“You are the goddess.” This was a sentence that Nora had never imagined herself uttering without hyperbole or irony.
“Yes.” She seemed pleased that Nora had finally caught on.
The goddess. Nora looked hard at her. Her face, her body seemed human enough. No halo, nothing to suggest divinity. Although when you got right down to it, what did goddesses look like? Botticelli’s ethereal half-shell Venus; sloe-eyed Isis on the side of a sarcophagus; stern, helmeted Athena silhouetted in red and black. Was that the point, that gods and goddesses were pictured differently at different times and different places, that you always had to fill in the face of divinity for yourself?
The woman beside Nora could pass for one of those dark-eyed, long-necked Italian Madonnas, enigmatic smile and all. (The Virgin Mary wasn’t technically a goddess, Nora allowed, but she was close enough.) Sisoaneer leaned past Nora and touched the edge of the crevice. Under her hand the rock flexed like a living thing and the fissure gaped wider, big enough for a normal-sized human to enter, even one wearing a maran.
“Go in, and I will show you my home.”
Nora thought: oh, well, how often do you get to see where a goddess lives? Her mother always said that that’s how you really start to know people, when they invite you over and you can see their furniture, their pictures, the books in the bookcase. For a loony moment, Nora pictured herself and Sisoaneer sitting amid chintz and plants and glass-topped tables—a place not too different from her mother’s sunroom, come to think of it—and somehow, keeping that image in mind, she got herself to step into the hole in the rock.
A few feet from the entrance, to her relief, the cave broadened into a passageway tall enough for them to walk upright. It sloped upward, curving to the right. Nora’s companion took the lead.
“Do you prefer Sisoaneer or Her Holiness?” Nora heard a tinge of irony in her own words and wondered if Sisoaneer also heard it.
Her companion shrugged lightly. “Either. People call on me with different names. Here at Erchkaii, they are a bit more formal.” She gave Nora a sideways glance, the corners of her mouth puckered as though they were trying to tamp down laughter. “Who did you think I was, when we met last night?”
“A magician. A very powerful magician, obviously.” That did not seem quite adequate, so Nora added: “Doing good deeds.” In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night—no, when you looked at it more closely, the theory left much unexplained. But a goddess? “What were you doing there?” she asked.
“I travel from here sometimes. People need my help. Like you.”
Nora suddenly realized that although neither of them was carrying a light, she could still see the passageway reasonably well. Some sort of illumination clung to Sisoaneer, as it had the night before. Was this how a halo worked? It wasn’t light, exactly, but wherever Sisoaneer went, you could see the things around her. Whereas, a gap in the rock they were now passing brimmed with inky obscurity.
“That’s an entrance to the deep places,” Sisoaneer said, following Nora’s glance. “There are dozens of paths down, but it’s not so easy to find your way back.”
“Where you were born, you said.”
“‘Where the last true darkness dwells.’ As the hymn says.” Sisoaneer raised her eyebrows impishly. “No mortal man or woman has returned from those depths, ever. But along here it’s easy to find your way—just keep turning right.”
They were still climbing, the passageway tending clockwise. “And where are we going, exactly?” Nora asked, thinking she should have cleared this up earlier.
Sisoaneer pulled her forward. “Here, I want you to see this,” she said as they rounded a sudden corner. “I’ve brought you to the very top.”
The timbre of their footsteps shifted subtly, and the dank stuffiness of the cave dissolved as they stepped under a stone lintel and into the open air. Nora found herself standing on rock that sloped downward on all sides. A chilly night breeze washed around her body and fluttered the ends of her maran. The moon glimmered dully through a grazing flock of clouds.
Nora stood stock-still, fighting some dizziness. The narrow enclosure of the cave seemed almost comforting in retrospect, replaced now by a disorienting amount of space. She wished that the top of this mountain were wider. She could dimly make out the burly, hunched shoulders of other mountains, surrounding her peak like a gang of watchful henchmen.
