They were two hours above the tree line when the weather changed. They knew their passage through the mountains was going to be harsh and fierce, but they could never have expected the savagery of the cold that was about to descend on them. A dry, freezing bitterness crept toward the men. Gradually a different tincture of wind cleated the air, grew into a shudder, and then unfurled, cutting them like a frozen razor. Everything in its path cringed and withered; tons of settled snow bellowed into the ravines. Freezing gusts screamed through them. It was clear to Follett that the tents would be ravaged in seconds.
They needed shelter. Follett gave the command and they dispersed, leaving Alvarez to tend to the Oracle. The Calca brothers, who had traveled these lands, knew there were caves hidden beneath the drifts of snow. Follett sent them in advance, seeking signs of a possible entrance. The other riders dismounted, turned their horses’ heads away from the driving wind, and placed themselves behind the beasts’ bodies.
An hour or so later, Abna Calca appeared and waved to everyone to follow him. Heads down, they obeyed and grimly plodded on until they reached Owen Calca, who was digging into the compressed face of ice and snow under an overhang of bare black rock. The men formed a line before the vertical stone wall and began to break the ice and shift the snow as the brothers directed. Once Owen and the others were working, Abna Calca continued farther around the track to search for more signs of entry under the snow.
On a blind patch of the mountain, he found a crack in the ice and hacked it open with his spade, stabbing his way through the snow-filled artery. He emerged into a ventricle that he estimated to be large enough to house the party. All he had to do now was find another way in for the horses. He sniffed the air in the cave and knew one must exist. A sliver of frost light followed him but faltered against the blackness of the interior. He listened for a curve in the hush of the hollow, a sealed-up hole whose density wasn’t stone. He could see nothing but felt for the cold where the snow formed part of the wall. In total darkness, he began to claw and hack at its surface with his spade.
After forty minutes, the black became lighter, and he knew it was the gray illumination of day trying to find its way in from the outside world. He kept digging, his teeth clenched and his heart pounding, the spade shaving away the solid night.
Outside, the men had stopped only once in their clearing of ice and snow, when they found the remnant of a wooden sledge. Alvarez saw it as God’s providence. Follett saw it as a curse, having expected to find the remains of its last owner frozen and grinning up at them, but they did not. The rest of the men hastily broke the sled into kindling and then continued to hack and shovel their way forward.
Suddenly Owen Calca signaled the men to stop working. He put his unshaven face hard against the wall of snow and closed his eyes. He moved his head several times before finally finding a place to settle. He stayed there a while and then quickly took up a spade and swung it against the glistening depression that bore the lines of his beard. A faint light bloomed in the cave as the brothers dug toward each other, carrying brightness and salvation into the mountain.
The men opened the fissure and squeezed through. Once inside, they lit a dim fire of rags, animal fat, and shaved slivers of wood from the sledge. Owen explained that the sledge was of great antiquity and had long since refused to house moisture from the current climate. They were all exhausted. Getting the horses into the cave had not been easy, and Pearlbinder’s big roan mare was still not inside. Her breadth and height were greater than the cavern’s entrance. They had even greased her sides and pushed and pulled, but to no avail. On the last attempt, she had become lodged there, much to Pearlbinder’s horror. He spoke softly to Sophia through her anxiety—and to the Kid and Tarrant, who were left outside in the hammering sleet.
“You will have to go back around to the other entrance,” instructed Follett, and Tarrant reluctantly agreed.
“Fuck that,” said the Kid, who fell to his knees and, sliding over onto his back, began to push his way between the big horse’s legs. “Keep the fucking thing still.”
He yelped as he slid along, keeping a cautious eye on the mare’s movements. Her fetlocks shivered and her hooves dug into the permafrost. No horse liked things slithering under their belly.
Seeing Sophia’s reaction, Pearlbinder said, “Comes from the time of Paradise. The dread of snakes.” A man of some education, he was the only one of the group who could read, now that Scriven was gone, and the only one to record everything the Oracle said, deep in his memory. He was wise enough not to use pen and paper.
The Kid possessed the flexibility and speed of a serpent, an asset in the physicality of this predicament but a positive disadvantage to the horse’s understanding of his identity and intention. Realizing his dilemma, the Kid kept talking all the while, broadcasting the greatest feature that made humans apparently superior to beasts and the masters of horses: a voice without a hiss. When he had slithered, unscathed, to the other side of the horse, he complimented Pearlbinder on his training and the mare’s good behavior. Then the horse’s saliva dripped on the Kid’s head, and he saw Pearlbinder’s hand in the mare’s mouth. He had been steadfastly holding on to her tongue while he watched the Kid’s progress.
