by Allen Steele
I fumbled at the zipper of my parka. My head still felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton, my mind not ready to cooperate with me. So this was going to be my initiation. Well, why not? I’d come this far with these people; regardless of what I’d just told Zoltan, we’d probably perish together. Might as well go the distance.
“Wrap it around your elbow,” Zoltan said, handing the sash to me, “and pull it as tight as you can.” He slid his hand into the bag once more. “This will take only a minute, then we’ll be done.”
I’d already wrapped the sash around my arm, but the last thing he said made me hesitate. I watched as he produced a small gold chalice. He carefully placed it on the ground; in the glow of the lantern, its rim held faint crimson stain, like something that he hadn’t been able to wash out. It looked like . . .
“What . . . what are you doing?” By then I’d seen the other things in his hand: the silver hypodermic needle; the small coil of surgical tubing; the deflated rubber valve. Yet even then, it hadn’t quite sunk in. I needed to have him tell me.
Perhaps he knew that he didn’t need to. His eyes slowly rose from the chalice, met my own. “Will you share yourself with me?” he whispered.
It was then that everything became clear. Why his followers wore the sash, why they were excused from their chores for the day. The black cloth concealed the puncture marks in their arms; a day’s rest helped them recover from their blood loss.
In church, communion is celebrated in a symbolic manner. A chalice of wine for the blood of the savior, a wafer of bread for his flesh. Whether or not one believes in the miracle of transubstantiation is almost beside the point; it’s the act of worship that counts. Yet Zoltan had twisted this ritual, turning it around so that it fit his own self-image. He wasn’t interested in symbolic deeds, nor was he willing to share himself with his followers. What he demanded was fealty, utter obedience; he wanted to be a god. So he brought them into his tent, told them whatever they wanted to hear, then . . .
“Benjamin.” He crawled closer, the needle raised in his right hand. “Will you share yourself with me? Will you give your blood to . . . ?”
“Get away!”
I kicked him as hard as I could, swinging my right foot into his stomach. Zoltan grunted and toppled over backward, and I scrambled across the tent and unzipped the flap. I was almost halfway out of the tent when I felt his hand close around my left ankle. I blindly kicked back, felt the sole of my foot connect with something fleshy. Zoltan cried out in pain, and the people seated around the campfire looked around as I pitched forward on hands and knees from his tent.
I rose to my feet, wavered unsteadily. Someone said my name, and I saw Greer coming toward me. I didn’t want her to touch me—I didn’t want anyone to touch me—so I lurched away, escaping the fire and the tents, until I fell to my knees beneath a tree.
I tried to vomit, but there was nothing in my stomach for me to throw up; all I could do was dry-heave. When my guts stopped convulsing, I fell into a pile of dry leaves at the base. Darkness closed in, and I was gone.
I awoke to find that someone had unrolled my sleeping bag and covered me with it. Probably Greer; she was the only person who acknowledged my presence that morning, and even she kept her distance. No one would speak to me; they quietly took down the tents and packed up their gear, treating me as if I was a guest who’d overstayed his welcome.
And perhaps I was. The map and compass were missing from my parka. Thinking they might have been taken from me while I was asleep, I asked the others who had them, only to receive stares and headshakes as nonverbal responses. Although it was clear that Zoltan was leading us through the forest, he didn’t appear to have them either. It’s possible that I might have lost them in the swamp, but when I attempted to go back to search for them, Zoltan beckoned for the others to come with him. So not only had I been ostracized, but the Universalists were willing to leave me behind. I had no choice but to follow them; shouldering my pack, I brought up the rear.
Even without the benefit of map and compass, Zoltan knew where he was going. At that point, it would have been difficult to miss finding the eastern slope of Mt. Shaw. By the end of the day, when we finally emerged from the forest, the mountain loomed before us, three thousand feet high, its summit still covered with snow. We made camp at its base, but no one invited me to share a tent with them. The only food left was some rice, but I wasn’t offered any, and when I attempted to join the Universalists by the fire they’d built, Boris stepped in front of me, blocking my way with his staff. I retreated to where I had unrolled my sleeping bag and sat there alone, shivering in the cold, my stomach growling.
