Within the Sanctuary of Wings

by Marie Brennan

  It was arduous, back-breaking, hand-numbing work. However warm the air might be, we were still digging in snow, half a meter down to the thin grass which was all that would grow here. And we had to paw through what we removed, just to be certain there were no small remains that might herald the presence of something larger nearby.

  We could not work for very long each day. The surrounding terrain cut off our light with shocking speed even when the sky was clear, and it was often quite grey. Clouds wreathed Gyaptse more days than not, sometimes descending low enough to bury the col itself. Only four of us dug at any one time; the fifth rested and watched Gyaptse, in case an avalanche should begin.

  Chendley was the one who raised an objection, after careful study of the area. “I don’t think that thing was brought down by an avalanche,” he said.

  We stopped and looked at him, most of us grinding our knuckles into our backs during this respite.

  He gestured at where we searched. “Either you’re searching in the wrong place, and really ought to be digging into these big piles—or that thing wasn’t where most avalanches land. Oh, I won’t rule out the chance that some avalanches fall differently. Maybe that slide was one of the exceptions. But the odds say, probably not.”

  “Then how did it get down here?” Tom asked.

  “Could have been blown by the wind. Happened with a fellow on the Feillon—do you know that story? He died ten or fifteen years ago, trying to prove it could be climbed by a new route, and though people could see where his body was, nobody wanted to risk dying themselves just to retrieve it. But one day it vanished, and then a hiking party stumbled across it, some ladies out for an energetic stroll. People later worked out that it must have fallen in a gale.”

  I was obscurely pleased that Chendley told this story without a single apology to me for speaking of such grim matters in front of a lady. “Where would our specimen have begun, do you think, if it fell on account of wind?”

  He might not apologize for indelicacy, but his manners stayed with him well enough that he did not roll his eyes at me. A gesture upward sufficed to remind me why the question was foolish. We could barely even make out the col today, so shrouded was it in fog.

  But none of us had forgotten what Thu said about seeing what might have been another specimen up there. If we could work out the path the first one had taken.…

  I knew the truth. Every last one of us was hoping for a break in the weather that might allow us to attempt a climb up there. We searched below less because we expected to find anything of use, and more because we could not yet risk ascending higher. I am not often a religious woman, but I prayed for clear skies and calm winds.

  In the meanwhile, we turned up nothing more than a few scraps of badly decayed flesh which might not even have come from a dragon. The night our search ended, I sat up with Tom and Suhail around the fire, discussing the entire situation.

  “I do not think there can ever have been dragons living at the elevation of the col,” I said. I was sitting with my knees up in front of me, arms crossed over them. Even this close to the campfire, bundled in nearly every stitch I’d brought, I was cold. The day’s warmth fled promptly with the day’s light. “Developmental lability can achieve a great deal—but not, I think, a dragon that derives its sustenance entirely from rock and ice.”

  Tom nodded. “Humans and yaks can adapt to living at altitude, and dragons might take it further. Insulation against the cold, more efficient respiration, that kind of thing. But they still have to eat. And nothing grows that high.” Even where we camped, the pickings were slim indeed.

  “So what was a dragon doing there to begin with,” Suhail said. His intonation did not make it a question; he was instead stating the problem.

  “Migration,” I said. “Wild yaks have been known to climb barren passes. A dragon could do it, too.”

  Tom leaned back on his elbows and tipped his head toward the sky, thinking it through. “Then we have a few possibilities. One is that Thu was mistaken; there was only the one preserved carcass, and whatever he thought he saw in the col was only a rock or a strange formation of ice. The second is that more than one dragon tried at various points to cross that pass, and died in the attempt.”

  “Humans have died in this region,” I said. “Remember the stories the Nying told. There is no reason the same could not have happened to animals.”

  “And the third possibility,” Tom said, “is that the breed was social. Which would be quite unusual for a dragon of that size.”

  Unusual, but not unheard of. “They could have been like savannah snakes, with unattached males hunting in sibling groups.” I paused, tapping my fingers against my elbows. It had become more of a habit lately, as I often kept my arms tight around my body to retain heat. “But migrating in such a group would be quite useless. Sibling males cannot breed.”

  Suhail’s snort quickly tipped over into immoderate laughter. Tom sat up, and we both stared at my husband, who seemed to have lost his reason entirely. “My apologies,” Suhail said, once he’d regained a modicum of composure. He wiped his eyes. “It is the exhaustion at work, I suspect. But you made me think of those frogs you mentioned once, the kind that change their sex when needed. And then I imagined frog-dragons hopping their way through the mountains.” He illustrated with one hand, springing over imaginary peaks.

  I giggled, but Tom looked thoughtful. “It isn’t impossible. Not the hopping, of course, but the other part. We already know that swamp-wyrm eggs can develop into either sex. The ability to change in maturity would be quite valuable to dragons living in a place like this, where populations can be very isolated.”

