The Altar Of Bones

"I did love you, Nikki. So very much," she said, but he slept on.

Again she reached out to touch him, and again she stopped herself. One of the times they"d made love had been in the shed where they stored the paints. Afterward he had said, "Do you believe this can last forever, Lena?"

She hadn"t wanted to give him too much of herself too soon, so she"d turned the question back at him. "Do you?"

"Yes. And I"m not talking about this," he said, touching her between her thighs. "But this ..." His hand had moved up to press into the soft flesh just below her breast. "The blood I can feel right now pumping through your heart. And this." Then he"d taken her own hand and put it on his chest. "My own heart"s lifeblood. Can you make my heart beat forever for you, Lena?

"Can you make our hearts beat as one until the end of time?"

3.

LENA O ORLOVA sat before the dying embers of the fire and watched the man who called himself Nikolai Popov open his eyes. His fever had broken; he would live. His black, treacherous heart would go on beating, if not forever, at least for now. sat before the dying embers of the fire and watched the man who called himself Nikolai Popov open his eyes. His fever had broken; he would live. His black, treacherous heart would go on beating, if not forever, at least for now.

He smiled at her, and then she knew the instant full awareness came, for his gaze left her face and went right to the altar made of bones, and she saw the greed and the hunger flare in his eyes before he looked away.

He yawned elaborately and stretched. "G.o.d, I"m feeling better. Like I might live after all. I"m never dosing myself with cooking salts again, though. I promise you that."

The way he was behaving, still acting the part of the escaped prisoner and her lover, she thought he must not remember what he"d said in his delirium, how he"d given himself away. Good. He would go on with his charade, and she would let him. If he thought she was onto him, he might kill her sooner rather than later.

And he would kill her, she understood that now. I should have taken out my knife, Nikki, my love, and stabbed you through the heart while you slept I should have taken out my knife, Nikki, my love, and stabbed you through the heart while you slept. But then she looked at his face, his beautiful face, and knew she could not have done it. Not while he slept.

He stood up slowly, testing his legs. Lena stood up as well. She slid her knife out of its sheath and held it down at her side, hidden within the folds of her padded coat.

He looked around the cave, careful not to dwell too long on the altar, then his dark, mesmerizing eyes met hers.

"Last night," he said, "I"d never have made it through the purga purga without you." without you."

"I love you, Nikki." It was the simple truth. Still. Even though he was going to kill her.

He smiled. "And I wish I could say I could live on your love, Lena, my sweet, but the truth is I"m starving."

He clapped his hands, rubbed them together. He started to bend over the bowl to see if anything was left of the gruel she"d made, then he straightened, c.o.c.king his head, and a wary look came over his face.

"Something"s different," he said.

Lena edged a step sideways, away from him. "It"s the sudden silence after all those hours of howling wind. The storm"s pa.s.sed."

A new day had dawned, for she could see sunlight filtering through the narrow slit in the stone face above their heads that was the entrance to the cave. It flashed in the Lady"s golden crown, shimmered in the black, oily pool of water.

"We should still hide out here for a while longer, though," she said, "until the soldiers give up looking for us. But we"re going to need more snow to melt for drinking water."

She tried to make her movements casual as she walked past him and began to climb the steep steps, carved so many centuries ago into the rock. When she reached the narrow pa.s.sageway at the top, she squeezed through it without looking back, and she felt a small flare of hope for escape because he hadn"t tried to stop her.

She came out from behind the frozen waterfall so that she could look out over the snow-blanketed lake. On the distant sh.o.r.e, she saw a streamer of powdery snow. The streamer swelled, became a white cloud, and out of the cloud came an iron sleigh pulled by dogs.

