ACT II: La calamité des indésirables

Cyrenica lies over ten thousand stadia east of Illyrica and the sky over Kircina was still dark when I took a single step that brought me to the Cyrenican city of Phinos. When I say "I", of course, I really mean that Merphomenee did it. Leannia and I were trapped in her flesh, our own bodies slumbering insensate in her slipper left back in Kircina, and we could not so much as blink of our volition. Such a marvelous miracle of joining mortal to goddess could only have been accomplished by Merphomenee's will. The sun had just risen over Phinos, casting rosy hues of vermilion and orange over the city. From this height I could see for many stadia all around for even the tallest of trees did not brush my hips. I ran my fingers gently through the crowns of the trees as though they were stalks of wheat, feeling the leaves tickling my tips. A soft sea breeze flowed from Neptune's vast ocean, caressing my skin and gliding through my hair. Merphomenee's divine vision perceived details more sharply than any human eye, her keen ears more sensitive than any mortal's. At my feet sprawled the city of Phinos, measuring some four hundred hectares in size.

Without a word, I began to destroy Phinos.

The capital and administrative heart of Cyrenica lay in another city, but I later discovered that Phinos constituted an important center of trade and business. Situated behind a deep lagoon where enormous seaborne caravals brought goods from all over the world, it boasted a population of over a hundred thousand housed in a multitude of white plaster domiciles. I placed my elegant buskin on one and flattened it without effort, crushing the fragile house and all of its inhabitants in a puff of dust. The ground shook under my step; if my long shadow did not serve to alert the citizens of my arrival, the shockwave of my step did. Immediately I saw hundreds of citizens thronging the streets scream and bolt away, many attempting to flee from my feet while a few sought shelter. Their distant shrieks of fear sounded hollow from the intervening distance, pitiful cries carried away by the wind as often as not. Immediate panic descended upon the entire city, knowing that their unpredictable goddess had chosen Phinos for annihilation. Their tribute this year must have been rejected then! "Goddess, have mercy upon us! We shall give you all we have!" came the forlorn pleading of a picayune voice near my feet. Without even sparing the supplicant a glance, I turned my foot and crushed her.

What need had I for haste? With another languid step my foot gouged a deep furrow into the earth which overturned half a dozen houses, concrete and plaster crumbling alike as though no more solid than powder. I stepped upon a brewery next to these homes and wine splashed out underneath my shoe as hundreds of barrels burst from the immense weight, soaking the rubble in pungent alcohol. One more step brought me before an altar where the augurs had consulted the bones of birds and prophesied a year of continued prosperity for Phinos. My amused and contemptuous scorn accompanied a sweep of my foot which overturned the sacrificial dais, crushing the brick and concrete to dust. I carefully tucked a stray strand of my scarlet hair behind my ear, reveling in the calamity. Besides the terror of the humans, I heard the frantic bleating of penned sheep intermixed with the panic-stricken neighing of horses and the braying of tethered donkeys. All the animals had been driven mad with fear at my perfumed scent, or else they had absorbed the consternation of the mortals. My foot descended upon an enclosed courtyard where a young shepherdess vainly attempted to console her goats and geese, reducing their cacophony to a stain of blood on my sole.

I felt completely intoxicated by my dominance.

Men pleaded in vain on their knees for my clemency. A father attempted to offer his pretty young daughter to me; my foot accepted both their lives. Dust rose in my destructive wake where edifices had crumbled beneath my onslaught, massive craters several paces deep in the shape of my feminine shoes marking my path. Families huddled fearfully in cellars to evade my fury, cringing at every footfall of mine. I gracefully wended my way down to the harbor piers where frantic citizens screamed for equally frantic sailors to bear them to safety, a colossus gliding swanlike through feeble human constructions before me. The trapped men offered anything - their entire fortunes, their daughters, even themselves as slaves - but my arrival peremptorily ended negotiations when my foot descended on the pier, crushing dozens while the more fortunate scattered into the briny embrace of Neptune. A few triremes had cast off under sail or rowers while the ships already at sea hastened to flee. Heedless of the water, I waded into the harbor and overturned the wooden vessels with an amused smile, letting the sailors fall into the ocean as their toy ships capsized. Most Phinoan mariners could not even swim, the fortunate ones struggling in the waves while the less fortunate floated ashore to face my continuing rampage.

