The Shattered Goddess

by Darrell Schweitzer

  She raised her hands. Birds made purely of colored light swarmed around her, chirping in a language she seemed to understand. She spoke a word, and they led the way like a weaving rainbow, singing a single, harmonious song. She followed, and Ginna came after, with Amaedig at his side, staying very close, staring wide-eyed.

  They went a short way or a long way. Ginna could not tell in this place. Distances were confusing. They doubled back on each other. Space was distorted, like a reflection in a rippling pool. The woods around them were like a deep, green sea, and walking between the trees was as wondrous as somehow swimming to the very bottom of the ocean to view the wrecked argosies, coral-covered skeletons, all the treasures hidden from mankind. Branches curved above him like the roof of some vast temple. Behind every trunk he half expected to see some secret alcove containing an image, or perhaps some newly embodied spirit there waiting. It filled him with awe, but as long as the lady was with him he was not afraid.

  It was comforting to hear the dry leaves rustling underfoot.

  They came to a place where any of the trunks would have required fifty men hand-to-hand to encircle it. Above, leaves and branches were all but indistinguishable in the soft light. The birds left the lady and flew upward, and the forest glowed with their passing.

  They looked upon a stone fountain in the center of which a carven fish was frozen in mid-leap, an hourglass held sideways in its mouth. Water trickled from either end of the hourglass.

  It was the sound of the water running that awoke Ginna’s memory. It came to him that he had been in a lighted forest before, or at least the image of one, and it had been this forest Hadel had conjured it for him in his study, warning him not to drink the water lest he too become an illusion. He had slammed his face into a stone wall that time, and found himself back in Ai Hanlo.

  Now he was in that grove again, entering from, the other side, and part of the answer was clear to him: the end of his quest was at the beginning. Yet he wondered, why hadn’t the Nagéan merely sent him here if he had the power, or at least told him? Perhaps the matter was not so simple. Perhaps the enemy would have overheard and followed him. Perhaps, for him to come to this place and for it to be real, not an illusion interrupted by stone walls, he had to reach it in his own way, in his own time, and of his own power. It was the difference between the shallow magic and the deep.

  The lady sat on the edge of the fountain.

  “I used to watch the world pass by,” she said. “I could see it all in the clear waters of my fountain. But now the world is dark and I see nothing.”

  Indeed, the water was clear when it poured from the hourglass, but in the pool there was only impenetrable blackness, as if the water had been turned into oil. Gingerly Ginna put his hand in. He could not see his flesh even an inch below the surface. Startled, he drew it out, holding the wet hand in the dry one as if hurt. The passage had made no splash or ripple.

  He went into a fit of abstraction then, forgetting all around him as he contemplated this thing. After a time he was aware that the lady was no longer with him. Amaedig led him away.

  * * * *

  Once they moved with the Bright Powers and were lifted up by them into that great dance which had filled the world. They saw again the rose of fire across which the Powers moved, but at the same time they knew that this rose at the center of the Earth, this realm of the Bright Powers, had been usurped by darkness, and this was but the collective memory of all those beings which had come into awareness when The Goddess fell from the sky and shattered into a million pieces. They viewed the great All, the lakes, the mountain, the castles and rivers of the land of light, which the singer Ain Harad had actually visited many generations before, but now they were only projected images, reverberating with the sorrow of the Bright Powers at their loss.

  These things Ginna and Amaedig saw as they soared on the wings of light.

  * * * *

  The lady came to him again at evening, when the light had begun to fade from the forest and shadows grew long. She was no young woman then, but an old crone, her face withered with the weight of many years, even though mere hours had passed. Her voice was hoarse, cracked, and wheezing.

  “I was a mortal woman originally,” she said. “I came from Tobar, in the land of Cadmoc.”

  “I have never heard of these places,” said Ginna.

  “Our Lord was the Mountain Earl Hadormir.”

  “There have been no mountain earls for a thousand years,” said Ginna. “The last one was slain by Iboram the Scourge, who buried him beneath a cairn made of the skulls of his followers.”

  “Yes, it has been a long time. I don’t know how long. I am very weary. Yes, as I told you, I am the mother of The Goddess. She was mortal too, born to me in blood and agony the way children are. But she had a vision. I told her it was an idle dream, merely vapors in her mind, but she said no, it was more. I told her she must have eaten something too strong for her and her bodily humors were unbalanced. I told her she was in love with some boy and it had turned her head. But it was none of these, and even she did not know what was happening to her. She followed her vision and had another, and gained attributes and aspects, until the earth shook with her passing and her voice was the thunder. Now the prayers of mankind had gone unanswered for many years. The God we worshipped did not hear us. Some claimed he had melted away, like mist rising in the morning. But when miracles happened again, at last I understood. I became her priestess. By the touch of her hand I became more than mortal myself, after my fashion. When she passed into the sky and was no more my daughter than the wind is, she placed me in this pocket of a world outside the, world, and here I am to this day.”

  “Tell me,” said Ginna after a long pause. “Did she want what happened to her?”

  “I don’t think it was a matter of wanting. No one came to her with an offer. It just happened.”

