Chapter 1: The Fever The deck of the steamship *Vostok* rolled beneath Dmitri Petrov's boots, though the motion had stopped bothering him two weeks ago. He stood near the starboard rail, watching gray water stretch toward a horizon that refused to show anything except more gray water. Three weeks out from St. Petersburg, and the landscape had transformed from something recognizable into this vast emptiness that swallowed the ship whole. The Sea of Okhotsk carried a different quality of cold than anything he'd experienced in the capital. Back home, winter arrived with social rituals—fur coats at the opera, heated debates in literary salons, servants stoking fires in marble fireplaces. Here, the cold existed without context or civilization to frame it. Just wind and spray and the constant groaning of the ship's hull. He pulled his coat tighter. The Russian Geographical Society had provided funding for this expedition, though "funding" was a generous term for the meager allowance that barely covered his passage and basic supplies. They wanted documentation of the indigenous peoples, measurements of coastlines, samples of flora that probably didn't exist this far north. Standard work for a disgraced academic with nowhere else to go. Anna's face surfaced in his memory without permission. He pushed the thought away, focusing instead on the practical matter of counting days until they reached Anadyr. Seventeen more, according to the captain's latest estimate, though weather could change that number in either direction. "Gospadin Petrov!" The ship's doctor, a balding man named Sokolov, approached from the port side. "You've been standing here for two hours. The temperature is dropping." "I'm aware of the temperature." Sokolov meant well, probably. Most of the crew had learned to leave Dmitri alone after the first week, when his lack of interest in conversation became obvious enough to discourage further attempts. The doctor persisted with medical concerns, as if monitoring Dmitri's health was somehow relevant to anything. "The captain mentioned you haven't been eating regularly." "The captain should mind his ship." The doctor opened his mouth to respond, but Dmitri had already turned away, heading toward the stairs that led below deck. His cabin waited, a cramped space barely large enough for a bunk and a writing desk. He'd spent considerable time there, reviewing his maps and notes, trying to convince himself that documenting bone structures on some remote island mattered in any meaningful way. The Whale Bone Alley. That's what the Society's briefing materials called it, though the local indigenous peoples apparently had their own name that Russian cartographers hadn't bothered recording properly. A site of significant archaeological interest, potentially dating back centuries. Perfect work for someone whose career had collapsed alongside his personal life. He descended the stairs carefully. The ship's motion required attention to handrails and foot placement. Below deck, the air smelled of machine oil and unwashed bodies and something else, something that reminded him of the Neva River during the spring thaw when dead things surfaced from the winter ice. His cabin door stuck, requiring a firm shove to open. Inside, his few possessions remained exactly as he'd left them. A trunk containing clothes and surveying equipment. His notebooks, filled with preliminary observations that would probably prove useless. A photograph he should have thrown overboard weeks ago but kept anyway, buried beneath extra shirts where he wouldn't have to see it by accident. The bunk looked inviting. He sat down, intending to review tomorrow's schedule, though "schedule" was an ambitious term for the shapeless routine of shipboard life. Wake, eat if hunger demanded it, walk the deck, avoid conversation, sleep. Repeat until arrival. His head ached. The pain had started subtly that morning, easy to ignore, but now it pressed behind his eyes with increasing insistence. Probably the cabin's poor ventilation. He should go back on deck despite the cold, get fresh air, prove to Sokolov that he was managing his health perfectly well without medical supervision. Standing up required more effort than it should have. The cabin tilted at a wrong angle, though the ship's motion hadn't changed. He grabbed the desk for balance, waiting for the moment to pass. It didn't pass. The ache behind his eyes sharpened into something that made him gasp. His vision blurred, refocused, then blurred again. The cabin walls seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting in rhythm with his pulse. He tried to call out but his throat produced no sound. The floor rushed up to meet him. *** Darkness came with voices. They spoke in a language he'd never studied, using sounds that human vocal cords shouldn't be able to produce. Yet he understood every word. The understanding bypassed his conscious mind, arriving as pure meaning that needed no translation. *We name you.