Ritual Chill. James Axler

from her expression they knew that he was alive, despite their first impression.

      Now they were together; the first part of their task had been achieved. But with each passing second the blazing storm sucked the heat from them, despite the thickness of their garb. The snow and ice stung the skin, the constant wet and cold causing the skin to chafe and split on the faces, their eyes streaming as the water was driven relentlessly into the fragile membrane. Stiffness crept into their every limb, making movement harder with every moment.

      They had to move, to find shelter. But where? Wordlessly, Ryan moved so that he could help Mildred lift Doc to his feet. The old man was unhelpful but not obstructive. It was as though he had no notion of what they were doing, his body a deadweight, a neutral presence.

      Jak indicated that they should move to the left, and took the lead. Ryan had no idea where the albino was headed, but trusted the hunter’s sharp instincts to have spotted some possible shelter before the storm had made the landscape a featureless blank.

      Jak always kept himself open to the environment, no matter how it may be constituted, which was how he had managed to hone his hunting instincts in earlier days. It was how he was able to survive now. Even though thoughts other than the immediate surroundings had been racing through his mind while they had marched, still a part of his attention had been focused on the area through which they traveled, searching out any places where fresh game may be found and where dangers may lie. As a result, he had spotted an area almost hidden behind a snowbank, where the rock had risen from the earth and formed a shelf. The snow had banked and gathered beneath it, but at one end it tailed away. There seemed to be no apparent reason for this, and Jak had figured that some passing fauna had burrowed it out or else it had failed to take because of a vein of heat.

      The nearest volcanic mass was about half-hour’s march from where they now stood. That didn’t mean that a shift in the earth and a fissure in the rock hadn’t formed a tunnel through which some of the heat from the mass could escape.

      Unerringly, not thinking but trusting to instincts that had rarely set him wrong, Jak led them toward the area where he had seen the break in the snowbank.

      It was impossible to tell how near or far they may be until they were upon it. The ice beneath their feet grew less slippery, but the snows deeper, sucking at them with every step, trying to pull them down, making forward progress harder with every movement.

      Breath came in short gasps, lactic acid building in muscle and making their limbs feel heavy and useless, stumbling and almost falling, dragging one another down. Ryan and Mildred suffered most, with Doc propped between them, his arms over their shoulders, their own supporting his weight. He moved his legs mechanically, almost as if unaware of what he was doing, his weight shifting unpredictably as his feet lost purchase and he slipped first one way, then another. It was difficult for Ryan and Mildred to keep him—and themselves—from falling face-first into the snowbank. Strength of will, stubbornness, a need to survive—those were the only things that could account for dragging one leaden foot after another, thigh muscles knotting in white-hot agony, so hot that they felt as though they could melt the snow and ice surrounding…

      And then they were out of the storm. Without even realizing, they passed from light to dark, white to black. From numbing cold to something a little warmer that was at first ineffective, but gradually began to thaw the cold in their bones, the numbness turning to the pain of frozen skin and muscle before easing into something approaching normal. Pins and needles running through their extremities, a maddening itch inside their skin that couldn’t be scratched.

      The floor was solid rock, uneven and with a layer of moss that gave it an almost soft, carpeted feel. Inside their heavy clothing, even with the moisture the materials had absorbed, they felt circulation begin to return. They were thankful that Jak’s ability to study and analyze his surroundings without even thinking about it had led him here. A thankfulness that they couldn’t share with one another, as they gasped in the warm air, able now to breathe more easily without freezing their throats and lungs, yet still unable to speak.

      After the bright white of the outside world, the cavern in which they found themselves was, at first, pitchblack. A little light filtered in from the narrow opening to the outside world, marked by some moisture where the storm intruded, the cold air battling in swirls with the warm air expelled from the cave. Gradually, as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the light—such as it was—enabled them to discern dimly outlined shapes. Even Jak, whose red pigmentless eyes preferred the gloom to the brilliance of strong light, found the conditions hard to read.

      They found themselves in a cavern that had a roof a little over ten feet in height. Recovered sufficiently to do more than hunker on his hands and knees gasping for breath and allowing his muscles to relax, for the seizing up of his body to gradually yield, Ryan withdrew a flashlight from one of his pockets and switched it on. The battery was still working, although not at full power. It barely illuminated the roof at the highest point, but showed the companions that they were in the center of the largest section of the cavern. It was narrow at the mouth through which they had passed, barely five feet in height, and rose to the ten-foot limit at which they found themselves, before sloping to less than the circumference at the opening. Down to about four feet, it seemed to tail off into an endless tunnel, the beam of the flashlight not reaching far enough into the gloom to make the far wall visible—if indeed, there was a far wall and they were not at one end of an indefinite tunnel. The constant flow of warm air made this likely.

      “Thank heavens for that,” Mildred gasped, the first to speak. “I don’t think any of us would have lasted much longer out there.”

      “Some less than others,” Krysty added, dragging herself over to where Doc lay unmoving and seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. “How’s he doing?”

      “Your guess is as good as mine.” Mildred shrugged. “It’s more than just the blizzard that’s got to him. The physical symptoms I can treat, but the rest of it…” She trailed off with a shrug.

      “We’ll worry about that later.” Ryan spoke with a note of concern in his voice. The flashlight was flickering, the beam failing. He hit the base, hoping that it was a connection rather than the battery that was causing the problem. J.B. delved into his own supplies and produced another.

      “Always have a contingency plan,” he commented wryly as he handed it to Ryan. “Millie’s got one, as well, right?” he added, turning to her for confirmation.

      Before answering, she rummaged through her own storage capacity to check that it was still on her person. “Check,” she affirmed as she found it. “At least that should keep us going for a while.”

      “Storm pass soon,” Jak speculated, casting an eye at the mouth of the cave. “Too fierce last, mebbe blow out.”

      “Figure it might. If and when, we need to have some definite plan. We’ve been wandering like a bunch of stupes. Nearly bought us the farm…can’t let that happen again.” Ryan gasped between sentences, the warm air still hurting in lungs that had breathed too much ice to clear quickly.

      “Soon as it passes, I’ll work out exactly where we’ve ended up and head us toward Ank Ridge,” J.B. stated. Ryan agreed. A glance at Krysty told him that she was agreeable.

      “What Ank Ridge got?” Jak asked. It wasn’t a question of dissent, rather one of curiosity.

      “Didn’t get there last time we were in these parts, but it’s supposed to be the only ville in these Gaia-forsaken parts,” Krysty explained. “Got to be better than what we’ve seen so far.”

      “Not hard.” Jak shrugged.

      Conversation fizzled out. They were too tired for anything other than basics. Mildred and Krysty tended to Doc. After a short while, he seemed to become a little more aware of his surroundings. Although still silent and staring unseeing around him, he responded to touch and allowed them to seat him upright to tend to the abrasions and cuts he had suffered during the flight from the storm.

      Ryan, J.B. and Jak marked out territory, examining the mouth of the cave and venturing a few hundred yards down the