{"product_id":"the-descent-isbn-9780515131758","title":"The Descent","description":"\u003cb\u003eWe are not alone. Some call them devils or demons. But they are real. They are down there. And they are waiting for us to find them.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a cave in the Himalayas, a guide discovers a self-mutilated body with a warning: Satan exists. In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old. In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave. So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings.“An imaginative tour de force...equal parts Ray Bradbury and Robert Stone, Michael Crichton and T.C. Boyle. It is a rip-roaring good read. Jeff Long has written a remarkable novel...that somehow succeeds both as a sober-minded allegory and a nail-biting thriller.” \u003cb\u003e—Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e “Would give Stephen King and Dean Koontz the night sweats. A flat-out, gears-grinding, bumper-car ride into the pits of hell. Jeff Long has delivered what is bound to be this summer’s really hot read.” \u003cb\u003e—Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Sleepers and Apaches\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cb\u003eThe Descent \u003c\/b\u003eis simply the best horror novel since \u003cb\u003eGhost Story\u003c\/b\u003e, and, on pure literary merit, it could even be called a masterpiece.” \u003cb\u003e—Fort Worth Star-Telegram\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A return to the fantastic epics readers associate with H.G. Wells or Jules Verne…[A] high-spirited tale of good versus evil, faith versus reason, and the power of the human heart to overcome even the darkest obstacles.” \u003cb\u003e—Chicago Tribune\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“As frightening and exhilarating as anything in heaven or hell...[and] impossible to set down. Part thriller, part horror story and part mystery...an all-engulfing reading experience.” \u003cb\u003e—Denver Rocky Mountain News\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Perfect...right out of the stephen king mold, with a touch of Dante’s \u003cb\u003eInferno\u003c\/b\u003e.” \u003cb\u003e—Denver Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Deeply piercing terror. A sweeping, dark epic.Entertains the senses and challenges the mind [with] new levels of visual wonder.” \u003cb\u003e—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Horrific...takes the reader into a Dantesque world,a journey to the center of the earth for the new millennium…Long deftly blends science, myth, and a superb imagination to provide an entrancingly dark novel...a novel for the thinking reader\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003ebright and scintillating, illuminating the darkness it so smartly depicts.” \u003cb\u003e—Baltimore Sun\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A dizzying synthesis of supernatural horror, lost-race fantasy and military SF...Like the subterranean trail blazed by its adventurers, the narrative twists, turns, dead-ends and backtracks. Brims with energy, ideas and excitement.” \u003cb\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eJeff Long\u003c\/b\u003e is a veteran climber and traveler in the Himalayas. He has worked as a journalist and an elections supervisor for Bosnia’s first democratic election. \u003cb\u003eThe Descent\u003c\/b\u003e is his fourth novel. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.Chapter 1: Ike\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is easy to go down into Hell . . . ; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air-there’s the rub. . .  \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eVirgil, \u003cb\u003eAeneid\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Himalayas,\u003cbr\u003eTibet Autonomous Region\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1988\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the beginning was the word.\u003cbr\u003eOr words.\u003cbr\u003eWhatever these were.\u003cbr\u003eThey kept their lights turned off. The exhausted trekkers huddled in the\u003cbr\u003edark cave and faced the peculiar writing. Scrawled with a twig, possibly,\u003cbr\u003edipped in liquid radium or some other radioactive paint, the fluorescent\u003cbr\u003epictographs floated in the black recesses. Ike let them savor the\u003cbr\u003edistraction. None of them seemed quite ready to focus on the storm beating\u003cbr\u003eagainst the mountainside outside.\u003cbr\u003eWith night descending and the trail erased by snow and wind and their yak\u003cbr\u003eherders in mutinous flight with most of the gear and food, Ike was relieved\u003cbr\u003eto have shelter of any kind. He was still pretending for them that this was\u003cbr\u003epart of their trip. In fact they were off the map. He'd never heard\u003cbr\u003eof this hole-in-the-wall hideout. Nor seen glow-in-the-dark caveman graffiti.