On The Fatal Child
Inspiration came from many places. I first saw Atti in an image of a man,
fat and balding, calling through a locked gate to a young woman on the far side.
They were surrounded by battle and slaughter. If she trusted him, she would
escape death. But though he meant well, for her he spelled captivity. This was
the first step into Atti's soul. Everyone who loved her would mean captivity for
her in the end.
Then, as with The Cup, there were dreams: of a king in a long robe seated in the open air, and of a fireside talk on the eve of battle. These scenes occur late in the novel. Padry and Melissa were minor characters from The Widow, whom I wanted to use again. There were the ancient princes, doomed to their hellish existence. And there was the weeping goddess.
The Goddess Beyah is rarely seen, but her presence shapes all these stories. So how do you deal with a goddess whose tears poison the world? Do you gallop off and defeat her in battle? I think not. Do you put her on the couch and talk her out of it? No, because she represents our own sin, committed at the dawn of time. We cannot forgive our own sins. In all the myths of our culture there is only one way to deal with a force such as this. That is why The Fatal Child became a story about sacrifice. It is the sacrifice that saves.
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