The Shattered Goddess

by Darrell Schweitzer

  At first the only places he knew were a few musty rooms, a corridor, and the entrance to Kaemen’s nursery, beyond which he was not permitted to pass. He often heard cries and shrieks coming from the nursery, dishes crashing to the floor, and the bare feet of the servants padding back and forth. Those same feet would kick him whenever he tried to investigate, so after a time he learned to keep to himself.

  There was a girl who came to play with him, who said she would pretend to be his big sister. She was very big, twice as tall as he. He didn’t know her age, all ages being unimaginable, but she was much wiser than he. She taught him many new words, and how to count on his fingers. He decided he was most happy when she was around, and wished she would be around always.

  But then she came no more. Months later he saw her in the hall, straining under a yoke from which two buckets of water hung. A massive woman twice her size walked behind her and glowered. He called her name, but she turned her face away. He never saw her again.

  One day a bird came to his window, stood between the bars, and began to sing. It seemed to Ginna that tins song was even more beautiful than any the girl had sung, and more mysterious for not having any words. This was surely the most wondrous creature he had ever encountered.

  He stood on a stool and reached for it, but it vanished into the unknown blue void beyond, and then he had a new desire. He wanted to go where it had gone, away from things familiar.

  He was three and a half then. He had heard of a world outside but knew nothing about it, and he was aware of his ignorance.

  At the end of a certain hallway there was a huge door, too heavy for him to open. It was always kept shut, but sometimes someone was careless. Occasionally he caught glimpses of a stairway on the other side of it, spiraling down into someplace he had never been.

  When the young prince bawled that his bathwater was too cold that night, and swore that he would have everyone flayed alive when he was a little older, Ginna saw his chance. There was much scurrying about, and two burly men came through the door with a new tub of steaming water. In their haste they left the door open.

  Ginna found the steps too large for his short legs, so he went down backwards like a man on a ladder, dropping from step to step.

  He knew he was in a tower from the way he was going down, down, farther than he had ever imagined he would go. The stairs curved away above him until he could no longer see the door. He had truly ventured out of his world.

  * * * *

  At last the stairway ended. There was a damp stone floor at the bottom, which was cold beneath his feet. A lantern hung from above on a chain, driving the darkness away from a doorway. Over this were two portraits of the same woman, but in each she was different. In one she wore a long black gown sprinkled with stars, and held a serpent in either hand. Lightning flickered above her head. At her feet was a boiling cloud in which hundreds of writhing figures were visible: homed men, serpents, toads with the heads and claws of lions. He had never seen such things. The girl had told him about many animals and described them, but these went well beyond the range of her descriptions. Many were just shapes to him.

  The other picture showed the lady in brilliant white, astride a dolphin. Or Ginna thought it was a dolphin. It looked vaguely like a fish, and he had seen a fish before, swimming in a bottle being taken into Kaemen’s room. He was able to guess that the bright thing in the lady’s right hand was the sun. In the left was a tree.

  He liked the lady of the second picture more than the other. He smiled at her. He pressed his hands together, as he had done so many times before, and opened them. A bubble of light floated up where the lady could see it. The girl had always seemed happy when he did that He hoped the lady would too.

  * * * *

  Just then the whole place was flooded with light. Someone had opened the door.

  Ginna tumbled back and looked up at the most mountainous individual he had ever beheld, who peered down at him impassively from beneath a winged helmet He had a red moustache and a beard as big as a blanket

  “Well, by The Goddess, what have we here?”

  Ginna spoke a few of the words he knew, but the man didn’t seem to understand.

  “You belong back upstairs, not down here.” The giant bent over to pick him up, and he stared, not sure whether to be afraid or not. To please the man he made a glowing ball which floated into his face.

  The man recoiled before it touched him.

  “Witchcraft!” he gasped, and backed away hurriedly.

