The Stone by the Stream (Part 24)

Cynthia’s spine tingled and ran with ice. The Priestess, though taller than most women, hunched inward and diminished until she barely seemed to peek above the tips of the grass blades. Cynthia shivered in the breeze and wondered at the sudden mass of dark clouds where there had been nothing but blue skies only moments before.

The pathetic ruins of the sacred site now appeared utterly laughable. Those once-proud columns limning the perimeter — why, a child of five years could knock them over with a sneeze!

Facing the Naiad, Cynthia wrapped her arms against the ice.

Recognizably female and taller than any human, with empty black-on-black-on-black eyes, yet uncanny, unnatural, inhuman in its presence, fluid not quite like water and not quite like phlegm or the other primordial chthonic slimes of the body. It seemed not to be wearing any form of clothing, yet it did not appear naked either. And though no part of its massive form was still, it made no movement as the heavy clouds released their droppings from the sky. A flash, and thunder rolled in the air.

Yet rain and lightning could not compare to the electrical energy emanating from the creature. The pulsing power raised the hairs on Cynthia’s arms — and even her head! — curling them toward the creature like the probing antennae of a scuttling cockroach. At moments, mercifully brief, the energy grew so powerful that she felt her entire body being pulled toward the creature with irresistible power. Or was Cynthia taking steps toward it of her own accord?

With the voice of a child confessing to breaking her mother’s prized smooth-glass mirror, Cynthia said, “Why do you need me?”

“It is necessary.”

Yes! Of course it was necessary. With steps of a lilting fairy, Cynthia walked toward the creature — but stopped cold as soon as she realized she was moving.

How did it speak that way? There was no sound, or if there was sound, it was only the harmonies of an uncanny musicality of unbearable beauty and terror. It seemed — but no, it was impossible! — as if the creature were directly reaching into her mind, insinuating its horrible soothing wonderful submitting dominating will fingerlike into the lineaments of her mind. The words, if there were words, were only secondary, tertiary, quaternary… utterly irrelevant to the pure tainted inarticulate articulation of will. It wanted her to come to it, and she couldn’t resist completely.

Couldn’t resist completely because part of her yearned to surrender to it.

Couldn’t resist resisting because of the unearthly horror of it.

And if the Naiad was terrible… what of the Goddess?

Yes, the Priestess had been right about the gods. Worship them, placate them, but keep them at a distance! Who knew what terrible secrets they might have in wait beneath, above, beyond the Earth? And to feel the creature invading her mind, guiding her beneath her awareness… the thought repelled her.

And yet.

And yet…

The thought attracted her.

“But why now?” she asked as the Priestess remained still, inert, suppliant.

“It is necessary.”

Again, Cynthia found herself staggering forward, not entirely against her will. The anxiety and terror of the Naiad pleasantly caressed her spine, yet once again she stopped short. Whether this annoyed the creature, amused it, left it indifferent, or even registered in its awareness could not be read on its impassive face of liquid stone.

This may be the very creature that killed Silas two nights ago… she tried to cling to that fact in her thoughts, to steel herself against it. Yet… she’d never really known Silas, now had she? And anyway, what made her think he hadn’t deserved to die? It wasn’t like he’d done her any favors in the handful of moments he’d stood at the edge of the clearing watching her speak with Agatha, now was it?

Surely the Goddess seemed terrible, but that was only a veil covering over her immense Love…

“What do you want?” she shouted.

“It is necessary.”

With an unbearable thrill of pleasure welling up from her core, spreading through her limbs, up her toes, and through the length of every finger, she jerked forward once again. Breathless and quivering, she dropped to her knees, barely out of the creature’s reach. Nearly blind with visions of glowing flames of roses filling her sight, warmth filled her body with an immensity that made her forget the flashing lightning and the fall of rain.

“Cynthia!” came a voice as if from another world.

She smiled. Who was Cynthia? So quaint that these humans communicate with their little sequences of mouth sounds. And the way they named things, as if there were any separate things to name!

Cyn-thi-a. Cynthia. Cynthia. Cynthia.

Well, as far as utterly wrongheaded mouth sounds went, at least it was kind of pretty. Whoever this Cynthia was must consider itself lucky to have a name like that impressed on it.

“Cynthia!”

“Why are you interfering?” said the mouth of the human girl.

“Remember who you are, Cynthia! You can come back!”

What tedious creatures humans are.