The Girl with No Name Ch. 06

"Honor and greatness are mine...honor and greatness are what I deserve...my Path in Life...lead the Enlightenment....my honor..."

An owl...that owl...landed on a branch overlooking the clearing.

"Why?"

"What? Girl, what did you say?"

"I didn't say anything, Master Bagatúrckt."

"Why?"

Bagatúrckt angrily looked around: "Who said that!? Who's questioning me?"

Shaking with fear, Danka pointed at the dark shape sitting above them.

"Why?"

"Ha! Beelzebub! You! You came to take what is mine? That won't happen, pathetic spirit! You're nothing! A bird! A fucking owl! You can't do any better than become a dishonored bird, you loathsome, tiny, puny, helpless, pathetic apparition?"

"Why?"

Bagatúrckt ran to his horse and unsheathed his sword.

"You won't mock me, pathetic apparition! I'm so much more than you! I am the Creator! I'm more than the Creator, I'm the God of Rome! I'll strike you down and eat you for breakfast, pathetic Beelzebub!"

"Why?"

"How dare you! Now I will chase you! Now I will kill you, Beelzebub!"

Bagatúrckt mounted his horse. It was obvious that he was completely insane, believing he had transformed into either the Creator or the Roman God. However, he was more than simply a madman riding around on a horse. It seemed there really was something much larger in him, struggling to get out. And, why not? After-all, he had defiantly eaten food reserved for the Ancients. Perhaps that food was far more than a human body could withstand.

Mocking Bagatúrckt, the owl flew from one side of the clearing to the other, passing immediately in front of the master's face. He chased the bird, but the owl took off again and flew towards the stream.

"Why? Why?"

"How dare you! How dare you defy me! I will cut you, Beelzebub! I will cut you!"

Bagatúrckt led his panicked horse into the stream, but the owl changed course and flew back towards the camp. It landed on Danka's horse. The animal shrieked in panic and tore itself loose. Danka screamed as her horse galloped along the path and disappeared into the darkness. Bagatúrckt was wild with rage. He crashed around in the woods as the owl flew ahead of him, barely keeping out of his sword's reach. He was howling like a mad wolf. The sounds coming out of his mouth were no longer those of a human.

Danka stood helplessly as her master rode through the dark woods around the camp, screaming and cursing. The owl re-emerged into the clearing, with a man savagely swinging his sword in pursuit. The horse nearly trampled the penitent. The owl flew directly towards Bagatúrckt and openly challenged him. The man backed his horse directly into the fading campfire. The horse shrieked upon feeling the embers' heat and became as uncontrollable as his rider. He charged back into the trees. Suddenly in the distance there was a tremendous crash of breaking branches and thrashing leaves. The horse whinnied and re-emerged into the clearing, riderless. He did not stop. He ran towards the path and, like Danka's mount, galloped along the trail that led to back to Sevérckt nad Gorádki. The sound of hoofs became fainter and fainter.

Danka was left standing in total silence. As much as she hated Bagatúrckt, she was hoping to hear his voice, even if it was nothing more than a moan or a call for help. For a long time she listened, but the only sounds reaching her ears were the normal sounds of the nighttime forest. No. He was not going to call out to her. She'd have to investigate, go in the direction of that crash, and see what happened. With every bit of courage she could summon, she carefully picked her way through the trees and brush, feeling her way through the darkness.

She touched countess tree trunks, but eventually her hand landed on something at eye level that was not a tree. It was a large object that was not fixed to the ground, but hanging. She explored with her hand and realized she was touching a boot. Yes, and there was the other one. She felt upwards and touched a pair of legs clothed in thick trousers. She tugged at the corpse, but apart from swinging it a bit more, she was not able to budge it. And a corpse it indeed was; there was no question she was touching a body that had been separated from its soul. She let out a shriek as pulled back her hand. The sinister cold feeling swept through her body. She couldn't breathe.

Calm...calm...breathe...must breathe...calm...go back...wait...

She immediately realized how bad her situation had become. Yes, she had hoped to see Bagatúrckt as a corpse, but not like this. Now she was alone, in a pitch-black forest, with no weapon except a dagger that was not even with her, no food, no supplies, and no horse. She didn't even have a fire, because she had neglected to keep it burning. Instinctually she groped her way towards the clearing, although really there was no point, because without a fire the clearing was no safer than anywhere else. The worst detail was that she couldn't see anything. The leaves completely blocked the sky and all source of light. She continued stumbling around, but she had lost all sense of direction. She was so panicked that she forgot about the first rule of being alone in the forest: to be a quiet as possible and listen for anything or anyone approaching.

Finally Danka did see light. It was a strange orange color. She was so desperate to see something, anything, that she instinctually stumbled towards it, without thinking it was very likely that light would be leading her towards, and not away from, danger. She continued pushing through the brush. To see...just to see. The light moved down and vanished. Danka despaired, because now she was hopelessly lost. She couldn't control her breathing and was letting out panicked gasps. She tried to hold her breath. To her horror she could hear the sounds of movement all around her.

