The Best of the Realms, Book I

THE FIRST MOONWELL

Douglas Niles

The goddess existed deep within the cocoon of bedrock,an eternal being, formed of stone and silt and fire, her body blanketed by thedepths of a vast and trackless sea. In the way of immortals, she had littleawareness of the steady progression of ages, the measured pulse of time. Onlygradually, over the course of countless eons, did she become aware that aroundand above her the ocean came to host an abundance of life. She knew thepresence of this vitality in all the forms that thrived and grew; from thebeginning she understood that life, even in its simplest and most transientforms, was good.

Deep waters washed her body, and the volcanic firesof her blood swelled, seeking release. She was a living thing, and thus shegrew. Her being expanded, rising slowly from the depths of the ocean, overmillennia spilling along trench and seabed, pressing deliberately, forcefully upward.Over the course of ages, her skin, the floor of the sea, pushed through therealm of black and indigo and blue, toward shimmering reaches of aquamarine anda warmth that was very different from the hot pulse of lava that measured herown steady heartbeat.

Life in many forms quickened around her, first in themanner of simple things, later in larger and more elaborate shapes. Animationteemed in the waters that cloaked and cooled her form. Gashes opened continuallyin the rocky flesh of her body, and her blood of molten rock touched the chillwaters in spuming explosions of steam.

Amid those hissing eruptions, she sensed great formscircling, swimming near, breathing the chill, dark sea. Beings of fin andtentacle, of scale and gill, gathered to the warmth of the earthmother'swounds-wounds that caused no pain, but instead gave her the means to expand, tostrive ever higher through the brightening waters of the sea.

And, finally, in the life that gathered to her bosom,she sensed great creatures of heartbeat and warm blood. Those mighty denizensswam like fish, but were cloaked in slick skin rather than scales, and rosethrough the sea to drink of the air that filled the void above. Mothers nursedtheir young, much like the goddess nourished her children and her thriving sea.Most importantly, in those latter arrivals the goddess sensed the awakenings ofmind, of thought and intelligence.

Unaware of millennia passing, feeling the coolness ofthe sea against the rising pressure of her rock-bound body, the physical formof the goddess continued to expand. At last, a portion of her being rose abovethe storm-tossed ocean to feel a new kind of warmth, a radiance that descendedfrom the sky. Periodically this heat was masked beneath a blanket of chillypowder, but the frosty layer yielded itself in a regular pattern to morewarmth, to soothing waters that bathed the flesh of the goddess, and more ofthe golden rays shedding steadily downward from the sky.

The flesh of the goddess cooled, weathered by exposure to sky. New anddifferent forms of life took root upon her; beings that dwelled in the sea ofair turned faces upward to the clouds. Many did not walk or swim, but fixedthemselves to the ground, extended lofty boughs upward, creating verdantbowers across the breadth of the land. The growth of those tall and mightytrees, like all forms of life, was pleasing to the goddess. She sensed thefruition and waning of the forests that layered her skin, knew the cooling andwarming of seasons with greater acuity than ever before.

It was this awareness that, at last, gave to theearth-mother a true sense of passing time. She knew seasons, and in the courseof changing climes she learned the pattern of a year. She came to measure timeas a man might count his own breaths or heartbeats, though to the goddess eachheartbeat was a season, each breath the cycle of the annum. As the years passedby the tens and hundreds and thousands, she grew more vibrant, stronger, andmore aware.

The hot blood of earlier eons cooled further; the eruptionsfrom the sea ultimately were capped by solid stone. That firm bedrock, where itjutted above the waves, was layered everywhere in forest, meadow, glade, andmoor. Seas and lakes intermixed with the land, keeping the goddess alwayscool, both fresh waters and brine nurturing the growing populations of livingcreatures.

Still the goddess maintained communion with the beingsof warm blood dwelling in the depths, who swam to the surface and returned,sharing their mind-images of a vast dome of sky, of the sweet kiss of a seabreeze, and the billowing majesty of lofty clouds. Her favorite of those seacreatures was one who had been nourished at her breast from time immemorial,feeding upon the kelp and plankton that gathered to her warm emissions,slumbering for decades at a time in her embrace. She came to know him as theLeviathan, the first of her children.

He was a mighty whale, greater than any other fish ormammal that swam in those seas. His soul was gentle, his mind observant, keen,and patient-as only one who has lived for centuries can know patience. Great lungsfilled his powerful chest, and he knew life with a rhythm that the goddesscould understand. Sometimes he took a breath of air and settled into thedepths, remaining there for a passage of several heartbeats by the reckoning ofthe goddess-a time of years in the more frenetic pace of the other warm-bloodedcreatures.

In long, silent communication with the goddess who washis mother, the Leviathan lay in a deep trench on the bottom of the sea,sensing the lingering warmth of her fiery blood as it pulsed and ebbed belowthe bedrock of the ocean floor. During those times, the great whale passedimages he had beheld above the waves, pictures of growing verdancy among theearthmother's many islands, of the teeming array of creatures swarming not onlysea and land, but even flocking in the skies.

