“If such a thing made you lose your way, you must not have been very certain of your path to start with. Make no mistake, Jack Kimble: I’m not trying to make you feel better. I’m simply pointing out the obvious. That’s required rather a lot when dealing with mortals.”
“It’s not my fault I’m not a god,” Jack said.
Shiva shook his head. “Why not? There is no blame, no consequence, no mistake or mis-step that can’t be laid squarely at your own feet if you choose to own it. Did you kill that couple? No. Did you persuade the husband to do so? I’m thinking that the answer is also ‘no.’ The husband made his choice and chose badly, and he will answer for it one way or another. It’s not your concern. Now then: did you drive your own wife away? Most likely, and that is your concern. What are you going to do about it?”
“I wish I could believe there was something I could do.”
“Believe it or don’t believe it, but not doing so will make your life more miserable than it needs to be. If you’re so fond of accepting blame, start with that.”
Jack changed the subject. “I’ve been doing some research since Kali’s last visit, as I said. I would like to state the situation as I understand it. Will you do me the honor of correcting me if I’m wrong?”
The god shrugged. “My temporary temporal imperatives are not currently prohibitive.”
“Pardon?”
“I have some time to kill.”
“Oh, right. Anyway, according to the story, when all this started you were—pardon me if this gets too personal—having sexual congress with your wife Parvati.”
Up until that point Shiva had never looked more than slightly amused at anything Jack said, but now he actually grinned. “Congress? How many of us were there?”
Jack sighed. “Well, considering what happened with the Mahavidyas, that’s probably not a bad question. But, more to the point, for some reason you became upset with Parvati.”
“Why was I upset?” Shiva asked.
Jack blinked. “I don’t know. I read this from more than one source, and none of them said exactly why. I assume they don’t know.”
“That’s your second mistake. The first was going to such secondary sources, rather than spending your lifetime properly pursuing true understanding.”
“If I did that I wouldn’t have a place to live within a week,” Jack said drily. “So what’s my second mistake?”
“Whether anyone knows why I was angry or not totally misses the heart of the matter. It’s enough that I was and now remain angry. That drives the event to which you just alluded, yes? The Mahavidyas?”
Jack nodded. “You were leaving Parvati in a huff, swearing never to return. To prevent this, Parvati separated into ten distinct aspects, now called the Ten Goddesses of Wisdom. The Mahavidyas. Kali I’ve met, but there were nine others including the ones you mentioned: Tara, Matangi and Shodashi. They covered all the exits, so to speak, and everywhere you went you were confronted by at least one of them. After which you allegedly came to your senses, realized that the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine were properly inseparable, and Parvati returned to her singular form and your own good graces.”
“More or less true,” Shiva said. “Given that language is such a poor conduit of meaning. What’s your point?”
Jack took a deep breath. “My point is that, if this has already happened, why is it happening again, and in my apartment? No offense, but is this going to blow up in my face every time you and your missus have a tiff?”
Shiva laughed.
It started as such a low rumbling in the god’s belly that, at first, Jack thought the deity sitting on the bench was getting hungry. Then the sound traveled up Shiva’s following what Jack assumed was the chakral order until it seemed to explode from the crown of his head. For a moment the other people about in the park hesitated, some looking about as they’d lost something but couldn’t quite remember what. Others resumed their stride without missing a beat. Jack, for his part, had to put his hands over his ears to keep from being deafened. Then, as if the sound had to escape properly or the god himself would be torn apart by it, Shiva leaned back on the bench, opened his mouth, and roared. Jack swore he saw leaves falling but, for the rest of the mortals in the park, the moment seemed to have passed without much more notice. Jack realized that, no matter how much he personally knew better, to the rest of the world the Lord Shiva was just someone laughing on a park bench.
It was at least a full minute before the great quaking laugh began to subside and, except for the occasional chuckle, Shiva grew still again.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said finally, “but what was so funny?”
