Day 57.

Praise be unto the Great Gods of Olympos! For at last they have looked upon our sacrifices favorably, and signaled that we are not to be lost in the dark northlands.

There was little hope within my expedition's loyalists when cursèd Phylas withdrew southward—taking nine in ten of the men in our tagma, all of our beasts save my horse and two oxen, and thirty-six of the thirty-seven carts. Even stout-hearted Androgeus I overheard to lay a wager with fleet-footed Kaenas over whose wives would wail and beat their breasts the louder upon our failure to return. That stirred the heart of loyal Hippocoön, who shamed them fiercely for their despair, and they near came to blows when Kaenas pronounced the blasphemy that despair was the only appropriate response to being beyond hearing of the gods.

Though I stepped in to halt the fight, it was wise Maera who broke our malaise. She bid us to inventory the remaining supplies as she cast the entrails of the morning's hunt—and mid-reading, sprinted across camp with the bearing of a madwoman to consult her texts. Upon my inquiry she all but ordered us to consecrate one of the oxen. It was not, she believed, that Hermes The Wayfinder was beyond hearing, but that in our extravagant sacrifices for the blessings of his office we had aroused the ire of Apollo Who Strikes From Afar. The god of the Sun, her omens said, had a little-known epithet as "He Of The North", and yet not once in the trip had we paid respect to him beyond that of the standard supplications.

To cut down one of our only two oxen—especially so deep within the endless stillness of the northern woods—seemed unthinkable, yet none could argue with wise Maera's piety, and so large-thewed Glaukos and kind Lemnus gathered deadfall for a pyre and we slit the throat of the fatter ox. Ah! And not ten minutes later did blessèd Apollo's chariot pause in the sky, blazing brightly enough to cast shadows through the oaks! We quickly broke camp and hurried sunward, and rounding the steep slope of a hill in our path, found a crude road ascending to its crest. In the distance, through the trees, the smoke of a settlement darkened the sky!

I write now from within the village, which in the barbarous yawps of the natives is named something akin to "Wall-dorph". The savages have no conception of hearth-law, nor speak the tongue of learnèd folk—yet were awed like children at a selection of simple sea-shells from Thessalonian beaches, and through gesture and mimicry offered us some semblance of civilized hospitality in exchange for our baubles. They led me, however, not to the hearth of their leader, but instead to the farm-home of an elderly widow by the name of Unnr. The reason for this apparent insult soon became clear when she saw the armor of our hoplites and issued a query in broken Scythian. Ah! Apollo the Healer blesses us indeed, when even in the heart of these endless forests a gleam of light from some civilized land manages to shine through!

Swift Kaenas volunteered to bear news of blessèd Apollo's mercy south to the tagma, in hopes that some might be beseeched to rejoin our expedition—or that they might at least bear news of our discovery back to the heart of the world. I have allowed the others to relax and mingle with the villagers. It has been too long since a night spent without fear of howling dog-headed men bounding out from the trees, or harpies swooping down from the canopies to snatch men and line their nests with bones.


Day 58.

Swift Kaenas has returned, reporting that of cursèd Phylas and the rest of the tagma there was no trace whatsoever. It is as though the forest itself has swallowed them whole. Though they have betrayed our mission of discovery with their base cowardice, and left us stranded with but a single supply cart, I pray that Apollo the Healer shows them some fraction of the mercy he showed us.

I will speak more of Waldorf, as my notes from yesterday afternoon were hurried amid our negotiations and introductions. We seem likely to remain here for several days as I gather information about the surrounding area and barter for supplies.

Waldorf is a permanent settlement of approximately four score, shockingly reminiscent of a kome in the rural countryside of civilized Hellas. Though they have no plumbing and but crude tools and weapons, they sleep in shacks of worked wood, and many of the villagers have cleared and fenced fields for crops or livestock. The most ornate of their buildings is a temple, which I have not been allowed to visit (I shall speak more on this later), and then a home with a large common-hall, belonging to their leader Reinhard.

The village occupies the top of a foothill nestled between two ridges, one much higher than the other. To the west, the high ridge rises to a vast pillar of stone which soars into the heavens high enough to evoke sacred Olympos—several stadia above the surrounding ridge, it becomes wreathed in clouds, and it is impossible to discern any top to it. To the east, the ridge is merely a long rise dominated by pine-forest; there is nothing discernably exceptional about it, and yet the villagers of Waldorf seem to hold it in reverence far above that of the miraculous pillar.

