Shards of Empire

by Susan Shwartz

  Only that she too was female.

  A gust of pain rushed out and engulfed her. She swayed, but did not fall. If it had meant to destroy her, it could have reduced her to less than dust in that instant. She sensed its caution and its need.

  It was female and in long travail. Here stood a woman. How foolish to destroy her out of pain and fury.

  In the recess within the great cavern, as if what crouched before Asherah had retreated long ago to the safest, most secluded place, she saw what looked like a statue. It was huge, and so old that its features, even in this protected chamber beneath the earth, had worn away: faceless, nameless, and indubitably female. She sat between weathered, inimical beasts: leopards, perhaps, or lions, or some other hunting creatures. It was difficult to see, more difficult yet to concentrate, because Asherah's attention was riveted by the statue, larger by far than the largest of living women, her arms out, grasping her guardians for support.

  She was huge and totally naked. Immense breasts dangled almost to her massive haunches, as if she had nursed many children already. Her throne was little more than a birthing stool, her legs splayed to support her immense belly, which seemed to cast a glow upon the figure's deepest privacy, now exposed past shame in the extremity of a labor that had surely gone on as long as these hills stood.

  The belly across which each contraction rippled seemed to be a huge violet gem that pulsed with each pang of the colossal labor. Was it a statue Asherah saw in travail, or a goddess?

  Before she could stop herself, Asherah backed away. Surely, this was a demon, an image, perhaps, of Lilith or even the fiend herself, who abandoned Adam. Or perhaps it was some other form of the Mother/Whore who had been the enemy of her people since before the coming of the Hittites.

  Whatever else it was, there was no doubt that it was a graven image. As a daughter in Israel, Asherah should not be in the presence of such a thing, much less an image of a goddess, and less altogether an image of such obscenity. And—this was worse yet—here she was, actually looking at such a naked thing in the presence of her Christian husband, an innocent boy, and a Turk!

  Again, the statue's belly rippled, the gem lighting, then turning dark again. Again, the earth groaned.

  The goddess was carved as if in the act of giving birth: but was that obscene? Without willing it, Asherah realized that her dusty, scratched hands had come out to rest over her own belly. It was still too early to be certain, but she looked down, imagining herself swollen to that immense, laboring girth.

  Imagining herself holding her own child. Nursing it. Showing her child to Leo.

  How could she consider that obscene? All her life, she had heard about birth and children. Long after she had known that the women of her household had lost all hope that they would ever attend her in labor of her own, she had continued to listen and to learn and to assist in childbirths.

  She was a woman, a woman who might bear fruit not that long from now. What squatted before her on this birthing stool beneath the earth was a representation of all women.

  Her labor had gone on so very long. She must be so very tired. Asherah sensed her anger. Perhaps she was afraid, too. And so alone, here in the dark with only beasts as midwives.

  Poor thing. Poor sister. Or, perhaps, poor mother.

  This is what your mother endured to give you life. Look upon it. Look upon it well, and learn.

  Asherah started forward.

  “Lady, my lady!” Theodoulos’ voice cracked as he limped hastily toward her

  With the next tremor, the cave rocked so violently that he toppled, half-in, half-out of the water.

  My son, mine to me! My daughter died and was buried in the earth above me; but my son, my son! Men took him, stole him from his nurses. Give him back!

  Dust and grit sifted from a web of cracks that formed in the ceiling, smelling like an ancient grave.

  Once again, the great violet gem in the image's belly flashed: blinding light, followed by darkness filled with dancing sparks.

  Who are these intruders? And why should I not destroy them?

  Stunned by the force of the thoughts that had been thrust into her mind, Asherah reeled. She held to consciousness—and to logic—with the last remnants of her strength.

  Her son? What did she mean: Her son?

  Asherah reeled before the frenzy of unleashed emotion and fought for composure as she had fought for physical balance only moments before. Think, Asherah. Think. Here is a creature: well enough, call it a woman. She shook her head in frustration at her own cowardice.

  Call her a goddess.

