I circled the area. The same nauseating trail led almost perpendicular to the path, eastward, just as I had suspected. The route was quite passable, running along the upper edge of the ridge. You wouldn't find any well-trodden paths here—locals don't use such routes. And what would they do here anyway? Nothing but ice and rock. After trekking about a kilometer, I reached a glacier, its tail descending into a large moraine. The smell grew stronger. There had to be cavities in the submerged part of the glacier. Such cavities are the favored dwelling places and refuges of ice witches. Most likely, it was precisely this kind of creature I was going to have to deal with.
Ice witches. I don't know what the locals call them. Of course, I have my theories, but I could be wrong. So, I give unknown creatures my own names—it's simpler. I call these specific ones 'ice witches' because they prefer to settle in the icy caves of glaciers and high mountain ridges. To look at, they're quite ghastly creatures, but their terrifying appearance serves more for protection, like animal mimicry. If you don't attack them on purpose, they're generally not particularly dangerous. But I, of course, was planning to attack.
The question arises—why do I do this? One might assume I'm some kind of fighter against dark forces, a hunter of spirits and ghosts, or something along those lines. In a sense, that's true, but with significant caveats. Take this specific creature I'm tracking, for example. It killed its last victim a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty years ago. And it might never touch anyone again. Although, given their lifespan, it definitely will someday. Nobody knows exactly how long they live, but probably longer than one can imagine.
These beings have always lived alongside humans and were once well-known—they are the so-called undead. People feared them in some places, eradicated them in others, used them in yet others. They were an organic part of the nearly universal pagan worldview. With the advent of monotheism, beliefs became more abstract. This generally led to development and progress, but at the cost of losing connection with nature. People stopped seeing much of the world around them, hence the desire to wall themselves off. They built stone walls, asphalt, concrete boxes instead of houses. In most cases, this led to a complete inability to live in the wild—with rare exceptions, of course.
But all sorts of unclean beings didn't go anywhere—they simply vanished from sight. It seems as if they aren't there at all. And even when a person encounters something like that, the brain interprets it into familiar images. If it's motionless—as a rock or a bush; if it moves—as an animal. "Undead," "unclean"—all these names aren't entirely accurate either. They are, generally speaking, alive, it's just that their life isn't organic, unlike ours. Their life is more... energetic. It's impossible to understand this right away, so I'll just clarify as I go.
Amidst all these reflections, I incidentally found a good spot for a camp. On the northern side, about five meters from the water, ran a stone ridge. Opposite the point where the glacier descended into the lake, there was a break in this ridge. It formed a small platform, sheltered from the wind, with enough space for a tent. The wait would be long—the creature was unlikely to emerge from its hiding place in daylight. I could calmly set up camp.
A couple of hours passed in these tasks. I pitched the tent and prepared to meet the witch. The preparation was more internal; externally, I just changed into more comfortable clothes, took out, and measured a blend of herbs to smoke the witch out. The smell of this mixture irritates them, they don't like it. It contains about ten ingredients, mostly yarrow, juniper, and wormwood.
By evening, it had gotten noticeably colder—the altitude was telling, around four kilometers. Although it was summer on the calendar and the temperature in the valleys was close to forty, here the sun hadn't even set yet, and it was already about ten degrees. At night or under cloud cover, frost could easily strike. I caught a small floating ice floe, placed a piece of foil with smoldering embers on it—which I had prepared in advance, as there are no trees at this altitude, hence no firewood—sprinkled the herbs onto the embers, and set the ice floe adrift towards the center of the moraine. I myself took off all my clothes, sat on a folded mat, and threw a down jacket over my shoulders. Now, all that was left was to wait.
I undressed for a simple reason: my clothes could be rendered completely useless. Generally, a confrontation with such entities doesn't happen entirely in the physical world, or at least, not in the physical body. The bodies of these creatures have an energetic structure, and they can influence how they look, complete with all the real attributes corresponding to the physical form. This means they can turn into anything—within their repertoire of forms, of course. This state of affairs could complicate matters greatly, but I was capable of similar tricks myself.
