A yellow butterfly, last of its kind, dying in the summer sun on a strip of asphalt.

Dead buffalo lying skinned in their thousands.

Dead men and dead women, skins bronze and coppery red, lying dead and mutilated across fields of snow and grassy meadows.

A coyote with its rotting foot caught in a trap like a shark’s jaw.

And last, the world she has just left, humans slaughtered by the tens and hundreds of thousands, corpses left frozen in the snow or rotting in the heat of a tropical beach, scavenged by gulls.

And suddenly she finds herself once again on the surface of the world, in the forest now lit by a full moon. The cold does not touch her nakedness, nor the wind burn her skin. Before her stands a woman clothed in fringed buckskin worked with porcupine quills in the shape of a hummingbird across her breast, bands of turquoise and white shell circling her neck and wrists. Her long black hair drifts on the air, framing a face that is old an wrinkled and wise beyond knowing in one instant, young radiantly beautiful the next.

Kirsten folds down on her bare knees before her, wailing soundlessly. What must I do, Mother? It is too much, too much!

Of course it is too much, my daughter, the woman answers. Too much and too long. Yet you will not be alone.

I have Asi.

Him, too. The woman smiles. But not only him. See, and remember when the time is right.

The woman vanishes, and in her place stands the wolf of her dream. Its fur gleams white as the snow it stands in, and its eyes are blue flecked with gold like lapis. Above it circles a red-tailed hawk. Its hunting cry rises into the night and is answered from a half-dozen other circling shapes above. Moonlight glints off their wings like silver.

For time uncounted, Kirsten kneels in the snow looking into the wolf’s blue eyes. It regards her with a cool and level interest, nothing of hostility in it, nor of warmth either. Then it turns and trots into the thicket, followed by the cry of the hawk and the strange birds swarming above them.

And without warning, Kirsten finds herself slamming back into her body with a force that should kill her outright but somehow does not. Her sleeping form jerks once where it lies; Asimov rouses slightly with a grunt and a sound that is not quite a bark. Then he turns and lays his great head on his paws, dreaming peacefully. After that, there is only the dark and the slow, steady beat of her own heart.

5

She sleeps.

And as she sleeps, she dreams.

She is standing in a pure white vista, cold and sharp as the edge of an obsidian knife. Gone are the houses, the trees and the mountains. Gone are the animals of land and sky. The white is everything, and everywhere. Nothing and nowhere. It is the alpha, and the omega.

The bitter wind is a constant shriek, like the souls of the damned in a Hell that really has frozen over.

The tone of the shriek changes, melding, as it will in dreams, into a cry she knows well. Looking up into the vast white sky, she watches, smiling, as a dot on the horizon grows larger and larger still until it is directly overhead, gliding on the currents of the icy air.

Their eyes meet, two wild souls bound by mutual trust and respect, and with no effort at all, Koda is swept up and welcomed into the body of Cetan Tate, an old and cherished friend.

The wind is not so biting now, buffeted as it is by down and feathers. Her vision is sharpened; crisp, like a winter morning after a long spell of snow. As she flies, the mountains thrust up out of the ground, granite giants rising from their winter dens. Trees spring up and gather into communes of forestland, their tips swaying and nodding in the constant wind, speaking to each other in a language as old as time.

Recognizing the landmarks, she knows they are headed north. Land passes beneath them with incredible, heart stopping speed. Mountains rise up and fall away, at times close enough to touch, at others, seeming only a dim memory of a murky past. Forests blend, separate, change, making fanciful patterns in the virgin snow, like clouds marching slowly by on a fine summer day.

After a seeming joyful eternity, Cetan Tate circles once, a wide, looping arc, and gives a piercing cry. When Koda looks down, she recognizes the place beneath immediately. With a silent thank you to her cherished friend, she closes her eyes, and feels a sense of quiet displacement. The feeling is not one of pain, as such, but rather a sorrowful emptiness.

Till we meet again, old friend.

With another cry, the hawk is gone, winging toward the east and a rising sun.

Koda is falling.

When she lands, she knows without looking that she has assumed the form of her dream spirit.

Shugmanitu thanka.

The wolf.

