Free The Shattered Goddess by Darrell Schweitzer

drop. Ginnamade another, and another, and began to juggle them, lying on his back on the thick carpet.
    “Hmmm... ” The magician tugged on his moustache, deep in thought.
    Ginna sat up.
    “I don’t know what they are,” he said. “When I was little I couldn’t understand why everyone couldn’t do it.”
    “Never mind that. Now this time, let the thing go, but catch it. Make a cage with your fingers.Don’t crush it, but don’t let it get away either.”
    When he held one of the balls captive, Ginna said, “Why is it I can touch them and you can’t?”
    “Because you’re different boy. Now be quiet.” Hadel turned as he sat, opened a trunk, rummaged through dusty books and parchments, and took out a large magnifying glass. He spat on it then wiped it clean with the hem of lids robe.
    He examined the glowing ball through it. As he watched, as Ginna watched also, the thing grew less bright and seemed to expand slightly. The boy wondered why had never tried this experiment on his own. The answer was that as a child he hadn’t thought of it. As he grew older, and became more aware of his abnormality, he was less inclined to exercise this ability, or whatever it was. He had never knownwhat it meant and desperately hoped it meant nothing.
    He was wrong. Hadel gasped in astonishment at what he saw.
    “It’s an image of the world! I’m sure of it. I can see faint little continents and oceans coming into being. If it were bigger, if you held it long enough, if your powers were refined and developed, it might be... real ... big enough to live on...”
    The magician stoodup and backed away in awe.
    Ginna, surprised, let his hands come apart. The glowing shape drifted to the ceiling and burst with an audible pop.
    Suddenly frightened, nearly weeping, he asked, “Eminence, who am I?”
    “I—I don’t know, but you’re not just an empty jar. Not a discarded receptacle. Your power is real and very great. It isn’t residue. Who are you? The question is what are you. I think if you knew what you were doing, you could become almost... a god!”
    “No! This is all crazy!”
    Before either could say more, the room began to shake. Both let out yells of astonishment and fear. Ginna staggered to a window, unbolted the shutters, and looked out. The whole palace was trembling. Plaster and stones fell. Tiles slid from rooftops. Dust rose in clouds. Peoplewere scurrying about like ants in a hill someone had kicked.
    He turned and saw the magician lose his footing and fall against his desk. The magnifying glass slipped from Hadel’s grasp and shattered. The talking skull tumbled off the bookcase and into the water tank, gurgling, crushing coral towers.
    “Stop!”
    “It’s not me! I’m not doing it!” cried Ginna. “You must believe me!”
    “Help me up, will you?”
    The floor swayed and heaved.
    He hurried over and pulled the old man to his feet
    “I know it’s not you,” Hadel said, grasping the window ledge. “It’s him, Kaemen. You are the vessel emptied. He is the one filled to overflowing with dark wine. Now—I know what makes the earth shake—he is doing something even I did not imagine him capable of. How can Isay what he is attempting? He is making the bones of The Goddess stir!”

CHAPTER 6
    Lessons
    “As long as you are here,” said Hadel the Nagéan one day, “I might as well teach you how to read.”
    “But I already know how to read,” said Ginna. “At least a little.”
    “Fine. Good. Then read this.” Hadel handed him a book. A passage in it had been marked:
    In the beginning, the seed of the Earth sat motionless in the void of Unbeing. From thatseed a god emerged, and walked completely around it in three strides. With the first he created the air, with the second the seas, with the third, land. In the fullness of time this god died, and a second rose out of the scattered dust of his corpse, walking over the sea and onto the land, his head high in the air. The Earth had grown larger since