\u003cbr\u003e\"Runes,\" gushed a knowing female voice. \"Sacred runes left by a wandering monk.\"\u003cbr\u003eThe alien calligraphy glowed with soft violet light in the cave's cold\u003cbr\u003ebowels. The luminous hieroglyphics reminded Ike of his old dorm wall with\u003cbr\u003eits black-light posters. All he needed was a lash of Hendrix plundering\u003cbr\u003eDylan's anthem, say, and a whiff of plump Hawaiian red sinsemilla. Anything\u003cbr\u003eto vanquish the howl of awful wind. Outside in the cold distance, a wildcat\u003cbr\u003edid growl. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\"Those are no runes,\" said a man. \"It's Bonpo.\" A Brooklyn beat, the accent\u003cbr\u003emeant Owen. Ike had nine clients here, only two of them male. They were\u003cbr\u003eeasy to keep straight.\u003cbr\u003e\"Bonpo!\" one of the women barked at Owen. The coven seemed to take\u003cbr\u003ecollective delight in savaging Owen and Bernard, the other man. Ike had\u003cbr\u003ebeen spared so far. They treated him as a harmless Himalayan hillbilly.\u003cbr\u003eFine with him.\u003cbr\u003e\"But the Bonpo were pre-Buddhist,\" the woman expounded.\u003cbr\u003eThe women were mostly Buddhist students from a New Age university. These\u003cbr\u003ethings mattered very much to them.\u003cbr\u003eTheir goal was-or had been-Mount Kailash, the pyramidal giant just east of\u003cbr\u003ethe Indian border. \"A Canterbury Tale for the World Pilgrim\" was how he'd\u003cbr\u003eadvertised the trip. A kor-a Tibetan walkabout-to and around the holiest\u003cbr\u003emountain in the world. Eight thousand per head, incense included. The\u003cbr\u003eproblem was, somewhere along the trail he'd managed to misplace the\u003cbr\u003emountain. It galled him. They were lost. Beginning at dawn today, the sky\u003cbr\u003ehad changed from blue to milky gray. The herders had quietly bolted with\u003cbr\u003ethe yaks. He had yet to announce that their tents and food were history.\u003cbr\u003eThe first sloppy snowflakes had started kissing their Gore-Tex hoods just\u003cbr\u003ean hour ago, and Ike had taken this cave for shelter. It was a good call.\u003cbr\u003eHe was the only one who knew it, but they were now about to get sodomized\u003cbr\u003eby an old-fashioned Himalayan tempest.\u003cbr\u003eIke felt his jacket being tugged to one side, and knew it would be Kora,\u003cbr\u003ewanting a private word. \"How bad is it?\" she whispered. Depending on the\u003cbr\u003ehour and day, Kora was his lover, base-camp shotgun, or business associate.\u003cbr\u003eOf late, it was a challenge estimating which came first for her, the\u003cbr\u003ebusiness of adventure or the adventure of business. Either way, their\u003cbr\u003elittle trekking company was no longer charming to her.\u003cbr\u003eIke saw no reason to front-load it with negatives. \"We've got a great\u003cbr\u003ecave,\" he said.\u003cbr\u003e\"Gee.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"We're still in the black, head-count-wise.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"The itinerary's in ruins. We were behind as it was.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"We're fine. We'll take it out of the Siddhartha's Birthplace segment.\" He\u003cbr\u003ekept the worry out of his voice, but for once his sixth sense, or whatever\u003cbr\u003eit was, had come up short, and that bothered him. \"Besides, getting a\u003cbr\u003elittle lost will give them bragging rights.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"They don't want bragging rights. They want schedule. You don't know these\u003cbr\u003epeople. They're not your friends. We'll get sued if they don't make their\u003cbr\u003eThai Air flight on the nineteenth.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"These are the mountains,\" said Ike. \"They'll understand.\" People forgot.\u003cbr\u003eUp here, it was a mistake to take even your next breath for granted.\u003cbr\u003e\"No, Ike. They won't understand. They have real jobs. Real obligations.\u003cbr\u003eFamilies.\" That was the rub. Again. Kora wanted more from life. She wanted\u003cbr\u003emore from her pathless Pathfinder.\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm doing the best I can,\" Ike said.\u003cbr\u003eOutside, the storm went on horsewhipping the cave mouth. Barely May, it\u003cbr\u003ewasn't supposed to be this way. There should have been plenty of time to\u003cbr\u003eget his bunch to, around, and back from Kailash. The bane of mountaineers,\u003cbr\u003ethe monsoon normally didn't spill across the mountains this far north. But\u003cbr\u003eas a former Everester himself, Ike should have known better than to believe\u003cbr\u003ein rain shadows or in schedules. Or in luck. They were in for it this time.