The Book of the Dead (20 page)

Still, none of us were prepared for it when it came. First, a soft luminescence in the tunnel ahead, a suggestion of shapes and contours, then we doused our lanterns and ran towards the growing light. There was the caress of a breeze on my cheeks, a freshness of verdure,
birdsong
– and then we were through.

It was a paradise. The tunnels debouched in a cave a thousand feet above a great valley, many miles across, slung between towering ice-bound peaks. A ribbon of water ran through it to a shiny expanse at its centre, reflecting the clear sky with its fluffy clouds like a mirror. And everywhere there was green; not the sere drab waste of the Pamirs with their tough dry tussocks of yellowing grass, but
trees
, luxurious greenswards and sinuous rills, a riot of life.

Fyodorov crossed himself. “It is here,” he breathed. “All this time, it was here, waiting...”

An emotion close to awe flickered across Krepkin’s face. “The Garden... Dare we enter, I wonder?”

No doubt clouded Fyodorov’s child-like features. “Shambhala. Shangri-La. Eden. Let no one stop us.”

A circuitous path wound its way down the precipitous cliff from the cave, down into the warm humid air of Eden. For by now all our doubts were gone; in spite of the horrors of the ice caves, we looked to Fyodorov as one would a messiah.

How good it was to smell the warm earth! The scent of flowers! After the rigours of the High Pamirs, it was as though we suddenly strode through a leafy Petersburg garden in high spring. Bees buzzed in hedgerows heavy with blossom, and the trees burst forth with the sticky yellow-green leaves that had always given me so much delight. It was intoxicating. I laughed, giddily.

“Such flowers,” breathed Madame Vysotskaya, touching one of the exorbitant blooms which descended in clusters from the Magnolia-like trees lining our way. “I do not recognise them...”

“These mountains were raised before our species ever existed, dear lady. It is likely this valley has been cut off from the world for millions of years. What wonders shall we find here, I wonder?”

As we carried the unconscious Arkady Apollonovich between us, I exchanged a glance with Krepkin; there was one such “wonder” which was still very much on both our minds.

“A camp, first,” said Krepkin, pointing with his head down the valley. “There, by the great lake. Water, and a chance for food. Then we can begin to explore.”

The rest of the day passed as though in a dream. We pitched our tents, quarantining Arkady in a cot in his own, Fyodorov feigning helpfulness but dancing with impatience to explore; and then we wandered the Garden.

It was as though we entered a state of innocence. Even Madame Vysotskaya’s wild gaze softened, and her harshness gave way to a smiling radiance I warrant she had not shown since she had been a girl. And Fyodorov opined all the while, a great rambling sermon,
ex tempore
, filled with the inspiration of that most miraculous of moments.

He spoke of many things; of harnessing the power of the Garden for the resurrection of the dead; of the control of the elements, the weather, even the power of the sun. Then his thoughts took flight, and he told us of flying machines which would soar through the skies, and even to other lifeless worlds which we would transform into gardens like this. His face shone like a prophet, and I knew then what Nikolai Pavlovich had meant when he had called him a remarkable man, a holy man, an idiot; there was an honesty, a simplicity, a blind trust in him that could not help but fire my blood with hope and anticipation. Surely this vision was true; surely Fyodorov’s common task would unite all men under Holy Russia’s banner, the Third Rome!

We slept like children, but that night I awoke. I thought at first I had been dreaming, but then I saw it. Large and silent, a pool of darkness deeper than the night.

A figure stood at the edge of the clearing, touched by the dancing firelight. Tall, regal, commanding. Naked. It regarded us in silence, then seemed to become aware of my wakefulness, and turned, and walked away into the darkness. I thought I had dreamed it, until Krepkin mentioned the same thing the next morning.

“It was a man, I am sure. Not the cadaverous husk of the mummy in the cave. Not the
almas
, either, nor ape nor bear. The Kirghiz legend of Iskander, the Giant –”

I stopped. Vysotskaya regarded me with alarm, her mouth gaping open, her eyes wide. Next to her, Krepkin rose to his feet, his hand reaching for his revolver.

I turned, and my breath stuck in my throat.

It was the figure from my dream. But what a figure! An Adonis – tall, olive-skinned, rippling with muscle like a Donatello. Close-cropped curly hair, piercing sapphire eyes, aquiline nose. And cherubic lips, perpetually curled with heedless confidence, as though he knew his beauty.

