Grey thunderclouds gathered over the Tehrasov Mountains to the west, as darkness deepened over the valley and the twilight’s last gleaming faded from the sky above. A moonless night with only the light from the starry host, and it was soon as dark as pitch. Three men watched in silence, as a lone figure made his way down the snow-covered mountainside. His path took him over large boulders strewn across an expanse of level ground, deposited there by glaciers some immense and distant time in the past. They stood as testament to the power of layered snow – slow moving, inexorable, a slave to gravity, and awesome in some ancient and otherworldly manner.

The figure moved with a quick sure grace, picking his way along, pausing to measure with his eyes a crevasse between two rocks, gauging the drop from the ledge beneath his feet to that across the chasm. In spite of the rocks and snow, his step was light and agile, his balance superb, his resolve firm.

“Now?” asked the larger man leaning against a ledge partially shielding the three. His word, spoken softly, broke the silence as an explosion. The lone figure, still distant, continued, oblivious of the three pairs of watchful eyes. Silence. Quiet. “Now,” said the thin man, his angular face stark in the shadows of the night, his eyes dark and filled with an untold rage.

The larger man raised his head, moved smoothly to the ledge, and clearing away snow with his gloved hand, laid a small cloth bag on the bare rock. He opened a flat leather case, and with deliberate and methodical ease assembled several gleaming pieces of cold steel, one being a heavy cylinder on the muzzle. He attached a small but powerful scope, and added a short alloy stock. This completed, he rested the small but powerful weapon on the cloth bag. He removed his dark glasses and lowered his head, bringing the night vision scope to eye-level.

The night was dark and forbidding under a new moon, but the scene flashed brilliantly in the iridescent green of the night scope, the cross-hairs clear in the center of the field of vision. He closed one eye, and drew the weapon slowly about, tracking the figure now clearly exposed, the central cross following the lone figure descending the rocky slope.

The larger man silently sucked in his breath, breathed out slightly, and held it. He placed the cross on a spot just above the figure’s heart, and slowly squeezed the trigger. There was a slight spitting noise as the weapon discharged, its recoil slamming the weapon into the assassin’s shoulder. He held his breath, and watched patiently through the night scope.

All three heard the thud on the night air as the bullet struck the figure square in his chest, tearing fabric and skin. He didn’t scream, but lurched backward, teetered on the brink of the ledge where he had descended, and fell backward into the darkness. The third man took his eye away from the night scope, and turning to the others, smiled, his eyes beaming. In the darkness, the others missed his expressed satisfaction.

“Find him; find the package!” directed the thin man. The larger man slipped around the ledge and climbed down the slight slope onto the snowfield leading to the ledge below. It took him a good twenty minutes, and he arrived at the lower ledge cold and gasping for breath. He turned and looked back to the ledge above and signaled to his companions, though in the dark he couldn’t make them out. He knelt down and looked over the ledge where the three had watched the figure fall.

It was pitch black, and even with his powerful flashlight it was difficult to see anything but shadows. The larger man swung the beam of light across the expanse below, noting several narrow ledges that dropped off into a deep and bottomless chasm. There was no body anywhere to be seen. The larger man got up, and flashing his light against the ledge above him, shouted that the man’s body must have dropped into the deep crevasse. “Damn!” came the response out of the darkness above.

The young girl drew a light woolen blanket over the man to prevent a chill. He lay motionless as he had since she brought him to her lair beneath the glacier. She knew the three men above lacked the skills to descend into the bowels of the ice pack and she and the man would remain safe. She drew a large woolen curtain across the doorway, providing for his privacy. She stoked a small fire in the corner of the room, sending sparks up against the ceiling. The dry pieces of ancient wood burned with a smokeless flame, and the heat reflected off the mirrored ice into the room, maintaining a moderate temperature in spite of the ice walls.

The young girl wore a sleeveless dress of light iridescent material that fairly glowed in the dim light. Her feet were warmed by slim boots lined with the fur of snow hare. She wore around her throat a single pearl pendant on a black satin ribbon.

He opened his eyes, but in the low light, thought dimly that he had lost his sight. Then he felt an incredible pain that paralyzed his upper body. He tried to move his right arm, but even the slightest of movements unleashed an overwhelming pain, and he passed again from consciousness into silent darkness.

The young girl rose and came to the side of the bed. She lifted the covers and checked the bandages on his chest, and satisfied they were proper and holding, covered him once again. The man’s breathing was shallow and labored, and the girl placed another blanket over his otherwise motionless body. She sat silently in the semidarkness at the side of the bed, her eyes closed, her mind attuned to the sounds of his breathing.

The man stirred and opened his eyes a second time. He sought to focus them, but the icy and nondescript ceiling gave him little purchase – he took in a deep breath and winced with the pain. After a moment, he moved his head to the side, and his hazel-green eyes met the steel-grey eyes of the young girl. She smiled, and whispered, “Welcome back from the land of darkness.”

“Where am I?” he asked with a struggle, his voice breaking; “And, who are you?”

The young girl smiled again, and placing a hand gently on his shoulder, answered: “You are in my home beneath the glacier, and I am called by the name, ‘Saraphym.’”

The man held her eyes, and took in another deep breath. “What happened?” he asked.