Shortly after everyone turned in for the night, though, Greer came to me. Glancing over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching, she knelt beside my sleeping bag, then reached beneath her robe and produced a bowl. “Eat fast,” she whispered. “I can’t let anyone see me doing this.”
There was only a handful of rice in the bowl, but it was better than nothing. “Thanks,” I mumbled, my teeth chattering as I took it from her. “You’re . . .”
“Zoltan says you’re no longer one of us. You refused to share communion with him. That makes you a heretic. We’re not allowed to associate with you.”
“That’s what he says, huh?” I stuffed cold rice into my mouth. “And how many times have you let him drink your blood? Or have you lost count?”
She let out her breath. “It’s not like that, Ben. You might think it’s just about drinking blood, but it’s a form of sacred worship. The prophet partakes of our essence, and in that way we become closer not only to him but also God. . . .”
“Oh, come off it. There’s nothing sacred about what he’s doing. Zoltan wants to play vampire, that’s fine, but leave God out of it. He’s just using you for . . .”
“No! God has sent him to us to fulfill His mission. . . .”
“And you know what Zoltan told me last night? He says he wants us all to die!” I was no longer bothering to keep my voice low. “This isn’t communion. This isn’t worship. You’ve been brainwashed, kid. He’s going to . . .”
“Greer. Come away from him.”
I looked up, saw Zoltan emerge from the shadows. How long he’d been standing there, I had no idea. His wings were hidden under his robe, and I couldn’t see his face beneath his upraised hood, yet in that moment, backlit against the dying campfire, he looked as demonic as anything Dr. Owen Dunn might have imagined in the depths of his insanity.
Greer started to rise, but I grabbed her wrist. “Don’t listen to him,” I said. “He’s crazy, out of his mind. There’s nothing he can do to you if you don’t . . .”
“Greer, leave him.” Zoltan remained calm. “We’ve known all along that’s he’s an unbeliever. Now he’s revealed himself to be more.”
“What? A heretic? Just because I won’t grovel?” I struggled to my feet, dropping the empty bowl but keeping my grip on Greer’s wrist. “You’re a lousy excuse for a prophet, Shirow. Jesus would have been sick if he’d ever met you. . . .”
“Enough!” Zoltan leveled a taloned finger at me. “Thou art damned! Thou art excommunicated! Thou art no longer of the body of the church!”
“Yeah. Right.” From behind him, the other Universalists were emerging from their tents, drawn by the sound of our voices. “So I’m damned and excommunicated, and you’ll never get me to . . .” I stopped, shook my head. “But I’m one thing you’re not, Shirow, and the one thing you can’t do without just now.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m the only guy who knows how to get over that mountain.”
He stared at me. “God will show us the way.”
“Maybe I don’t have the map and compass anymore, but I don’t think you do either, and I was the only one who was paying attention to where we were going while y’all were singing church hymns. Not only that, but Clark Thompson told me how to find the Alabama colonists, and not you. So unless God gives out travel plans, buddy,
you’re screwed.”
I was bluffing, of course; Thompson’s directions hadn’t been specific. Not only that, but I was gambling that Zoltan hadn’t stolen the map and compass from me. I hadn’t seen him or anyone else produce them all day, which led me to believe that they had been lost.
“You say you want to die out here.” Desperate, I kept talking, trying to get through to them. “Great . . . so what’s that going to prove? If no one knows why, then it’ll all be for nothing . . . nothing! What sort of a holy mission is that, pal?”
Greer trembled against me; I released her wrist, but she didn’t move away. No one said anything; they waited in silence for their prophet to denounce the heretic, the unbeliever, the damned soul who’d dared challenge God’s chosen messenger to Coyote.
Zoltan said nothing for a few moments. He was stuck, and he knew it. “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” he said at last. “You may lead us across the mountain, Benjamin.”