LENA HEARD THE squeak of a boot on fresh snow as Nikolai emerged from the slit in the rock and came up beside her. She turned to look at him, and a movement up on the bluff caught her eye. Last night"s storm had dumped a huge mound of snow on top of the bluff, and the wind had sculpted it into a giant frozen wave that now jutted out above their heads. squeak of a boot on fresh snow as Nikolai emerged from the slit in the rock and came up beside her. She turned to look at him, and a movement up on the bluff caught her eye. Last night"s storm had dumped a huge mound of snow on top of the bluff, and the wind had sculpted it into a giant frozen wave that now jutted out above their heads.

Nikolai didn"t notice; he was looking at the sleigh. It was cutting directly toward them across the frozen lake. "They"ve found us," he said. "The soldiers. Even with the purga purga, they tracked us here."

Lena still held her knife hidden within the bulk of her coat. She gripped it tighter. She knew, purga purga or not, that the soldiers hadn"t had to follow any tracks, since they"d had a good idea of where their prey was going in the first place. or not, that the soldiers hadn"t had to follow any tracks, since they"d had a good idea of where their prey was going in the first place.

And she knew now why he hadn"t killed her yet. He was going to let the soldiers do it for him.

"We have to give ourselves up," Nikolai said. "They"ll go easier on us if we give ourselves up first."

"They never go easy on anyone, Nikki. You know that."

"I"ll tell them I forced you to come with me. They"ll spare you then."

She shook her head. His lies were too monstrous; she thought she might throw up.

The wind gusted, whipping ice crystals off the giant wave of snow above their heads. Lena was sure she"d seen it tremble, the crack at its base widening. Any loud noise now would bring an avalanche down right on top of them and bury the entrance to the cave.

Nikolai cupped the sides of her head with his hands and gave her a little shake. "Love, love, we"re not going to make it. If we try to run now, they"ll shoot us both and leave our bodies here in the snow for the wolves to find."

"They"ll shoot us anyway." Me. They"ll shoot me. But not you, Nikki. Not you Me. They"ll shoot me. But not you, Nikki. Not you.

The soldiers would know some of the truth, that he was really GUGB for instance, but he wouldn"t have told them about the altar of bones. She wondered what tale he had spun for them, to get them out here to the lake with their sleigh.

He let her go and looked out across the lake, squinting against the glare of sun on ice. The sleigh was close enough now to see the soldiers" dark blue uniforms. There were only three of them.

Lena took a step back, then another and another, until she was behind the waterfall again, at the slit in the rocks, and well beneath the huge wave of snow on the bluff above. She could feel it trembling again, a vibration beneath her boots. Surely Nikolai could feel it, too? But, no, all his attention was focused on the sleigh and the soldiers, who were getting ever closer.

He turned around, and she lifted the knife, pointed it toward his heart. Its hooked blade flashed in the sun.

His gaze dropped to the knife, then went back to her face. "You know."

"That you are the secret police, a liar, and a thief? Yes, I know."

"Then you also know you"re trapped. There"s no way out for you, but you don"t have to die."

She could hate him, she thought, if she didn"t already love him so deeply. The worst of it was, she knew by the emptiness she saw in his eyes that he would watch her die and feel nothing at all.

"Still lying, Nikki. All the way up to the bitter end."

"Oh, come now. You must have believed me almost all the way up to the bitter end. Or you would never have given me the altar of bones."

"I didn"t," she said, but her denial rang so hollow he laughed in her face.

"Of course you did. Otherwise I would not be standing here, feeling, you might say, like a new man-" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "Aw, Christ, Lena. I know what it"s cost you. You mustn"t think I"m not grateful."

"Grateful." She choked over the word, hating herself because even now a part of her wanted him to go on lying. "I gave up everything for you. My honor. My life." My heart My heart. "Did you not care for me at all, Nikki? Not even a little?"

He sighed and looked away. "Lena, Lena ... does it matter?"

Was there regret in his voice? A twinge of sadness? No, he was right-it didn"t matter. And which truth would hurt the least, anyway? Knowing that he loved her, yet had still betrayed her? Or that he"d never loved her at all?

