Free Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand

culture in ancient Europe. Balthazar at least had been courteous, reading preliminary drafts of her articles for Antiquities, but he did not feel that Magda’s theories were worth pursuing into the field.
    “It’s small potatoes, Magda.” He turned and stared out the window of his office, to where the Shrine’s blue dome glistened in the sun. “Sure, you’ll find something there, but it’s not going to ever amount to anything. I mean, look at Catal Huyuk: there’s one of your goddess sites, a big one, too, but it doesn’t really add up to much, does it?”
    Magda had listened, her foot tracing Xs on the expensive kilim that covered Balthazar’s floor.
    Doesn’t add up to what you’re looking for, she thought furiously. But she said nothing. She hadn’t expected him to agree with her. Balthazar was after much bigger fish than her modest research had discovered. The Benandanti had financed digs in Jerusalem, Sardinia, Luxor; at Karbala’ in Iraq, and Katta-Kurgan near Samarkand; in Niger and Jamshedpur and the Hentiyn Mountains in Mongolia. Anyplace where the Benandanti had ever built a temple or cathedral of clay or gold or marble was suitable for resurrection. As was anyplace where their ancient enemy had once been worshiped: Athens, Knossos, Ur.
    But a minor Balkan river goddess in a Soviet backwater was not exactly the powerful and vengeful deity they had been set to guard against. And so there was no funding for Magda’s project.
    Fortunately, there was at least one other person willing to entertain her ideas.
    “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” She smiled brightly at her host. It was a few days after the Divine’s reception for Michael Haring, a few days after Magda had finagled the invitation to visit Haring at his Georgetown town house. “It’s a helmet crest, first century B.C. ”
    Michael Haring turned the figure over in his hand. A little bronze boar, no longer than his middle finger, its raised dorsal spine worked with an intricate pattern of whorls that ended in the tiny beaked heads of cranes. He whistled softly. “It’s absolutely stunning. Where’d you find it, Magda?”
    “It was June Harrington’s. She gave it to me a few years ago, for a birthday present.”
    “And it came from your proposed site?”
    She nodded. “The American Museum mounted an expedition there in 1923, with June and her first husband, Lowell Ackroyd. She’s given me her field notes, and some of the pictures he took. They’re not very good—the photos, I mean, her notebooks are superb—but I can tell, Michael, I can just tell! June says they found three burial pits with evidence of ritual animal sacrifices, and that—”
    She gestured at the bronze figurine. “— that came from the last one they uncovered, Eleven-A. The neighboring valleys show signs of having very advanced Bronze Age settlements—we’re talking collective burials, hypogea with detailed wall paintings, and heating from thermal springs, maybe even some kind of linear script on some of the pottery fragments. The whole valley’s a potential gold mine. The surrounding heath is pretty marshy, which means there’s a good chance that whatever we come up with could be well preserved.”
    Michael nodded, turning the bronze boar between his fingers. “Why did they stop the dig?”
    “Winter. The valley becomes completely impassable in winter. The first storm came in early October; June and Lowell and the crew barely got out before the snows blocked off the pass.”
    “I see.” Carefully Michael set the boar back into its nest of yellowed newsprint. He reached for the bottle of claret beside it and raised an eyebrow. “More?”
    “Please. It’s wonderful.” Magda held out her glass, smiling brilliantly and hoping he wouldn’t notice how nervous she was. “So!” She toasted him and let the first rich mouthful of wine slide down her throat. “What do you think?”
    Michael Haring looked around his living room. There were glass cabinets