What am I doing in such a forlorn place? Surely I must be nearly at the pole. Are Konrad and I finally having our adventure, just the two of us? But as I cast my eyes to all horizons, I see that I am alone.
Mercilessly I drive the dogs onward, intent only on moving north, on finding Konrad. Each pulse of my fevered heart is filled with yearning.
Silhouetted in the distance like a frozen city, great jagged ramparts of ice lean and shriek and crack. My gloved hands are clawed around the reins of the sled.
My exhilaration is congealing to despair as darkness fast approaches. But then I catch sight of a smudge of movement on the white wastes. Squinting, I make out the telltale shape of a sledge in motion, and standing upon it is a fur-clad figure so familiar that I give a cry of ecstasy. Tears flood my eyes and threaten to freeze them shut before I can clumsily wipe them away with my leather mitt.
I urge the dogs to give me the last of their flagging strength, to speed me to my heart’s desire.
I feel as if a promise has been made.
It is Konrad. My brother lives again.
CHAPTER 16
I slept hard and woke to a morning so bright and still that the tempestuous events of the previous night seemed pure impossibility. A maid must already have been to my room, for my curtains were drawn and on my bureau rested a basin of fresh water and a tray of tea and rolls. I stared out at the blue sky and mountains, and remembered my dream of Konrad and me on the ice. For the first time in a long time I felt calm and properly anchored.
When I looked at my clock, I was surprised to see that it was close to noon. I dressed, and when I stepped out into the hallway, Maria was passing.
“It seems I’ve overslept,” I said.
“And I’m glad of it,” she replied, smiling with satisfaction. “You still look peaky, though. You need feeding up.”
“Have you seen Elizabeth and Henry?” I asked.
“They checked in on you, but you were dead to the world. I told them to let you sleep.”
“Where are they?”
“They headed off on their picnic about an hour ago. They said you’d find them in their usual place. But let me fix you something in the kitchen to tide you over.”
“Thank you, Maria,” I said, and we walked together toward the main staircase.
The house was bustling with servants carrying traveling cases and dust sheets, simultaneously starting to put our chateau to bed for the winter while preparing for our hasty departure to Italy in two days.
As we passed the library, Professor Neumeyer emerged, looking distinctly dusty and more than a little excited.
“Ah, good,” he said. “Is your father at home?”
“He’s gone to Geneva to attend to some business, sir,” said Maria stiffly, scarcely concealing her distaste for this man. To her way of thinking, he’d opened a tomb within our family home and unleashed more misery into it. “And Madame Frankenstein is not to be disturbed.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, looking expectantly at me now.
“What have you discovered?” I asked, feeling uneasy.
“Some remains in the burial pit,” he said. “They were very deep, and it took us some time, but there’s something very interesting indeed.”
My stomach clenched as I remembered the wailing and thrashing of the fleshy womb in the spirit world, but I heard myself asking, “May I see it, please?”
“Of course, yes.”
The professor led me through the caverns I’d become so familiar with, in this world and the one beyond our own. The walls were lit by the amber glow of many lanterns. We passed several dusty workers, stripped to their undershirts, strong limbs gleaming from their recent exertions.
For the first time my step faltered as we started down the steep passage to the burial chamber. Inside, great mounds of moist, richly stinking earth were piled high, an odor that recalled both rot and a freshly plowed field.
“The body,” the professor told me, “was not in one piece.”
A chill prickled my flesh.
“Has it just decayed over time?” I asked.
“No. It was intentionally massacred. Whoever he was, his people must have thought there was a chance he might somehow return. Clearly he was greatly feared. Come. See.”
The professor led me to the pit, and I could see it had been excavated some seven feet. A ladder led down to the bottom, where many pieces of all different shapes had been carefully laid out. The professor nodded for me to descend.
“Just mind where you step,” he said, following after me. His voice seemed to come from a long way away. “Originally the body seems to have been buried upright on some kind of elaborate bier-a platform on which the dead were often transported. The ones I’ve typically seen were made of wood. But this one appears to have been constructed entirely of bones.”
Step by step down the ladder, panic and claustrophobia squeezed tighter upon me. I reached the muddy earth and moved aside to make room for the professor.
“You can see those long lengths of bone tipped up against the wall, perhaps thigh bones or upper arm bones. Those appear to have been part of the bier.”
“They’re all hacked apart,” I said, noting their splintered ends.
“Yes. My guess would be that the grave was dug up shortly after the burial. The bier was smashed and the body itself torn apart. We’ve only recovered pieces so far.”
The professor reached down and picked up a large smooth curve of bone. He passed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“That,” he said, “is part of a skull.”
I swallowed, remembering the shadowy shape I’d seen within the fleshy membrane, how it had jerked as though turning to look directly upon me. “This… this is huge.”
The professor nodded. “Perhaps twice the size of a normal man’s. And here.” He picked up a thick wedge of connected bones. “The talus, tarsus, and navicular bones are apparent enough, but the metatarsals seem to be fused together into a single mass.”
“I’m sorry. What part of the body is this?” I asked, my empty stomach giving an unpleasant twist.
“That is a foot,” he said. “A clubbed one, curiously.”
I swallowed. “It’s so large that it seems more of a hoof.”
“Most unusual, I agree.”
“Professor, what was this creature?”
For a moment he looked as shaken as I felt. “Young sir, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s possible, of course, that this was merely a person of giant proportions-though, I’ve certainly never heard an account of one so big. And there are always rumors in my field of study, things that defy scientific explanation. Things so bizarre they could only be monsters.”
He bent low and picked up something else.
“And here, the last piece we’ve recovered so far.”
He passed me an L-shaped span of bone that I knew at once was part of a very large jaw. On the lower half some teeth were still attached.
They were not the teeth of a human. But I’d seen the like before. They were all strangely serrated into four points, still venomously sharp.
