The eel she observed so intently was a study of curves and motion. It never paused, just slithered its way through the clear water for a distance it had fixed in its head, then turned and slithered back the same way, drawing and redrawing an oblong shape, pacing, as it were. The water was over a man’s head in depth and the eel near the surface, but the smooth whitish sand of the ocean bottom below was clear, rippling with a clarity of line and shape and texture. The young priestess could have watched the creature against that background indefinitely. Something in it brought her peace, something about it asked a question whose answer felt like the hum that the eel’s path would make if it were audible. She would have liked that, though as yet she had found life posed more questions than it provided answers.
She pushed herself up and began the walk through the network of piers that cut geometric chaos into the smooth arc of the bay. She knew from the placement of the sun that it was time for her to prepare for that evening’s ceremony. If she did not return to the temple soon, the priests would come looking for her. For a moment she considered letting them. They grew nervous, and it had once amused her to cause them unease. But that was before. Increasingly, she found herself more and more incapable of imagining a life in which she was not Maeben, in which the hours of the day were not ordered accordingly.
Leaving the shore behind, she had to cut through the center of the town, which was called Ruinat. It was little more than a fishing village, in many ways like any other settlement on Vumair, the main island of the archipelago. It was, however, home to the Temple of Maeben and therefore held a place of prominence out of proportion to its humble appearance. Galat, on the eastern shore of the island, served as a larger trading and commercial center, but there was nothing holy about that place. Ruinat was a place of humility, quiet now, for the heat of the midday sun baked the world with a shimmering, bleached intensity. Most of the villagers were in their shaded homes, lying still to dream these languid hours past.
The priestess walked right down the hard-packed dirt of the main street, bare chested and with nothing in the slightest to hide. Her earthly identity was not a secret kept from the common people. Everyone in the village knew her. They had watched her grow from the girl who had first arrived on the island, walking out of the sea with a sword clenched in her fist, speaking a strange language and not yet knowing her true name. They had laughed with her over the years, taught her how to speak Vumu, chased her through the streets, and tossed jokes-sometimes even lewd ones-to her. Once she was in Maeben’s finery, of course, none of them would be so bold. But each thing had its place, its time.
Approaching the temple, the priestess had to pass through the promenade of gods. The totems were enormous, made from the tallest trees of the goddess’s island, so lofty that the images toward the top were lost to the naked eye. They were not meant to be viewed from her earthbound point of view anyway. They were tributes to Maeben, to be noticed from a divine perspective, circling high in the sky above.
To name the goddess a sea eagle would have been a crass, sacrilegious mistake. She may take the form and have sisters and cousins that were truly avian creatures, but Maeben herself dwarfed them all. Her eyes were ever-seeing, keen and clear, able to focus in on any and all persons and see right into their centers. She deserved-demanded-their respect. And she had the power to remind them of this whenever she wished to.
Over the years, the young woman had learned that there were many gods in the Vumu pantheon. There were deities like Cress, who controlled the shifting of the tides. Uluva swam before the bonito, directing them on their yearly migration near the island. Banisha was the queen god of the sea turtles. It was only with her blessing that her daughters clambered up on the southern beaches each summer and buried their rich eggs in the warm sand. There was the crocodile, Bessis, that ate the moon bite by bite each night until it vanished; sated by this feast only until the moon fruit had grown again to full bounty, Bessis then rose from slumber and commenced his feast again. It was, she came to understand, a world in which the natural cycle of things was ever in question, depending as it did on the goodwill and health of so many different deities. She barely knew the names of them all, but this did not matter. Only two gods shared the apex of the Vumu pantheon, and only one of these was central to her life.
Maeben was not a goddess with a function in the natural world as were so many others. From the day she was born, she scorned being bound to such labor. She was the goddess of wrath, the jealous sister of the sky who everywhere believed herself slighted: by gods, by humans, by creatures, even by the elements. Maeben, the Furious One, was easily angered, ferocious in retaliation. She threw down storms, rain, and wind, snapping her beak to create the sparks that were lightning. Looking upon humans she had long ago found them too proud, too favored by the other gods. Only once did she find a human pleasing, but what unfolded from it was tragic.
The man’s name was Vaharinda. He was born of mortal parents, but for some reason he was blessed even before he had escaped the womb. Instead of his mother singing him to sleep, he sang to calm her. Instead of her stroking her belly to comfort him, he rubbed her from the inside. Vaharinda had a way with women; his mother knew this even before he was born. When he did emerge into the world, all were amazed to behold him. He was perfection. He grew like a weed, but in everything he was of a fine and shapely substance. By the time he was six or seven years old, grown women swooned on seeing him. By eleven, he had known hundreds of women sexually. By his fifteenth year a thousand women called him husband and claimed to have borne his children. He was a brave and skilled hunter also, a warrior that no other man could best. He hefted weapons other men could not even lift. His enemies knew only fear when they beheld him.
One day Maeben saw Vaharinda giving pleasure to one woman after another. She saw how they lay panting beneath him, enraptured, in awe and joy. She heard them call out the names of other gods, asking them to witness the wonder they were experiencing. All this made Maeben curious. She changed herself into human form and approached Vaharinda. She had not expected to lie with him, but once she looked into his eyes, she could not help herself. What a specimen! What a tool of pleasure curving up from between his legs! Why not climb on it and see for herself what joys the flesh could bring?
That was just what she did. And it was good. It was very good. She lay gasping on the sand afterward and only slowly realized that Vaharinda had not been equally moved. He was already chatting to another woman. Flaring with anger, Maeben called him back and demanded that he take her again. Vaharinda saw no reason to do so. He said that she was fine enough but not so much that he would forsake other women. Her eyes were pale blue like the sky, he said, but he preferred brown-eyed women. Her hair was wispy and thin like the high, high clouds that mark a change in the weather; he preferred thick black hair that he could twine around his great fingers. Her skin was the color of near-white sand; this was unusual, yes, but his tastes were more inclined toward hues of sun-burnished brown.
Hearing all this, Maeben grew enraged. She roared up out of her human form and became a great sea eagle of wrath instead. Her wings were the widest ever seen, her talons large enough to grasp a man around the waist, each claw like a curved sword. She asked him did he like her better thus? The people who witnessed this ran in fright. Only Vaharinda remained. He had never yet seen a thing to frighten him, and he was not inclined to change his ways yet. He grasped one of his spears, and they did mighty battle. They raged across the island and up the mountains. They fought in the branches of trees and jumped out into the sky and ran across the surface of the sea. Vaharinda fought like no man ever had, but in the end he could not prevail. He was a human after all; Maeben was divine. Eventually, she crushed him in her talons. She sat in a branch where the people of Vumu could see and she ate him piece by piece, until nothing was left. Then she flew away. Vaharinda’s story, however, did not end there.