Author: M G Kizzia

R6 Greta: Land of the Lost, part 3 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“The big bird is after the big worm,” Bogus said it, and they all ran to the door in time to see the dragon grabbed by the bird beak and tossed into the trees.  The dragon protested with fire, and it looked like it held its own for a while, but the bird kept grabbing it and shaking it and banging it against the trees, until at last, the big worm ran out of strength.

The bird picked up the worm with its claws and headed into the sky.  It punctured something, as the people smelled the gas.  The hydrogen bladder that ran along the whole belly of the beast had a leak. The dragon waited until they circled enough to gain some altitude, then Nameless said a quiet, “No.” as the dragon flamed himself.  There followed a massive explosion. People screamed at the horror.  Pieces of dragon rained down on the forest along with all of the insides of the Raven.  The bird plummeted in a streak of flame, and Berry and Fae raced out to where the dragon fell.  The rest of the crew followed.

Nameless saw something in his mind, picked everyone up with a thought and transported them to where the dragon head had turned into a very old and broken man.  Nameless also caught sight of the spark of light that came from the Raven.  It shot to the south, well beyond the dome, but he said nothing as Berry and Fae fell down beside the broken old man and began to cry.

The man could hardly speak, but he looked first at Bogus and breathed.  “Sorry father.”  Then he spoke to the girls.  “You have my permission and blessing.  They seem fine men, such as they are.”  Then he turned to Nameless and stumbled over his thoughts.  “None of the parts of Mithras mean good for the human race. They want to be the new gods and they all want to lead their way.  Beware Mithras.  He is the Pater.”

The old man’s voice trailed off and Nameless raised his head and commanded attendance.  “Willow,” he called, and his command went all the way to the Ural Mountains where a snow fairy vanished and reappeared at Nameless’ side.  The fairy spun around several times, but halted on sight of the Nameless god.  “Your grandson,” Nameless pointed to the old man, “And your great-granddaughters.”  He stepped back, and let Willow find her own way.

Willow flew up to face the old man.  She took on her big form, which made her appear like a beautiful, older woman, perhaps just shy of fifty.  She knelt beside the old man and looked briefly at Fae and Berry before she smiled for the man and spoke.  “You are Oren?”

“I am,” Oren whispered.  “And now my days are complete.”

Willow took Oren’s hand, the one Berry was not squeezing, and found one tear to protest.  “But you are so young.”

“More than a hundred,” Nameless said softly. “More than long enough for a half-human.”

Willow looked up at Fae and Berry.  “Berry,” she said.  “Queen Thumbelin has told me wonderful things about you, and young Mab said you were all right, which I think at her age is a great compliment.” Berry’s eyes teared up so she could not say anything.  “And Fae. I have heard from far away, from my dear old friend, Thissle, that you are a kind and wonderful person.  How you ever got involved with the old stinker, Hobknot, I will never know.”  Willow paused to wink at Hobknot, who scowled appropriately in return.  Clearly, they had some history.  “But love is a strange and wonderful thing, and that is worth holding on to.”  Willow turned her eyes toward Bogus who stood that whole time, quietly worrying his hat.

“Mother.”  He spoke when her eyes fell on him.

Willow smiled for her son.  “Sometimes love takes us places where we could never imagine. Love had its way with me and your father, and though it was only for a short time, he gave me you, my son.”

“I’ve been not much of a good son,” Bogus said. He lowered his eyes and shuffled his foot.

“But you have.”  Willow smiled for her son. “I have been thinking about it now for more than a hundred years.  I was wrong. You loved your human woman, Clarissa. The Kairos has taught us that we are not to mingle with human mortals, but even she knows that love will have its way. I treated her badly.  I was terrible.  I was wrong, and I went away, and I am sorry.  I missed my grandson’s whole life, and now I can never get that back.” Willow looked down and a few precious fairy tears fell to dampen Oren’s side.  Oren extracted his hand from Berry’s grasp and with a great effort, he covered Willow’s hand and patted it twice.  Bogus found a few tears of his own and stepped up to hug his mother. Nameless spoke.

“There are only two things in life that everyone experiences.  Love and death.  And we have no control over when they will come.”  Nameless went away so Greta could return and finish the thought.  “Who would have thought I would end up with a Roman?”  She stepped up and looked down at Oren.  “Sleep now,” she said.  “The old life has gone.  The new life has come.”  Berry reached for the cross she wore around her neck and Oren closed his eyes and stopped moving.  Immediately, they heard a howl.  The Wolv were not far away.  Greta lifted her voice to the sky.  “Nameless! You are mean.”  He brought her back to face her own Wolv.

“What are we going to do?” Hans asked.

“Oh, Hans.”  Greta stepped to the side and amended her word.  “Hansel.”  She grinned as she waved her hand in the air.  A great archway formed, a doorway to Avalon in the second heavens.  Greta and Berry had been there once.  Now, the others were coming, but then her little ones were always welcome.  “Hans and Hobknot, carry Oren,” Greta commanded.  “Quickly now.  Through the door before the Wolv catches us by the heel.”

People scrambled as another howl came, closer than before.  They heard the yip-yip of the Wolv before they crossed the threshold and stepped out on to a perfect, green lawn beneath a beautiful blue sky and a magnificent castle on a hill.  A small river ran through the grasses and emptied into the sea at their backs.  To their left were great rock pillars, like guardians against the sea.  To their right stood a field full of grain ready to harvest.  The air felt crisp in the late fall, but they saw no snow to cover the ground.  Directly behind them all, in the doorway to Earth, Greta stood and waited.

A Wolv ran up, but stopped as it tried to make sense of where it stood as opposed to what it saw through the archway.  A second and third Wolv arrived and stopped as well.  The third Wolv looked like an old gray-haired Wolv.  Greta spoke to the gray hair, and since she spoke from Avalon, she knew her message would be understood.

“You know this planet is off limits.  Your fleet will be destroyed in space before it can arrive if your commander is foolish enough to come here.  As for your transport, I have other tasks to perform, but as soon as I am free, I will attempt to repair your ship so you can leave. You would be wise to confine yourselves to the forest of the dome in the meanwhile.  Do not interfere with the war between the humans, unless you have a wish to die and be no more.”

Greta snapped her fingers and the door to Avalon blinked out of existence.

************************

MONDAY

After a stay on Avalon, Greta and her family need to visit her brother who lives on the north border of Dacia.  She sees only blood being spilled, and fears the war to come.  Until Monday…

*

R6 Greta: Land of the Lost, part 2 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“I was able to bring in food and we have blankets and such things, but I did not have the power to take us out.  My power is greatly diminished and the more so when I am blocked by the Nymphus.”

“You are broken, old man,” Greta responded.  “Why have you not gone over to the other side?”

The old man smiled a little, but it did not look like a warm or welcoming smile.  Greta saw something calculating in that smile.  “How can I pass over when I am not every whit whole?”

Greta shook her head.  “Your brother Varuna would be very unhappy with you.”