The young girl answered, “You were fired upon by a mean spirit of a man, and the single bullet struck you in the chest. Guardian angels surely watch over you, for the bullet struck an amulet on the chain around your neck, and while it entered your body, it did less damage than it might have.” A pause. “Why would someone be interested in your passing from life?” asked the young girl.

“I do not know,” he replied, though the young girl knew that he lied.

“Then, it must be listed amongst the mysteries of the universe,” she said, and turning, she left the room. Not gone long, she returned with a tray holding a bowl of steaming broth and a piece of warm bread.

The man raised himself into a sitting position with considerable difficulty, and received the tray of food. “Are your parents here about?” he asked the young girl after he had sipped several spoonsful of the steaming liquid.

“My parents have left the mountain top,” she said, “though they are with me always.”

“Your parents are both dead?” asked the man without thinking. A pause – then, “I am sorry –I must apologize for my insensitivity.”

The young girl nodded: “Apology is unnecessary. My needs are simple, and I am well cared for by my mountain.”

The young girl again left the room and returned momentarily bearing a small oilskin pouch. She held it out to the man and asked, “Is this what they sought?”

The man was shocked at the sight of the leather pouch, and not a little distressed that she had taken it from within his undergarments. “Please give me that,” he whispered, his eyes narrowing, his lips grim.

“It must be very valuable,” she smiled back, “for them to take such measures.”

The man took it and clutched it to his breast, and looked anxiously into the young girl’s eyes. “Why did you take it from me?” he asked suspiciously.

“You were wounded, and bleeding quite badly,” she replied softly. “I undressed you to dress your wound, and that is when I found it. You need not worry – the seal is intact, and the contents remain a mystery. I did not open it, for it was not of my business.”

The man’s eyes softened, and his lips relaxed. “Again, I apologize for my thoughtless and loose tongue. This is the sacred touchstone from a monastery here above the clouds on Mount Tallinn. There are those that would possess this stone for the powers with which it is endowed – terrible powers they would be in the wrong hands.” And he closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

“It was in my trust to deliver to the Holy One in the Valley of the Moon beyond the Tehrasov Mountains. I was about this when I was suddenly overwhelmed with an incredible pain in my chest, and all went black.”

“Then, we’d best return you to health and set you on your way,” the young girl offered, her gentle eyes holding his.

Time is a healer, though in matters of medical necessity, it is more often the ministrations and care of a healer that are the prime aid in regeneration. In all things, though, time helps. The young girl continued to minister to the man, and in time his wound healed and he returned gradually to health. When, then, he seemed ready, she addressed the matter of his chartered mission and the delay caused by his wounding.

“The lean one is the leader of this band,” said the young girl. “His name is Tohmazzi Nelfruitti – a former assassin for hire, forced to give up his trade due to his failing soul. He was highly skilled in his work, and is thought to be associated with some twenty-nine contract deaths over the past 20 years. His larger and clumsy companion is one Juliani Guilliari, a purported chameleon in the manner of ‘the Jackal,’ but who lacks the consummate skills of that master of evil deeds.

He stumbles through assignments, narrowly avoiding capture solely out of sheer luck. The third man – the silent one – the one who put this bullet into your chest, is known as Jhammi Bhurlapp, a solitary renegade from the high Tibetan reaches.”

The young girl paused. “Bhurlapp’s skills with weapons far excel his best qualities as a human, which are meager indeed. In the art of killing, he has no equal,” concluded the young girl, “as in human qualities, his dearth has no equal.”

“How do you know these men?” the man asked, his mind struggling. “And what of their interest in this stone?”

The young girl nodded, “The Temple on Mt. Tallinn has long been a sanctuary of healing powers, and thus a place of uncounted pilgrimages. While the source of this healing lies in mystery, it is widely known that such powers exist.”

Her eyes glowed with a deep fire, and her voice, though but a whisper, was filled with that same fire.

“From the beginning of time, those who have come to the mountain in search of healing number as the stars. And, as many have come seeking the source of such powers. The latter has been a varied pool of the dregs of humankind – those intent on instant success for personal gain, others seeking power over others, and them that see the universe as their rightful domain to have and hold at whatever cost.”

The young girl’s eyes narrowed, and her voice dropped even lower: “These three are of the coloration of the latter. They defile even the basest definition of human degradation by their intent. They have existed since the beginning of time, and their incarnations over the ages have exhibited many differing faces, many varieties of the same unholy name. But, in their heart of hearts, in their fundamental expression, they are familiar and readily identifiable. Their names are elusive and ever-changing, but they are named the same throughout time.”

The man’s eyes narrowed as he tried to comprehend. “If they are always different, but at base always the same and eternally present, how then can the source be kept safe for the universe?” asked the man.

“Such powers will always be at-risk,” said the young girl, “but within certain havens, they will remain in sanctuary and a mystery.”

The young girl paused, her gentle eyes resting on the hazel-green eyes of the man: “Your charge is thus of utmost importance – tarry not, but carry the touchstone in its leather pouch to the Northern sanctuary of the Holy One. There it will return to the folds of mystery, and be veiled and safe for all time.”

The young girl waved as the man set out for the lands to the North. His step was once again strong and deliberate, his regard firm – and under the cover of night, his path down from the Holy Mountain secure from the sight of his erstwhile pursuers…