“We didn’t climb nearly enough to get this high,” Nora said. “We were in the cave for what, ten minutes?” A temporary dislocation spell, she thought, or an augmentation spell. But she had never heard of an augmentation spell powerful enough to raise a mountain peak a thousand feet in a minute.
“This mountain isn’t always exactly the same size,” Sisoaneer said with an air of satisfaction. “It’s as I want it to be.” She turned slowly, gazing over the dark, rolling ridges, and then raised her face and let the wind lift her tangled hair.
“This is also my sanctuary,” she said. “My holy place. Down there”—she gestured carelessly—“I take care of those who need me. They come from everywhere to ask for my help, to be cured, to be saved. Like children. So many of them.” She was silent for a moment. “Here, it’s different. I am free, and no one can find me, and I am as eternal as the mountains, and even stronger than they are.”
She gave Nora a sideways glance. “Not many come to this place.”
“You brought me here,” Nora said.
Sisoaneer nodded. “Do you know why?”
“I have no idea,” Nora said. She looked up at the sky. The thin scattering of stars visible through the clouds seemed closer and more tangible—homier, even—than the dark void of the valleys below. “Are you really a goddess?” She hadn’t exactly intended to ask the question aloud, because it would be so easy for Sisoaneer, goddess or no, to take it the wrong way, but she couldn’t help it.
Sisoaneer’s smile stretched like a lazy cat. Her fingertips brushed Nora’s arm. “Listen,” she said. “Even up here you can hear them.” She pointed toward the horizon.
“Over there, over those mountains, there is a boy, the son of a shepherd, calling to me from his tent. His father’s leg is injured, the wound is full of disease, he prays for my help. Listen!” She paused, and Nora did hear a boy’s voice, very faint, not speaking a language Nora knew, but the tone of desperation was unmistakable.
“And there, to the south, in the city of Nenaveii, a woman prays to me secretly. I have another temple there—built by many kings, larger even than this one—but she can’t go, she’s afraid to make her petition in public. She gave up her honeycomb to a man who isn’t her husband, now she fears her womb is full. Do you hear?”
This small voice was speaking some version of Ors. The woman was asking Sisoaneer for a miscarriage and praying that her suspicious husband would only beat her instead of killing her. As Nora listened, her initial curiosity gave way to a sick feeling. This was real; the woman was sobbing with fear.
“Are you going to answer their prayers?” she asked.
“I always listen to those who call on me with true faith and love,” Sisoaneer said.
That all sounded blameless enough, but Sisoaneer’s words snagged unpleasantly on Nora’s ears. “Your First Deaconess, Yaioni, said she prayed to you before she attacked me.”
“Yes!” Sisoaneer’s fine brows crumpled together, telegraphing bemused, helpless concern over Yaioni’s foolishness. “She wanted to challenge you. But she is not powerful enough. She has not learned enough magic. I knew you would prevail.”
“But you still answered her prayer?” The question felt odd in Nora’s mouth. “I mean, did you tell her it would be all right to try to kill me?”
“You are stronger and braver. That is important. I have tried to teach so many, and they were too fearful, or they did not know enough to protect themselves. Yaioni failed.”
“The point i
s, you told Yaioni she could attack me. Isn’t that right?”
“She prayed to me, and I gave her what she wished—just as I answered your prayer last night.”
“I didn’t pray, exactly,” Nora said. “I said, ‘Help!’ I was calling for help.”
“And I answered your call. I am the mother of your power, your magic, and I will not let my faithful servants come to harm.”
“But I’m not your faithful servant.”
“You serve me already, better than you know, and that is only the beginning.”
“I don’t think—” Nora began, but Sisoaneer held up a hand to silence her.
“Dear child, I brought you here to honor you, to make you more powerful than any other magician in the world. I am Sisoaneer of the Mysteries, Queen of Holy Power and Healing, and I have chosen you to be my High Priestess. You will be my emissary to the world, you will rule Erchkaii, you will lead my worshippers, you will celebrate my name. And in return, I will favor you above all others, I will teach you the secrets of my most holy magic, and there will be no limit to your power.”
