"Just beyond the turn," Meg told him excitedly. "I know every inch of this country, Daiv. When I was young, and studying under the Mother to become a Priestess of the Clan, I used to ride out here to seek solitude and the guidance of the Gods. Just beyond the turn there is forest and a small stream. This is an ancient land, my lover; the trees are mighty and strong. But--" Her eyes found his adoringly. "But not so mighty and strong as you." Daiv said, "Now, Golden One!" reprovingly, but Meg felt happy-crinkles in her heart as she saw the way he drew back his shoulders to lead the way into the forest. She did not mount Nessa again, but walked behind Daiv, leading the tamed and captive doe by its bridle. * * * * * Nessa had been Daiv's gift to her, a mount to take the place of the horse Meg had lost on her way to the Place of the Gods when the Wild One had attacked her. "A wedding gift," Daiv had called it--which did not make sense. But, then, Daiv was always saying strange things. That was, Meg thought, a trifle awefully, because he came from Kirki, which was a holy place far to the southland, near the Land of the Escape. His tribespeople were direct descendants of those Ancient Ones who, long ages ago, had fled from Earth to the evening star in the bowels of a metal bird that spat fire.[1] [Footnote 1: In the 20th Century a tiny group of scientists, laboring under the direction of Dr. Frazier Wrenn, escaped the holocaust of war that bathed civilization by fleeing to the planet Venus in the first spaceship. Their rocketdrome was in the desertlands of Arizona. (_"The Fugitives from Earth," Amazing Stories, December, 1939._)--Ed.] Daiv's skill had captured Nessa, wild woodland doe, but Meg's gentleness had tamed her. She had borne Meg across all these foreign territories; through Braska and Zurrie, to the blue-shining fields of Tucky; now, at last, back to Meg's beloved Jinnia. It had been a long journey and a strange one. Many things had Meg seen; curiosities that would thrill the Women of her Clan to startled, "Aiees!" of astonishment when she told of them. She had seen the long, straight roads built by the Ancient Ones; their smooth _creet_ now cracked and worn but still easier to travel than the tortuous woodland paths. She had seen the remnants of a gigantic _hoam_ called Sinnaty, where once had lived a great folk called "the Reds." She and Daiv had lingered for three days with the tribeswomen of Loovil (whose Mother knew the Mother of Meg's Clan, and had sent greetings and gifts of ripe, fragrant bacca); there had they seen an antique statue of a horse-god named Manowah. They had even--Meg thrilled at the recollection--slept in one of the traditional oaken _hoams_ peculiar to the Tucky folk; dwellings immortalized in the Tucky tribal song, "--sing one song of my oaken Tucky _hoam_--"