by Carl E. Mullin ©2020
A quick call made. A shower sprayed hot and refreshing. Her uniform pressed clean, after an hour’s order, on her sofa. She seized her bag and packed it with the barest essentials. Afterward, she retreated to the mirror and put on her face with a brush and a lipstick. She checked her uniform again for any minute flaw and found none. Her crimson jacket fastened, she pulled her dragonfire hair out from inside the tall black collar and tied a ponytail with a black silk ribbon. She looked in the mirror and tugged up her collar by their corners. The boots, shone bright and sleek, she zipped up fast. The corset, she buttoned and belted. The weapons, she loaded onto the corset.
The blue ribbon, she picked up from the dresser. It felt soft in her hands and she sniffed its perfume deep and then secreted it within her flap.
With a quiet click, she opened Hannah’s door and peeked inside. She was still snoring in the dark room, her head hanging over the edge. Dagny shook her head with a rueful smile and tiptoed inside. With firm and gentle care, she slid her friend back onto the bed. Hannah seized a pillow and shoved it under her head. Dagny brushed a stray lock from her friend’s cheek and kissed it. Hannah smacked her lips and smiled in her sleep. She closed the door without a sound and dashed off a small note at a secretary desk in the living room. She folded it and propped it up on the coffee table.
She lugged her bag onto her shoulder with her sword attached to it and draped her cloak on her free arm. She left the suite.
A scarecrow of a hotel manager beamed a broad toothed smile when she stopped by the concierge desk to inform him of her intention to return in a few days. “How much do I owe you, sir?”
His hands shot up with yet another smile, “Why nothing. Nothing at all, Commander!”
She frowned. “You’re certain?”
“Why, more than certain, ma’am!”
“Ah, the Ministry covered this bill then?”
“Well, yes.” His mouth formed an odd smile as if repressing some secret knowledge and his strength was failing. “Commander, your presence here has been a tremendous, tremendous boon to our fine, fine hotel. Why, the demand for our rooms has increased three hundred percent since your arrival.”
“They have?”
“Oh, yes, yes. You’re the best advertising we ever had. You have more than repaid us your costs so it’s free, free, free! Stay as long as you like.” As the manager rhapsodized his good fortune, Dagny saw in the mirror behind him a number of people pointing at her with expressions of curiosity and admiration. One little boy was pointing at her when his mother yanked his arm and warned him not to point. Her heart sank.
“I must say, that your little friend was quite clever with her scheme to boost our profitability with you here.”
“Han…?” she shut her mouth.
“Oh, dear, I just remembered that she asked us to not tell you this. I’m not sure why, since this arrangement is quite beneficent to you as well as to us. Do please not tell her that I, ahem, spilled the beans so to speak. Terrifically clever, isn’t she?”
“Frightfully so,” she answered in a distracted tone.
“We would be more than honored if you elect to make our fine, fine establishment your home, ma’am.”
“Huh?” She remembered herself. “Ah, there’s a thought, sir.”
“A most excellent thought, ma’am.”
“I…I shall consider this, sir.”
“Excellent!” he cried, clapping his hands with cheerful finality.
“Uh, I need a horse.”
Minutes later, she stepped outside into the crowded streets of the Level Fifteen and strolled her way to a recommended livery. The city was alive with zestful energy on a fine warm day for July. The brown sparrows cartwheeled through the sky at a furious speed, missing the flapping flags hanging from the spires and parapets. High above, the airships glided their paths with grace. The vegetable peddlers haggled with the housewives over the status and price of their produces. Dagny stopped at one to buy some apples. The costermongers barked out their tin offerings of pans or cans. The horseless carriages’ wheels rattled over the cobbled street as the drivers in top hats in their rear upper seats made their adjustments.The bands of springfresh-faced children raced their exulting games, darting through the wagons and cars amid the throbbing crowds of souls and whinnying horses. On the sidewalks the grey pigeons rocked their heads forward in their eternal search for a spare morsel fallen from some careless hand. The curious strolled with their walking canes by the great windows full of enticing offerings from the finest Russian mink coats to well-shaped mercury-free hats to tasty porks and lambs hanging from their hooks. Colorful troubadours sang of love and bawdy satires to the sighs of the girls and the hearty laughter. The lovelorn girls paused to touch their kissed fingers onto the upright phallus of the mile-marking herms, the property of the luck-bringer Hermes. The matrons paused to present their flowers to the various street icons of the Gods with their thanksgivings for the safe return of their sons, petitions for their husbands’ success, a bride for their sons, a groom for their daughters, or a child to warm their lonely hearth. The statue of Artemis was decked out in tied ribbons and dolls left by the girls about to be married. Dagny took all this in. It was her city, her people, her kin, and she felt a deep pleasure in their happiness for this made her sacrifice and duty a lighter burden to bear.
