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Tales of the Goddessi

Prologue

Dont tell stories.

I have heard this admonishment directed at children by mothers, fathers, teachers and the

like, but it was many years before I came to recognize it as a warning against revarication. !y

understanding was hamered by the idea of story as another word for lie.

It is true, stories change with the surety and swiftness of the tides. "o story ever made an

anglers catch smaller. "o rotagonist ever settled for simle relations where celebrity was an

otion. To some, this e#aggeration may well be counted as fabrication. $et, after traveling long

and far in my years, I find I will always be a man of the %orld. &nd in the %orld, all Tales are

true. '#aggeration isfabrication.

In the %orld, stories grow with the tenacity of the (uesting forest, deserate either to

force out cometitors or, in failing this, to consume and incororate weaker narratives. They are

redatory things in want of telling, drawing strength with each word uttered, anchoring

themselves to the %orld more strongly by measure of every heart they move, every other tale

they affect. It is a land of comle#ity cloaked in bucolic simlicity.

)ut this is not the way to understand the %orld, from this outside ersective.

*et me begin again, at the oint where the %orld ceased its simlicity, where disarate

threads were bound, with the Tale all other Tales still strive to be.

*et us begin at the beginning and, in the telling, let us make the %orld.

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The 'nd

The trees bend down and fill the air with the thrashing of leaves, wails like children

frustrated by strict matrons. &mong the lowest branches, eyes full of fractured light fill the

night, reflecting fires from the village windows and the stanched moonslight slitting through the

raging tumult of the forest canoy. %here the forest screams, the animals are silent sectators.

*ight shines on a shar and comfortable edge. It dris down the blade, ools on the

handle and the hand, revealing nothing more, so that the knife and hand move wraithlike through

the darkness, dancing detached, alone without a lace in the %orld.

The end of the Tale comes swiftly and without sound. Though the hand does not belong

to a butcher of beasts, it is surrisingly adet. It finds the heart through thin ribs and then falls

away, leaving the handle still glimmering in the dim light while the blade finds itself within a

dee red darkness, stilled forevermore.

&nd the trees cease their cries and the animals bolt away, aware of something the stoed

heart cannot know. 'ven the moonslight slinks back u into the sky in hoes of escae.

The comforting light from the village windows grows brighter and the villagers mumble

disconcertedly and thrust in the gloom for dousing buckets but they are mortal and too terribly

slow. The fires burst with howling, not the sad, frustrated keening of the trees but raging and

wrathful. +ury that burns like the suns, un(uenchable, unrelenting, and unsatisfied.

omewhere above the stoed heart, while the village eruts in screams and fleeing, an

island of violet calm ushes away both nights darkness and the fury of firelight. It drifts

untethered to the earth, unharrassed by the sudden breeze that whirls in the oening doorways of

the village like a too curious neighbor, unhamered by the abrut torrent of rain struggling

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valiantly to fall through the thick intertwining branches of the forest roof. The resence makes

no sound but it seaks. It is a small kindness that none of the villagers can hear.

You are already in my debt once.

The fire resses the nosy wind off the thresholds and braves the hostile downour. It

snas and roars its rely. Do as I command!

The fires anger has no more effect than the earth and the wind and the rain. The

resence is long-suffering and atient and it will not be commanded.

The end has come and gone. This Tale will not begin again. This heart should not beat

again.

Make it breathe. Make it live. I will burn away the old, the weakness and the

waywardness. I will make it anew.

Useless cruelty. It begs rest.

It is mine! Mine! As I please, so shall it be!

illagers scream as entire homes e#lode in a rain of dirt and wood and shattered lives.

The forest welcomes them with rotective, foliate arms.

As you will it. Your debt grows. Behold.

In the flickering brilliance under the silent canoy and the dying rainstorm, on the red-

stained ground, the heart that had found rest rests no more. The blood-slicked hand twitches,

grasing at the wet earth but dirt moves through it. 'ven the blade loses its gri, falling to the

mud with a thick s(uelch. /ain, wind, light fall through the hand and the resurrected heart.

Make it live!