* He couldn't see who spoke. His eyes wouldn't open, or perhaps he no longer had eyes to open. The darkness pressed against him from all sides, thick and viscous, filling his mouth and lungs with substance that was both present and absent simultaneously. *You are called.* The voices multiplied, overlapping, creating harmonies that hurt in ways pain shouldn't be able to manifest. He tried to move but discovered he lacked a body to move with. The sensation of his flesh had vanished, leaving only awareness suspended in nothing. Light appeared. Not gradually—it simply existed where it hadn't existed before. Pale and cold, it illuminated figures that surrounded him in a circle. They wore masks carved from bone, each face different but unified in their complete wrongness. Human skulls modified with extra jaws. Animal features blended with geometric patterns. Eyes that were holes filled with darkness deeper than the surrounding void. *Dmitri Sergeyevich Petrov.* Hearing his full name in that language made his absent stomach lurch. The figures moved closer, or perhaps they'd always been close and distance had lost meaning. Their masks filled his vision, blocking out everything except bone and shadow. *You will see what was sealed.* One of the figures reached toward him. Its hand was human in shape but constructed from something that resembled ice more than flesh. When it touched his chest, he discovered he did have a body after all, because the pain that followed required flesh to experience properly. The figure's hand pushed through his ribs without breaking skin. He screamed silently as it groped inside him, searching for something. Other hands joined it, multiple figures reaching into his torso, pulling organs aside, rearranging his interior according to principles that biology would reject. *You will know what we know.* They lifted something from his chest cavity. A heart, presumably his own, though it looked wrong—too large, pulsing with black veins that spread across its surface like cracks in ice. The figures held it up, examining it, discussing its inadequacy in voices that cut through his consciousness like broken glass. One of them produced a knife made from stone that reflected no light. It carved into the heart with careful precision, sectioning it apart, discarding pieces that fell into darkness and disappeared. What remained was barely recognizable, but they nodded in satisfaction before placing it back inside his opened chest. *You will speak what must not be spoken.* The hands withdrew, leaving him hollow. His ribs remained spread wide, exposing his reorganized interior to the pale light. He could see inside himself, could watch as the modified heart began beating with a rhythm that didn't match any pulse he'd known before. The scene shifted. He stood on frozen water that stretched endlessly in all directions. The ice beneath his feet was black and perfectly smooth, reflecting nothing. Above him, the sky held no sun, no stars, only a gray expanse that pressed down with physical weight. Something rose from the ice ahead. Bones emerged from the frozen surface, massive and white and arranged in patterns that suggested intelligence behind their placement. They formed walls, arches, structures that served purposes he couldn't identify. The architecture grew upward and outward, expanding until it filled his entire field of vision. A temple built from the skeletons of creatures that dwarfed anything currently living. He walked toward it, though he didn't remember deciding to walk. His feet moved across the black ice, carrying him closer to the bone structure while the figures with their masks followed behind, chanting in that language he shouldn't understand but did. *Guard what sleeps.* The temple's entrance yawned before him, a mouth formed from whale ribs that curved overhead in mockery of a doorway. Beyond it, darkness waited, but this was different from the void he'd experienced earlier. This darkness moved, writhed, breathed with anticipation of something that wanted to be released. *Dmitri Sergeyevich Petrov.* His name echoed through the bone corridors, multiplying and distorting until it became pure sound without meaning. The figures surrounded him again, pressing close, their masks nearly touching his face. *You are chosen to witness.* They raised their hands in unison, pointing past him toward the temple's depths. He turned to look, though every instinct screamed against it. Something looked back. *** Voices in Russian pulled him toward consciousness. "—three days now, Captain. The fever shows no sign of breaking." "Have you tried—" "Everything. His temperature fluctuates wildly. One moment he's burning, the next he's cold as the sea itself." Dmitri tried to open his eyes. The attempt required enormous effort, as if his eyelids had been weighted with stones. When he finally managed it, bright light stabbed into his skull, forcing him to close them again immediately. "Gospadin Petrov? Can you hear me?" Sokolov's voice, closer than the captain's had been. Dmitri tried to respond, managed a sound that approximated "yes" but came out as more of a groan. "Don't