“My dear fellow...” Fyodorov approached, holding his fur coat to cover the stranger’s nakedness. The figure beheld him with infinite disdain, then turned his back for Fyodorov to dress him, which he did with alacrity. With no acknowledgement of the favour, the tall man faced us, and spoke.

“Was that Greek?” I said.

Fyodorov nodded excitedly. “I believe so! Older than the Greek I’m familiar with. Let me try something...”

He pronounced some lisping syllables with careful patience, which I struggled to follow.

“We are travellers, from far away,” he said. “My name is Fyodorov. Who are you?”

The figure smiled strangely, as though pitying the Professor. “Your words are barbarous.”

“Oh, Lord!” cried Fyodorov. “It is the Greek of the classics! Dmitry Mikhailovich – you must know this tongue better than I.”

Fyodorov and I had discussed the Greeks many times on our journey. Not surprisingly, Fyodorov’s familiarity was with the later Hellenistic Greek of the Church Fathers; mine was with the classical stanzas of the heroic age. The stranger’s words were unbelievable.

“Are there more of you?” The Adonis’s eyes ranged over us.

“Oh, yes, yes!” smiled Fyodorov. “So many! Oh! This is the discovery of the age! How have you...? You were asleep, of course – in the sarcophagus.”

A shadow passed over the Adonis’s brow.

“Geroyev? What is he saying?” asked Krepkin, who had no Greek.

I told him, and as I did so I became uncomfortably aware that the mysterious stranger with whom Fyodorov conversed so volubly might well be the very same as the one which had murdered Myslev, and left Arkady bereft. Yet this was no mummified corpse...

“... the Czar himself will want to see you,” Fyodorov continued, his words falling over themselves in his excitement. “I must take samples – something about this place. It is the Garden! I am sure of it!”

The stranger regarded him steadily. “There is a poison here. It is not safe to remain.”

Fyodorov’s protest needed no translation. “A poison? That cannot be! A great gift, surely? You, yourself – to have survived, so many centuries...”

“Think you I came here alone? Look around: there is no one.
They are all dead.
If you remain here, you will die. Command your slaves – you must depart this place. You will lead me back. I would see Bactra the beautiful once more...”

“B-Bactra...?” Fyodorov stammered in Russian. “Lord, I have so many questions.” He turned to us, blinking in confusion. “He says we must leave. A contagion...” He looked around at the valley, bursting with life, as though his hope was crushed. “To find the secret, and then...”

I noted how Fyodorov had not translated the Adonis’s use of the word “slaves”. Krepkin’s eyes flashed as he listened, and his hand rested on his holster. “This is the man who killed Myslev?”

Fyodorov seemed at a loss. “I – I do not know. Perhaps, in the confusion of his waking...?”

Vysotskaya looked around her as if danger might spring from any place unseen. “If there is a disease, perhaps the caves? The storm may have abated...”

I remember my own lips curling as though I had a foul taste in my mouth. All I knew was that I was surrounded by ignorance and lies, and that somewhere amidst these seeming miracles and prodigies a mortal danger threatened us all. How could I then have suspected what its source might be?

The stranger’s name was Alexandros. By his bearing Krepkin and I knew him for a military man, or a great leader, yet neither of us could bring ourselves to believe this might be Alexander of Macedon himself. For over two thousand years the tribes of the lowlands had preserved the legend of Iskander the Giant, that bone-crunching monster whose reign in Central Asia, as in so many other lands, had changed the world. My mind was awash with questions, yet I regarded the stranger warily, ever mindful of Myslev’s corpse and the blood on the ice.

Krepkin had busied himself with dismantling the camp. As we bent now to assist him, I saw him stumble as though pushed, and the canvas and guy ropes fell from his hands over the springy flower-strewn turf. The stranger stood close by, his arms folded across his chest, wearing Fyodorov’s furs like the robes of a king.

“Major!” cried Sofia Filippovna, hurrying to hold him from falling. “You must sit down. You look unwell.”

Krepkin’s complexion was grey, his eyes sunken and feverish. His lips had the same cold look we knew only too well.

“Hard... to think...” he drawled. “Like I’m drunk...”

I shot a glance at the impassive Iskander. “You say we face a deadly contagion in this garden – is this how it begins?” The stranger made no reply. “We must get him to the quarantine tent with Arkady. Damnation! Is there nothing we can do?”

Iskander watched our every move, immobile and unfathomable amidst the remains of our camp. As we settled Krepkin on a second pallet, Fyodorov stood by Arkady’s cot, his face gaunt.

