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First Mother was struck on the head with a stone until blood splattered the man who wielded it.
First Child realized the enormity of it all. First Father had explained what was going to happen and she’d agreed to it, but it wasn’t until that moment that she understood. Child knew what death looked like. She’d helped to slaughter pigs and sheep. She recognized the blind, fixed look in Mother’s eyes.
Mother had once said to her when she was little, “You were born ready to fight. You came out able to walk, with all your teeth. Fight, Child, but only if you can’t run.”
Child panicked. She couldn’t run because a man held her arms. She bit and kicked, fear rising in her throat, but she was held fast. She cursed her small, weak body.
First Father came towards her, the dripping stone raised. She tried to remember her purpose. Father paused to look at her. Then he hit her.
• • •
The fist of winter had set in, but the tribe were prepared. The crops had been harvested. Dried berries were sealed in pots. Strips of meat were hung to dry. Fires were kept burning constantly. Child liked fire. It made her feel safe against the cold and dark.
First Father consulted the gods, once in each season. First Child, First Mother, and the rest of the tribe gathered to watch. A ram, legs bound, was dragged into the firelight. Child could see the whites of its eyes. It bucked and a trickle of urine steamed across the ground. Father cut its throat with the ceremonial flint knife, the keen edge drawing a thin line. Mother held a pot to the wound to catch the blood and passed it to Father before it clotted. He gulped it down and reached into the pouch at his waist, taking out a dried root. He put it in his mouth and chewed.
The root pulp sizzled and then ignited when he spat it on the fire. He danced, arms raised. The tribe chanted and drummed, their pace increasing to keep time with him. Child swayed and hummed.
The movement took her deep within herself, yet she was outside her own skin, seeing the world anew. Light was coming from the trees, the stones, the very earth itself. There was a light inside the fire, different from its normal flickering. It shot out and struck Father, who collapsed with a grunt, writhing on the ground. It brought Child back to herself.
Father’s limbs jerked and his eyes rolled back in his head, just as the ram’s had. Mother put her arms around Child to stop her running to him.
The tribe carried Father inside and covered him in furs.
“Can’t you see it?” Child asked Mother.
Mother shooed her away.
Child could see light coming out of his eyes, nose, and mouth. It hurt her to look at him. She touched his face. He was burning up, from the inside out.
“Go on, Child, out.” Mother gave her a gentle push.
When Father stepped outside the hut the next morning, his breath curled around him like a fog. He looked like a newborn calf on shaky legs. The tribe were waiting for him.
Father cleared his throat. His voice was faint and raspy.
“We have sown and reaped, son and father, back before memory. The ram and the ox bend to our will. We have enjoyed a time of plenty. We have kept darkness, cold, and hunger at bay.”
It was true. They lived in a rich place of summer grazing, dry cropland, fish, and wild fowl. Clay, peat, firewood, and a quarry for stone were all within striking distance.
“The gods have spoken. Time is turning to one where we will have to fight for what’s ours against those who’d take it from us. Not just the people in the next valley or across the river, but with those beyond the highest ridge of mountains. More and more will come until there won’t be enough for everyone.”
The tribe muttered to one another. There were spats over straying cattle and daughters, but nothing more. They had yet to experience the sort of want that start wars.
“We’ll die if we’re not ready.” Father’s shoulders sagged. “If we want the gods’ help, then we must make a sacrifice. Leave me. I must think on it.”
They obeyed. As First Father, he was absolute. He had the authority of the axe, but his real power was in his skills with spirits and stones. He could pick up any stone and examine it as much by touch as sight, knowing what would fall in flakes and what would fissure with a blow. Which stones held scrapers and which held arrowheads.
Father leaned against the wall of the hut. The weak winter sun fell on his swollen face. He waved Mother away when she tried to help him back inside. With her, he was gentle. She wouldn’t be awed by him. As First Mother, she had her own skills. She birthed babies, settled disputes, and held the whole tribe’s history in her memory.
“You’ve much to do,” Father said, “Child will stay with me.”
Child wrapped her arms around him, her head on his chest, because he was shivering.
“You saw them, didn’t you?” he asked Child, when they were alone.
She nodded.
“They saw you, too.”
Father sniffed the air. Child copied him but she couldn’t smell anything. The cold air hurt the inside of her nose.
“I dreamt of open mouths that wait for us.”
He kissed the top of her head and refused to say anything more about it.
• • •
It was dim when Child woke. The glimmer of light was getting stronger and she realized that it was coming from her own forehead. She touched the hole there and remembered that she was dead.
Child was lying on her side, her legs drawn up. Mother was curled around her, holding her. They’d been laid out on a stone slab, placed with care within this sacred landscape out of tender respect. Child sat up and shook Mother, but she didn’t move. There wasn’t any light left inside her.