  Here she was, alone in the dark, except for her guardian beasts, about to give birth, and not for the first time. She had had a daughter, who died. And she had had a son, born lame because no help could come, and taken into the upper air to live as best he could among her enemies. And he had even, inexplicably, come to love them.

  This land had been sealed. It is safe; behold, we give you guardians. And they steal my son, they ride over my fields, and they leave me alone in the dark!

  Oh God, Asherah thought. The meanest beggarwoman should not have to labor naked and alone as long as she was there to help. Asherah began to piece together the story.

  Years ago, when the figure before her had given birth, a girlchild had died and been buried. Another child had lived and been taken into the outer world, nursed by women whom the goddess trusted—Xenia? Again, Asherah tried not to faint from the shock of her realizations. And then, the child was snatched from them.

  The crippled child who now staggered forward and whom his inhuman mother had greeted with such a fury of possessiveness: Theodoulos.

  Leo struggled across the few steps it took to bring him to her side.

  “All these years,” he murmured. He looked at the goddess, then away; and she could sense how his fingers must itch to bless himself in the way that Christians used, but that was so alien to her, or to the laboring goddess. A mother, and her child: what Leo made of that, given the theology in which he had been brought up, might even hold some weird fascination for her some other time—assuming that she survived to contemplate it. Then, again, if she started laughing at it, she might never stop.

  “Back and forth,” she murmured. “People after people, back and back again over the land. Invader after invader, ramping across her realm, destroying it, raping...”

  The goddess was in pain, furious, and frightened. Why should she not allow the warring spirits in this land to tear it asunder? Why should the storm gods not dance, and the mountains not belch fire before the land cracked asunder and let in the long-vanished sea?

  Why indeed?

  “It was Meletios,” Leo whispered.

  “He was Theo's father?” Asherah blinked. For a moment, Leo trembled on the verge of laughter that could drive him over the edge into madness. Then he controlled himself.

  “Not Theo's father. The discoverer of this place.”

  Asherah met her husband's eyes and smiled. They were much of a mind, had always been so. And now they assembled the last piece of this puzzle. In his youth, a boy here in Cappadocia, Meletios had wandered far beneath the earth. Who knows? Perhaps he had been searching for the way between the underground cities and the treasure that was supposed to be found there.

  Instead, he had found the way within; and he had found, not a treasure of gold and silver, but this. Perhaps even that long ago, the goddess labored. Perhaps the mere sight of her to a thoughtful boy, torn between the raptures of his mind and the urgings of his growing body, had been enough to drive him from his home. Perhaps, too, after seeing what lay beneath the earth and the power of that darkness, he could never find enough light: even in the deserts of Egypt, where he sacrificed his vision.

  He had been left blighted by this place: that was for certain. But he had also been rendered profoundly sensitive to manifestations of the power that dwelt within. And that awareness was something that another person, similarly akin to power, could detect. Thus it must have b
een that Saint Meletios, his namesake and mentor in Egypt, sent him back to Cappadocia, to seal and to guard the shrine lest anyone else see it.

  After all, a blind guardian would be the hardest of all to tempt.

  “He must have found the boy...” Leo whispered. “Much, much later.”

  Asherah looked down at Theodoulos, who crouched beside her. Perhaps the goddess had indeed given birth, she thought— some attempt to reconcile herself and her land with the invaders who had come to it. If so, she had failed, partially, and sent the boy, who had been born less than perfect, up into the light of day to be cared for by the women who served her.

  She had thought herself—and her child—to be protected by them. But, by then, Meletios had cast them out. Thus, it was he who found the lame infant and who cared for him as if Meletios had been his own father or grandfather.

  My son! My son! He hid him from me and hid me from the light of day as if I were some demon ...

  “Be at peace,” Asherah ventured to say. “Possibly, just possibly, he protected you from the sight of those who might have considered you just such a demon.”

  Again, the statue seemed to writhe with the effort of giving birth. The ground shuddered.

  Theodoulos flinched, then drew a shuddering breath.