A few enterprising young men avoided drowning by clinging to my stola, only to fall off with despairing wails as I rose out of the sea like Venus at her birth. Wet from the knees down, my robes dripped seawater onto the chaotic streets as I lifted an elegant shoe and brought it down upon the remaining docks. With egress from the sea now severed, the people of Phinos could only flee landward. I saw vultures flocking to feast upon the trampled bodies left in my wake, daring to brave the clouds of dust which rose from the city. All year I had awaited this opportunity; now that the designated day had arrived, would I not take my time to savor the entertainment? Their feeble attempts to halt my progress tickled my skin; really, simply the idea of how helpless they were aroused me, powerless and at my mercy for aught I cared to do. I stepped into a market where the fleeing throng had abandoned their wares; fruits, vegetables, pottery, furniture, and fish all vanished into a pulped mass beneath my cothurni. The mortals who fled found that they could not outrun me, perishing by the dozens with every erratic step of mine. Those who concealed themselves fared little better - with all of my long experience at this game, how could I not know their most favored hiding places? Some of them begged or tried to flatter me, also to no avail, nor did their bribes move my heart. Their ambassador had his chance to offer more; now regret availed them nothing.

Various roads of Illyrican concrete branched out from the city, forming avenues of escape. I leisurely stepped upon one as a pair of horse-drawn wagons futilely attempted to evade my foot, driving a rut into the road that immediately ruined wheeled traffic. More houses vanished beneath my stride, sparing neither rich nor poor. The hovels on the shore broke into splinters and driftwood. The manors on the hills I reduced to rubble of rocks and timbers. Nor did I spare the statues dedicated to the heroes and gods of Phinos, tilting over a knee-height sculpture of Neptune with a casual brush of my calf. The body shattered into fragments of stone with his signature trident broken. Decorative trees also vanished beneath my tread, breaking into splintered trunks with twisted, mangled branches. With my toe I pressed a man against a house wall until his body crumbled from the pressure.

Fires had broken out in half a dozen places in the city, mingling dust with smoke and obscuring my vision of the devastation that I wrought. Tragedy followed wherever I trod: I heard mothers weeping over the broken corpses of their sons, husbands grieving for wives and wives crying for their husbands, masters and slaves vainly laboring to console each other. Phinos bled white beneath my invincible feet. The palatial mansion of the city governor had been evacuated before my arrival, showing that the man had the sense to leave in case the Cyrenicans found no favor with me. His opulent manor did not fare as well, a single step of mine crushing half of the domicile into pebbles and killing half the unfortunate slaves he had charged with its upkeep in his absence. The polished marble courtyard spiderwebbed into a thousand cracks from the impact of my feet. I applied my weight behind my shoes, fracturing the expensive lawn beyond repair.

The city stables housed hundreds of fine steeds. Some thoughtful citizen had opened the corrals to free them, with the result that unbridled horses stampeded in panic down the streets. I lifted my foot and placed it on the stable, driving it into the ground with the result that a single gaping crater in the shape of a woman's foot marred the structure. Stallions and mares crazed by fear milled in confusion, crushed by my tread or crippled if they managed to avoid being stepped upon entirely. Men and women and children were trapped in the rubble of the city's destruction. I set my sight on the city granaries next, those rich towers filled with flour and fish and salted meats. They rose to my knees and presented no challenge, crumbling as easily as the other edifices in this feeble city. Edible goods spilled over the roads covering the stones in nuts and fruits and meat, only to be grounded together into paste by my next callous step. Clouds of flour immediately mingled with the smoke and dust pervading the streets.

With the granaries leveled, I turned to the massive city amphitheater which easily seated twenty thousand men at its fullest. Men screamed and threw themselves out of my way as I strolled to the theater, more apartments and houses obliterated where my feet broke through their walls. Three quick steps from me crushed much of the seating into rocky debris and left deep cracks in the remaining stone. The nearby urban bathhouse boasted clean water until I too stepped upon it and destroyed the facility, catching a few misfortunate citizens who had tried to shelter within. Next to the bath, the public forum formed a wide open space central to the city's political life. I left a few footsteps embedded in the floor and countless cracks.

