by Jeffrey Ford
The forest was teeming with herds of white deer, and even an errant shot had a chance of felling one. Flesh from this animal was sweet and very filling. Cley discovered that its liver, when stuffed with wild onions and slowly roasted, was the finest thing he had ever tasted.
Adders with rodent faces. Wildcats, the color of roses, emitted the scent of cinnamon. Small-tusked wolves covered with scales instead of fur. The wilderness was a beautiful repository of bad dreams that often rendered monsters.
Cley had lost track of how many demons he had slain, how many wounds he had dressed, how many deer livers he had devoured. He was startled from his gruesome work on the corpse of an enemy by a tiny fleck of white that moved before his eyes. Looking up, past the barren branches overhead, he watched the snow falling. “Winter,” he said to Wood, and with that one word, he felt the cold on his hands, the chill of the wind at his back. His breath came as steam, and he wondered how long he had ignored the signs of autumn’s death, so caught up, himself, in killing.
The icy presence of the new season now made itself doubly known in payment for the hunter’s previous disregard. The frigid wind stole the feeling from his hands, and he prayed he would not have to fire the rifle in defense against an attack. It seemed as if ice had seeped inside him and was forming crystals in his bones. His mind yawned with daydreams of the fireplace back at his home in Wenau.
The only shred of hope the winter brought was the disappearance of the demons. For two days following the first light snow, they were strangely absent. He wondered if they were hibernating.
He and the dog gathered dry branches with which to build a fire. They heaped them up in front of the mouth of a cave, and then he rummaged through his pack for a box of matches. Cupping his hands and using his body as a shield, he managed to ignite the barest tip of a stick. Once the tongue of flame took hold, the fire’s hunger overcame the winter’s best attempts to extinguish it. Smoke swirled upward as he carefully placed the box of matches back in his pack.
He fashioned a torch from a large branch and stuck its end in the fire till it burned brightly. Taking the stone knife from his boot, he edged forward into the opening in the hill. The thought of discovering hibernating demons in the closed, dark place made him shudder and begin to sweat.
It was warm inside. He called out, “Hello,” in order to judge the size of the vault by the echo it produced. The sound blossomed out and returned with news of considerable space. As if his voice had lit the chamber, upon the word’s return, his vision cut through the dark. A perfectly empty rock room with a ceiling tall enough for standing. Continuing forward, he found, after twenty feet, that the opening narrowed in height and width as he proceeded into the hill. Following the shaft to where it turned sharply downward into blackness, he was satisfied that the cave was free of beasts. He turned and looked out through the mouth. There, in the gray light of day, sat Wood, head cocked to one side, staring at the hole that had devoured his companion.
Cley carried his pack inside and moved the location of the fire to just inside the cave’s entrance. He wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down on the hard floor. The dog followed him but whined and sniffed every inch of rock. To ease Wood’s uncertainty about being within the earth, Cley took the book from his pack and read a few pages out loud. As the words streamed forth, the dog stopped pacing and curled up beside his master.
Snow fell, and the wind whistled through the forest, whipping the face of the hill. The demons were asleep, and the cold could not sting him in the shelter of the rock womb. His bones began to thaw. Now that he did not have to kill, all he could think about was the killing he had done. In the wind he heard the savage war cry he had used when rushing toward demons with only his knife.
“What have I become?” he asked the dog, who was already asleep. He put the book away and searched through his belongings to find the green veil. The feel of it clutched in his fist told him he would never return from the Beyond.
Four or five armfuls of branches and kindling had to be gathered every day to feed the flame’s appetite. At times, the wind forced the smoke back into the vault instead of carrying it away, and it grew so thick that Cley and the dog would have to leave in order to draw a decent breath. Still, they tended to it scrupulously like a beloved infant. It was a marked tragedy when it died, for with each instance of its failure the store of matches was reduced.
