I managed to avoid putting up anything for critique for my exact 4000th post, but with every post since, magickal torments have wracked my soul such that I can now barely watch Bargain Hunt without screaming in agony.
In this bit from ch6 of my WIP2, Hana is undertaking a shamanic journey to meet the Mother, a primal force of creation, and enlist her aid in restoring someone who has been possessed and physically transformed by demons. In order to talk to the Mother, Hana has to give her a human face, and has chosen Nadora, the master's wife and mother-substitute of Hana's college. Hope that's enough for most people to make sense of this. I've no specific questions, but my main concern is whether the atmosphere and detail feel "right", if that means anything at all, so all comments happily received.
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She’d followed Hare only a little way from the pentacle when the grass began to get marshy. The animath led her between unfamiliar trees that grew from the increasingly wet ground. Vines climbed the trunks; high in the canopy, their blood-red flowers bloomed. Barely a chink of sky showed. The light was as green as the stretches of water. Insects thronged and danced, skimming the surface as though tantalised by something they could see beneath.
Hana waded. Normally in a scape, her body felt light and nimble, more so than in reality. Here she felt heavy and fleshy, and the water she pushed with her legs felt heavy and fleshy, and ooze swallowed her feet, sucking them hard down with each step, releasing them with reluctance. Eyes staring wide, Hare swam ahead at first, but after a while fell back beside her, and stayed there so long that Hana wondered who was leading who.
‘Where is she? The Mother?’
‘All around us,’ Hare said in a hushed voice. He struggled onto a tussock, and squealed as a thousand beetles swarmed his fur, making him leap into the water again.
‘We’re here to find her in human form.’
‘Then you must follow your own direction, child,’ said Hare, swimming frantically round her. ‘I know nothing of her in human form.’
Hana pressed on. If she had to find her own way, so be it. Her thoughts would lead her. She remembered the kindness Mama Nadora had shown when Geist had brought her from her uncle’s farm. She recalled the stern sympathy Nadora had given her after she’d passed out from drinking too much wine on Puristo’s god-day when she was sixteen.
She thought of the lunchtime soup.
The shallow lake had thickened almost to that consistency. Vegetation matted the surface; weeds grew beneath. Creatures slipped past Hana’s submerged thighs: she tried not to imagine what. Disturbed bubbles of rot-smell broke on the slow-rippling water as her feet caught and dragged on things buried in inches of decay; she thought some were bones.
Ahead, on a small island dark beneath trees, she glimpsed a flame.
She hauled her legs from the marsh, black with stinking mud. Exhausted, Hare let himself be picked up. Hana held him panting against her, dark water from his fur dribbling down her belly. The heavy air grew warmer as she walked cautiously between an outer ring of trees, to a shadowed glade.
Several thin saplings had grown together to form a shelter. Within, a woman with the face of Mama Nadora sat stirring a large round pot above a fire. It disturbed Hana to see the master’s wife naked, but she forgot that almost at once: within the triangle of the Mother’s arms that held the great spoon, a piglet and a goat-kid sat in her lap, their heads raised, suckling from her.
The Mother studied her. Hana sensed Mama Nadora’s face wanting to change to something else, to break apart and resume some other form. She set her mind against it.
‘Is he for me?’ the Mother said, wearing Nadora’s voice like an ill-fitting mask of sound. ‘Skin him and bone him, then, and into the pot with him.’
Hana held shivering Hare tighter. ‘He’s not dead.’
The Mother shook her head. ‘All take and no give, that’s the trouble with children. Suck me dry and fly the nest. You think you can outgrow me, thanks to that little traitor you cuddle. Until the end. What is it you want?’
‘To talk — to the true Mother, not the one who came yesterday.’
The Mother laughed, and stared into the eyes of the suckling kid. ‘And why should she want there to be a difference, little chick? There’s a man she wants for herself, isn’t there? A man who’s not hers.’
‘There was a mistake.’ Hana had rehearsed this. ‘The ancients thought the mother earth needed to be fed with blood, because women lost blood through the menstrual cycle. It led to the sacrifice of the Sun-King, the man who was both son and husband to the goddess. That whole abomination came through a misunderstanding. We know better now.’
‘These are done, I think.’ The Mother flung the piglet and kid squealing away, their teeth drawing blood as they were ripped free. Resting the spoon against the side of the pot, she reached in with both hands and pulled out two snakes. She attached one to each breast, and resumed her stirring.
‘A misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘Yet you and he, who know better now, invoked that ancient contract. You used his blood to call me.’
‘Some of his blood, yes,’ said Hana. This wasn’t going right. The thick air made it hard to think. ‘But not his life. You bring death, but you don’t demand it.’
‘What would my soup be without it?’
‘But to demand the death of a healthy young man, before his time …’
‘His time is when I call him. The gods of death are also my sons and lovers.’
Hana tried not to look behind the Mother, to the three shadowy figures at the back of the shelter.
‘I want you to be cleansed of the blood-error,’ she said. ‘It should never have been part of you. The Mother reaches back to before that mistake.’
