Sarsuti, goddess and river, bathes her City in her life-giving waters, and the People prosper from her inundations. But now she runs dry and the People whither with her.

Sarsuti loves her People best of all people. So Prithvi's grandmother the high priestess always tells them. So why the long, relentless drought? Why the lack of male offspring in more than a decade? Why the raiders sieging their city walls?

Sarsuti with her feet in the ocean and her hair in the mountains knows all. Some of it she whispers to Prithvi's grandmother. But Prithvi hears a voice too.

One river, one goddess, one path of action for the People. But how to know the true voice from the false one?

"Mother River", a novelette set in the Goddess Bereft World.