  “We aren’t likely to be able to tell that from a carcass,” I said. “Assuming we can find one at all. But yes—it’s an interesting thought.” I wondered if mews were capable of such a change. If nesting in tamarisk leaves and incubating the eggs at high heat could produce an orange honeyseeker with salty saliva, who knew what kinds of variation could occur in the wild?

  None of that was the kind of question I could answer while camped in the shadow of Gyaptse. But until the weather cleared, speculation was all I had.

  * * *

  And then some benevolent deity smiled upon us, for the next morning we woke to find the skies a brilliant, frozen blue.

  The only cloud to be seen was a wisp trailing off the peak of Gyaptse, which is a frequent phenomenon at that altitude. No sooner did we discover our good fortune than we scrambled to bring out the field glasses and examine the col above.

  Looking at it directly was painful; we could only do so for brief periods of time. The same clear weather that blessed us with a view also reflected off the snow with blinding radiance—quite literally blinding, if we did not take care. We had goggles with darkened lenses, but these could not be combined with the field glasses without losing so much clarity as to make the whole exercise pointless. So we looked with unprotected eyes, and took it in turns to risk the light.

  “If you see that horizontal band of bare stone,” Thu said, “it was below that somewhere—I think.” He did not sound as certain as a man who hauled us halfway around the world should have been.

  We searched. After a time, we realized that the band of stone Tom, Suhail, and I had been looking at was not the one Thu meant. We found a dozen suspicious-looking lumps, spent far too much time trying to direct the eyes of others to those lumps, and then realized they were only stones or piles of snow. Or were they? We scrutinized them, arguing size, shape, piling speculation atop guesswork, optimism conquering pessimism and then being conquered in turn.

  It was Tom who finally put his field glasses down and said, “We can’t tell from here. Whatever you saw, Thu … if it’s still there, it’s been too deeply buried by the snow for us to have any hope of finding it again. Not at this distance.”

  My shoulders sagged in disappointment. All this effort, and we had nothing. In the ordinary way of things my work with the mews should have pleased me—but not when I
had hoped for so much more.

  Then I realized what Tom meant.

  I looked up to find him gazing steadily at me. I, in turn, sought my husband’s eyes. Suhail’s frustrated expression faded to quiet stillness; then a silent laugh shook his shoulders. I did not even have to explain. “God willing,” he said with a half smile.

  Chendley was staring at the three of us. He tumbled to it an instant later, for he had been in our company long enough to understand our habits. “You can’t be serious. You don’t even know that there’s anything up there to find!”

  “The only way to find out,” I said, “is to go up there and look.”

  It was madness, of course. The decision to leave Scirland at all had been a gamble; this was a much larger one. The weather was clear now, but how long would that hold? “When we were here before,” Thu said, with the cautious air of a man offering up a slender thread of hope, “we planned out what I think is a route to the col. We did not attempt it because there was no point—it had no military use—but I believe our group could manage it.”

  Assuming our skills were adequate to the task. Assuming the weather did not take a turn for the worse. Assuming that Gyaptse did not live down to its reputation, and crush this group of foolhardy humans who thumbed their noses at its power.

  I had not travelled halfway around the world only to give up at the end.

  Tom shook his head, not in disagreement, but in a gesture so familiar to me from years of partnership: disbelief at what he was about to say. “Well. If we’re going to get ourselves killed, we might as well get started.”

  * * *

  By the standards of modern mountaineering, Thu’s route up to the col is accounted a moderate challenge, but not a tremendous one. It is more than enough to deter the casual passerby, but within the reach of those equipped with ropes, alpenstocks, crampons, and the techniques of belaying. For this I am eternally grateful, because were it any more difficult, we should not have made it at all—and then not only my life but the field of dragon naturalism and, indeed, the world as a whole would have been quite different.

  The first part was simply hiking, out of the valley and toward the ramparts of the neighbouring peak of Cheja. There we climbed the ridge I mentioned before and traversed the mountain’s lower slopes, heading for the dark tower of Gyaptse once more. But two technical hurdles stood in our path, and these tested my own meager climbing abilities to the utmost.

  To attain the higher elevation of that traverse, the shoulder which would permit us to approach the col, we had to ascend a narrow chimney: a gap in the rocks where one climbs not by clinging to the outside of the stones, but by bracing against their inward faces and using this pressure for support. This is most difficult, and most hazardous, for the one who goes first, as that individual climbs without the safety of a rope from above. If he falls, there is nothing to catch him. This chimney was only about four or five meters high, so our leader might hope to escape serious injury at the first impact—but the terrain at the bottom was such that he stood a great risk of tumbling out and over the nearest edge, whereupon those behind him would have to arrest his fall. And our own footing there was none too secure, as by then the friendly ridge which had borne us to that point was deteriorating into crumbling, rotten rock.

  Thu insisted on leading the way up the chimney. Chendley granted this only when we pointed out that Thu was smaller than anyone save myself, and thus we had the best chance of holding on if the worst should happen. Our Yelangese friend made short work of the chimney, but I do not think I took a single breath until he was safely at the top. And then I had to hold it again while Thu belayed Tom up. This done, Tom edged past him to a better spot, anchoring both Thu and himself while I made the climb.