  “Mother?” his voice quavered upward in pitch, then broke. “Are you truly my mother?”

  Blasphemy that this was the mother of them all trembled on Asherah's lips, to be overpowered by waves of emotion that forced her to her knees.

  Theodoulos rose, as if strengthened by it. He started slowly toward the seated figure, favoring his weak leg as he always did, but moving faster and faster until he had flung himself at her feet. Another tremor racked her, and the violet gem in her belly pulsed, great spasms of light and darkness. Theodoulos cried out as if her pain had become his.

  At his cry, the goddess removed her arms from about the necks of her beast-midwives. She raised his face, illumined now and shadowed by the gem's light, in her hands and kissed him on the forehead. Brighter lights gleamed upon his cheeks: were they Theodoulos’ tears—or hers? Then, with a gesture that looked like a farewell, she took her hands away.

  Go back.

  It was not, Asherah thought, rejection. It was, pure and simple, that this was a birthing chamber and no place for the man that Theodoulos was rapidly becoming.

  Take care of him.

  Theodoulos ran to Leo, who caught him in a hug.

  “He didn't limp,” Leo marveled to Asherah. “Did you see that? She healed him. Just a touch.”

  He held Theodoulos off at arm's length. “Walk for me, son. Walk for me.”

  His eyes brimmed, and he turned to Asherah to share his joy. Out, she mouthed. Now. While it's safe for the boy to go.

  For her part, she knew what she had to do: see the creature who crouched before her through her ordeal and bring her child into the light.

  “You're coming with me,” Leo demanded. Asherah's heart sank. Now, of all times, was precisely the worst for such a display.

  He started forward, but a blast of rage halted his footsteps and, from the way he staggered, might have stopped his heart for good.

  Who are you? the goddess demanded of Asherah. And this ... this man with you ... do you claim him?

  In the upper air, the magic of Psellus’ envoy had struck at Leo's heart and throat. But Leo had resisted Psellus and his servant: he had always been able—at a cost—to resist them.

  This assault was worse by far, as if a deft, but gentle hand passed through his chest, cupped around his heart, and gave it a cautionary squeeze. Let that vastly powerful hand crush into a fist, perhaps by instinct during a particularly harsh birth-pain; and he knew he would die before he had a chance to scream.

  Theodoulos lunged forward—on two good legs, praise God—to catch him, but Leo swerved.

  Asherah extended her hand to him.

  Let her pour her rage out on me! Leo wanted to command her. But he had no breath to shout. He still gasped and swayed from the folly of his last command, and he had never commanded Asherah when he could try to persuade.

  He had never let any appeal she might make to him go unheeded, either. He clasped her outstretched hand.

  “Oh yes,” said Asherah, her voice as tremulous as it had been before Father Meletios, “I claim him.”

  Why have you come here, you and this man you claim?

  Asherah awarded the goddess a level glance. “You drew me. You know you have always drawn me. You know you lured us to the underground ways and made certain we knew we belonged together.”

  The pressure in Leo's mind lessened. The light in the great belly of the laboring statue quivered with each labor pain.

  “Besides,” Asherah finished, her voice shaking, “your servants said you needed help.”

  Even in the pulsating light of the huge amethyst in the statue's belly, Leo could see Asherah glance slightly downward. So this was what had inspired them when Leo had walked over to her and taken her shoulders in his hands, had kissed and caressed her until they had ached to possess each other right then—but the torches had burnt out, driving them back to the surface.

  Why have you not fled now? Helpless as I am now, I can scarcely compel your presence.

  “Can you not?” asked Asherah, her voice edged. “I did not come here for dread or pity. I came here for love. Love of the man beside me, care for the boy—but now that I see you, I will not leave you, not as you are.”

  Leo shut his eyes. Kemal, prostrate beside him, pressed his brow against the rock.