“Care for a paper, miss?” a reedy voice asked from below.
She looked down at a paper boy holding out an edition of broadsheet. “No, thank you, boy.” She walked on.
“Only a half-penny, miss,” the boy pressed.
“I’m sorry, boy. I have a passing interest in news today.”
The boy raced to catch up, “Say, miss, what ye be looking for?”
“Good Queen Bess’s Lively.”
The boy made a rude noise with his tongue.
“You don’t approve?”
“At those prices, miss? Bollocks, I say.”
“I have a need of a quality horse.”
“For the park or out country?”
“Out.”
“S–say, aren’t ye what everybody be all-talking about?”
She shrugged, “Could be.”
“Blimey, it’s really is you. I taw ye and I shook me head, nay. Nobody as important as ye would be a–rubbing elbows with us commoners.”
“I too am a commoner, boy.”
“Oh, bollocks,” he drawled with a wide grin. “Well, Commander, ye sure come to the a–right place, sir. You wanna a good fast horse, this there is called Wellbrook’s Lively. Got some fine stock here. The finest in all of fair London.”
She considered him. “Lead on, boy. I’ll give you a pound.”
“Whoop! Ye sure be fair to fellow commoner. Come on!”
Mr. Wellbrook was a keen-eyed middle-aged man with deep-etched jowls and spectacles perched on his nose like a vulture. A warm smile belied his sinister scowl. He led them to a stall where a trim chestnut mare peeked at the company with her ears facing them with curiosity. Dagny let her see her approach with upright gloved hands. She clicked her tongue and shh her to quiet her nervousness. A few light touches and rubs calmed her. She pulled out an apple and held it under her nose. The horse sniffed and started to nib at it. She held it close to the mouth, taking care to not let her fingers get caught. The horse snorted in approval and she kissed her head. She walked around her, feeling the muscles and limbs. She slid her hand down her legs checking for good form and good shoes. She stood up.
“Looks like Polly like you, Commander.”
“And I her, Mr. Wellbrook. Have you a saddle for rent?”
“Aye. And the Army kit. That’ll help you pack.”
“Your price?” He quoted his price. She shook her head, “That’s half her value.”
“My business, young lady, and that’s final.”
She looked at the horse and patted her. “Have it your way, sir.” She picked up a brush and started to groom her. Wellbrook stepped inside his office to write up his bill. As she brushed the hide she saw through the door Wellbrook giving the boy a quarter. She scoffed and smiled.
The gear belted and the pack loaded, she shook hands and led her horse outside with the boy. Half a block away, she plucked out a promised pound of gold and held it up. The boy cupped his hand with eagerness. “Before we complete this transaction, I would like to know how much he kicked back to you.”
“Sir?”
“I saw you.”
“Oi, doesn’t a kid have a right to earn his living?”
“Young man,” she warned.
“Blimey, it’s only a quarter for bringing in the fishes. But I’m telling ye the truth. Queen Bess ain’t got good stock, least ye be paying through the nose and that’s the truth.”
“I believe you. And besides, I like my horse.” She took his hand and deposited her payment. Still holding to his hand, “But. Don’t be too cute. Honesty will repay you well.”
Delighted, the boy grinned, “Sure, Commander. I won’t!” He dashed off.
With a smile, she climbed her horse. With a clicking of tongue and a soft kick, they began to descend the broad ramp toward the ground.