\u003cbr\u003eThe snow would seal their pass shut until late August. That meant he was\u003cbr\u003egoing to have to buy space on a Chinese truck and shuttle them home via\u003cbr\u003eLhasa\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eand that came out of his land costs. He tried calculating in his\u003cbr\u003ehead, but their quarrel overcame him.\u003cbr\u003e\"You \u003cb\u003edo\u003c\/b\u003e know what I mean by Bonpo,\" a woman said. Nineteen days into the\u003cbr\u003etrip, and Ike still couldn't link their spirit nicknames with the names in\u003cbr\u003etheir passports. One woman, was it Ethel or Winifred, now preferred Green\u003cbr\u003eTara, mother deity of Tibet. A pert Doris Day look-alike swore she was\u003cbr\u003especial friends with the Dalai Lama. For weeks now Ike had been listening\u003cbr\u003eto them celebrate the life of cavewomen. Well, he thought, here's your\u003cbr\u003ecave, ladies. Slum away.\u003cbr\u003eThey were sure his name\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eDwight David Crockett\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003ewas an invention like their\u003cbr\u003eown. Nothing could convince them he wasn't one of them, a dabbler in past\u003cbr\u003elives. One evening around a campfire in northern Nepal, he'd regaled them\u003cbr\u003ewith tales of Andrew Jackson, pirates on the Mississippi, and his own\u003cbr\u003elegendary death at the Alamo. He'd meant it as a joke, but only Kora got\u003cbr\u003eit.\u003cbr\u003e\"You should know perfectly well,\" the woman went on, \"there was no written\u003cbr\u003elanguage in Tibet before the late fifth century.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"No written language that we know about,\" Owen said.\u003cbr\u003e\"Next you'll be saying this is Yeti language.\"\u003cbr\u003eIt had been like this for days. You'd think they'd run out of air. But the\u003cbr\u003ehigher they went, the more they argued.\u003cbr\u003e\"This is what we get for pandering to civilians,\" Kora muttered to Ike.\u003cbr\u003eCivilians was her catch-all: eco-tourists, pantheist charlatans, trust\u003cbr\u003efunders, the overeducated. She was a street girl at heart.\u003cbr\u003e\"They're not so bad,\" he said. \"They're just looking for a way into Oz,\u003cbr\u003esame as us.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Civilians.\"\u003cbr\u003eIke sighed. At times like this, he questioned his self-imposed exile.\u003cbr\u003eLiving apart from the world was not easy. There was a price to be paid for\u003cbr\u003echoosing the less-traveled road. Little things, bigger ones. He was no longer that rosy-cheeked lad\u003cbr\u003ewho had come with the Peace Corps. He still had the cheekbones and cowled\u003cbr\u003ebrow and careless mane. But a dermatologist on one of his treks had advised\u003cbr\u003ehim to stay out of the high-altitude sun before his face turned to boot\u003cbr\u003eleather. Ike had never considered himself God's gift to women, but he saw\u003cbr\u003eno reason to trash what looks he still had. He'd lost two of his back\u003cbr\u003emolars to Nepal's dearth of dentists, and another tooth to a falling rock\u003cbr\u003eon the backside of Everest. And not so long ago, in his Johnnie Walker\u003cbr\u003eBlack and Camels days, he'd taken to serious self-abuse, even flirting with\u003cbr\u003ethe lethal west face of Makalu. He'd quit the smoke and booze cold when\u003cbr\u003esome British nurse told him his voice sounded like a Rudyard Kipling\u003cbr\u003epunchline. Makalu still needed slaying, of course. Though many mornings he\u003cbr\u003eeven wondered about that.\u003cbr\u003eExile went deeper than the cosmetics or even prime health, of course.\u003cbr\u003eSelf-doubt came with the territory, a wondering about what might have been,\u003cbr\u003ehad he stayed the course back in Jackson. Rig work. Stone masonry. Maybe\u003cbr\u003emountain guiding in the Tetons, or outfitting for hunters. No telling. He'd\u003cbr\u003espent the last eight years in Nepal and Tibet watching himself slowly\u003cbr\u003edevolve from the Golden Boy of the Himalayas into one more forgotten\u003cbr\u003esurrogate of the American empire. He'd grown old inside. Even now there\u003cbr\u003ewere days when Ike felt eighty. Next week was his thirty-first birthday.\u003cbr\u003e\"Would you look at this?\" rose a cry. \"What kind of mandala is that? The lines are all twisty.\"\u003cbr\u003eIke looked at the circle. It was hanging on the wall like a luminous moon.\u003cbr\u003eMandalas were meditation aids, blueprints for divinity's palaces. Normally\u003cbr\u003ethey consisted of circles within circles containing squared lines. By\u003cbr\u003evisualizing it just so, a 3-D architecture was supposed to appear above the\u003cbr\u003emandala's flat surface. This one, though, looked like scrambled snakes.\u003cbr\u003eIke turned on his light. End of mystery, he congratulated himself.\u003cbr\u003even he was stunned by the sight.\u003cbr\u003e\"My God,\" said Kora.