And he shared, too, his memories of clouds. Those morethan anything else stoked the fires of the earthmother's imagination, broughtwonder to her heart, and caused curiosity to germinate in her being.

As she communed with the Leviathan, sharing hismemories of the things he had beheld, she began to sense a thing about herself: The goddess, unlike so many of the creatures that dwelled upon her flesh, wasutterly blind. She lacked any window, any sense through which she could viewthe world of life flourishing upon her physical form.

The only visual pictures that she knew came from thememory of the great whale, and those were pale and vaporous imitations of thereal thing. The goddess wanted to see for herself the sky of cloud and rain andsun, to know the animals that teemed among her forests and glades, the treesthat sank their roots so deeply into her flesh.

From the Leviathan, the goddess earthmother hadlearned about eyes, the orbs of magic that allowed the animals of the world toobserve the wonders around them. She learned about them, and desired them…and devised a plan to create an eye for herself.

The Leviathan would aid her. The great whale drankfrom an undersea fountain, absorbing the power and the magic of the earthmotherinto himself. With easy strokes of his powerful flukes, he drove toward thesurface, swimming through brightening shades of water until again his broadback rolled above the waves, felt the kiss of sunlight and breeze.

Swimming strongly, the Leviathan swam to a deep bay,stroking between rocky necks of land into ever narrower waters, toward thewestern shore of one of the earthmother's cherished isles. Mountains rose tothe north, a stretch of craggy highlands crested with snow as the spring warmthcrept only slowly upward from the shore. To the south was a swath of greenforest, woodlands extending far from the rocky shoreline, blanketing this greatextent of the island.

In the terminus of the bay, the land came togetherfrom north and south, the waters remaining deep enough for the Leviathan toswim with ease. He came to the place the goddess had chosen, and brought thewarm and magical essence of herself through his body. With a great, spumingexplosion, he cast the liquid into the air, shooting a shower of warm rain.Precious water splashed onto the rocks of the shoreline, gathered in manystreams, flowed downward to collect in a rocky bowl near the gravel-strewnbeach.

The essence of the goddess gathered into that pool,milky waters of potent magic. Her presence focused on the skies, on the vaultof heavens she had so long imagined. The first thing that came into view was aperfect orb of white, rising into the twilight skies, coursing ever higher,beaming reflected light across the body and blood of the earthmother.

From the waters of her newly made well, the goddessbeheld the moon. Alabaster light reflected from the shoals and waves of theshoreline and blessed the land all around. The earthmother saw this light, andshe was pleased.

Yet still there was a dimness to her vision, an unfocusedhaze that prevented her from fully absorbing the presence of the world. TheLeviathan lay offshore, rolling in the heavy swell, but the pool was remotefrom him, bounded as it was by dry ground and rocks. She knew then that itwas not enough to have her children in the sea.

The goddess would require a presence on the land, as well.

The wolf, gray flanks lean with hunger, shaggy peltworn by the ravages of a long hibernation, loped after a mighty stag. The buckran easily through the spring growth, exhibiting none of the wide-eyed panicthat might have driven a younger deer into headlong-and ultimatelydisastrous-flight. Instead, the proud animal bounded in graceful leaps, stayingwell beyond the reach of hungry jaws, veering only when necessary to maintain aclear avenue of flight.

In the midst of the keen, lupine face, blue eyesremained fixed upon the lofty rack of antlers. Patience, counseled the wolf'sinstinct, knowing that the pack could accomplish what one strong hunter couldnot. As if in response to their leader's thought, more wolves burst fromconcealment to the side, rushing to join the chase. But the stag had chosen itscourse well; a long, curving adjustment took it away from the newer hunters,without allowing the big male to draw appreciably closer.

A low cliff loomed ahead, and though no breeze stirredin the depths of the glen, the buck sensed another ambush, canine formsconcealed in the thickness of ferns lining the shady depths of the bower. Nowthe stag threw itself at the limestone precipice, leaping upward with catlikegrace, finding purchase for broad hooves on ledges and mossy outcrops.

With snorting exertion and flaring nostrils, the firstoutward signs of desperation, the buck scrambled up a rock face three timesits own height. A trio of wolves burst from the ferny camouflage below, howlingin frustrated hunger as the antlered deer reached the level ground above thecliff and once again increased its speed. Hooves pounded and thundered on thefirm ground as, with a flick of a white-feathered tail, the stag raced towardopen terrain.

But the leader of the small wolf pack would not, couldnot, admit defeat. Throwing himself at the rocky face, pouncing upward with allthe strength of powerful rear legs, the wolf clawed and scraped and pulled,driven by the desperation of the starving hunter. At last, broad forepawscrested the summit, and the carnivore again loped after his prey, howls echoingafter the gasping, thudding noise of the stag's flight.

