Chapter One: In The Deep Roots Of The World

by Carl E. Mullin ©2020

In the womb-darkness, in the deep roots of the world, lie a pool uncanny.

This dark place here is a place of great power and great wisdom that gives form to worlds without end, to beings uncountable. Above the hallowed well hung a great tree made of starlike dust glittering in the dark, bound and yet unbound, webbed together by some unseen force. Under the stretching and twisting roots its luminous waters stirred, excited by spring eternal from its bottomless pit. About it the veins of star-birthed alloy of gold and silver glittered in its cool light. Gleaned too are the rubies and quartz and jade and morganite and topaz and jasper and the other riches of the Otherworld. Here, at the appointed hour, the Captive Bride of sunbright hair secreted herself with the serpent golden to mother the souls ’til their fresh birth. Here the far-sighted Archer golden rests his fire-steeds ’til a fresh day. Here into this dark place of wisdom did the storied philosophers project their souls, to receive the law designed to make hale a man and his nation.

From the ageless roots into the restless depths dripped the deeds of the dead, the ancient deeds that govern living blood. Into the living waters they fell and formed the walling stratum, giving shape to the emerging present. From the hallowed waters did the roots drink, enlivening its sap and charging the generation of fresh blood and fresh worlds out of immortal dust. Here, an eye for insight uncanny is given. Here, an inverted man spied the secret language that makes the world. Here is the well of Memory divine, she who mothered the Nine who give shape to the thought of men.

About the living well stood the Triplets of many names, they of the bewitching eyes of living gold that glowed owl-like, the mistresses of the loom. Ageless and hallowed who existed before the Gods, they incarnated as the daughters of the Thunderer mighty. About the luminous waters they danced counter-clockwise as in a dream through the space full of firefly-like dust immortal. Their fingers danced in space. From the tree did they drew the filament of glittering dust, immortal before Time, and spun them into form anew. From their ruby lips they sang their law. Eternal quarks they untangled, divine dust they entangled. By their thought quarks shivered anew. By their will the dust danced a dance anew. Matter became energy, energy became matter. By their art did they webbed together the world pregnant with worlds countless. Together they created world within world within world, pattern within pattern within pattern, story within story within story, full of delightful rhythm. By their ever-turning wheel did they stringed together our soul-strings into pattern uncanny, a story to be told and an adventure to be remembered tonight.

Come now, noble sister of the gay Nine, the daughters of Memory hallowed. Come and draw deep from the holy well, you scarlet-caped Muse, the favorite of kings and poets alike. Draw deep, Kalliope, queen of the Jovian cloud-city, and sing! Come, ready-voiced daughter of the Thunderer on high and make me your instrument of your song glorious and sing! Let your words fall dew-like upon us and impregnate our hearts with dreams glorious.

Sing now of that gold-glinted void-ship, a splendid ornament of English potency, that ventured bold into the star-filled space with fire and earth of London fair. Damona is her name, full of might and grace was she. Her mistress a shieldmaiden of dragonfire hair, a Commander in her Queen’s service. Bold be her spirit, sword-skilled be her hand, and her heart a tomb of restless shades. Led she the scarlet-clad men disdainful of their unknown doom but set forth with a laugh and a clap under the snapping crimson banner of lion golden. In obedience to the Gods’ imperative, set she with her faithful to brave the bone-biting radiation storm bordering our star system so as to access the stars distant and to impregnate alien soil with gardened life fit for progeny countless.

A hopeless task? Has she the strength? She cares not for her will’s a-fired for reasons her own. A way shall be found, else the thundering Damona be her fiery coffin in the sky.

From the cloud-dressed towers of London fair to the domed crater-city of Luna, from the lizard-haunted jungles of Mars red to the windships of Jovian sky, set she with her allies, a tart-tongued rider of dragons and a witch-nun mild with a secret burden, their soul-strings wove together into unbreakable coil. To a man cried they: For Gods and Queen!