\u003cbr\u003eWhere, a moment before, the fluorescent words had hung in magical suspense,\u003cbr\u003ea nude corpse stood rigidly propped upon a stone shelf along the back wall.\u003cbr\u003eThe words weren't written on stone. They were written on him. The mandala\u003cbr\u003ewas separate, painted on the wall to his right side.\u003cbr\u003eA set of rocks formed a crude stairway up to his stage, and various\u003cbr\u003epassersby had attached katas\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003elong white prayer scarves\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eto cracks in the\u003cbr\u003estone ceiling. The katas sucked back and forth in the draft like gently\u003cbr\u003edisturbed ghosts.\u003cbr\u003eThe man's grimace was slightly bucktoothed from mummification, and his eyes\u003cbr\u003ewere calcified to chalky blue marbles. Otherwise the extreme cold and high\u003cbr\u003ealtitude had left him perfectly preserved. Under the harsh beam of Ike's\u003cbr\u003eheadlamp, the lettering was faint and red upon his emaciated limbs and\u003cbr\u003ebelly and chest.\u003cbr\u003eThat he was a traveler was self-evident. In these regions, everyone was a\u003cbr\u003epilgrim or a nomad or a salt trader or a refugee. But, judging from his\u003cbr\u003escars and unhealed wounds and a metal collar around his neck and a warped,\u003cbr\u003ebadly mended broken left arm, this particular Marco Polo had endured a\u003cbr\u003ejourney beyond imagination. If flesh is memory, his body cried out a whole\u003cbr\u003ehistory of abuse and enslavement.\u003cbr\u003eThey stood beneath the shelf and goggled at the suffering. Three of the\u003cbr\u003ewomen\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eand Owen\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003ebegan weeping. Ike alone approached. Probing here and there\u003cbr\u003ewith his light beam, he reached out to touch one shin with his ice ax: hard\u003cbr\u003eas fossil wood.\u003cbr\u003eOf all the obvious insults, the one that stood out most was his partial\u003cbr\u003ecastration. One of the man's testicles had been yanked away, not cut, not\u003cbr\u003eeven bitten\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003ethe edges of the tear were too ragged\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eand the wound had been\u003cbr\u003ecauterized with fire. The burn scars radiated out from his groin in a\u003cbr\u003ehairless keloid starburst. Ike couldn't get over the raw scorn of it. Man's\u003cbr\u003etenderest part, mutilated, then doctored with a torch.\u003cbr\u003e\"Look,\" someone whimpered. \"What did they do to his nose?\"\u003cbr\u003eMidcenter on the battered face was a ring unlike anything he'd ever seen\u003cbr\u003ebefore. This was no silvery Gen-X body piercing. The ring, three inches\u003cbr\u003eacross and crusted with blood, was plugged deep in his septum, almost up\u003cbr\u003einto the skull. It hung to his bottom lip, as black as his beard. It was,\u003cbr\u003ethought Ike, utilitarian, large enough to control cattle.\u003cbr\u003eThen he got a little closer and his repulsion altered. The ring was brutal.\u003cbr\u003eBlood and smoke and filth had coated it almost black, but Ike could plainly\u003cbr\u003esee the dull gleam of solid gold.\u003cbr\u003eIke turned to his people and saw nine pairs of frightened eyes beseeching\u003cbr\u003ehim from beneath hoods and visors. Everyone had their lights on now. No one\u003cbr\u003ewas arguing.\u003cbr\u003e\"Why?\" wept one of the women.\u003cbr\u003eA couple of the Buddhists had reverted to Christianity and were on their\u003cbr\u003eknees, crossing themselves. Owen was rocking from side to side, murmuring\u003cbr\u003eKaddish.\u003cbr\u003eKora came close. \"You beautiful bastard.\" She giggled. Ike started. She was\u003cbr\u003etalking to the corpse.\u003cbr\u003e\"What did you say?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"We're off the hook. They're not going to hit us up for refunds after all.\u003cbr\u003eWe don't have to provide their holy mountain anymore. They've got something\u003cbr\u003ebetter.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Let up, Kora. Give them some credit. They're not ghouls.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"No? Look around, Ike.\"\u003cbr\u003eSure enough, cameras were stealing into view in ones and twos. There was a\u003cbr\u003eflash, then another. Their shock gave way to tabloid voyeurism.\u003cbr\u003eIn no time the entire cast was blazing away with eight-hundred-dollar\u003cbr\u003epoint-and-shoots. Motor drives made an insect hum. The lifeless flesh\u003cbr\u003eflared in their artificial lightning. Ike moved out of frame, and welcomed\u003cbr\u003ethe corpse like a savior. It was unbelievable. Famished, cold, and lost,\u003cbr\u003ethey couldn't have been happier.