I paused to admire my handiwork. Thousands must have perished already, so sudden and ruinous was my arrival, and the city would already require years to recover from the property damage. The lasting wound left on the psyche might never heal at all, adding another chapter to the legend of Merphomenee's rampages. The sun had risen high, its rays obscured by the copious amounts of dust and smoke thrown up by my passage. I reveled in my strength and size, but I hardly felt satiated yet. A single apartment left standing between two of my enormous footprints now vanished as I lowered my shoe upon it. A local prefecture followed in quick order, along with a pottery shop and a winepress. Some thoughtful patrician had dedicated a statue to Mercury, god of commerce, in years past on this street; I now availed myself of his generosity to flatten it beneath my boot, savoring how it crumbled like brittle cake beneath my weight.

I found some blind and lame beggars in the city slums and granted them the honor of expiring beneath my feet. A few merchants and athletes caught in the open met the same fate, as did many citizens who hid in their homes praying for me to overlook them. Some even tried to fight, hopeless though any resistance was. A particularly brave young girl threw rocks at my feet with tears in her eyes and I trod upon her with some regret, extinguishing her family line. When I kicked over the city treasury, millions of denarii scattered over the ruined stones of the city streets. The greedy citizens who paused to snatch up loose coins regretted their avarice in the afterlife to which I sped them, their mangled bodies flattened next to the money they coveted. I strolled through the city aqueducts as well and they spilled water into the streets as their elaborate columned arches crumbled from impact. Water from the city reservoirs erupted from pipes that burst beneath my ponderous weight, soaking the rubble of the city and mingling with the flames that licked hungrily at anything which burned.

Gardens with beautiful trees and flowers suffered from my stride, their careful landscaping ruined by feminine footprints pressed into the soft earth. Schools of rhetoric and grammar and art vanished too, in one case with many pupils who vainly hid inside from my rampage. A famous philosopher from Phinos perished beneath my tread, as did a courtesan renowned for her charms. Illustrious as they might be in their respective fields, today and to me they were but two more statistics sacrificed to my unbridled power. Human sacrifices all, more substantial and more gratifying than any number of animals offered to me on the altar. I stepped upon a library full of scrolls where a few men had sheltered themselves, and I also reduced the nearby temple to Ceres to its foundations.

A smile flitted about my face as I wandered around the city, destroying edifices I might have spared on a whim earlier in my rampage. I followed no plan, letting inspiration guide my heavy footsteps and savoring the terrified screams of men and animals helpless before my feet. My robes had dried now, and I summoned the sailing ships fleeing on the ocean back to the city by forcing a contrary wind to sweep them to me. A few wrecked on the rocks around the harbor, spilling men and goods out. One ship I simply picked up cleanly out of the sea, carrying it and the terrified occupants inland until I raised the vessel above my head and released it over a warehouse full of goods. They pleaded earnestly with me to spare them, and they shrieked in abject fear as I dropped them. In fascination I watched the ship slowly descend until the hull crashed through the roof and splashed into splinters.

Some of the citizens who had survived my now stained soles found themselves seized in my grip where I reached down and grasped them between my fingers. Men and women alike wailed in fear, quailing before my majesty as they pleaded to be spared. They offered their wealth, their worship, their families and their dignity, but I simply crushed them all in my hand. At random I seized fistfuls of Phinoans who screamed in panic as I stained my hands with their blood, sparing none except a single elderly matron whom I recognized as a former vessel of mine. She alone I set down covered in gore but unharmed, indicating with a glance that she should flee. She hobbled away with entrails dripping from her stola; there were none brave enough to aid her. Carrion birds wheeled over the city and descended to engorge themselves on the rich feast set out for their kind. I scooped another handful, this time mostly of slaves to the wealthy patrician families. One by one I dropped them screaming out of my hand and their bodies shattered against the debris at my feet. Before you ask why I did not swallow some, foolish reader, consider whether you yourself pluck up unwashed rodents from the gutter to ingest?

How I reveled in the destruction! The chorus of grief that rose up around me sounded sweeter to my ears than any theatrical song. What beauty of nature, however profound, could compare to the devastation wrought by my own two hands and feet? How could human ingenuity, mortal engineering, or their limited understanding of magic offer the least resistance to my divine might?

