Page 243 of Hunters and Prey

Pantheon

THEY BROUGHT US to a kind of long house.

My mind called it a long house, at least.

It reminded me of buildings I’d seen while growing up, when visiting my mother’s relatives at the Native American reservation in western Canada, along the coast between the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Alaska.

This building didn’t have totem poles carved out front, but it had those animals and tree shapes decorating the supporting beams, giving it a similar vibe.

When we walked inside, it also had paintings covering just about every square inch of the white-washed walls.

Black pointed those paintings out to me as soon as we entered, nudging me softly with his mind as he traced the shapes in firelight.

There were no windows, at least none visible, once we passed through the skin-like flaps leading into the rectangular, high-ceilinged lodge. The only light came from a series of fires running down the center of the room, the longest of which stood at the far end, and seemed to have a kind of sunroof––a hole in the ceiling––directly above it.

Most of the seers in the room stood in small clusters around that main fire, but I saw smaller groups, here and there, moving around and talking quietly.

The Pantheon, doc,Black told me, bringing my mind back to him. That’s what I was telling you about. That’s them.

I looked over at where he’d nudged my mind, staring up at the wash of beings and colors painted in the middle of one of the two longest walls.

An image of Earth––or an Earth, anyway––stood in the center.

I saw a likeness of Allie there, almost at once.

She stood above that blue-green earth, one bare foot painted to be balanced on top of it. The sheer detail in the image was breathtaking, as well as how much it looked like her. Painting-Allie wore an elaborate white gown with bare feet and arms. White and gold lightning came from her painted hands, and she looked both fierce and strangely peaceful, like all of that power was held easily in check, only to be used if needed.

Behind her, his form a dark slash against the blue-white brilliance of the painted sun, there was an image of what I imagined had to be Revik, her husband.

Like now, his hair was long in the painting, windswept, almost wild. His back stood to the painting’s audience as he held up a straight-edged sword, as if in defiance to the sun itself, or maybe in salute to it.

His light wound up and around and into the light of the Allie-image, creating a kind of light-bridge between them. It also created a bridge between that shockingly bright sun and the Earth.

My eyes washed over the rest of the painting, looking for more familiar shapes, more familiar people.

I didn’t see anyone else I knew.

I recognized a lot of what the images depicted, however.

It struck me as strange that so many animals from my version of Earth would be included on a mural here. The sheer number of them, and the details in every face, every limb, every paw and hand and foot, reminded me of Bosch paintings I’d seen in my one and only trip to Madrid, after college.

It wasn’t only the animals that seemed strangely out of place here, and more of our world than this one. Most of the images my eyes tracked could have come from the Earth where I was born.

“That’s Knight,” Black said softly, pointing out an image of a man on a horse, his long hair tied in a knot at the back of his head. With a lance in one hand and a sword at his side, he looked like an actual old-school knight from medieval times. I stared at the handsome face depicted there, the hazel eyes, the strangely human expression on his face.

“That’s Arrow,” Black added, pointing to another figure. “The Shield, of course, who is said to be the Arrow’s mate––”

“Where’s Dragon?” I blurted.

Black glanced around us.

Seeing that Allie and Revik were talking in low voices to a group of seers standing by the fire, he took my hand, bringing me closer to the wall.

“There,” he said, pointing as we got closer that segment of stone. “That’s Dragon.”

I stared at the green, dark blue and purple creature where it swam through the stars of space, its tail curled in a spiral below the image of the Earth. Fire came from its feet, lit up the ridges of its back, made its wings glow.

Fire came from its mouth in an elaborate, detailed plume.

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