The old man’s visage changed.  He gritted his teeth and furrowed his brows.  He did not expect that comment.  “My brother surrendered to the invaders and gave everything to that moron, Indra.  My brother got reduced to the lowest of the low, a simple god of the sea, not even allowed to set his foot on the dry land.”

“Your brother saved millions of people and ended a war among the gods that might have killed every living thing.  And Amphitrite says she does not appreciate your prejudicial attitude about sea gods.”

The old man looked startled, but then he softened. “Yes, I forgot.  She would see things differently, though as I recall, she did not get counted among the gods of Olympus.”

Before Greta could respond, a voice came from the doorway.  “Get him. Kill him so we can end this.”  Mithrasis showed up.  She stood in the doorway and pounded once on the invisible door that kept her out.

“Where is that dragon?” Mithras responded sharply. “The agreement was to keep you away and I care for his daughters.  Nymphus, you have no part in this conversation.”

“But she does,” Greta interrupted.  “I intend to put her in her bed.”

“What?”  Everyone but Fae asked.  Fae kept her mouth closed.  Mithrasis looked seriously interested.

Greta, who wore her armor since Samarvant, called for her weapons.  They appeared, attached in their proper places, so the sword called Salvation rested on her back with the handle sticking out over her left shoulder, and the long knife called Defender rested comfortably across the small of her back, or as she thought, across the top of her big butt.  Greta looked at Mithrasis.

“Let me in,” Mithrasis yelled.  The Nymphus liked Greta, but paused when Greta went away and Nameless stood in her place.

“And I intend to put her in her bed, personally,” Nameless said.  Mithrasis paused before Nameless heard the click and Mithrasis doubled her effort to get in.  “But first, Mithras, I want to know what game you are playing.”  Nameless whipped out defender and put it to Mithras’ throat faster than anyone could see or react.

Mithras dared not move, but he spoke.  “I am an old man, as you see.  I should be on the other side, but I am not whole.  I thought if I could get your help, you might find a way to repair the damage and set me free.”

“He lies,” Fae said softly.  It was her one true talent, to tell truth from lies.

“Kill him, and we will all be free,” Mithrasis yelled.

“She lies,” Fae added.

Nameless raised one brow.  “I don’t believe anyone has told the whole truth this whole time. And whose stupid idea was it to pull down a Wolv transport?”

“Hers.”

“His.”

Nameless merely waved his hand and the force field around the dome ruins came down.  Nameless stood in his element, so to speak.  In the Land of Aesgard he was counted as a Prince.  As the last child of Aesgard in his own jurisdiction, his will became final.  Neither Mithras nor Mithrasis could overrule what he decided.  At least that was how it was before the time of dissolution.

Nameless held out his hand as Mithrasis tumbled into the circle.  She hesitated and squinted at Nameless’ hand, but Nameless was a love god on his mother’s side, and that became too hard to resist.  Mithrasis took the hand and while she did not exactly snuggle up to his shoulder, it was near enough.

“So what game are you playing?” Nameless asked again.

“Kill him.  Be done with it,” Mithrasis whispered in his ear.

“It is no game,” Mithras said.

“Then let me put Mithrasis in her bed,” Nameless said, and he turned, and once again in a move too swift to follow, he slipped Defender up under Mithrasis’ ribs and into her heart.  Nameless did not want to lie for fear Fae might inadvertently say something, but he thought the whole time of putting Mithrasis in her death bed.

Mithrasis’ eyes got big.  She began to shake, like one suffering an internal earthquake, and she began to sparkle, like the light inside her started burning out.  “But I’m on your side,” she said, even as she fell apart.  This time, they all saw the one spark of light rise up from Mithrasis’ crumbling remains and shoot into Mithras’ mouth.  Mithras let out a great shout, and he collapsed, unconscious to the ground.

“This is the third time we have seen this,” Hans said, while Fae knelt down to check on the old man.  “He should stay out for several hours.”

Hobknot stepped up and spoke to Nameless. “Lord.  We spent the other two times arguing about whether the Mithras was a friend or foe.”

“But he fed you, and cared for you, and kept you all alive,” Bogus said.

“So said the women, but young Hans and I had our doubts.”

“And I questioned some,” Fae said.  “It was not that he lied, but he told such half-truths as fit his agenda.  I could not help wondering if the whole truth might speak against his agenda.”

“A true progressive politician,” Nameless said, and turned toward Berry, but before he could speak to her, a giant shadow fell on them.  The Raven, the giant bird, the Roc, appeared to be coming right at them.  “The shield has been removed.”

“Wait,” Hobknot said.  Nameless waited as Hobknot pointed.  “It is not after us.”

R6 Greta: Land of the Lost, part 1 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Son,” Bogus began like he had a long speech prepared, but there came shouts and a great commotion among the horsemen in the distance.  The horses at the parley screamed and swords got drawn, and a hundred men broke from the ranks of horsemen and charged.

The dragon turned and slithered up between the two giants.  It rose up and held itself a matching twenty feet from the ground.  The snow and cloud giants looked briefly at the dragon while it looked back and forth between the two, then all three let loose with everything they had in the face of the oncoming charge.

The snow giant shot sharp pointed icicles, like a machine gun.  Those icicle bullets penetrated everything, wood, bronze, iron, leather, horsehide and human flesh.  The cloud giant let loose one lightning strike after another.  The ground, people and horses exploded, and the thunder boomed for miles.  Greta mumbled.

“There was a reason the ancient gods put all the little ones, the sprites in her hands.  They would not give them to another immortal because it would have made that immortal too powerful.”

The dragon, of course spewed flame and created crispy critters, but after only seconds, that whole line of horsemen turned and ran for their lives.  Greta shouted up.

“Oren, you must take us now.”

The dragon turned.  “I feel the strong urge to cook you and eat you,” Oren said.

“You are still half mine,” Greta responded.  “You have a powerful half that belongs to the sprites of the earth, and you can resist the control over your human half.”

The dragon turned its head up and shot flame into the sky before it lowered its neck for Greta and Bogus to climb on board. “Hold tight to my scales,” the dragon said.  “You will not hurt me.”  They held tight, and as they rose into the air and circled several times to gain some height, Greta got a good bird’s eye view at what happened down below.

The Scythian horsemen made a massive army. Greta feared for her friends, even if they had two giants protecting them, but then she caught sight of an army coming from the east.  Slavs, she thought, and quickly turned her head to see an army coming from the west. “Goths,” she shouted.  Then she looked once more and saw three horses racing back from the parley, and then she saw no more as they shot out over the trees.

After that, Greta looked side to side, but decided she would rather not look down.  She looked for Mithrasis, and felt surprised the goddess had not already picked them up.  She decided that she guessed correctly.  As long as Mithras and Mithrasis canceled each other out, they were vulnerable to more ordinary things.  Mithrasis probably feared the dragon fire, not to mention the dragon claws and teeth.

