The Altar Of Bones Part 40

A pale-faced waiter had appeared to pour more tea into Svetlana's empty cup. She raised it and toasted them. "It is poison, I know, but drink up. You will need the warmth." She looked at Ry yet again, and this time she gave him a fleeting smile. "One of Mikhail's Cats is a two-seater, so you can bring him along if you want. They heat up, by the way, the seats on the Cats. And there are hand warmers, too. Can you imagine such a luxury? Drink up now, drink up."

The tea was awful, and they drank every drop.

54.

ZOE STARED up at the waterfall that shot out of the bluff above their heads in waves of ice and jagged spiky icicles. "It almost doesn't look real," she said. "It's like some G.o.d came along and zapped it, freezing it solid in midair, in a single instant of time." up at the waterfall that shot out of the bluff above their heads in waves of ice and jagged spiky icicles. "It almost doesn't look real," she said. "It's like some G.o.d came along and zapped it, freezing it solid in midair, in a single instant of time."

"This is Siberia," Svetlana said, "where everything is always frozen solid. Except maybe for five minutes during the first week in August.... All right, I am joking. But only a little."

Svetlana looked up at the tall, wide pillar of ice, and Zoe thought a shudder crossed her face. "There's barely an hour of daylight left and a snowstorm is coming, so I must leave you now, my cousin of sorts. The cave with the altar of bones is behind the waterfall, and you should stay inside there overnight. Your Cat's got a GPS system, but it doesn't work here in the canyon, and even back out on the tundra it's easy to get lost in the snow and the dark. And this is the starving season. The wolves will be out."

"Thank you," Zoe said. "For everything."

Svetlana smiled at Zoe, then looked at Ry and gave him a flicker of a smile as well. "In the compartment behind the seats on your Arctic Cat, I put a couple of s.p.a.ce blankets, some sausage and cabbage rolls, and a bottle of Kalashnikov. The blankets are good at keeping a body warm, but the vodka is better."

Svetlana cast another, fleeting glance up at the waterfall. "I should go now."

"We'll bring the Cat back to Mikhail's no later than tomorrow morning," Zoe said. "Will you be there? I'd like to talk with you some more, about the magic people and my great-grandmother, and your great-uncle Fodor, all those stories you've heard."

Svetlana nodded. "Yes. If you wish, I will be there."

For a moment Zoe thought the girl would embrace her, but then she only nodded again and turned away.

THEY WATCHED THE Arctic Cat cut away from them across the frozen lake, kicking up a rooster tail of snow. Arctic Cat cut away from them across the frozen lake, kicking up a rooster tail of snow.

"I think she was warming to you a little, O'Malley. There at the end."

He didn't smile, and he was quiet for so long, she said, "What? What are you thinking?"

"That this shouldn't be a test of your feelings for me. I don't see it that way and I don't want you to see it that way either. Tell me to wait out here by the Cat, and I will. No questions asked, and no resentments either."

She took him by the arms and turned him around to face her. "There is no halfway here, Ry. Not with me."

He stared down at her, his eyes dark with some emotion she couldn't read, except it seemed to be shaking him to the core. But all he said was "All right, then. Let's get it done."

He took her by the hand, but now Zoe held back.

She stared up at the huge, rippling pillar of ice. "All of this ... it's just so hard to believe we're actually here. When I first heard the story about Lena Orlova escaping from the gulag, trekking across Siberia all the way to Shanghai, and all the while pregnant with her lover's child, I thought it sounded so beautifully sad and romantic, like something out of Doctor Zhivago Doctor Zhivago. But the truth turned out to be nothing like that at all, did it? What really happened here was brutal and ugly and cruel."

"Not all of it," Ry said. "She survived, and that was a brave and wonderful thing. She survived so that this day, this moment, could happen. When you, her great-granddaughter, could come back to the place where it all began and see it through. Full circle."

Zoe swallowed hard and nodded. "Because I am the Keeper now."

But she wondered how she would find the altar of bones in a place Nikolai Popov had searched so many times. And if she did, then what? What would come afterward, because once she found the altar, she would become its Keeper in fact as well as in name. The altar's secrets would be her secrets then, to keep or to betray.