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The Chapter House
The zipping of a bag resounded in the room.
Ziya stood up straight and looked around with her hand on her arm. Her cell was bare except for a bed, a desk, an empty bookcase, and a dresser. Everything had been stored or returned. Her cloak, belt and tools were the only personal items she had left on the bed apart from the bag.
Except one.
She stepped over to her dresser and pulled out a drawer. Inside rested a violin case snapped shut. She caressed its soft leather skin, her fingers leaving a faint trace across the fine layer of dust. She unlatched the twin buckets and lifted the lid. Inside, a violin of a rich cherry color gleaned still after its dark years. A small envelope, aged yellow and dry, sat atop the intact strings. She plucked it with ginger care.
The paper crinkled as she pulled it out and unfolded it. She read a short message in the fazed ink made by a familiar hand. She stood still in the middle of her cell. Her eyes drank the precious words again and again. She pressed the letter to her chest and sighed. She looked again at the lit window, past the distorted glass panels to a green garden full of good growing things. Such peace. Such beauty that she wished she could have shown to him. The view would have delighted him though his habitual manner would not permit such an open expression. How different are the English! So expressive. So warm and full of a good cheer. So safe. How different are they from her people on the broad prairies. How they would work the rich earth to bring forth such lush greenery. Beauty is their gift, birthing good things with their hand though they be men who should be above such drudgery. Yet they worked with a quiet joy.
She glanced at her letter. She folded it again and pocketed it inside the soft leather pouch attached to her belt on the bed. She locked the violin case and bagged it. She belted her belt about her slender hips and picked up her sacred knife. She looked over it and felt its sharpness. Such power in it, to focus her gift, to draw strength from the energy of the world and to re-arrange a little the web-work that made up the world. She gripped it in her hand with sorrow in her eyes. She sheathed it in her belt. Next, she plucked her small distaff. A weaving tool, this ward was useful for a subtle weaving of the divine dust that made the world and everything in it.
She snatched her cloak and fastened it with a brooch under her chin. She tugged the hood over her head with care. She picked up her circular hair pin, dressed with two eagle feathers hanging down, and pinned back her hair on the right side.
She looked around for one last time. With a heave, she picked up her bag and left.
Before she met with the Mother, she stopped at the chapel and approached the large shamanic icon of her Lady, a standing three-faced hekataia, which was decked out in a garland of wild flowers and ivies. Surrounding her at the feet were the stepped tables of teacup candles. Ziya lifted one candle to light two candles before replacing the first. She stepped away to face the icon again. She made the sacred sign and raised her palms up with her index fingers meeting the thumbs. “Kharis,” she whispered and then kissed her fingers before pressing them on to her Lady’s dress. Then she kissed her key.
Leaving the chapel, she walked toward the gates that separated her chapter house from the world and saw her sisters gathering on the front steps of the keep. She approached them to hug and kiss each other.
Loretta spoke. “I’m sorry, my sister. I didn’t want you in trouble,” she choked.
“You caused me nothing, my dear sister, but happiness.” She kissed her on the forehead. “You have been a great asset and comfort to me in these last three weeks. Pray to our Lady for our safekeeping.”
“I’ll try.” They hugged.
Then Ziya faced the Mother. She took her wizarded hand and kissed it with softness, “Mother.”
“Hush. Do what must be done. May the Gods and our Lady preserve you and guide your steps here for our happiness together.” She embraced her pupil. “Now, go.”
Holding back her feelings, Ziya bowed and picked up her bag. Nearing the gates, she looked back. They waved. Smiling, she waved back. At the gates she glanced up at a smiling head of a woman in the capstone. She lifted her hands, “Holy Lady, Nurse to the beloved Captive Bride, the bearer of twined torches to light the misty path of the mysteries, kharis I bring you. Bear me in thy love and attend to mine spirit. I, thy handmaid, enter thy domain of the lonely roads, of winding paths, and of the silent crow-fields. Guide me and preserve me as I make my pilgrimage to thou at thy place of power, wherever thou lead me. Send thou thy ghost-dogs to accompany me as I venture forth though the dead be surrounding me. Khraris.”