Greta finally looked down when she felt the dragon begin to circle for a landing.  She saw the river and had to think about that.  Four thousand years ago the river came down more from the north, above the dome.  Now it had shifted to south of the dome which no longer appeared a dome.  She saw no more than a few dozen blocks of stone, even if they were ten ton blocks, but even they started crumbling under thousands of years of relentless weather.

They landed, a rough landing for Greta and Bogus, though one the dragon probably thought of being as soft as he could make it. Bogus said nothing as he slid to the ground and raced into the gap between the stones.  Greta paused.

“Thank you, Oren.  I hope I live long enough so I can bring your grandmother here for a visit.” She wanted to say she would change the dragon back into a man, but she was not sure how to do that, and besides, the gods never made promises.  Greta learned that four thousand years ago when the dome was whole and the Titan who lived in it still lived.  She could do one thing though, and she leaned over carefully and kissed the dragon on the nose.  A great, hot tear rose in the dragon eye before they both heard something that made Greta jump and made the dragon lift its head.  The distant howl of a Wolv echoed through the trees, and someone started coming through the bushes.  Greta ran through the gap in the stones that let her inside.

Bogus closed his mouth.  He had been yelling at his granddaughters, and mostly Berry whom he knew so well from her years among the little ones of the forest.  But when Greta popped into the room, he quieted and everyone stared for an instant of absolute silence before they shouted and Berry ran into Greta’s arms, tears in her eyes.  Fae followed Berry, and a grinning Hans and Hobknot began to nudge each other, like they had some sort of bet.

Greta took a moment to look around that great round space.  Most of the wall looked one block high, though plenty of places still had part of a second block on top, or two whole blocks which made a wall as tall as Greta. A couple of places were three blocks high where Greta could begin to see the slight curve in the stone that once rose up to the top of the dome, but there were not many three block places. There were more blocks and worn down blocks and partially crumbled blocks on the floor of that space, and Greta could see where they were turned into seats and tables for their furniture.

“I never stopped believing,” Berry managed to say before she started to cry again.

“We all kept believing,” Fae said.  “It’s what kept us going on those long winter nights.”

Greta nodded, but she moved Berry into her grandfather’s arms so she could face the old man who sat quietly in the corner. He stood and spoke when Greta’s eyes focused on him.

R6 Greta: The Road of Dreams, part 3 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Greta sat alone.  She still had plenty to think about and she was not at all finished with her worry.  There were no guarantees here and she imagined a million things could go wrong. She felt panic coming on, but fought the feeling.  She did not do well in panic situations.

She thought she might be leaving her moody stage and entering her paranoid stage.  She wished Darius was there.  He always made her feel like everything would be all right, even if he had no way of knowing. He was her rock, and she missed him. She took a deep breath of the cold, fresh air, and set her mind to the task.

It did not add up.  She understood Mithras and Mithrasis trapped each other in the woods. When the two gods cancelled each other out, neither one could work many miracles.  She knew it had nothing to do with the old Gott-Druk electric fence because that equipment had surely rotted away after more than four thousand years, and she could not be sure if it had been picked up and moved to Avalon all those millennia ago.

Greta considered Avalon, her home in the Second Heavens, the Castle of the Kairos, her little island sanctuary where all her little ones were welcome to come and rest from their labors.  She looked at her companions who sat quietly, enjoying a wonderful meal.  She briefly thought she could open a door to Avalon, go there, and open a new door in the dome of the master, to step out and thus avoid the woods of the Wolv entirely. But she would not do that.  It would go against her every rule. Somehow, the need to burn her own bridges included walking her own walk.  As she often said, if she was supposed to die on the road so she could be born in her next life, then she had to be on the road to do it.

Greta blanched and thought again about Mithrasis. Mithrasis did not exactly threaten her life, truth be told, though she said it might come to that.  The Nymphus really just wanted to prevent her from coming. Then there was Lucius.  At first, Lucius kept trying to convince her to return to Roman lands.  True, he got a bit carried away with the rock slide, unless it really was the accident he claimed, but otherwise he did not get hostile, uncooperative, or even unhelpful. Jupiter seemed to want to kill them, but then he proved not as accurate with his lightning strikes as he got in her nightmare.  Maybe he just wanted to scare her.  She wondered. Certainly, she felt a strong urge to go home before she had that nightmare.

Greta stopped.  She started getting confused.  But she could not help thinking that even the Persian did not outright attack her, not counting that jackass thing.

“Lady?”  Her faithful centurion, Alesander, got her attention.  Greta looked up and appreciated his faithfulness over the years more than he would ever know.  She saw that Briana still sat by the fire.  She tried not to be obvious, but clearly, she payed strict attention, so Greta knew it was something she and Alesander discussed.

“And what have you and Briana decided?” she asked, and watched Alesander turn red.

“How did you—?”

“It is not our way to question how the druid knows what she knows,” Vedix spoke up.  Vedix sat nearby and listened in.  They probably all listened, especially Mavis.

“I cannot marry you two before I go into the Land of the Lost.  There is not enough time.  My ride is already on the way.”  Greta paused and stood.  “And we have company.”  Her eyes stared off to Alesander’s left so he turned to see what she looked at. Everyone looked.  An army of horsemen stretched across the south from one end of the horizon to the other, and they were drawing near.  Lucius appeared out front, leading them all, and Alesander spit, but held his tongue.

A fine mist followed by several clouds drifted down from overhead and formed into the shape of a giant between them and the oncoming horde.  The cloud formed figure stood twenty-feet tall, and inside the cloud they saw sparks and a kind of blue flame, which said the cloud giant had started to build up enormous amounts of electricity.  The horsemen in the distance slowed.

Then the snow gathered, even from beneath their feet, and it built itself up, higher and higher, until it made a kind of twenty-foot-tall snowman.  It had a grin with great, sharp icicle teeth.  A very small head, upper torso, and arms stuck out from the butt of the snowman. “We came down with the snow.  We were worried about you.” The baby snow person grinned and his own ice teeth filled the grin in a frightening way.

“Bubbles,” Greta named the sprite who disappeared again into the mass of the giant snow body.  Greta went on to speak her thoughts out loud while the rest of the crew got ready to defend her.  “I need to be gone.”

“They look to be sending out a group to parley,” Hermes pointed.  The horsemen stopped a thousand yards off and three men followed Lucius to a spot half-way between the horsemen and the giants.

“Briana, Hermes and Vedix,” Alesander took charge. “Get your horses.  Bogus, Pincushion and Mavis, guard your mistress.” The horses had to be saddled before the horses walked between the giants toward the meeting.  As the horses moved out of earshot, there came a great flapping sound heard from behind, like the leather wings of an enormous bat.  A dragon came over the tree tops and landed beside Greta.  It looked easily forty feet, perhaps fifty feet long, and it raised its head ten feet up to stare down at Greta’s party.  The snow giant and cloud giant paid close attention, but no one made a hostile move.

“Do no harm.  No fire,” Greta shouted in the dragon tongue that all dragons were engineered to obey.  Of course, when they got as big and old as this one, they tended to develop selective hearing.  “No harm.”

