2.1 The Deity
“I think she might be ill,” said the small woman standing before Asha. Her ruffled blonde hair spiraled outward in as many directions as the sea wind had blown that morning. The goddess was all too familiar with this particular villager. Her name was Greta, wife to Eberisle’s only boatmaker, an unreasonably proud man named Eli.
“She isn’t ill,” Asha responded from the stone alcove behind the forge that went cold long ago. What a place for a goddess to live. In the ruined shell of an old blacksmithy.
“But, my queen, if you look at her feathers here…” Greta feebly tried to lift a wing of the chicken she was cradling, but the struggling bird put up too much of a fight.
“I don’t need to examine the beast to know its condition,” Asha responded. “She is old, nothing more. I cannot foresee her living past this year, but her death will be nothing outside of the natural course of things.”
Greta’s mouth opened wide and she squeezed the chicken tight to her chest.
“But, she’s been with Eli and me for so long.”
“That’s the point,” Asha responded. “She has lived a long life and you will soon have to let her go.”
“What will we do?” Greta asked, her voice nearing a panicked crescendo.
“The same thing you’ve always done. Bring me what I ask, and I will provide you with a clutch of chicks to raise.” Asha said, slowly stroking her brow.
Greta took a dozen deep breaths and caressed the chicken’s back, trying her best to calm herself. She was a simple woman, but Asha had developed something of a fondness for her. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she was one of a handful of villagers who still worshipped Asha. Most of the rest, including her husband Eli, had turned away. Some to a godless life, but most had become devout followers of Uzoma.
In the dense jungles of the island, there was a waterlogged temple dedicated to Magne, a god from ages past when the pantheon remained hidden away in their tunnels beneath the sea. Magne, in an act of aimless defiance, broke free of the tunnels and placed himself among the island dwellers. They fell to their knees in the presence of his power, which was, in relation to the rest of the pantheon, quite middling. In the interest of studying god and human cohabitation, the pantheon allowed Magne’s act of rebellion to go unpunished, and instead birthed Uzoma the whirlpool serpent into the waters surrounding the island. Magne and the island dwellers would remain unharmed, but any ship attempting passage into or away from the island would be swallowed whole by the serpent. Ages past, Magne grew bored once more and moved on, and as Uzoma no longer had a reason for living, it slithered up onto the coast and died. From the beach, its skeleton appeared to be nothing more than jagged stones, but from the top of the temple, its entire form was visible. The island dwellers past the story on for a few generations, before forgetting it all entirely.
Now, the unfortunate batch that Asha was set to watch over, had taken to worshipping the bones of Uzoma, believing the temple was built in its honor. Asha had tried many times to tell them they were worshipping the corpse of an old god’s pet but to no avail. It only proved to paint her as a jealous goddess, desiring their attention. Which, to be fair, she was. All the same, the bones of a sea serpent couldn’t bring Greta a new clutch of chicks. If only Asha was one of the higher goddesses, capable of earth-shattering feats. There are only so many miracles one can ask of a goddess of agriculture on a small jungle island.
“Thank you, my queen,” Greta said, tepidly. Realizing her less than enthusiastic tone, she immediately held out a hand. “I’m sorry, I truly do appreciate it. It’s just…”
“I know Greta. Worry not. Just bring me what I need before the next full moon.” Asha said.
Greta bowed and carried her chicken out of the blacksmithy towards the center of the village. Asha stood and brushed a bit of soot from the infinite folds of her sea-green robe.
“Dirty shop,” she mumbled to herself. “Can’t keep this place clean.”
She moved from the alcove towards the decades-old anvil standing in the center of the room. Despite the open-air design of the blacksmithy-a domed ceiling being supported by only a back wall and two forward pillars-the room was eternally dark due to the nightstone it was built with. A blue-black stone found only in island caves, it was the one thing the villagers of Eberisle were capable of exporting, but they were too lazy to bother.