Ry touched his forehead to hers. "You had an incredible burden laid on you, Zoe, from out of nowhere. And you know what? You haven't faltered. You've got grit and a brain." He lightly touched his palm to her chest. "And a huge heart. I am very proud of you. Now, let's find the entrance to this d.a.m.n cave so we can do what we came to do."

"Did she say wolves?"

He laughed. "I'd kiss you, but I'm afraid our lips would freeze together."

55.

ZOE STARED at the impossibly small gap between the two sheets of rock that made up the face of the bluff. "Sweet Mother of Jesus, Ry, this can't be it. I mean, there's no way we're fitting through that. It's impossible. There's got to be another entrance somewhere else, and we're just not seeing it." at the impossibly small gap between the two sheets of rock that made up the face of the bluff. "Sweet Mother of Jesus, Ry, this can't be it. I mean, there's no way we're fitting through that. It's impossible. There's got to be another entrance somewhere else, and we're just not seeing it."

But it had taken them forever to find even this slit in the rock face. When they'd first walked out onto the ledge behind the waterfall and looked head-on at the front of the bluff, their eyes had seen only a solid wall of rock. It wasn't until they walked all the way out to the end of the ledge and looked back did they realize that two sheets of rock were actually overlapping each other.

Zoe leaned forward just far enough to peer into the narrow creva.s.se. It was too dark to tell how deep it went, or whether the entrance to the cave really was at the other end of it. It could lead to nowhere, or just drop off into s.p.a.ce. "Nope. Uh-uh. No way. It's too narrow. An anorexic goat would get stuck in there."

"I'll go first," Ry said. "If it's wide enough for me, then you'll get through. I know you hate tight places, and believe me, this doesn't look like loads of fun to me either, but it's what we got to do."

"I know, I know. But what if you get stuck?"

"Then go get some dynamite and blow me out."

"This isn't funny, Ry. I'm really, really scared. My mind knows it's irrational, but my body isn't getting the message." Her heart was already racing so fast, she thought she could feel it whapping against her ribs like the wings of a trapped bird.

"I know, babe. Look ..." Ry turned sideways and sidled into the overlapping gap in the rock face. "It's wider than it looks. A lot of what you're seeing is an optical illusion."

"Maybe ..."

Ry held out his hand to her, palm up. "We'll do it together. It's the end of the journey, Zoe. This is the last step."

"Yeah, but does this last step have to be such a b.l.o.o.d.y narrow one?" she said with a shaky laugh. She grabbed his hand, though. Then she turned sideways to match him and put one foot and half her body into h.e.l.l.

"That's good," Ry said. "I won't let you go. Now, shut your eyes and concentrate on breathing. In, out. In, out."

Zoe closed her eyes and breathed. In, out.

Ry took a step, bringing her with him, then another step. In, out. In, out.

"Imagine you're in the middle of a football field," Ry was saying, "and the field's in the middle of a huge, empty stadium, and there's nothing around you but s.p.a.ce, wide-open s.p.a.ce, everywhere you look."

Zoe couldn't picture the field, her mind felt too full of white noise. Her ears were ringing with it. Red dots danced in the darkness behind her closed eyes, and she fought down a sudden, desperate urge to open them.

Her left boot stepped on a loose stone causing her ankle to buckle underneath her. Instinctively she brought her free hand up to steady herself and it knocked against something hard. Her eyes flew open, and she was staring at a wall of solid rock not more than an inch from the end of her nose.

The white noise in Zoe's head flared up into a single loud, penetrating scream. Get out, get out, get out Get out, get out, get out.

She tried to pull her hand out of Ry's grasp, but he held on. "Eyes shut and breathe."

She squeezed her eyes shut, so hard it hurt. Her breaths sc.r.a.ped in and out of her throat, burning, and her chest felt as if it were going to explode. She wanted out, out, out- "Talk, Zoe."

"Huh?"

"Talk about whatever comes into your head. Babble away. It'll soothe my nerves."

