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"But I won't live beyond my next death." I knew. "Ormazd won't revive me once I've killed Ahriman."
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Her gray eyes fixed on mine, pulled me to her. "Do you think, my beloved, that I would want to face
eternity without you?"
"Then what..."
"I will see that you survive death. And if Ormazd prevents me from doing so, then I will live your one
lifetime with you and die with you at the end of it, gladly."
"I can't ask you to give up..."
She placed a finger on my lips, silencing me. "You have not asked me. You did not need to ask. I make
my own decisions."
I took her in my arms and kissed her as if we would never be able to touch each other again, as if this
night were the last night of the world, as if the stars were blinking out forever.
"Now lead them, Orion my love," she whispered. "Lead them to a land where they can live in peace."
The following morning we started our long trek southward, Kedar and the two other wounded forcing us
to move slowly across the glittering fields of snow. No animals attacked us. If Ahriman were nearby, he
did not show his presence in any way.
We became a band of primitive hunters, stalking game for food and furs. Piece by piece we discarded
our useless equipment, replacing laser pistols with wooden spears, plastic armor with the hides of foxes,
hares, and mountain goats.
Southward we trekked, away from the snow and ice. Within a week we found an open stream, gurgling
toward the southwest, its glacier-fed water as cold as the dark side of the moon. We followed the stream
through hilly, wooded country. The snow grew thinner on the ground, the sun brighter, the air warmer.
One of the wounded died, and we buried her in the bank of that unnamed stream. Kedar grew stronger,
though, and we made better time despite his limp.
At last we entered a land of softly rolling hills, covered with grass, teeming with game. Trees tossed their
leafy branches in the warm breeze. Huge, lumbering beasts trumpeted at us from the undulating
horizon mammoths, I guessed, from their size and their trunks.
I had no idea where we were, but we found a large, dry cave and made it our own. The ten of us had
become quite skilled at survival by now. The men set off to catch meat; the women began gathering
shoots and berries from the plants that grew in profusion all around us.
"We can stay here awhile," I said as I started a fire. "This might be a good place to stay."
Adena sat beside me and stared into the crackling flames. The sun was low in the west and the heat from
the fire felt good, comforting.
"Now you can begin to search for Ahriman again," she said, without turning her head from the flames.
I nodded wordlessly.
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"Do you think he's far from here?" she asked.
"No. He's near us, I'm sure. He still wants to exterminate us. He hasn't given up, not yet."
"When will you leave?"
I squinted up at the setting sun. Thick clouds were gathering in the sky, turning the sunset into a blaze of
reds and golds and violets.
"Tomorrow," I answered, "unless there's a storm."
Adena smiled and leaned her head against my shoulder. "I'll pray for rain."
CHAPTER 41
It did begin to rain. As darkness fell and the men came straggling back to the cave, a strong wind arose
and thunder boomed across the sky. Kedar, the last of the hunters to return, limped sullenly into the cave,
wet to the skin, his hair plastered down over his head, grumbling to himself.
As we feasted on rabbit and woodchuck, the men began talking about the bigger game they had seen
farther downstream antelope and bison, from the sound of their descriptions. And, of course, there
were mammoths and horses and all sorts of other animals abounding in this Ice Age landscape. I told
them as much about them as I could, knowing that I would be leaving them soon.
"And there are wolves out there, too," said Kedar. "I saw a pair of them as I was heading back, in the
rain."
"There must be bears, too."
"They won't bother us here in this cave as long as we have a good fire going," I said.
"Unless the brutes control them."
"There's only one brute left," I said to them as we sat around the fire. Their faces, lit by the flickering
flames, were smeared with dirt and dinner. "And I'm going after him, as soon as the storm ends."
For a moment no one said a word. Then Kedar began to talk about going out after antelope.
I glanced at Adena and let them make their plans. Already they were more concerned with their bellies
than with continuing their war.
The storm grew in fury as the night wore on, its raging wind slashing into the cave, driving raw wet
coldness and rain that nearly drenched our fire. We grabbed up burning firebrands and moved farther
back into the cave, beyond the reach of the rain.
Thunder racked the night, and lightning flashed out in the darkness. The others tried to sleep on the cold
rock floor, but something kept me staring out into the night, into the storm.
Ahriman, I realized. He is here. He is reaching for us. This ishis storm, his doing.
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Adena was stretched out on the ground, sound asleep. I smiled at her, my sleeping goddess who had
taken on human form. Her breath was slow and regular, her beautiful face even more exquisite in repose.
I wondered how she could make the transition to being so completely human. I wondered how Ahriman
could make the transition to being superhuman.
He must have started life just like any other of his kind. Even now, here in this time and place, he had
shown no evidence of superhuman powers. In other eras he had whisked himself and me through
space-time as easily as a man steps through an open doorway. How did he acquire those powers?
When?
A flash of lightning lit the world outside the cave for a brief instant of time, and I saw something that
startled me. It happened too quickly to be certain of it, but I closed my eyes for a moment and reviewed
the scene in my memory.
Frozen in place by the lightning's strobe glare, it was the hulking form of Ahriman I saw, not more than a
hundred yards beyond the entrance of the cave. And beside him, standing on all four legs, a huge bear
that dwarfed Ahriman's powerful figure. He was facing the bear, one thickly muscled arm raised, a blunt
finger pointing, as if he was giving the beast instructions.
Guided by Ahriman's intelligence, driven by his hatred, that bear could kill us all. I scrambled to my feet
and drew two blazing branches from the fire, one for each hand, and hurried to the cave's entrance.
As I approached, a jagged fork of lightning streaked across the sky and the bear's massive, fearsome
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