“Thank you.” I let out my breath, hesitated. “And in exchange for my services as your guide, there’s one more thing I want from you.”
“And this is . . . ?”
“Your tent, please. And without you in it.” I bent down, gathered my bag and pack. “It’s freezing out here, and I’m sure no one will object if you share space with them.”
Zoltan didn’t reply. He simply stepped aside. My arms full, I walked past him, ignoring his followers as I headed over to his tent.
Yet when I looked back, Greer wasn’t with me. She had moved against his side, and he’d put his arms around her. That was when I knew she was lost to me.
It took two days for us to climb Mt. Shaw. It should have taken only one, but the mountainside was steep. With no trail to follow, we had to pick our way around granite ledges and across landslides, taking a zigzag course up the eastern slope. The higher we went, the colder the air became, and soon every breath we took was painful. Once we passed the tree line about three-quarters of the way up the mountain we found ourselves plodding, sometimes crawling, through knee-deep drifts.
Everyone was weak from hunger and cold. When we stopped to make camp, there was no level place for us to pitch our tents, nor any dry wood to gather for a fire. We managed to half cook the remaining rice in snow melted in a pan over a portable stove—at that altitude, it was impossible to bring the water to a boil—but several people had come down with altitude sickness and couldn’t eat. No one’s clothes were dry, and some of us were showing the first signs of acute hypothermia. We spent a chilly night on the mountain, huddled together in our bags as the wind kicked up snow around us, Bear glaring down upon us like the eye of an angry god.
When morning finally came, we discovered that Clarice was no longer among us. Renaldo found her ten feet away; sometime during the night, she had rolled down the slope in her sleeping bag until she landed in a deep snowdrift. She was still alive, but only barely; her face was pale, her lips blue, and she never regained consciousness despite our attempts to keep her warm. Clarice died as Uma was rising over the summit; with the ground too hard for us to dig a grave and no one strong enough to carry her body, the only thing we could do was zip her corpse inside her bag and stack some rocks on top of it. Zoltan muttered a brief prayer, then we continued our ascent, leaving her behind.
We reached the top of the mountain late in the afternoon the second day. The view was magnificent—a great valley several thousand feet below, surrounded by the Gillis Range with the mammoth volcanic cone of Mt. Bonestell far away to the northwest—but no one was in any condition to appreciate it. By then several people were leaning heavily upon their staffs or each other, their feet numb from frostbite; Ian was snow-blind, relying on Dex to lead him, and most of the others were listless and mumbling incoherently.
To make matters worse, thick clouds coming in from the northeast warned that a storm was approaching. We had to get off the summit as soon as we could. Still pretending that I knew the way, I made the best guess I could, then began leading the group down the western slope.
We made it to the tree line shortly after dusk, but still we couldn’t find anyplace for us to set up our tents. The stronger members of the group erected a couple of lean-to shelters from fallen branches, then covered them with unfolded tents. Unable to build a fire, with nothing left to eat, we crowded together beneath the shelters as the first flakes of snow began to fall upon us. That night, even Bear had forsaken us; the sky was dark, the stars invisible behind the storm sweeping down the mountain.
No one spoke to me except when they had to. I was necessary, but that was all; any sense of brotherhood had long since vanished. Greer stayed away from me. That hurt the most, because although I had stopped caring very much about the rest of the group, I still loved her. But during that last, long night, even though she slept only a few feet away, she was as distant as if we were separated by miles.
By daybreak, though, the snow was still falling and the shelters were covered with nearly a foot of fresh powder. Three more people had died during the night: Boris, and two others whose names I can’t recall today. Yet there was no way we could continue our descent; visibility had been reduced to less than five feet, and most of the group were suffering from frostbite and hypothermia.
That was when the true horror began.
“We have to eat,” Zoltan said, as I was helping Renaldo drag the bodies from beneath the shelter. “If we don’t eat, we’ll die.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” I could barely see him through the snow; he was sitting on a log, staring at me. “Know just the place. Nice little cafe at the bottom of the mountain. Just a few miles away. Great prime rib. C’mon, let’s go.”
