The crack of a whip echoed through the temple chamber. The echoes diminished, spent by the polished stone walls. The Flock stood, their eyes locked upon Master Paul. He was lashed to a stone column. He struggled against the cords. Master Paul's first student, Brother John, stood motionless beside him. The whip dangled from his hand. His eyes met Master Paul's.

"Master, you have betrayed us," Brother John's voice reverberated, breaking the silence.

"And you disobey me," Master Paul replied, his voice hard.

"Disobey!" cried his student, breaking away from Master Paul's eyes. Brother John turned to the people.

Master Paul recited, "Your will is mine." The quiet power of his voice was hypnotic. The people pulled their robes tight, shivering. Brother John moved to a table upon which three bodies lay. His hand trembled as he touched the sheet covering his daughter.

"These people were trying to leave," he said quietly. "You set your dogs upon then."

"The Old Ones gave the law. I carry out their will." Master Paul's words were rhythmic. Whispers broke out, droning through the chamber on the threshold of hearing. Each person there remembered the days and nights of chanting, the ordeals of cold and terror in the stone tower, the stories told in hushed whispers as the winter winds hauled and scratched on doors and windows. The Old Ones walked in those winds, waiting to devour the disobedient.

The chamber was alive with the sound of fear. The golden light of the torches moved in shapes and faces. Master Paul laughed, "You dare defy me? The Old Ones come even now!" The people backed away, crowding to the massive doors. A few slipped through, then the crowd burst into the hallway. A gust of wind through a hall window set off screams. The people scurried out of the temple.

John dropped the whip. He picked up the small body. She seemed so light, like a doll. Master Paul's voice moved around the walls, "Release me. You can still be my student. Believe in me." John walked down the aisle. He moved through the droning echoes, each step moved to the rhythm of that voice. When he reached the door, Master Paul cried out, "Why have you lost your faith?"

John looked at him a moment, then said, "Because I believed in you." He laid the bundle on the floor in the hallway, then pulled the door shut. He paused before they closed. A sound moved around the walls. It was a small, secret sound. A whimper. A sound of grief beyond bearing, deeper than crying. He had heard that sound before, when novices were broken by the Old Ones. The doors shut, sealing the sound in silence.

John had hunted upon these mountains since his father had made him his first bow as a child. His father had no taste for the life of a farmer. He taught John the ways of the forests and sky. He showed John the signs of storms and how the winds shifted in the valleys and high meadows. He loved the challenge of each winter; to cheat the snows and live another winter.

The mountain people avoided the stone buildings on a high ridge that housed the Temple. John's father forbade him to go near the people who lived up there. He would not say why.

At each equinox, hunters and mid-wives and hermits would gather in a large cave as they had for generations. They sang old songs handed down from their ancestors as the smell of meat fat dripping into a roaring fire surrounded them and ancient runes danced in the shadows on the rails.

In the spring, they sang joyously to the Old Ones now free to bring life to the slopes and guide their arrows to the mark. In the fall, they mourned the coming of the snows whose power even the Old Ones could not deny.

As they sang, the caves were alive with sound. As they feasted, stories were told. John learned them all by heart. He asked once to be taught the meaning of the runes, but the mid-wives laughed and said a hunter could not comprehend them. His father scolded him for wanting to know more than the songs and stories contained.

The snows took his father in an avalanche. It was in the winter of John's seventeenth year. When the snow retreated. John set alight his father's pyre and the hut where they had lived. He took only his bow and as many arrows as he could carry. For five days he traveled over ancient paths and meadows dappled with hard plates of ice. Each patch of hardened snow was surrounded by spikes of brush ready to sprout leaves.

John found a wide stone path which snaked up a steep rock face. At the top, a huge spike or rock blocked the path except for a narrow ledge. John marveled at the runes carved in its surface. This spire of rock was the Pinnacle; guardian of the way to the Temple.

Master Paul was alone when John came to him. He agreed to teach John how to read the runes and the scrolls containing the lore of the Old Ones. In return, John guided the new students from the lowlands through the treacherous passes and supervised the hunting and gathering of food.

Years passed. John became Master Paul's second in the rituals and settled disputes within the Flock. Yet his studies did not bring him the satisfaction of faith. Instead, they fed his doubt. The legends were riddled with contradictions.

Master Paul became more intolerant of his questions and was given to fits of violent anger. The Flock grumbled under Master Paul's laws. When he began the ordeals in the stone towers and the floggings, they learned to fear him.

Each winter, John took his bow and set out alone for several days to hunt and to think. As Master Paul became more sullen and imposed more laws, John's hunts became longer. His secret torment was eased by the solitude of winter and the game of living to defy the snow.