Mother had begged Father to let her go into the perpetual dark with Child. To go first to prepare the way.
“She’s our emissary. It’s her that the gods will speak with,” Father said.
“She’s made from me,” Mother insisted.
“Our ancestors will be there to guide her.”
“But not her mother. You can take another wife.”
“No.” He touched her face, even though everyone was watching. “I’ll have no other wife or children. I’ll wait until my bones are laid with yours.”
Child cried for Mother who had died for nothing. She clutched Mother’s braid for comfort and the sound of her weeping echoed around the stone vault.
Father had left grave goods to help Child. Her bow and arrows. A votive offering of his flint knife. Not the carved ceremonial one but the one he used every day. His labor was in the edge that he ground and polished to keep it sharp.
Child got up. The burial chamber was spacious enough to accommodate a large gathering. Side chambers contained her ancestors’ bones, their flesh in various states of decay. Father said they’d help her.
The whole tribe would file into the tomb on the Solstice, down the long corridor that channeled the sun. They would commune with their history, bringing the remains into the central chamber. Child thought that she’d be greeted by bones that were full of light and song but was disappointed to see that, like Mother, they were empty shells.
Child traced out the patterns on the walls that the tribe had pecked out. There were the stories of the wind and rain. Of stars and sun. She knew which marks were her father’s.
You are the best of us, Father had said when he told her what they needed to do. His lips were gray as he spoke. You are my first and only child. You are our finest.
It was getting brighter inside the chamber. Child thought it was moonlight coming down the passageway. She was wrong. The light was already inside. The gods were here.
They crowded inside. Spirits of limestone, flint, and granite. The spirits of alder, oak, and yew. Water; still, running and raging. Sky, moon, sun, and stars. Wind spirits that refused to be still. Spirits of bear, wolf, birds, and fish cloaked in fur, feathers, and scales.
These spirits, these gods, with their dripping, flickering light gathered in this liminal place that was both and neither earth and eternal night.
Child climbed back onto the slab for fear of being crushed.
“Is that the best that man has to send us?” There was a blinding flash.
A low rumble followed. Thunder was agreeing with Lightning.
“Father sent me. I saw you. I saw your light.” Child felt small in their midst. She tried to take courage from Father’s words. Demand their aid.
“We need your help.” Child stood up.
“She’s so small.” That was the Mountain.
“Change is coming.” Child raised her chin. “We must be ready.”
“We?” Wolf bared its teeth at her. “You’re just a cub. What would you know?”
“She may be young,” Fire danced around her, “but she has courage.”
That warmed Child.
“We shouldn’t trust her,” came a voice from the back of the chamber. Child couldn’t see who’d said it.
“Yes,” said another, “it’s not just the males that are trouble.”
“Why should we help them?”
They were talking over one another, their voices rising.
“Because change for us will mean change for you, too.” Child didn’t know if this was true but it silenced them.
“Yes,” Fire drove the point home. “When men followed the herd, they were at one with everything. Now they settle and sow. They’ve tamed the ox and ram. They’ve changed the land and more change will follow in their wake. Help them now and they’ll remember.”
Laughter erupted. Rain plastered Child’s hair to her skull. Stones pelted her narrow chest. Bear and Wolf bared their teeth at her. Their claws scraped stone and the fur on their backs bristled.
“Wheat, will you help me?” Child asked.
“We’ve helped you enough,” Wheat replied. “Look at the bounty we’ve given you, yet you’re here, wanting more.”
“Wind?” Child remembered how she’d stand with her arms out, the wind moving her hair.
Wind rushed around the chamber, whispering and refusing to be fixed.
“Stone spirits,” Child dropped to her knees, “you are the heart of our people. You are axe and knife. You are scraper and arrowhead. Won’t you help?”
“We’ve gifted you knowledge and power over us. Now you say it’s not enough.” The stones were implacable. “Don’t expect more from us.”
Child hung her head, feeling the immense weight of failure.
“I’ll help you. Or, at least I can show you where to find help.” All the gods turned to look at Fire. It nestled close to Child. “She made a great sacrifice to come here. One of us should come to her aid.”
“Where else can I go?” Child asked. “Who else is left?”
“Move the slab aside.”
“It’s too heavy.”
“Try. Push it.”
Child jumped down and put her shoulder against the stone block on which Mother lay. She heaved. The slab was rough against her cheek and there was the sound of stone grinding against stone as it moved. She had new strength in death.
The slab slid away to reveal a hole beneath it. A blast of air rushed up from the darkness. It smelt fetid and hopeless.
The spirits backed away. Child lay on her belly and crawled to the edge of the pit. Her inner light fell into the abyss.
“What’s down there?”