A bad joke. I couldn’t help it. Four people dead already, and doubtless more to come. Ian most likely, or perhaps Doria; both were comatose, and there was nothing we could do to save them. Even another handful of raw rice sounded like a feast just then. But when I looked at him, I saw that he was gazing at the corpses in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.
“Put them over there,” he said, pointing to a place nearby. “Get some knives.” He looked at Renaldo. “See if you can find some dry wood. We need to make a fire.”
“What are you saying?” I whispered.
For several long moments, Zoltan didn’t reply. “We need to eat,” he said. “If we don’t, we’ll die.”
“You told me God wants us to die,” I said. “Isn’t that your . . . ?”
And then he lifted his gaze, and in that instant I saw something in his eyes I’d never seen before. . . .
No. That’s not right. It had been there all along; I had just refused to acknowledge it, even though I knew it to be true. Zoltan Shirow was insane. He had always been insane. From the moment wings had been grafted to his back, he had been mad; nevertheless, he had concealed it behind the veneer of presumed prophecy.
Cannibalism can be accepted if you’re desperate to survive. Many have done it before in order to continue living, and more often than not they weren’t crazy. As repulsive as it may be, it’s a pragmatic choice; eat the dead and remain alive, or die yourself. Yet in that instant, looking into Zoltan’s eyes, I realized that this was what he’d had in mind all along. Given a choice, though, he would have preferred to taste my flesh than that of any of his followers. He wasn’t going to wait until I died of cold or starvation. That was why he’d let me remain with the group. I wouldn’t give him my blood, so he’d consume my body instead. Don’t ask me how I knew what he intended; I just did.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re right. It’s gotta be done.” I turned to Renaldo. “You go get the knives . . . I think they’re in Boris’s bag. I’ll get some wood.”
Renaldo nodded dumbly. His mind was gone. He began trudging back through the snow toward the nearest lean-to. I watched him go, then I turned and started hobbling down the slope.
After the first few steps, I broke into a run. I had nothing with me except the clothes on my back and the boots I was wearing; no pack, no bag, no lantern,
no stove. But if I returned to the shelter where I’d left my things, I had little doubt that I’d never come out again.
And I didn’t have Greer. I tried to forget that as I ran for my life.
I had almost made a clean getaway when I heard Zoltan call my name. I wanted to keep going, but something made me stop, look back around. Zoltan was still where I’d left him; he hadn’t moved at all, making no effort to pursue me. A gargoyle crouching in the snow. He knew what I was doing.
“Benjamin,” he said, his voice almost lost to me, “do you believe?”
I started to say something, but I didn’t. Instead, I started running again.
How I survived, I’ll never know. By all rights, I should have perished on Mt. Shaw. I ate snow and the bark off trees, and slept covered by piles of dead leaves, and kept going downhill until I found my way to the bottom of the mountain, where a hunting party found me three days later. If Zoltan had been around, he might have said that what saved me was divine providence. Personally, I think it was fear, and the knowledge of what I’d left behind.
A doctor named Kuniko Okada nursed me back to health. Two toes on my left foot had rotted with gangrene from frostbite, so she was forced to amputate them, but other than that and severe malnutrition I’d come through in relatively good shape. I remained in her care for the next week, until I was strong enough to get out of bed and hobble across her cabin with the aid of a walking stick. It wasn’t until Dr. Okada helped me out onto the porch that I discovered that the place was suspended fifteen feet above the ground.
The original colonists had built their new settlement within the boughs of an ancient stand of blackwood trees, not far from a wide creek that flowed down from the Gillis Range. Looking out from Dr. Okada’s porch, I saw a village of tree houses, connected to one another by rope bridges, with livestock pens, brick kilns, and grain sheds scattered across the forest floor. I even saw the still where they made their bearshine. No wonder the Union hadn’t been able to discover its location; the blackwoods not only provided protection against boids, but also camouflage from the cameras and infrared sensors of the spacecraft orbiting high above.