The orange light reappeared, much closer. She screamed when she saw what it was, an illuminated skull. When she turned around, there was another orange skull behind her. There were two more on either side.

"Beelzebub... Leave me alone! What did I do? What did I do, for you to torment me like this?"

An old woman's voice answered back.

"Trespasser, don't you dare speak the name of the profane one in this forest!"

"You're...you're not Beelzebub?"

"I told you not to speak that name! And no, I am not!"

"Who are you?"

"And who are you, trespasser?"

"I...I'm a penitent...from the Temple...in Starívktaki Móskt."

"You're lying, trespasser. You're not from there. They don't use the Christian name for the profane one at that Temple. So, tell me who you are, trespasser, and where you're from. If I have to call you 'trespasser' again, it will be the last time anyone will call you anything."

"I...I'm Danka Síluckt. I'm from Rika Héckt-nemát, originally. But I was at the Temple. I'm not lying about that, Mistress."

"Very well, Danka Síluckt. Are there any other names in your life? Other things people might have called you?"

"No, Mistress...well...at the Temple they did call me 'the bloody one', because I was the only penitent that butchered animals...the others didn't like doing it."

"Very well, Danka Síluckt, 'the bloody one'. You will now explain to me why you are in these woods...what brought you here."

"I came here with my master."

"Who is your master, Danka Síluckt, 'the bloody one'? What was his business in this forest?"

"He's...his name is Bagatúrckt. He's from..."

"I know Bagatúrckt. And I know where he's from. And I know who he serves. Do you know?"

"Yes, Mistress. I know who he serves."

"Which is why you were calling out to the profane one..."

"No, Mistress. That wasn't the reason. It's...I was being chased. I wanted to be left alone."

"So, Danka Síluckt, 'the bloody one', where is your master now? Can you lead me to him?"

"I think he's dead, Mistress. And it was...the...profane one...who killed him."

Danka explained the circumstances of Bagatúrckt's death and the escaped horses.

"We saw the horses. They ran by us as we were coming up the trail. Now, we will return to your campsite and find your master, or his body. If Bagatúrckt is dead, that would be good news for the Duchy, but bad news for me, because I wasn't able to kill him myself."

The group's leader moved her skull-lamp in front so Danka could see her face. She was dressed in black clothing. She looked very old, but her eyes were still clear and powerful. Her hair was completely gray, but it was done up in braids just like the hair of every other Danubian woman.

"Danka Síluckt, I want you to understand that your fate is in my hands. I have not yet decided what your fate will be, because I haven't learned enough about you. I may spare you, and I may not. Either way, the decision will be difficult. If you can accept that I now control your destiny, I won't have to restrain your hands. But, restrained or not, you will understand that you'd have no chance of escaping."

"I...yes Mistress...I know that."

Oddly, the old woman's words calmed Danka considerably, even though she had just spoken of the possibility of killing her. The terrible cold feeling that tormented her over the past several days had vanished.

"Come."

The old woman's three companions led Danka though the forest. Even though she knew that her life was still in danger, she felt at peace, partly because she was grateful not to be stumbling around in total darkness. It also was a relief to know she was traveling with people who had declared themselves enemies of both Bagatúrckt and Beelzebub the Destroyer.

The skull-bearers and their captive made their way to the path. They turned left and walked several minutes before arriving at the dark campsite. Danka looked up and noticed the sky was beginning to lighten.

Light...sun...oh yes...so happy not to be in the dark...

"From this place, can you tell me in which direction you think Bagatúrckt was riding, when his soul separated from his body?"

Danka pointed in several directions as she spoke: "He started fighting with the owl here...then rode in that direction...then that way into the stream...then he came back...was over there...and then he went that way...and that's where I heard the crash...and his horse came out there...and ran off in that direction..."

"When we have the benefit of light, we will investigate your claims. Meanwhile, you will state your business with Bagatúrckt."

"He was looking for mushrooms, Mistress. A special kind he called..."

"...the Joy of the Ancients."

"Yes, Mistress."

"I trust you were unsuccessful in your quest?"

"No...Mistress. That's not true. He did find a place with a bunch of those mushrooms. He got enough to fill a bucket."

"A bucket? That's impossible. There's only one place that has so many...and there's no way you would have found it."

"There was, Mistress. A stream, in a pretty place...with a lot of strange plants. It was above a waterfall, really high up."

Danka could tell, even in the faint pre-dawn light, that her captor was dismayed upon hearing her last words.

"Show me your bucket, Danka Síluckt"

"It's over there, where Bagatúrckt set up his bedroll."

The old woman signaled to one of her followers to retrieve the bucket. She was horrified when she opened the cloth and looked inside.

"Mercy of the Ancients...by the mercy of the Ancients...what have you done?"

"I...I was thinking he shouldn't have taken so many, Mistress, but..."

"Taken so many? Do you realize...have any idea...what you just destroyed?"

"Not really, Mistress. I just know that Bagatúrckt wagered a purse of gold in a foreign city...I think it was called Vienna...that he'd find some of those mushrooms. And when he found them...he wanted to take as many as he could."

"You don't have anything else to say for yourself?"