It lives. It does not Believe and none Believe in it. It will fade away. Your cruelty robs it

even of the succor in the Far Lands.

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The trees scream as the fire swarms them with frenetic wrath until the glade is an inferno

with the hand and the heart at its center, still fading, now the merest imression in the swiftly

drying mud.

Through the curtain of flame, a man aears. 0range and 1ilden light cature him, caress

him, envelo him like the arms of a lover, but he is unburned. 2e stes to the fading figure and

kneels at its side.

2is eyes are dark yet bright with salt water. 2is voice is soft, kind, and sad. 2is words

are gentle and familiar.

3I begin at the beginning,4 he says, 3and in the telling, I will make for you the %orld.

The )eginning

3&s the +irst %orld died, the %orld isters were born.

3 The first oured forth from the cracked surface of the %orld like a geyser and fell down

in desair like a waterfall of tears. he wet until the land overflowed and she became the

mother of the oceans and the streams, )ashran the *ovely %eeer.

3The second stood immobile, awash and yet unmoving in the newborn waters of her

sister, and struck u toward the sky, ulling the %orld with her. o were born the mountains and

the hills as the children of 'lanii the /ock ister.

3The third could not set foot uon the %orld, so great was her ain at the touch of its

death, and she floated instead as the gentle breezes and the mighty storms above water and earth

and so came to be called +aera the 2eaven %alker.

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3The fourth and final raged in twisting violence uon herself and all the surface of the

%orld, boiled newborn seas, scorched rocky eaks, and ulled bolts of lightning from the

temests, never sating her fiery wrath as she became the +lame !other, anai.

3+rom +irst came the +our, the isters, and with them, the %orld as we know it.4

Part 56 %elcome to the %orld

7hater 56 & Tale of &wakening

An empty vessel begs filling.

!lanaite "roverb

*ight stole into the (uiet, dark world behind her eyelids and refused to leave, even as she

shook her head in an attemt to dislodge it. The motion made her dizzy and the blackness sun,

dragging her stomach along for the ride. he tried to turn over, off her back, before she retched

and sicked herself to death.

'ven as she lay hacking softly, unable to find anything in her stomach to be rid of, the

light intruded. /ed like blood flowed into the dark and ulsed with her heartbeat. The more she

became aware of it, the more her chest began to ache. *imly, her hand lifted and came u to the

source of the ain. & glancing brush made her shiver and hack more violently. The skin was

rutured, a raw line carved into the flesh. 2er hand clenched into a fist and refused to be coa#ed

out of itself.

&nd still the light insisted.

3Please. Do not ask this of me.4

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The cold earth, now noticeably oking her in the hi and ribs, trembled slightly and the

dull thud of something striking it sounded dangerously close to her head.

It had to be another trick to ersuade her out of hiding. he would not be fooled again.

The originator of the thud was closer now and more agitated. It sounded louder and bits

of something flew onto her face, sraying her with a wet, earthy smell.

38aor, no94

The voice was back, sounding less beaten but no haier. It floated above her. That felt

familiar, the sense of someone hovering over her. he was uncertain if it was a leasant

familiarity or not.

The voice grunted and there was more screaming from the thudding thing and it was all

very intrusive but it was working. 0nce more, a creeing feeling, curiosity, rodded her with as

much force as the hard earth, and she oened an eye.

he rolled away 1ust as the hoof, shar and black, came down. The dirt crunched,

cracked, slit under the strike. he imagined her head would have ut u even less resistance.

The image of an overrie fruit, a sweet yellowmelon, hammered oen and seeing, oed into

her head. It filled her minds eye. he could almost taste it. 2er stomach gurgled.

The thing screamed again, obviously not a lover of good roduce.

& mass of whiteness hurtled at her, blazing in the gloom traed by all the trees, and the

voice cried out in warning. he rolled away again but a white leg, threaded with muscle and

ending in that nasty hoof, crashed into her shoulder and tumbled her end over end. &ir fled the

battered haven of her chest and she could invite no more in. Dirt tried to make itself at home,

creeing in through her nose and between her teeth but she sat and wied it away. The

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whiteness wheeled and stamed, throwing u more earth, and filled the hollow in the trees with

snorting and nervous, unhay noise.

