatever form she
took.”
“Shall I dance for you Kha?”
“Don't be foolish. You are weak as a kitten
and must rest.”
“Don't think about destruction now. Besides
it is well known that the cat does not strike at night. She sleeps after her
daily orgy of killing.”
“How did you survive?” he asked her, trying
to deflect her from her wanton inclinations, brought on by the beer. “You had
the fever?”
“Fever? Yes, I expect that was it. The blood
boiled in my veins, I saw a haze of red before my eyes and people running and
screaming and a roar like the sun filled my ears, then darkness. I don’t know
how I came to the river. I was weakened and needed its coolness in my throat.
More drink?”
“No, and you must rest...”
