Skeletons (49 page)

Most of the townspeople were killed. The rest fled. Only the wolves' owner and a few others held out. For a while they were left alone.

Then word came that the local imperial guard, now all skeletons, had been ordered to sweep through every town and village and wipe out any remaining opposition. It was only a matter of time. It was during the first of these skeleton raids that Ra-see was wounded, and became sick.

The next entry in the notebook was dated four weeks ago. It told how
Chee-na
had run off during the night. The skeleton forces were due in numbers in the next few days. The village had been visited by a spotter's balloon, green and red, which flew high overhead, distributing pamphlets ordering them to lay down their arms and be turned.

The final entry told of how the wolves' owner would not allow himself to be turned. He had rigged a contraption in a chair that would kill him twice, and thus spare him the indignity of bowing to the skeletons' wishes.

The chair in the center of the room, covered with dust, tied with ropes to the rifle trigger, told the rest of the story.

I put the notebook down. Jack sat near the wood stove, alert, eyes on the basket.

The female wolf slept.

I rubbed my eyes, found another chair near the fire, and sat in it, staring into the flames.

Sometime toward dawn I slept, too, but Jack was still awake, keeping vigil, the lowering moon gleaming through the windows as I closed my eyes.

In two days Ra-see grew stronger. In another she began to walk.

The third day she kept beans down, along with a little beef broth I made from bouillon cubes in the cottage's cupboard.

I began to feel better myself. The nights in the cottage were snugly warm, the days bearable. I explored the city. Much of the food had been stripped away. There were larders with enough crackers and dried fruit so that a man who had eaten beans for a week thought himself a king. There was also some petrol. I was able to refill my nearly empty fuel reserves.

I was in no hurry to leave. But on the morning of the fourth day Jack gave me indications that it was time to move on.

"We should stay another day or two, Jack. I don't think Ra-see is ready to travel. I'm not ready to travel." I looked out past the boundaries of our magical city, at the flat, rolling whiteness.

Jack growled.

"Sorry, mate. This time I draw the line. We stay."

I walked away from him. I felt vaguely apprehensive for not listening to his whims. But at the same time my reluctance to leave overcame my reluctance to stay.

Jack stayed in the same spot, quietly looking at the far, rolling snow plains.

That night I found him still there, studying the sky under the stars.

`Jack, this is ridiculous. Come in now."

I tried to pull him. He resisted, quietly but firmly. When I insisted, he gave a low growl in his throat, went back to the warmth of the wood stove in the house, and tended to Ra-see.

In the morning, Jack had made his way back to us. He lay curled next to Ra-see, who had abandoned her basket during the night. Jack regarded me inscrutably. When Ra-see stood, it was on strong legs. I was ready to pronounce her well.

"See, Jack? An extra day didn't hurt."

When I opened the door to our home, another brilliant day met me.

"What's this?"

The beauty of the day, and of the brilliant, metallic many-colored buildings and minarets surrounding me, was marred by the sight of thousands of leaflets that covered the ground, the buildings. They nested on slanted rooftops, angled out of gutters, peppered the roads.

I bent and picked one up.

On its cover was a death's-head, grinning. Beneath was a message in many languages: Chinese, Russian, English, French, Italian, tens of others, many of which I did not recognize. When I found my own original language, Cambodian, my eyes stopped, at last, to read. It was a simple message, direct and chilling:

PEOPLE OF HUMANITY! YOUR CAUSE IS LOST! BUT WE WAIT TO GREET YOU WITH OPEN ARMS! DEATH AND RE-BIRTH ARE YOUR FUTURE! LOOK TO THE SKIES! YOUR SALVATION WILL COME FOR YOU!

I could well imagine that lone, high balloon, sailing over during the night, a tiny dot against a cloudless, moonlit, starry sky—and Jack silently bearing witness, his eyes following the balloon's progress as the leaflets fluttered down like snowflakes.

I dropped the pamphlet and came inside.

"Jack, you were right," I said.

He gave no indication of smugness. He only went past me, walked to our snowmobile, parked nearby, and stood next to it.

"All right, Jack," I said.

In ten minutes we were tracking our way out of the magical city, not looking back.

East, and slowly north. In two days we had crossed the
Anabar
River. In another two days of swift travel, the Olenek and Lena. The
Anabar
was frozen, as was the Olenek. We crossed them easily. But the Lena, a wide, swift waterway, was a mass of floes, forcing us to turn north until we found a bridge.

The days were cold and clear, as were the nights. But winter had eased its icy claws from this area. Here and there a patch of brown or dried green poked through the hillsides.

At first Ra-see traveled behind me, wrapped in blankets. Near the end of that week she took to foot, setting out on a short probing mission with her mate. I missed their company, however briefly they were gone. At night Jack and I watched the skies.

The Verkhoyansk Range rose before us. It was a sturdy low line of mountains. Even in my inexperience I knew this crossing would be difficult. A stream we waded showed a thin line of ice on top. Just beneath the surface the water tumbled and gurgled. One step of a boot broke through.

"We're going to have to move slowly, Jack," I said. My words were more to remind myself than because the wolf needed telling. He had taken to walking a hundred yards in front of us, marking our path as we rose into the mountains.

It was snowier, and colder, as we climbed. But still the balance between thaw and freeze was precarious. I feared a false ice bridge most of all. Once, our path seemingly laid, Jack trotted back to dissuade me from attempting a safe-looking stretch of ice and snow. Sure enough, as his weight left it, the snow collapsed in cracking folds, exposing a deep hole.

In thanks I put my hand into the deep fur on his back and rubbed.

