Echoes of the Goddess: Tales of Terror and Wonder from the End of Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

Religion. What is religion when your wheel is stuck?
    When at last the wagon rolled free, stars peered down between the branches. The night air seemed very cold. We sat still, panting, until Tamda had the good sense to get our cloaks, lest the chill get into us.
    So it was that we emerged from the forest in darkness. At first I was hardly aware that there were no more trees. It seemed merely that there were more stars, but then the moon came up and revealed the vast dark carpet of the plain rising and falling before us. Imagine a fish, which had always inhabited the dark and narrow crags among the rocks at the bottom of the sea, suddenly rising up, into the open wonder of the sea itself. So it was. Overhead the Autumn Hunter was high in the sky. The Polar Dragon turned behind us, and the Harpist was rising. By these signs we knew our way. Neither of us wanted to stop for the night. I suppose plainsmen feel the same way, their first night in the forest. So we pushed on and shortly before dawn reached our destination.
    The village glowed on the plain like a beast with a thousand eyes, reclining there, alive with torches. We would never have found it otherwise. The houses were all curving humps of sod, hollowed out and walled with logs. Had they not been lit, we would have passed them in the night, thinking them little hills.
    We were expected. Everyone was awake and waiting. A man in a plumed helmet took our horse by the bridle and led us to a building larger than all the others.
    “Are you Pandiphar Nen?” asked the chieftain who stood at the door.
    “Yes. You sent for me,” I said. “You understand, then, that I do not heal broken bones, or cure any sickness which can be cured with a herb or a little spell?”
    “Yes, I do, or I would not have sent for you.”
    “The price is high.”
    “Please, bargain later. It is my daughter, sore afflicted. She has…left us. Her mind is in darkness, far underground.”
    Tamda and I climbed down from the wagon seat. I got my bag out of the back. We were shown inside. The house had but one room, and a fire burned in the middle floor. The smoke hole wasn’t large enough, and the air was thick. On a pile of hides to one side a maiden lay, her eyes open, but her gaze distracted. She did not seem aware of us. She rolled her head and muttered to herself. I listened for a moment, catching a few words, but most of it was strange to me.
    “Put the fire—out,” I said to those who had come in with us.
    “And leave us alone.” This was done. I waited for the smoke to clear.
    Then I made a mixture of the ground root of the death tree, the water of life, common flour to hold it all together, plus other ingredients, including something called Agda’s Toe. Agda was my master, to whom I had been apprenticed when I was fifteen, some thirty years before. Then I had believed he had an infinite supply of toes, which could be regrown whenever he cut them off and sold them to pharmacies all over the world, but of late I had had my doubts. He never took off his shoes in public.
    I ate a spoonful of the mixture and washed it down with wine. I sang the song of the false death, with Tamda at my side to make sure that I did not truly die. She would hold my wrist and take my pulse, counting one heartbeat a minute, and listen for a shallow breath about as often. If I got into trouble she would shout my name and call me back. She alone had this power.
    I departed. At once my awareness was out of my body, sharing that of the girl. I saw through her eyes. Tamda and I stood absolutely still, distorted out of shape, like tall sculptures of glowing jade. The room was full of a white mist, and in it swam things like the luminous skeletons of fishes, and some, like impossible herons made of coral sticks, walked on a surface below the floor, wading in the earth. They sang to me, trying to lull me into sleep within a sleep, but I paid them no heed. They were common spirits of the air. I had seen them many times