The Way Back

by Gavriel Savit

  By the time he reached Hall O, Yehuda Leib’s keen eyes had made him very familiar with the orderly layout of Dantalion’s halls, and he slowed his feet to make a clearer study of the disarray that met him there.

  The letter O had little meaning for Yehuda Leib, and so when he stared up at the broken skylight above, what he saw was the inside of a giant glass eye: the window had been shattered only within the loop of the letter itself, leaving a jagged black pupil to admit the flurries of nighttime snow drifting down from above.

  But significant to Yehuda Leib’s notice was the fact that there was no broken glass on the floor. This suggested a measure of care—perhaps someone had cleaned up the fallen glass, but this seemed inconsistent with the tipped bookcases, the accumulated snow, and the books spilled out on the floor, their pages waterlogged and even frozen with the cold.

  It seemed more likely that the glass had been prevented from falling in the first place. This would’ve been a difficult thing to accomplish. And why would anyone want to break the window if they were concerned enough to keep the glass from falling? Yehuda Leib could think of only two reasons: that the sound of falling glass might raise an alarm, and that broken glass underfoot could present a dangerous obstacle.

  Both of these reasons suggested an intentional incursion.

  The tipped bookcases had served as a sort of staircase, then, allowing the invader to climb down quickly and quietly. Some of the books littering the floor were wet but not yet frozen, which suggested to Yehuda Leib a relatively recent arrival, and the accumulation of snow in the central aisle bore the mark of only one set of footprints: small and narrow, heading inward.

  This conjured a chilling thought:

  Perhaps the invader was still here.

  Yehuda Leib swallowed hard. He was out of time. If he didn’t want to lose the tall man ahead of him, he needed to be moving.

  Ducking through the emptied shelves of the fallen bookcases—he had no intention of leaving unnecessary footprints behind—Yehuda Leib hurried forward into the next hall in just enough time to see the tails of the tall man’s coat disappearing through the far door. Yehuda Leib put on an extra burst of speed, but he found himself skidding to a halt as he entered the following hall: the tall man in the black coat was not, as he’d been the last sixteen times, just leaving.

  Instead, he was waiting.

  The man stood in the center of Hall Q, looking back at Yehuda Leib. It was such a surprise that Yehuda Leib neglected to take notice of his face before the man turned toward the offshoot door—the first turn he’d made since Yehuda Leib had begun to follow him.

  Had it been his father after all?

  By the time he’d made it into Hall QA, Yehuda Leib had broken into a flat-out run. The tall man ahead of him had too, increasing the gap between them with every stride of his long legs, and if he didn’t do something soon, Yehuda Leib would lose him.

  “Hey!” he cried, his voice echoing wildly into the stacks.

  Hey! came the echo.

  He tore into Hall QB, feet clattering hard on the floor, and found himself immediately confused.

  He slowed and stopped.

  There was no one ahead of him.

  The central aisle was completely empty.

  What had happened? Where had the man gone?

  His footfalls were still echoing loudly as he murmured, “Hello?”

  But there was no answer.

  Then, turning back the way he had come, he saw them:

  Two ranks of Dumah’s dead soldiers, piling out of the rows of bookcases nearest the door.

  Yehuda Leib sighed. Of course. Why hadn’t he seen it before?

  Someone was clearing his throat behind him, and Yehuda Leib turned to see the familiar shape of a tall, skeletal man in a long black coat emerging from the stacks just a few rows ahead of him.

  It was not Yehuda Leib’s father after all. He wore a bullet-pocked uniform, and a single gold tooth gleamed in his head.

  Yehuda Leib knew this soldier: the hanged man, the very last he had seen in the Gallows.

  Of course, thought Yehuda Leib. He must’ve been a lookout.

  How could he have been so foolish?

  But there was no time for regrets now.

  “Take him,” said the gold-toothed sentry, and Yehuda Leib ran.