Zoe made a little yelping noise that was supposed to be a laugh. "Like you've ever had a nervous moment in your entire life, O'Malley. Ever since that night I crawled out of the Seine and you shot me with that tranquilizer gun, it's been one hairy moment after another for us, and yet you go about saving our a.s.ses and knocking off the bad guys like it's just la-di-da and all in a day's work with you. It's enough to give us normal people an inferiority complex-"

Her bottom brushed against something hard, startling her. She tucked it in, and the front of her anorak sc.r.a.ped against the rock in front of her. Oh, G.o.d ... Oh, G.o.d ... "Ry? It's getting narrow. Really, really narrow." "Ry? It's getting narrow. Really, really narrow."

"We're here."

Slowly, Zoe opened her eyes. Enough light still penetrated through the gap in the rock for her to see that they stood at the top of a flight of narrow steps cut into the sheer side of what looked to be a bottomless pit.

Ry took a step toward the edge, and pebbles scattered, hitting the cave floor below them. Okay, not bottomless then.

"I know I should be scared spitless about going down into that," Zoe said, whispering for some strange reason. "But after surviving that the slit-in-the-rock-from-h.e.l.l, I feel like I could tackle those steps while turning somersaults."

Ry grinned at her as he pulled a flashlight from his pocket and aimed it down into the cave. "It's actually not that deep," he said, and he, too, was whispering. "Fifteen feet, maybe twenty at the most."

The climb down, while steep, turned out to be easier than it looked. At the bottom they found a kerosene lantern hanging on a hook. Ry took it down and gave it a little shake. "It feels full."

Zoe didn't bother to ask him if he had something to light it with; she knew he would. The man was always prepared for anything.

She watched while he held a butane lighter to the lantern's wick, and it caught. He lifted the lantern and together they turned in a slow circle as the light moved over the walls of the cave. It was round, nearly perfectly so, and it wasn't all that big, maybe twenty feet in diameter. An evil-looking oily black pool took up most of the middle, and across the pool, against the far wall, stood an altar made out of human bones. A hot geyser bubbled beneath it, enshrouding it in a soft veil of steam.

"The altar of bones," Ry said.

"But not the the altar. If Popov was telling the truth about that, and there's no reason to think he wasn't. It's creepy, though, to think all those bones were once people. I wonder who built it and why." altar. If Popov was telling the truth about that, and there's no reason to think he wasn't. It's creepy, though, to think all those bones were once people. I wonder who built it and why."

"To worship some ancient G.o.d or G.o.ddess, maybe? But it also could have been set up as a decoy all along, to make people like Popov, people who manage to get this far, believe they've found the source of the bone juice, when the real altar of bones is somewhere else."

"Yeah, but where?" Zoe said. "I don't see anything else down here that it could be, except maybe the pool. But besides being too obvious, Popov claimed he had that tested, too, and the pool isn't it."

Ry cast the lantern light over the walls of the cave again. Water dripped into the pool from the ceiling, making a melodic plop, ploppity, plop plop, ploppity, plop noise. Zoe saw stalagmites, a few rotting pieces of wood, the remains of a campfire, and a battered metal bowl. Etched deep into the stone walls were the crude outlines of seven wolves, each one chasing after the other, in an endless loop around the cave. noise. Zoe saw stalagmites, a few rotting pieces of wood, the remains of a campfire, and a battered metal bowl. Etched deep into the stone walls were the crude outlines of seven wolves, each one chasing after the other, in an endless loop around the cave.

"The wolves ..."

"What?" Ry said.

"It was what my grandmother wrote at the end of her letter. Something about not treading where wolves lie. Maybe these wolves carved into the wall are some kind of clue to where the real altar is. Another Keeper riddle."

"I don't know. They aren't lying down, for one thing. But solving riddles got us this far. How much of your grandmother's letter do you still remember?"

"Not all word for word, but big chunks of it. Let's see.... The first part was about no time left and the hunters closing in on her, and how she stayed away because of them, the hunters, only now she was dying ..."

It suddenly hit Zoe then, what exactly her grandmother must have felt while she was writing her letter, maybe because Zoe had been living it herself these last two harrowing weeks-feeling that no place on earth would ever be safe for you again, no one you met could ever be trusted. But for her grandmother it had been worse because she'd had to endure it alone. For years.

Zoe blinked back tears and went on. "There was something about ignorance being no shield against danger, but how she dared to put only so much in her letter, and this next part I remember exactly, because I read it a gazillion times."