try to move. You collapsed on deck three days ago. The crew carried you to the medical cabin." Three days. The information didn't make sense. He'd gone below to his quarters, had experienced... what? A dream? The visions remained vivid in his memory, more real than the cabin he currently occupied. He forced his eyes open again, squinting against the light. Sokolov's face hovered above him, lined with concern that seemed genuine. Behind the doctor, Captain Volkov stood with arms crossed, looking simultaneously worried and annoyed. "What happened?" Dmitri's voice came out rough, his throat raw as if he'd been screaming. "You tell us," Volkov said. "One of the sailors found you convulsing on the main deck. You've been unconscious ever since, though you've been... vocal. Shouting in some language none of us recognized." The bone masks flashed through Dmitri's memory. The temple. The thing in the darkness that had seen him. "I need water." Sokolov provided a cup, helping him drink since his hands shook too badly to hold it himself. The water was lukewarm and tasted of metal, but it soothed his throat enough to speak properly. "What was I saying? In this other language." The doctor and captain exchanged glances. Volkov shrugged. "No idea. You were delirious with fever. The mind produces nonsense under such conditions." Nonsense. The word should have been comforting, a rational explanation for irrational experience. Instead, it rang hollow, contradicted by the absolute clarity of his memories. The visions hadn't possessed the quality of dreams. They'd been something else entirely, something that had rearranged his understanding of what was possible. "How long until we reach Anadyr?" "Fourteen days if the weather holds," Volkov said. "Though you're in no condition to—" "I'll be fine." "Doctor Sokolov disagrees. You contracted something, Petrov. Some Arctic disease, perhaps. We should turn back to—" "No." The word came out harder than intended. Dmitri forced himself to sit up despite Sokolov's protests. His body ached in strange places, as if his organs had actually been rearranged and were still settling into their new positions. "The Society is expecting documentation. I intend to provide it." Volkov studied him with the expression of a man dealing with an uncooperative passenger who might die and create paperwork. "Your health is your own concern, but if you expire aboard my ship, the Society can file their complaints with your corpse." "Noted." The captain left, muttering about academics and their priorities. Sokolov remained, checking Dmitri's pulse and temperature with professional efficiency. "Your heartbeat is irregular," the doctor said quietly. "I've never encountered a rhythm quite like it. Are you certain you're experiencing no pain?" Dmitri thought about the knife carving into his heart, the black veins spreading across its surface, the figures nodding in satisfaction at their modification. "I'm certain." Sokolov clearly didn't believe him but had exhausted his authority to argue. He provided instructions about rest and nutrition that Dmitri had no intention of following, then left him alone in the medical cabin. Dmitri lay back on the narrow bed, staring at the wooden ceiling. His mind felt different, as if the visions had opened spaces in his consciousness that hadn't existed before. Information lurked there, knowledge he couldn't quite access but could sense waiting just beyond reach. The language the masked figures had spoken—he could still remember its sounds, its grammar, the way it conveyed meaning through tones that human language didn't utilize. If he concentrated, he could almost reproduce it, could feel the words forming in his throat. He didn't try. Something about speaking that language while conscious seemed dangerous, as if it might draw attention he wasn't prepared to receive. Sleep came eventually, bringing dreams that were just dreams, ordinary and forgettable. When he woke, gray light filtered through the cabin's small porthole, indicating either dawn or dusk. He had no way to tell which. Someone had left food on the small table beside the bed—hard bread and some kind of preserved fish. He ate mechanically, his body accepting the fuel while his mind remained elsewhere, still processing what he'd experienced during the fever. Three days of unconsciousness. Three days of visions that had felt more authentic than any experience in his waking life. The masked figures had called him by name, had claimed he was chosen, had shown him that temple of bones rising from black ice. The Whale Bone Alley. The realization hit him with absolute certainty. The structure in his vision matched descriptions he'd read in the Society's documents. Same configuration of massive bones, same architectural arrangement that defied easy explanation. He'd seen the place he was traveling toward, had been shown it by entities whose nature he couldn't begin to categorize. A knock on the cabin door interrupted his thoughts. "Gospadin Petrov? The captain says we'll dock at Anadyr in twelve days. Weather