  Deep within the halls of the Dantalion, a Nameless Girl crouched, hidden in the shadows, her thin fingers curled tight around the cold spoon in her apron pocket.

  There was shouting, cursing, struggle very nearby, but she couldn’t see, couldn’t understand where it was coming from.

  Angry voices. Pounding feet. Volumes began to fall from their shelves, ladders shooting down their tracks seemingly of their own accord, and before she knew it, the bookcases themselves began to tip and fall, bashing into one another like falling dominoes, and she had to go, she was in danger, and again she was running, again fleeing, and she was exhausted and terrified, and tears blurred her obscure eyes as she pelted down the central aisle, her feet sending an echoing clatter ringing out into the wide halls, and she had to get out of here, had to escape, she was tired of the heavy silence that hid all the dangers lurking beside her, and she turned, and all around her the sounds of running were multiplied, and she heard yelling and laughter as she slid into the ruined hall, slipped through the pile of snow, and ran up the tipped bookcases, up and up and up like a staircase, closer to the shattered O, closer and closer, and the echoing cries below her were like a churning whirlpool pulling her downward, and she was so close, could taste the outside air, so close, and the jagged glass of the skylight was beside her, threatening to gash her open, and she had to do it, had to take her chances, and she leapt, and she was up, only the hem of her dress catching and tattering in the teeth of the glass, and suddenly the cold and the silence of the still, snowy night descended all around her.

  She was out.

  The Nameless Girl took a gulping chestful of burning cold air.

  She was out.

  But the trap had just been sprung.

  Yehuda Leib had been mistaken: the hall had been ruined not by someone trying to find a way in, but by someone trying to control the ways out.

  The Nameless Girl was unsure at first—was she seeing a pair of candles in a hidden window? The lights were still and steady as could be—they never flickered.

  But they did blink.

  A pair of shining green eyes stared at the Nameless Girl through the darkness, and gradually, the shape around them began to materialize: a hulking white cat, a tigress, her thick, knotty muscles coiled tight, prepared to pounce.

  The Nameless Girl would’ve known her anywhere.

  Lilith.

  The fact of the matter is that if the Nameless Girl had remained calm in this moment, Lilith might not have been confident of who she was—after all, her name had been severed, her face obscured. But Lilith stalked slowly forward, paw over paw, her shining green eyes locked onto the Nameless Girl’s hazy face, and the Nameless Girl found herself unable to breathe, thick fear stopping up her breath.

  Lilith let out a low growl, and the Nameless Girl’s fragrant fear erupted from her in a cloud of misty breath:

  “No!”

  Already Lilith had recognized the smell of her fear, but when her luminous eyes took in the object that shone cold and keen in the Girl’s trembling fingers, outstretched like a weapon to ward her off, she knew:

  The spoon.

  The Nameless Girl turned and ran.

  With a roar, the white tigress Lilith gave chase.

  * * *

  —

  Rough hands. Strong, bruising fingers. Indistinct voices.

  Before long, Yehuda Leib’s arms were bound behind his back and a sack was pulled over his head.

  He was shoved and pushed around corners, up stairs, do
wn corridors. He’d lost all sense of direction. Every moment stretched to five times its normal length as he strained to glean any usable information from the noise, the shuffle all around him.

  Soon he was shoved roughly into the snowy outdoors, the cold and the wind rushing in to meet him, and the first words he’d heard spoken since his capture met his ears.

  “To the castrum, double time. Noise-and-light discipline. Move!”

  Yehuda Leib’s arms were taken hold of, and he was forced forward at a quicker pace than his exhausted legs could possibly hope to match. Soon he was being dragged as much as anything, his sliding boots making contact with the ground only once or twice every five steps.

  “Lift him,” said the voice, and immediately Yehuda Leib became a piece of baggage, jostled and bounced at the swift pace of the retreating soldiers.

  On and on they went through the howling wind, on and on into the darkness, and just when Yehuda Leib thought his brain would be shaken into a thick soup against the walls of his skull, a halt was called.

