Marie Brennan - Within the Sanctuary of Wings

Suhail was ripped from me in an instant. I lost sight of him, of Tom, of my entire party, and could spare no attention for anything other than trying to survive. The racing snow bore me along at terrifying speed. I floundered at what I hoped was an angle, trying to escape its current and keep myself near the surface. But which way was which? I had lost all track; I was only flailing, desperate, certain I would be buried and never found again.

Then my leg struck something, and pain flared white-hot at the impact. My fingers hit a solid surface, but it was gone before I could grab it. On and on I slid, so disoriented I wanted to retch, and then, at last, it stopped.

I woke buried in snow.

By purest chance, I had come to a halt with my hand in front of my face. Because of this, when I began to flail in panic, I did the most useful thing I could have done, under the circumstances: I compressed the snow, creating a pocket in front of my face.

I could not have been unconscious for long at all, or I would have suffocated. And although I did not realize it until later, I could not have been buried very deeply, or the snow would have been too firmly packed for me to create that pocket. Spittle trailed down my face; it ran sideways across my cheek, and I retained sufficient presence of mind to realize that the surface must lie in the other direction.

Clawing my way free of the snow felt like climbing out of my own grave—as it could easily have been. I was less than half a meter deep, I think, but even that weight was exceedingly difficult to move. Only the sheer animal panic of being trapped gave me the strength to drag myself out.

The wind was still howling, the snow still falling. I lurched upright and nearly bit through my tongue when I put weight on my left leg; the only reason it held was because I was too cold to feel the pain clearly. But I was alive, and that was more than I might have had.

Where were the others?

For once it was not a stubborn refusal to contemplate the worst that kept me from thinking about how they might be dead. I was concussed; I was hypothermic; I was not thinking at all clearly, though I had the delusion that I was entirely rational. Since I was not dead, I must not have gone over the eastern edge of the col; since I had not gone over the edge, I must have been swept down the western slope, which was the direction I had been trying to go to escape the avalanche. Therefore—by the logic of my addled brain—I must go uphill to find the others.

I set off, staggering in the snow.

The pain faded from my leg as I went. I was no longer shivering. I went on, up a small slope and down the other side; I stumbled onward, looking for the correct slope. The ground went down and down and down, not obliging me. I lost my footing and slid a good distance, and when I rose I didn’t know which way I was facing. The sky was much too dim for me to see anything clearly. I saw a spark of light ahead; that must be them. But then it went away, and I lurched in a circle, trying to find it again. This dizzied me, and I collapsed once more into the snow, which felt almost warm.

Just as my thoughts were fading, I saw them coming, and giggled in relief. I was all right. Suhail had found me. He and Tom and Jacob lifted me up and carried me to safety.

I was delirious for a long time after that, wracked with fever and the aftermath of what I later realized was a concussion.

I dreamt again and again of the avalanche, the rushing snow sweeping me away with titanic force, only this time it carried me over the eastern edge of the col. Sometimes I fell to my death, and sometimes I flew away on dragon wings.

I dug out the desiccated, boneless flesh of the Draconean god, and it woke up and spoke to me in a language I could not understand.

I was at home in Scirland, lecturing on what I had seen—but no one would believe me, even though my audience was made up of dragon-headed figures.

I was buried again, suffocating, certain I was about to die, even though the snow pressing me down was so warm and soft.

The whole time, I kept calling for those dearest to me… but they did not come.

Then one day I woke with something like a clear head.

I was not in camp. Whether I was in Shuwa’s house or someone else’s, I could not tell: my only illumination was one small yak-butter lamp, and someone had hung curtains of thick wool all around me, which had the odd effect of making me feel as if I were in the tent of an Akhian nomad. I lay on a heavy fleece, with another one over me. Smiling weakly, I recognized this as the “snow” that had buried me during my illness.

Was I well enough to cast it off? I lifted it experimentally, and was not surprised to find myself no longer in my mountaineering clothes. I wore only a shift, the sort of thing that can easily be removed when caring for a sick individual. This was not quite warm enough for the air, but I was determined to stand and reassert myself as a living person, rather than the near-corpse I must have resembled since my rescue.

My left leg ached when I put weight on it. Searching with my fingers along my calf, I found a tender spot, and surmised that I had fractured my fibula during the avalanche. No doubt I had done this very little good in my stumbling through the snow; but if my illness had one benefit, it was that I had given the bone some time to heal. Nonetheless, I made sure to bear the greater part of my weight on my right leg when I stood. The floor beneath me was not composed of the wooden panels I expected, but quilted hessian, stuffed with something small and hard.

Once I was sure of my balance, I parted the curtains and stepped out into colder air. Only a single step: after that, it was not the temperature that made me freeze.

Three figures stared at me from the other side of a fire. Not Suhail. Not Tom. Not Thu or Lieutenant Chendley, nor any of the Nying.

Three dragon-headed figures.

I clutched at the curtain for balance. It tore free from its moorings and we went to the ground together, the curtain and I. One of the figures stood, and I wanted to blame all of this on continued fever and delirium, but I knew better. I was awake, and alert, and the living cousin of the creature I had dug out of the snow was coming toward me with its claws outstretched.

I did not react with wonder, nor delight, nor scientific curiosity. Quite frankly, I shrieked. And then I tried to scrabble away like an upside-down crab—but the heavy curtain tangled me and my injured leg failed me, so I did not get very far.

The creature coming toward me went instantly still. On the other side of the fire, one of them jerked upright and popped its ruff as wide as it would go. The other lunged to the side of the second and clamped one clawed hand around its muzzle.

Body language varies from place to place around the world, and a good deal more between species. These draconic figures did not behave quite like humans, nor quite like dragons, but owed a bit to both. The expansion of the ruff was either hostility or a fear response, making the creature appear larger and more intimidating. These thoughts stabilized me, breaking me out of my own fear response… though the fear itself did not entirely dissipate.