Others of the wolves tried to follow, though most fellback. Still, a few young males and a proud, yellow-eyed bitch made the ascent.Their baying song added to the din of flight and gave the rest of the pack afocus as smaller wolves raced to either side, seeking an easier way to theelevation above the limestone shelf

Weariness began to drag at the leader, bringing to hisstep a stumbling uncertainty that had been utterly lacking before. Yet thescent of the prey was strong, and mingled with that acrid odor came the spoorof the stag's own weariness, its growing desperation. Those signals gave thewolf hope, and he raised his head in a braying summons to the rest of thepack, a cry of anticipation that rang like a prayer through the silent giantsof the wood, along the verdant blanket of the cool ground.

But the powerful deer found a reserve that surprisedand dismayed the proud hunter. The predator raced through the woods with bellylow, shaggy tail extended straight behind. Those bright blue eyes fixed uponthe image of the fleeing stag, watching antlers brush overhanging limbs andleaves. Straining, no longer howling as he gasped to make the most of eachdesperate breath, the wolf pursued in deadly silence.

And in that silence he began to sense his failure. Theloping forms of his packmates whispered like ghosts through the fern-linedwoodland behind him, but neither were they able to close the distance to thefleeing prey. Even the yellow-eyed female, long jaws gaping in a fang-linedgrin of hunger, could not hold the pace much longer.

Then, with an abrupt turn, the stag darted to theleft. Cutting the corner of the angle, the leading pair of wolves closed thedistance. Soon the male was racing just behind the prey's left quarter, whilethe powerful bitch closed in from the opposite side. The twin hunters flankedthe prey, blocking any attempt to change course.

But the stag continued its flight with single-mindeddetermination, as if it had found a goal. The antlered deer ran downward alongthe slope of a broad ridge, plunging through thickets, leaping large bouldersthat would be obstacles only to lesser creatures. The woods opened still more,and the vista showed a swath of blue water, a bay extending between twin necksof rugged land.

Finally the stag broke from the woods to gallop acrossa wide swath of moor. Soft loam cushioned the broad hooves, and though thedeer's tongue flopped loosely from wide jaws and nostrils flared madly with thestrain of each breath, the animal actually increased the speed of its desperateflight.

But so, too, did the wolves. More and more of the packburst from the woods, trailing across the spongy grassland, running in grimand purposeful silence. If the great male had looked back, he would havenoticed a surprising number of canine predators, more by far than had belongedto his pack when they had settled into the den for a winter's rest. And stillmore wolves came along the shores, gathering from north and south, highland andcoast, drawn toward the scene of the hunt, hundreds of gray forms ghostingtoward a single point.

The stag finally faltered, but not because of fatigue.The animal slowed to a regal trot, proud antlers held high. The sea was verynear, but the buck did not strive for the shoreline. Instead, the forestmonarch turned its course along that rocky beach, toward a pool of liquid thatrested in the perfect shelter of a rocky bowl.

The pond was too high to be a tidal pool, nor did thewater seem like a collection of mere rain or runoff. Instead, the liquid waspale, almost milky-white in color, and it swirled in a hypnotic pattern. Theshoreline was steep, but in one place a steplike progression of rocks allowedthe buck to move carefully downward.

Wolves gathered on the rocks, surrounding the stag andthe pool, knowing that the prey was trapped. Yet some silent compulsion heldthe hungry predators at bay. Glittering eyes watched with keen intelligence asthe stag's muzzle touched the surface of the water; long, panting tonguesflopped loosely as the carnivores waited for their prey to drink.

For a long time, the great deer lapped at the watersof the Moonwell, and when finally it had drunk its fill it stepped away,mounting the steps toward the leader. The stag raised its head, baring theshaggy throat, uttering a final, triumphant bellow at the powdery clouds thathad gathered in the sky.

When the leading wolf bit into that exposed neck, hedid so almost tenderly. The kill was quick and clean, the predator ignoring thered blood that warmed his jaws, that should have inflamed his hunger andpassion with its fresh and welcoming scent. Instead, the wolf raised his ownhead, fixed bright eyes on the same clouds that had been the last things seenby the mighty stag. A long howl ululated across the moor, and the leader wasjoined by the rest of his pack in a song of joy and worship, in music thathailed their mother and their maker.

When the pack finally fell to feeding, the blood ofthe stag ran down the rocky steps in crimson rivers. Though the wolves numberedan uncountable throng, there was meat for them all. With a sense of powerfulsatiation, each predator, after eating its fill, drank from the milky waters ofthe pool.

The feasting went on for more than a day, and at lastthe brightness of the full moon rose above the glimmering waters. Pups wereborn under that light, and youngsters frolicked around the fringes of a mightygathering.

The red blood mingled with the waters of the Moonwell,and the goddess saw and celebrated with her children. The bold sacrifice ofthe stag was, to her, a thing of beauty-and with the mighty animal's blood wasthe water of her Moonwell consecrated.

And the balance of her living children maintained.