The flesh of the goddess cooled, weathered by exposure to sky. New and different forms of life took root upon her; beings that dwelled in the sea of air turned faces upward to the clouds. Many did not walk or swim, but fixed themselves to the ground, extended lofty boughs upward, creating verdant bowers across the breadth of the land. The growth of these tall and mighty trees, like all forms of life, was pleasing to the goddess. She sensed the fruition and waning of the forests that layered her skin, knew the cooling and warming of seasons with greater acuity than ever before.
It was this awareness that, at last, gave to the earth-mother a true sense of passing time. She knew seasons, and in the course of changing climes she learned the pattern of a year. She came to measure time as a man might count his own breaths or heartbeats, though to the goddess each heartbeat was a season, each breath the cycle of the annum. As the years passed by the tens and hundreds and thousands, she grew more vibrant, stronger, and more aware.
The hot blood of earlier eons cooled further; the eruptions from the sea ultimately were capped by solid stone. That firm bedrock, where it jutted above the waves, was layered everywhere in forest, meadow, glade and moor. Seas and lakes intermixed with the land, keeping the goddess always cool, both fresh waters and brine nurturing the growing populations of living creatures.
Still the goddess maintained communion with the beings of warm blood dwelling in the depths, who swam to the surface and returned, sharing their mind-images of a vast dome of sky, of the sweet kiss of a sea breeze and the billowing majesty of lofty clouds. Her favorite of these sea creatures was one who had been nourished at her breast from time immemorial, feeding upon the kelp and plankton that gathered to her warm emissions, slumbering for decades at a time in her embrace. She came to know him as the Leviathan, the first of her children.
He was a mighty whale, greater than any other fish or mammal that swam in these seas. His soul was gentle, his mind observant, keen and patient-as only one who has lived for centuries can know patience. Great lungs filled his powerful chest, and he knew life with a rhythm that the goddess could understand. Sometimes he took a breath of air and settled into the depths, remaining there for a passage of several heartbeats by the reckoning of the goddess-a time of years in the more frenetic pace of the other warm-blooded creatures.
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 and rocks. She knew then that it was not enough to have her children in the sea.
The goddess would require a presence on the land, as well.
The wolf, gray flanks lean with hunger, shaggy pelt worn by the ravages of a long hibernation, loped after a mighty stag. The buck ran easily through the spring growth, exhibiting none of the wide-eyed panic that might have driven a younger deer into headlong-and ultimately disastrous-flight. Instead, this proud animal bounded in graceful leaps, staying well beyond the reach of hungry jaws, veering only when necessary to maintain a clear avenue of flight.
In the midst of the keen, lupine face, blue eyes remained fixed upon the lofty rack of antlers. Patience, counseled the wolfs instinct, knowing that the pack could accomplish what one strong hunter could not. As if in response to their leader's thought, more wolves burst from concealment to the side, rushing to join the chase. But the stag had chosen its course well; a long, curving adjustment took it away from the newer hunters, without allowing the big male to draw appreciably closer.
A low cliff loomed ahead, and though no breeze stirred in the depths of the glen, the buck sensed another ambush, canine forms concealed in the thickness of ferns lining the shady depths of the bower. Now the stag threw itself at the limestone precipice, leaping upward with catlike grace, finding purchase for broad hooves on ledges and mossy outcrops.
With snorting exertion and flaring nostrils, the first outward signs of desperation, the buck scrambled up a rock face three times its own height. A trio of wolves burst from the ferny camouflage below, howling in frustrated hunger as the antlered deer reached the level ground above the cliff and once again increased its speed. Hooves pounded and thundered on the firm ground as, with a flick of a white-feathered tail, the stag raced toward open terrain.