I have said before that I do not wish to weary my readers by banal repetitions in my account, but let me be pardoned on this occasion. To be drunk with power is far more intoxicating than the sweetest of wine or the strongest of mead. Every column I ripped out of its foundation, every edifice I crushed beneath my foot into dust, every mortal who perished at my whim filled me with ecstasy beyond words. This happened because I willed it so. One hundred thousand men in Phinos, three million men in Cyrenica had tried to avert this catastrophe to their homes - and not one iota of their effort made any difference, merely because a single woman decided contrariwise. A snap of my fingers would bury the entire province in ice if I wished, or a mere nod reduce it to a scorched desert. These miserable mortals lived entirely at my pleasure and perished at it too. My entire world lay prostrate and helpless before me. Imagine a planet trembling forever at a woman's touch if you wish to understand humanity's future in Illyrica. I had nearly succeeded in exporting this ghastly fate to Theraveria as well.

Theraveria ...

The memory of it rankled me. How close I had come to rising out of the gate which I had deceived those foolish mortals into building! How cleverly I had beguiled them into expending enormous money and effort on hastening their own doom! And how swiftly my elaborate plans had fallen apart at the hands of a treacherous vessel and an innocent princess. I sank into reverie for a moment, ignoring the destruction of Phinos around me, the screams of the frightened, the moans of the dying, the flames and the floods and the dust and the carnage. My elegant stola swayed in the noontime breeze as sunlight glinted off my scarlet hair. For a moment I thought of reaching across the vast empyrean void between the worlds - a feat which would require considerable effort even for my matchless power - to inhabit Renia Sundalicia, a puppet whose strings I had not pulled since that fateful day. If she had forgotten her terror at my dominance, I could remind her with but an effort of will.

No, that would not do.

Revenge should be left to ripen, to mature until age and anticipation rendered it all the sweeter. A kernel of an idea formed in my mind ... but before I could fully grasp it, it vanished into the recesses of Merphomenee's thoughts. An abrupt reminder that I was but a visitor in her flesh and spirit, even if I lay immersed in her sensations and emotions.

I felt a flash of her irritation directed at me. To be thwarted by Summerlyn, a speck of a princess no more resilient than the thousands dying in Phinos. And this after all the pains I had taken to free her mind of its gilded shackles, inspiring her with the possibilities of how much more she could learn and achieve! How dare she repay my efforts so? I should return to Kircina after my little jaunt through this city and terrify her into frightened subservience. I should make her my lowest slave and burden her with the most humiliating tasks, prostituting her before Illyrica's worst men. I should tear her soul from her body and sentence her to an eternity of torment in my all-consuming appetite!

... I missed our long talks and the way her conversations rapidly became more sophisticated with nuance. I yearned to relive how she and I would gossip about men and fashion like two sisters. I wanted to see again how her eyes brightened with understanding when I helped her comprehend magic, and I dearly wished I could hold her safe again in my palm after her self-immolation. I desired to keep her protected in my hand, my fingers strong enough to shield her tiny, fragile existence from the entire world. I longed to nurture her once more with the milk of my own breast and to see how she delighted at my presence, trusting me so implicitly that she would simply fall asleep in my grasp. Unlike the current day where she fled from my face and whimpered in fear before me. Summerlyn, why does the heart of a goddess find you a kindred spirit as she has found few others?

Why did I loathe she whom I cherished?

Why did I cherish she whom I loathed?

Lost in thought amidst the destruction of this mortal metropolis, why could I no longer conceal these musings from the two women confined in my mind? What did I truly wish for? How could a simple mortal girl cause such confusion in me? I, who had ruled Illyrica for countless years until I reached out and touched another world beyond my own, a world so different that fascination instantly seized me. My guard had fallen and in this moment of - weakness? Clarity? Honesty? - I let Summerlyn and Leannia peer into my heart. Once I had counseled Summerlyn to discover her identity and now I struggled with my own! I had to understand who I was. My essence, the part of my eternal and unchanging nature no matter what I might experience: Merphomenee, daughter of Jupiter and Moneta, the tragedienne of the nine Muses.

Tragedy is what I inspire in poets and artists, for it is the deepest emotion which moves my spirit. In my sculptures I am often depicted holding a tragic mask to shield my face. How can I claim to animate the hearts of mere mortals if I do not immerse myself in my own tragedies?

Now I knew what I must do.