“Things that existed long before wolf or man,” Fire answered, “long before rivers and trees. Sun and stars will remember.”
“Yes,” said Sun, whose light was oldest and purest. “I remember and I’ll never go down there.”
Star shivered at the very thought of it.
Child was afraid but she didn’t cry. She understood that it would be like crying over Mother; her tears could drench the earth and it wouldn’t alter anything. She kissed Mother’s face. On impulse, she cut off Mother’s braid, which was so long it reached to her knees. Then Child slung the bow and quiver of arrows on her back and tucked the knife into her belt. She followed Fire because there was no other choice.
• • •
Fire led her down into the pit. There was a different kind of light to the one above, muted as if veiled. Child realized the pit occupied a similar space to the burial chamber. There was a central slab too.
“Call out so it knows we’re here,” Fire whispered.
“It?”
“Please, just call to it.”
“My people sent me.” She tried to sound strong.
A series of caves led off the pit, akin to the side chambers of her ancestors above. Child could see something moving in one of them.
“Why?” The spirit hidden in the dark spoke in a sibilant voice that echoed Why? Why? Why? as if mocking her.
“Because when change comes, we’ll die.”
“Is man worthy of my help?” Help? Help? Help?
“Yes.”
“Prove it. By proving it, you’ll have the means to save man.”
“Tell me.”
“There are two spirits that can help you, but they won’t be willing. Bring them here, and I’ll tell you how to make them.” Make them. Make them. Make them.
“Where are they?”
“Roll away the slab. They’ll be under there.”
“How will I know them?”
“You’ll know.”
Child went to the slab, feeling the thing watching her. She put her shoulder to it and the sense that everything had happened before and would again made her dizzy for a moment. She gathered herself and heaved the stone aside to reveal the red light beneath.
Fire shrank away.
“I can’t go with you. I’m sorry. If I go down there, I’ll be lost forever.”
“You’ve been a good friend to me already.”
“Be careful.” Fire flickered. “Come back to me. Please.”
The world beneath the slab stretched out before her. There were distant, jagged mountains, not gray and shrouded in mist but smooth and black. A red river ran like a wound along the valley floor. It wasn’t blood but molten liquid. The air above it shimmered. The wind was hot enough to scorch her eyelashes and press the air from her chest. Her breath came fast and panicked until Child remembered she was already dead.
She ran across the burning plain that lacked shade or shelter, towards the black forest. The motion filled Child with wild glee; she covered the distance in great strides. A herd fled before her, not cattle but shapeless, faceless spirits. Ill formed, aborted gods that hadn’t come to fruition.
The forest was deep. The trees were black and dry as though they were corpses. When she touched one, her fingers were covered in dark dust. She walked on, the quiet crunch beneath her feet breaking the silence.
A shadow stepped beneath the trees. Child stopped, not daring to move. Its skin glinted darkly. It turned its head one way, then the other.
Child followed at a distance, treading softly. Quarry inspired stealth and patience. The remnants of her blood sang, the part of her didn’t want to sow and harvest. It wanted the freedom of foraging and hunting.
She was downwind of the glittering spirit as it scurried uphill into a clearing. It stopped suddenly, crouching to claw at the earth. When it raised its head she thought she’d given herself away but it bent again to burrow into the earth. It was a slight, frail thing.
Father had taught her to shoot. He’d made her a bow from a tree cut in the spring, peeling back the bark to reveal supple wood beneath. He shaped it with sharp flint and then smoothed the rough surface with sandstone.
Child had gone with the men to kill a lone wolf that was taking sheep. The bolder men and boys had laughed within her father’s earshot.
How can a girl be First Child? First Child of the tribe, the first son of First Father. If he had no sons, tradition dictate he adopt another’s.
First Father remained silent until she shot the great gray through the eye.
My daughter is worth all your sons together. She is First Child.
Child nocked an arrow. The spirit reared up. She thought of Father’s head beside hers as the tension in the bowstring grew. Then she let the arrow fly.
The spirit dropped to the ground with a single cry. Child was on it, binding it with Mother’s braid, which grew to meet her needs.
Its skin was cool under her hands, its limbs slender and long. The arrowhead had pierced its side, not fatally, but the spirit was in pain. It stopped panting and started to wail. Child hardened her heart.
Child didn’t realize she was being charged until it was too late. The second spirit had come to its companion’s aid. It hurtled towards her, its bulk gaining momentum with each stride. She was thrown into the air and landed on her back. She lay there, winded and waiting for the pain to begin. There wasn’t any, but she was frozen.
Move.
She could hear the heavy feet slowing to a trot.
Get up. You were born ready to fight.
Child rolled over and leapt up. The spirit had turned and halted in a cloud of fine black dust. It was different to the other; thick set and muscular, short legged, with an unnatural pale green hide.