‘That “mistake” is as old as language,’ said the Mother. ‘What was I before language? Would you wish to see me as I was then? You would lose your mind.’
The serpents at her breasts had grown already. Hare whimpered in Hana’s arms.
‘You want to pick and choose,’ the Mother said. ‘That’s why you tried to force me into this shape. If you want only sweetness and nurturing, call upon the Holy Mother of the Empyreans, little good though it’ll do you. I can help save the child again, but the promise must be kept.’
‘Orc isn’t mine to give you,’ Hana said.
‘He offered himself!’ said the Mother. ‘And he has done it before. And you conspire with him to cheat me. You say he isn’t yours, yet you claimed him for yourself. Do you not see? I don’t deny you my help; it’s your denial of me that stops me giving it.’
A chill washed through Hana as she saw the truth of that.
‘He has sealed his own doom,’ said the Mother, ‘but the child’s fate is yours to change. My vines would still be protecting him now, if you hadn’t rejected me. And then he wouldn’t have woken. Your father’s brother would still live.’
‘But Orc would be dead.’
‘You must choose between child and husband. You will not be the first.’
‘Tashi isn’t my child. And Orc isn’t my husband.’
The Mother laughed, as though at Hana’s naivety. Her snakes had grown huge; they had spilled from her lap and coiled upon the dirt floor. ‘You know the answer you must give.’
She did, that was the horrible thing. She thought of the burned boy in chains on the mountainside. She had little more than a day to save Tashi, and no idea of anything else that could help. Orc was not her responsibility.
‘I need more than protection for Tashi. I need you to help drive the demons out, and restore him. You are the prime force of creation.’
‘Yes, I am.’ What had been Nadora’s face blurred and cracked. Hana’s will could not maintain it in the teeth of the power that wanted to show through; the Mother’s true form was breaking down the mask from behind. ‘You knew the only power that could save your child.’ The sound of the Mother’s voice shimmered as though currents passed through it. ‘Release your hold on Orc, and it shall be open to you.’
‘I do release him,’ said Hana. ‘He isn’t mine. I have no claim on him.’
‘You must tell him,’ said the Mother. ‘He must know that he is outside your protection. The spell will be broken. Then I shall help you.’
‘How, exactly?’ Hana kept her eyes from the Mother’s face, knowing she would now find no trace of Nadora there. ‘What will you do?’
‘You ask for exactness, for definition? You forget to whom you speak.’ The Mother plucked the serpents from her breasts. ‘Do you wish to see these dance?’
‘No!’ said Hana. ‘I’m — honoured, but —’
‘Next time, I might not give you the choice,’ said the Mother. ‘Now, go: when the time is right for me to help, your instincts will serve you.’
In this bit from ch6 of my WIP2, Hana is undertaking a shamanic journey to meet the Mother, a primal force of creation, and enlist her aid in restoring someone who has been possessed and physically transformed by demons. In order to talk to the Mother, Hana has to give her a human face, and has chosen Nadora, the master's wife and mother-substitute of Hana's college. Hope that's enough for most people to make sense of this. I've no specific questions, but my main concern is whether the atmosphere and detail feel "right", if that means anything at all, so all comments happily received.
***********************************************
She’d followed Hare only a little way from the pentacle when the grass began to get marshy. The animath led her between unfamiliar trees that grew from the increasingly wet ground. Vines climbed the trunks; high in the canopy, their blood-red flowers bloomed. Barely a chink of sky showed. The light was as green as the stretches of water. Insects thronged and danced, skimming the surface as though tantalised by something they could see beneath.
Hana waded. Normally in a scape, her body felt light and nimble, more so than in reality. Here she felt heavy and fleshy, and the water she pushed with her legs felt heavy and fleshy, and ooze swallowed her feet, sucking them hard down with each step, releasing them with reluctance. Eyes staring wide, Hare swam ahead at first, but after a while fell back beside her, and stayed there so long that Hana wondered who was leading who.
‘Where is she? The Mother?’
‘All around us,’ Hare said in a hushed voice. He struggled onto a tussock, and squealed as a thousand beetles swarmed his fur, making him leap into the water again.
‘We’re here to find her in human form.’
‘Then you must follow your own direction, child,’ said Hare, swimming frantically round her. ‘I know nothing of her in human form.’
Hana pressed on. If she had to find her own way, so be it. Her thoughts would lead her. She remembered the kindness Mama Nadora had shown when Geist had brought her from her uncle’s farm. She recalled the stern sympathy Nadora had given her after she’d passed out from drinking too much wine on Puristo’s god-day when she was sixteen.
She thought of the lunchtime soup.
The shallow lake had thickened almost to that consistency. Vegetation matted the surface; weeds grew beneath. Creatures slipped past Hana’s submerged thighs: she tried not to imagine what. Disturbed bubbles of rot-smell broke on the slow-rippling water as her feet caught and dragged on things buried in inches of decay; she thought some were bones.
Ahead, on a small island dark beneath trees, she glimpsed a flame.
She hauled her legs from the marsh, black with stinking mud. Exhausted, Hare let himself be picked up. Hana held him panting against her, dark water from his fur dribbling down her belly. The heavy air grew warmer as she walked cautiously between an outer ring of trees, to a shadowed glade.