She pulled out a small bottle from her pouch and poured out a dribble of water onto the ground as her libation. She stepped to a small icon fastened to the threshold that had a winged caduceus intersecting the ring of a double-bit key. She kissed her fingers and pressed them against the icon for good luck. She stringed her bag across her back and kissed her key and started walking down the bare road.
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London
Dagny stood and looked out from the slow-moving threaded belt set aside for the livestock skywalk. Polly stood with mild patience and neighed. “Shh,” she comforted her. “It’s okay. Besides you should be grateful for a little rest on your back and legs.” She looked out at the city and saw her exit far off. She clicked her tongue and led her off the skywalk on foot. Once on the stable floor, the horse pranced a bit happy for the comfortable security of firmness. She patted her with a smile and climbed atop her. They rode off toward the exit.
They walked for another mile before they reached the edge of the sacred park surrounding the city. With a gentle kick, she rode down a broad ramp leading to a busy pathway under the park.
Underground, the people and carriages traveled to and from the city through the bright-lit malls and bathhouses and motels. This was where the thorium power plants and manufactories and public works were located, deep into the earth while letting the good green things grow overhead. It allowed London to preserve the sacred beauty and utility while sheltering the vital assets from the dragons and bombs, blessing the people with good clean air and useful necessaries.
After three hours of traveling the broad mall Dagny finally exited the city on the ramp. She had a day’s ride and the sun was beginning to fall. She felt her chest and breathed deep. A kick and Polly picked up the pace.
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The trees stood silent as she paced herself. Ziya’s boots’ hanging fringes slapped the leather skin as the soles made a soft sound on the reddish clay and scattered pebbles.
The shadows began to grow long. The trees grew grey. Their leaves became dark blots against the cobalt-blue of the sky. Alongside the road, the leaves of the shrubs turned dark green in the late day. The windows of a distant village glowed amber light on the shaded sides. The fat cattle mushing the grass behind the dry wooded fence. The sunflowers stood tall as their wide brown faces faced the sun with a deep longing. Still she pressed on.
She paused on a stump. She drew a long draught of water from her steel canteen. She unwrapped a small bread. This would be all she permited herself for her fast on this pilgrimage, enough to keep up her strength. Her light meal done, she repacked and walked into the late day.
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After a few hours of ride, Dagny got off her horse and started to walk, pulling the reins behind her. Polly followed her with a quiet air.
She pulled out an apple from her pouch and bit into it. The juice tasted sweeter after a long travel. She chewed some more and then shared it with Polly. Feeling her munching made her feel closer, more intimate with the pulsing life surrounding her. Here, the abstract concept of money and civilized mores of the city melt into the soft moss and clay of the fields and woods. Out there in the country, your soul feels rooted to the rhythmic flow of life and death. You hear the snapping of a bird’s wings and of a stray twig. You feel the surrendering jellied soil after a recent rain and the crushing of irregular stones and rocks under your foot. The soft cricketing of crickets fills the air as the evening approaches. You smell a warm mush of living things feeding off the dead, their surrendering forms given over for reformation of fresh cells of the living.
A distant thunder. She looked up at the flat layer of grey clouds floating fast. Rain coming. She stopped her horse to claim her cloak from the saddle. She fastened it with a regulation broach and jerked her hood over her head. She tugged the cloak’s large collar up to her chin. They walked on as she took out another apple for a bite. The downpour began. Puddles in the depressions of dirt filled fast, up to her ankles.
After a half-hour, the rain ended. She shook off the drips from her cloak. Polly sniffed at the wild flowers and clovers cluttering the tree-roots alongside the dirt-road. The air was fresh after the rain and the fields and pastures full of good things. The tan wheat waved in the gentle wind. A tractor of a sun-rusted brown color puffed its way across the tall crops, doing its late afternoon work before the nightfall. A squirrel leaped away, his mouth stuffed with a nut.