The blankets and belongings were moved to the very back of the chamber, where it narrowed, and the shaft led down into the unknown. A warm current of air traveled up from deep in the earth. At times, Cley removed his shirt and lay about in just his overalls. Outside, the world was brutally cold. The sun barely generated enough heat even at midday to cut through the frost and bitter winds. The days were brief, and the nights seemed to last for weeks.
The store of bullets was quickly diminishing, so Cley cut a long, thick branch from which to carve a bow. When it was finished, he strung it with deer sinew. Through endless and uneventful nights, by the precious light of a candle, he perfected the craft of shaping arrows. To the backs of them, he tied feathers to balance against the barbed tips he carved from animal bone. The bow was tall and powerful, and over a week’s time, he became accurate with it. Still, it could not kill as decisively as the rifle.
This change in weaponry heralded a change in diet from venison to rabbit, squirrel, and the meat of a slow-moving amorphous blob of a furry mammal with a tapered snout and pitiful, human eyes. Cley named this slothful beast a geeble after the tavern owner from Anamasobia. Its meat was bland and fatty, but its coat made a fine pair of mittens and warm leggings.
They were returning to the cave from the eastern pond through a stand of blue, wavering trees. Cley was preoccupied with thoughts of the nameless book. The soul it had told him was that irreducible, ineradicable essence of one’s being that was both the element that defined individuality and also the very mind of God. He thought of delicate dandelion seed on the wind, of laughter, of omniscience atomized like a spray of perfume, a floating ghost egg, a fart. The concept slipped through his ear and away on the wind.
Wood barked, the clipped near-whisper sound the dog used to indicate danger. Looking up, Cley reached toward the geeble-hide quiver he wore across his back. An animal stood twenty yards in front of him next to the undulating trunk of a blue tree. The sight of it brought him up short and set his heart racing.
It was a cinnamon cat, one of those illusive red-coated lynx that Cley had only seen out of the corners of his eyes on a few occasions. He knew it better by scent than sight, because in its wake it left a sweet aroma like those he remembered emanating from the bakeries of the Well-Built City. Even in dead of winter, he smelled its disarming perfume, and it spoke more of home and safety than the presence of a predator. The cat crouching before him now was larger than any of the others he had glimpsed briefly. He raised his right hand to indicate to Wood to remain still.
Nocking an arrow in place, he pulled back on the bowstring. He was unsure how dangerous these cats could be, but he had on occasion come across the results of their hunting—corpses of deer that held the sweet scent with bellies split open and all the internal organs devoured. The arrow flew. Cley smiled until the shaft bounced off harmlessly onto the snow. The cat never moved. Another arrow traveled as true a path as the first and also dropped to the ground.
“I think it’s dead,” Cley said.
The dog barked, and together they slowly approached. He slung the bow over his shoulder and leaned down for his knife. Wood was the first to reach the lynx, and he licked the creature’s face.
“Frozen solid,” the hunter said as he stepped up and tapped the cat on the head with his blade. It was like hitting the head of a marble statue. “Winter’s trophy,” he said. The corpse was too heavy to carry back to the cave, so he marked the spot and the trail he followed home.
The following day, he returned, started a fire next to it, thawed it, and carefully removed the skin. This process took him the bet
ter part of a day, but he did not rush, hoping the pelt would make a good-sized cloak when he was finished. Back at the cave, he cured the inside of the hide with hot ash. When he was finished, he had a beautifully scented garment with a tooth-fringed hood, bearing pointed ears and empty sockets. The dog sometimes wrestled it around, unsure if it was dead since neither of them had killed it.
The deer had disappeared. All he carried was the carcass of a starved squirrel. Cley stood in a thicket of trees at sunset, listening to the wind. He marked the ever-decreasing length of the days, the relentless drop in temperature, and wondered if the wilderness was inching toward total, static darkness, like death. Then the dog barked, and he continued toward the cave, realizing that for a moment he had forgotten who he was.
On a frigid afternoon, when the sun had made a rare appearance, a black reptilian wolf dashed across the clearing where Cley had felled a rabbit and snatched it away. The hunter yelled at the injustice, and Wood gave chase. The lizard skin of the creature’s body offered a good defense against the dog’s teeth and claws. The rivals rolled in the snow, one snapping and growling, the other hissing and spitting—a confusion of black in a cloud of white powder.