Several thin saplings had grown together to form a shelter. Within, a woman with the face of Mama Nadora sat stirring a large round pot above a fire. It disturbed Hana to see the master’s wife naked, but she forgot that almost at once: within the triangle of the Mother’s arms that held the great spoon, a piglet and a goat-kid sat in her lap, their heads raised, suckling from her.
The Mother studied her. Hana sensed Mama Nadora’s face wanting to change to something else, to break apart and resume some other form. She set her mind against it.
‘Is he for me?’ the Mother said, wearing Nadora’s voice like an ill-fitting mask of sound. ‘Skin him and bone him, then, and into the pot with him.’
Hana held shivering Hare tighter. ‘He’s not dead.’
The Mother shook her head. ‘All take and no give, that’s the trouble with children. Suck me dry and fly the nest. You think you can outgrow me, thanks to that little traitor you cuddle. Until the end. What is it you want?’
‘To talk — to the true Mother, not the one who came yesterday.’
The Mother laughed, and stared into the eyes of the suckling kid. ‘And why should she want there to be a difference, little chick? There’s a man she wants for herself, isn’t there? A man who’s not hers.’
‘There was a mistake.’ Hana had rehearsed this. ‘The ancients thought the mother earth needed to be fed with blood, because women lost blood through the menstrual cycle. It led to the sacrifice of the Sun-King, the man who was both son and husband to the goddess. That whole abomination came through a misunderstanding. We know better now.’
‘These are done, I think.’ The Mother flung the piglet and kid squealing away, their teeth drawing blood as they were ripped free. Resting the spoon against the side of the pot, she reached in with both hands and pulled out two snakes. She attached one to each breast, and resumed her stirring.
‘A misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘Yet you and he, who know better now, invoked that ancient contract. You used his blood to call me.’
‘Some of his blood, yes,’ said Hana. This wasn’t going right. The thick air made it hard to think. ‘But not his life. You bring death, but you don’t demand it.’
‘What would my soup be without it?’
‘But to demand the death of a healthy young man, before his time …’
‘His time is when I call him. The gods of death are also my sons and lovers.’
Hana tried not to look behind the Mother, to the three shadowy figures at the back of the shelter.
‘I want you to be cleansed of the blood-error,’ she said. ‘It should never have been part of you. The Mother reaches back to before that mistake.’
‘That “mistake” is as old as language,’ said the Mother. ‘What was I before language? Would you wish to see me as I was then? You would lose your mind.’
The serpents at her breasts had grown already. Hare whimpered in Hana’s arms.
‘You want to pick and choose,’ the Mother said. ‘That’s why you tried to force me into this shape. If you want only sweetness and nurturing, call upon the Holy Mother of the Empyreans, little good though it’ll do you. I can help save the child again, but the promise must be kept.’
‘Orc isn’t mine to give you,’ Hana said.
‘He offered himself!’ said the Mother. ‘And he has done it before. And you conspire with him to cheat me. You say he isn’t yours, yet you claimed him for yourself. Do you not see? I don’t deny you my help; it’s your denial of me that stops me giving it.’
A chill washed through Hana as she saw the truth of that.
‘He has sealed his own doom,’ said the Mother, ‘but the child’s fate is yours to change. My vines would still be protecting him now, if you hadn’t rejected me. And then he wouldn’t have woken. Your father’s brother would still live.’
‘But Orc would be dead.’
‘You must choose between child and husband. You will not be the first.’
‘Tashi isn’t my child. And Orc isn’t my husband.’
The Mother laughed, as though at Hana’s naivety. Her snakes had grown huge; they had spilled from her lap and coiled upon the dirt floor. ‘You know the answer you must give.’
She did, that was the horrible thing. She thought of the burned boy in chains on the mountainside. She had little more than a day to save Tashi, and no idea of anything else that could help. Orc was not her responsibility.
‘I need more than protection for Tashi. I need you to help drive the demons out, and restore him. You are the prime force of creation.’
‘Yes, I am.’ What had been Nadora’s face blurred and cracked. Hana’s will could not maintain it in the teeth of the power that wanted to show through; the Mother’s true form was breaking down the mask from behind. ‘You knew the only power that could save your child.’ The sound of the Mother’s voice shimmered as though currents passed through it. ‘Release your hold on Orc, and it shall be open to you.’
‘I do release him,’ said Hana. ‘He isn’t mine. I have no claim on him.’
‘You must tell him,’ said the Mother. ‘He must know that he is outside your protection. The spell will be broken. Then I shall help you.’
‘How, exactly?’ Hana kept her eyes from the Mother’s face, knowing she would now find no trace of Nadora there. ‘What will you do?’
‘You ask for exactness, for definition? You forget to whom you speak.’ The Mother plucked the serpents from her breasts. ‘Do you wish to see these dance?’
‘No!’ said Hana. ‘I’m — honoured, but —’
‘Next time, I might not give you the choice,’ said the Mother. ‘Now, go: when the time is right for me to help, your instincts will serve you.’
This is professional level. 
