The Fierce Mother of Kalikata leapt in the burning grounds. As She danced, the tide of newly dead rushed between Her thighs, returning to Her vast womb.

The Mother’s skin was the colour of midnight, for She drank of the world’s shadows. In the courtyard of Her temple, goats squealed; the devoted crouched to lap sanctified blood from the stones. "Garbha, the Womb," they cried. "Padma, Sweet Lotus!" Her names were without end—Madonna, Sekmet, Blue Saraswati—sometimes She was maddened by the music of a hundred million voices crying for mercy.

At other times the wide Earth rocked in Her arms, and She sang lullabies until the stars came to roost in the trees. Tonight, the Devi merely listened for echoes.

From the jungle’s steaming belly rolled Quietude, and in it She recognized a lack: the silence of an old lover’s song. It had been years since he’d spoken Her name.

In truth, he was a manner of demon, finely attuned, perhaps too subtle; he had spent years meditating in Her Himalayan temples. He slept now in the mud of the Ganga River, his fine, tall body curled like a fetus. The Dark Mother considered how She might call him to Her feet. A mere breath and his entire being would awaken, but there were degrees of surrender. She smiled.

Like the Great Ascetic Shiva, he must be reminded of his lingam.

In his French tongue, his name meant Proud Death. She uttered it—de Mortifière—and the smoke of cremation pyres spiralled from Her tongue.

Miles to the north, above the Hoogli’s bobbing carpet of purple hyacinths, the Mother felt him stir. With Her third eye She beheld the black mud slide from his matted hair to wash the muscles of his chest. That hardened plane pleased Her, as did the flow of Ganga water from the ruff lower down. His first thought in rising was of Her. The Devi laughed at the sight of his member: already it sought to complete him in filling Her. By his will de Mortifière bade it lay quiet again; he would not rush.

After such lengthy silence her lover’s thoughts moved in pictures, not words. He was adept at keeping these images blank. Still, the Mother knew his ache in waking, his delight at the musk of tigers in the darkness. Stalking one in the dank jungle, he felled it with his hands, and drank of its wild essence.

De Mortifière turned the great cat’s head in the moonlight, that he might gaze into her eyes and thank her for her sacrifice. His brows rose high when he recognized the Mother of the World in those glassy orbs. Two tears of blood escaped him, striking his cold cheeks and dropping to the earth. De Mortifière returned to the river.

As he moved in the night, the Devi entered the Ganga. She teased at his groin beneath the striped hide he’d slung there. De Mortifière lay back on Her waters and the Mother bathed him. She pulled at his heavy hair and rushed over his lips, but he uttered not a sound. Still, his body arched to Her summons. He stood and She streamed between his legs and buttocks. In the mud along the banks She sucked the curving arches of his feet. When finally he trod in Her courtyard, saliva filled his mouth.

In the Devi’s shrine, Her Brahmins had erected a formidable image, four arms bristling with knife, severed head, blood, and blessings. Kali Ma settled impatiently in the confines of this graven likeness. Tongue playing over Her lips, She awaited her lover’s pleasure.

Having lost his tiger skin to the river, he came to Her naked and dripping. The sinews of his thighs rippled as he climbed the platform to Her feet. He was like Shiva—austere, yet sensuous; after a sojourn in the mountains, he hungered for his conjugal bed.

He wrung sacred water from his hair to splash Her ankles. Bowing namasthe, he placed his frozen lips to Her toes and stepped back. The Great Mother laughed, and the sky resounded with thunder.

De Mortifière spoke once, in the old language, to call one of Her goatslayers to his side. With neglect, the music of his voice had become a rusted gong. Melancholy struck the Devi as She looked on Her suppliant: he had grown weary for Her arms; his soul had passed more years entombed in this demon’s body than ever it had danced in a living skin. She watched as he extracted a cutlass from the goatslayer’s fingers.

Her lover’s eyes rose, and they were as clear as the sap of a Himalayan pine. Only now did he whisper Her name.

The blade fell, and blood sprayed from the artery in his neck, hot issue bathing Her toes. The Great Mother was pleased, and also wounded. Even as the astounded priests at Her pedestal shouted "Attahasayuta, Laughing Loudly!" the Mother’s heart wept for Her devotee. She knew, as he did, that his act of sacrifice did not release him.

* * *

Perhaps he had forgotten Love.

From the corpse of a beautiful prostitute the Mother fashioned de Mortifière his Magdalene. She seeped inside to animate the vacant shell, pooling Her waters in that triangle which marked the female chasm.

He woke in an earthen chamber to find Her lapping at his bloodied skin. This called no expression to Her lover’s face, for his emotions lay like crusted bones in a sepulchre. The Devi mounted his chest and called him vetala, goblin; his eyes gleamed yellow fire.

With Her foot the Mother traced the ivory scar that ran from his heart to his pubis, and the mate that met it between his hipbones. In life, he had been ill-treated. For a moment She thought of Her Son the Jew, and smiled.

"Your lingam is soft, my vetala," She told him, and at last he showed the wicked pearls of his teeth. While his urge was to ravish the body She’d chosen, de Mortifière’s will was ancient and practised—to Kali-Ma, even his member would bow in reverence.

She lowered Herself astride him, whispering how he must please Her. Almost reluctantly de Mortifière gave over to Her teasing. With Her burning fingers she gripped his hardness. When She took him inside, his eyes narrowed, but he made no sound. The Devi grinned, and Her tongue issued from between Her teeth like a serpent. She began to move on the shaft of his lingam, clasping it deep within the muscles of Her yoni. He fell back beneath Her. His fingers gouged trails in the stone floor.

With the rhythm of Her hips She danced him, circling slow round the pulsing stone at Her centre. The Devi reached behind Her to caress his testes. "Sing for me in your lovely voice," She commanded. "I will suffer your silence no more." She squeezed, and his groin arced high beneath Her. He had not forgotten pleasure.

From within the muscular walls of Her chasm sprung teeth, and Her lover’s eyes turned from gold to verdigris. She tightened the circles She drew, hemming him in, and he thrust his head hard against the floor. Parting his lips, de Mortifière moaned. It was the sound of shuddering earth. "Shiva Hum So’ Hum," he sang—I am Shiva, I am She. The Mother bent to fill his mouth with Her tongue.

* * *

"How is it," She demanded, plaiting the raven coils of his hair, "that you thought Love would not find you out?"

"Perhaps I had only hoped, Devi Ma."

She planted a foot between his shoulder blades and pushed at his spine. "You did not. You buried hope in the ground, that it might decay."

"If that is so, Padma, a sapling shot up from that seed, and impaled me on its branches." Her lover turned to Her with his veiled smile.

"Have you a better Way to die?" Twining braids round the new skin of his throat, She pulled him close.

For a long while de Mortifière drank of Her eyes. "No, Ma," he said finally, kissing Her palm. "None whatsoever."