Striking with the speed and cold cunning of a snake, the wolf gored Wood in the chest with one of its short, pointed tusks. The dog dropped to the snow as Cley shot an arrow into the sleek marauder’s side, sending it yelping into the underbrush. The hunter lifted his companion from the ever-growing pool of blood. Through deep snow, he trudged over a mile back to the cave, with the dog draped across his arms. By the time they reached their sanctuary, Wood was unconscious, and Cley feared that the wolf’s tusk might have held some poison.
He treated the wound with an herbal remedy he had carried from Wenau. Then he fed the fire and laid the dog down on his blanket next to it. Stroking Wood’s head, the hunter begged him not to die.
Late in the night, the dog began to shiver violently, and Cley suspected that death was very near. He removed his cat cloak and draped it over the blanket. Then, from out in the dark, as if at a great distance, came the wind-muffled sound of a dog barking.
“Come, boy,” Cley called, and whistled as he always did in the forest to call his companion to his side. He yelled frantically for hours. As the day came on, the barking subsided, and then suddenly was gone.
Wood survived the attack, but could do nothing but lie on the blanket near the fire and stare straight ahead. Cley felt guilty leaving him alone, but they needed food. He discovered that an integral part of the process was missing when he hunted alone. The frustration marred his aim, and he cursed out loud, scattering whatever game might be nearby. He was embarrassed to return to the cave in the evenings with only a geeble or a few crows.
Although he was weary, he fed the fire and cooked whatever pittance he had brought. Dicing the meat as small as he could, he fed the dog one piece at a time, then poured a little water into his companion’s mouth with each serving. By the time Cley had a chance to eat, it was late and he had little appetite.
Wood was most at ease when the hunter read. On the night he recited the section of the book that made the argument that thoughts were as real as rocks, the dog stirred and sat up for a few moments.
An enormous thicket of giant, gnarled trees grew so closely together that in order to pass between their trunks, the hunter had to turn sideways and wriggle through. Inside the natural structure, which arched overhead like the domed ceiling he remembered from the Ministry of Justice building in the Well-Built City, there was a huge clearing where the wind was all but forgotten. The branches tangled together forty feet overhead, and the trunks were like walls. Here, there was only a dusting of snow on the ground, whereas outside it was piled three feet deep. As little of the morning sun penetrated as did the snow, but in the dim light he saw, hanging above him from the roof of arching limbs, odd brown sacs, hundreds of them, each a man-sized fruit. He felt a tingling at the back of his neck, beads of sweat broke on his forehead, as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. They were demons, sleeping, suspended upside down and draped in their wings.
Slowly, without breathing, he stepped backward and, as quietly as possible, slipped out between the trunks where he had entered. Once clear of the nest, he smiled and began to search for kindling. As he gathered fallen limbs and twigs, he wished the dog was with him.
An hour later, fifty yards from the enclosure, he had a small fire burning on a plot of ground he had cleared of snow. He thrust the end of the torch he had made into the flames until it caught. His eyes were wide, and his chest heaved with excitement. Turning, he headed back toward the natural dome. As he approached the wall of trees, he stopped and reached the torch toward them. Before the fire could lick the trunks, he hesitated. Minutes passed and he stared at the flame as if hypnotized. Then, sighing, he opened his hand and let the glowing brand fall into the snow. A thin trail of smoke curled upward, and he walked away.
The eastern pond was frozen solid, and his luckless excursions in search of game took him to its side most distant from the cave. One day, he tracked through the snow the prints of what appeared to be a type of deer he had not yet encountered—something much larger than the white variety. The promise of its size drew him farther into undiscovered territory. A few hours after noon, a storm suddenly swept down from the north. At first, he hoped the weather might pass, and he kept going since he had not killed anything. The sun receded, the storm grew in intensity, and he finally realized he would have to turn back empty-handed.
