The Volcano remained behind, shrouded in dark smoke. The air still smelled of burning, but Kostya had already gotten used to that.

The enraged sea was steaming far below, gobbling the crimson streams of lava running down the slope. The ruthless, ever-hungry surf was chewing at the fire, water, earth, and air like a giant maw, mixing them together in this four-element hell.

The ashy-gray snow hid the stone dust crumbling from beneath the old woman’s swollen feet.

“Come, Juel, come. We’re almost there,” Kostya begged her, looking into her face, which became less and less recognizable with every passing minute. Her disheveled gray hair was falling out, and the beautiful gray eyes he once loved were becoming cloudy.

Her time was running out.

She panted, clutching at his sleeve and taking wary baby steps.

Too slow.

She would often stumble on the snowy slope, her gnarled fingers closing around Kostya’s wrist with sudden strength. After that, she would stop for a long while, taking a breath.

The tunnel exit gaping in the rock, the goal of their weekly journey, was already close at hand. Kostya could have reached it in several strides, but it was Juel who had to get there. He was just a guide.

She was aging at a faster pace than ever, each step taking a year of her short life.

Before meeting the Volcanite, she’d looked like a woman in her forties. Then came the Tamer’s hornets, holding them back. Then the aging began to devour her right before Kostya’s eyes. Although her first steps down the slope were sprightly, and the white vapor from the hot surf at the bottom was already visible, Kostya doubted if she would be able to make it.

His memories picked him up and carried him back to the first day of their strange journey. The events of the past week—a lifelong week in which Juel hadn’t uttered a single word, yet he had needed none to understand her—went flashing before his eyes.

On that first day, when Juel was four, she had been sitting on his shoulders as he walked over the ice, hypnotized by the Shaman of the North Peak.

The whole thing had seemed absolutely natural. He took it for granted despite any oddities as if he were dreaming. He felt no exhaustion and almost no cold. No hunger or thirst either. As if the Shaman’s gaze had provided him with reserves of water and warmth to last several days.

When it began to get dark, he took a girl of about six off of his shoulders. Or maybe it just seemed that way to him. Time had just begun its crazy and cruel game with Juel.

They spent the night at the fire that the girl made of the twigs and dry grass she had collected. Kostya watched her take two long stones out of the pocket of the Shaman’s rags and, squatting, use them to start a fire. In less than a minute, the grass was smoldering, tiny, transparent flames rising to snap at the twigs.

Lurking at the outskirts of his mind were the shadows of doubts. How could she make a fire on the snowy ground that quickly? But Kostya’s sleepy indifference was on guard, keeping those troublesome shadows at bay. He did not really care as long as the fire was there, warming him. What was the use of asking those questions anyway?

He closed his eyes and immediately fell asleep, despite lying in the snow, under a strange world’s sky.

He simply didn’t care.

When he tumbled out of his dark oblivion in the morning, Juel was about eight years old. She was sitting by the fire, watching him with calm gray eyes.

He still had no idea what was going on. Nor did he really care. It was as if he were an outside observer watching a thirty-something guy, in clothes that would surprise any local, escort a silent, rapidly maturing girl toward the unknown sea.

On the third day, they reached a small mountain ridge with smoke rising from behind it. They entered the hollow.

Juel was marching by his side. She looked about twelve years old, and she apparently knew the way while he didn’t, so technically, it was her leading him and not the other way round.

But he didn’t care. His mind was too busy with other sorts of things. Her slender neck. The smell of her hair. And other pleasant things about this growing girl.

Juel would sometimes cast a calm glance at him. Kostya was not sure if she had any way of knowing what was on his mind.

Not that he really cared.

By tonight she would probably be about fifteen. She would lie down by his side for the night. And no one around to come to her rescue. This deserted world was just perfect for making his fantasy come true.

Juel was apparently unsuspecting. And Kostya knew better than to share his plan with her.

They found a cave and settled in for the coming night.

***

Juel, aged about fourteen, was dozing by Kostya’s side.

