The Dog and the Wolf by Poul Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

orchards, cabins already huddling into themselves. Boughs above him were graven black. Ahead they were mingling with the night as it welled aloft.
    He reached a high place and stopped. This was as far as he could go. He wanted in a dull fashion to trudge on, maybe forever, but he was too drained. It would be hard enough to stumble his way back down. Let him first rest a while. And say that prayer?
    From here he looked widely west. A streak of red smoldered away. “Mithras, God of the sunset—” No, somehow he could not shape the words. Mithras, where were You when Ocean brought down Ys and her Queens, where were You when it tore Dahut from my hand?
    He knew the question was empty. A true God,
the
true God was wholly beyond. Unless none existed, only the void. But to admit that would be to give up his hold on everything he had ever loved. But if the God was too exalted to hear him, what matter whether or not He lived outside of human dreams? A good officer listens to his men. Mithras, why have You forsaken me?
    The sky darkened further. Slowly within it appeared the comet. It was a ghost, fading toward oblivion, its work done, whether that work had been of warning or of damnation. Who had sent it? Who now called it home?
    The strength ran out of Gratillonius. He sank to the ground, drew knees toward chin, hugged himself to himself, and shivered beneath the encroaching stars.
    2
    A waning half moon rose above woodlands whose branches, budding or barely started leafing, reached toward it like empty hands. They hid the River of Tiamat, low at this season; among stars that glimmered in the great silence went the Bears, the Dragon, the Virgin. Only water had voice, chirring and rustling from the spring of Ahes to a pool in the hollow just beneath and thence in a rivuleton down the hill, soon lost to sight under the trees. Moonlight flickered across it.
    Nemeta came forth. Convolvulus vines between the surrounding boles crackled, still winter-dry, as she passed through. Her feet were bare, bruised and bleeding where she had stumbled against roots or rocks on the gloomy upward trail. First grass in the small open space of the hollow, then moss on the poolside soothed them a little. She stopped at the edge and stood a while catching her breath, fighting her fear.
    The whiteness of her short kirtle was slashed by a belt which bore a sheathed knife. Unbound, tangled from her struggle with brush and twigs on a way seldom used, her hair fell past her shoulders. A garland of borage, early blooming in a sheltered spot despite the rawness of this springtime, circled her brows. In her left hand she carried a wicker cage. As she halted, a robin within flapped wings and cheeped briefly, anxiously.
    She mustered courage and lifted her right palm. Nonetheless her words fluttered: “Nymph Ahes, I greet you, I … I call you, I, Nemeta, daughter of Forsquilis. She was—” The girl swallowed hard. Tears coursed forth. They stung. Vision blurred. “She was of the Gallicenae, the nine Queens of Ys. M-my father is Grallon, the King.”
    Water rippled.
    “Ever were you kindly toward maidens, Ahes,” Nemeta pleaded. “Ys is gone. You know that, don’t you? Ys is gone. Her Gods grew angry and drowned her. But you abide. You must! Ahes, I am so alone.”
    After a moment she thought to say, “We all are, living or dead. What Gods have we now? Ahes, comfort us. Help us.”
    Still the spirit of the spring did not appear, did not answer.
    “Are you afraid?” Nemeta whispered.
    Something stirred in the forest, unless it was a trick of the wearily climbing moon.
    “I am not,” Nemeta lied. “If you will not seek the Gods for us, I will myself. See.”
    Hastily, before dread should overwhelm her, she set down the cage, unfastened her belt, drew the kirtle overher head and cast it aside. The night air clad her nakedness in chill. Taking up the knife, she held it against the stars. “
Cerunnos, Epona, Sucellus, almighty Lug!”
She shrilled her