“Why anyone enjoys working with this chunk of stone I’ll never understand.” she dusted off the anvil which served as her makeshift birthing table. She pursed her lips and gently blew on the wrought iron. Instantly, it shimmered to life. Its form remained the same, but its entire surface took on the look of a pale blue lake, with a slow steady wake traveling from left to right. Asha caught her reflection for a moment, her wild ball of black curls barely contained in the confines of the anvil’s surface and her brown eyes peering out from her drooping eyelids.
“Mother take mercy, perhaps my sorry state is wearing off on the shop and not the other way around.”
She stepped away from the table and out into the sunlight. After a few deep breaths, she knelt down and placed both hands on the perpetually wet soil of the island. A moment of silence passed before her ears were flooded with the words and thoughts of the islanders to the south. She could immediately eliminate Greta and Eli, their needs were met. Only eight hundred and ninety-one more to sort through. Five hundred and forty-three were almost entirely closed off to Asha, but she was obligated to listen to the muffled hums regardless, in the hopes that one or two may return to the fold. Some, like Eli, were a steady wall of inaudible noise. Others flickered back and forth, Asha able to catch a word or two here and there. Others still were only just beginning to lose their clarity, with each thought trailing off a little more distant than the last. Her list of chores grew larger and larger as she listened. A flooded home. A child made sick with rotten food. A man afraid to sleep at night. An apothecary without a clue as to what she was doing. A family pet gone missing.
Asha drowned out the islander’s thoughts with her own. To more than half of these people I am a charlatan, and to the rest, I am a glorified housekeeper. I may not be capable of everlasting feats, but I am far beyond what I have become here. Most of my waking hours are spent on menial tasks that truly do not require the touch of a goddess in the slightest, but without them, I will wither away as their faith in me completely dies. When we first set ourselves amongst them, they were replete with veneration. The very ground I walked upon was thought to be sacred. What has changed? Was there a fear in them that has been assuaged? Are they simply less astonished at the sight of life coming from lifeless things? It seems as if they have grown numb to the very things that brought them to their knees when I first arrived. I am losing them at an alarming rate, and even worse, I am losing myself quicker than that. There was a confidence in me that has been eaten away like the seawater eats away at the rocks. I cannot continue this way. I cannot spend another day birthing chicks and curing mild illnesses. Perhaps it’s time I test myself beyond what I believe I’m capable of. Just as Magne did, breaking the boundaries of our tunnels when he came to this, regretfully not godforsaken island.
Asha stood and shook the lingering voices from her mind. She stepped back into the shop and stood directly in front of the birthing table, now humming with energy.
Let’s begin.
She stood completely still for a moment with her hands over the anvil, then dropped them to her sides.
Begin what? What am I possibly capable of outside of the boundaries that have already been established for me?
It wasn’t unheard of for a god or goddess to work beyond the confines of their role in the pantheon, but it was heavily frowned upon, and because of that, very poorly documented. There was only one instance that the pantheon made a point to immortalize in the records. It concerned a young god from nearly two ages before Asha came into being. He was the god of wild fortune, and he spent nearly every minute of every day toying with his life counter. It was a wooden frame that would have stretched the length of Eberisle had it been outside of the tunnels, and strung along it were millions of threads, each with dozens of their own coins suspended on it. His sole purpose was to move the coins back and forth at random each day. One evening, he abandoned his post and found his way into the birthing forge. With nearly all of his energy, he created an entirely unnatural and devastating being. It sundered the forge in two and crawled across the lifeless body of its creator back towards the life counter. Foolishly, the god had implanted nearly all of his knowledge into the beast. Before the pantheon was able to stop it, the being had severed over half of the threads on the life counter, and with the god’s knowledge, was able to remove its own thread completely. It was locked away in Omond’s spiraling prisons where it remains, still breathing and screeching, incapable of that which it visited upon millions of humans. A dark gray, skinless head covered in knotted bone, banging incessantly against the bars of its cage.
He was a fool to invest enough energy to manifest a being of such power. Asha thought. I won’t make the same mistake. I’ll start small. A human maybe. Or something like a human, but more...fun. More...inspired.
She gently placed her hands flat on the shimmering anvil. The surface felt slick and wet and immediately began to bubble.
Only time will tell what becomes of you, she thought, as a blue crystalline hand reached up through the surface.