My path now led to another point of interest—Lake Payron, also known as the Lake of the Peris. Another name is the Lake of Fairies or Spirits. It refers to the beautiful peris, spirits from Eastern folklore who always appear to humans in the form of alluring women. Peris more or less correspond to fairies in Western tradition, though those are usually small, while peris are human-sized. In principle, it's all mythology—where does one find exact correspondences?
The local legend says that either in the lake itself or nearby, there is a passage, or a portal if you will, to the land of these very peris. So, these peris seduce those they meet near the lake, if they are alone, and lead them through that passage into their country. What happens there and how—nobody knows, because no one has ever returned from that country. I thought to myself: since there's no Yeti, maybe I'll at least catch some peri. And then we'll see who seduces whom.
The trek to the lake took another day. By evening, I was on its shore. It's a small landslide-dammed lake—part of the settled rock blocked the river, and over time a lake formed here. It had a peculiar charm. One notable feature: it rains very often around the lake, and fogs are frequent, even when neighboring areas are sunny. This is probably why local legends connect the lake with those spirits.
The lake lies at an altitude of just over two thousand meters. It has that characteristic turquoise color, and the water, as expected, is very cold—no more than ten degrees Celsius. And that's just at the surface. Beneath the thin, warmer surface layer, deep down, the temperature was closer to zero. But I didn't need much to take a dip. I dove in for a couple of seconds and jumped right out, scalded. Well, at least now I'm clean.
It was warmer here. As expected, I set up camp again and spent a decent night, then a day, and then another night. I didn't do much—just rested, walked along the shore, keeping an eye out for local spirits. Or fairies... But somehow, these peris never came to seduce me. Maybe I'm not their type age-wise. The legend mentioned that peris prefer the young, and while I'm not exactly old either... Or maybe I just didn't pass the face control.
After resting and gazing at the lake to my heart's content, I concluded that this place was clean too. As Semion Semionych used to say: "We shall search further." Thinking this, I packed up camp and moved on.
Next, I decided to reach the old caravan trail. To do this, I needed to descend to the Karatag River. But I could also take the high route, coming out directly onto a tributary of the Karatag—the Yuzhny Zambar River. I would have had to go a bit upstream to avoid recklessly crossing the ridge. Further up, there was a fork: one path led to Lake Payron, the other went up to the Angisht Pass or joined a trail leading to the small Zambar Pass, and through it—to the Yuzhny Zambar River. Accordingly, this led to the path towards the Mura Pass, which, like the Angisht Pass, was a crossing over the Gissar Range towards the Fann Mountains.
In the end, choosing the route via the Zambar Pass, I eventually reached the old caravan road, now just a trail. In the past, this road was one of the alternative routes connecting the Gissar Bekdom with the Emirate of Bukhara—well, for anyone desperate enough to go through the mountains. The bekdom was nominally an administrative unit of the Bukhara Emirate. But its remoteness and the difficulty of communication with Bukhara meant the Gissar bekdom was practically independent—until the Emir started appointing governors only from among those closest to his throne.
But I'm digressing. Anyway, once on this old trail—which, by the way, is still used by people, mainly shepherds and tourists—I followed it up to the pass. And it was there that I caught the scent of the ice witch, as I've already recounted.
And so, reminiscing about the journey already behind me, I passed the evening in the guesthouse. The driver still hadn't shown up. Time to sleep. I was under a roof, in a relatively safe place, which allowed me to use a certain technique that gave me the chance to truly rest and, at the same time, fully assimilate the witch's energy.
The technique is relatively simple and involves lucid dreaming. Essentially, it's about using the dream body to create one's own personal space within the dream. The problems with lucid dreaming are well-known. The main one is instability. Even experienced dreamers have lucid dreams only occasionally—more often than beginners, of course, but still not constantly. Another problem is the lack of control over the dream's images and narrative. That is, the dreamer deals with whatever they happen to dream. Yes, there are ways to summon desired elements, but that doesn't always work reliably either.
But for those like me, these problems don't exist! I was taught this by my teacher, the old shapeshifter Luka, or the Black Fox—he's better known by that nickname in his haunts. It's all connected precisely to shapeshifting. The thing is, the energy obtained from defeated beings allows one to consistently enter a lucid dream state and create a personal space there according to one's own desire.