  Ginna had wondered many times before why no one else made lights in his presence, but he’d assumed they were too busy, or didn’t think him worth the bother. After all, they ignored him in every other way. It was the natural order of things, as far as he was concerned.

  But now, for the first time, he understood that he was not like the others. Perhaps he was the only one who could do the thing.

  Alone once more, he closed and opened his hands, and watched the light bubbles rise, then slowly drift to the floor. A draft from beneath the door made them roll in the air.

  A while later he made his way back up the stairs. Fortunately the upper door was still open.

  * * * *

  Two years passed, and a serving woman came for him in his room and led him down those stairs again. It was an astonishing journey through many new corridors, and he caught glimpses of rooms vaster than any space he could imagine. There were pictures on the walls, often of the twin ladies, sometimes of men in winged helmets and armor, with battles going on in the background. He wanted to stop and look at everything, but 5ie woman dragged him on. Thick rugs lay underfoot in some stretches, muffling sound. For the most part the way was deserted. Twice he saw groups of wholly unfamiliar people going off on unimaginable errands.

  The greatest wonder of all came when they emerged into an open courtyard beneath a bright blue sky. He had never seen the whole sky before, just pieces of it through small windows. He planted his feet firmly and refused to move until he had gazed more fully at this spectacle, but the woman slapped him on the ear, grabbed him under the arms, and carried him.

  He was left in a new place, so distant from where he had been that he never saw anyone he had known before. He was among keepers of animals and workers of iron, and fascinated to watch both. The furnaces crackled merrily and were splendid if one kept a safe distance from them, and the animals were more so. Horses were mountains of flesh on legs, but huger still were creatures called katas, which stood on their hind legs twice as tall as any horse. They were hairless, greyskinned, with tiny forelimbs and even tinier seven-fingered hands, and small, narrow heads. He was never allowed near a kata, because they were rare and expensive and because one could smash him to mush with a flick of its tail, or so the keepers claimed. Where it joined the body, the tail was as thick as the man who warned him, and he was broad-shouldered. At the tip grew three spikes of white bone.

  Ginna did not really know how to be a part of the society of stable hands and smiths. He didn’t know what to say. Their children played incomprehensible games. So he stayed out of the way and watched most of the time, learning, peeking out of corners until someone called him “The Mouse”. The name stuck.

  He was better fed and clothed than before. Like everyone else he wore a simple tunic, and like the other children, he went barefoot.

  He saw no one else making balls of light with their hands, so he thought it best to do this only in private. He did not like to draw attention to himself.

  Eventually he made a friend. She was half a year older than he. Her name was Amaedig, which means Cast Aside. She did not seem to have any parents, but wandered from place to place as he did, sleeping wherever there was room. She was not good looking, and her back was slightly crooked, but he found her pleasant to be with. They played together among the metal scraps, and sometimes climbed atop something to watch the men feeding slices of meat to the Katas, or even trying to ride them in a small, fenced-off yard.

  After a while he swore
her into secrecy with as terrible an oath as he could think of (“If I tell this secret, I hope terror and doom will come upon me, and my arms and head fall off, and extra toes grow out of my empty neck!”), then took her into a closet and showed her how he made light balls.

  “Can’t you do it?” he asked, as she gazed in amazement.

  “No, but I wish I could.”

  “Then try.”

  She did. Nothing.

  “How did you learn to do it?”

  “I didn’t. I always could. I used to think everyone could, and then I thought maybe only grownups couldn’t, but now you can’t either. I don’t understand. Maybe I’m special.”

  More spheres floated up, to the top of the closet. “They’re pretty,” she said.

  * * * *

  Ginna was seven when The Guardian first sent for him, and suddenly he was someone important. All faces were turned toward him. All hands helped as he was scrubbed and shorn and brought fresh clothing. All eyes looked after him as he was taken away and Amaedig ran up to him as he was leaving and said, “Will you come back? Will you?”

  “I hope so,” was all he could say.