For a moment Jack thought Lord Shiva was about to explode again, but his mirth remained under control, if barely. The god paused to wipe tears from his eyes. “You are, and bless you for it. To favor your own petty inconveniences over the experience of a physical manifestation of a cosmic universal symbology? That is so charmingly human. I haven’t had a laugh like that in some time, so as a reward I’m going to explain something to you, unworthy as you are. But first I have to ask you a question: didn’t you think it just a little strange to be caught in the middle of a divine marital spat that supposedly happened millenia ago?”
Jack blinked again. Considering that the Hindu Goddess of Destruction had recently manifested in his tv set, anything “a little strange” had become hard to spot. Still, now that Shiva had mentioned it . . . “Yes. A bit strange.”
“To understand this, Jack, you have to learn to think, not in terms of space and time, but in proper symbolic space, which is wholly without the vector of Time,” Shiva said. “See, this didn’t happen millenia ago. It’s not going to happen in some distant future. It’s not even happening again. The trick to it is that this is always happening. That’s what it means to be a god and operate almost solely on the symbolic plane of perspective. Yes, in the mortal universe time passes; even the gods pay lip service to that notion while we’re visiting, as I am now. But in terms of my relationship with Parvati? Doesn’t apply.”
Jack felt the remnants of his universe collapsing around him. “This goes on forever?”
Shiva grinned. “And here we are again. I know you’re trying, but try harder: There is no ‘forever,’ Jack. There’s only an eternal now. Get with the program, please, but first I want to ask you another question: why are you no longer with your wife?”
“I told you. After I lost those clients—”
“You lost your way. Yes, I know. Did your wife lose her way? Or did she just lose patience with you and need to get away? I’m guessing the latter. For what it’s worth I’m going to give you some advice, not as a god, but as a male who has been married for, in human terms, quite some time—both halves of a couple need to be apart now and then. Gods and mortals alike. Parvati understands that, in her own way, though she’s never going to indulge me overmuch and that’s the truth. Do you know how we came to be together?”
Jack frowned. “Honestly, I don’t think it ever occurred to me that gods would need a courtship. Doesn’t it just . . . happen?”
Shiva smiled. “In symbolic perspective, that’s not far wrong. But from my perspective as the husband of Divine Parvati? Hardly. In fact the whole matter was rather touch and go. You see, I’m an ascetic god by nature. Oh, it’s true. I meditate on higher planes and deny the flesh and those are my favorite things to do. To be blunt, I wasn’t interested in either physical or symbolic union, even to one as bright and beautiful as Parvati.”
“So how did it happen?”
“Parvati defeated me.”
Jack frowned. “In battle?”
Shiva shook his head and he smiled. “In love, Jack. She said: ‘If this is the only way I can be a part of your life, My Lord, then let it be so.’ She became an ascetic with me. She meditated on higher planes. She denied the flesh. Her flesh, my flesh, all of it. She shared my austerity, because she knew how much it meant to me. Well, to reveal a contradiction, after that I
couldn’t keep my hands off her. Still can’t for long, come to that. So. Have you spoken to your wife lately?”
Jack sighed. “She’s not my wife anymore.”
“Funny how mortals are very seldom certain except of the things that bring them the most unhappiness. If I were you, I’d work on that. So. Are you ready?”
Jack blinked. “I don’t understand. Ready for what?”
“For us to go meet Kali at your apartment, of course.” Shiva sighed, and the leaves in the park, already turning fall colors, seemed to fall in sympathy. “I can’t stay mad at her for long anyway, since I never have, will, or do. And you did make me laugh, Jack. Sometimes it’s good to talk to someone who knows how to listen. Even for a god.”
Jack wasn’t sure what to expect when he unlocked the door and led Lord Shiva into his apartment, but he didn’t have to wait long. In an instant there a small explosion, flying debris of what had been a rather shoddy coffee table, and the goddess Kali, looking every inch the Goddess of Destruction she was, appeared. She didn’t say anything but, with surprising dexterity, kicked Shiva hard in a stomach.
“Oof!”
