Down the Pechora - 'Frigid Winds and Mongols' (VIII)
"To Meet Once More the Face of the Forgotten"
The sound was one of the more soothing she had ever heard. Zinaida with great care adjusted herself on the furs she was laying upon in the center of the canoe as it made its way down the river and the sun cast its final volley of light upon the uncoming night and current dusk. She closed her eyes and listened to the silence about them, the silence only interrupted the ripple of the water in response to the practiced and able paddling of her two brothers. Kazimir at the fore and Anatol in the aft.
Anatol turned his wrist slightly, directing the craft to a current made visible by the smallest imperfecitons on the river's surface. A surface that with this minor exception was as the most perfect and smooth looking glass, reflecting the heaven above, ever more visible in its bosom the pinpricks of countless stars with the descending night. In the distance on the fading horizon were the greatest monuments that any in this craft had ever seen. More visible and majestic in the day, more beautiful in the night, the Ural Mountains, the edge of the world.
Kazimir cast a glance over at the mountains, his voice coming low as if in respect to the silence and the enchanting night coming down upon them,
"Father used to tell me that they mark the edge of God's realm. Beyond them only lie heathens and devils, horrible creatures bent on man's destruction. God erected them to protect us, protect his most sacred Russia from the evil that lies over that border."
Anatol looked over at the mountains once more at his brother's comment, watching them a moment before responding,
"And what do you think now?" He indeed remembered the same stories, many of them told to both brothers at the same time. One of Zinaida's eyes opened, followed by the other as she looked into the heavens, listening to the deep masculine voices about her.
Kazimir drew his paddle out of the water, laying it flat across his knees, staring into the distance,
"I think... why would He waste such a magnificent sight as a barrier? Yet I think atyets may be right, nothing good can reside there, all terrible things come from out of the east, the most frigid winds and mongols are all the east has ever given us. Though who knows what far worse things lie over those mountains..."
Zinaida shivered slightly, at Kazimir's words or a chill breeze infact coming off the Urals, it was hard to say. She wrapped some furs tighter about her body and closed her slate blue eyes again, her head after some minutes slowly dropping to the side as she fell asleep. Anatol simply sat silent after Kazimir's comment, appreciating at one moment the view of the mountains, another that of the beautiful relfections upon the winter and yet another on the peaceful image of his sister asleep before him. Finally upon a totally unrelated topic he spoke,
"Do you think that boy is okay?"
Kazimir was pulled from his own thoughts, thoughts of the reindeer hunting near the Dvina where the highlands and mountains were not nearly so high,
"Back in Naryan Mar? After what he told Kiril Levivitch... I imagine he's far better up there than we are here."
Anatol's mind went back to the conversation they had with Kiril on the day before they departed for Pechora. Kiril telling them the trip was hopeless, that there was no way the Pechora settlement still existed, especially with the boy's account. It seemed Kiril could understand his language for the most part. And the boy's story was a most forbidding one indeed.
His clan had lived on a large river he reported, one which Anatoly assumed to be the one they had crossed during their journey from the Dvina eastward toward the Pechora highlands. They were a simple hunting tribe that lived off the wild game in the area. Until one day strangers arrived from the east and the south to his village. They spoke in frantic tones of the return of the 'forgotten' (which Zina had mis-translated to vanished they later figured).
The forgotten being among the more dark legends of the local tribes. The forgotten had at one time had other names in their language, names that had dissapeared over the past couple centuries with their own dissapearance. Hence they were known simply as the 'forgotten', fercious men and beasts, one and the same who would eat the flesh of man and survived simply on raiding neighboring peoples. It took strong confederations of tribes to drive their raiding parties away. And then all at once they dissapeared, followed soon after by the coming of the 'westerners' the first Novgorodian explorers. Now it seemed the forgotten had returned, had resumed their reign of terror, and in that destroyed the boy's entire clan when they attempted to fight back. He alone escaped, wandered for weeks living off the land to the north until he met up with the Stroganovs that fateful day on the highlands.
Kiril had never heard such legends before, yet the boy's tone, his genuine fear and storytelling seemed to have convinced him of its validity. And with it he was most against the Stroganovs leaving south to the Pechora settlement, suddenly believing in a connection between these 'forgotten' and the sudden abrupt halt in communication with the sister colony. And now they were here, floating down the river in a cool summer night, toward a settlement that may not even exist, and toward a dark legend that may.
Kazimir once more dipped his paddle into the water, their dual strokes the one sound in the silent night. His mind having drifted almost in a sense of empathy to his brother's own thoughts. Though the beautiful night, the majestic silhoutte on the dark horizon, the gentle sound of his sister's sleep and the ever relaxing ripple of the water at the command of his paddle soon eased the unpleasant thoughts. And while consciously Kazimir and Anatol marvelled at their surrounding, a deep forboding in both of them spoke different words, words of a calm before the storm. As Zina twitched, her face took on an unpleasant hue for a moment and she shifted in her furs, maybe her dreams were speaking in the same tongue...