She pads through the snow, a silent shadow. She takes in the beauty and stillness around her, allowing it to calm a soul far too weary for far too long. This dreaming place gives her comfort, and she soaks it up greedily, storing it deep within against the horror that has become her waking reality.

A rock altar comes gradually into view, and she sits on her haunches, waiting for the One she knows has drawn her here.

She feels it then; a warm, comforting sensation that reminds her of childhood and being wrapped by her mother in a woven woolen blanket, warm and safe and very much loved.

The Wise One appears before the stone slab and places a gnarled hand on Koda’s broad head, giving her a fond scratch behind the ears. Koda lowers her eyes in respect. The old woman laughs and tips Koda’s jaw up, and their eyes meet, shining.

Mahka Ina.

Welcome, my child.

As she sees the slow tears wending their way down a much-seamed face, Koda pushes her strong body against the Crone, offering her strength and support as best she can.

Mother, why do you weep?

An abomination has come into my home. My children lie dead in their cradles. If I do not weep, I will destroy the world with my wrath.

What must I do, Mother? How can I help?

Mahka Ina smiles fondly through her tears.

You are precious to me, blessed daughter. So fierce, and so giving. You are my joy. Her countenance sobers. There is one who must be shown the way. She has great knowledge, and with it, great power.

Where is she, Mother? Who is she?

She is running, child. Hunted like prey, by kin and non alike. She seeks answers to the North. You will need to find and protect her. She is the key.

The key to what?

Salvation.

There is a pause as Koda drinks this in. She shakes her great, shaggy head, then meets the Mother’s eyes straight on.

How will I know her?

I have summoned her here. Watch, and see.

With an almost human nod, Koda turns and trots into the woods, silent as a shadow. Once sufficiently hidden, she turns and watches.

She notices first the face and form of the young woman, surely too young and too frail to bear the heavy weight thrust upon her. Hearing gentle laughter in her mind, she chides herself for too-quick assumptions.

The sigils on the woman’s face and hands glow with the touch of the Mother. Koda is intrigued. And when the young woman falls to her knees with a cry of anguish so heart rending that the very forest seems to pause in tribute, Koda is drawn forward as if an unseen tie binds her to the woman whose grief seems to fill the world to the sky and beyond.

Their eyes meet and lock and hold. Neither notices when Mahka Ina fades from view. The woman’s gaze holds a look that Koda knows well, having seen it in the mirror every morning since the androids seized power.

Hollow. Frightened. Suddenly old beyond telling, as if she stares into eternity. There is a naked vulnerability there, which Koda can’t help but respond to. And yet, if she looks deep enough, she can see a core of steel, a tensile strength not noticed on first glance. Will it be enough? Will it allow her to continue her journey alone until Koda can join her?

I will find you.

Have those eyes, green as the new leaves of spring, brightened just a bit? Has she heard the vow?

As she breaks eye contact and trots back into the forest, Dakota can only hope she has.

I will find you.

I will protect you.

You are not alone.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I hear that voice again. It sings me to sleep. A journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.”

1

KODA COMES TO full wakefulness quickly and silently. Her dream remains with her even as her body and mind awaken to reality. She smiles as she feels the compact body in her arms, melded against and atop her like a second skin. Reaching up, she strokes the thick, soft black hair, chuckling inwardly as the woman in her arms purrs very much like a cat while trying to burrow further into her embrace, still fast asleep.

After another moment, Dakota slips out from beneath the Air Force colonel and makes her way, still unclothed, to the small, polarized window. The night beyond is crisp, clear, and unremittingly cold. As she peers off to the north, now knowing her destination, she thinks back on the past two days.

As the remains of the military caravan limped toward the base like an injured snake, it was held up by a long line of soldiers armed to the teeth. Koda could hear, via the open mic, the orders of those soldiers, demanding that everyone step out of their vehicles to verify that they were human.

Up to her elbows in a downed airman’s chest cavity, Dakota, of course, refused. When the gun’s muzzle came into view, it was only Manny’s fast reflexes, which had been courted by colleges across the country, and a few Major League teams as well, that saved her from being splattered like an ink blot all over the truck’s interior.