The dragon cocked its head, turning it much further than a human neck could turn.  “I still understand the words.”  The dragon spoke in the Gaelic tongue of the people of the forest.

“We need your help,” Greta shouted.  “Your father and I need to reach the dome to save your daughters.”

The dragon turned its head further until it stared, upside down.  It looked hard at Bogus.  “Father?”

************************

MONDAY

Greta and Bogus enter the Land of the Lost.  Until Monday, Happy Reading

*

R6 Greta: The Road of Dreams, part 2 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Probably animistic.  I would guess they worship the spirits that inhabit the animals, the trees and the grasses and don’t think in terms of a larger picture that would include gods and such.”

“What?” Pincushion looked up from her cooking. “They worship the gnomes?”

“And others, more or less,” Greta felt uncomfortable with that thought, but Bogus, Vedix and Briana laughed.  “Rain is down to a drizzle,” Greta changed the subject. “We are going to have to put the fire out if the rain stops, even if it is in this sheltered spot.”

People objected to that idea until Hermes and Mavis returned from the horses.  “There are several campfires out on the steppes, two miles or so distant,” Mavis reported. “They are northeast, the way we have been heading.”  Mavis pointed, but of course no one could see anything but the shelter of the rocks and trees.  Besides, they were busy putting out the fire and preparing for another cold night.

They got up cold and hungry before the dawn and headed out into the dark. They saw no sign behind them of campfires, but they all guessed there were men out there, traveling to what end, no one knew.  They might have been friendly, but no one was going to stop and find out.  Vedix pointed out that hunting parties did not build more than one campfire, and Alesander reminded everyone that even the Gurt-groups, as they called them, were built around a single big fire at the center.

“This was definitely many fires,” Hermes said. “It looked like a small army. More than a raiding party.”

“I used to depend on Lucius for that sort of information,” Alesander said, with a frown.  Lucius had hardly been mentioned since the deserted village because Alesander became clearly upset with what he considered the betrayal of a friend. Alesander did not call Lucius a traitor, but that was what he meant and evidentially felt.

“Never fear,” Greta interjected.  “Lucius is out there, following.  He may not be right behind us, but he is out there, looking with the rest of them.”

As the sun came up, the group quickened their pace. It seemed the only way to shake off the cold, though the lack of good rest, the poor meals, and the exposure to the elements began to have an ill effect.  These were strong and hearty people.  Briana had the constitution of an elect.  Alesander and Hermes were soldiers, trained to hardship and long forced marches.  Bogus and Pincushion had the indomitable spirit of the dwarfs, and Vedix was a hunter, used to being in the wilderness at all times of the year, and for a week or more.  Mavis started wilting a little.  As a spirit, she could handle it, but she was an elf maid, not an ogre.  Greta was the one who suffered the most.  The thing that kept her going was believing that they were almost at the forest that marked the edge of the Land of the Lost.

The group stopped in a small copse of trees when the sun came fully up.  Vedix spoke as he shook his head.  “We spent two hours walking our horses in the rain northeast to angle away from the Road of Dreams.  Now, we have been about three hours riding northwest, and I see no sign of the road. Unless it curved to the west or came to a dead stop, I would say we lost it.”

“It was not much of a road anyway,” Bogus answered him.

“Quite right,” Greta spoke up.  “We just need to go north from here, and we should run right into the forest.  The rocks where we slept last night are on the edge of the change in the land.  The land here is rising and falling in little hills and showing rocks here and there like it previously showed trees here and there.   Soon enough, we should run into a great forest.  It surrounds the whole area where the rocks fall off and the River Muskva runs.  That forest is the Land of the Lost.  The great dome of the Ancient Master is just over a bend in the river.”

“The Wolv also live in that forest,” Briana pointed out.

Greta said nothing about that.  She mounted her horse and rode.  The others followed, and it seemed only a couple of hours before they reached the edge, like a hard line of unending trees that sprang suddenly out of the grasslands and stretched out to their left and right as far as they could see.  That whole area appeared to be still covered with snow because the rain apparently did not reach that far north.

Greta walked her horse along the edge of the tree line until she found an outcropping, where the rocks appeared to grow right up out of the grasslands.  The snow did not seem too deep in that area.  She dismounted, and the others followed her lead.

“It isn’t as nice as where we stayed last night, but it isn’t raining.  It will give you and the horses some shelter against the wind, and you can light a fire if you are careful.  I only need three days.  If I am not back by then, you must promise to return south, find Ulladon, and you will get home in about three weeks.  Do not stay here.  Do not follow, and if I don’t return in three days, promise me you won’t tell Darius or my family what happened.  They would only make a bad situation worse.”

Greta took a breath and everyone yelled at once in protest.  Greta chose to respond to Mavis.

“Not this time,” she said. “Mavis.  You must go back and be with your people.  You have been the best help and friend anyone could ask for.  Remember me.” Greta smiled for her, but Mavis began to weep.  Hermes stood right there to comfort her, and Greta thought she might never know what was between those two.

Alesander shook his head.  “I am pledged to follow you to the edge of the earth, even if it is round, like you say.”

“I’m going,” Bogus cut to the point and Greta nodded.

“Bogus and I will brave the land of the lost, alone. Berry and Fae are Bogus’ granddaughters, and Berry is still my ward, Hans is my brother and Fae and Hobknot are my special responsibility.  Alesander, I am counting on you to get everyone home, safe.  This is one time you must not follow me.”

“But you can’t ride right into the Wolv jaws,” Vedix protested and tried to sound reasonable.

“I don’t intend to ride in,” Greta said, but she would not explain.  “Pincushion, how about lunch?”

Pincushion shook her head sadly, but had a sudden change of mind and looked up with a smile that actually showed some of her elf mother’s beauty.  “Don’t worry. I’ll make your last meal a special one.” She set about gathering stones and wood for the fire, and reluctantly, the others helped.

R6 Greta: The Road of Dreams, part 1 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

On the first day out, they rode as hard as they could, as often as they could, to put some distance between them and the deserted village.  The so-called road hardly made a path in most places, even when they passed by farms and a hamlet.  Sometimes the path petered out altogether, but the direction remained steady and they picked it up again after a time.  They stopped late.  It got dark, and they ate a cold supper, but they saw no indication they were being followed.   Greta went back to questioning Briana.  Briana said she felt nothing behind them or ahead of them. Vedix wondered this time if the Wolv lost their scent, but Greta thought that would have been too much to ask for.

They rode just as hard on the second day and slowed only a few times when they walked their horses to give them a rest.  This time everyone insisted they stop early so they could light a proper fire before dark.  The hot meal did wonders for their morale, but the night got cold and the wind came up around midnight.