is cooperating." Twelve days. Two fewer than Volkov's previous estimate. Dmitri acknowledged the information, and the sailor departed. He stood, testing his balance. The weakness had faded, though the strange ache in his chest remained. His heartbeat continued its irregular rhythm, the new pattern the masked figures had established when they'd carved away pieces of his original heart. Walking to the porthole, he looked out at the endless gray water. Somewhere beyond that horizon, Yttygran Island waited with its bone structures and its secrets. The Society wanted documentation, scientific analysis, measurements and observations that would further the understanding of indigenous Arctic peoples. They had no idea what they were actually sending him toward. The fever had marked him, had initiated him into something he didn't have proper words to describe. The visions had been a calling, though he resisted the implications of that interpretation. He wasn't a superstitious man. His education had been thoroughly modern, grounded in rational inquiry and empirical observation. Yet he'd spent three days conversing with spirits who'd rearranged his organs and shown him apocalyptic visions of cosmic architecture. Rational inquiry didn't provide adequate frameworks for processing that experience. The remaining days of the voyage passed in strange suspension. Dmitri recovered his physical strength but found himself changed in ways he couldn't explain to Sokolov during the doctor's regular examinations. His senses had sharpened, particularly his hearing. He could detect conversations happening on the far side of the ship, could distinguish between the voices of crew members he'd never properly met. And he heard other things. Whispers in that same alien language, just at the edge of perception. They came and went without pattern, speaking words he couldn't quite catch but that left impressions in his mind. Warnings, perhaps. Or invitations. The distinction remained unclear. None of the crew seemed to notice anything unusual, which meant the phenomenon was specific to him. Another gift from the masked figures, another modification they'd made during his initiatory fever. He didn't mention the whispers to anyone. On the twelfth day, exactly as predicted, the gray smudge of land appeared on the horizon. Anadyr, the easternmost outpost of civilization before the true wilderness began. From there, he would need to arrange transport north to Chukotka, then find passage to Yttygran Island itself. The ship maneuvered into port as Dmitri stood on deck, his trunk of supplies beside him. The town looked barely substantial enough to deserve the name—a collection of wooden structures huddled against the hostile landscape, smoke rising from chimneys into the perpetually overcast sky. *Dmitri Sergeyevich Petrov.* The whisper came clear and distinct, audible over the shouts of sailors and the groaning of the ship's hull. He turned, searching for the source, but found only the ordinary chaos of a vessel preparing to dock. No one else had heard it. The crew continued their work without pause, oblivious to the voice that had spoken his name with perfect clarity. *You are expected.* The ship's hull struck the dock with a thud that traveled through the deck. Dmitri gripped the rail, steadying himself, though the impact wasn't strong enough to warrant the reaction. Something else had made him unsteady—the recognition that whatever had called to him during his fever hadn't finished with him yet. The masked figures had shown him the temple. They'd promised he would see what was sealed, would know what they knew, would speak what must not be spoken. Those weren't metaphors or fever-induced nonsense. They were instructions. The gangplank descended, connecting ship to shore. Dmitri lifted his trunk, joining the line of passengers departing the *Vostok*. As he stepped onto the dock, the whispers rose again, multiple voices overlapping, chanting in harmonies that made his modified heart beat faster. None of the other passengers reacted. A merchant argued with a sailor about damaged cargo. A family shepherded children toward the town proper. An Orthodox priest made the sign of the cross, blessing his safe arrival. Ordinary people living ordinary lives, completely unaware that reality contained spaces where bone-masked spirits performed surgery on human souls. Dmitri walked toward Anadyr's buildings, carrying his trunk and his burden of forbidden knowledge. The whispers followed him off the ship, growing louder with each step, speaking that language he understood without having learned it. Somewhere ahead, beyond this miserable town and the frozen waste beyond it, Whale Bone Alley waited. The masked figures had shown him its location, had marked him as someone capable of witnessing what lay sealed beneath those ancient bones. Whether he wanted that capability or not seemed irrelevant to whatever forces had chosen him during his fever aboard the *Vostok*. The whispers spoke his name again. He kept walking, pretending he heard nothing.