It ought be noted that in the local dialect the village name translates literally to "forest-village"—betraying the blithe innocence which leads barbarians to name their homes after mere geographical features, instead of honoring gods and ancestors as we do. Similarly, the mountain pillar—which is prominently visible from the village square, and should be visible from all the surrounding land were it not for the damnable forest—is the "phalkon-stein", or "the stone of the great predator-bird". (There is an odd slurring to the s which is difficult to represent; it is as though pronounced halfway between sigma and chi. From here on I shall transcribe it with both letters.) I do not yet know what the name of the forested ridge means, as none will talk to me of it directly, but several times I have overheard the villagers refer to it as the "schturm-pergs".

The villagers greeted our arrival last night with a simple but adequate feast, slaughtering a goat for a roast—supplemented with stew, eggs, fresh spelt hearth-bread, a pungent cheese, and the most singular fruit I have ever in my life experienced. These so-called "himmel-phructs" are the size of a human fist and the blue of the night sky, with a delicate flesh that melts nearly into vapor on the tongue. They are stored beneath the roofs of the houses, the tallest of the local men reaching up to pluck them down as though taking grapes from a vine. Upon being cracked open, there is a sharp hiss, and the flesh of the fruit bubbles; the villagers encouraged us to bite into them as quickly as possible, and offered a demonstration—the men swallowing and then laughing in the voice of women, and the women giggling in the tongue of children. I myself ventured to partake, and was seized by a light-headedness to match the raising of my voice, even as the cold sweetness of the fruit-flesh kissed my throat with the chill of a mountaintop gale.

Ah! When wise Herodotus said in his Histories that the dark north was a place of unending wonders, even he would have been hard pressed to envision a fruit of pure elemental Air! I shall endeavor to bring some home to Hellas, though I fear the distances involved are too great to avoid spoilage, and the civilized world might have to content itself with the decidedly less wondrous (and cloyingly sweet) wine the villagers ferment it into.

If only our entire visit could be so full of wonders. Alas, since the feast, relations with the villagers have grown steadily more strained.

In the wake of the meal, amid the wine and the wild rhythms of their songs, several of the hoplites crossed the room to woo the young women of the village—only for the musicians to halt, and the male village elders to confront the hoplites angrily. I entreated Unnr to ask the village priestess—a stocky woman with a husky voice who had been introduced to me as Seher—to assist us in soothing whatever breach of their superstitions had been committed, but Unnr brusquely informed me that men and women were not to sexually mingle! What purpose to a feast, then? How the village has survived in the face of such insult to blessèd Aphrodite is a mystery yet to be unraveled; clearly they must have vast favor from another of the gods, and no small amount of good fortune besides.

To compound the blasphemy, after the celebrations finished, Reinhard and Seher approached me, and flatly stated (through widow Unnr's translation) that the hoplites would be quartered in the temple, but that wise Maera and myself were to sleep in Unnr's home. They were not swayed by the fact that Maera is our oracle, nor our earnest promises that she would perform the appropriate sacrifices to their village gods; and when pressed for a reason, simply said, "You are women".

Such madness!—And it infects them to such an extent that their own women may not even enter! I am not unfamiliar with temples consecrated to the sacred mysteries, but it defies all reason for a village's sole temple to bar an entire sex—the more so since they are led by a priestess themselves!

In sheerest bewilderment—and fearing for our expedition should we give sufficient offense to enrage the villagers into violence—we acquiesced, though Maera and I spent quite some time last night in fearful discussion. Unwilling to rely upon whatever protections spurred the village's defiance of Aphrodite the Progenitor, it was clear that we must propitiate her; but to sacrifice our last oxen would ruin all hope of a safe return home, and to sacrifice local wildlife risked insufficiency. I ultimately decided it was best that we offer up my horse, and we made plans to hold a ritual in celebration of blessèd Aphrodite.

When we petitioned Reinhard this morning—asking where we might hold the rite without offending their superstitions—he grew quite still when our descriptions of the ritual were translated. The packed meeting-hall, in fact, was filled with a sudden hush—and then Seher erupted, shouting at him for quite some time. The rest of the village watched their argument in silent discomfort (or us in wide-eyed curiosity). Finally, Reinhard pronounced that we would be permitted to withdraw a discreet distance from the village and hold our rites amid the trees, but that we would be required to post a watch and chase off any of the villagers who wandered within eye-sight.

