Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [63]
In long, silent communication with the goddess who was his 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 below the bedrock of the ocean floor. During these times, the great whale passed images he had beheld above the waves, pictures of growing verdancy among the earthmother's many islands, of the teeming array of creatures swarming not only sea and land, but now even flocking in the skies.
And he shared, too, his memories of clouds. These more than anything else stoked the fires of the earthmother's imagination, brought wonder to her heart, and caused curiosity to germinate in her being.
As she communed with the Leviathan, sharing his memories 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, was utterly blind. She lacked any window, any sense through which she could view the world of life flourishing upon her physical form.
The only visual pictures that she knew came from the memory of the great whale, and these were pale and vaporous imitations of the real thing. The goddess wanted to see for herself the sky of cloud and rain and sun, to know the animals that teemed among her forests and glades, the trees that sank their roots so deeply into her flesh.
From the Leviathan, the goddess earthmother had learned about eyes, the orbs of magic that allowed the animals of the world to observe 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 drank from an undersea fountain, absorbing the power and the magic of the earthmother into himself. With easy strokes of his powerful flukes, he drove toward the surface, swimming through brightening shades of water until again his broad back 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 the western shore of one of the earth-mother's cherished isles. Mountains rose to the north, a stretch of craggy highlands crested with snow as the spring warmth crept only slowly upward from the shore. To the south was a swath of green forest, woodlands extending far from the rocky shoreline, blanketing this great extent of the island.
In the terminus of the bay, the land came together from north and south, the waters remaining deep enough for the Leviathan to swim with ease. He came to the place the goddess had chosen, and brought the warm and magical essence of herself through his body. With a great, spuming explosion, he cast the liquid into the air, shooting a shower of warm rain. Precious water splashed onto the rocks of the shoreline, gathered in many streams, flowed downward to collect in a rocky bowl near the gravel-strewn beach.
The essence of the goddess gathered into that pool, milky waters of potent magic. Her presence focused on the skies, on the vault of heavens she had so long imagined. The first thing that came into view was a perfect 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 goddess beheld the moon. Alabaster light reflected from the shoals and waves of the shoreline and blessed the land all around. The earthmother saw this light, and she was pleased.
Yet still there was a dimness to her vision, an unfocused haze that prevented her from fully absorbing the presence of the world. The Leviathan lay offshore, rolling in the heavy swell, but the pool was remote from him, bounded as it was by dry ground