“Thank thee,” said the Kid, gaining his feet and brushing earth and snow from his breeches. “I didn’t want to gut such a fine beast.”
“Nor I thou,” said Pearlbinder, sheathing the ground-thin hunting knife that he held concealed in his other hand.
The Oracle began to call out, its shrieks bouncing against the stone walls. It had heard the resonance in the cave and was playing with the length and shudder it gave its voice; its chattering jaws snapping the edges of the flickering light, like flint. It needed to be dried out quickly, and more wrecked wood was brought to the fire. The ragged ceiling danced and shuddered as the smoke rose.
“We shall be wanting more wood,” said Alvarez, who was holding the Oracle close to the fire. As its keeper for the journey, he was the only one who knew when to ask the questions that would guide the party’s quest. Follett trusted his skill and his decisions as much as he trusted those traits in any man. He looked hard at Alvarez and his shivering charge.
“There are no trees up here. Nothing to burn,” he said.
All the men paid close attention, because they knew what was coming next.
“Then thou must send someone down to glean,” Alvarez said in the most convincing tone he could muster without sounding like a challenge to Follett’s leadership.
“Vespers approaches,” said Follett, the muted glow of the last remaining flames etching every line of his worn and sinful face. Alvarez moved the Oracle, and it sent a new whimper through the cave.
“It will not sustain.”
Follett stared long and hard into Alvarez’s face and then said, “Calcas, fetch wood, and be soon.”
The brothers turned without saying a word and showed no signs of disquiet about what they had to do.
“And taketh Pearlbinder’s horse. It ain’t going to get in here.”
Samuel Kahn Pearlbinder was not the kind of man who would normally be told what to do or think. A few had tried and been met with grievous injury or instant demise. Pearlbinder had owned the same mount for five years and had given her the name Sophia. He didn’t love much, but he loved Sophia. Five years was a long time in his trade.
He was still standing by her when he heard the command and saw the Calcas approaching. His hands moved away from the animal and curled toward his sword.
“She will depart this life,” commanded Follett. Everybody stopped moving and turned toward him.
“We can’t get her in, and she will die outside. If she stayeth where she is, jammed in there, she’ll half freeze and block us in; we will be forced to hack her apart where she stands.”
There was sense in his words.
“Sam, you can take Scriven’s horse until I get thee another.”
Only Follett could control Pearlbinder, and he would do it calmly and with common sense. It was the only thing that slowed the burning fuse of Pearlbinder’s anger. If a man dared mouth their opinion on the matter, Pearlbinder would likely slaughter him and anyone else who offended him or his horse.
The low fire hissed and cracked in the silence, which was now profound. Then, without a word, Pearlbinder turned back to the horse and started to push against her neck, while stroking her sides close to where her ribs were wedged against the cold rock.
“Better to be free one last time,” he muttered to her, leaning his entire weight against her. Gradually the horse understood and started to back up into the freezing light outside.
The Calcas looked at Follett and he nodded that that they should proceed. Outside, Pearlbinder gave the reins to the brothers and turned away, not wanting to see the departure.
Follett directed Pearlbinder to the Pyx.
“Give it your anger. We need all we can get with the little we have left.”
Pearlbinder hated this ritual and could not believe that Follett had so comfortably agreed to its condition as part of their expedition. The captain and he were sensible men; they avoided all talk of demons and angels even though they knew they existed. Now these voodoo rituals were written into their contract of blood and gold, without any obvious purpose. There were few crimes that he had not committed and a few unique ones that he had sired. If he must take part in this ungodly bullshit, he would do it with more gusto than any of the others. He would dredge up the foulest acts of depravity to plague the rotting bones’ jellied cores.
Pearlbinder strode across the cave, unbuckling his weapons and letting them fall in clashing, dark heaps. He tore off his clothing until he was totally naked and then snatched up the Pyx containing the few remaining bones that they had managed to save from the rapids. But instead of seeking seclusion, he carried it next to the fire and prepared to speak. The openness of his actions silenced everyone, even Follett. Pearlbinder sat for a long time, the yellow and white flames sending up ghost tongues to lick at the contours of his rigid, pensive face and at the constellations of scars on his body. Then he let go with a loud oath that spat phlegm and ectoplasm into the cringing box. His voice boomed and confounded the ragged dark space. The horses pressed against one another and away from the firelight. The Kid stopped smirking after the first five minutes and pushed his dirty fingers into his dirty ears. All the men were shocked senseless except Tarrant, who gradually moved closer to watch more intently something he had never seen before.
Pearlbinder was hoarse when he abruptly finished and snapped shut the lid of the Pyx. Without looking up, he croaked, “Alvarez, get your spoon.”