It lowered its head and Child could see the slope from its hump to its neck. It pawed the earth and then it charged again.
This time Child was ready, trusting her body to be as strong as she needed it to be. She was the spirit of man, after all. She dug her heels into the ground and waited.
The spirit struck at full pelt. She took its full force on her chest, leaning forward, as it hit her. She was pushed backwards, plowing furrows in the earth with her feet as she slowed its onslaught, but she stayed upright. She knew that if the spirit took her over, it would trample her.
Child used her own strength against it. She pushed the flint knife into the softness under its chin, one arm clutching its neck to help force the blade home.
She held it as it sank to its knees, and she laid it down with care. The other spirit was silent. It looked away as Child bound them together.
It was getting darker. Child looked up. The clouds above them were swirling. A storm was gathering.
“Let us go,” gasped the smaller, frail spirit. It writhed as if trying to bury itself in the soil. “We’ll all be destroyed.”
The sky cracked, looking like an opening eye. It fixed, not on her, but on everything. This wasn’t a god. It was older than the world. Child clung to one end of the braid rope, as if this would keep her safe.
There was howling but Child didn’t know whether it was from above, the bound spirits, or herself. Child laughed in desperation and disbelief. There was nothing else for it. This is it. We’re unmade.
The storm passed over them and Child’s legs buckled. The truth was terrifying. She and all the other gods were just insects in time’s eye.
• • •
Child could see Fire hovering in wait as she ascended. The spirits were silent. The green one was limp now. She dropped them and looked into where the thing in the dark waited.
“What did you see down there?” he asked. What? What? What?
“Haven’t you ever been there yourself?”
“No.”
“The beginning and the end.”
Child could tell from the way Fire held its breath that it was awed and afraid.
“Tell me what to do with them now.”
“You must carry them into Fire’s heart.”
“Why?”
“Fire transforms everything. That’s one of its gifts.”
Child and Fire looked at one another.
“Are you too weak for this?” came the voice. Too weak, too weak, too weak.
Child had come a long way. This was only a little further.
“I won’t hurt you,” Fire said.
She picked up her captives. The beautiful, delicate one shook its head, sad eyed. Child carried them into Fire’s open arms. The flames took them. The bound spirits, the gods of copper and tin, smelted together, their ores unified to become something stronger and fiercer than themselves.
As for Child, she was stripped of skin, then flesh. Fire held her close until she was nothing but bone.
• • •
“These were my sons,” said the dark thing, “and now you are my daughter.” Daughter, daughter, daughter.
Child knew then that she hadn’t claimed salvation for mankind but that she’d been tricked.
“Men. They’ll wish for a time when there was just sky and sun. The sound of water and birds.” The thing sighed. “When this time has gone, it’ll never come again. They’ll forget how to hear the world because they’ll be too busy listening to themselves.”
“Yes,” Child said, because she knew it was true, “but you’re greedier than man could ever be, aren’t you, Death?”
She wanted to say his name aloud, just once.
“You’re right to be scared of me,” Death said. “Everything fears me, even stone. Everything dies a little, if the right pressure is brought to bear.”
Death heaved itself out into the half light. Child knew what death looked like. She recognized the blind, fixed look in its many eyes. It wasn’t like the earth or sky spirits, that had different incarnations. Death was complete, with many heads.
“I’m hungry.” Hungry, hungry, hungry. It sounded pitiful.
Some of the heads were familiar to Child. Fever death. Old death. Childbirth death. Drowning death. There were many more that were strange to her, jaws wide to reveal rows of teeth or soft sucking throats.
I dreamt of open mouths that wait for us, Father had said.
“Death and birth, man and nature are all in perfect balance. I want to change that, so that there’ll be destruction on a delicious scale.” Death’s smiles were numerous.
“Yes,” said Child.
“You’ll be my instrument and none will remember that it started here.”
There was nothing else for Child to say. The light that shone from her forehead was brighter. It helped her to see back along the line of things past and forward to those yet to come.
She started on the steps up to the burial chamber.
“Are you very angry with me?” Fire asked, small voiced.
“No.” She turned to him and he was dazzled. “You would have me, one way or another.”
“Yes.”
“You tricked my father and you made a deal with Death. You knew the other spirits wouldn’t help me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I have a different purpose now.”
Fire quailed. She’d transformed into something that it didn’t recognize. Fire followed her, always a step behind.
She emerged into the burial chamber, no longer Child but the Bronze Goddess. The spirits were afraid. Of her and of what would come.
When Father led the procession into the tomb, Mother’s bones were still held together by the remains of her flesh, but Child was just a skeleton with a bronze dagger in her fist that glowed as the Solstice sun struck the heart of the barrow.