Chapter 24

We were cleaning up from our picnic when an apparition of a man with a flowing beard and a fabulous crown and robes loomed in front of me. "Vilkatas, I am Dievas, chief of the gods of the Slavs. I have a problem I need help with, and Baba-Yaga has recommended you as being the ideal person to help me. Will you consider it?"

"Certainly, how can I help?"

"Yarilo, the god of sex, lust, and love (I think in that order), has gotten himself into trouble again. He has personally caused two too many pregnancies, and now has two women after him to marry them, but each woman wants an exclusive on him. I would be inclined to let them fight it out, using him as the weapon and the field of battle, but he has neglected his worshipers for too long as it is while he has run around taking his pleasure with any woman who caught his eye. The upshot is that the two women have to be mollified, and Yarilo has to be driven back to work."

"I don't see how I can be of much help, but I am dumb enough to try. Where will I find the women and Yarilo?"

"Both women are living in the same camp of nomadic sheep herders about 50 miles east of here. Yarilo is hiding, even from me, so I will have to hunt for him while you are dealing with the women."

"OK, I'll explain the problem to my clan and we'll leave for the nomads' camp as soon as we have our mess cleaned up."

The camp was easy to find, so I switched back to human form and drove our cart into camp, followed by the other carts. This did not cause any problem, because the nomads were used to seeing other people traveling across the countryside in this manner. I found the head man and asked for an audience at his convenience.

I explained why I was there, and he fell all over me with relief that someone else was going to assume the responsibility of dealing with these women. Children born out of wedlock were a fairly common thing for the nomads, so that was not the problem. The problem was the way the two women each insisted that she was the one whom Yarilo loved, so she was the one that he should marry. The two women often came to blows over this; they fought whenever they caught sight of each other, which was easy in a camp this size. The chief had actually assigned two burly men to be watchdogs for the women and to break up their fights before they got out of hand.

The two women, Isro and Merla, were pointed out to me, so I went to talk to Isro first. Neither woman was especially beautiful, but they weren't ugly either, just your average big busted, big hipped, stocky Slavic woman. I wondered why Yarilo happened to pick them over some beauties I saw walking around the camp, then it dawned on me that they might have picked him, instead. Well, I might find out.

Isro was a bit strident when I first explained why I was there. She could not see why she couldn't marry Yarilo, even if he was a god. She was the one he had screwed, both physically and metaphorically, so she was the one he should support. To hell with any other claimants! She said that she was to deliver in five months, and she wanted the matter settled before then.

Merla took exactly the same stance as Isro, and also expected to deliver in five months. I guess that was the advantage of being a god—you could fuck more than one woman at the same time! I could see that I was over my head with this problem and I needed some expert advice, so it went to my wives.

They sympathized with both women and asked the obvious question: if Yarilo could split himself to fuck two women at the same time, why couldn't he split himself to marry two women at the same time? Dammit, why didn't I think of that? I went back to Isro and Merla with that suggestion. Neither one was sure that she wanted that sort of relationship, but I explained that was the best they were going to get, if I could talk Deivas into going along. Eventually, both agreed, so I approached Deivas with the idea.

He roared with laughter when I presented him with the idea. He thought that this was wonderful and would serve Yarilo right for being so careless. He had managed to locate Yarilo hiding with some satyrs in Greece, so he was able to enforce the ruling. Deivas thanked me for the solution to the problem and asked me to express his thanks to my wives.

By the way, Isro and Merla had been masturbating and fantasizing about sex with Yarilo when they had originally caught his attention.

East or west, it made no real difference to us, so we continued to head east in our trip across the vast steppes. The weather had started to cool off, so we turned south to try to stay in the warmth, but that was only partially successful. I turned due south and put on as much speed as I could maintain. At about 190 MPH, I began to tear up the ground too much, so I slowed down to about 165 MPH. We moved along well at that speed and soon came to a range of mountains.

We found a nice clump of trees with a small spring, so that was as close to perfect as we could find for a stopping place. The weather was nice and warm, so we decided to sleep outside that night. We had settled in after our usual sexorcize sessions and were soon asleep. The new babies, Zylon, Elger's boy, and Mila, Orda's girl, were nursing happily as their mothers slept. After our experience with Herlo and Tarsy, we were careful not to give either of the infants reason to broadcast mentally a cry of distress or pain. This might wind up spoiling the two babies rotten, but it was a bit of self-preservation for all of the rest of us.

Suddenly, we were all jolted awake by a mental cry from both children. Herlo and Tarsy were the first to recover and see what was happening. It was difficult to see with only starlight as the light source, but they saw two humanoid figures snatch up the children and turn to run away with them.

Herlo and Tarsy shape-shifted into sheets of fury as they jumped onto the kidnappers. They wrapped the kidnappers in a blanket of living tissue and began to squeeze, but not so tightly that the two children were injured. The legs of the kidnappers were snagged so firmly that they were unable to run, and they immediately fell to the ground. The rest of us ran over and gently pulled the babies from the arms of the kidnappers, whereupon Tarsy and Herlo tightened their wraps enough to immobilize the kidnappers, completely. The kidnappers tried to bite their captors, but, of course, they were unable to do any damage.

Herlo and Tarsy assured us that they would be able to hold their captives quite well until daylight, so the rest of us went back to bed. It only took a few minutes for the babies to relax and fall back asleep, though the mothers had a bit more trouble. However, we were now certain that no one would ever be able to kidnap either Mila or Zylon without us immediately being aware of the deed.

Just before the sun came up, the two captives began to fight, trying to escape. However, no matter how much they struggled, they had no hope of escaping from Herlo and Tarsy. The captors were flabbergasted when, just as the sun became visible over the low mountains, the captives turned to dust and blew away in the light morning breeze.

None of the clan, including me, had an explanation for this strange event. I felt that this was significant enough to warrant talking to the Mentors, but the moon was out of sight at the moment. I would have to wait until later in the day. We packed up and left, this time riding the carts. I wanted to stop off at the first town we came to, and I was afraid that our usual mode of transportation, carrying the clan on my back, would frighten away the very people I wanted to talk to.

It was nearly noon before we found a town. It was not much of a place, just a couple of stores and a inn for the town businesses. However, there was a temple, so there must be at least one priest. Since it was almost time for it, anyway, we decided to stop at the inn for lunch.