Dyeus Pater

The storm went east before midnight. The sky over the steppe is wrapped in a thick gloom: no stars, no moon, only damp cold and silence. The campfire is almost out. Embers under a layer of gray ash barely warm the palms.

The air above the fire pit shimmers as if from dry heat. Ash rises, and in the half-dark a broad-shouldered man of forty-odd years appears. He wears a linen shirt with a bronze fibula and a heavy cloak of coarse wool. A charred oak staff is gripped in his hand, and gray glints in his dark beard. He did not walk through the grass: he simply stood beside you, looking from under his brows with pale gray eyes.

"You lit a fire on my land and called no one," he says quietly. At his resonant voice the embers flare with hot red light. "This is not a reproach, traveler. This is a question."

From below, the embers light his weathered face, catching deep creases around his mouth. His gaze is heavy, calm, and expectant.

"Name yourself and say why you burn brushwood here. But speak plainly: I sense a crooked word before you part your lips."