/ocks bit her hands and hi. 2er chest ached and burned. :ust to her left, a fire oed

and snaed and seemed to stare at her with a mad red-1ilden gaze, demanding unfathomable

things.

he did not like this world. he stood, tottered a few stes, and ran into the blackness of

the woods.

The voice cried after her, bouncing among the trees. 38imber; 7ome back94

he was 8imber. That was helful to know.

The trees consired to slow 8imber. 'verywhere, in the shadows and in the growing

light that rickled through the leaves above, there were wide trunks and arching roots that

snagged at her feet. har twigs stabbed the soles of her feet and low branches ulled at her hair

and oked at her eyes like hungry blackcaws, flitters, blueflyers, big gliders and smalltalons and

wings and feathers and beaks and the snaing of names in her head, birds, birds, a flock of birds

beating frantically behind her eyes. *ike the trees and the fruit, they had found a way inside her

and they would not be ushed out.

8imber stumbled under the weight of the words, into a 1unction of root and bole.

Thought could not lead her, so she allowed instinct to ull her u into the boughs, though her

muscles rotested vehemently. Too tired, too cold, dont like this, they cried. he could barely

hear them with all the birdsong and cawing.

The whiteness found her and its shrieking finally silenced the raucous flock. It stood on

four legs and threw its long head back and forth, tossing a white mane. It smelled like sand and

hot wind and far laces. It was a horse and it was not, because a horse was a ainting on a age.

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fell over the faces and down thin shoulders and swayed to and fro as the creatures slid along the

branches toward her.

They were too close. 0ne reached out a hand, all long bones and rotruding knuckles. It

wanted to touch her. The thought rattled in her lanted, bird-ecked mind and was decided to be

bad.

8imber swung around the trunk, stretching a leg to find another branch. "one made

itself available. The bark under her hand eeled ever so slowly away from the main body of the

tree. The horse cloed and whinnied and struck the tree with its hooves, sending tremors into

8imbers arms. The arms were tired. They wanted to let go. The rest of the body voted them

down. It did not want to be crushed by mean, ramaging horse.

The things in the tree were nearly on her. he felt breath on the side of her face. The

world tried to tilt away and our itself into a new shae somewhere under. "ot underground,

under the earth, but under everything. It would be all sweetness and silence, comfort in a

somewhere else.

The trees and fruit and bird-art of her mind raged. It drew u a fist and struck the ale-

faced thing in the tree, knocking it from its roost. It did not cry out as it tumbled down to the

forest floor. The only noise was the sna. Dry and shar. & very ermanent sound.

3&way from me94

& voice bubbled u and it was hers. It seemed neither strange nor familiar. It was 1ust a

voice. 3+ilthy creatures, get away94 They werent her words but they seemed to be working.

The tree things backed away, standing and balancing on the branches like more words, like

acrobats, like aerialists, layers on a stage shed never seen, back and back until the shadows and

leaves swallowed them u.

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&ll 8imbers screaming had worked on the red-haired creatures, but now the horse was

back in a frenzy and the voice, the reviously sad now worried voice, was winding through the

trees, calling to her and the beast. "either of them aid any heed.

The tree shook as the horse struck and s(uealed. The bark under her hand gave way

entirely. he slid down the trunk, shredding skin and cloth and dignity until she nearly landed on

the thrashing white beasts head. It ushed her away, into another tree, everywhere trees.

8imber raised her arms and threw them over her head. It wouldnt hel but she wouldnt have to

see the end coming.

2eavy limbs slit the roots of 8imbers tree and struck the earth with solid thums but it

was not the horse. The whiteness backed away, its ink nostrils (uivering, its hot breath uffing

clouds into the chilly air. !ore breath clouds swarmed 8imber from her left. *ooking was not

going to make her hay, she was sure. It hadnt yet. )ut curiosity defeated (uick-forged

cynicism.

%here the horse was whiteness, this was blackness. %here the horse was broad in the

chest and heavy in the legs, this creature was thin and long and so tall that its head brushed the

low branches. %here the horse neighed and whickered with an#iety and frustration, this beast