  He came back. It was the first of many visits. Tharanodeth was in his declining years by then, and he sent for Ginna often. When the boy was still small he sat him on his knee and sang songs to him, or bade him sing other songs back. They traded riddles. The old Guardian even read to him from an ancient book, which from the date marked on its clasp had not been opened for fifty years. It told of the deeds of the remote forebears of the people of Ai Hanlo, how they had come out of the mountains and out of the desert to found the Holy City, which stood in the middle of a fertile plain in those days.

  “It was a golden age,” said The Guardian of The Bones. “Men were content then, and the Earth was calm. It was before the death of The Goddess.”

  “How did she die?”

  “I don’t know, my boy. I don’t know. Does that surprise you? It has been prophesied that someone will find out, but all I can tell you is how it was discovered that she was dead. The age of peace ended. Suddenly all the world was in turmoil, even more than it is today. There were two suns in the sky and the land burned. Then winter lasted all the months of the year and it froze. The oceans froze too, but then they melted and rushed over the land. Invading hordes tore down cities mightier than our own. But this was not enough to let them know that The Goddess was dead. Pestilence, earthquake, and war had come before. No, it was discovered in this wise: a certain holy man, the holiest of all men living, who was sort of a guardian back before there were any bones to guard over, took a bone, an ordinary bone, the leg bone of one of his order who had died, and he wrote a message to The Goddess on it, begging for her help in the time of trouble. Then he cast the bone into a fire. The Bright Aspect of The Goddess could be made manifest through fire. But when he drew the bone out again, there were no cracks on it and the message was erased. No answers because there was no one to answer. By that he knew that The Goddess was dead.”

  “But where did The Bones come from?”

  “That, young man, is a holy mystery, which only I may know. I can’t tell even you. Now you are dismissed.”

  Another year passed. The manner of the visits began to change. Ginna was brought in secret to The Guardian, and told not to speak of what went on. So he confided only in Amaedig.

  It was during his eighth year that he was ushered into the private chambers of Tharanodeth and he found The Guardian dressed in heavy shoes and a travel cloak, with a staff in his hand.

  “We are going somewhere,” the old man said. “We are going now, while I can still make the journey.”

  Ginna’s heart leapt. So far in his life he had never been beyond the walls of the palace, and there was much within those walls he had never seen. Beyond the palace there was the lower city, beyond that—

  He could not imagine what was beyond that. He had seen a little, but only from windows. It was very far away. So were the stars.

  It was after midnight then, well into the stillest hours of the night Ginna no longer dressed in fine clothes to visit The Guardian, and he was in his usual plain tunic, and without shoes. He was not ready for any journey, but he went. Tharanodeth took him down a long, winding staircase, through a secret passage, until they had descended for so long he was sure they were at the center of the Earth.

  The stone floor was intensely cold beneath his feet. Damp slime squished between his toes. Then the floor ended and there was only rough stone. He trod gingerly.

  “Get up on my back,” said The Guardian. “I’ll carry you.”

  He did, and the old man staggered and let out an “oompf!” but he carried him for miles. Once Tharanodeth looked up at the dripping stalactites and said, “We are no longer in the palace, but underneath the city itself.” Then the way sloped down sharply. “We are at the heart of the mountain,” he said. A long while afterwards, as they began to move up again, he said, “Now we are just barely in sight of Ai Hanlo. We are well beyond the walls.”

  It was still dark when they emerged into the open air beneath the stars. The moon was bright and nearly full, and the old man pointed to the west, where it was nearing the horizon.

  There stood a mountain revealed in the moonlight, surrounded by barren foothills and topped with crags and sheer cliffs. But all over the mountain, like ivy growing on it, were towers and walls, terrace after terrace of tiny houses, more walls ringed with towers from which pennons flew, and at the foot of the mountain still more levels of houses with a thicker wall encompassing the whole. Two huge gates were visible. Atop each tower, spread all the way up the mountain, watch-lights burned, and there were lanterns in many windows. The lights were a natural part of the city just as the city seemed a natural outgrowth of the mountain, and the sum of all seemed an enormous beast with glittering scales and a thousand eyes, crouching beneath the moon.

