Marie Brennan - Within the Sanctuary of Wings

Thu and his compatriots had come here in search of a route through the mountains. Staring up at the col between the two peaks, I spoke to Thu. My breathlessness owed something to the altitude and exertion—but not all. “You thought that could be your path?”

The saddle where the slopes of Cheja and Gyaptse meet is far lower than either summit, but still towers over the valley below. Like the southern face of Gyaptse, the descent from the col to the valley floor is the next best thing to sheer: more cliff than slope. There was no direct route from where we stood to the top, and the Dumond Ridge does not connect to it; one would have to traverse the face of Gyaptse to reach it from that side. The reasonable approach—I am tempted to scar the adjective with quotation marks—is up Cheja’s ridge, along the mountain’s shoulder, and then up again to reach the col. It was feasible, I thought, for any moderately skilled mountaineer; but not for people in quantity.

“We did not think it for long,” Thu said wryly. “But we were trying to find some kind of pass, and this is the most approachable one for two hundred kilometers in either direction—if you can believe it.”

Unlike his previous expedition, we were not searching for a way across; our attention, at least to begin with, lay in the valley below. By a stroke of good luck, this was not as deeply blanketed in snow as we had feared. The arrangement of the surrounding terrain shelters it a little from the prevailing monsoon wind, while its southern exposure means it receives a great deal of sun. A brisk little stream of snowmelt poured down the lower slopes; we pitched our tents next to this, too exhausted to attempt any reconnaissance that day.

What we intended as a brief pause stretched two days longer than planned, on account of the winds. We were fortunately spared additional snowfall, which would have made our task even harder than it already was, but neither Chendley nor Thu would allow any of us to venture toward the head of the cirque. Though the winds were not bad where we camped, they would be much worse up at the col, and they feared the risk of avalanche. Such an event, Thu believed, had brought down the specimen he found, for the valley was far too low for flesh to be preserved year-round by the cold. Indeed, there were times there when even I felt quite warm—a very incongruous sensation, when one is at high elevation and surrounded by snow.

This delay did not prevent Suhail from surveying the area with an eye toward planning our search. He looked at the deeper snow piled where previous avalanches had landed and shook his head. “If there is anything under that, I don’t know how we’ll find it. With a settlement, you can make educated guesses about where to dig based on buildings, streets, and so forth. But here? You could be half a meter from what you’re looking for, and never know. And digging it all out would take all year.”

“While the mountain drops more on your head,” Tom muttered.

But Thu hastened to reassure us. “It was not where the snow is so deep. More to the right, I would say—though it is difficult to be sure.” He looked embarrassed.

“Quite some time has passed since you were last here,” I said. “Anyone would have difficulty remembering.”

In the area Thu had indicated, the snow was thin enough that Suhail thought we might be able to at least attempt an organized search. He prepared a series of thin cords, and when the wind dropped to a more reasonable level he ventured out and staked them down, delineating a grid of squares. “We’ll take these one at a time,” he said, “one person per square. The snow there is only about half a meter thick. Stop if you find anything out of the ordinary: bones, teeth, claws, flesh, whatever you may turn up. I’ll come take a look at it.”

It was arduous, back-breaking, hand-numbing work. However warm the air might be, we were still digging in snow, half a meter down to the thin grass which was all that would grow here. And we had to paw through what we removed, just to be certain there were no small remains that might herald the presence of something larger nearby.

We could not work for very long each day. The surrounding terrain cut off our light with shocking speed even when the sky was clear, and it was often quite grey. Clouds wreathed Gyaptse more days than not, sometimes descending low enough to bury the col itself. Only four of us dug at any one time; the fifth rested and watched Gyaptse, in case an avalanche should begin.

Chendley was the one who raised an objection, after careful study of the area. “I don’t think that thing was brought down by an avalanche,” he said.

We stopped and looked at him, most of us grinding our knuckles into our backs during this respite.

He gestured at where we searched. “Either you’re searching in the wrong place, and really ought to be digging into these big piles—or that thing wasn’t where most avalanches land. Oh, I won’t rule out the chance that some avalanches fall differently. Maybe that slide was one of the exceptions. But the odds say, probably not.”

“Then how did it get down here?” Tom asked.

“Could have been blown by the wind. Happened with a fellow on the Feillon—do you know that story? He died ten or fifteen years ago, trying to prove it could be climbed by a new route, and though people could see where his body was, nobody wanted to risk dying themselves just to retrieve it. But one day it vanished, and then a hiking party stumbled across it, some ladies out for an energetic stroll. People later worked out that it must have fallen in a gale.”

I was obscurely pleased that Chendley told this story without a single apology to me for speaking of such grim matters in front of a lady. “Where would our specimen have begun, do you think, if it fell on account of wind?”

He might not apologize for indelicacy, but his manners stayed with him well enough that he did not roll his eyes at me. A gesture upward sufficed to remind me why the question was foolish. We could barely even make out the col today, so shrouded was it in fog.

But none of us had forgotten what Thu said about seeing what might have been another specimen up there. If we could work out the path the first one had taken.…

I knew the truth. Every last one of us was hoping for a break in the weather that might allow us to attempt a climb up there. We searched below less because we expected to find anything of use, and more because we could not yet risk ascending higher. I am not often a religious woman, but I prayed for clear skies and calm winds.

In the meanwhile, we turned up nothing more than a few scraps of badly decayed flesh which might not even have come from a dragon. The night our search ended, I sat up with Tom and Suhail around the fire, discussing the entire situation.

“I do not think there can ever have been dragons living at the elevation of the col,” I said. I was sitting with my knees up in front of me, arms crossed over them. Even this close to the campfire, bundled in nearly every stitch I’d brought, I was cold. The day’s warmth fled promptly with the day’s light. “Developmental lability can achieve a great deal—but not, I think, a dragon that derives its sustenance entirely from rock and ice.”

Tom nodded. “Humans and yaks can adapt to living at altitude, and dragons might take it further. Insulation against the cold, more efficient respiration, that kind of thing. But they still have to eat. And nothing grows that high.” Even where we camped, the pickings were slim indeed.

“So what was a dragon doing there to begin with,” Suhail said. His intonation did not make it a question; he was instead stating the problem.