Wise Maera protested, and I firmly agreed, that we would not blaspheme by excluding any from a celebration of Aphrodite the All-Loving. This set off another fierce argument between Reinhard and Seher—with the priestess pausing to shout at us that we were mad to invite such curses upon our heads, and she would not suffer madwomen in her village—but Reinhard firmly held that we must be allowed our "strange ways", and asked if our objection would be addressed if he himself would bar the villagers from participation. Wise Maera was forced to agree that such a compromise was the best we were likely to obtain; while it would invite the worst of consequences onto the heads of the barbarians, it would be no reflection upon our own piety, and it would be little worse blasphemy than that which the village was already committing.

There was quite some murmur around the great hall when Reinhard spoke in the wake of our agreement. Seher shouted what sounded like the direst imprecation and stormed out, half of the village following behind (including Unnr). Reinhard looked quite discomforted as he answered questions from the remaining villagers—shooing us out with a flick of his wrist, and not meeting our eyes.

We exited to the village square to find men ejecting the Hoplites' belongings from the temple. Unnr said that she would continue to assist in translation, but that she had no interest in our worship, and that upon our return from the ritual, our men would be quartered in Reinhard's hall. She seemed little inclined to discuss the subject further, and kept rebuffing attempts to return to the topic as we negotiated trades with the farmers for travel-meals. There is more and more argument in the native tongue as Unnr speaks with the farmers, and they seem more and more reluctant to supply us despite the singular treasures which our trade goods represent to them.

Even the communal lunch in the great hall was a subdued and tense affair—with Unnr forcibly wedging her way between myself and the Hoplites, and pushing me sideways on the bench to increase the space between us and the males. The men are beginning to mutter—casting longing eyes at the local women, who nervously turn away. With the ritual to come later tonight, I trust them not to succumb to baser urges, but the reactions of the barbarians are darkening morale considerably.



Day 59.

This is no place of refuge. After the ugly incident this morning, the prudent course would have been to immediately abandon this barbaric place. Ah! Would that we could!

Last night's ritual for Aphrodite the All-Loving need not be described to any educated reader, save to note its wild success—and yet it must be discussed to offer context for the dilemma which now faces us. We set up, as is proper, around dusk, lighting a circle of fires and preparing our libations and prophylactics. It was during the preparations that I espied a young local man watching us from the trees. He nearly bolted upon being called out, and seemed utterly shocked at our invitation, identifying himself in stammering tones as Nial; but quickly warmed to our company despite the language barrier, and was soon laughing along with us once warmed by our reserves of spice-wine. He proved entirely amenable to the ritual—among the first to shed his clothes as the dancing began, and stepping up to fulfill the dares of the men and the invitations of the women with the universal language of the body.

Far more singular was the sudden appearance of one of the young village women as pious Maera and I began drawing the men one by one into the inner circle and the chants and dances gave way to ecstatic worship. Bold Dagmar—for she earned that epithet that night, aye, and more besides—slipped out of the woods to the edge of our firelight as the chants were reaching their peak. It must have taken only moments for the spirit of Aphrodite the Mender of Hearts to seize her—for no sooner had she taken in the scene than she defiantly threw down her dress and stepped forth unclad to join us. A rousing cheer went up from the hoplites, and as they descended upon her she met their vast enthusiasm with her own, outmatching the vigor of even pious Maera until she finally fell to sleep in a tangle of bodies.

When rosy-fingered dawn caressed the eastern sky and the first of us rose to stir the ashes of the fires, Nial had long since crept back to the village, but goddess-touched Dagmar was with us still. My gentle suggestion that she return home (in fear of whatever consequences might lay in wait if her disobedience of Reinhard was discovered) were rebuffed with vigor, and the Hoplites protested the idea of her departure with equal vigor, which would have made the men's return to the Great Hall awkward at best. So with some reluctance I allowed them to retrieve our cart and supplies from Waldorf, and we set up camp in the ritual clearing.

This development quickly brought Reinhard and Seher striding to our gathering—a sleep-bleary Unnr being nearly dragged behind. Bold Dagmar faced them defiantly from amid the Hoplites, and shouted something short and sharp. At that, I expected violence, or at least further impassioned argument, but Seher merely scowled and spat in the dirt. Reinhard lowered his head and slowly shook it side to side, while Unnr refused entirely to speak, her face blanching white as new-fallen snow. Seher spoke two sentences—pointing to the sky at the first, and I caught only the word "Schturmbergs"—then whirled and left, never once acknowledging us. Bold Dagmar shouted what seemed an imprecation at their retreating backs.