On the third day, it began to snow.  The group pulled off the so-called road to avoid making their passage obvious.  They plodded along slowly over the hard grasses and through the trees, often in single file, in parallel to the road, but always with one eye forward and one eye back, searching for signs of life.  Silence fell over the group with the snow.  Even Pincushion swallowed her thoughts as the world itself insisted on quiet. The birds hushed.  The squirrels and little animals went unheard and unseen around the trees that grew in clumps of brown here and there against the white. The leaves were turned but hardly all fallen since it was still autumn and not yet winter.  The sky remained gray and stayed low to the ground all day.  Once, they came around a bend and startled a small group of deer.  The deer paused to stare back at them before they scooted off to disappear in the swirling white.  Once, they saw a fox strut across their path, tail and nose raised like a haughty lord. Without a sound, the fox took its time before it whipped its tail like a salute and vanished behind a bush.

By four in the afternoon, they began to look for a place to stop.  The group had been very careful over those three days, not to leave marks or signs of passage.  Now in the snow, they had moved off the path, but stayed close for fear of losing their direction.  Greta let the others keep track of their course.  She spent the day, on and off, looking to the back and the front and overhead. Greta knew as long as it snowed, it would hide them and eventually hide their tracks, but she feared once it stopped snowing they would leave a trail all too easy to follow.

Greta heard a sound and paused.  Mavis moved up to ride beside her as a sign that she heard it too.  Bogus came in from the flank, his nose pointed straight up.  Pincushion also let her nose guide her eyes into the air, as Briana gave a sharp whisper.

“Move into the trees.”  She and Alesander lead the way to where they could hide from the road and from above.  The sound made sense in Greta’s ears at that point.  It sounded a shuttle from the Humanoid ship, moving slow, barely high enough to be above the trees.

Greta dismounted with the others.  She held her horse and gently stroked her horses’ nose to keep him quiet.  Mavis saw it first and nudged Greta who caught the search lights moving along the ground before she saw the vehicle.  Greta estimated it as a four to six-person Humanoid craft, and she felt sure its instruments could locate them no matter what they did.  Yet the craft seemed to follow the roadway, and after it passed their location, Greta gave thanks in her heart.

“Their fancy instruments must not be working,” Greta whispered and tried to keep her voice soft enough to not be heard beyond the group.  “But they can probably still see us and hear us if we get loud, or see our tracks if we are not careful.”

Once the lights of the ship fell out of range, everyone mounted, and Alesander felt inclined to lead them back toward the path they had been following, but Greta stopped him and pointed in a different direction.  She moved them off to the northeast, further and further from the Road of Dreams to where the others wondered if they would ever find the path again.  Vedix alone realized that given enough snow, they would lose the path in any case.

By six, as the sun behind the clouds prepared to go down, the snow changed to a cold rain.  The group came to a rock outcropping in the flat land, and everyone thanked their luck.  They found a big overhang in one place that acted like a roof.  It appeared sheltered all around by rocks and trees, so the snow had not reached the ground, and now the rain got held back by the rock roof. They felt secure enough in that place to light a fire, and though the space was not big enough so the horses had to suffer the wet, the people were able to get relatively dry and reasonably warm. Again, the hot food helped.  And once again, Greta thanked God in her heart because she knew the rain on the snow should obliterate any tracks they made in the snow up to that point.  It would also prevent their fire from glaring off the overhead clouds, a sure sign of travelers in the night that could be seen for miles.

Briana felt again that they were not being followed near enough to set off her internal alarms.  After encountering the shuttle, no one doubted there were those looking, but thus far no one had found them.  This land seemed thinly populated.  Over the days, they saw several distant groups of tents set in a circle around a central fire; but they were far enough away so no one came out from there to ask who they were or what they were doing.  Since they did not stop, the people ignored them.

“Ger-like dwellings,” Greta called them.  “They are more than tents, but not much more. Easily moved, they are the dwellings of a nomadic people, the horsemen of the steps.”

“Slavs?” Alesander asked.

“Maybe, or something like that.  They may be Avars, or some early intrusion of Hunnish people.  They are like bees in a sense.  If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.”

“At least they are not Mithrites,” Hermes said, as he got up to check on the horses.

R6 Greta: The Persian, part 3 of 3

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Bogus shouted.  “Pincushion spent too much time with the gnomes.  The horses think she is their mother.”

“They do not,” Pincushion yelled and slapped Bogus on the arm to stop him from laughing.  “You—”

“Hush,” Greta said quietly, and Pincushion hushed, but she slapped Bogus once more, just because.  The men, who stopped and took a step back on the appearance of the dwarfs all saw how those same dwarfs answered to the lady in armor.  They got doubly surprised when that same lady scolded the woman who got them out of the fort dungeon.  “Mavis, why have you taken on your glamour of humanity.  I thought you were going full elf in the wilderness.”

Mavis looked back once at the men who had stopped and turned a bit red.  “These men are not so wild,” she said in a voice directed to Greta’s ears.

“Hush,” Greta repeated her word.  “These men are plenty wild, and if they get ideas about a beautiful young woman, they will show you how wild they can be.”  Greta snapped her fingers and Mavis’ glamour fell away to reveal the elf beneath.  Mavis looked down, now fully embarrassed, but Hermes squeezed her hand in support.  “Now,” Greta said to the men who stared at Greta with mouths open.  “Venedi?”

One older man with black hair and eyes stepped forward.  “Chief Venislav of the Moldav,” he introduced himself, Mavis translating, and another man, a tall blond stepped up beside him.

“Olaf of the Goths of the Elba, but this town is Venedi. We came here to form an alliance against the barbaric Scythians who are stealing our land and raiding our crops, but the people betrayed us and threw us in the dungeon.”

“How do we tell one barbarian from the other?” Hermes whispered, as Alesander and Briana came up holding hands.  Vedix still seemed determined to fetch the bones out of the water.

Chief Venislav put his hand up to the big Goth and took up the story.  “They fed us for two days, but on the third day they claimed the terror from the south was coming and they abandoned their homes in fear and panic.”

“Cowards,” Olaf scoffed.

Greta could not help the curtsey.  She still felt empowered from just being the goddess Amphitrite and from successfully overcoming the Persian.  “I assume they meant me.  Do I frighten you?  I mean you no harm.”  Greta saw the smiles on the strangers faces and knew the thoughts they were thinking were anything but frightening.  “We are travelers on an errand of mercy in the north, to save my family and friends from the Land of the Lost.”  The men lost that look and took another step back, like they knew the place and had lost friends or family there.

“The Wolv have come and rule the forest there,” Olaf said.

“Yes,” Greta sighed.  “But one thing at a time.  I am glad we could set you free.  You are free to go, to retrieve your horses and return to your people in peace. I am Mother Greta, woman of the ways for the Dacian people, wise woman for the Romans and druid for the Celts. My father is the high chief of the Dacians in the Roman province and my husband is the governor appointed by the emperor himself.  If you wish to make a friend in your fight against the Scythians, come talk to my husband and my father.”

Olaf shook his head though Venislav looked willing. Venislav clearly did not know the Romans except maybe by distant rumor, but Olaf spoke.  “We want no Romans in our land.  They are worse than the barbaric Scythians.”

