Kate blinked hard and stifled a yawn. Between the chill and the hollow ache in her belly, her energy was winding down fast. They'd been going all night. Col. Emeliov had taken over the helm while Boris got some sleep, rolled up in blankets across the gondola.
Kate kept trying to keep focused on the mammoth doll, but the more tired she got and the further her blood sugar plummeted, the harder it was to concentrate. She also found herself getting more strung-out and anxious. As the latest wave of bleak possibilities gushed through her, she had to blink back tears.
"Kate Walker?"
The Spirit Woman had been sitting still, eyes closed, for hours. Now she stirred, and looked at Kate with remarkably clear eyes.
"I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to be feeling right now," Kate said helplessly. "I've been looking at the doll for hours, and...am I supposed to be having some kind of revelation or insight? I just keep getting lost thinking about what will happen if this doesn't work."
"You think maybe New York is better after all?" The Spirit Woman had a look any lawyer would recognize, of someone trying to trip somebody into admitting something.
Kate rather resented the double-speak. But then she it occurred to her that someone with secrets they needed to keep couldn't very well be the stereotype of honest spirituality she'd picked up in America. She shook her head firmly, "No. I mean...I don't mean that I never want to set foot there again, or that I hate my family. No, it's just that the life that defined me there was too flat, too superficial."
"Look at the doll again," said the Spirit Woman. Kate complied. "What do you see?"
"It's a child's toy. I think it's made of fur, and wood? No, bone probably. It shows the Youkols riding mammoths, like they did in ancient times. It's made from mammoths, I suppose. It's even stitched with what looks like leather."
"Stitched by whom?" Spirit Woman asked.
Kate blinked, staring at the doll, and shook her head. "I can't know that! It must have been thousands, tens of thousands of years ago!"
"Then that is what you must think about."
Kate took this in, and looked at the doll anew. She had a whimsical instant of imagining a parent giving it to their child, like a Christmas gift, and tried, without entirely understanding why, to concentrate on that image.
After that, Kate wasn't sure how much time had passed when the dirigible jolted. The little doll fell over sideways and Kate started out of her reverie.
"We have arrived," Col. Emeliov said. "Although I do not think they will appreciate our parking place."
Kate shooed Youki off of herself and tried to stand up. But her legs were so stiff and weakened from hunger that she fell hard back onto her backside.
"Allow me, Miss Walker," said Col. Emeliov, helping her up. "You look very pale."
"I'll manage. What time is it?"
"Just after dawn," said Emeliov. Boris was clambering out of his improvised bed. The Youkol Spirit Woman was heading for the hatchway, leaning on Youki.
The cool moisture of the Valadilene pine forests shivered into Kate's lungs, and for a moment she thought she'd misplaced her briefcase and had to go see the notary about the Voralberg factory. Then she remembered that had already happened, what seemed like years ago.
She was even more jolted when she realized the dirigible had alighted right in the middle of the Voralberg factory grounds! In the grey dawn, Kate stared dazedly around at the grand shadows of the factory on one side, and of the Voralberg mansion - Hans' childhood home - on the other side.
"We go on foot from here," Kate said. She caught a look from the Spirit Woman, and said, "Boris, Colonel, I think you'd better stay here. Guard the airship. Boris, hand me my box, please?"
Boris handed it over, saying, "Are you sure? Emeliov at least ought to come with you."
"No," Kate said, "Only I've been invited into this. I've got no right to extend that invitation. Not yet, at least."
Boris grimaced but nodded, and Kate, lugging her box of relics, followed the Spirit Woman into the town, walking as steadily as she could manage.
The high street of Valadilene, cobbled in stone and lined with quaintly beautiful buildings, was silent, the hazy glow of streetlamps cold.
"This is land of ancestors?" The Spirit Woman seemed flummoxed. "All built over!"
"Not here," Kate said, "If it is where I think, it's this way."
They headed down the street. Kate had the unaccountable sense that they ought to be sneaking along, even though there was probably no good reason to. They passed the patisserie, and there was a golden light far back in the window, and the smell of fresh baking. Kate's stomach spasmed painfully at the aroma, but she forced herself to walk by.
Finally, she found the gate that led off behind the town. At the time, it hadn't occurred to Kate to wonder why there was a gate leading to a path behind the town, where the cobbled streets and stone-and-brick architecture abruptly changed into a little narrow lane running along behind the houses. More of the town lay across the little river, another house row. It dawned on Kate that she'd barely even seen that part of Valadilene.
She, Youki and Spirit Woman headed upstream, the same way Momo, the little boy who seemed to share Hans' potential, had led her to find the mammoth doll.
They reached the little paved landing, with its benches and view of the waterfall, and from there they climbed up into the pine forest outside Valadilene. Birds were beginning to sing with the growing daylight. Despite the relatively comfortable spring air, Kate was shaking from her dropping bloodsugar. She walked much more slowly and unsteadily than the last time she'd been here.
"Oh, good," Kate said as they came to a ford in the river, "I was afraid they might have opened the dam again."
Kate, the Spirit Woman and Youki stood where a reef of gravel created a natural bridge. And beyond, in the mountainside, a cave mouth opened, looking almost like a shadowy illusion in the faint dawn light.
Kate set down the box of relics and took out a lantern Boris had found in the airship, along with some matches. Once the lamp was lit, Kate handed it to the Spirit Woman, picked up the box again, and they went into the cave.