Raising himself onto his elbow, he watched her in the faint light of the dwindling fire.

She was everything he needed, the smell of her hair driving him crazy. She was so close, so available, so exposed that he preferred not to rush things, taking great delight in just realizing his complete power over her.

Slowly, he brought his face down to her neck, enjoying the sweet aroma of her skin. His heart raced, the half-forgotten memories from his past life coming up. That girl in the woods next to the summer camp. Anya’s sly eyes. The blue air mattress in his cellar.

He didn’t care if Juel was real or just a dream. She was everything he needed. He wanted her like he never wanted any other woman. Kostya put a hand on her white neck and squeezed it slightly, but, just then, he heard a gurgling sound coming from outside the cave.

Followed by several dark, stocky figures appearing in the archway.

Kostya stared at these unwanted visitors, feeling the leather band on his right hand—which was on the girl’s neck—unclasp and slip down to the ground.

With a rustling sound of spreading paper wings, a familiar serpent soared over his head. Before Kostya could give it any thought, he saw himself from the outside: lying behind Juel and propped up on his elbow.

Time stopped. The dancing light of the fading flames became steady as if emitted by some oddly-shaped crimson lamp, and the bluish smoke froze like a semi-transparent cloud.

The figures at the cave entrance turned out to be hairy animals with disproportionately long front legs that they used for walking while holding their short, long-toed hind legs forward like arms.

The serpent was nowhere to be seen.

Where had it gone?

In a moment, the realization that he was now the serpent came over him like a cold wave. A series of motion pictures flashed through his mind as if someone were playing the possible scenarios of the encounter for him to see.

He realized that he had to choose one scenario for fighting these creatures, which he had dubbed handwalkers. A brief and violent battle. Although the serpent prevailed in each of the scenarios, reducing the attackers to a bloody mess, Kostya hesitated.

It was about Juel. She was reached by one or several spiders before all of them were killed.

Kostya hated that. Even despite the fact that he had been going to have his own special fun with the girl a very short time ago. But seeing all those scenarios, where her skull was smashed or her throat slashed, seemed to flip an invisible switch in his head.

Fuck you, bastards, Kostya told them, letting time go.

If the scenarios were true, his choice would cause some damage to himself but keep Juel safe.

It’s just a dream, anyway. Isn’t it?

Time was no longer paused, his perception back to normal: Juel sprawling in front of him, him half-lying behind her.

His nostrils were hit by the handwalkers’ stench as their gurgling roar ripped through the silence. He seized Juel by her clothes and tugged her further inside.

The serpent dashed to the side, a sideways flash of his tail slashing two spiders and sending the third one into the wall.

Hurry up.

Kostya jumped up to all fours and over the girl.

The smoke beneath the ceiling came back to life, the flames soaring, woken by the flaps of giant wings, the shadows dancing on the walls.

One handwalker appeared on Kostya’s left, just as expected. The monster attacked, propelling itself through the air. Keeping his eyes on it, Kostya groped around for the stone that had to be somewhere by his right hand.

Yes!

He got a firm grip on the stone and hurled it at the flying ball of hair, which dropped at his feet, its body going limp.

Yes! Now the bad part, he thought, spotting the next spider.

A heavy blow—stronger than expected from such a small animal—swept Kostya off his feet. He collapsed on his back, pressed down by the weight of the spider digging its teeth in his shoulder. Remembering the scenario, Kostya pushed the handwalker up.

A bright flash lit the cave, its walls trembling from the stream of fire that boomed through the air and hit the spiders’ head, reducing it to a charred mess. A hot blow came to Kostya’s face, singeing his brows and eyelashes.

The stench of burned flesh filled the cave.

Throwing the spider’s charred remains away, Kostya rushed into the smoke-filled cave to where Juel was coughing, struggling for a breath.

He found her by groping along the wall, breathing through his sleeve, as his eyes watered from the smoke. He seized her by the arm and pulled her outside.