He looked back at her once, for just a moment, then he turned and walked out from behind the waterfall, onto the frozen lake. He lifted his spread arms high into the air, as if he were surrendering. One of the soldiers cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, "Halt!"

The soldier"s shout carried across the ice like the crack of a rifle shot. For an instant the earth went still, then Lena heard an echoing rumble. She looked up to see the huge, thick snow-wave break free of the bluff above. It plummeted in heavy slabs to hit the ground in front of her, roaring now, billowing in a giant cloud of ice, obliterating her last sight of Nikolai on the lake, obliterating the world.

4.

DON"T SHOOT! I surrender, don"t shoot!"

Captain Nikolai Popov lifted his arms higher into the air as the sleigh squeaked to a stop on the ice. One of the soldiers leveled a rifle at his chest. The lead dog growled.

"Don"t shoot," Nikolai said again. The camp commandant should already have ordered his men not to open fire, but you could never be too careful.

"Comrade Captain," the commandant shouted as he lumbered his heavy bulk off the sleigh. A wide smile cracked his beefy, wind-raw face. "When I saw that avalanche come down, I thought for a moment there we"d lost you. And what about the girl? Is she all right?"

The commandant used the heel of his glove to knock off the ice caked on his mustache as he looked past Nikolai up to the raw gash in the bluff where the giant wave of frozen snow had just moments before been hanging suspended out over the waterfall and the entrance to the cave. Ice crystals still swirled in the air around them. Nikolai"s ears rang from the noise it had made.

"The girl," Nikolai said, as he slowly lowered his arms, "has just been buried under twenty feet of snow and ice. Thanks to your man there." He nodded toward the soldier with the rifle, who was staring at them stupidly now, his mouth agape. "The braying a.s.s. He should be shot."

"But, sir?" the soldier sputtered. "How is it my fault? You said we had to make things seem real. All I did was-"

"Shut up, Private Lukin," the commandant said. "And put down your gun, you idiot. Didn"t I tell you he"s one of us? Sergeant Chirkov, see to the dogs."

The sergeant who"d been sitting as if frozen to the sled, the reins forgotten in his hands, jerked into life. "But, sir, what about Le-about Comrade Orlova? There"s air pockets sometimes. She might still be alive."

The private slung his rifle over his shoulder and jumped off the sleigh. "I for one don"t care anymore if we get to f.u.c.k her silly before we haul her back to camp. I"m not digging through all that snow even if we had a shovel, which we don"t."

"Forget about the girl. Both of you," the commandant said.

He jerked his head at Nikolai and walked farther away from the sleigh so they couldn"t be overheard. Nikolai followed, slipping his left hand into his coat pocket to wrap his fingers around the grip of the pistol that had been riding there since just before he"d followed Lena Orlova through the infirmary window.

"Right before the avalanche," the commandant said, lowering his voice nearly to a whisper, "I saw you come out from behind the waterfall. So is that where the entrance to the cave is, then?"

"Where it was."

The commandant made a soothing motion with his hand. "Yes, yes, all right. But it can always be dug out later-I"ve got a camp full of zeks zeks and shovels. The important thing is, did you get inside? Did you see the gold?" and shovels. The important thing is, did you get inside? Did you see the gold?"

Nikolai shook his head. "This whole thing was a waste of everybody"s time. It"s a small, circular cavern, no more than twenty feet in diameter, and I got a really good look at all of it, believe me. Nothing"s in there but some rotting caskets and a few moldering corpses."

The commandant, Nikolai could tell, did not believe him, and he hid a smile. He wouldn"t have believed himself either.

He"d spun the man a tale about how some Party hack back in Moscow had heard a wild rumor that twenty years ago the tsar"s army had stashed a treasure in a cave on a secret lake near Norilsk, and that he, Nikolai, had been sent up here to check it out. Now the commandant suspected that Nikolai had found the gold, but was going to keep it all for himself.