Alesander stepped up and answered the man.  “I am Alesander, a war chief among the Romans, and I can tell you Rome wants nothing of the Germanys or the steppes.  Dacia provides what Rome needs and otherwise, Rome is happy with the Danube and the Rhine as borders.  Rome wishes only to live at peace with her neighbors.”

“The Scythians know nothing about peace,” Greta added.  “One man might die.  Two might be injured, but three and four men can kill the wild bear.  You need not give me an answer, but meanwhile, go in peace.”

The men looked prepared to do that very thing when Bonebreaker stepped up beside Greta.  Hermes let out a little shriek and pulled Mavis aside to give the big fellow plenty of room.  “Lady,” Bonebreaker spoke in a voice that encouraged the Goths and Slavs to take a couple of more steps back.  “I feel much better.  This is good.”

“It is,” Greta said, with a warm smile.  “But your big, ugly, smelly self is frightening our new friends,” Bonebreaker lifted his chin a little at the compliment.  “You need to go home now, and thank you for all your help.”  Greta put some urgency in the go home part, and Bonebreaker felt strongly that going home was the thing he wanted most.  He turned to walk off, but after two steps he vanished as Greta sent him home.

“If you pledge friendship, I will meet these Romans of yours,” Chief Venislav said.  He looked like a man who thought it best to stay on Greta’s good side.

“I will think about it,” Olaf agreed with that much, and they and their men sought out their horses among the herd.  What blankets, saddles and equipment they had got stored in the barn out behind the big building, though Greta could not swear they did not take some extra things.  For her crew, Bogus, Pincushion, Mavis and Hermes found eight good horses.

By the time the Riders all stopped at the cave entrance, Vedix had all the bones he could reach stacked up with plenty of dry wood against the scorpion carcass.  He set it on fire, pronounced a Celtic curse against the bones of an enemy, and they all rode through the cave before the smell got too bad.  As expected, the tunnel led them to the back side of the hills and cliffs that penned in the river.  There, the Goths went off to the northwest.  The Slavs rode off to the northeast.  Greta and her group headed straight north along a wagon trail.

“Under the heart of the goddess,” Mavis said.

Greta nodded since she had figured it out. “Carpasis, Oread of the Carpathian Mountains buried her pet dragon here.  She probably created the hill to do it.  That old dragon got loose in the end and ate his way straight across the Ukraine.  He finally fell to old age, here in this place.”

“As you say,” Mavis said, and fell quiet.

“The road of dreams,” Briana called it, and she looked at Alesander like she might be dreaming about something.

“I seem to be missing someone,” Alesander said quietly to Greta.

“I told you,” Greta responded.  “Lucius is a Mithrite.  He kind of gave himself away back there.  I hope we don’t see him again, but I bet he will follow us.”

Alesander nodded, and spurred up front to ride beside Briana.  Hermes and Mavis rode behind Greta, and Bogus and Vedix took the flanks.  Sadly, that put Greta next to Pincushion.

“I know how to handle these horses,” she spoke too loud.  “But I never thought I would have to ride on one.  My legs hurt already and my butt is going to be so sore in the morning it will probably swell up to three times its size.”

“Shh,” Greta said.  “The baby is sleeping.”  She patted her belly, and Pincushion got mostly quiet for a while.  Mostly.

************************

MONDAY

The Road of Dreams.  Until then, Happy Reading

*

R6 Greta: The Persian, part 2 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The Persian waved his hand, and a scorpion appeared.  It looked the size of a rhinoceros, though flat and low to the ground like a true insect. The horn on this beast appeared, not on the head, but at the end of the multi-jointed tail where it waved slowly up and down, ready to strike at any moment.  Its six legs made the creature shuffle back and forth, and it made a great clicking sound with its jaws, but it did not charge.

“Oh, Lovely.”  Greta clapped like an excited schoolgirl.  “A teleport device.  I can do that.”  The Persian looked confused again as Greta called.  “Bonebreaker!”

The ogre appeared beside his goddess as he had no choice.  He looked confused about what just happened and where he was, but looking confused was not an unusual thing for an ogre.  The poor ogre looked cut up, a few deep cuts, and he looked burned in several places, but he lived and would heal.  Greta touched Bonebreaker’s upper arm, about as high as she could reach, and the ogre felt strength and healing enter his body.

“But you can’t do that,” the Persian protested.  “You are just an ordinary, stinking, mortal human.”

“And this is my ordinary, stinking ugly friend,” Greta asked the ogre a simple question.  “Bonebreaker, dear.  Would you smash the scorpion?”

Bonebreaker grinned, which made Alesander and Briana look away and made Vedix swallow to keep from throwing up.  “Yes, Lady,” Bonebreaker said.  Ogres lived to smash things.

The scorpion moved, but Bonebreaker leapt and both fists came down at once on the scorpion head.  He grabbed the clicking jaws and with a great roar, ripped them out. The scorpion insides and brains began to leak out on the dock even as the stinger struck Bonebreaker in the shoulder. Bonebreaker howled, but grabbed the tail below the stinger and yanked.  Reflex kept the stinger in attack mode, but Briana let out a great scream of her own and leapt.  One swing of her sword and her sword broke even as the scorpion stinger flew off into the bushes.

Briana landed hard on the ground, the wind knocked from her lungs and the strength gone from her arms.  Alesander raced up and grabbed her.  He carried her to safety even as she protested that she could walk.  He told her to shut-up and kissed her to keep her quiet.

It turned out a good thing Alesander pulled her back from the action, because Bonebreaker shifted his hands on the scorpion tail and began to swing the scorpion to the left and the right, smashing it against the ground on the left and on the docks to the right.  When the scorpion became sufficient pulpy, Greta said stop, and Bonebreaker stopped and fell to his knees.

Greta rushed up.  The scorpion venom started having its way.  Greta was not a goddess, but even as a human, she remained Bonebreaker’s goddess, and she was the woman of the ways for all the Dacian people, and not without training and some small power.  She prayed as she touched the big ogre on the shoulder.  She emptied her mind and focused as well as she could, even as Mother Hulda taught her, and the venom collected next to the wound and forced itself out of the hole in the shoulder.  It dribbled to the ground and the earth steamed where it landed.

“That’s not possible,” the Persian shrieked.  “You are not a god.”

“I am human, but as Mother Greta, you know I have some small power.”  Greta turned and her eyes were hard and cruel enough to startle the Persian.  Her hand once again shook a finger at the Persian like he had been a naughty child.  “You claim to be a god, a claim I dispute.  So let me put you to the test of water, fire, earth, air and ether.  We will see if you are truly a god or not.”

The Persian looked surprised, but soon enough the sly look returned to his face and he accepted the challenge.