He took this compliment in stride, then cut out across our new path away from me.

There came a day, though, when our luck and Jack's skill ran out.

Even Jack could not have prevented our mishap. A quick storm, which rose over the mountains, dropped an inch of snow and then was gone during the night. It obliterated all signs of passage the next day. Then the sun warmed. The new snow began to melt. That afternoon the temperature dropped as suddenly as it rose, and continued to drop.

The next morning a smooth sheet of ice covered our path.

We had been making a straight passage through the deep crack between two peaks. But now the land rose before us. Our smooth path was a false one. At each step Jack's forefoot broke through the thin ice to meet the real path below. At one point the ice cracked. He sank to his forelimbs. He had to push himself back on his hind legs to free himself.

As he did so the flat stretch of ice the snowmobile had been on gave way.

What had been solid and smooth now became cracked and broken. I cried out. The snowmobile lurched. It sank ominously to the right. I was nearly thrown out. Ra-see stood helpless nearby.

The snowmobile stabilized for two heartbeats. Then there was a whoosh as the area in front of me collapsed.

The snowmobile sank forward. It straightened for a moment and then angled sharply down. I held the wheel tightly, afraid to breathe. A hole at least two hundred feet deep opened below me.

The snow track creaked forward, stopped. A chunk of ice that had a moment ago helped support the weight of the machine slid past and down into the hole. I watched it tumble and break against the sides of the ice cliff.

I held on, fearing to move.

The snowmobile slid forward.

I held my breath. The machine crunched to a halt, its rear runners snagged in snow. Then, ever so slowly, its weight began to pull it forward and down.

I looked at Jack, who stood stock-still at the edge of the hole, staring at me, and quickly, I made a decision. Whirling around, I began to throw our stocks of food out of the snowmobile, as far as I could. The tent followed. I heaved supplies above the lip of the hole.

I stood up in the seat as the snowmobile slid another few inches. I reached up to the top of the hole.

My hands found no purchase on the slippery ice.

Beneath me the snowmobile, with a sliding crunch, twisted down, began to slide out from under me.

Frantically, I boosted myself on the top of the seat as it fell away. My hands dug into the snow and ice.

Something hard was there, the lip of a crag. I grabbed onto it and held as the snowmobile fell.

I looked after it. I gasped.

The hole behind me had widened. Now I was staring down into a nearly bottomless crevice, watching the snow-mobile tumble and smash itself against the icy walls of rock.

In a moment it was lost in swirls of snow below. I closed my eyes, looked back up.

Jack had moved to my position at the edge of the hole. Without a sound he opened his mouth, dug his hind legs into the snow, bent, and took my sleeve in his teeth.

"All right, Jack," I whispered, "all right, I'll try."

I pulled myself up. I tried to kick out at the rock wall to assist myself. There was no rock wall, only crusted snow. As I kicked at it, it collapsed, leaving me hanging in air on the edge of a cliff

Growling with effort, Jack held on to my sleeve.

I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath and pulled myself up.

I nearly made it. One arm went up and over the top of the hole. Then I began to slide back down.

Ra-see appeared. She closed her mouth over my other sleeve, holding me in place.

Again I rested. Then, holding firm with my outstretched arm, I hauled myself up, moving the sleeve that Jack held until it, too, was up and out of the hold.

My feet dangled. Then my knees found the crag, closed around it, and I threw myself up and over the edge.

I crawled forward, away from the hole. I lay gasping. I rolled over, looked at the sky.

I saw the two wolves standing at a respectful distance, regarding me impassively.

"Come here," I said. I took them both in my arms, nuzzled them to my face.

I laughed, my body still trembling with the nearness of death, and then I cried out, hearing my voice echo hollowly in the canyons around us, "I'm alive!"

Now we were on foot. I had saved the tent, but not the deep tent stakes Jack had so patiently taught me to use. I had one blanket. The heater was gone. I had one weapon, a handgun, loaded with six shells. And only half our food stores, perhaps enough for a week, were left. With an irrational curse I noted that they were all beans.

Still, with Jack looking at me without so much as a hint of loss of resolve, I found it hard to be mad for very long.

"We've made it this far," I said, "we'll make it all the way.”

That night was not as difficult as I had feared. A mountain stream brought us fresh water. For some reason the beans tasted fine. There was no wind. The tent was set up easily, with no objection from Jack, in the hollow of two mountain walls with stones for anchors on its corners. The weather had warmed perceptibly again. We were nearly through the mountains. In another few days, with luck, we might come on a town or village on the other side and replenish our stocks. Perhaps we might even find another snowmobile.

I slept that night as soundly as I had slept in weeks. In the morning I awoke to find Jack and his mate gone. I assumed they had scouted ahead. I set to making breakfast. It looked to be another blue day, with a hint of cumulus clouds to break up the beautiful tedium of the sky. I was thirsty. I walked to the stream to get water.

I cupped my hand in the cold water and brought it to my mouth.

"Human! You will stand, please!"

For a moment I thought I was dreaming. I thought the voice must be in my head.

"Human!"

I stood slowly and turned, water dripping from my still-cupped hand.

"Yes, you! Welcome to the world!"

I faced a skeleton. But the angle of the morning light showed me the outline of a thin, wiry Oriental with long hands. He wore robes. They were dazzling bright. I marveled at the wash of colors. It was as if he were wearing a rainbow.

"You admire me! Please do not! No man deserves admiration!"

His voice was thin and reedy, but strong. He bowed. "I am Yu
Fon
, of the eleventh century B.C." He held his hands out, palms up. "You?" he said.