One day he came upon a man and a woman running from a bear. He slipped through the snow, notching his bow. The man was a tangled red mass when John got within range of the bear. His arrows sang as they flew to bury themselves in the black fur. The enraged bear swiped its paw across the woman's stomach, knocking her into a patch of brush. It turned with a cry of rage as an arrow found its mouth open and cut through the roof to sink deep into its brain. Two more arrows pierced its throat and chest.

John smelled the tang of an approaching storm as he checked to make sure both people were dead. He followed their trail and found a girl about five years old. She was taking the fever. He carried her over the slippery trail to the Temple. He stayed with her day and night until the fever broke. On the morning following the night her fever broke, John awoke to find her watching him. She smiled and said weakly. "They like you." John laughed and asked her who it was that liked him. She looked behind him as she replied, "The Old Ones." John whirled to see a window ajar that had been locked the night before. He turned back to find her asleep...

The full moon was already high in the eastern sky when John finished Cassandra's pyre. He took her to the place she had loved a short distance from the Temple. Between two boulders where she would sit throwing rocks over a cliff and laugh as they fell, he built a pyre from sticks and laid her upon it.

"Why did you tell him?" he asked the frozen bundle. "For seven years I kept your secret. Then you tell him in front of the whole Flock." John felt tears burn his skin. They froze on his chin.

Yesterday was her initiation ceremony. She had denied John's plea for silence. She had stood before Master Paul without fear and said she had a message from the Old Ones. "Did they really tell you he is to die?" John asked the bundle. The wind swept around him. Yesterday she had been playing. Last night he had sent her into the night with two members of the Flock. Today they had returned strapped naked to Master Paul's sled, the dogs licking blood from their fur.

John pulled an arrow from his quiver and notched it in the bow. He drew back slowly, feeling the familiar tug of the stout wood. He paused, the point surrounded by the circle of the moon. He released it and watched the dark spot diminish. He stood watching for another moment, then shouldered his bow and walked away without looking back.

John turned to the trail of the Flock. Their tracks were dimples in the smooth surface. His ears picked up the faint cries of them as they neared the Pinnacle. The sounds echoed from the dark rock faces. The wind had stopped. The moon was two hours from its zenith and the Hour of the Old Ones. He knew the Flock would be trying to get as far away as possible before then. He topped a rise to see golden lights streaming toward the Pinnacle. The powder in the air cast a blue depth to the night.

The moon seemed to cast an aura around the curves of snow. The stars swam against clouds moving in from the west ahead of him. John peered ahead at the storm coming up the valley. He picked up his pace. The only sound was the crunch-sigh-crunch of his feet in the snow. John sucked a draught of the cold, relishing the light and the snow.

Sometimes he thought he heard a sound behind him. He would move into the open, his eyes searching the rocks as he readied an arrow. Sometimes wolves managed to get up here. Each time no further sound would reach his ears. He wondered if his ears were playing tricks with the echoes.

As he neared the rock path from the top of the snow ridge to the Pinnacle, he saw golden lights around the dark spire as the Flock moved past it. The lights winked out one by one. The jagged rock rose through the snow, puncturing the plain of ice. He noticed the snow had drifted sixty feet out into empty space.

Suddenly the snow crunched behind him. As John whirled to see Master Paul draw a sword, he lost his footing and fell onto the hard crust. He began to slide down the steep slope. His arrows chattered as they sprayed from his quiver. The moon became a white circle as he spun past jagged rocks. Ice crystals ripped his face. He dug his feet into the snow as he saw the old tree approaching. Beyond it was a two thousand-foot fall.

John snagged a branch. It crackled in protest, but held as he swung into the other branches. His gloves were covered with ice. His grip slipped. He screamed as he fell ten feet onto the snow.

John rolled over. His eyes scanned the ice plain. He moved carefully, knowing he was being held by snow, not stone. He remembered standing on a ledge watching the snow ripple and burst forth as his father scrambled for the climbing rope. The waves of snow had torn his father's grip and swallowed him in thunder.

The Pinnacle stood one hundred feet away. John began to crawl across the snow. Footsteps crunched ahead of him. Master Paul stood beside the Pinnacle. He smiled, "You will pay for your sins as your daughter did," he said, an edge in his voice. John could see the valley behind the Master filling with clouds. The edges of the storm rose from the ridge tops into the sky. John could taste the air change. The wind rose, lashing them with ice needles. Master Paul circled him. The blade whistled in the air. John edged toward the Pinnacle. He stopped an arm's length away.