Chapter 15
“High Priestess?” Nora stared at the goddess. “You’re—offering me a job?”
Sisoaneer gave her a luminous smile, and Nora saw that Sisoaneer was not exactly extending an offer; she had already decided that Nora would accept the position.
“Wait—” Nora held up a hand against the swiftly rising tides of misunderstanding. “It’s very nice of you to think of me for this, but I’m not interested. I’m exactly the wrong person. I’m not religious at all, I don’t believe in God.”
She thought Sisoaneer might be offended, but Sisoaneer only looked intrigued. “Do you not believe in me?”
“Well—” It was a good question. If there are gods and goddesses, Nora thought, this woman is powerful enough—and odd enough—to be one. That doesn’t mean that I feel any impulse to worship her—any more than if I met Zeus, say, I would feel like sacrificing an ox to him.
Oh, maybe I’d do that for Athena. Or Apollo.
And Sisoaneer was not the unseen, judgmental, omnipotent God that, to the best of Nora’s belief, did not exist. “I acknowledge your power—your holy power,” Nora said diplomatically. “But I’m sorry, I’m not ready to bow down and worship you. It would be a lie.”
Sisoaneer’s dark eyes widened. “You are honest. So many people would say anything to be as honored and powerful as you will be.”
Nora chose to ignore the implicit prediction. “I don’t want to mislead you,” she said. “What I really want is to leave this place. Erchkaii,” she added for clarity, hoping that she had not missed any vowels.
“But where would you go?” Sisoaneer asked with what sounded like genuine concern. “Where is your home?”
Such a simple question, but an unsettling one. Nora was uncertain how to answer it. “Far away,” she said finally. “If you could take me back to where you found me—not the exact village, necessarily—I could find my way from there.”
“You want to rejoin your companion?” Sisoaneer asked. “The one you said you’d been separated from.” Nora nodded, trying to remember exactly what she had said the night before. “Is he your husband?” Sisoaneer inquired.
“Oh, no!” Nora said, too quickly. “My teacher.”
“Ah,” Sisoaneer said, her brows lifting slightly. “Aruendiel.”
Nora tensed. “I don’t think I told you his name.”
“I know his magic well. I see its traces in you.”
The idea that she carried some recognizable mark of Aruendiel’s teaching was a small, unexpected solace, but Nora frowned, partly to hide the comfort it gave her. “How do you know Aruendiel—or his magic? I’ve never heard him mention you.”
“No?” For an instant Sisoaneer’s smile grew thin and sharp and dangerous, and then she looked only amused. “I know Aruendiel’s magic as I know the magic of every magician. And Aruendiel is a very famous magician in the kingdoms of men, or he was. I do not hear his name as often as I used to, when I travel beyond Erchkaii.”
“He leads a quiet life. Most of the time. When do you next leave Erchkaii?”
Sisoaneer shook her head. “When I’m called,” she said. “And even I do not know when that will come.”
“Well, can you send me back by myself? Tell the boat, or the stream—or whatever it was—where to go?”
“Would you like to know how to do that? The magic to make a stream wander over the land? Or over the ocean—or through the sky itself?” Sisoaneer’s voice rose with a happy, teasing, knowing lilt. “It’s not so hard. I mean, it won’t be, for you. My High Priestess will know that magic and more. You are ready for a new teacher.”
“Well, but no,” Nora demurred. “I’m what you could call a professional student, and Aruendiel is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.” If he still cares to teach me, she thought. “I’m sorry. It’s just not my nature to be your priestess, or anyone’s priestess. This position just isn’t a good fit.”
She had used the same phrase—in English—several times in her life, to the manager of the slick seafood place in Jersey City that burned down under suspicious circumstances the next month, to hopeful Dr. Hadler, looking for a research assistant for his critical edition of the unedited million-word first draft of Look Homeward, Angel. But she had never meant those words more than she did now.