She closed her eyes. She could see the Cyrillic script of her grandmother's hand, blue on white paper ..." 'The women of our line have been Keepers to the altar of bones for so long, the beginning has been lost in the mists of time. The sacred duty of each Keeper is to guard from the world the knowledge of the secret pathway, for beyond the pathway is the altar, and within the altar is the fountain of-' "

She cut herself off, opening her eyes. She stared hard at the altar, but that seemed to be all it was-an altar fashioned out of human bones. "For beyond the pathway is the altar," she said again.

"Yeah," Ry said, "but unfortunately, the pathway seems to be a secret pathway."

" She mentioned the pathway again later, though, when she wrote about the icon. Remember, 'Look to the Lady, for her heart cherishes the secret, and the pathway to the secret is infinite' " She mentioned the pathway again later, though, when she wrote about the icon. Remember, 'Look to the Lady, for her heart cherishes the secret, and the pathway to the secret is infinite' "

Zoe walked up to the altar. She saw that the table part of it was also made out of bones, whole flat bones such as scapulas and skull plates, and parts of other bones that had been carved and then fitted together like jigsaw pieces.

"That story Rasputin told the tsar's spy in the tavern that night," she said, as Ry came up beside her. "He claimed he saw the Lady icon sitting on top of an altar made out of human bones. So at one time the Lady was here, on top of this altar. 'Look to the Lady, her heart cherishes the secret, the pathway to the secret is-' "

"'Infinite,' "Ry said. "Infinity.

The symbol for infinity."

Zoe bent closer over the altar top, looking for the infinity pattern in the bones-the figure eight lying on its side-but it was all a jumble. Ry took a step back, to look at the altar's front again, and eventually she did, too. "It's all just a jumble, Ry. I see skulls, femurs, fibulas, tibias, but in the end it all adds up to just a bunch of bo-"

"Skulls," Ry said. "Look. There are seven of them, like there were seven jewels that made up the infinity pattern on the icon." Ry said. "Look. There are seven of them, like there were seven jewels that made up the infinity pattern on the icon."

And as soon as he said it, the sleeping figure eight made by the layout of the skulls on the front of the altar jumped right out at her. "I see it, Ry. I see it. So what do you think? Do we press on the skulls like we did with the jewels?"

Ry grinned at her. "Yeah. I say we go for it."

Zoe knelt down in front of the altar. She started with the skull in the center, as she had with the icon's jewels, pressing into its smooth forehead with the heels of her gloved palms. She went through the pattern, up and to the left, pressing each skull in turn, and remembering to hit the center skull again on her way through the middle of the eight.

But when she got to the last skull, she stopped. "I know it doesn't make any sense after all the really bad stuff we had to live through just to get to this point, but I think I'm more scared right now than I've ever been in my life."

"No, I get it," Ry said. "The mystery of what's on the other side of the locked door at the top of the stairs can be an incredible lure, up until the moment when you're faced with having to open it. Then the fear of what might be on the other side can stop you in your tracks."

Zoe rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. It was probably impossible in the subzero cold, but inside her gloves, her palms felt as if they were sweating.

"All right, all right," she said to herself. She drew in a deep breath, laid her hands on the forehead of the seventh skull, and gave it a good push.

"Nothing's hap-"

A terrible grinding noise shattered the silence of the cave, seeming to come at them from everywhere at once. Zoe reared backward onto her b.u.t.t, then nearly burst out laughing because Ry had crouched and whirled toward the front of the cave as if ready to go all kung fu on whatever might be coming to get them.

The grinding noise stopped abruptly. There was a moment of dead silence, then a whirring noise started up, like a fan with a leaf stuck inside it.

"Look." Zoe grabbed Ry's arm as the rock wall behind the altar split open and began to slide sideways, taking the altar with it. Zoe grabbed Ry's arm as the rock wall behind the altar split open and began to slide sideways, taking the altar with it.

They stared as, inch by inch, the rock creaked open, revealing a narrow, arched hole that opened into darkness. But not a complete darkness. There was, Zoe realized, a weird, pulsating red glow to the blackness beyond.

Ry s.n.a.t.c.hed up the lantern and headed for the crude opening in the cave wall. Zoe scrambled to her feet and caught up to him.