Shiva went down and landed on his back on Jack’s threadbare green carpet. In an instant Kali was poised triumphantly on Shiva’s chest, her taloned feet drawing rivulets of divine blood. Jack took a step forward before he even realized what he was doing, but then Shiva spoke, and Jack froze in his tracks.
“Give us a kiss, luv,” Shiva said.
“’Give us a kiss’ indeed!” snarled Kali. “After what you put us through? Your hide is mine now. Or were you hoping maybe Tara would be the one?”
“Tara would do the same and you know it,” Shiva said calmly. Jack wondered how he was able to speak so clearly and easily with an angry Goddess of Destruction perched on his chest, but it didn’t seem to bother Shiva a bit.
“Compassionate Tara trims her toenails,” Kail pointed out. “I don’t.”
Shiva grinned. “Well. There is that. So. Aren’t you going to thank the nice mortal for bringing me home?”
Now Kali turned her gaze on Jack and for a moment he thought his heart had stopped. “I won’t break anything else of his,” Kali said. “To expect more reward than that would be impertinent.”
“Umm, are you all right?” Jack asked Shiva, but it was Kali who answered, and though at first Jack thought it must be his imagination, her voice had changed. She sounded almost . . . gentle.
“He’s fine. We’re all fine. Time to rejoin.”
“Must I?” and that was Kali’s voice as Jack had always known it.
“We always do,” said the gentler voice. “We always are.” And then the Goddess of Destruction, Kali called Eternal Night, sighed.
Kali changed. Her bulging eyes and lolling tongue now seemed less fierce, and then her face altered completely. Nine times in succession, Jack was certain, but he didn’t have the presence of mind to count. When it was all done there was a beautiful young woman demurely straddling Shiva. That is, Jack called her beautiful for want of a better word.
Shiva smiled up at Jack. “You know all those supine figures in all the paintings of the Mahavidyas? The ones the goddesses are standing on? It’s me, Jack, in every one. I mean, what choice did I have?”
“None, My Love. Same as always,” the radiant woman said, smiling, and Jack thought his heart would break, because he knew she was leaving. She, and everyone she was. Parvati. Kali. Cindi. All of them. Now she did look at Jack.
“Thank you,” she said, and then they were gone. No muss, no fuss, no explosions. Just . . . gone. After a while that might have been long or short—Jack was never really sure—he went looking for his broom again. While he cleaned up he thought about what had happened, because he could do little else.
“Sometimes it’s good to talk to someone who knows how to listen, Jack. Even for a god.”
Despite divine gratitude, Jack wasn’t sure that he’d really done anything. After all, symbolically speaking Shiva and Parvati were always together, and always separate, all at once and all the time.
Still, in this particular eternal ‘now’ they were together because of him. Perhaps that was nothing, but Jack was no longer sure, in symbolic terms or otherwise. The promise of that uncertainty was just enough to start him whistling as he worked to set his little corner of the universe back to rights.
A Pinch of Salt
No matter what stories you’ve been told or what you’d like to believe, the fact is that a mermaid can never forsake the sea, at least not for very long. Forget the gills and the tail—there are ways around those obstacles. Usually those ways are of the magical sort, with conditions and taboos and other rot, but even that is beside the point.
Just think of human beings, whose blood is only distant kin to the ocean waves, measured in a pinch of salt. Consider how we yearn for the sea, travel on the sea, live by the sea, swim and splash in the sea, even feed off the sea like pups at the teat. Consider this, and think of a mermaid’s bone and blood, solidified foam and the endless night of the abyss. Consider all of this, and you’ll understand why the mermaid Aserea, after seventeen years of a very loving marriage to Jal the Fisherman, simply walked down to the beach one bright summer day, regrew her gills and fine, iridescent tail, and disappeared forever.
You must understand that Jal didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t beat Aserea, or spy on her as she bathed, or any of the other conditions that had been placed on his happiness. He was kind and caring and Aserea loved him deeply. The problem was that Aserea was a mermaid, the sea called her back, and when she could no longer resist the summons, she obeyed. Leaving Jal to grieve and their sixteen year-old son, Makan, to rage.