I felt Merphomenee's mind and heart close to me again, concealing her innermost desires as her attention returned to the ill-fated habitations of men. Surveying the ruined city from my height, I peered through the smoke and dust for any conspicuous parts of the city I might have missed. A few dwellings and edifices would be spared entirely on my whim, left standing so that the hapless Phinoans could rebuild around them. A beautiful temple complex stood on the highest hill outside of the city limits proper, a steady stream of terrified refugees fleeing within for shelter from me. Daintily I picked up my skirts and sauntered towards the temple as my shoes and feet crushed a rubble-strewn path for me. A statue of me stood outside the prominent columns with hundreds of wailing survivors prostrate before it in fear, invoking all the gods for succor: my mighty father, his wife, and the other pantheonic divinities. This shrine was the largest of the city; naturally it had been dedicated to me when it was built. I could not remember the details of when Phinos had began construction, recalling only that the Cyrenicans had reserved a great deal of money to build this lavish temple in an attempt to curry favor with me during a tributary bid. How long ago had it been?

The wretched masses of humanity screamed and shrieked in terror as my approach became apparent. Most of them retreated under the roofs of the temple, which I noted had shingles of gold and two massive brass bulls outside the portico bearing an enormous bowl of copper on their backs. Pitiful Phinoans, undertaking so much time and expense to construct a massive temple for me, one that I had never bothered to set eyes on before today. The shrine covered enough space that it would probably occupy most of the floor in my bedchamber in Kircina. A few brave souls clung to the knee-height statue of me outside the temple itself, staring up fearfully at me. They claimed succor under my aegis by hiding in my sanctuary, forgetting an important detail: aid is mine to give or withhold as I please.

Magic flowed through me, sealing off the temple entrances with intangible, impenetrable walls.

As much as I admired the workmanship of the carved idol bearing my name and image, I lifted my foot and crushed it into rubble beneath my bloodstained sole, destroying years of work by dozens of skilled sculptors in a violent instant. Horrified screams cut off in a moment with the sudden descent of my sole extinguishing a dozen supplicants. The crowds in the temple watched in dismay, their frantic cries redoubling in urgency as they found themselves trapped inside. Looming over the temple, I paused to admire the fine architecture and the expensive upholstery. Clearly the Phinoans had spared no expense for my temple, so I felt grateful for the chance to behold its beauty before it vanished forever after today.

I gathered my skirts and seated myself on the roof, which caved beneath my ponderous weight immediately and brought the heavy dome crashing down on the confined throngs of Phinoan citizens. Piteously they wailed and begged for clemency, crying out to me that they would give whatever I wished to halt my destruction. I ignored their bleating and caught up a handful of mortals, pretending to examine them for a moment before my fist abruptly tightened, instantly reducing them into a puddle of bloody gore. Mothers tearfully embraced terrified children as I insouciantly swept my legs to crush crowds of people against the ornate walls. I rolled a few intact stone columns over the floors which pulverized the victims into broken corpses. The sun had fallen to mid-afternoon by this time as I nonchalantly decimated the survivors who had sought refuge in my temple. I knew I would leave a scant number of survivors, I simply did not care whom they might be.

Seated in the rubble of the shrine and disinterestedly watching my suffering citizens still pathetically trying to appeal to my mercy, I placed my foot on one person or another from time to time to hear their frightened cries. Gradually their urgent screams tapered into resigned sobbing and sniffling as I made few movements, content to simply immerse myself in the suffering I had authored today. As the sun kissed the horizon in preparation for its descent, I gathered the few frightened remainder who had endured my rampage and spoke to them the only words I had uttered since my arrival in Phinos. I kept my voice gentle and measured to reassure them that their peril had indeed passed. "Rebuild this city," I commanded them, "greater and more beautiful than I found it today." Only then did I permit them to leave the wreckage of the shrine and the thousands of corpses I had made within its walls.

I stood to brush the crumbs of stone and rubble which nestled in the folds of my robes. Most of the bloodstains had faded from bright red to rusty hues, leaving the skirts of my stola torn and tarnished. I paused to take in one last look at Phinos where dust covered the rubble and dozens of fires flickered fitfully among the wreckage. Satisfied with my handiwork, I took a single step which brought me back to my chamber in Kircina, the ambient heat of the air immediately changing to cool scented atmosphere. Summerlyn and Leannia still slept in my slipper. I smiled fondly at their minuscule bodies tucked inside the alcove of my shoe as I sent their spirits back to their flesh.

Immediately I started awake and my head collided against the interior vamp of Merphomenee's heeled pump, causing pain to lance down my spine. Leannia bolted upright as well. "Did we just -" she exclaimed.