\u003cbr\u003eOne of the women had climbed the stepping-stones and\u003cbr\u003ewas kneeling to one side of the nude, her head tilted sideways.\u003cbr\u003eShe looked down at them. \"But he's one of us,\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\"What's that supposed to mean?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Us. You and me. A white man.\"\u003cbr\u003eSomeone else framed it in less vulgar terms. \"A Caucasian male?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"That's crazy,\" someone objected. \"Here? In the middle of nowhere?\"\u003cbr\u003eIke knew she was right. The white flesh, the hair on its forearms and\u003cbr\u003echest, the blue eyes, the cheekbones so obviously non-Mongoloid. But the\u003cbr\u003ewoman wasn't pointing to his hairy arms or blue eyes or slender cheekbones.\u003cbr\u003eShe was pointing at the hieroglyphics painted on his thigh. Ike aimed his\u003cbr\u003elight at the other thigh. And froze.\u003cbr\u003eThe text was in English. Modern English. Only upside down.\u003cbr\u003eIt came to him. The body hadn't been written upon after death. The man had\u003cbr\u003ewritten upon himself in life. He'd used his own body as a blank page.\u003cbr\u003eUpside down. He'd inscribed his journal notes on the only parchment\u003cbr\u003eguaranteed to travel with him. Now Ike saw how the lettering wasn't just\u003cbr\u003epainted on, but crudely tattooed.\u003cbr\u003eWherever he could reach, the man had jotted bits of testimony. Abrasions\u003cbr\u003eand filth obscured some of the writing, particularly below the knees and\u003cbr\u003earound his ankles. The rest of it could easily have been dismissed as\u003cbr\u003erandom and lunatic. Numbers mixed with words and phrases, especially on the\u003cbr\u003eouter edges of each thigh, where he'd apparently decided there was extra\u003cbr\u003eroom for new entries. The clearest passage lay across his lower stomach.\u003cbr\u003e\" 'All the world will be in love with night,' \" Ike read aloud, \" 'and pay\u003cbr\u003eno worship to the garish sun.' \"\u003cbr\u003e\"Gibberish,\" snapped Owen, badly spooked.\u003cbr\u003e\"Bible talk,\" Ike sympathized.\u003cbr\u003e\"No, it's not,\" piped up Kora. \"That's not from the Bible. It's Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet.\"\u003cbr\u003eIke felt the group's repugnance. Indeed, why would this tortured creature choose for his obituary the most famous love story ever written? A story about opposing clans. A tale of love transcending violence. The poor stiff had been out of his gourd on thin air and\u003cbr\u003esolitude. It was no coincidence that in the highest monasteries on earth,\u003cbr\u003emen endlessly obsessed about delusion. Hallucinations were a given up here.\u003cbr\u003eEven the Dalai Lama joked about it.\u003cbr\u003e\"And so,\" Ike said, \"he's white. He knew his Shakespeare. That makes him no\u003cbr\u003eolder than two or three hundred years.\"\u003cbr\u003eIt was becoming a parlor game. Their fear was shifting to morbid delight.\u003cbr\u003eForensics as recreation.\u003cbr\u003e\"Who is this guy?\" one woman asked.\u003cbr\u003e\"A slave?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"An escaped prisoner?\"\u003cbr\u003eIke said nothing. He went nose-to-nose with the gaunt face, hunting for\u003cbr\u003eclues. Tell your journey, he thought. Speak your escape. Who shackled you\u003cbr\u003ewith gold? Nothing. The marble eyes ignored their curiosity. The grimace\u003cbr\u003eenjoyed its voiceless riddles.\u003cbr\u003eOwen had joined them on the shelf, reading from the opposite shoulder. \"RAF.\"\u003cbr\u003eSure enough, the left deltoid bore a tattoo with the letters RAF beneath an\u003cbr\u003eeagle. It was right side up and of commercial quality. Ike grasped the cold\u003cbr\u003earm.\u003cbr\u003e\"Royal Air Force,\" he translated.\u003cbr\u003eThe puzzle assembled. It even half-explained the Shakespeare, if not the\u003cbr\u003echosen lines.\u003cbr\u003e\"He was a pilot?\" asked the Paris bob. She seemed charmed.\u003cbr\u003e\"Pilot. Navigator. Bombardier.\" Ike shrugged. \"Who knows?\"\u003cbr\u003eLike a cryptographer, he bent to inspect the words and numbers twining the\u003cbr\u003eflesh. Line after line, he traced each clue to its dead end. Here and there\u003cbr\u003ehe punctuated complete thoughts with a jab of his fingertip. The trekkers\u003cbr\u003ebacked away, letting him work through the cyphers. He seemed to know what\u003cbr\u003ehe was doing.\u003cbr\u003eIke circled back and tried a string in reverse. It made sense this time.\u003cbr\u003eYet it made no sense. He got out his topographical map of the Himalayan\u003cbr\u003echain and found the longitude and latitude, but snorted at their nexus. No\u003cbr\u003eway, he thought, and lifted his gaze across the wreckage of a human body.\u003cbr\u003eHe looked back at the map. Could it be?\u003cbr\u003e\"Have some.