Chapter Seven -- The Initiate
Babáckt Yaga and her followers walked in silence throughout most of the morning. At the beginning there were only three companions, two young men and a middle-aged woman. Eventually they were joined by a young couple armed with longbows and carrying four dead hares and a sack of roots. Another older man later joined the group, lugging several fish.
All of Babáckt Yaga's companions were dressed alike. The women wore black, long-sleeved dresses with dark red aprons, while the men wore black robes. The women's aprons and the men's robes were embroidered with a red skull. Everyone carried a real skull mounted on a long staff. Even in daylight, the group had a very sinister appearance.
Danka nervously followed the others, very self-conscious about being the only naked person in the group and not wearing a Church collar to give legitimacy to her nudity. She continued to be scared, traveling with the strange group and unsure if Babáckt Yaga really was planning to spare her life. However, she had no choice but to follow. She knew that she could never hope to escape from a group of people who undoubtedly knew the woods as well as they knew the insides of their homes. Also, even if she had been presented with the choice, Danka really did not have much desire to escape. Mentally and spiritually, she was exhausted from the traumatic events of the past two weeks. The more she thought over her situation, the more she realized that she had nowhere to go. Even if she could return to Sevérckt nad Gorádki, what would she do there? The first thing people would ask her was what had happened to her master Bagatúrckt. The thought crossed her mind that, if the horses had been re-captured, she might already be considered a fugitive.
The group traveled along the main trail for a while, heading back in the direction towards Sevérckt nad Gorádki, before turning onto a side path that led north. As soon as the alchemists were out of sight from the main trail, they stripped off their clothing, consolidated everything into a cloth bag, and handed it to Danka to carry. As they ascended into increasingly steep terrain, the naked alchemists made frequent stops to collect berries, herbs, and roots, which they carried in sacks that grew heavier as the morning wore on.
At midday the terrain flattened out and the group emerged into a cleared area. There were several well-kept gardens surrounding the strangest house Danka had ever seen. The structure was round instead of square, but what made it truly bizarre was that it was four fathoms above the ground, perched on top of three large tree trunks. The roots of the trees extended above the ground, reminding Danka of enormous birds' feet. Suddenly Danka remembered...as a child she had heard stories...of a witch who lived in a house in the forest that stood on huge chicken feet.
Babáckt Yaga did not give the newcomer a chance to rest. She collected the hares and fish from her followers and ordered the captive to accompany her to an open shed that contained a kiln and an outdoor kitchen. Danka was perplexed that she did not see any firewood: instead she noticed a large pile of black rocks. Babáckt Yaga directed her attention to a stone table.
"Very well, 'bloody one', I wish to see for myself if your Temple nickname was justified. Clean these animals so we may eat."
Danka expertly skinned and gutted the hares before preparing the fish. Babáckt Yaga carefully observed the newcomer and seemed satisfied that Danka had told her the truth, at least as far as handling meat was concerned. The next detail the alchemist wanted to know was how well Danka could cook. Babáckt Yaga called over one of her female followers and ordered her to start cooking, with the newcomer to assist. She ordered the captive to assist the woman normally assigned to prepare meals. The cook questioned her and figured out that Danka knew some recipes and seasoning techniques that were unique to the Danubian Church, thus verifying another portion of the newcomer's claims.
The cook ordered Danka to pick up some of the black rocks and move them to the stove. The rocks were unlike anything she had ever seen: heavy, totally black, and powdery. The cook then shocked her assistant by throwing the rocks into the oven and setting them on fire.
"A secret of the Ancients. We call it cave-charcoal. It's special charcoal the Creator placed in the ground for us, and it burns much better than anything we'd get from trees. When the winter darkness descends upon us and the cold blows off the mountains, you will give thanks many times over to the Creator for this present we have taken from the ground."
Hearing those words helped calm Danka's nerves, not because cave-charcoal was going to keep her warm over the winter, but because the cook apparently took it for granted she would be with the group (and thus still alive) at the end of the year.
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While her captive was busy with dinner, Babáckt Yaga sadly spread the mushrooms on a drying rack to make sure they were completely dry. Later she would take other measures to ensure they would be preserved indefinitely, until she needed them for medicines and potions. Given the scarcity of the species, the supply was enormous, but it also represented the destruction of a large percentage of the world's remaining living specimens. Babáckt Yaga's only consolation was that at least she recovered the mushrooms and had them for her own use; that they had not been taken to Vienna. However, they were irreplaceable. There would be no new mushrooms sprouting up the following year to replace the ones that accursed fortune-seeker had destroyed.
A purse of gold...how absurd...a purse of gold...if only that ignorant dilettante had known... "the Joy of the Ancients" was worth far more than any amount of gold.
Even though he was dead, anger against Bagatúrckt and his loathsome pseudo-scientific friends in Vienna welled up inside the alchemist.
A purse of gold indeed...
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Danka did not have her midday meal with the others. She was not yet an accepted member of the group and thus did not have permission to share their table. She ate alone, sitting at the base of one of the trees that held up that strange suspended house Babáckt Yaga called home. She noted the drying mushrooms and wondered about her bucket. She had seen the alchemist taking it up into the house with Bagatúrckt's items, so presumably it was still there.
After the midday meal, three followers stayed behind to clean up, while the others departed the compound. (Later Danka would learn that Babáckt Yaga had planted rare herbs and fungi all around the area surrounding the settlement, and it was up to her followers to check on the plants to make sure they were healthy until it was time to harvest their ingredients.) The compound was completely empty, apart from three people in the kitchen area. Babáckt Yaga approached the newcomer and ordered her to follow her inside the raised house. She pulled a rope and a ladder came down automatically.
The interior of the building was very carefully laid out, to take advantage of every bit of space and still provide a comfortable work and research area. The furnishings were simple, but were made from fine materials and expertly crafted. One wall was completely covered by bookshelves filled with books written in various western European languages. Another wall was completely covered by shelves containing jars and expensive-looking vases full of alchemy ingredients. There was a writing desk and a table filled with very strange-looking glassware. There were assorted storage trunks. Babáckt Yaga directed Danka's attention to neatly folded stacks of black and dark red linen.
"You will take one red cloth and one black cloth. Your first duty to me will be to prepare a dress for yourself. In the forest we live uncovered, as we have been created. Among the non-believers we show ourselves in the cloth of our forbearers."
