Kthaahthikha

Part VIII - 1900

It was by conversations with Serik, and with the inn-keeper, that I managed to build-up in my mind something of a picture of the mythology surrounding that shrine.

It seemed that the legends of strange spirits about the region had been in place ever since settlers first arrived, centuries ago, fleeing the Tartar invasions and hopeful of a realm of peace and quiet. Here, they had discovered that tjhe hunting was excellent and the lake was well supplied with fish from the stream, and so had settled and founded their nameless hamlet.

But, so local legend ran, strange sightings in the woods had occured that were first attributed to angels, and then to forest demons of some form or another. Strange figures of uncommon beauty passed through the village at night, queer music following in their wake. Those who looked out the windows when such a night was in the offing were prone ever after to an irremovable whistfulness, and would no doubt grow unhappy and cold, and rarely shared their tales.

And so it had become ill luck to watch the spirits pass through the village, and on such nights all the windows were shuttered and the people retired early to bed with their ears stopped by cloth.

The stories so far ran in a parallel to the myth of the High Hunt so prevalent in the British Isles. It was only what followed that seemed to differentiate in any great way.

One young girl, who witnessed the passage of the figures, was known in local tradition by the name of Alexandrina. It was said that she was one of the few who would talk openly of the events, and told of the raven-haired women with crimson lips and the men with flashing eyes. She had seen them descending from the moutains in a trail of blue and white light, and claimed that they had floated above the ground and spoken in the voices of musical instruments.

Several years later, when she was a young woman in the full bloom of her beauty, Alexandrina had gone-out during another coming of the spirits, and had been carried away to their city in the mountains. A much loved individual, several attempts had been made to locate her, but all had ended in the men who did so returning hungry and wasted from exposure, with nothing to show for their attempts save the scratches on their palms. The following year, on the anniversary of her disappearance, Alexandrina's dress had been found in the clearing that was now the location of the shrine, with the symbol of the disfigured diamond scratched into the ground beside her. ever since that day, the shrine had been kept there, and all creatures who passed through the clearing had been held taboo, as it were, and temporarily under the auspices of the People of the Mountain.

As provincial legends went, it had all of the makings of a fine one, and I had to conceed to myself that the entire idea was ridiculous. Of course, how much of what had been told to me was fact, and how much was generations of embellishment, I had no idea. I could only reply upon the word of Alim that any of what he had said was true, and though his claims had been confirmed in relation to the shrine, it did little to confirm the mythology of the place, nor explain its connections with a mysterious temple in the midst of the Arctic wastes.

When I attempted to discover the location of this mountain city, it proved to be of little help to me. Conflicting reports and conjecture abounded on the subject, and the villagers crowded about me at the inn at night and filled me with countless stories of the monsters and spirits of the region. I was treated to an account of the Rusalka that one old man claimed to have espied as a youth - a beautiful woman in the water who had smiled with her needle-sharp teeth and attempted, without success, to lure him down beneath the waters. There was, also the supposed adventure of one great grandmother who had allegedly run away with a giant and returned, after many years, to settle-down with a much shorter man and give birth to Long Yevgeniy, the tallest man to ever be born in that area.

But few of the tales related to the People of the Mountains. A combination of legends, rumours and the like seemed to indicate that it lay upon a high, snow-bound peak, nestled down amidst ravines and valleys. One young man claimed that game trails always led away towards a spot several miles west, but that he was disinclined to investigate for fear of the place. I voiced the internal opinion that this seemed the best place to investigate, and made sure to note the one who had brought it up.