In fact, this is one of the reasons why I engage in this so-called hunting—to accumulate energy, not for any kind of pompous reasons like fighting evil or saving humanity. No, of course, there's a certain responsibility, and a division between good and bad. I still consider myself one of the good guys, at least I try to be, but I don't have any grand global goals.
This acquired energy is used not only for creating a stable space in lucid dreams but also for many other, let's say, magical effects. Although, in reality, magic of course doesn't exist—especially not the kind portrayed in the popular consciousness. There are simply certain laws of existence, unknown to the majority—which is just as well. It's hard to even imagine what it would be like otherwise!
But let's return to this space in the dream. Besides providing full rest, it's also where all my forms reside. The bear for attack—let's call it the battle form. Then there's, let's say, a transport form—the wolf. This form isn't used for combat because it doesn't involve a full transformation—it's more like a partial merging of consciousnesses. The plus side of this form is that everything I'm wearing or carrying, say, in my backpack, doesn't disappear and is back on me after the reverse transformation. The downside is that I can't alter this form in any way, including healing it, meaning in any confrontation there's a chance of seriously damaging or even losing it completely.
The partial merging allows the wolf to use all its instincts, which is very useful for tracking someone or something. You'd think I could use this constantly on my hikes, but Luka warned against it. Just one unnecessary use, and it could be the beginning of the end! He told stories of many like us who neglected this rule and ended up permanently turning into beasts. Luka insisted that it's necessary to develop and constantly use one's own body in all aspects, using the capabilities of our forms only for enhancement. For example, how I use the wolf's enhanced sense of smell or its ability to see better in the dark, even while in human form. Not to the full extent, of course, but it's quite sufficient for hunting, and it helps a lot in life too.
There are other forms I don't use yet—I don't know how to approach them. There's a raven I named Don Juan. Yes, after the one who taught Castaneda. Whether such a man actually existed—I don't know, but I went through a phase of re-reading his books. In them, that don Juan turned into a raven. And that's all mine ever says—"Don Juan is great," and that's it, honestly. There's also a snow leopard, whom I rarely see; he's always off wandering somewhere. You'd think it's my world. How he manages to hide from me—I can't understand. But his main quality is independence, so it fits. The wolf, for example, always follows me around, just like a dog. The bear sits and reads all the time, and when I approach him, he reluctantly tears himself away from the book and gives me such a stern look. I say to him, "What?" and he just gets even sterner and goes back to reading. Though it's good he's silent—the last thing I need is talking bears; that would start smelling of schizophrenia.
I should describe the place itself. The passage there leads through a dark cave, which I enter upon falling asleep. And at the exit, there's a complex of structures surrounded by various natural zones. To the left stretches a desert with all its sand and dunes. Straight ahead—a forest. To the right—a sea with a beautiful beach. Behind—mountains. The cave exit is right in the mountains. And it's somewhere in those mountains that the snow leopard hides from me.
As for the complex of structures themselves: to the left is a house with books that I've managed to read over my lifetime. That's precisely where the bear prefers to sit. Straight ahead is a gazebo for meditation, though why—it's unclear, since I've never meditated in this state, at least not in that gazebo. To the right is something like a gym with all sorts of equipment I use to practice various techniques and disciplines. Also on the right, behind the gym, is the beach.
This place was my favorite, the one I used for rest. Here, it's perpetually evening for me. A large daybed, a sunset filling half the sky, like in Goa. A bonfire is burning, the sea breeze carries a faint smell of shashlik, spices, and something else indescribable... If happiness exists, it smells something like that. All that's missing is good wine and a beautiful companion, but just creating that in my imagination seems... not quite comme il faut.
Anyway, off to sleep I went. Passing through the moment of falling asleep, I entered the darkness. Moving through it, I emerged into the cave, which, in turn, led me to my space. At the cave exit, I was met by the wolf and Don Juan, who immediately declared, "Don Juan is great." Well, who could doubt it. Without lingering, I headed straight for the beach—I needed to rest. And the aftereffects of the hunt were still being felt: vague images flickered in my consciousness from time to time. That witch was powerful indeed. I finally fell into a real sleep on my beach and woke up in the morning to a knock on the door, back in the guesthouse.