"Didn"t I tell you it was going to be a wild-goose chase?" Nikolai said. "These Yaks have never had two rubles to rub together. Were they going to leave chests full Romanov gold lying about just for pretty? Lot of b.l.o.o.d.y trouble for nothing, if you ask me. But then I only do what I"m told."

The commandant forced a laugh. "As do we all."

The dogs suddenly erupted into a frenzy of barking. Nikolai whirled, almost pulling out his pistol, before he realized the dogs were only excited because the sergeant had taken a burlap sack full of dried fish out of the sleigh. The private, Nikolai saw, had walked a few steps downwind and was fumbling with the b.u.t.tons to his trousers.

"A wild-goose chase indeed," the commandant said. "And we couldn"t have picked a worse night for it, could we? What with that bit of a blow we had."

Nikolai suddenly laughed. With all that had been going on this morning, he hadn"t fully noticed it before, but he really did did feel like a new man. It seemed he could feel each separate breath he took, each beat of his heart. And the breaths, the heartbeats, were endless. feel like a new man. It seemed he could feel each separate breath he took, each beat of his heart. And the breaths, the heartbeats, were endless.

"Bit of a blow?" he said, and laughed again. "f.u.c.k your mother. It almost killed me."

Those d.a.m.n cooking salts-they were supposed to have given him just enough of a fever for the doctor to admit him into the infirmary. He certainly hadn"t planned on giving himself pneumonia. But it had all been worth it in the end, because Lena had brought him to the cave. She"d given him the altar of bones.

The altar-Christ, it was real. Every bit of what he"d seen in the Fontanka dossier was real. The lake, the waterfall, the cave, the altar made out of human bones. And the Keeper. She had proven to be real, too.

Lena.

He had thought it would be hard to find her in all this frozen wilderness, but she"d been right there at the prison camp, no more than twenty miles from the lake where she, and all the other Keepers who had come before her, had been born. And her face, it was the very image of the sketch he"d seen of the Lady in the icon. The dossier had been right about that as well.

He wondered now if she"d made it back inside the cave before the avalanche could bury her. And he felt a pang of ... what? Guilt? Loss? Regret? It didn"t matter, she was dead either way. She would starve to death before she could dig her way out.

The commandant, as if he"d read Nikolai"s mind, sighed. "Too bad about the girl, though."

"Yes. Too bad," Nikolai said.

Well, he had had used her badly, and he felt that sharp pang again, like a fist to the chest. He shook it off. You did what you had to do and went on. used her badly, and he felt that sharp pang again, like a fist to the chest. He shook it off. You did what you had to do and went on.

He looked around the lake, beautiful in the b.u.t.ter yellow arctic light-a pity it would last only a couple of hours before the sun set again. Time enough, though, for him to get where he had to go.

"Just look at that fool, would you?" the commandant said with a sudden laugh of his own as he pointed to the private, who was writing his initials in the snow with his pee.

"I told you he should be shot," Nikolai said.

The commandant blinked and his smile slipped a little, but then he slapped his hands together. "Well, then, Comrade Captain," he said a little too loudly. "How about a nip of vodka before we head back to the camp?"

The commandant thrust his hand into his coat pocket, but before he could take it out again, Nikolai pulled out his pistol and put a bullet between the man"s eyes.

The shot cracked loud over the lake. The private whipped around, his p.e.n.i.s still in his hands. He opened his mouth, but his scream died as the bullet plowed through his throat.

The sergeant stood as if stupefied, a dried fish in each hand while the dogs still barked and leaped around him. Then he dropped the fish and ran toward the sleigh. Nikolai shot him between the shoulder blades and he went down hard, his head bouncing on the ice.

Even as the gunfire still echoed in the frigid air, Nikolai was already moving. One at a time, he went to the three men and emptied the pistol into their heads, making sure they were dead. Then he reloaded.

He tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers. He started toward the sleigh, then turned back. He squatted beside the dead commandant and felt inside the man"s coat pocket. He pulled out a flask, silver with engraved initials.

So he hadn"t been going for a gun after all.