Naga and Kore arrived just as Dema and Cern were leaving, so he got introduced.

"Did they see the antlers?" he whispered to Dema on the way to her Jeep.

"No. But of course they weren't expecting to."

"Good," he said, with a sigh of relief.

On the drive back to his place, he sat looking at Dema, and finally said, "It's amazing, but you, your sister, your mother, even your grandmother, you all look so much alike."

"It's part of the heritage. Apparently we are all practically clones of the original Lamia."

"You mean..."

"That's right. Culver women bear only daughters."

"And the Stewart line..."

"All male? Amazing. But that means..."

"I guess we'll just have to experiment and find out."

So they did. But it didn't go exactly according to plan. The intimacy sent them both into the shaman dream state, through the awareness of connections and the awareness of eternal being, into the deeper awareness that the present forever reflects the past. 

In this state, Dema was again transported to an ancient forest, but this time the stag-horned man she found there was Cern...

In the shaman dream, Dema knows she has wandered far, walking ever northward, away from the city-dwellers of the south with their cynical ways, away from the farmland villagers and their distrust of practitioners of the old lore, into the welcome of the great forests and tribal lands of the north, so similar to those of her ancestors.

Cern is aware of the woman who is approaching his domain. He senses her power and the respect she has for the woodlands she traverses. He leaves his tribal center and walks southward to greet her.

Dema feels the approach of the shaman who is guardian and protector of these wild lands. He emerges wordlessly from among the great oaks, naked to the waist but for a shiny bronze torc at his neck. Spreading above his head she sees a branching rack of antlers, as if he is himself one of the animals he protects, or one of the trees.

Cern sees the dark-haired woman who has come to join with him. He admires her easy stride and the boldness of her features. He offers her his hand, and she takes it. Her nut-brown skin matches his own.

The new couple walk back through the vast northern oak woodland, the peaceful domain of the stag-horned man. They stop in the midst of the most ancient grove, and consummate their spiritual relationship in the timeless tradition of all life. The creatures of the forest celebrate their union.

They arrive at the small encampment that houses his people, his tribe. The people smile when they see he has found a woman, and they sense the power in her. They see on him the antlers that speak of his connection to the land and its cycles of life and death, and they see in her an aura of ancient wisdom and the healing power of the snake.

Dema woke with her head nestled against Cern's shoulder. Dawnlight was seeping in through the window, and she sat up to look at him. He was sleeping peacefully. The torc was still there on his neck, but the stag horns were gone. And the torc was no longer tarnished and worn thin, but shiny and strong looking, its runic markings boldly visible. It had been renewed. Dema knew by these things that Cern had risen to the fourth level of his shaman awareness and power.