It was late at night, but deep in the catacombs, it was always night. The small torches set in bronze rings along the walls of the tunnels were coming to life twenty paces ahead of Hestia, little circles of orange light chasing the darkness ahead.

Andrada, her head down, walking among the priests, priestesses and Wolf Warriors in the silent group following Zalmoxes and the Great Priestess, was automatically counting her steps. Times and times again after her initiation in the High Council of the Thirteen she had come alone in the deeps. The secrets of the  tunnels were known only to the Council and the Council alone, and anyone else would find themselves lost, and wander in darkness until hunger and thirst would bring their death.

 “..sixteen, seventeen, turn right; one, two, three…” her counting was interrupted by a sudden raise in the voice of Zalmoxes: “Why now, Hestia? Why now?” The Great Priestess pursed her lips and kept walking stiff-backed, her white staff hitting the stone floor with muffled sounds. “How does it feel to live for so long?” Andrada thought. “How does it feel to be beautiful, and worshipped, and adored, for centuries and centuries, and see everybody around you wither and die of old age while you keep going? Did she ever love someone? Zalmoxes’s father, did she love him?”

The immense expanse of the Cave of the Ways suddenly opened in front of them, row after row after row of torches blazing their flames, their light reflected and enhanced by the thick veins of gold in the rock. From the crystalline arches leading to the corridors of the Ways, thin wisps of mist were crawling on the glittering floor, dissipating like whispers in a dream. The White Altar was in the middle, its milky-white perfection  mirroring exactly the Black Andezite Altar in the Temple. The twelve chairs, hourglasses made of two halves of a sphere one on top of the other, were circling around it meaduring the pass of the centuries.

“For our people need to be ready for what shall come to pass, my son”, Hestia’s voice broke the cadence of the white staff thudding on the floor. She stopped and the whole group stopped behind her. With a whirl of silk robes she turned and faced Zalmoxes, her eternal eyes ablaze. “The world is changing, even now is changing, and the enemy will come to our lands. Long and hard will be the fight, and in the end they will win, and our lands will be ours nomore.” “But, Mother…” Zalmoxes said, astonished and angry, and his words were cut short by Hestia.

“Listen to me, and listen to me well, Zalmoxes. The world is changing, and it will be a world ruled by men and men alone. Our people need a man to lead them from now on, for the surrounding nations will start see us as weaklings if the women keep ruling. It is not for our neighbors to settle on these lands, but for people who live far away in sunny lands that border a great Sea. They are the ones who will come to wage war upon us, they are the ones foreordained to settle here and mingle with our people. This is the will of the Fates and of the Gods. But until that time comes, we have to make preparations to hide the secret knowledge of the Goddess and show to the world only the Male part of our power. Nobody must know of our true power, and nobody must know that our defeat will not be a defeat, but what we have to accept for the good of humanity.” Starting to walk again towards the altar, she continued: “And our people need new laws, so they will obey you. It will not be easy for them to agree to be ruled by a man.” Frowning, Zalmoxes bowed his head in acquiescence “I hear and obey, Mother and Queen”.

When they were 50 paces close to the White Altar, the men in the group stopped.  Hestia, with the twelve High Priestesses following her in a quiet line, took a few more paces then started raising, like stepping on the very air. As they were closing on the altar, a soft white light started to envelop them. Hestia reached the altar and hovered aboved it, while the priestesses, like snowflakes coming down in a peaceful winter morning, came to sit on the circle of chairs. The Great Priestess, now holding her staff in both hands, raised it above her head and raised her voice in invocation. From the mists of the Ways, whispers answered, barely audible, and then Hestia lowered her staff, pointing the quartz-tipped point to the altar below her feet. Deep marks gouged the perfection of the white marble, line after line after line forming signs, in a spiral starting from the center, until the whole surface of the White Altar was covered in writing. Hestia straightened and turned around, still hovering above the altar. The Ways were silent now and the glow of white light suffusing the Thirteen was dimming.

“These are the laws I leave for our people, my son. They will be named the Laws of the Great Ages, and many nations will make them their own, and write them in their Sacred Books.” Walking down from the altar, Hestia touched the stone floor and her staff started its cadence again. The High Priestesses raised from the chairs and followed. “Tomorrow the announcement will be made that I shall return to the Land of the Gods and Ancestors and that you, my son, will assume the Throne and Supreme Priesthood of our Empire when the Moon will be full on the skies.” She continued: “The Priestesses will teach your priests the paths of the Catacombs. For now, I shall lead you and yours out while they lead out our Daoi messengers. Each of them needs to come out on a different side of the Mountain and bear to their tribes the news, so that everybody can have time to attend.”

Not knowing how it had happened, Andrada found herself walking along one of the tunnels with the tall warrior that had brought the message of Zamolxes’s return. “I shall take you to the entrance of the sunset side, right above the Two Springs path.” She said, without looking at him. “I know the place too well, Mylady. It will remained burned in my memory forever.” Watching him with the corner of her eye, the priestess started feeling her heart race. “And I think I should give this back to you together with my deepest gratitude. You saved my life”, he added, stopping to untie the long strip of fabric around his waist. Her cheeks burning, she took the piece of cloth from his hands. “It was nothing, Daoi. I am glad I have found you in time. That was a nasty dwarven arrow that wouldn’t have taken much longer to stop your breath for ever.” He bowed “I know, Mylady, I couldn’t stop to pull it out for there were too many dwarves in the secret pass and they followed me, and by the time I reached the safety of the mountain Kogaion I was too weak and my mind started blurring. All I could do was to keep walking towards the Temple until I fell, and there I laid until you found me.“

“Let’s go, Daoi, the dawn is almost here and you must be on your way” said Andrada, her voice steadier now, and she started walking again, but his hand, closing on to hers, stopped her. She looked up at him, and her eyes got lost in his eyes. “Mylady, I know I shouldn’t say these words, but I wish, oh, how I wish it was otherwise. We both have given oaths for our life-paths, and in both our paths there is no room for love, for we would lose our powers, and the power to protect our land. But I wanted you to know, that was it otherwise, there would be no other I would choose. I wish… I… “

The priestess  pressed his lips with the tips of her fingers “I know, Daoi. Oh, how I know what you mean” and with tears starting to fall down her cheeks, she turned and started walking briskly along the tunnel. After a moment, his face showing despair and joy at the same time, he followed her. They walked the rest of the way in silence, until they reached the opening in the mountain. The stars, towards the sunset, were still bright,  but above, towards the peak of the Kogaion, the sky was started to get tinged with the first pink of dawn. “Can I get a blessing, Mylady?” he whispered, kneeling in front of her. She set her hands on his shoulders, and, after speaking softly the words, she kissed his bent head in blessing. He slowly raised and took a few paces then turned and looked at her: “Your lips are sweeter than honeyed wine.” His image blurred, and, suddenly, from the spot where he stood a moment before, the great gray wolf leaped and started running down the slope of the mountain, disappearing swiftly in the underbrush of the forest.

Now crying freely, she fell to her knees, holding her forehead in her hands, then raised her head and screamed her anger to the skies. Far away, the howl of the wolf answered back.