  Asherah's words did not particularly surprise Leo. So short a time they had had together, but he knew her so well. The goddess’ grip tightened within his chest. How long could a man live with the heart cut out of him? Asherah, he knew, would insist on staying here to bring this birth to whatever monstrous conclusion it could be brought. Very likely, she would insist on sending him away—men had no place in a birthing chamber, women always said—and boys like Theodoulos even less. The ground no longer seemed to shake at ever-shorter intervals: it trembled constantly, as if he trod on living flesh that occasionally twinged in a sharper spasm of anguish. Worse still, he could hear shouts and echoes, clashes of battle from far above.

  The people were falling back before the Turks into the maze far below the cities.

  He would be dismissed, and he would go and fight. It was his duty. But duty alone was very bleak, and, if he lived, all the years of his life would be even bleaker without Asherah. He could no more sweep his wife up and away from here—assuming that the tunnels did not collapse, crushing them all—than he could demand that she break the promise she had just made.

  For a moment, the goddess paused. Leo thought the rage that she had used to threaten him abated somewhat, to be replaced in the brief intervals between labor pangs with tenderness. The Mother had seen her son. She had been offered the nursing service of a woman, and one of no mean strength, to aid her until she gave birth. Dark amusement filtered through the statue's pain. What more could she ask?

  Love? It has been long, long since anyone—besides the usual beautiful doomed men—has dared to love me. Be welcome, daughter. In the shadows, it seemed as if her head, its features all but rubbed away, came up and deep pits of eyes regarded him. And you, oh man, be worthy of her. Those eyes regarded him. She is very like ... very like the girls who decked me with flowers when I lived in the sunlight.

  Leo bowed his head. He could see those girls, dark-eyed, glowing with youth and health, flashing-eyed, and garlanded with flowers. Then the goddess had withdrawn beneath the earth. A different faith had ruled, its Father stern, its Mother stripped of power, though still beloved.

  Now, instead of all those worshippers, all the old goddess had to tend her was his wife, even if Asherah was infinitely more powerful and beloved than any pagan girls that this maddened creature might pull from its ancient memory.

  The goddess’ entire body clenched. Something akin to lightning flashed in
the gem glowing below pendulous breasts, and the stocky legs strained against the rock of the cave floor. The rock trembled: Leo balanced as if on shipboard. The stream that flowed across the floor widened, as if life fluids gushed forth to feed it. Leo thought he could smell blood. Had the battle in the upper levels drawn this close already?

  And there was silence in hell for the space of half an hour?

  Less than that. As the goddess’ attention turned inward again, Leo could hear the clamor of mortal combat in the ways above. It was nearing them. The Turkmen must have interpreted retreat as defeat, pure and simple. How astonished they would be when their victims simply vanished into the subterranean byways that so many villagers had explored since childhood. But they would rush down here, seeking treasure—and find only two men, a boy, a woman, and a laboring statue.

  It is well, the goddess’ voice cut into his thoughts. As gently as it had entered, the touch that had menaced his heart was withdrawn. This is my daughter. Even reared as she has been in the faith of her fathers, with no mother to guide her, she remembers: the child follows the mother. You too, oh man: you look strong enough, and you have sense enough to fear me. You are stronger than the last one; see that you foster my daughter well.

  Sunlight, not the light of the amethyst, filled Leo's thoughts. If they were spared, he and Asherah would leave this place with two of this creature's offspring: Theodoulos, and whatever infant slipped from between those immense thighs. It would be a strong child, a healthy one. Leo was not certain he could bear the thought.

  Dust and grit cascaded from the cracks in the ceiling. This time it was not the earth and stone above them that groaned: it was the laboring figure herself. Asherah swayed and fell to the ground, her body writhing as if sharing the statue's birth spasms. A reek of blood and iron filled the cavern.

  The great gem in its belly darkened, then flared into a greater light than it had shown before. The light increased in intensity until it quivered like the purplish white heart of a flame. Then, abruptly, it fluttered toward extinction, shot up, then visibly trembled: light/dark, light/dark, light/dark, like two sides of a butterfly's wings. If the light faded, the “child” would die, and with it, its mother, the land, and any hope anyone in it had ever cherished.