Jay Lake - Endurance

I sat on a lump of masonry and stared up at the brick looming beyond. It was the back of some other temple’s refectory or priory. What had been an interior wall of Marya’s temple stood exposed, the last surviving piece of what was otherwise utterly destroyed. I saw a row of hooks, as if to hang pots, and a discolored square where some icon or image had long been displayed. Small chalk marks around the edges of the wall looked fresher, and oddly familiar.

Hadn’t I seen chalk marks on the shattered bricks here before? On my first visit… I craned my neck to look about. They were familiar, too familiar. And not just from this wreckage.

The air thickened. I tasted metal again. My thoughts interrupted, I tried to gather myself close, as Iso and Osi had taught me, to render myself small as a mustard seed before divine regard. It was already too late. Two birds wheeling in the sky above slowed to a halt in place, their wings trapped between one beat and the next.

Desire, I was certain of it. Blackblood spoke to me in the flesh, so to speak, while the Lily Goddess manifested by different paths.

“You may as well show Yourself,” I called out, my words braver than my heart. “My attention has been captured.”

She stepped out of nothingness, and was indeed Desire. I imagined any woman would know this goddess simply by Her aspect. I tried to look close, but again She was of all shapes and sizes and colors in one body, so it was like staring at a crowd and trying to make them into a single person.

You were drawn to My temple. Desire’s voice was a thousand women whispering on the threshold of their greatest passion.

“I followed where my feet led me.” I would not admit to being Her creature, even temporarily. My purpose was to shut myself of gods. Not to accept more.

No, She said. Your purpose is much greater than that.

This time, the titanic was not driving me so close to the edge of reason. Had I grown stronger, or was She grown gentler with me? “You cheat by heeding my thoughts,” I told Her. Defiance was ever my way, even in the face of all good sense. Or perhaps especially then.

Laughter now, a storm off the sea. You would stand protesting before Father Sunbones himself.

Having already raised the argument, there was no reason not to follow where it led. “I would sooner steal his spoons and find my way home again.”

Your fierce will is what draws the divine to you, Green. Now Desire spoke in a voice I could swear was my mother’s, for all that I had no memory of her. You are a candle amid the vague shadows of so many other souls.

“I am not Your candle,” I said, struggling against the gentle temptation enfolded in Her tone. Not my mother, You do not play fair, I thought with a desperate urgency.

Fairness is such a human idea, She said, Her vasty power almost gentle now. But I bring you something far greater than fairness.

“What?” I let myself grow sullen, for that, too, is a kind of armor against temptation. Whatever came next was surely intended to woo my unwary heart.

I bring you magnificent opportunity. Though Her multiplicitous body did not move, I had the impression Desire knelt before me, to reach me on my level as an adult might bend down to address a small child. This city will need another in Marya’s stead. In time the women of Copper Downs would find their own goddess, and she will come together. If I might raise such a one now, much needless privation would be spared.

My words failed me for a moment, two, three; a long gap of thought unrealized. Finally, I spat out a protest. “You do not mean to elevate me to godhood!”

You have experience of theogeny, Green. You have touched and been touched by more of the divine than almost any priest or eremite. Marya’s passing was no accident. A newly raised goddess with your powers and experience could do much to block another such effort at casting down.

“No!” I tried not to shout, but I was offended, frightened. “I c-cannot do this. I harbor no hopes of ever reaching such an estate. I can’t even stand the thought of being a priestess of my own goddess. C-caring for myself and my child is t-too much. How could I look to the needs of generations of women?”

And their children, Desire reminded me.

I reined my voice in. “I have held too much fate in my hands already. I will not grasp more. Find Yourself another girl. Luck to you both when you do.”

This offer will not be repeated, the goddess warned me. I felt the pressure of scolding, of deeds ill done, of poorly considered choices and the impulsive shame of youth.

“Do not do that,” I growled. My knives were close, though none of them long enough for this target. “I will not be pressed even by You.”

Those rebellions arise from within, Green. Desire’s face came into focus, long with regret and sadness. I am not here, in truth. You have only the least focus of My attention. Most of what you see and hear is your own words and feelings. That is how I know your thoughts.

I wondered if She had just given me some great secret of godhood that I was too dense to comprehend. No matter. I would not play this game for anyone else; I certainly was not intending to play it for Her.

Besides all that, I was certain that I would be a terrible goddess.

“My thanks,” I said, begrudging even the gratitude. “But, no. I have held enough authority to know that I wish no more of it.”

She was gone with the sigh of a dying child, leaving me weeping atop a heap of broken stones and clutching at my belly to protect the baby within from everything.

After a while, Ponce, the pleasant young man from the Temple of Endurance, came to me where I sat listening to the breeze fuss among Marya’s ruins. He was winded, as if he’d been sprinting across the city. A spot of ash was smeared across his forehead.

“Another attack?” My words puffed white in the cold. It was then that I noticed that the pain in my chest and hand were gone as well. Had Desire taken them? I could not decide whether to curse or praise. Divine healing was rank bribery to one like me, who was supposed to learn from her mistakes. Memory of pain is an excellent teacher.

“No.” Ponce stopped, bent with his hands just above his knees. He drew in several deep, shuddering breaths that steamed harder than mine. The scent of him was strong and musky, and tugged at a corner of my thoughts in an echo of Septio better left untouched in this moment. Some lingering aspect of Desire still upon me. Or an unfortunate taste on my part for young men of priestly vocation.

“Worse, perhaps,” he added as he straightened and focused his attention.

I looked into his brown Selistani eyes and wondered what he saw of me. Had the goddess left Her mark? The very touch of a titanic was like walking into a bonfire. Despite the evidence of my own experiences, I knew that in these latter days of the world, they were not worshipped directly. Or indeed thought to be present at all. I wondered if this acolyte could spy Her words yet upon me. “What is worse?”

“A woman cries for you.”

A handful of responses crowded my thinking, none of them respectful or appropriate. I swallowed what would surely have been a smirk, settling for “What does she say?”

“She pulls at her hair and shouts your name, then bursts into tears.” He appeared baffled. “None of us have ever seen her before. She is not known in the temple.”

With a long, slow sigh I unfolded myself from my rubble pile. Whatever Desire had intended, that moment had passed, taking the goddess’ plans with it. I found myself hard-pressed to care overmuch about divine ambitions. As for the crying woman… “Is this a trick? Did you spy bravos lurking in the bushes nearby?”