This might seem supernatural, magical, but it's just a trick—albeit one with a very significant influence on the surrounding world. It's all about perception. Simply put, you become what you imagine yourself to be. The subtlety is that you must imagine it not mentally, but with your body, with sensations. And this won't work if the body hasn't had such an experience. It's a vicious circle. To turn into something, you must have already been in such a state; you must obtain or create a sensory image of what you want to become. That's why shapeshifting has never been very widespread.
I learned—or rather, was taught—to create such images. And while that's all well and good, there are problems too: in an animal's form, you can't think clearly and consciously. You don't become a human in an animal's image—you become the animal completely and cease to be human. I was also told that with each such transformation, you lose connection with your original form, lose your humanity, and that there's always a chance of not returning. Although I doubt that—perhaps due to lack of experience. But in any case, one must use this trick carefully and only in extreme situations. Incidentally, now was precisely such a situation—defeating an ice witch in its own habitat is practically impossible for a human. And the conditions, frankly, are inhuman. If I had to climb into the lake at night, no hardened 'walrus' could endure it. Maybe they could endure it, but they certainly couldn't fight the witch on equal terms.
Meanwhile, the ice floe with the smoldering herbs had reached almost the middle of the lake; the acrid smell even reached me. With a barely perceptible movement, something swam beneath the floe. Suddenly, the water churned violently, and the ice floe flipped over. For an instant, the witch flashed in the bubbling water. That was the beginning.
I began to move, transforming into my battle form. The first couple of steps I took with human legs, but I pushed off for the leap with bestial ones and, instantly closing the distance, sank my claws into the witch's flesh. Taken completely by surprise, she shrieked in a destructive frequency—a defensive reaction, the so-called Banshee's wail. For just such an occasion, I had made my bear completely deaf. I only use him for attacks like this, so he has no need for hearing.
Realizing the scream was ineffective, she quickly dragged us downward. Despite the bear's impressive weight, this was her territory, and she possessed considerable strength. Apparently, she thought the cold and lack of air would make me cease my assault. She still hadn't grasped who had attacked her, mistaking me for a deranged beast. I understood this because I felt external consciousness applying pressure to the bear's motor centers. The witch got so caught up in this process that she relaxed for a moment and edged slightly closer—that was her final mistake. The bear, without a second thought (and as I've said, thinking is not the bear's strong suit), simply bit off the approaching witch's head.
I could swear the witch's head continued to shriek inside his belly for several minutes before falling silent. The body remained. The bear pressed it against the ice at the bottom, waiting for all the energy to flow from the witch's body, through his paw, into his own. I couldn't leave anything behind—even from a tiny remnant of energy, the witch could regenerate. Then farewell to peace, especially since you wouldn't catch her off guard a second time. The witch's flesh, losing energy, immediately began to disintegrate, and soon nothing remained at the bottom of the moraine that could tell of the creature that had inhabited it.
Finished with the body, the bear trudged along the bottom towards the shore where the tent stood. Once on dry land, I performed the reverse transformation and, wrapping myself in the down jacket, headed to the tent. There, I quickly got dressed, forced down about two hundred grams of vodka, and crawled into my sleeping bag.
I plunged into a dreadful state on the border of sleep. The witch's emanations swirled in my head like young wine, evoking crowded, chaotic images. Now long winter nights, so pleasant to spend in peace under the ice of a frozen, snow-covered lake. Now short summer months with bustling people crossing the pass. But the images, detached from the consciousness that spawned them, quickly lost stability and were simply assimilated by my own psychic structure, turning into pure energy.
This process can last a week, but it can be accelerated—alcohol and a meat-heavy diet help. Accordingly, the next step was to descend to the nearest guesthouse and hole up there for a couple of days. The nearest one I knew of was in the village below.