\" The smell of French-pressed gourmet coffee made him blink. A\u003cbr\u003eplastic mug slid into view. Ike glanced up. Kora's blue eyes were\u003cbr\u003eforgiving. That warmed him more than the coffee. He took the cup with\u003cbr\u003emurmured thanks and realized he had a terrific headache. Hours had passed.\u003cbr\u003eShadows lay pooled in the deeper cave like wet sewage.\u003cbr\u003eIke saw a small group squatting Neanderthal-style around a small Bluet gas\u003cbr\u003estove, melting snow and brewing joe. The clearest proof of their miracle\u003cbr\u003ewas that Owen had broken down and was actually sharing his private stock of\u003cbr\u003ecoffee. There was one hand-grinding the beans in a plastic machine, another\u003cbr\u003esqueezing the filter press, yet another grating a bit of cinnamon on top of\u003cbr\u003eeach cupful. They were actually cooperating. For the first time in a month,\u003cbr\u003eIke almost liked them.\u003cbr\u003e\"You okay?\" Kora asked.\u003cbr\u003e\"Me?\" It sounded strange, someone asking after his well-being. Especially her.\u003cbr\u003eAs if he needed any more to ponder, Ike suspected Kora was going to leave\u003cbr\u003ehim. Before setting off from Kathmandu, she'd announced this was her final\u003cbr\u003etrek for the company. And since Himalayan High Journeys was nothing more\u003cbr\u003ethan her and him, it implied a larger dissatisfaction. He would have minded\u003cbr\u003eless if her reason was another man, another country, better profits, or\u003cbr\u003ehigher risks. But her reason was him. Ike had broken her heart because he\u003cbr\u003ewas Ike, full of dreams and childlike naÔvetÈ. A drifter on life's stream.\u003cbr\u003eWhat had attracted her to him in the first place now disturbed her, his\u003cbr\u003elone wolf\/high mountains way. She thought he knew nothing about the way\u003cbr\u003epeople really worked, like this notion of a lawsuit, and maybe there was some truth to that. He'd been hoping the trek would somehow\u003cbr\u003ebridge their gap, that it would draw her back to the magic that drew him.\u003cbr\u003eOver the past two years she'd grown weary, though. Storms and bankruptcy no\u003cbr\u003elonger spelled magic for her.\u003cbr\u003e\"I've been studying this mandala,\" she said, indicating the painted circle\u003cbr\u003efilled with squirming lines. In the darkness, its colors had been brilliant\u003cbr\u003eand alive. In their light, the drawing was bland. \"I've seen hundreds of\u003cbr\u003emandalas, but I can't make heads or tails out of this one. It looks like\u003cbr\u003echaos, all those lines and squiggles. It does seem to have a center,\u003cbr\u003ethough.\" She glanced up at the mummy, then at Ike's notes. \"How about you?\u003cbr\u003eGetting anywhere?\"\u003cbr\u003eHe'd drawn the oddest sketch, pinning words and text in cartoon balloons to\u003cbr\u003edifferent positions on the body and linking them with a mess of arrows and\u003cbr\u003elines.\u003cbr\u003eIke sipped at the coffee. Where to begin? The flesh declared a maze, both\u003cbr\u003ein the way it told the story and in the story it told. The man had written\u003cbr\u003ehis evidence as it occurred to him, apparently, adding and revising and\u003cbr\u003econtradicting himself, wandering with his truths. He was like a shipwrecked\u003cbr\u003ediarist who had suddenly found a pen and couldn't quit filling in old\u003cbr\u003edetails.\u003cbr\u003e\"First of all,\" he began, \"his name was Isaac.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Isaac?\" asked Darlene from the assembly line of coffee makers. They had\u003cbr\u003estopped what they were doing to listen to him.\u003cbr\u003eIke ran his finger from nipple to nipple. The declaration was clear.\u003cbr\u003ePartially clear. \u003cb\u003eI am Isaac\u003c\/b\u003e, it said, followed by \u003cb\u003eIn my exile \/ In my agony\u003cbr\u003eof Light\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\"See these numbers?\" said Ike. \"I figure this must be a serial number. And\u003cbr\u003e10\/03\/23 could be his birthday, right?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003cb\u003eNineteen\u003c\/b\u003e twenty-three?\" someone asked. Their disappointment verged on\u003cbr\u003echildlike. Seventy-five years old evidently didn't qualify as a genuine\u003cbr\u003eantique.\u003cbr\u003e\"Sorry,\" he said, then continued. \"See this other date here?\" He brushed\u003cbr\u003easide what remained of the pubic patch. \"4\/7\/44. The day of his shoot-down,\u003cbr\u003eI'm guessing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Shoot-down?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Or crash.\"\u003cbr\u003eThey were bewildered. He started over, this time telling them the story he\u003cbr\u003ewas piecing together. \"Look at him. Once upon a time, he was a kid.\u003cbr\u003eTwenty-one years old. World War II was on. He signed up or got drafted.