  Speaking no more, Ginna left the lady and went off by himself. He was deeply troubled.

  * * * *

  She is dead.

  It was night in the forest. All the light had faded from the trees. The Powers gathered like pale constellations, bearing the wrinkled corpse of the Mother of The Goddess to the clearing, to the golden pit, where they laid her to rest. Then all of them vanished, like a flock of fireflies breaking up, each going its separate way.

  Ginna lay with Amaedig in the darkness, holding her close. He knew fear then, a fear that the lady would not return, would not rise again, that this would be the final night

  He slept and dreamed that he was wandering across the plains with the caravan. He was very happy with Amaedig by his side. They were leading a heavily laden camel. Gutharad was behind them, singing merrily. But when he turned to speak to his friend, the minstrel was not to be seen. He turned back, and Amaedig was gone. He called out, and no sound came from his mouth, and the caravan vanished. He was wandering blindly in the darkness, groping his way through a maze of stones. Then the earth gave way and he was falling.

  After a time, when he could see nothing by which to measure his descent, the sensation of falling left him, and he seemed suspended in space forever, helpless, like an insect in amber.

  He awoke in a cold sweat, in the light of the trees.

  It was early morning. The leaves had begun to glow a pale green, drifting above him like shining moths.

  The voice of the Powers came to him again.

  She is risen.

  * * * *

  “Did you know,” the girl-child told him, “that we are not the original inhabitants of the Earth? There’s an old story, and I’m not sure if I really believe it, that some god went mad long ago, and destroyed all life. He wiped the world blank as a clean slate. But when a new god came into being—or perhaps it was a goddess; I think it was—the memories of mankind still lingered like echoes of shouting in a cave, and our ancestors were created in the likeness of those who had gone before, but without their souls, so we can only struggle all our lives and throughout all our histor
y to fill the roles laid down by that other human race, like actors rehearsing parts in a play, without ever really understanding the design or purpose overall. Like I said, I don’t really believe this. It’s too depressing. But it does explain some things.”

  * * * *

  Ginna and Amaedig lay naked by the shore of a rippling brook, in the light of the trees. In the light of the trees the white water seemed a pale green. Their bodies were a soft, greenish yellow.

  They held each other and knew each other as men and women have ever since there were men and women, filling roles laid down by their predecessors or not. And when the lovemaking was over, they rested side by side.

  He had not known such peace since...

  The leaves on the ground and the branches above rustled with the passing of spirits. Ginna laughed inwardly. If indeed the Powers were watching, he hoped to make them sick with envy, if indeed they were prone to such fleshy failings.

  He was glad just then to be solid, material, made of living flesh, to be human. He never wanted to be anything else. He turned to look at Amaedig and was silent for a long time, watching her breasts gently rise and fall with her breathing. Lying thus, she was beautiful or nearly so. In his eyes she was special, set apart from all others. Her shoulders were in a slight shrug all the time. It did not matter. Her name, meaning “cast aside,” was a malicious cruelty in itself, while at the same time a record of her life, and his, as both had been cast aside to drift in the wild current of the world and come at last to rest on this pleasant shore.

  Finally she turned on her side and faced him.

  “Are you asleep or what?”

  “Just thinking. I don’t want to leave this place, ever.”

  “But we can’t stay here. You know that.”

  “I know that but maybe if we live just for each minute as it passes, and never try for more than the next minute as it comes, maybe there will be enough of them for us. I know that all I ever really wanted out of life was to be ordinary and unexceptional and live like everybody else. To be a part of the world rather than a stranger wandering through it I want to love you, and travel as we did with the caravan, and tell people stories of what we’ve seen and sing songs for them, and earn our keep that way. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Who are you asking?’

  “I don’t know. I mean... it’s not like that.”

  “The world you want to travel through isn’t there anymore.”

  “Then why can’t we stay here? What have we got to go back for? Nothing will change here. If someone is really destined to deal with Kaemen, let it be someone else.”

  She did not answer. Then he was aware she was weeping.

  “Hold me close,” she said. “I’m afraid that something will happen to force us away from here. I know it. We can’t run any more. There’s no place left to go.”

  After a while they made love again. Again they lay in silence. He folded his hands together and made a globe of light, which drifted up a ways, then dropped down onto his chest and remained there. He contemplated it as it rolled with his breathing.

  He picked it up and handed it to Amaedig. As soon as she touched it, it burst.

  * * * *

  He found the lady sitting atop a grassy knoll in the height of the afternoon, surrounded by the flickering Powers. Above her the trees thinned out. Patches of grey emptiness were visible beyond them.

  He climbed up beside her and sat down. Suddenly he found himself without words.

  “You want me to send them away so they don’t overhear,” she said, indicating the Powers.

  “Yes.”

  “But that isn’t what you’ve come to tell me.”

  “No.”

  “There’s no need to send them away. For the most part they have no memories as we do. Sometimes they can recall an event which happened five hundred years ago, but the day-by-day passing of time doesn’t mean much to them.”

  “Still, can’t you—?”

  “All right, if it will make you more at ease.” She raised a hand and spoke a word in a tongue he had never heard before, and at once they were gone, quick as flames snuffed out “Now, as you were saying.”