It seems there is history here beyond what little we will be able to coax out of bold Dagmar with name and pantomime. She grew sullen when asked about the Schturmbergs or the people of Waldorf, and responded only to Seher's name, and only with fingers arched to her lips like fangs, hissing in snake-warning. Not once all day has she been out of arm's-reach from one Hoplite or another, returning their attentions with coy looks or teasing kisses, and stealing worried glances toward the village when their backs are turned.

While her worries about Seher may have been prescient, that was the least of our subsequent discoveries.

At the time of our hasty departure, the cart-yoke had been entrusted to one of the Waldorf farmers for repair, and we found ourselves with no choice but to brave the village in hopes of securing its return. The Hoplites donned armor and swords in grim silence, and I split them into two groups, bidding half to stay with bold Dagmar and our supplies while the other half marched uphill with me. The intention was to retrieve the part with sufficient speed that—should the barbarians decide to seek violence—no counter-attack could be mounted with Waldorf's superior numbers until we had reunited.

Intention quickly fell away upon our emergence from the forest and our realization that the weather had turned. The cool breeze that had increasingly stirred through the woods over the young day became, out in the open, a fierce and frigid wind roaring across the hill. Grand streaks and billows of clouds swirled throughout the sky, sinking from the pillar toward the ridge opposite, and the heavens were dotted with distant dark blue spheres nearly as far as the eye could see. So astounding was the sight that several minutes passed in open-mouthed staring, and it was only upon the arrival of fleet-footed Kaenas from our camp that we realized our delay. We steeled ourselves for the trip to Waldorf, but were quickly driven back when the clouds blew too low and we were gripped by a soup of icy fog whose chill cut to the bone. For several hours, all we could do was watch from the tree-line—once or twice retreating to huddle by our fires when the chill became too severe.

At some length, the winds briefly died down, and we resumed our trek to Waldorf, bundled in what clothing we could assemble against the bitter chill. Our trip to the farmer's home carried us past the village square—and a singularly shocking sight. It was Nial, unmoving and corpse-cold, huddled as best he could for warmth with one leg pinned underneath the toppled village monument.

I cannot believe it accidental.

We retrieved the yoke—with no opposition; none were outside to confront us—and began breaking camp for departure. However, the icy fog rolled back in—this time for hours on end without cease. Our only defense was to relight the fires and huddle shivering around them. I am scribing this in between bouts of warming myself, hoping that each new stirring of the wind will clear the fog out with it. From bold Dagmar's sudden despair—staring vacantly into the fire, knees to chest—I fear that the gods have again turned from us, and our chance for departure may not arrive for some time. I suspect these are the Schturmbergs of which her people spoke.



Day 61.

I was incorrect. And while our situation remains precarious, and the favor of the gods much in question, I cannot deny the magnificence of today's sights.

After two hard, bitter nights of desperate scrambling to keep a bonfire roaring—and a day of ceaseless fog during which the chill nearly drove me to the arms of Hades the Gatekeeper, leaving me too addled even to write—the ice-clouds have melted away. Swift Kaenas was sent to the tree-line to assess whether the fog seemed likely to return, and he dashed back, shouting for us all to come and look.

Where once the great pillar of Falkonschtein was wreathed in clouds, it now lies denuded—soaring high beyond description. At its top, avian figures swarm, so distant that their features are lost to haze, and yet so large that their silhouettes cover a span of sky like unto blessèd Apollo's Sun. It was not the turn of season which wreathed the valley in ice-fog, but the mating flights of those great birds, their wing-flaps catching the clouds and shearing them from the lofty sky!

More wondrous yet was the ridge of which the villagers would only speak in hushed tones. The Schturmbergs are no mere tree-lined rise; nay, they are mountains formed from the very clouds themselves! You, oh reader, may be tempted to call this fancy, but even at this distance we can see upon their surface green plants speckled with the blue of himmel-phruct, and the dirty grey fur of goats as they climb its surface to graze.