\u003cbr\u003eThat's the RAF tattoo. They sent him to India. His job was to fly the\u003cbr\u003eHump.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Hump?\" someone echoed. It was Bernard. He was furiously tapping the news\u003cbr\u003einto his laptop.\u003cbr\u003e\"That's what pilots called it when they flew supplies to bases in Tibet and\u003cbr\u003eChina,\" Ike said. \"The Himalayan chain. Back then, this whole region was\u003cbr\u003epart of an Oriental Western Front. It was a rough go. Every now and then a\u003cbr\u003eplane went down. The crews rarely survived.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"A fallen angel,\" sighed Owen. He wasn't alone. They were all becoming\u003cbr\u003einfatuated.\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't see how you've drawn all that from a couple of strands of\u003cbr\u003enumbers,\" said Bernard. He aimed his pencil at Ike's latter set of numbers.\u003cbr\u003e\"You call that the date of his shoot-down. Why not the date of his\u003cbr\u003emarriage, or his graduation from Oxford, or the date he lost his virginity?\u003cbr\u003eWhat I mean is, this guy's no kid. He looks forty. If you ask me, he\u003cbr\u003ewandered away from some scientific or mountain-climbing expedition within\u003cbr\u003ethe last couple years. He sure as snow didn't die in 1944 at the age of\u003cbr\u003etwenty-one.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"I agree,\" Ike said, and Bernard looked instantly deflated. \"He refers to a\u003cbr\u003eperiod of captivity. A long stretch. Darkness. Starvation. Hard labor.\" \u003cb\u003eThe\u003cbr\u003esacred deep\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\"A prisoner of war. Of the Japanese?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't know about that,\" Ike said.\u003cbr\u003e\"Chinese Communists, maybe?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Russians?\" someone else tried.\u003cbr\u003e\"Nazis?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Drug lords?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Tibetan bandits!\"\u003cbr\u003eThe guesses weren't so wild. Tibet had long been a chessboard for the Great\u003cbr\u003eGame.\u003cbr\u003e\"We saw you checking the map. You were looking for something.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Origins,\" Ike said. \"A starting point.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"And?\"\u003cbr\u003eWith both hands, Ike smoothed down the thigh hair and exposed another set\u003cbr\u003eof numbers. \"These are map coordinates.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"For where he got shot down. It makes perfect sense.\" Bernard was with him now.\u003cbr\u003e\"You mean his airplane might be somewhere close?\"\u003cbr\u003eMount Kailash was forgotten. The prospect of a crash site thrilled them.\u003cbr\u003e\"Not exactly,\" Ike said.\u003cbr\u003e\"Spit it out, man. Where did he go down?\"\u003cbr\u003eHere's where it got a little fantastic. Mildly, Ike said, \"East of here.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"How far east?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Just above Burma.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Burma!\" Bernard and Cleopatra registered the incredibility. The rest sat\u003cbr\u003emute, perplexed within their own ignorance.\u003cbr\u003e\"On the north side of the range,\" said Ike, \"slightly inside Tibet.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"But that's over a thousand miles away.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"I know.\"\u003cbr\u003eIt was well past midnight. Between their cafe lattes and adrenaline, sleep\u003cbr\u003ewas unlikely for hours to come. They sat erect or stood in the cave while\u003cbr\u003ethe enormity of this character's journey sank in.\u003cbr\u003e\"How did he get here?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't know.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"I thought you said he was a prisoner.\"\u003cbr\u003eIke exhaled cautiously. \"Something like that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Something?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Well.\" He cleared his throat softly. \"More like a pet.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"What!\"\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't know. It's a phrase he uses, right here: 'favored cosset.' That's\u003cbr\u003ea pet calf or something, isn't it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Ah, get out, Ike. If you don't know, don't make it up.\"\u003cbr\u003eHe hunched. It sounded like crazed drivel to him, too.\u003cbr\u003e\"Actually it's a French term,\" a voice interjected. It was Cleo, the\u003cbr\u003elibrarian. \"\u003cb\u003eCosset\u003c\/b\u003e means lamb, not calf. Ike's right, though. It does refer\u003cbr\u003eto a pet. One that is fondled and enjoyed.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Lamb?