She espied a lake nearby. “Come, Polly. Let’s get you refreshed.” Across the field of hip-tall grass she led her horse on foot. A curious deer lifted her head from her nibbling and then ignored them. After leading Polly to the shore, she knelt and cupped the water to her lips. “Mm, it’s good. Come on, Polly, have your fill.” Polly sniffed at the warm water. Then she nosed her way into the water for a greedy drink. Dagny patted her neck before sitting on the rock to take off her boots. She purred as her feet welcomed the cooling waters. She splashed the water, enjoying the little bubbles and radiating circles her feet made. She looked up at the lake, the trees, the fields, and the sky. She closed her eyes and heard the words.
“Little one, little one, what do you see?” The voice was warm and throaty and full of smiles as she whispered into her ear. “Little one, little one, do you see how those trees wave and bow in the winds?” Her hand shook her tummy with a gentle humor. “Little one, little one, do you see?”
Little Dagny lifted her wide eyes to glace on the world with a welcoming interest. The tall and fresh grass of spring quivered with gentle excitement. Little budding flowers full of bright and warm yellow bowed on their slender sterns. Fragile balls of dandelions shook in the breeze, some of their spiny white blooms flying away. The great trees at a distance, dark and massed, shook their many arms. She heard a series of great roars and crushing thunders that continued without an end beyond the edge of the world.
“Little one, do you hear? That is the sea rushing onto the land. Over and over the sea rides over her with endless passion. You see the trees dancing? They are welcoming the winds because the wind is making them strong, strong enough to house the little birds. Those little flowers are dancing because they are excited to have the warm sun shining on them. The sun makes all things warm and happy and alive inside them, and in you too, my little one.”
The voice bent her head over Dagny to kiss the top of her head. Waving rivers of red hair hung in front of Dagny’s face and she reached to feel them, The voice giggled and hugged her tummy and kissed her again. She giggled with the voice.
“Little one, little one, do you know what you see? The world is full of life, full of energy, restless energy like a hot-blooded bull. The world is full of Gods, little one. Every tree you see has a tree-shepherdess who guides them, urging them to grow tall and strong. The seas have the wave-nymphs who watch after the quick-swimming schools of fishes. Here, on this land, this land is haunted by the old, old wights who help to make things grow fine and rich. The woods are peopled by the gay fairies who dance with the fireflies and teach the little birds to sing well. We play our part, little one. We play our part in this endless dance of life. We plow and eat and return them to earth so that life be reborn from their bones, much like the caves produce honey. This beautiful, beautiful land we call England, the island of our fathers. England, our sacred island, full of good hearty people like you and me. The people tilling the good rich earth as their fathers have before them and our fathers before us. The upright Angles and Saxons born of the loins of Hengist and Horsa. Little one, they are part of us, a part of your blood from the mist of past time.” She kissed her head again. “Little one, this land is you. This land is yours. Your land. Your people.”
Dagny smiled. She did not understand the words but she sensed the meaning was warm and rich and welcoming. Those red hairs were so enticing, she couldn’t help playing with them. The voice laughed and hugged her with many kisses. She laughed with the voice.
She opened her eyes with a smile as she sat on her rock. Her feet played with the water.
Then she saw something in the water and her smile vanished.
She breathed hard and looked up. She was burning daylight and miles to go yet.
She got up.
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Ziya touched her stomach as she sat on the log for a short rest. It had been days since she last ate a hearty meal. A bread eaten in spare portions and water sipped were all she had. The day now truly grew late and she had miles to go. She looked down the sand-colored dirt road. The dark trees stood sentinel in good order on the both sides of the road. Their trunks stood tall and bare and their branches formed the arching vault of dim leaves.
She stood straight, her arms at her sides. I am Lakota, she thought. I will admit to no weakness. Her people had accepted pain and death without a complaint. For death, they welcomed it with a song of full-bodied defiance worthy of a warrior. Her fast was a means to weaken her will so that her heart may open itself to the divine flow as a thirsty flower might bloom to welcoming rain.
She paused to sip from her canteen.