"- watch her destroy Phinos?" I cried, horrified by the experience and how utterly powerless I had been to stop it. Worse, I touched Merphomenee's emotions - I felt intimately how much she enjoyed the experience, feeling her exhilaration with every destructive step and her ecstasy with each extinguished life. Merphomenee's great emerald eye appeared over our heads and we both screamed in terror, Leannia and I clinging tightly to each other like the pitiful victims who had just perished underneath her soles.

But the goddess merely picked our bed up and turned it, spilling me onto her soft palm and Leannia atop me. We saw then that she had already removed her cothurni, her slaves carrying her great buskins out on oxcarts. On bare feet she padded out of her private boudoir while Leannia and I clutched each other, feeling dizzied by the sheer height now that we no longer occupied Merphomenee's gigantic body. She brought us to a separate room where she often bathed, a massive cistern that dwarfed the Goddess' Gate in Louelle built into the floor and filled with water. Here she undressed, removing her disheveled stola and her girdle to bare her flesh. She immersed herself into the pool with a blissful sigh of contentment; Leannia and I she placed on half of a large seashell which floated in the water.

"Goddess. Why?" I asked, my voice breaking from the tragedy I had witnessed. But I already deduced the answer.

Merphomenee let her hair soak in the water, strands floating over the surface. "Once a year, I indulge myself in the passion that all gods and goddesses desire."

"Destruction?" Leannia queried.

"To be worshiped," Merphomenee corrected her, opening one verdant eye to gaze upon us. "Truly worshiped. Every day of the week I am given sacrifices and burnt offerings, sung paeans of praise and invoked in prayers. Baubles by the hundreds are dedicated to me, year after year. These are dues rendered to a deity, to be certain, and yet they feel so ... bland, so mundane, so vapid. The truest form of worship - the only form that satisfies - is for mortals to experience how utterly helpless they are before my power. For them to yearn in vain so desperately to live. To realize the futility of attempting to sway me, and yet to earnestly attempt it still. That is the kind of worship - genuine, unadulterated, heartfelt obeisance - which drives me delirious with ecstasy by its very sincerity."

Leannia nodded slowly in comprehension; I understood too, and felt nauseated by Merphomenee's twisted desires. The monstrous tribute she exacted every year and the awful consequences for the province which failed to satisfy her - nothing more than a frivolous excuse to entertain her empty soul by terrorizing her powerless subjects. She savored the anticipation and relished denying herself this intoxicating draught by strictly limiting her consumption of it, but in the end she was simply a divine addict craving a thrill. Bitterly I said as much to her awesome visage. "So Phinos - and Louelle - are nothing more than trinkets to break for your amusement? You are no goddess. You are less than even a girl! You are a slave, a slave to your basest appetites!"

Leannia gasped in horror at me, gripping my arm urgently. "Summerlyn!" she hissed. I confess that I felt great fear in my own heart at addressing the goddess with such obloquy, but my fury scattered caution to the winds.

If Merphomenee seemed upset, her face betrayed no sign. "What of it?" she asked me. "Are we not all slaves, mortals and goddess alike? To be born is to be a slave - if not of other men, then of one's desires, one's ambitions, one's lusts. We deceive ourselves when we say that we are at liberty, for the only freedom given to us is a choice of whom we serve. You judge me, little one, because I refuse to cloak myself in hypocrisy concerning this reality."

"That is not true!" I shouted back at her. "I judge you because you are needlessly cruel and make men suffer to slake a thirst you yourself could easily rise above! You could control your desires, but you let them control you!" I ignored Leannia's frantic tugging and she subsided after Merphomenee motioned to her to stop. "Merphomenee, again I pose to you the same question I have asked every time we speak face to face: Why? Why will you not rein yourself in, so awesomely powerful as you are? If I possessed but a sliver of your might, I could do so much for my beloved Theraveria! I know you are capable of great kindness, kind as you were to a princess of Theraveria whom you taught to think for herself! I know you can inspire the hearts of mortals - I see it myself, every day in Illyrica - inspire them to achieve wonders and create marvels they could never accomplish themselves! Why then do you suffer yourself - yes, suffer! - to be enthralled by your own self-destructive desires?" Tears sprang unbidden into my eyes. "I glimpsed your heart, Merphomenee! I felt your deep hatred for how I spoiled your plans for Louelle, but even deeper than that I saw your desperate loneliness and desire for companionship! We were intimate friends once, and I treated you as the older sister I never had! If you could only hide your wanton desires, you could share that intimacy with as many men and women as you wished! Tragic daughter of Moneta, this is your tragedy!"

