Page 3 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure
But as he ran, Eluheed knew it was hopeless. The scale of the disaster was beyond his abilities. He was just one immortal, and he couldn't stop a mountain from falling.
The monastery bells were ringing when he arrived, the monks standing in the courtyard, some praying, others trying to gather precious manuscripts.
"Leave everything!" Eluheed shouted. "Run! Now!"
An elderly monk, presumably the abbot, responded with an eerie calm. "If God wills us to die today, we die."
"God gave you legs to run," Eluheed grabbed the man's arm. "Use them!"
But the monk pulled free, smiling sadly. "You run, my son. Save who you can. We will meet our fate here."
Eluheed wanted to scream at the foolishness, but there was no time. Younger monks were already fleeing, and he helped herd them toward relative safety. Behind them the ancient monastery, repository of centuries of knowledge and faith, vanished beneath the unstoppable flow.
The rest of the day blurred into a nightmare of desperate rescues and terrible failures.
At the Russian military barracks, he found the soldiers mobilizing.
The Sevjur River, dammed by the massive debris flow, began to flood upstream villages. Eluheed and the soldiers spent hours pulling people from the rising waters, diving again and again into the muddy torrent.
By nightfall, the immediate danger had passed. The mountain was still rumbling ominously, occasional pyroclastic flows glowing like rivers of hell on its flanks, but the great landslide had spent its fury.
Eluheed stood on a hillside overlooking the devastation, his clothes in tatters, his body covered in cuts and bruises that had healed a dozen times over. Below, the landscape had undergone a transformation. Where villages had stood, there was only raw earth. The monastery, the town, and entire communities had been erased as if they had never existed.
In the distance, survivors huddled around fires, their wails of grief carried on the ash-laden wind. He had saved many throughout the terrible day, but thousands had perished.
Somewhere beneath those millions of tons of rock and earth lay his sacred charges. The treasures he had sworn to protect were lost. How would he ever find them? The entire face of the mountain had collapsed. It could take centuries to search through all that debris.
Eluheed then remembered the children he'd left behind. He needed to retrieve them and deliver them to someone who would find them help.
Relieved to find the children where he had left them, he carried them to the soldiers, who were in better shape than most.
"You saved many today," their commander said. "Thank you."
"I didn't save enough."
The commander nodded. "There is nothing left for us here. We will help organize the people as best we can and then go back to Russia."
"Can I come with you?"
There was nothing left for him here except grief and a crushing sense of failure.
"Of course," the commander said. "After we are done here."
Eluheed nodded. He would go to Russia, learn what he needed to learn, acquire the necessary skills, and someday, somehow, he would return and reclaim what was lost.
The mountain rumbled again. Ash continued to fall like grey snow, covering the devastation in a shroud of volcanic dust. Tomorrow, the full scope of the disaster would become clear. The dead would be counted, and then the long work of rebuilding would commence.
2
ELUHEED
Eighteen months ago.
Lord Navuh's ridiculously lavish receiving room reeked of expensive cigars, fear, and greed. The cigars belonged to the lord, the fear to Eluheed, and the greed to the Pakhan.
"What do I need a shaman for?" the lord of this godforsaken island asked. "I do not need to speak to the dead. In fact, I prefer not to. And I do not need a witch doctor either."
Navuh was as impressive as he was terrifying—tall, broad-shouldered, with the bearing of an emperor and the cold eyes of an executioner. He was also into theatrics, wearing an intricately embroidered caftan over an equally luxurious gown. All that was missing was a turban and a neatly trimmed beard, but he was clean shaven, and his sleek black hair was styled in the latest fashion.