  Stillness—blessed stillness.

  “Put him down,” said the officer, and with a dizzying impact, Yehuda Leib’s feet were slotted into the snow.

  A tearing withdrawal: the sack was pulled from his head. Yehuda Leib’s eyes began to water—even the pale moonlight, diffused as it was through the falling snow, was nearly blinding.

  The sneer of the gold-toothed officer swam up before him.

  “Walk, boy,” he said.

  The walls of the camp were high—ranks of massive stakes as thick as trees, their sides straight and smooth. The tip of each stake was honed to a treacherously keen point, the outer perimeter of the camp jutting forth like the lower jaw of some needle-toothed predator. Guard towers had been erected on either side of the narrow gateway, and from far above, the guards posted on perpetual watch leered down at him with still eyes. The night was stiff with cold, but no puffing steam issued from their mouths and noses—dead men draw no breath.

  Yehuda Leib tried not to stare, but the farther into the camp they marched, the more difficult it became.

  The broad road by which they made their entry was flanked on either side by row after row of narrow canvas tents, each bearing a layer of accumulated snow to the windward side. There were no campfires here, no braziers or lanterns or even candles to give light or warmth to the cold soldiers, and as a consequence, the men did not gather, did not huddle together and talk—they stewed and paced and chewed their cheeks, polished and double-checked their weapons, in anticipation of orders that could come at any moment, to fight, fight, fight for their lost lives.

  Any development, any occurrence that could provide distraction from this thick stew of dread, was seized upon immediately.

  And this is why, as Yehuda Leib was paraded down the camp’s main road, it seemed as if the entire Army of the Dead made its way out to gawk at him.

  One small unit of Dumah’s dead soldiers was horror enough to behold—bloodied and bandaged, their eyes dim and empty.

  The army at large was exponentially worse: crowds of the Tsar’s dead infantry jumbled together with bleeding Prussian jägers and fallen French grenadiers. Among them, several creaking Roman legionnaires, dusty Spartan hoplites, Assyrian lancers, even bare-chested Egyptian charioteers gathered in order to watch Yehuda Leib pass by.

  As one, compressed beneath the heavy weight of an impending battle that they were sure must come, they stared.

  Not a whisper broke the silence of the camp.

  The army was vast, and the road was long, but Yehuda Leib soon saw where they were headed.

  At the very center of the camp was a massive tent of rich scarlet.

  Inside, a long draped corridor led toward the central peak of the tent. Plinths and pedestals on all sides held up great weapons and trophies of war: Durendal, the sword of Roland; the spear of Lugh; Zulfiqar, the split-bladed scimitar of Ali ibn Abi Talib; even the sling stone that felled the giant Goliath.

  “Here,” said the gold-toothed officer, pulling back the flap of a small holding cell off the main corridor. “Two inside, two out.”

  Yehuda Leib was pushed roughly into the small red room, and only looking back did he realize that he had not been taken alone: a second bound figure was slung over the shoulder of a large soldier in the corridor.

  The little shape was unmistakable.

  Mammon.

  A knot rose in Yehuda Leib’s throat. He could hardly use Mammon’s assistance to bargain if the demon was bound and gagged in the next cell over.

  Yehuda Leib was in worse trouble than he’d thought.

  “Stay sharp,” barked the voice of the gold-toothed officer to his soldiers. “The general is coming.”

  Yehuda Leib’s heart began to pound.

  The general is coming.

  * * *

  —

  If the Nameless Girl had not become so accustomed to leaving everything behind and fleeing, she might’ve been taken then and there.

  But navigation is strange in the Far Country—the place you end up is far less dependent upon your direction than upon the way in which you go—and the moment Lilith, who ought to have known better, began to chase her, Bluma was halfway home.