“We are here by the river,” Greta said in her stern voice and left little time for the Persian to think.  “Since I am already soaked from the rain, let us begin with the water test.”  Greta sat down on the dock and dangled her feet over the side.  “Let us see which of us can stay longer under the water.”  She slipped off the dock and sank beneath the waves.  The fish gave her plenty of room as instructed, and the water sprites surrounded her with a bubble of air and kept her supplied with plenty of oxygen.  The Persian slipped into the water to stand beside her, a smug look on his face before he realized she tricked him again. The water sprites that protected Greta could also feed off the pressure at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and they pressed in on the Persian and would have crushed him utterly, before he could react, if they were not followed by the Piranha.  It took less than thirty seconds to strip the Persian of every ounce of flesh.  Greta surfaced, as a spark of white light shot out of the water and zoomed into the north.  Then the gnawed bones floated up.

Greta looked at Alesander and Briana, but they were busy kissing.  All the same, she positioned Vedix between her and the lovers before she traded places with Amphitrite.  Amphitrite bent down to the water and thanked her water sprites first of all.  Bubbles popped up from the water and she petted his head like a mom might brush the hair out or her little one’s eyes. Bubbles turned from a gray-blue color to slightly pink and broke to water pieces.  Amphitrite looked up to the sky sprites, and made a point of thanking them as well as singling out the winds that helped.  She turned again to the water and called her Piranha to the surface.  When they jumped from the water, she sent them all the way home to the Amazon, a little less hungry.

“They would not have survived in these cold waters,” she said, and went away so Greta could come back.  “Better they go home,” Greta finished the thought before she added, “I wish we could go home.”

Vedix nodded.  “As you say,” he said, while he got a boat pole and hook and tried to fish the Persian’s bones out of the water.

“Lady!”  Greta heard Mavis’ voice and looked around.  Lucius was nowhere to be seen.  Greta walked off the dock and headed toward the fort where Mavis and Hermes started walking toward her, followed by a great host of hard looking men in leather armor, round wooden and some metal shields, long spears and great swords that hung from leather straps that fit over the opposite shoulder. Bogus and Pincushion came from the big building with dozens of horses in their trail.

R6 Greta: The Persian, part 1 of 3

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The man’s cap looked like a wizard’s cone hat, but bent so it flopped over in the front.  It showed the image of a fingernail moon, while the man’s wizard cloak of the same color as the cap, a deep navy, almost black, looked studded with a thousand stars.  The man himself looked richly tanned and stared at her with dark eyes beneath full and black brows.

“Persian,” Greta called him, and Vedix came up to stand beside her.

“Kairos.”  The Persian returned a word to show that he certainly knew who she was.  Greta looked for Lucius and found him standing back, quietly watching.  Lucius had his sword put away and made no hostile move as the Persian talked and stepped toward the center of the room.  “That was a beautiful trick, sharing false information.  You have the Wolv all searching for you up river, but I saw through your clever ruse and now I stand between you and the Road of Dreams.”

Greta looked again at the Persian and understood what she had to do, dangerous as it might be.  “Jupiter is dead,” she said with a smile.  “He went over to the other side as all the gods should.  And your pretend Jupiter, the lion-headed freak is dead as well.”

The Persian paused, uncertain how to respond. Greta assumed from his perspective there was so much wrong with what she said, he choked on where to begin.  “He was not a pretend Jupiter,” the Persian spit out at last.  “He was the true god.”

“No,” Greta interrupted, with a kind and friendly shake of her head.  “If he was a true god he would have gone over to the other side some time ago with all the real gods.”

The Persian got flustered.  “He was a real god.”

Greta shook her head.  “Well, he was not exactly immortal.  Why, he was no more a god than you are.”  Greta forced a casual laugh.  “What are you, a third-rate magician?”

“I – I…”  The Persian stuttered before he threw his hands in her direction.  “This should have been done a long time ago.”

Greta felt herself turning into a donkey and quickly went away so Junior could stand in her place.  Junior was a true god of the Middle East as well as Egypt, and while he technically did not cover Persia, he had plenty of dealings there in ancient days and so imprinted his impression on the Persian people.  Junior shook his finger at the Persian, like the Persian was a naughty boy, and Junior smiled as the Persian’s eyes filled with a touch of fear and he took a step back.

“You picked up a matter transformer from the Wolv,” Junior said, like he was Greta speaking, which in a way, he was.  “Very impressive, but still just a trick.”  He tossed a bit of dirt in the air and Greta came back to have the dirt fall on her.  Immediately, the compulsion to become a jackass went away and she returned fully to her ordinary, human self.

“I have no matter trasfigurer, or whatever you said,” the Persian raised his voice.

“Sure,” Greta rolled her eyes.  “I forgot.  You are pretending to be a god.”

“But I am a god.”  Greta just stared at the man like the man had a few loose screws.  “But I am,” he repeated.

“I tell you what,” Greta said in a very casual voice. “I figure you have your tricks set up in this room so it would not be a good test.  Let’s go back out by the river, into the sunlight and see what you are made of.”  Greta grabbed Vedix’ hand and dragged him behind her.  She walked quickly, and the Persian followed, still mumbling.

“But I am a god.”

Outside, Greta waved to Alesander and Briana who stood, concerned, but then curious to see what she was up to.  When the Persian came into the light, and blinked at the sudden brightness, Briana drew her knife and growled like Vedix.  Greta thought it must be a Celtic thing.  She turned and faced the man only when she got near the docks.  The lion-headed one had been a god of the sky, the air and lightning.  The sun-runner, whichever that one was, appeared as a fire demon with a whip of fire.  Mithrasis, the Nymphus stood for Venus, the water one.  Greta wondered why women were always the water ones.  It hardly seemed fair.  But then the Roc flew over the beasts of the earth, quite literally from five thousand feet up, while the soldier stood over the human race, again of the earth, though it seemed like the Wolv were willing to play his game as well. That left the father figure, the Pater, but Greta figured he stayed above it all.  And the Persian, over the moon and the stars, had to be over the fifth element, ether.  That meant earth air water and fire were not his forte, so this might work.

“So, magician,” Greta turned and spoke up as soon as she reached the edge of the water by the ship and the dock.  “Lets see what you got out here in broad daylight. I’ll be watching to see if I can figure out the trick.”

“It is not tricks.”  The Persian turned from confusion and upset to anger.  This became the dangerous point and Greta had to be careful.  The Persian let his anger touch the sky and with a wave of his hand, dark, foreboding clouds moved in and lightning flashed between the clouds.  The thunder echoed through the village, and Alesander and Briana grabbed each other while Vedix jumped.  It began to rain, hard, but Greta laughed.

“That was very good.”  Greta knew a compliment would be needed to soothe the Persian’s anger. “I did not see how you did that, at all. Excellent.”  The Persian grinned.  “But really.”  Greta pointed to the sky.  “Five-year-old children on Katawba Three can change the weather with a push of a button. Weather control is old hat.”  The Persian looked deflated as Greta whistled for her air sprites and thought her instructions rather than speak out loud. The sprites began to push at the darkness and enlisted a couple of spirits of the winter winds to help.  The thunder stopped and the rain slowly slackened and stopped as the sun returned to the dock.

