Chosen of the Santa Veronika

The dragon and the human reached the sparkling ripples that defined the ford across the Santa Veronika’s laughing waters. Indeed, Eppy felt stronger, drawing strength from the dragon’s fire and power. In spirit and mind he was clear as the brilliant sky above, infused with a clarity unknown before in his short life. However, he was still a human form, wounded, dehydrated and physically spent.

Dræco spoke: “Little brother, drink first, fill your belly. Then I will speak to our beloved sister. She makes her home here. She and I will hasten your healing. This is ancient magik, uncluttered, unsoiled by him who we do not name."

Eppy lifted his arm free of the dragon’s neck. The long upper muscles racked tight, stiff. He felt cold migrating from his blackened fingertips, down bone and sinew, seeking his core. It was grave cold, slow and insistent. The tracker knew he was acutely dehydrated and would go into shock without water and warmth. He knew that the sun was still high enough to throw some heat, here in late October. Alone, he stumbled downstream toward a gentle sided wide pool at the foot of the ford. There was lay a shallow depression partially cut into the living rock by the Santa Veronika’s raging spring run-off, grinding away against the soft sandstone. The Adonii Clan engineers had added their own thought and structure, creating a clean water trap for man and stock. Eppy’s instinct drove him. He desperately needed to hydrate his tortured body.

Dræco eyed the human as he stumbled, listing side to side like a sailor too long at sea, unable to regain his land legs. If a dragon could show compassion, there was compassion deep in the red beast’s dark yellow eyes as he watched his little changeling brother.

The dragon turned his massive body upstream, stepped gently into the upper reaches of the shallow ford and bent his great head low until his heavy chin barely touched the racing water. Dræco drank in a long, slow and deep breath. He began to sing. His voice thrummed deep and resonant in what we humans might think a sing-song. It was subtle, slow and deliberate. The dragon’s mantra rose from the waters, rang off the hills and echoed wall to wall in the vale. Rock doves rose with the echoes and carried them high across the sun washed craigs and deep, into dark canyons above; speaking the power manifest in Cĕdro Park.

Upstream from the chanting dragon a steep vertical knife blade of schist and basalt cut across the river’s path. The stone gathered the Santa Veronika’s waters and dumped them over a short, vertical fall. Below, the splashing water gathered in a deep basin, darkened by massive twin spruce arching over the pool, like giant cathedral towers. Interwoven ilex, alder and willow brush limbs drew together defining a hidden hall over the pool. As the dragon’s song grew in complex intensity, a shimmering form, barely visible at first, slowly rose from the pool. Silky and flickering silver green, a distinctly sumptuous female form coalesced and began a sinuous dance in rhythm with the dragon’s song.

There danced Santa Veronika herself, called by the dragon, rising from her deep water home in answer to Dræco’s passioned call for help. She would minister to the tracker, to Eppy. She knew him well, his life and history and loved him well from the first day, as a giggling, summer boy child, he had played in the twisting skirts of her shallow ford under the watchful eye of his mother. Veronika’s form grew as solid as focused thought. Her deep green eyes flashed like liquid malachite. As she watched the dragon and dehydrated human, her undulating form shimmered full of water that poured in constant, shifting colors, reflecting the westering sunlight. Autumn wet leaves and moss wove in a wreath with plaited black hair, an oval framing her wide and deep, ever-changing countenance. Tiny Brook Trout, bright in spawning colors, danced in a woven necklace that fell deep between the flow and swell of her full breasts. When she moved, she didn’t walk, she didn’t swim. She drifted in a dance that could at once mesmerize and delight, or, quick as thought, rise up in power and destroy.

“What is this? Who calls me to rise in these bright Autumn aires? Veronika’s voice rippled; at once soft and watery laughter, it held a cold and fierce ice knife edge. Dræco lifted his wide head, slowly shook it side to side. He chuckled.
Twisted, woven steam chuffed from his dripping jowls and rose into the deepening western sun. “Svelt sister, you know me. I know you and your dark green eyes.” Dræco laughed again. His own eyes, cat wise, swelled bright, full of memory. Then quickly his vision snapped back, sharp and fully present. “The changeling, we must look to his health, sister.”

Nikolas Eponymous lay on his belly, nestled in a smooth, water worn trough of cool, damp stone. His outstretched arms, pinned like piers in the slow twist of water, held his upper body just above the flow. In a slow rhythmic cycle he first buried his face in the Santa Veronika’s flinty waters, drinking long, full draughts, then raising his head high, arching over his back, he drank deep the cooling afternoon air. It didn’t matter that he was growing chilled. His body reveled in the fresh water and air flowing, restoring power, focus. Not only did Eppy feel his strength return, he felt the strong resolve of the Adonii blood pulsing through his veins. This was his river, just as he belonged to her.