\" someone objected, as if Cleo-or the dead man, or both-were\u003cbr\u003einsulting their pooled intelligence.\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes,\" Cleo answered, \"lamb. But that bothers me less than the other word,\u003cbr\u003e'favored.' That's a pretty provocative term, don't you think?\"\u003cbr\u003eBy the group's silence, they clearly had not thought about it.\u003cbr\u003e\"This?\" she asked them, and almost touched the body with her fingers. \"This\u003cbr\u003eis favored? Favored over what others? And above all, favored by whom? In my\u003cbr\u003emind, anyway, it suggests some sort of master.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"You're inventing,\" a woman said. They didn't want it to be true.\u003cbr\u003e\"I wish I were,\" said Cleo. \"But there is this, too.\"\u003cbr\u003eIke had to squint at the faint lettering where she was pointing. \u003cb\u003eCorvée\u003c\/b\u003e, it\u003cbr\u003esaid.\u003cbr\u003e\"What's that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"More of the same,\" she answered. \"Subjugation. Maybe he was a prisoner of\u003cbr\u003ethe Japanese. It sounds like \u003cb\u003eThe Bridge on the River Kwai\u003c\/b\u003e or something.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Except I never heard of the Japanese putting nose rings in their\u003cbr\u003eprisoners,\" Ike said.\u003cbr\u003e\"The history of domination is complex.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"But nose rings?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"All kinds of unspeakable things have been done.\"\u003cbr\u003eIke made it more emphatic. \"\u003cb\u003eGold\u003c\/b\u003e nose rings?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Gold?\" She blinked as he played his light on the dull gleam.\u003cbr\u003e\"You said it yourself. A favored lamb. And you asked the question, Who favored this lamb?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"You know?\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Put it this way. He thought he did. See this?\" Ike pushed at one ice-cold leg. It was a single word almost hidden on the lef \u003cbr\u003equadricep.\u003cbr\u003e\"Satan,\" she lip-read to herself.\u003cbr\u003e\"There's more,\" he said, and gently rotated the skin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eExists\u003c\/b\u003e, it said.\u003cbr\u003e\"This is part of it, too.\" He showed her. It was assembled on the flesh\u003cbr\u003elike a prayer or a poem. \u003cb\u003eBone of my bones \/ flesh of my flesh\u003c\/b\u003e. \"From\u003cbr\u003eGenesis, right? The Garden of Eden.\"\u003cbr\u003eHe could sense Kora struggling to orchestrate some sort of rebuttal. \"He\u003cbr\u003ewas a prisoner,\" she tried. \"He was writing about evil. In general. It's\u003cbr\u003enothing. He hated his captors. He called them Satan. The worst name he\u003cbr\u003eknew.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"You're doing what I did,\" Ike said. \"You're fighting the evidence.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't think so.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"What happened to him was evil. But he didn't hate it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Of course he did.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"And yet there's something here,\" Ike said.\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm not so sure,\" Kora said.\u003cbr\u003e\"It's in between the words. A tone. Don't you feel it?\"\u003cbr\u003eKora did\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eher frown was clear\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003ebut she refused to admit it. Her wariness\u003cbr\u003eseemed more than academic.\u003cbr\u003e\"There are no warnings here,\" Ike said. \"No 'Beware.' No 'Keep Out.' \"\u003cbr\u003e\"What's your point.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Doesn't it bother you that he quotes \u003cb\u003eRomeo and Juliet\u003c\/b\u003e? And talks about\u003cbr\u003eSatan the way Adam talked about Eve?\"\u003cbr\u003eKora winced.\u003cbr\u003e\"He didn't mind the slavery.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"How can you say that?\" she whispered.\u003cbr\u003e\"Kora.\" She looked at him. A tear was starting in one eye. \"He was\u003cbr\u003egrateful. It was written all over his body.\"\u003cbr\u003eShe shook her head in denial.\u003cbr\u003e\"You know it's true.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"No, I don't know what you're talking about.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, you do,\" Ike said. \"He was in love.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eReprinted from The Descent by Jeff Long by permission of Berkley, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 1999, Jeff Long. All rights reserved. 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