The boy’s breathing was shallow, his eyes unfocussed, and he no longer raved in words we could understand. Instead he grunted, in a bestial growl as monotonous as it was disturbing.

“I can detect no intelligence in him,” said Fyodorov. “He seems an imbecile. It is as though the contagion...”

“Nikolai Fyodorovich – it is not the contagion. That – creature out there did this. That mummified revenant – whatever it is!”

Fyodorov bowed his head over Arkady’s prostrate body as though he was praying. “Don’t you think I know that, my friend?” he pleaded. “What would you have me do? We are surrounded by the unknown. There is a force, here, which may change mankind forever – a
life
force. That man, Iskander – he was a mummified corpse not one day ago. Now he lives and walks like you and I. Is that not a miracle? A thing worthy of Eden itself? If there is something in the land, here, some particle of dust, which I can isolate –”

“What would it tell you? That the mummy we found drains the life of the living to replenish itself? That the peril we face now seeks a greater herd of
livestock
on which to prey?”

Fyodorov looked at me, horrified. “But there is no way we can carry both of them back to the cave. One, perhaps, if we had Krepkin to help us. How will we climb the cliff? What are we to do?” Beneath his clenched palms, the unconscious form of Arkady twitched as if in dream, and growled like an animal.

I had no answer for him, but to fasten Krepkin’s revolver to my belt; the wretch had little use for it now. I felt Vysotskaya’s eyes on me as I returned to the camp. With Krepkin down, our expedition felt rudderless, and I realised Fyodorov had been no leader at all.

“Stay back!” I shouted, facing Iskander. “What did you do to them?”

A strange light burned in Iskander’s eyes, something feral in his stance I had not seen before. His knees were slightly bent, his shoulders hunched, his head angled forwards to regard me from beneath beetling brows. He smiled, but it was no longer the imperious sneer of a king, but a baring of teeth, the drooling leer of a predator before it springs. He lunged, and grabbed my arm, before I could reach the revolver.

“Dmitry Mikhailovich! His skin – look at his skin!”

Iskander’s hand as it gripped my arm was grey, with a cadaverous sheen, and I fancied I could see beneath his features the mummy we had uncovered in the caves. His fingers tightened on my arm, burning with an icy fire.

A scream rent the air. A bestial, mindless cry, from the direction of the quarantine tent, followed by the sounds of struggle.

“Krepkin!” shouted Fyodorov.

Mustering all my strength, I wrenched my arm from Iskander’s grasp, feeling my muscles tear agonisingly. I ran after Fyodorov. Under the canvas, a biting, clawing figure I realised with a shock was Arkady wrestled on top of the writhing Krepkin, ripping at his flesh, smearing blood. Krepkin seemed mindless with terror, the soldier in him utterly gone, and it was all we could do to pull Arkady away. He kicked and screamed, flailing with gore-covered fingers, gnashing his foam-flecked jaws.

“Tie him down!” I cried, as we wrestled the lad to his pallet.

When it was over, Fyodorov and I stared at the boy, as Krepkin whimpered like a baby. Arkady struggled in vain, swaddled tight in his blankets.

I looked at Fyodorov in alarm, then ran from the tent.

Back in the camp, Vysotskaya and Iskander were gone.

We found Sofia Filippovna’s body in a thicket by the lake. The look of terror frozen on her features took my breath away, and I raised the back of my hand to my mouth, unable to meet Fyodorov’s eyes.

“The same greyish pallor,” he said. “Like Myslev and the others. Except this time there is no blood. She does not seem injured at all.”

He lowered himself to his knees, hunching over Vysotskaya’s corpse, examining the spider web of thin black veins that had erupted everywhere beneath her alabaster skin.

“Nikolai Fyodorovich, we have to leave. That thing is preying on us. It will kill us all.”

“Leave the others?” Fyodorov’s expression was like a child’s, asking permission to do something forbidden.

“What choice do we have? We cannot carry them. Besides... I no longer know what any of them are any more. What is this contagion? Will Krepkin and Arkady rise like Iskander? Will Sofia Filippovna?”

Fyodorov gazed round at the paradisiacal verdure which stretched to the white peaks, the lazy sunshine in the sighing trees, the insects going about their eternal business between the flowers. “There is so much here,” he said. “Imagine what the world could become if we could unlock this land’s secret! We – we could entreat Iskander...” Fyodorov clasped his hands tightly before him.