  Snow was everywhere. She could hear the swift pads of Lilith’s paws gaining behind her, and she ran and she ran and she ran, and soon she was weaving, swerving to avoid crashing into the stones, and there were more and more, thin slabs, grave markers in dense rows and uneven columns, and here the snow was trodden smooth, and there the earth was freshly turned, and before she knew it, she was running past the little iron gate that kept the cemetery out and the town in and her feet were churning the muddy road, and they were carrying her down just the way they always had, every day of her life, down, down, down from the forest and the graves, down toward the light in the window, her front door, and only as she laid her hand on the handle did she realize where she was, and she was tearing back the door, and there, inside, in her father’s bakehouse, the men of Tupik were all assembled.

  Swaying, muttering.

  Prayer.

  One by one, they turned their eyes to her. She was sure that someone would shout out her name, greet her, welcome her, but their eyes slid past her.

  A girl—just a girl.

  The Nameless Girl was breathing hard, panting in the doorway, and the rabbi grimaced, mimed a shiver, beckoned her inside.

  Looking back up the hill, she could see a lithe shape prowling, lurking behind the little cemetery gate. Swiftly, she darted inside and slammed the door behind her.

  Someone was reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish.

  “Yisgadal v’yiskadash sh’meh rabo.”

  May the Great Name be magnified and sanctified.

  All the men of Tupik said, “Amen.”

  Why were they here? Why were they praying in the bakery instead of the synagogue, as they did every other evening?

  Slowly, the Nameless Girl picked her way back through the crowd, farther into the bakery, as the voice that spoke the Kaddish rose high over the swaying heads of the assembled men.

  Whose voice was it?

  “Y’hei sh’meh rabo m’vorakh l’olam u’l’olmei olmaya.”

  May the Great Name be blessed forever, and forever and ever.

  It was only once she’d made her way to the very back of the room that she realized—of course.

  It was her father mourning her bubbe.

  He was standing in the corner near the cold oven, his arms folded, his head down.

  He looked so old.

  And slowly, as he prayed aloud, he lifted his eyes to look at her.

  The Nameless Girl’s heart leapt. There was a moment—just a bare moment—in which her father might’ve recognized her.

  The smile lines at the corners of his eyes gave a little twit
ch.

  But they did not reawaken. The moment passed, and, just as if she were nothing and no one, his eyes slid on.

  The Nameless Girl choked back a sob.

  What, who had she become? Was she even his daughter anymore?

  Turning, the Nameless Girl began to mount the stairs, the final amen of the Kaddish rising up behind her. Tucked against the wall, above the linens drawn up neatly, was her bed—but not hers, somehow. Not anymore.

  Beyond, in the inner bedroom, she could see her mother sitting on the edge of her own bed in the flickering candlelight, still, staring, deep in thought. She, too, seemed old, the gray in her hair standing boldly forth.

  Beside her, Perla Kraindl’s mother sat, rubbing gentle circles into her back.

  “Your daughter will come back,” said Mrs. Kraindl. “You’ll see.”

  But when Bluma’s mother spoke, her voice was heavy and flat. “No,” she said. “No. I’ve lost her. I can feel it.”

  Tears stung the Nameless Girl’s cloudy eyes. She wanted to run into the room, to throw herself into her mother’s arms.

  But, with a lurch, she thought of the blank indifference in her father’s eyes.

  It would do no good.

  Perhaps her mother was right.

  Careful not to make enough noise to attract her attention, the Nameless Girl climbed the final flight of stairs to her bubbe’s empty bedroom.

  Someone had cleaned up. The stones that had fallen from the chimney were stacked neatly in the corner, the dusty mortar swept away. All her bubbe’s possessions had been packed up and removed. Only the bare furniture remained, and that, it seemed, grudgingly.

  Through the falling snow, the Nameless Girl could see the white tigress pacing back and forth below, weaving impatiently among the stones in the graveyard.

  The Nameless Girl let out a heavy sigh, and suddenly, something beside her moved.

  She jumped, backing into the corner, arms up, ready to be attacked, and a small gray cat leapt lightly from the rafters down onto the bed frame.