The human quietly chuckled out loud. While he tended his dehyadrated, wounded body, his mind wandered down the halls of family memory.

“Dragon’s indeed! Grandfather would have been non-plussed and grandmother would have been pleased, no, delighted to have proved her stuffy, old curmudgeonly husband wrong. What a sight that would have made.” Eppy laughed again, softly and strong. In the back of his mind he listened to the dragon’s song, paying no heed to it or what it had accomplished. He did stop his reveling when the all-pervasive sing-song turned silent in the brilliant late afternoon. He looked upstream to see what next would happen. Eppy gasped. All his newly regained strength failed him. He choked in mid breath and nearly fainted as his young eyes fell upon the flickering form of Santa Veronika rising in response to Dræco’s song.

Nikolas knew her. All of his conscious life, his dreams and visions had been filled with her flowing presence, persistent and powerful. Her shadow had spoken with him, her voice nurtured him. Now, on this auspicious day when Eppy first found dragons to be true, this came to pass. Veronika was real, alive. And he wept.

Thrice in an instant, oh beloved, a serendipitous dance exploded thus:

The wind changed, flowing swift and cool out of the north. The sun’s dazzling, low raking light spilled into Cĕdro park through a wide break between high peaks in the upper canyon and a glorious song rose like twisting incense into the bright Autumn aires.

Nikolas Eponymous burst into joyous tears, wailing the long and rising pulse of the Adonii anthem. Dragon Red and River Nymph joined the human in deep, rhythmic harmony. High above in the deepening sky, two falcon voices screamed, high and lonesome while the strident, repetitive coarse croak of a raven echoed one word:

“…ADONII…!”

Then, oh beloved, the haunting, hoarse wail of the thrice forbidden pipes joined in song as the upright form of the Elder of elders, head of the Clan Adonii, rose into the far North saddle between the sparkling quartz spires. The Clan’s best and brightest spread out in an arc around the Elder and those who served him, voices and pipes joining the refrain. Glistening spearheads danced a dazzling dance in the low sun. Human voices rose in harmonious clamor with Red Dragon, River Nymph and the wounded human changeling, wet and cold, yet filled with the Father of Father’s joy unbounded. High above in the deepening sunset air, hawk and eagle, raven and falcon voices echoed in wild born refrain.

Pipes and voices; joyous dragon, nymph and human; wondrous and wild the call of creation; bird and air, trout and water, stag and land…Oh, beloved, the song of creation there in Cĕdro Park rose high into the heavens. Intertwined voices rose like clear incense, sweet and unsullied.

Listen oh beloved:

Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…great and glorious creator God,
Father and Mother, wood and vale, fire and air, hear our song.
Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…great and glorious creator God,
Brother and Sister, peak and plain, water and earth hear our song.
Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…great and glorious creator God,
Beloved lover of all creation, hearken to the voices of your beloved.

…ADONII!

Oh beloved God, creator and lover to all who exist on this broken sphere,
You who know each broken heart and wicked mind that cries out to you,
You who weep at each unseemly death and rejoice in the redemption of one,
You who call each of us to choose ‘tween you and the empty darkness;
You who call all creation to choose ‘tween your full breast and death;
You who call us with patience and quiet judgment to choose…SPEAK!
“Choose oh beloved, ‘tween the tempting world and my broken Son.”

…ADONII!

Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…humbled and broken creator God,
Lost father and broken mother weeping on bloody streets, hear our song.
Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…humbled and broken creator God,
Raging brother, wicked painted sister wretched on mean streets, hear our song.
Adonii…Adonii…Adonii…humbled and broken creator God,
Empty souls cry out to you, weary of the world’s wrecked and wretched songs.

…ADONII!

Oh beloved God, creator and lover to all who exist on this broken sphere,
You who know each broken heart and wicked mind that cries out to you,
You who weep at each unseemly death and rejoice in the redemption of one,
You who call each of us to choose ‘tween you and the empty darkness;
You who call all creation to choose ‘tween your full breast and death;
You who call us with patience and quiet judgment to choose…SING!
“Choose oh beloved, ‘tween the tempting world and my broken Son.”

…ADONII!

Then, as the sun turned behind the sharp, dark violet mountain teeth, it’s light reflected red and gold shimmering on the high clouds, pouring a soft and subtle light into the park. There silence reigned. No breath of air, nor bird, nor animal, nor thought of man remained. Only the gentle voice of the river murmured in the quickening sunset. The elder of elders slowly raised his carven staff into the last rays of the sun. The lingering light caught one last ray and spread a soft rainbow over the depths of the Adonii Keep and all of Cĕdro Park.

The Great Creator’s quiet reigned, the quiet of the dawn before creation rested in every heart as darkness crept up the canyon, hush and soft. Only a shimmering, northern light and breath of wind stirred with the river’s subdued voice.