Artemis: Ch 21

Amal’s bow hung slung over her right shoulder as she protectively cradled the netted sling with the dragoness’ egg against her chest. She was scouting a game trail in a newer part of the canyon for oryx. Each day required her to travel farther and farther afield from the dragoness’ hiding place, as the local prey became increasingly aware of the dragoness’ preferred ambush locations.

Fortunately, the dragoness’ lessons had resulted in a breakthrough. Though Amal was too small and her voice was too light to produce infrasounds, the egg itself already instinctually emitted them, especially when separated from its mother. By bearing it with her on these hunts, Amal had slowly become aware of the reverberations of both the egg, and the echoes that seemed to bounce back from them. They seemed to resonate in her chest in a way that pacified the itch of addiction she still could sometimes feel in her solar plexus. At first, only when she was close to the canyon walls, or large boulders, but as she learned to become more present to the sensation, she began to feel resonances that she couldn’t always neatly explain. It was curiosity, more than insight, that guided her to the unexpected oasis of the game trail that day.

It was at the upper end of a washout leading down from an ancient plateau. Sand and gravel had half buried the foreign statuary that had obviously once stood in a semi-circle around what now appeared to be an ancient spring. Though her thirst attuned her to the sweet humidity of the fresh water burbling from the ground, it was the feast for her eyes that demanded her attention most urgently. For there, like prophecy, was the unmistakable, half-buried form of the bow-bearing huntress she’d greeted so often in the spice merchant’s courtyard. Her face was more weatherworn, and lichen covered one of her eyes, but there was no denying the likeness. Amal’s eyes did not leave the statue, even as she approached closer and knelt to sip from the spring, as if entranced. She felt watched.

Even buried and weathered as she was, this forgotten goddess stood as proud as her relative in Gnawstiki. Her emergence from the sands seemed every bit the final act of an ambush Amal could imagine her executing against the fallen stag several feet away, near the spring. All that was missing was her arrow.

Amal noticed that the egg had gone quiet, as if it sensed it was in the presence of a worthy predator, or its mother. She had little time to think much on it though, as her new focus was unearthing the statue to its base. Perhaps here, she could solve the mystery of the goddess’ name. Sweat quickly moistened her brow as she used a flat stone and her hands to drag the sand and other debris away from the statue. The statue protested in echoing clicks every time her stone made contact with its torso, and the uncomfortable likeness to the clatter that had preceded Gnawst’s appearance in the rain made her look nervously over her shoulder. Nothing.

Soon, she had exposed the pedestal base, and she threw the stone out with the cleared debris to one side, not trusting it to leave the nameplate undamaged. Her fingernails were already gritted as she dug two-handed at a quickening pace. Scoop by scoop, she revealed scrollwork that was inscribed with her disappointment. It was once again in a language she could not understand.

Amal sighed, sitting back on her heels and staring at the denial of her smallest dream. She looked up once more at the face of the enigmatic goddess, willing her to speak. As Amal stood, she noted that she was of an equal height with the young woman, and that their faces were not so dissimilar that they could not be sisters: same high cheekbones, same eyes, same elongated neck and collarbones.

Without knowing why, Amal recovered her abandoned bow and moved to join the statue in her hunt. The two archers stood shoulder to shoulder, Amal sensing a new power in her arms as she drew her bow to be the goddess’ like.

Speak, Amal pleaded.

Artemis.

She had not noticed the dragoness gliding silently into the canyon behind her, and her startle released her bowstring. Its melodic “thwang” vibrated through her bow arm towards her heart, and seemed to once again awaken the egg still slung across her chest. The egg hummed in seeming harmony — a new sound, that Amal hadn’t experienced from it before.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you were there. What language did you speak?” Amal asked without turning.

Yours, as you commanded.

Amal gently shook her head. “I was thinking out loud.”

As you always do, the dragoness replied wryly.

The white dragoness blended so well with the stone figures of the statuary that she could have been yet another as she made her way to the spring beyond.

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t ask to be your ensorceller.” Amal said.

Didn’t you?

“I just meant that I was trying to ensorcel Gnawst.” Amal replied. The dragoness lifted her head from the spring she was now delicately sipping from.

In that way, you are not alike.

“What do you mean?” Amal asked, her cheeks flushing, ashamed of any parallels the dragoness might have made between her and the cannibal.

You and Artemis.

Amal’s breath caught, gratefully surprised she didn’t mention Gnawst and unsure of the comparison her ensorceled companion had made between her and whatever other she was referring to. A sympathetic warming in her belly began growing though, and she couldn’t be sure if it was the dragoness or the egg that was causing it.

The dragoness once more lifted her head to sniff the statue, then Amal.

Artemis was the unbound and unbinding goddess of the hunt, protector of the unborn.

The warmth in Amal’s belly had now swollen past her heart to reach her throat.

“Artemis,” she whispered in barely bridled awe.

Yes. An almost forgotten wisdom now. Her name is not her own.

“I didn’t know,” Amal said, her voice only half-supported by her breath, as she strained to keep it from cracking with the unexplained weight of emotion held in that moment.

And yet, you act as one knowing of her ways.

“Artemis,” Amal said again, this time as a prayer or invocation of this likeness. She circled the statue slowly, this time, coming to stand over the statue’s shoulder, looking in the direction she aimed her bow — West, to Gnawst and beyond, to Gnawstiki.

Amal, the dragoness prodded gently. Amal ignored her, her gaze still fixed on the distant horizon.

Amal. The word, repeated, suddenly seemed foreign to Amal’s ears.

Artemis.

“Yes?” Amal asked absentmindedly, still absorbed in her thoughts.

It is time.

“For what?” Amal asked.

To return home.