Hours flew by before he reached the edge of the pond. In order to save time, he decided to cross it. Somewhere in the middle of that frozen tract, the snow began to drive down so fiercely that he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. He pushed on, never knowing if he had left the pond or where he was in relation to the cave. Like a sleepwalker, he lurched along without direction, and as the snow drifted upon the drifts that had already begun to harden, walking became difficult. Fear mounted in his mind, and all he could picture was the frozen corpse of the cinnamon cat, whose pelt he wore on his back. The sky grew dark with night as he inched along, unknowingly turning in wide circles.
Thoughts became clouds as dreams and memories flew together and then melted into snow. The wind insisted that he lie down and rest. “You are tired,” it said, “and the white bed is soft and warm.” Above the howl of the gale, he heard the distant sound of a dog barking, and it frightened him, because he knew the phantom noise meant the approach of death. “You must continue,” he told himself, but the wind was right. He was tired, and the snow at his feet appeared a pure white comforter in which he might wrap himself. The bow fell from his hand, and he dropped to his knees in a deep drift that held him upright in that position.
Death came for him, blowing down from the north—a swirling swarm of darkness mixing in with the falling snow. He saw it in his mind’s eye, he heard its soothing voice above the roar of the storm. It gathered itself up before him where he knelt, becoming a statue for the Beyond. The ice on his eyelashes cracked as he opened them to see the hunter whose prey he had become.
Wood bounded forward and rammed Cley in the chest, knocking him onto his back. The dog licked his face, thawing the ice jam of his confusion. The hunter grabbed his bow and found the strength to stand. Whistling weakly, he called, “Come, boy,” but the dog was already in the lead, showing him the way to safety. The faster they traveled, the more body heat he generated, reviving the circulation to those extremities that had begun to go numb. The relentless sting in his hands and feet was a welcome sign.
No sooner, it seemed, had they begun their journey home than the wind eased and the snow diminished to the lightest flurry. Before long, the moon glared down, offering light by which to mark their way. Wood stopped for a moment in a clearing in order for Cley to rest. The Beyond was hushed with that certain calm that follows the rage of blizzards. The trees were fringed with white, and the drifts were wind-curled at their tops like ocean waves.
As they were about to push on, Cley saw something moving among the trees to his right. The figure was large and shadowy, and the only thing that gave an indication as to what it might be was the reflection of moonlight off the bone white of its antlers. “Could this be the beast I was tracking all day?” he wondered as he let his mittens drop and reached for an arrow.
His hands still had little feeling, but the bow was so familiar that he was able to place the arrow. Wood noticed what he was doing and immediately crouched in the snow. Pulling the bowstring back was difficult, and his arm shook with the exertion. The thing in the woods blew a gust of air from its nostrils, and judging from where that cloud of steam gathered in the glow from above, he figured the distance to the chest, aimed, and released. A deep, rasping squeal cut the stillness of the night.
Wood was off like a shot, circling in among the trees to drive the creature out so that Cley could get off another shot. An enormous buck broke into the clearing just as the hunter was drawing back on the bowstring. As the stag got its footing and crouched to dash off to the left, he saw his other arrow jutting from the animal’s thick neck and aimed lower. The new arrow hit the mark, directly between shoulder blade and ribs. The animal went down hard, sending up a shower of new snow. Kicking its back legs, it squealed miserably in a strange, near-human voice, and thrashed back and forth.
In an instant, Cley had the stone knife in his hand. As soon as the stag rested from its death throes, he approached it from behind. The legs of the creature gave a few more quivering kicks, and then the hunter lunged in and sliced it across the throat. The life had barely left it before Wood lapped at the blood-dyed snow.
The carcass was too heavy to carry back, and it was a certainty the wolves would devour it by morning. It was as big as a small horse, with a rack that numbered ten points on either side. Cley had no choice but to take whatever he could carry. There was no telling if the Beyond might serve them venison again until spring. He cut two enormous steaks from its flanks, enough for a week’s worth of meals, and they trudged back toward the cave.