  Tharanodeth set Ginna down, and bade him look for a long time. They stood there until the moon set.

  “Now that you have seen the city of Ai Hanlo from the outside, as it sits upon Ai Hanlo Mountain, you will understand what I mean when I tell you that our ancestors did not build the city when they came here from far away. They carved its foundations out of the flesh of the stone.”

  He pointed to the golden dome of the summit “Behold. That dome and the towers surrounding it comprise only that part of the palace which is visible from this side. And yet there is enough there for you to spend your whole lifetime exploring and even then you could not know it all in its fullness. And around the palace is the city, through which you could wander all your days, and still some of its ancient secrets would remain hidden. Yet consider how small they are seen from this distance. Just one mountain surrounded by hills, beyond which are wide plains and other lands. Now come. I want to show you something.”

  He took the boy on his back again with difficulty. “You are supposed to be underweight. Have you gotten heavier without my permission?”

  “No,” said Ginna meekly, too overwhelmed to be aware of the levity.

  They traveled for hours over the sloping, rocky ground. Constantly Ginna looked back at the wonder of die city, and slowly, as he watched, the curvature of the terrain hid it from him. To be out of sight of Ai Hanlo was wholly incomprehensible, like being adrift between life and death. And yet there he was.

  The eastern sky was reddening in front of them. In all directions nothing was visible except stones and scrubby underbrush.

  Tharanodeth stopped and set Ginna down.

  “Stand here and look,” he said. “Look, and you’ll see the Earth as it always was, even before the death of The Goddess. I come here sometimes to reflect, when the toils of my station are more than I can bear. I come out here to where it seems that mankind and all his works have made no more impression on the Earth than the passing shadow of a cloud. I tell myself not to worry, to face what I must face with courage and dignity, for nothing matters ultimately. I come out here to watch the
sun rise.”

  And they stood still as the glow in the sky increased and all the secret colors of the desert were revealed. Formerly dun brown hillsides suddenly flashed orange and crimson. There were furtive yellows and even a wink of blue. The colors and the long shadows cast by the stones shifted and flowed like a long, soft cloth being dragged across the land.

  Ginna was sure he had never seen anything so beautiful.

  “There is much more,” said The Guardian, and he took him on his back again.

  It was well into the morning when they came to that ridge which had been a mere line on the horizon. As Tharanodeth made his way up the incline, one hand on his staff, the other behind the boy’s knee as he carried him, he turned his face from left to right and back.

  There were mounds of crumbled stone all around them.

  “You are in a city of ancient mankind,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Here. In every direction. This is why we waited till dawn. At night the ghosts of the inhabitants would howl in our ears.”

  Ginna did not know if he was joking or not.

  When they topped the rise, Tharanodeth said between labored breaths, “And here is another city.”

  Ginna got down, stared, and gasped.

  All the way to the horizon, towers taller than any he had ever seen filled the land. They were hollow and broken off at the tops. Each had hundreds of empty windows. Sometimes slender bridges stretched between them. Sometimes these were broken halfway, and sometimes the towers themselves were little more than suggestions of shapes in heaps of rubble. And at the feet of them were shells of countless lesser buildings, all nearly buried beneath the talus of fallen masonry and sand. A few stranger shapes, taller than anything else, flickered over the city like shadows cast by a candle in a drafty tunnel, not substantial at all.

  “It is one of the dead places,” the old man said. “I have heard that there are even larger ones elsewhere. This was a city as we cannot imagine a city, built by men we can scarcely think of as men. Surely The Goddess admired them. One legend has it that they created her, or some other one who came before her, to watch over the world after they were gone. No one can ever know what magic they possessed, or even what spells linger in a place like this. If you think our little mountain is vast, consider this. An immortal could spend all his days here and never examine it all.”