When she looked up, she saw that the pastures beyond the trees had become hidden by a muslin-like veil of moisture. The only sound was the clacking of her canteen’s chained lid as she screwed it back on. She let her canteen fall to her hips. The water inside slopped with an audible noise. She stood in the middle of the road and heaved her chest. Her feet rejected her will at first, rooting firm to the soil. Then they obeyed her. She went on, step by step, until her pace became normal.
The wet grayness swallowed her.
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The sky grew grey now. The flat clouds glowed hot pink. The farmlands emitted a heated yellow glow with a greenish tint. The horses and cattle became fewer and scattered as their numbers retreated to their barns. The domed haystacks cast shadows of rich blue over the green and ochre ground. The woods became tall sticks of warm gold in the dying light and grew thick as thieves as the shieldmaiden and her horse entered the swallowing forest.
The lattice of branches and leaves hung over their heads, casting a growing olive-green shadow while the flowers peppering their limbs glowed hot whiteness. She bent one of the branches to sniff their sweetness before it bounced away on release. As Polly’s hoofs crushed the fallen foliage and the yellowing weeds, she let her gloved fingers run along the multiple flowering branches about her. The trees grew thicker. Here and there, she ducked a low branch.
Dagny smiled a small smile. It was a good land, a beautiful land, full of good hunting prospects. Long ago, her father taught her the ways of his ancestors who haunted the forests and frontiers of ancient Saxony, the men of borderlands, the men of the mark. Mark was the name descended from the old German marchön and the old Norse mǫrk. This was her land, the land purchased with her fathers’ bones. This land shaped her blood and her blood shaped this land in a glorious mystery, a matrix of twined creation and destruction, full of a dangerous grace.
There was a calm and beguiling enchantment about this place, a cosmic dance that united all things here. It was a dance of the planting and of the harvest. A dance of the great and of the small. A dance of organic reality of such power and beauty that all abstractions melt away before such awful grace. Where life shaded into death and death shaded into life. Here is the order divine, full of struggling and striking and straining passions. This is the world pulsing with the bull-energy both profane and divine. Life, that lustful, irrepressible, implacable bull-force charged through all things, fills all things, penetrates all things and completes all things. It flows fresh from the birth-blood and the death-blood alike. It pulsed through the green veins and the red veins. It pulsed through the garnished roots and the hollow groves. It pulsed through the dizzy fireflies and the nocturnal beasts stirring in the dusktime. It pulsed through and generated a riot of multiple forms shivering from its great force. The force is the ripped and the ripper, the crushed and the crusher, the prey and the predator, the butchered and the butcher, the eaten and the eater, the dead and the quick. This restless divinity haunted and filled this world. It filled the being of the rock and of the air and of the stream. It filled the being of all things that move and grow and evolved from the unrecorded time. It binds all things in the endless dance of the world. It is the matter and the energy. It is the dust eternal and indestructible that filled and shaped the world in all its forms. It transforms. It shifts shapes. It is ripped, reborn, renewed, reknitted in endless forms anew every day, every hour, every second. Ripped by the teeth, its chemical bond dissolved in a bath of organic acids, its being reknitted into a new dance of matter and energy, reshaped into new cells, into new marrow, into a new shivering life aborning from within its destroyer.
She felt being a part of this world, an integrated member of this great order. Here, she has a role within the great chain of being spun by the three weird Sisters who measured out the fate-strings that webbed together the world. Here mighty Apollo and his beloved twin govern the eternal process of life and death. Here the twang of a harp healed. Here the twang of a bow killed. Here in this fine old England is the ripping and the healing. A peeping of hungry hatchings. The suckling of an egg by a mouse. The bending of a flower’s stern by the hairy-eared squirrel. The slithering of a dull-colored serpent in the carpet of foliage. The glittering eyes of a brown owl in the worn tree. The cadaver birthing bees with their honey. The rushing of the blind mole. The hurried labor of ants. All united and blended together from a pebble to a woman riding her steed through the humid air.
