Jean-Christophe Grangé - The Empire Of The Wolves

He passed his village. Women in gilded head scarves walked by, with faces of red leather, fashioned like copper trays. Wild creatures, as hard as the earth, immured in prayer and tradition, just like his mother. There might even be some members of his family among them…

Higher up, he saw shepherds clustered along a slope, wrapped up in baggy jackets. He could see himself, twenty-five years before, sitting in their place. He still remembered the Fair Isle sweater he had worn as a coat, with its dangling sleeves, his hands pushing out a little farther each year. The stitches in the wool were the only calendar he had.

He felt a tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers-the feeling of his hands on his shaved scalp when he was shielding himself from his father's blows. The softness of the dry fruit as he ran his hands over the surface of the grocer's large bags on his way back from the pastures. The walnuts he gathered in autumn, whose juice stained his palms all winter…

He was now entering the veil of mist.

Everything became white, soft, damp. The flesh of the clouds. The first clumps of snow bordered the road. A special sort of snow, impregnated with luminescent pink sand.

Before going up the final section, he put chains on his tires, then continued. He bounced on for about another hour. The snowdrifts shone more and more brightly, assuming the shapes of languid bodies. The final stage of the Pure Way.

I have caressed the snowy slopes Scattered with pink sand, Curved as a woman's…

Finally, he spotted the garage at the foot of the rock. Above, the tip of the mountain remained invisible, shrouded in layers of fog.

He got out of his car and savored the atmosphere. The silence of the snow weighed down on the scene like a block of crystal.

He filled his lungs with icy air. Here, the altitude was over six thousand feet. There was some nine hundred feet still to climb. In preparation for the effort, he ate two chocolates. Then he set off with his hands in his pockets.

He passed the janitor's lodge, closed until the month of May, then followed the path of stones that barely emerged from the bed of snow The climb became difficult. He had to make a detour to avoid a steep slope. He advanced, leaning sideways, his left hand on the slopes, being careful not to fall into the void. The snow crunched beneath his feet.

He started to pant. His entire body felt strained, his mind alert. He reached the first terrace-to the east-but did not linger there. Here, the statues were too eroded. He just allowed himself a few minutes' respite on the "altar of fire"-a platform of bronze-green frozen rock, which offered a hundred-and-twenty-degree view of the Taurus Mountains.

The sun at last graced the landscape. At the bottom of the valley could be seen red patches, yellow cracks and also clumps of green, vestiges of the plains that had created the fertility of the ancient kingdoms. Light lingered in the craters, digging out white, shimmering pools. In other places, they seemed already to be evaporating, rising up in powder, reducing each detail to a myriad of spangles. Elsewhere, the sun played off the clouds, with shadows passing across the mountains like expressions on a face.

He was gripped by an inexpressible emotion. He could not convince himself that this was his land, that he himself belonged to that measureless beauty. It was almost as if he could see his ancestral hordes arriving over the horizon-the first Turks bringing their power and civilization to Anatolia.

When he looked again, he saw that there were no men, no horses, but only wolves. Packs of silvery wolves, blending in with the reverberations of the earth. Divine wolves, ready to bond with mortals and so give birth to a race of perfect warriors…

He continued on his path toward the western' slopes. The snow became at once thicker, lighter and smoother. He glanced back at his own footprints. They made him think of a strange script, translated from silence.

Finally he reached the next terrace, with its Heads of Stone.

There were five of them. Colossal forms, each measuring over seven feet tall. At the beginning, they had stood on huge bodies, at the summit of the burial mound itself But earthquakes had knocked them down. Some people had then stood them up again, and they seemed to have gained extra strength on the ground, as though their shoulders were the very flanks of the mountains.

In the middle was Antiochus I, king of Commagene, who wanted to be buried amid these half-Greek, half-Persian gods, born of the syncretism of a lost civilization. By his side, there was Zeus-Ahura Mazdah, the god of gods, incarnate in lightning and fire; then Apollo Mithra, who demanded that men be sanctified with the blood, of bulls; Tyche, who, beneath her crown of corn and fruit, symbolized the kingdom's fertility…

Despite their power, they had youthfully placid expressions on their faces, mouths like fountains, curly beards… Above all, their large blank eyes seemed to be dreaming. Even the worn and snow-covered guardians of the sanctuary, the Lion, king of beasts, and the Eagle, lord of the skies, added to the mansuetude of the parade.

It was not the right time yet. The mist was too thick for the miracle to happen. He tightened his scarf and thought of the monarch who built this sepulchre. Antiochus Epiphanius I. His reign had been so prosperous that he had thought himself blessed by the gods to the point of becoming one of them, and he had had himself buried at the top of the holy mountain.

Ismail Kudseyi had also mistaken himself for a god, imagining that he had the power of life or death over his subjects. But he had forgotten the essential point. He was a mere instrument of the cause, just a link in the Turan. By neglecting that fact, he had betrayed himself and the Grey Wolves. He had broken the laws that he had once represented. He had become degenerate and vulnerable. That was why Sema had managed to kill him.

Sema. Bitterness suddenly dried his mouth. He had succeeded in eliminating her, but it had been no triumph. The entire chase had been a waste, a failure that he had attempted to redress by sacrificing his prey according to ancestral law. He had sacrificed her heart to the stone gods The fog was lifting.

He knelt in the snow and waited.

In a few seconds, the mist would drift away, wrapping those giant heads for a final instant, drawing them up with its lightness, implicating them in its movement-thus giving them life.

Their features would lose their clarity and contours, then float above the snows. It was impossible at such times not to think of a forest. Impossible not to see them advancing… Antiochus first, then Tyche and the other immortals behind him, surrounded, beautified and enveloped in icy vapors. Finally, in that moment of suspense, their lips would open and they would speak.

As a child, he had often witnessed this miracle. He had learned to catch their murmurings and understand their language, which was mineral, ancient, incomprehensible to anyone who had not been born there, at the foot of the mountains.

He closed his eyes.

That day, he prayed for the gods to grant him their forgiveness. He was also hoping for a fresh oracle. Misty words that would reveal his future. What would his stone mentors whisper to him now?

"Freeze."

The man did so. He thought he was hearing voices, but the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against his temple.

The voice repeated, in French, "Freeze." A woman's voice.

He managed to turn his head and made out a long figure, dressed in a parka and black ski trousers. Her dark hair, squeezed into her woolly hat, spilled out over her shoulders in two streams of curls.

He was baffled. How could this woman have followed him all this way? "Who are you?" he asked, in French.