The Mysteries of the Shaman Stone. Ivan Rasskazov

we got him right near the shore. Having eaten enough raw deer meat, my girlfriend ran to the cave, where she lay down and started talking to me. Her slightly rounded sides betrayed her pregnancy, the reason I felt good and calm.

      “You’re not going away anymore, aren’t you?” she asked.

      “No, don’t worry, I’ll stay for good now.”

      “What a cool idea you came up with during hunting today. That’s human mind showing. People often take our leaders into their world; you are the first who voluntarily came to our world, abandoning the human one. Our cubs will be the smartest of all, ever. At first, the spirits did not know that you were a wolfman.

      Neither did you actually know that. So they allowed me to get pregnant from you. This has never happened from others who have accepted the rite. They knew who they were, and the spirits did not allow them to give birth to a half-wolf half-human. Therefore, if a person had no children before the rite, he remained single and childless forever.

      “Can a wolf turn into a man?” I asked the she-wolf.

      “Yes, there are my fellow tribesmen among you, but there are very few of them. To do this, you need to kill a person, tear out and eat his heart. In your world, these creatures are called werewolves. They are very cruel killers and do not remember what they did at night. Spirits take away their memory immediately after they kill a man, so that they do not remember all our secrets and cannot use them against us. We, wolves, are guardians of spirits, the Shaman Stone and the place where they are. And if a wolf that has become a human remembers the healing properties of the stone and other secrets of spirits while being in his world, he will bring other bad people here and try to destroy our world and take away the Shaman Stone.

      “But what about Nikita and German? What will the spirits do with them?” I asked her, preoccupied with the fate of my friends.

      “As soon as your Moscow friend moves away from the stone for the distance of one day’s journey, he will immediately forget about everything, and Herman is one of the initiated.

      Having heard so many new things, and mellow from such delicious meat, having buried my face in the soft side of my friend, I fell asleep soundly.

      In the morning, Nikita and Herman, waking up and not finding Alexander, became very worried and ran to the Shaman. The old man sat in the same place and stared aloof, paying no attention to the agitated guests who entered his home. No matter how many words Nikita said to him, waving his hands, not one muscle moved on the old man's face. He was not here, he was talking to spirits.

      “Let’s go,” Herman pulled Nick’s sleeve. Rapidly getting out, Nikita, ran for the satellite phone. Pulling the phone from his bag and dialing the editorial, he started explaining anxiously the whole situation to the editor. In response, the editor was saying that he could not hear him and, hell, what a shitty connection and all. Then Nick called home to parents, not telling anything bad to them in order not to disturb them, and the connection was good. Then again he tried several times to call the editor. Only now he began to realize that as soon as he tried to talk about the stone, wolves and other things happening here, the connection failed immediately. The guess that visited his brain knocked him out of his rut, and Nikita, having never felt discouraged up to this point, dropped his hands and he sat on a stone.

      “They will not let us out of here alive, and Herman is one of them, he brings visitors from afar, and they turn them into wolves. Who will look for them after that!” From these thoughts, Nick's legs began to fail and the head ceased to think. “At least Sanka was turned into a wolf and me; they’ll probably just kill me for learning about their secrets.”

      After these heavy thoughts, he became suspicious of everyone, including Herman. The Shaman, who approached without warning from behind, scared him to death.

      “We all should go to Alexander, today is the last day when he can be brought back, so the spirits told me.”

      “Didn’t they tell you where to go and to search?” Nikita asked mockingly. Turning his head, he did not see anyone. “Am I talking to myself?” he thought. Then Herman came up and said:

      “The Shaman is calling. We are going to look for Sasha.”

      Nikita had no choice but to go along with everyone. Taking a backpack, he dragged along behind the Shaman who was riding a deer. Herman followed in the rear. They walked for a long time, about four hours, stopping for a rest only once to drink tea. Arriving at the cave in which Alexander was supposed to be, the Shaman, having examined it, said:

      “His wolf skin is not here. If he destroyed it, it’s over: we won’t be able to do anything,” he said, lighting his pipe and singing a song in Tofalar language. Suddenly, he ceased signing:

      “It was the she-wolf who hid the skin,” he uttered and started climbing up the slope in a swift manner that contrasted with his age. Putting his hand into a crevice, he pulled the skin into the light.