Here in the wilds, in the bosom of Grandmother Gaia, was wisdom to be found. Here the Gods and men come for a retreat. Here they find clarity. Here they find power. Here they find strength; destructive, awful, and monstrous might of the giants born of earth. The strength bends to good purpose, to destroy the dark monsters and to repair anew the fate-strings that make the world.
Polly was tiring after a long ride and so was she. Upon entering a small clearing she dismounted and squatted to loosen up her legs. She yanked a clutter of tall grasses and rose to feed Polly. “Good girl,” she smiled as she munched on it at once.
Her ear pricked.
She froze with an intense focus. From the saddle she unsheathed her hand ax and listened.
There was a new sound coming from some distance in this darkening grove. A music made by some wind instrument, a slow, low and soft sound with a bright clarity and full of alluring gentleness.
Polly snorted. “Shh,” Dagny hushed. She took the reins and led her through the shrubs and the weeds across the crowded woods now full of dull shadows.
Deeper and deeper, step by step she followed the sweet music waffling through the thickening woods. The screened sky grew dark blue and the ivies bowed their heads on their serpentine climbs about the tall and rough trunks. The small eyes peeked from their holes and scurried away. The fireflies rose high on the warm air in a lazy dance of popping amber glow.
She halted.
Polly whinnied and she covered her muzzle with her hands. She crouched and secreted herself behind a low holly tree. With two fingers she weighted down a light branch and peeked.
In a wide opening amid the dimming light was a maid seated on a marble block. With closed eyes she played a simple descant recorder with unadorned hands. She was dressed in a simple dress, an affair of two plain sheets knotted together on her shoulders, baring her sides. A simple golden belt held the flaps together at her waist. Behind her stood a tall marble shrine.
Dagny let her eyes adjust to the low light and searched for potential dangers. Seeing none, she eased up the bent branch and resheathed her ax. She belted her sword about her hips and took the reins and led Polly onto the road.
As they neared, she saw the playing girl was young and with wild blond hair pinned back together in a mess of tresses. She gave no sign of hearing their casual approach but continued to play to her heart’s content. Dagny studied the open-air shrine in detail. It was a domed affair with Doric fluted columns thrice the man’s height. It sat atop a slight hill of grass and gardens. In the center was a marble herm capped with a bust of a man wearing a winged cap and an archaic smile. As usual for a herm, a phallus was carved under the mileage marking. At the foot of this elevation, a simple altar rested where men can leave offerings of money, food, drink or clothing for some unlucky traveler to follow and give him succor. Luck for luck, kindness for kindness.
The girl ended her tune on a sweet note and opened her eyes to her guest with an expectant smile. “Greeting, shieldmaiden. May my Lord bless you and welcome you. Come and rest your feet and be at ease.”
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She was tired and her feet cried for some ease. She ignored them. She walked and walked and walked, step by step toward the ever-recessing veil. How long had she trekked? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?
Days? She felt like it was. Ziya pressed on. The sun had disappeared from her sight. Only the grayness remained.
She stopped.
A low gray shadow approached from within the heavy fog.
She stood still.
The shadow inched closer, its shape grew firmer. Then it resolved into a dog, a retriever, his coat white as snow and his eyes of childlike gentleness. She stood as the dog approached her, his tail curved upright with confident friendliness. She showed him her right palm. He stepped closer and sniffed her hand. Then he licked her hand.
She dug into her pouch and took out a wrapped meat. She tore off a bit of the cured meat. The dog sniffed at it and he took it in his jaws. She waited with patience as he ate it with eagerness.
Then he was done and he looked back at her in expectation. Then his head turned back to the fog, his ears raised as if listening to some voice. He looked back at her again, his tail wagging a bit.
He looked back again, his ear cocked. Ziya strained to hear something.
He looked at her once more and then to the point of his origins. Taking a last look at her, he began to walk back into the fog.
She held her breath.
The dog stopped and looked over his shoulder at her.
She did not move.
He resumed his pace. As the fog closed onto him he stepped to look at her again with expectant eyes.
She did not move.
As he almost disappeared, he turned and barked. Two more times he barked and then he disappeared into the eerie whiteness.
She breathed deep, “Fate,” and followed after the dog.