Quest of the Goddess
Searching for gods isn't easy, especially when they don't want to be found.
A quiet life is what Hathor deserves now that less people remember her name. But when another goddess enlists her to the fight against spreading chaos, she finds herself out in the world for the first time in thousands of years.
Finding the other gods turns out to be the least of her worries. Somehow, she has to convince them to actually help her, and that's not as easy as she'd hoped.
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Hathor's Quest is the first book in the Consorts of the Goddess Trilogy and is based on Ancient Egyptian Mythology.
History has a weird way of remembering things. At some point, I’d been linked as the consort of five different gods. I’d even been worshipped at their temples despite the fact there was nothing to prove any link between any of us. What made me laugh even more was that one of my supposed consorts was sometimes referred to as my son. He wasn’t, but that hardly seemed like the point. I knew our deity system was a bit messed up, but that was something else entirely.
I sighed and turned back to the loom in front of me. I wasn’t sure why I’d bothered taking up such a boring pastime. Surely after a few thousand years, I should know myself better than to even try. It wasn’t like I needed to do this either. No one needed me for anything nowadays. Though that could be because I’d been the goddess of so many things that no one knew what to pray to me for anymore.
At least they remembered my name. I knew more than one god whose powers had been weakened to the point of nonexistence because of how few people believed in them anymore. All they did now was roam the halls of the temple, unable to do anything other than exist.
At least I felt better about myself now?
“Your Eminence?” a priestess asked. I couldn’t remember her name despite the fact she’d served me for several years.
“Yes?”
“The goddess Ma’at is here to see you.”
I closed my eyes and groaned inwardly. Ma’at was….something. The goddess of justice could never just leave things alone. As far as I could tell, she was currently on a mission to destroy Seth. Something no one had managed in thousands of years. I had to admit, he was getting annoying at the moment. And gaining power. Something about the chaos in the world made him stronger.
“Send her in.” There was no avoiding her. If I sent her away, she’d only come back tomorrow. And the next day. And the one after that. There was honestly no reasoning with her. I’d tried a few centuries back. She should have been the goddess of stubbornness instead of justice.
The priestess dipped her head and shuffled away.
I got to my feet and pushed the loom to the side. I’d have someone take it away later, but until then, I was stuck with it.
“Hathor,” Ma’at greeted without a hint of warmth. We’d never been friends, but I also wouldn’t describe us as enemies. More, indifferent partners in the same game.
“Ma’at,” I returned. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’ve come to ask you to join our cause.”
Ah. I was wondering when this was going to happen. I’d heard whisperings about it.
“No, thank you.” I’d never been involved in any spats between the gods before, and I didn’t plan to be now.
“But Seth is gaining power by the day, if we don’t do something about it now…”
“Then the same thing as always will happen. Osiris will go talk to him, and then he’ll calm down and go back to plotting for the next two thousand years.” These things always went in cycles. They were always the same and never ended any differently. Seth wasn’t the kind of god who could be stopped. But he also wasn’t the kind who achieved his goals, no matter how hard he tried.
“That’s not going to work this time. His plans are already advancing a lot faster than they should.”
“And what’s he doing, getting a lot of minor deities on side and maybe a couple of gullible mortals?” That was pretty standard. As much as everyone liked to pretend, he was the kind of person who never varied the plan. One of the many reasons I didn’t get involved. It was boring.
“He has Mafdet,” she responded.
Ah. That was a little bit more problematic, though slightly confusing how it had happened. The god of justice was like Ma’at in most ways. To have converted to Seth’s side…I had to wonder what he’d been promised.
“And what would you actually want me to do? Dance to victory?”
She gave me a weak smile. “You and I both know your powers are more varied than that, Hathor.”
Hmm. That was true. Each time I was given a new aspect, I gained some kind of powers. So long as someone believed I was the goddess of that thing, I had it. One of the many strange ways our powers worked.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“We need Amun,” she whispered. “Without him, a lot of the others won’t openly support us, even if they claim they will.”
Ah. Now we were getting somewhere. “And what makes you think I have the power to persuade Amun on side?”
“You’re linked to him, there must be a reason for that.”
“You flirt with one god at a ceremony six thousand years ago and you just can’t shake it,” I muttered. “I don’t know him well at all,” I told her louder.
“What about Horus?”
“Him I know.” But he didn’t like the hundreds of ways he was linked to me any more than I did.
“Can you persuade him?”
“What makes you think I’m even on your side?” I asked. It seemed rude of her to just assume I was going to help her.
“That depends, do you like your life the way it is?”
That was a trick question if I’d ever heard one. Would she stop if I answered yes, or if I answered no? It was hard to tell. On the one hand, I was bored with my life. On the other, I wasn’t convinced I wanted anything to dramatically change. I was quite happy just coasting through.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” she answered for me. “But that’s not why you’ll do this. Deep down, we both know you want to do what’s right for the world. Your instincts insist on it.”
Just as I was certain she intended, the motherhood aspect of me rose to the forefront. There was an irony in that, as I’d never actually had any children, despite the many texts that insisted Horus was mine. But that just meant that I felt protective over all the mortals.
“That was a low blow,” I said darkly.
“I have to do what’s best for the world. Sometimes, that includes using what I know about people against them.” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. If this was anything to go by, the rumours about her spending more time with Maahes than before were true. Only the god of war could have convinced her that manipulating for her cause was something she should do.