For the first and only time since I met her, I saw tears to match mine form in the goddess' great emerald eyes. "Oh, Summerlyn ..." she whispered huskily, her body heaving emotionally beneath the surface of the water. "Oh Summerlyn, no mortal has ever pierced me as you do now. If only ... if only I could give up all I have, all I am, for you. My little darling, you wound me in a way that I shall never heal." Glistening tears trickled from the corners of her eyes and ran down her cheeks to dissolve into her bath. "It is true that I am of two hearts. I long to meet a mind that can understand my lofty thoughts and to surrender myself to its company, with whom I can be completely candid. Goddess I may be, still I account myself fortunate to have met you, a new and fascinating mind from a new world that exceeds all my imagination. You I have loved as I love few mortals, and yet I cannot help but hate you too. You would sunder me completely, dividing goddess from woman, and that I will not do even for you, my dearest Summerlyn!" She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her voice breaking in sorrow. "In every tragic drama a hero is brought low by a single, fatal flaw that overcomes him! You ask me to change for you, Summerlyn! You say you perceive my heart - now Merphomenee perceives yours! Will you change for me? Will you accept me as I am, and allow me to cherish you as I once did?"

I wanted to acquiesce. I wanted so desperately to agree, to leap off my seashell and swim to her and throw myself into her warm hand and forever surrender myself to her. I thought my heart would burst. But how could I? How could I accept Merphomenee's desires, her perspective that saw mortals only as means to an end? With piercing clarity I understood that even though she loved me ardently, I would never be her equal in her eyes. Servant, pet, companion, amusement - but not her peer. She would not lower herself that far, nor could I elevate myself to her level. Girl and goddess, an inseparable gulf lay between us that only she could cross - if the effort did not destroy her completely. "If only I could, Merphomenee," I murmured sadly. "I too am flawed beyond salvation. I am merely a woman, as much at your mercy as any of the mortals you so indifferently trod upon today, a helpless mite to suffer your pleasure. I cannot transcend my mortality and be your equal, nor will I abandon my fellow man to your whims. Look into my heart and understand why."

The goddess shuddered and sobbed, ripples from her heaving body rocking the seashell coracle as she and I grieved for a friendship lost. This confrontation of ours, so similar to a domestic quarrel, had bared both our hearts. Then Leannia pushed herself past me and called to her, "If she will not be your companion, I will!"

"You?" Merphomenee and I both asked, myself in surprise, the goddess with indignation. Leannia shrank back from Merphomenee's scornful tone, and her eyes flew wide with fear as Merphomenee drew herself up looming ominously over our seashell, water flowing from her skin and scarlet tresses. I immediately realized I was seeing the part of the goddess which viewed mortals only as tools and amusements again. "Leannia," she spoke coldly, "you were offered to me as a slave to spare your homeland from the destruction you witnessed me visit upon Phinos. Give me no cause to repent my decision, for I am distraught and may forget my duty as mistress." Leannia whimpered in fright, her arms trembling as she clung to me.

"Goddess, please, forgive her impertinence!" I cried up to Merphomenee's threatening countenance, quite frightened myself. "She only wishes to comfort you!"

Merphomenee settled back down into the bath so abruptly that the ripples nearly capsized our raft, prompting her to extend a hand to lift us out of the water. "... It is futile for me to even try, Summerlyn," she reflected sadly. "How easily I frighten my little darling. How difficult it is to humble my nature." Reaching to the rim of the bath, she gently set us down on the tiles. Leannia immediately scurried away, terrified, as I paused uncertainly. The goddess would not look at me, so I reluctantly took my leave after a few minutes of watching her colossal back trembling with emotion. Her quiet weeping followed me out all the way to my bed as I obediently climbed into her shoe. Sleep eluded me; how could I rest, after all I had witnessed today? An interminable time must have passed as I curled up inside her slipper. At one point I heard Merphomenee slip in very quietly to the chamber and I pretended to be asleep when she anxiously peered down into my bed. "Summerlyn ..." she whispered with the wistful longing of a woman trying to reconcile with a lover. I did not respond.

At last I understood why she was the goddess of tragedy.