  “I have been thinking about the things you’ve told me, and what other people have told me. About my whole life. I don’t know who my parents were. I don’t think I ever had parents. I’m not like other people.”

  “No,” she said, “you are not. I know this to be so. Don’t ask me how just yet. Go on with what you wish to say. Get it all out or you’ll burst.”

  “I’m not stupid. I can see the obvious. I’m the one who is supposed to put an end to Kaemen, right? Like some hero in an old epic.”

  She smiled and nodded. “The poets tend to exaggerate, but in essence, yes.”

  “But what can I do, kick him? He has all the power, all the magic. The only thing different about me is I make balls of light with my hands. I couldn’t kill a fly with one.”

  “In time you will find out what you can do, and do it I am confident of that Meanwhile you will conduct yourself with dignity and courage, as befits a hero. You are one, you know.”

  “No!” He slammed his fist into his palm and at once felt it was a silly gesture. He made a glowing sphere, let it drift, then caught it. “I won’t fight him,’ he said. “I won’t do it. I’ll stay here forever. Let someone else be the hero. If this is an epic, tell the author I resign. I never asked to be a part of it.”

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him toward her. The sphere rolled out of his lap and broke against the ground. She spoke to him in a way she never had before, firmly, impatiently, like a sergeant of the palace guard giving orders.

  “You didn’t ask to be born, did you? Do you ask for your every breath, for the blood that your heart pumps?”

  “No, the world takes care of these things, without ever consulting you.”

  “That’s just what Amaedig—”

  “If she said that, she was right. Entirely right. Now be still and listen, and I will tell you the story of yourself as I observed it through my fountain before it was clouded. I saw the darkness come into being, and I saw how you were a part of it.”

  “I—?”

  “Shut up and listen!”

  She told him tersely, without any mercy, sparing no feelings, the complete tale of his life, how he had come into being, how the witch lay beneath the ground for a day and a night before the demon came to her, how their bargain was fulfilled, and how the demon created him from the flotsam at the bank of the river, giving him the semblance of flesh and the eyes of his mother, through which Kaemen had watched his movements all these years.

  He understood everything now, how the demon had climbed up the side of a tower in the dead of night to place him in the cradle, so the witch could be near enough to the one she wanted to possess. Somehow the hag’s malice had grown beyond all bounds, until even she could not comprehend the vastness of it. She was a pawn of limitless forces. Her actions were as inevitable and impersonal as the great storms and earthquakes. And he understood one final thing: Kaemen was as innocent as he had been before the evil possessed him. His deeds were not his own. Had the witch not poured into him, but remained in Ginna, their roles might have been reversed.

  His face was pale. He was shaking with fear when he broke in, “Am I really human then, and not a clump of weeds and mud? Do I have a soul?”

  The lady’s grimness softened a little as she said, “Yes, I think you do, and it is a good soul. What is a soul but a kind of motion, like ripples on a pool when a stone is cast in? Anything which lives, which moves through the years has a soul, and have you not met this requirement?”

  “But why me? Why does all this have to involve me?”

  “As I said, you were never consulted. You must understand you are not living in an epic. There is no author. It is more like an avalanche or a tide, a thing of blind nature. Long, long ago, many cycles before any of those we call the ancients were living, before those nearly erase
d ruins which mar our deserts were built, so far into the past you cannot begin to imagine it, a man who was counted as wise in his era said forces must balance. Another, about the same time, said, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. So it has always been. When the world is tilted askew, it straightens up and comes into a new equilibrium. The universe generates the means. Against the overwhelming darkness, it has generated a source of light, and you’re it. It is not even destiny. You are not asked to accept it. It merely is. Why you? When a barrel springs a leak, does the hole ask, “Why me, barrel? Why me, water?” No, before the leak there was no hole. It came into existence for that purpose. You are that hole, my friend, and through you the divine leaks into the world once again.”

  Throughout all his adventures, he had never known more terror than at this instant. Her every word was sentence and execution. He realized now that he could never have anything he wanted, never wander across the world with Amaedig at his side, never go back to Ai Hanlo and live in quiet obscurity among the dusty corridors.

  “But what if I stay here? What if I don’t do anything?”

  “Somehow you will do something. Even here our skies are beginning to darken. Either this place will also be wholly dark, or it will be cast off from the world, forever beyond the reach of mankind or of powers, or anything. But even then, light will come to counterbalance the darkness. There is no running away. You see, my friend, and I hope I can call you my friend, you say you are smart and can grasp the obvious, the obvious thing is that from you the next god will come. Perhaps you will be like my daughter and speak with the thunder. Perhaps it will come about in some other way. You could sire a god, or one could even rise up out of your death. Yes, it could be that. I shall not hide anything from you. I have conversed with many spirits and studied much during my long years, and I think I know something about how these things work. When the Goddess knew she was dying, she set on me the task of overseeing the transition into the new age. Or she was moved to do so by the forces that made her what she was. So I have watched and waited until you were able to come to me. That is my whole purpose. When there is no deity and all is chaos, the natural balance creates another one. I am merely part of the process.”