Danka realized that she had participated in something terrible. She also understood that she probably was only a few minutes away from meeting the Creator in the After-life. And yet, she was strangely calm. She'd tell her captor what happened, find out what was so important about those mushrooms, and then face judgment.

In detail, she described her trip with Bagatúrckt. She described his obsessions and "the graveyard of virtue". She talked about her conversations with the house servant in Sevérckt nad Gorádki and the trip into the forest. She talked, not to plead for her life, but to explain the facts. She concluded:

"I didn't want anything to do with those mushrooms, Mistress. I always thought they were evil, from the moment they were pulled from the ground. When I watched Bagatúrckt eat them and saw what happened, I realized I was right."

By the time Danka finished, it was light enough to see through the trees. The old woman again asked where Bagatúrckt had been when Danka last saw him. The trespasser led the others towards the spot she thought he had been killed. After looking around for several minutes, she saw him. His body was hanging, with his neck wedged in the fork of a low tree branch.

The old woman's companions struggled to take down the corpse. It was not a pretty sight, because the neck was distended and the face bloodied and deformed from the blow. Danka noticed the dead man's sword lying in the brush. She picked it up, and without understanding why, held it out for her captor to take. The old woman seemed surprised, but she accepted the sword.

The assistants dragged the body to the campsite. They stripped off Bagatúrckt's fine clothing (which they would sell), turned the body over, and drove a stake into his back. One of the assistants left for a few minutes and returned with a large square piece of wood and an inkwell. The old woman wrote:

The love of money is the root of all evil.

Because I loved money, I stole from the Ancients and destroyed what can never be replaced. I showed my evil face in their presence and received what was rightfully mine. Do not mourn for me, because I was a tool of the Destroyer, and this is where my service to the Destroyer led me. I am now safely in the Destroyer's arms, enduring the Hell-Fire.

The old woman turned to Danka.

"You are ignorant about the mushrooms. Later I'll explain their significance. I will trust that your were a mere witness, nothing more, to your former master's depravity. As angry as I might be, I cannot condemn a bystander. I will ask you a question. If I spare you, do you think you can atone for what your master did to the Ancients?"

"I don't know, Mistress. I'll try, if you tell me what to do."

"Then we'll start by having you address me properly. I'm not a 'Mistress'. The people of these woods call me Babáckt Yaga."

"Yes, Babáckt Yaga."

"The next thing you will do is take off that counterfeit penance collar. I'll let you keep it for the future, but for the time you are in my service, you are not to wear it or show it in my presence."

Danka was shocked that Babáckt Yaga knew right away her collar wasn't real. It had fooled everyone else, but not the old woman. Reluctantly she took it off.

Babáckt Yaga picked up the bucket and handed her skull staff to Danka. Her followers gathered the other items scattered around the campsite and emerged onto the trail.

As she carried one of Babáckt Yaga's staffs and walked behind her followers, Danka realized that her Path in Life had changed. She would not be returning to central Danubia, at least not any time soon.

The staff she carried symbolized that she now was committed to staying in the mountains and serving Babáckt Yaga.

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The two Temple horses were captured by the townsfolk near Sevérckt nad Gorádki. A junior Priest from the town's cathedral took the horses south to Starívktaki Móskt. The Temple's Senior Priest read through his son's correspondence and found a stack of poems. They were all dedicated to "the bloody one". He must have loved her dearly to have written all those beautiful poems.

Leaving Bagatúrckt's writings at the Temple, the Senior Priest frantically returned with the messenger to Sevérckt nad Gorádki. A group of Clergy members left the town to search the trail for the unfortunate Bagatúrckt, and also for the penitent who was the subject of his admiration. They finally found his badly decomposed body, at a campsite with a stake wedged in his back and a wooden sign with a very sinister message next to his head. Obviously poor Bagatúrckt had been horribly betrayed and murdered by that evil penitent.

Yes, from the first day he saw that peasant girl, the Senior Priest had known that something wasn't right about her. Unfortunately, he failed to act on that suspicion. That failure to confront true evil had cost him dearly: the life of his favorite son.

Bagatúrckt was buried with honors at the cathedral in Sevérckt nad Gorádki. When the Senior Priest finally returned to the Temple in Starívktaki Móskt, the place was full of hushed gossip about the evil penitent girl who had destroyed the life of a fine young man. More rumors came in from the west, from Rika Héckt-nemát, which recently had lost almost its entire population to the plague. There had been an evil peasant girl there too, the one who set off the sickness by calling out to Beelzebub the Destroyer when the city guards tried to execute her.

The rumors speculated that the peasant girl who killed Rika Héckt-nemát's people and the penitent who killed the Senior Priest's son must have been the same person, a true servant of Beelzebub the Destroyer.

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Note: Most likely the owls Danka saw were greater highland owls, a species of owl that inhabit old-growth forests and currently are protected under Danubian law. The Danubian word for "why" is "somú". Traditional Danubian folklore associates the hooting of the greater highland owl with the origins of "somú", which was one of the first questions given to humans during the Epoch of the Ancients.

- Maritza Ortskt-Dukovna -