  In the mountains of Anthiope, in those places where the climbs are considered suitable for the frailty of ladies, it is not uncommon to see women in skirts being hauled up such obstacles by the main force of the men above them. Indeed, experienced women mountaineers such as Miss Collier and Mrs. Winstow have often had to argue strenuously to prevent themselves from being subjected to the same assistance. Had I been in need of that kind of aid, I would have found myself in dire straits that day: the footing above was no better than at the bottom, and while Tom could loop the rope around a nearby stone for support, he and Thu could not have lifted me without endangering themselves. Although I had their belay for safety, I had no option but to do the work of climbing on my own. My shoulders and knees ached by the time I reached the top, and I did suffer a stabbing pain or three from my cracked rib … but I must confess I felt pride in the achievement, and grinned broadly at both men while I took my place in the line.

  The second obstacle was the location we dubbed, by universal agreement, the Cursed Crack. This is without a doubt the most absurd bit of terrain I have ever set myself against, and I hope never to see a worse. This too is a chimney, but one far too narrow for a climber to fit inside. The only way to ascend it is to wedge one hand and foot into the crack, and with the other pair to grip whatever discolorations in the stone might pass for holds. One’s instinct is to huddle as close to the crack as possible, but this will not do: safety lies in spreading oneself broadly, as if hugging the mountain. This is far from a reassuring position to be in, and Suhail exercised his creativity on the way up, formulating oaths in an astonishing medley of languages.

  I felt no pride when I finally reached the top of the crack, for I was too exhausted. We had ascended at least a thousand meters since leaving Hlamtse Rong, likely more, and the change was palpable. The smallest exertion had me gasping for breath, much to the detriment of my ribs, and my heart never ceased its frantic pounding. Even the knowledge that our only remaining obstacle was a relatively easy trek across the icy expanse of the col to the area of our search could not put much life into my limbs, for each of them felt as if it weighed at least three times as much as usual.

  No force in the world could have turned me back, though. It was difficult enough to accept that we must pitch our tents at the top of the crack, as the day was much too far gone for us to reach any other shelter before night fell, and the winds through the center of the col were vicious. (A fact for which we must be grateful: were it not for those winds, the snow there would have buried any specimens much too deep to ever be recovered.) But I do not think I slept more than two winks that night.

  Dawn comes early in such a place: at that high an elevation, there are few peaks to block the sun. I was awake even before then, and although the air was most bitterly cold, I must confess that dawn ranks among the most glorious of my life. The light came first to the peaks of Cheja and Gyaptse, igniting them with brilliant fire, while below the shadowed slopes remained grim and dark. There is no contrast more stark in all the world, not even in the deserts of Akhia. It felt as if the descending line of the dawn was bringing life toward me one meter at a time, and when it arrived, the world transformed. Gut-curdling doubts about my decision to come to Tser-nga gave way to a bone-deep certainty that our quest would be successful. I had no scientific basis for this change of heart; but I was sure.

  I was glad of that surety when we ventured out into the exposed space of the col. No sooner did we leave the shelter of Cheja’s flank than the winds struck us with titanic force, carrying razor crystals of ice. We staggered one careful step at a time, mindful of the risk that a fall could be the trigger that began an avalanche. But the true risk lay above us, where the steep upper slopes of Gyaptse held a heavy load of snow, which might come loose at any moment.

  My attention should have been on that, and on the ground ahead. But although we had conquered no mighty peak, we shared with such pioneers a rare and precious experience: the knowledge that we were quite possibly the first human beings to stand upon that ground. And depending on the success of the caeligers, we might even be the first to look past the col into the uninhabited terrain beyond.

  The ground on the western side sloped away in a much gentler fashion. To my right and to
my left, the mountains circled in a formidable wall, as if to guard the peak in the center: a beautifully formed pyramid I thought taller than Gyaptse, reigning like a queen amid her subjects. It glowed like a diamond torch in the early light. In the shadows below lay deep valleys, low enough to support trees and meadows, some of them yet free of snow. Altogether, it had the appearance of an alpine paradise.

  I came to realize Tom was standing at my right shoulder. We could not converse in low tones, for the wind flung our voices away; he had to shout as he said, “We can’t do it, Isabella.”

  “I know we can’t,” I shouted back. In order to make this ascent, we had left a substantial portion of our gear at the base of Cheja; we carried only enough food for a few days, and no guns for hunting. Descending into those valleys would be suicide by starvation.

  But Tom and I were of one mind. Looking down into that region, we both thought: Perhaps they are not extinct. Perhaps that unknown breed lives in this place, isolated from all human observation, and if we go there we will see them alive.

  The season was too far gone; we could not plan any expedition there until next year at the earliest, and probably much later than that. And it would be exceedingly difficult to bring enough men and materiel up to this col, however much easier the descent might be on the other side. But with that possibility before my eyes, I would not be deterred: whatever it took, however much money I had to pour into the task and political maneuvering I had to engage in, I would come back and explore that lost world.

  The cosmos has a fine sense of humour.

  * * *