Sound erupted from the far side of the ice plain as the crust began to crack and loosen. John listened to the line spread out and move toward them. Master Paul straightened. "Did you think you could bind me?" his voice boomed.

"How did you get free?" John asked, playing for time. Master Paul jerked his arm. A sliver of steel slid into his hand. Master Paul flicked it in an arc toward John. John turned out of its path. He felt the air move beside his chin, then the sound of metal on stone. John pulled his bow from his shoulder. Before he could reach for an arrow, Master Paul leaped at him. John rolled as the blade cut a wedge of snow.

The sound of the ice moved toward them. "The Old ones come to claim you, Heathen John. You have defied me. Now you die!" John held his bow before him. The moon filled his eyes as it moved to its zenith.

"The Hour of the Old Ones!" John cried. The world seemed to pause. The sword hung above Master Paul's head. He was silhouetted against the moon. His eyes burned with vengeance. His arms were taut, ready to strike. The moon transfixed John on the howling ice. The line of sound surrounded them.

Then the sword was moving away as Master Paul fell backward. For an instant, his face was framed against the moon. His nostrils flared. His mouth opened as if to tear the flesh of the air and moonlight. John heard that whimper again before the wind tore the sound away. John's arm hooked over a spine of rock on the face of the Pinnacle. He watched Master Paul dive into a powder cloud, grasping the sword as if to penetrate the heart of the snow that swallowed him.

John clung to the rock. He saw the golden lights below swirling in confusion. He tried to cry out, but his voice failed him. The lights arced in the air. The snow rippled and sprayed around rocks and trees. The lights spun free on the face of the wave, then went out one by one. The valley rumbled, beating John against the sharp rock face.

The wind howled with fury as John pulled himself over the edges of stone. He screamed and cursed. The thick flakes mixed with the sharp powder. The snow covered his face and soaked his clothes. "You killed them!" he screamed into the night. He cursed the Old Ones, the Flock, Master Paul, and himself. He climbed the tip of the rock spur, wrapping his body around the trembling rock. "Damn you!" he screamed. "Damn you all!"

John clung to the rock, his anger spent. The Old Ones did not matter now. It was the snow he had to conquer. The years of training his father had given him were the only asset to him. He had never been caught unprepared on his hunts. He moved his hands and feet, calculating the time he had before frostbite set in. He peeled away from the rock and leaned into the wind.

The snow swirled in shapes and patterns that deceived the eye, "Don't look at the snow," his father used to say. "It can steal a man's mind." As John carefully slid down the rock, he remembered an old man who had lived on one of the passes John had hunted as a boy. He had been caught in a blizzard and wandered for hours chasing memories across the ice. They had found him on the lee side of a boulder chattering to no one; his mind picked clean by the storm.

John probed out from the rock trying to find snow crust. His sense of direction was gone. He would freeze standing still.

"Father, come this way." a voice emerged from the storm. John whirled, reaching far an arrow. The quiver was empty. The snow seemed to coil around a shape in the midst of the cloud. He rubbed his eyes, but the shape remained.

"Who are you?" he cried.

"Father, you must come this way," The voice wavered in the wind as if the storm was trying to bury the sound in its fury.

"Cassandra?" John's voice trembled. "The snow madness is upon me," he whispered. He had heard stories about the dead returning to guide the living through the snow. His father had scoffed at the stories. "Don't trust anything in the blizzards other than your senses." he would say. "Look through the snow; not at it." John tried to ignore the shape. It remained.

"Follow me now!" the voice demanded. "I don't have much time." John felt the rock against his back. He didn't have a choice. His legs moved. He stepped into space, then stumbled onto the snow crust.

He got up quickly. The shape had stayed the same distance away. He lunged at it, but it moved as he moved. It moved away. He hurried to follow, unsure why he was afraid to lose sight of it.

He fell into a rhythmic walk, pacing himself to conserve strength. He tried to get his bearings when boulders would emerge beside him. He lost count of his paces. The wind howled and tore at his clothes. The shape remained ahead of him.

They left the rocks as they reached the snow ridge. The snow danced before him. Patterns of faces and shapes formed and swept toward him. He passed through them. When one passed, a new one formed in front of him. They seemed to tease him, to dare him to look at them. A dark shape moved toward him. He backed away. It surrounded him, then passed by. He shivered. He imagined the Flock crawling from their frozen grave to claim him. Perhaps Master Paul was behind him at this moment, leading them. He walked faster. He heard footsteps in the snow around him. He tried to will the sound to stop, but reality and illusion blended in the moaning of the snow. The snow crust seemed to ripple as the dead crawled beneath the surface, waiting to burst forth and pull him into the powder. He felt their eyes searching the night for him. He began to run and swing the bow at the snow patterns as if to smash them.