And, truly, to one who studies diligently the Natural Histories, their existence comes as no shock; it is merely the beauty of seeing in nature what necessarily exists by principle which now overcomes me. As in every aspect of life, the base forms reflect the higher designs, as Humans reflect the Gods; and thus what occurs in one element must by necessity occur in the other. Thus, as the clouds passed through our valley and then accumulated upon the ridge, they built ever higher and higher upon themselves, exactly as desert sand blows into a dune, and their vast cold solidified them into a tangible substance that is to elemental Air what ice is to elemental Water.

Our study of this marvelous phenomenon was interrupted, however, by the arrival of the barbarians. Canny Lemnus spotted the men of the village journeying down the hill, and raised a warning; having sufficient time to react but not to depart, we retreated to our camp and prepared a defensive formation.

Reinhard, Seher and Unnr were the first to approach. Our fears calmed considerably, but not wholly, when we realized they were unarmed. It calmed us further when the other villagers continued past us on the road, filing toward the Schturmbergs, carrying naught but picking-tools and large empty fruit-sacks.

Seher spoke quietly, and Unnr said: "You are to—" She was interrupted by the shouts of bold Dagmar, but wise Maera managed finally to shush her.

Unnr spoke. "You are to depart our home, but come, first lay down your swords and join us upon the Schturmbergs, for the harvest sacred to the Twin Gods."

"It seems a trap," Wise Maera said, to murmured assent, and I also could not help but agree, recalling our earlier barring from the temple. Yet they were unarmed, and refusal of good-faith hospitality is a blasphemy against Hestia the Steward; we could not afford to anger any more of the gods.

So in Scythian I bid Unnr tell them that we were yet breaking camp, and would follow them once we had properly consecrated ourselves. "Slip your food-knives under your armor," I said, hoping that and Hoplite discipline would be sufficient against the crude tools of the savages were we to find ourselves in an ambush.

But as Unnr relayed my response, bold Dagmar again interrupted, kneeling to clasp me by the knees and babbling in her savage tongue. "What does she say?" I demanded of Unnr in Scythian.

"What does who say?" was her only reply.

I pantomimed what reassurances I could to bold Dagmar, and upon the departure of the barbarians, offered her my knife, which she accepted with gratitude and slipped underneath her dress. At that, her determination seemed to return, yet despite our preparations I could tell that we were one and all ill-at-ease.



Day 62.

Our expedition left the Schturmbergs one and all unharmed, yet the experience so shook me that it has taken me until tonight to pick up my quill.

I wish to write of the impossible views of the dark north's forests out to the sea-dappled horizon. Or the harvest of the himmel-phructs, from the plants that sprouted from the seeds of high Falkonschtein—the cutting of the vine, and the lunge to secure the fruit before it drifted away to rejoin the heavens. But I find little joy in it. She is dead.

Of course they made to snatch bold Dagmar. Not right away; at first the barbarians seemed content to work the harvest, and it lulled us into a sense of security. It was closer to the end of the day, when patches of the cloud-mountain were detaching and drifting away, and the fruit-sacks were near to full, and the wild goats had begun their retreat to solid ground. We had allowed ourselves to drift into scattered groups, until a shout from large-thewed Glaukos drew our attention; bold Dagmar was holding off a man of Waldorf with her knife, and several others were advancing with cold gleams in their eyes.

Fortunately, immediately upon the drawing of the Hoplites' weapons, the barbarians backed away. Then Seher advanced toward the standoff, and the gleam in her eye was the coldest of all. She pulled Unnr forward, and growled some order at me. Bold Dagmar jabbed her knife forward, but hesitated, arm trembling.

"Hand over the rulebreaker, and we will end our quarrel with you," Unnr said.

It was out of the question. Bold Dagmar had earned her epithets, and was a woman of the gods. I told her so. She did not translate.

Unnr's jaw quivered. "Please," she said.

"No," I repeated. "Tell Seher no."

Ill-fated Unnr closed her eyes, and spoke but a single syllable. Then the barbarians pitched her over the edge of the mountain, and returned to Waldorf without another word.

Though she is now safe, the spirit has left bold Dagmar, and I fear it will be some time until I am able to coax the reason from her. Is she shaken by another being sacrificed in her stead? Does she fear to cause her rescuers further harm? Were the two of them, as wise Maera speculates, estranged family? Whatever the reason, the cursèd dark north has left its scars upon her heart, and upon ours.

I pray to the gods that our journey home be safe and simple. I fear that is not their will.