“Why didn’t you tell me that Mother was a mermaid before now?”
“What business was it of yours before now?” his father asked calmly enough, mending his nets to try and take his mind off his loss. That didn’t help, of course. He’d been mending his nets on the very day he had first spied Aserea, washed up on shore and helpless after a storm. He’d saved her life and in her gratitude . . . well, that is old business and need not concern us here.
“What business? She was my mother!”
Jala worked his marlinespike deftly. “And you would have been born of a woman whether she was once a mermaid or not. Besides, your mother and I agreed that the fewer people in the village who knew of her origins, the better. She was here, and that was enough. Now that she isn’t, you’re entitled to know why.”
For several moments Makan could do nothing but stare at his father who, all the while, continued to mend nets with a sort of brooding intensity that might have made Makan hesitate to say what he said next, if he’d been of clearer mind.
“Don’t you feel anything? Don’t you care?”
The marlinspike hesitated on a bit of cord, then resumed its work. “’Care,’ the fool says . . . You try to spend every moment with the woman you love, year after year, knowing to the core of your soul that each and every moment might very well be the last and all your tomorrows come to be drowned in those depths. Try that, Son. Try it for one sodding day.”
“Father—”
The bung had been pulled and Jala wasn’t stopping now. “Pray, you who understand so much—what would you have done, knowing that your mother paid for every moment of your happiness with pain and longing? Would you ask her to stay? Would you tell her to go? Find the balance for me between one cruelty and the other, because your poor father never could. But you didn’t have to, did you? Oh, no. You swam in the ocean and climbed the trees and hills and learned to notice and chase after the village girls, and never once—once!—suspected that perhaps, just perhaps, the world did not revolve around you.”
“There must be something . . . ” Makan began, but Jal stopped him.
“Nothing. Your mother is gone. Think of her as one dead if it helps. She’ll probably do the same for us.” He finished his repairs and tossed the heavy net to his son, almost knocking the young man into the
sand. “I suspect that it’s time for the yellowheads to be running off Snakepit Island. Take that net out and see if you can catch any.”
“What are you going to do?” Makan asked, regarding the net with distaste.
“I’m going into town and I am going to get drunk. Feel free to do the same when you’re older. It won’t help, but you’re my son and you’ll probably do it anyway. If you mention your mother to me again in that tone you’d better be prepared to fight me.”
“I won’t, don’t worry,” Makan said, sullen.
His father sighed. “Don’t promise what you can’t fulfill,” he said, looking wistfully out to sea. “That’s why I didn’t ask you to promise. Neither am I going to ask you to swear to what I’m going to ask now.”
“What is it?”
“Aside from your thick skull you’re basically a decent young man, and that being the case, sooner or later you’re going to fall in love. It can’t be helped. I only ask that you try not to fall in love with a mermaid. For both your sakes.”
Jal had been right about the yellowhead. They were schooling in large numbers and the surface of the water was nearly boiling with them. Makan was just about to cast his nets when he was startled by the sound of a woman singing. At least, he thought it was a woman. The voice sounded at once female and like nothing he had ever heard. The sound was enticing—it wanted something from him. Makan wasn’t sure what that might be, but he wasn’t really thinking about it.
“If the song is coming from Snakepit Island, then some poor woman has been stranded there and needs help. I had best look into it.”
Makan reluctantly put his father’s newly-mended net aside and steered his small craft closer. Snakepit Island wasn’t a lot more than the tip of some submerged mountain. Its shores were steep and craggy and there were very few places to make landfall. Not that there was much reason to do so—there was little vegetation and what meager fresh water there was came in runoff down the central peak and varied considerably from year to year. The island was fit only as a rookery for seabirds and the colony of adders that had given the island its name. They had established themselves there somehow or other in the distant past, feeding mainly on the smaller birds and the occasional egg.
On the Banks of the River of Heaven Page 4