"Father. Stop!" The voice came again through the storm. The sound of footsteps ceased. The form that spoke seemed to wait for him. I've got the madness, he thought. He concentrated on the form, trying to penetrate the taunting snow patterns. He followed.

The snow seemed to be above him. Then it was beneath him. He walked through tunnels of wind and ice on a desert of snow. He was motionless as the world moved beneath him. I'm dead, he thought. I'm trapped in this storm forever.

A swirl of thick flakes caught his eye and held him. It moved toward him. A distant howl arose behind him, he heard paws scratching the crust. "No!" he screamed. "I killed those cursed dogs! I know it!" Then he wasn't so sure. He couldn't remember how many he had shot. He began to run.

He felt the Flock around him. He could see their hands reaching for him. He saw shapes moving in the dancing flakes. He saw the crust ripple and bulge as they moved to grab his feet. His foot punctured the crust and wedged in a crevice between rocks. He felt a hand grab his ankle. The dogs bayed behind him. He fell forward to protect his face from their jaws. His foot came free. He scrambled through the snow. He tripped over a rock and tumbled between two boulders.

Sticks jutted from the snow. Silence surrounded him. Cassandra's body and the platform were gone. The storm had tossed her into the valley. John backed away. His mouth worked, but no sound would come. He crawled up the gentle slope to where the form waited. He followed, jumping away from every swirl that engulfed him. His eyes were white. His face was drawn into a mask of terror. He couldn't think. A pattern formed in the snow ahead of him. He stopped as it swept toward him. He couldn't fight anymore...

The chamber hummed softly. He stepped across the threshold. The chamber was empty except for a table surrounded by torches. He walked down the aisle, his black robe rustling in the darkness. The table was empty.

A man sat upon the stone throne on the dais. His hood encircled darkness. "Master Paul." John whispered. Please guide me." The figure was silent. John moved closer, his skin crawling. "Answer me!" he cried.

The hood turned toward John as he stopped in front of the dais. The torches flickered. "Who are you?" John whispered. His legs trembled as the figure rose slowly hands gnarled with age. They were white, like bone. They seemed to float to the hood and pull it back. The face was his own.

John backed away. He looked wildly around the room. He fell to the polished floor. Tears filled his eyes. He raised his fist and smashed it down on the polished floor. He saw his reflection. Rage filled him. He flailed at the floor. "You can't have me!" he screamed. "I am not mad! I am not mad!" Pain punctuated each word. His vision wavered. He paused. The figure took a step toward him. He frantically increased the rhythm of his blows. "I am alive!" he screamed at the reflection. His hands were bloody. He locked his hands together above his head and brought them down on the stone with all his strength.

His arms sprayed snow as the crust gave Hay. He fell on the snow, his face smashed against the ice. He rolled over. I escaped the madness, he thought. He sat up, wiping the snow from his eyes. The wind had died. The form was gone. The storm rose in a cloud wall behind him. The sky swirled fifty-feet above his head. Snow moved in a film on the powder.

The Temple was a hundred yards away. Torches burned outside the door. The windows glowed with warmth. He got to his feet, wincing as the bruises on his arms protested. He looked back at the cloud wall. A shiver ran up his spine. He moved toward the light.

Master Paul's sled was buried in the snow. Five of the dogs lay frozen in their harness. Master Paul had managed to get four of them loose, but John's arrows had found them all. Near the gate, the pack leader's frozen body swayed in the wind on the thick shaft through its throat.

John touched the dog gingerly to reassure himself that it had not pursued him over the ice. He smiled. He counted the bodies. His vengeance had been complete.

John pushed the doors open. He stumbled down the corridor toward the chamber. The light hurt his eyes. The heat brought sharp needles of pain in his face, hands, and feet. He grabbed a water bucket. The liquid sliced through the foul taste in his mouth.

His legs wobbled as he walked into the chamber. He fell into the cushions of the throne. Fatigue washed over him. He absorbed the familiar scene, drawing strength from the quiet stone. "It's real," he whispered. The sound encircled him. He began to laugh. "It's real!" he cried.

Outside, the stars emerged as the clouds melted away. Peace settled over the snow ridge. The snow sighed and whispered. It swirled and danced in the light of a winter moon. The wind moved into the hallway filling the chamber with sound. Spring will come soon, bringing new students, he thought. "Don't worry," he murmured to the sound, wind and empty chamber. "Master John will be ready."

-Edward Osenbaugh