November in Yerevan

November in Yerevan

by Eileen

The stairs outside the Matendaran are the highest the girl in the white headscarf has ever climbed, and she's been up and down the four thousand, four hundred and forty-four steps at Lysefjorden above the sea and communed with the emerald doves of Chand Baori.

Neither altitude nor number makes them so tall. It's the nuclear fire at her back and the unforgiving man standing in Mkhitar Gosh's shadow at her front, but Tyr sees the terror in her eyes. Lets her pass.

When she finds their god-king, Munin alights as she has been taught and, weeping, tells him everything.