Page 4

He tried to say something, whether to agree with her or disagree he did not know. He could say nothing, think nothing. He was nothing.

"You are nothing," she agreed. "You have never been anything. And yet – in you lies the capacity for greatness. Come to me."

"What?" he could speak again, but all he could utter was the foolish bleat.

"Do you know me?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "I know you, mistress, Cannibal Spirit. I know you."

"Then you know that I can complete you, make you whole," she said. Her black eyes bored through him. "I have done so to many – more than you can count. Come to me."

He took one step toward her, and then another. She stood waiting, a hand raised for him, and her breasts shone in the moonlight. "Come," she said.

He looked up at her eyes. Her eyes were black and deep and full of the utter peace that knows no happiness and no sorrow. "Come," she said, and her voice rustled through him.

Now he was no longer old and frozen and very, very afraid. Now he was the Bekur of old, young and strong, and afraid of nothing and no one, and she was comely and lovely and full of promise of happiness. No longer aged and wrinkled, his hand came up to meet hers. Their fingers reached out to touch.

And then – then, at that moment before their fingers touched – he remembered the footprints he had seen, the prints her bare feet had left in the snow, and he remembered the claws.

It was as though someone had restored sight to him. He saw again then, with the dim and blurred eyes of age but more clearly than the eyes of youth. He saw her hand stretched towards his, with the talons at the ends of the fingers; and he saw her ice-coloured lips part, and then he saw her teeth.

"Come," she whispered, and the teeth glistened in the moonlight.

"No," he said aloud. He took one step back.

She stood where she was and watched him calmly. "That is not an answer," she said. "A rat does not say ‘no’ to a god."

"I came out here to die," Bekur whispered. The whisper dried to silence in his mouth.

"Death is simple," came her voice, the voice that rustled through the universe. "I offer much, much more than death. I offer the wine of eternal youth and of immortal being."

And then Bekur saw the she was no longer alone; even as he looked at her he seemed to see another landscape within her, of snow and ice. And in that landscape within her, were people: men and women, young and healthy-looking all of them, who came and went and gesticulated to him and smiled warmly, and wished to make him welcome.

It was as though she was sucking him into that world; everything seemed to blur and whiten for a moment and then he stood on a white plain of snow, but it was not the same snow that he had stood on. Before him rose a Gate, a dark Gate that at the same time looked welcoming and gentle, for all that it was topped by a death’s head. And those men and women were, suddenly, all around him, with their friendly smiles and welcoming arms. That was not all of it: he knew these people. He knew them all. They were of the Tribe, or of other Tribes of this land, people whom he had met. But they were not old and wizened and toothless: they were young and strong and full of vitality.

"Come to us, and be like us," they said, and smiled. "Come along with us and be like us."

"Come, Bekur." He heard the voice, and it sent his heart racing, so that he was almost afraid to look. But slowly he turned his head. It was Charpoka.

And it was not Charpoka as he had seen her last, bent with the years and almost blind, who had vanished quietly from the cave the previous Deepwinter. It was Charpoka as she had been once, glowing with health and vitality, the same as she had been when she had – so long ago now! Bekur thought, feeling his aged limbs suddenly heavy – taught him about love and how to please a woman. There had been a time when they had both assumed he would take her as mate. But time had passed and he had grown to fame among the Tribes, and far above such a girl as she, for girl she had been, despite her womanly knowledge, and they had grown old apart. And one night she had crept from her place and walked into Deepwinter, and she had never been seen again.

[ Continue to page 5 ]