Greta felt glad of one thing, the one advantage she had in this game of wits.

“The Persian has no wits?” Festuscato asked in Greta’s mind.

“That’s wit with a “t”,” Gerraint said, and after a very brief pause, he said, “Twit.”

No, Greta thought to herself along with the words, “shut up.”  The Persian could not read her mind, thank God.  Given her knowledge of the actual future, sometimes called the most dangerous knowledge in the universe, even the gods were prevented from reading her mind, and that prohibition included the Persian.  He would have no way of knowing that matter transmutation was way beyond humanoid technology, so he could not have gotten a machine from the Wolv to do it. And it would be a thousand years in the future before the people on the planet of Katawba had the technical capacity to change the weather with the push of a button, but Greta was not going to be deterred by the details.  What the Persian did not know, she would not tell him.

“Hey!” Greta shouted as she leaned over and wrung her hair out on the dock.  “I may be willing to confess you are a real wizard and not just a magician with a bag of tricks. But if that is the case, where is your familiar?  I thought all witches and wizards had a familiar.”  Greta remembered there was something, like the lion-headed man had a serpent by his feet, but she could not exactly remember what the Persian had.

The Persian still looked angry as he watched his storm get pushed away, but soon enough, his expression turned to sly.  “Indeed,” he said, and he did not even protest that he was a god, not a wizard.  “You should meet my familiar.”

R6 Greta: Downriver, part 3 of 3

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At four in the morning when people began to stir, Festuscato got his turn, and he did not gripe because at eight o’clock, Gerraint stepped in, which meant Festuscato still had the next turn.  The sun was due to come up, not that they would see it through the fog.  More important, the width and depth of the river changed overnight.  In some places, there were obstructions in the river and the place of safe passage narrowed.  Everyone needed to be awake and poles ready just in case they needed to fend off any rocks or other obstructions in the water.  Gerraint felt confident that his water babies would guide them safely to the dock, but it would be better to be prepared, just in case.

Gerraint picked at breakfast, and at eight o’clock he traded places with Diogenes.  Diogenes was not hungry, th-thank you.  He sat in the middle of the deck, pulled his sword and laid it across his lap.  Then he spent the next four hours making Lucius uncomfortable by staring at the man and trying to puzzle out just where the man’s loyalties lay.

At noon, Doctor Mishka took a turn.  She was more animated than most and did not mind sharing lunch and several stories from the future about the very land they were traveling through.  She kept her voice low, but she figured after all that snoring the night before, surely the Wolv knew where they were.  Unless, as she hoped, they were checking out the Muskva River awaiting their arrival.

There came one moment when the boat came rushing around a corner as it turned to the east.  The boat swayed and tilted heavily to starboard as it got caught in a side current.  Hermes almost slipped and fell overboard, but Mavis grabbed him and they both tumbled to the deck, laughing.  The rest of the group shouted Wee! and Aah! like they were on a log flume ride before the boat settled down in the new current.  The boat then slipped into the calmer waters behind a jetty, which had been built out into the river.  A short while later, they came around a second jetty, and there they came gently to the dock of a fine-looking village.  They did not exactly stop perfectly.  They felt a bit of a bump, but Vedix and Hermes jumped to the dock with the ropes and tied the boat fast.

“Where are we?” Alesander whispered, having spent the day without speaking at all.  People looked up and all around as the fog lifted from their immediate vicinity. They could still see where it clearly covered the river downstream and back upstream, but after twenty-four hours, the fog started to feel a bit suffocating.  People breathed, and looked all around.

The village where they docked had been carved out of the hills and short cliffs that penned in the river.  They found several buildings by the docks that looked to be warehouse buildings, and a three-story tower about where the central village square ought to be.  The houses looked odd, a style of building unfamiliar to both the Romans and the Celts, though to be fair, they had not gotten a good look at the houses of Samarvant. Mainly, there did not seem to be anyone around.  There were no signs of life in that village.

Mishka kept back to see which way Lucius might be interested in going.  He moved immediately to the left off the dock where the village actually ended at a kind of small fort.  The fort looked shut up tight and showed no one on the walls, so Mishka assumed the fort was as empty as the rest of the place.  True, she could not be sure about the dungeon.  She saw another big building there beside the fort, like a great hall for meetings, but it also looked to be closed, and probably locked. That building stood beside what looked like a cave entrance that let people inside the hill itself.  Lucius became self-conscious when he realized everyone followed him, and he said something to ease any suspicion the others might have had.

“I think we go this way.  I think the cave should take us under the heart of the goddess.”

Greta came back, letting the good doctor Mishka return to the future.  She looked at Mavis, but Mavis shook her head.  The only thing Greta remembered saying was they had to go north.  Neither Greta nor Mavis told anyone about the signs they had been following.

“Where is everyone?  Where are the people?” Hermes interrupted.

“Deserted the village,” Alesander suggested.  “Ran away, or headed downriver to get away.”

“At least there aren’t any half-chewed bodies in this place,” Vedix offered.

“Quiet,” Greta said, and they quieted and looked at her while Greta sighed at having to face her own cave.  I would rather have a bridge to burn, she thought, but she said something else.  “Alesander, Briana, stay out here and keep hidden.  Be prepared for us to come racing back out in case the cave is full of Wolv.  Bogus and Pincushion, see if there are any people around, but stay invisible.   My guess is this is a Venedi village, so they may become friends.  Mavis and Hermes, see if there are any horses here for the borrowing.  From here on we follow the Road of Dreams.  Lucius and Vedix, you go with me to check out Lucius’ cave.”  Greta turned to Lucius.  “After you.”

“Lady?” Mavis did not exactly protest, but Greta waved her off.

“It will be all right,” she said, as she stepped toward the darkness.

Lucius drew his sword, but Diogenes said in Greta’s head that it was for show.  Lucius walked slowly up what appeared to be a wide and well-kept path, not unlike the back-door path in the village of the Dragon Clan.  Vedix fingered his wristwatch shield, thinking worst case scenario.  Greta found a stack of torches by the entrance and lit two with her little bit of flint.  She handed one to Vedix while Lucius stared off into the dark.

They did not walk far before they reached a great chamber, like a massive entrance hall carved out of the dark.  It looked like a smaller version of one of the great dwarf halls they saw in Movan Mountain, but this looked strictly human made, with great columns regularly spaced to support the ceiling.  Greta saw the path continued up and out the back of the chamber, but first she became concerned to light the torches that she found spaced regularly around the walls.  She figured this would be the way her group had to go, and guessed that they were beneath the Heart of the Goddess, whatever that was.  She managed to only light the first torch before all the torches around the room came to life as if by magic.

Vedix growled like a true member of the Bear Clan as Greta’s eyes shot to the exit tunnel on the other side of the room.  A small man in a long cloak and Phrygian cap stared right back at her.

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MONDAY

Greta faces the second piece of Mithras, the Persian.  Until next time, Happy Reading.

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