Sisoaneer did not respond at first. Then she said: “Do you see where we are?”
At first Nora did not understand what she meant, and then she did. They were standing in midair, she and Sisoaneer. She was suddenly aware of cold wind under her soles, and she could make out the torches in the temple complex, twinkling far below, no brighter than the stars. Nora sucked in her breath. No matter how good she got at levitation spells, she was never going to be quite at ease with heights, and this was higher than she’d ever been before, except for airplanes. She tried to hold very still in the air, not shifting her weight an ounce, as though that would keep her from falling.
“It’s my power that is keeping you alive right now—my will that you don’t fall,” Sisoaneer said mildly. “Yet you will not worship me?”
“No,” Nora said, not very loud. In her mind she began readying a levitation spell. She had never done one at this height before. She could only guess how far below the ground was.
“Conjure a light for me, please.”
“What?”
“Didn’t Aruendiel teach you how? To take light from fire?”
“Well, yes.” It was one of the first derivative spells she had learned. Nora opened her hand to cup the light, and in her mind she reached out to borrow illumination from the flames of the torches below. But she could not seem to get their attention. The distant fire burned on serenely, ignoring her.
“It’s not working,” Nora had to say, ruefully. She recalled now that something like this had happened yesterday, when she’d tried to douse the fire that Raclin breathed. (Was it only yesterday?) “Those torches are too far away. Or some kind of enchantment—”
“The fire in those torches answers only to me,” Sisoaneer said quietly. “There is no magic here but mine.”
“But Yaioni did magic, and so did I,” Nora objected.
“I lent Yaioni my power, just as I lent you power to meet her challenge. More power, I think, than you had ever wielded before. You did well with it.”
“I don’t understand. That was your magic?”
Sisoaneer nodded, with the kind of patience one shows to a small, not very bright child. “They were your spells, you worked them. But I lent you the power.”
“I didn’t know it could work that way,” Nora said with some confusion. She had to admit, she hadn’t thought consciously about where she had drawn power to levitate the snake, to pull herself out of that fall. Very careless, Aruendiel would say. A good magician keeps close
and constant track of the nearest sources of power, whether fire, stone, water, wood, or something else, so that he is never unprepared to work magic. (She is never unprepared, and I was distracted, Nora told her imagined Aruendiel, knowing that the excuse would carry no weight with him.)
She felt some inquietude at the idea that she had been using Sisoaneer’s power unknowingly. And I was so proud of pulling out of that fall, she thought.
“Try again,” Sisoaneer said. “I will let the fire listen to you this time.”
With care, Nora again worked the spell to summon light. The apprehension she felt did not affect the results: a great plume of light rose from her outstretched palm and showed Sisoaneer looking at her expectantly, her eyes sparkling in the new illumination.
“Very nice,” she said. “Now do you see what I mean? My High Priestess will have power without measure. You could make a new sun, if you wanted.”
That does not sound like a good idea, Nora thought. Another sun, where would you put it? Yet Sisoaneer’s manner, as she made the suggestion, had been disturbingly matter-of-fact.
“I’d rather do my own magic, all of it, start to finish,” Nora said. “It’s more fun that way.”
“You would be dead now if I had not lent you my power already,” Sisoaneer said. “Yaioni attacked you viciously. But you counterattacked even more fiercely.”
“Well—” Nora rocked her hand in an equivocal gesture. “She basically self-destructed, catching fire like that.”
“You set her on fire,” Sisoaneer corrected.
Surprised, Nora shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
“You did. Do you not remember?”
“She did it herself—trying to set me on fire, I suppose, and—”
“I saw the whole thing. It was my magic you were fighting with, remember?” Sisoaneer’s eyes were grave. “Yaioni is not skilled with fire magic. She knows only a few little spells, like making light. When you ignited her clothes, she could not extinguish the flames herself.”
How to Talk to a Goddess and Other Lessons in Real Magic Page 19