Editor’s Note: The following documents have been translated from Russian with dates carefully converted to match the Gregorian calendar, and assembled into chronological order. Traditional units of Russian measurement have been converted into metric. In places where it was necessary I have made it more clear who is writing, but rest assured I have not altered any of the text.
Village Name: Orfan
Genealogy: Tungus
Population: 300 (discounting children)
This village is almost completely devoid of anything interesting. The people here are reindeer-herders and fur traders and live a subsistence diet. They were unwelcoming to my party and rude in behaviour to His Imperial Majesty’s official census-taker. They do not appreciate outsiders, not even our guide from another neighbouring tribe. I would be moving on but for one thing: A starving tribal came out of the bog on our final day, ranting and yammering like a madman. I had our guide translate for us, and apparently much of what he is saying is so disorderly that it makes little sense even to him. He says there are mentions of a mammoth buried up north, of a village, of a flood, of a sleeping god. Nyurba is the name of the village.
I was interested only after we found what this madman was carrying in his sled: a tusk. A whole mammoth tusk. It is twisted and stunted, but it is the whole thing and is likely worth a small fortune.
Unfortunately, my imperial duties prevent me from straying from my ordained path, but Oleg has spent some time in the academy and could ascertain the accuracy of these ravings. He has volunteered to travel north, accompanied by one of our Cossacks, to visit Nyurba and see this mammoth buried in the frozen ground. The Cossack is one of our finest, and will be good protection against wildlife. I wish them well, as upon reaching Nyurba they will not have enough time to return and will likely overwinter in the village.
I will send word to St. Petersburg about this at the next available opportunity.
From the desk of Director of Field Studies Konstantin Andreyevich Radishchev, Imperial Academy of Science, St. Petersburg
November 13th, 1868
My dear Gregor,
Imagine my surprise at the reception of our director of a telegraph received from some small native village far to the northeast in His Imperial Majesty’s Siberia, in an area not serviced by road or rail, enticing me with the idea of a well-preserved, unfound mammoth body.
This will be an exciting opportunity and something far beyond a simple curiosity. I will assemble a small team here at the Academy and travel the hundreds of miles to the village of Nyurba and speak with the villagers myself, discover their animal well-preserved in the sub-zero environment, and make the biggest breakthrough in mammalogy not seen since Adams discovered his mammoth.
Cautiously, I plan my journey now. We are lucky here at the Academy as we have been blessed with a grant from the royal coffers to go forth and bring glory to our empire. It will, unfortunately, commence after winter. I aim to have my team assembled within a month, with the first leg of our journey beginning in April, ice permitting. We will travel by boat and carriage to Tomsk and hire a Cossack to take us onward. I am expecting that with 30 days we will have him, and can begin the long, arduous journey of traveling northward to Nyurba to see this animal encased in snow. My second, I already know, is Nikita Pisarev — a young surveyor that has proven himself as dependable and loyal in the past.
To you, Gregor, I leave directions: This letter is to be published in the papers on the eve of my return. I will send word as soon as I can and my intention is to keep you updated as we travel.
Our lives are about to change!
Konstantin
Editor’s Note: The following is a telegraph sent to the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg. Cryptically, there is no sender name, but we can presume it was sent by Konstantin writing from Tomsk in April of 1869.
GREGOR —
UTTER DISAPPOINTMENT. THE COSSACK INTENTIONED TO MEET US IN TOMSK DID NOT ARRIVE. HAVE NOW HIRED A DIFFERENT COSSACK. A MAN NAMED MAGPIE. UNLIKE NAMESAKE HE IS EXTREMELY UNTALKATIVE. SUSPICIOUS OF HIM UNTIL HE DEMONSTRATED HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE NORTHERN PLAIN AND PRODUCED SEVERAL REFERENCES FROM PREVIOUS EXPEDITIONS HAS LEAD.
EXCITED TO LEAVE. WE ARE SET TO MOVE FORTH FROM TOMSK ANY DAY NOW. NEXT CONTACT FROM ME WILL COME BY POST I BELIEVE.
Magpie’s Log: 19 June 1869
The last time I traveled this far north was twenty years ago.
I warn these heartlanders over and over of the dangers they face.
Of the unclaimed lands and the windswept steppes.
Of the craggy mountains with ground that gives out beneath one’s feet.
Of days without sunshine and weeks without water.
I find myself among moon-faced and soft-bellied men.
Men with teeth that gleam white like ivory, with skin that sweats gold, stomachs that growl only for fame and have hawkish eyes only for glory.
I have warned them that if they intended to go to Nyurba it is to winter there, for the journey is long, arduous, and can make a mockery of all plans at the twist a rock or the roll of a cloud.
Instead, they ignore me, as though the words from my tongue are as sand when they pass my lips.
They have said such senseless things to me as:
“We do not desire to winter in Nyurba.”
“If you are as good as you say you are, Magpie, you will lead us home before first snow.”
“We will all be famous one day soon, but you must get us there and back again quickly.”
They have offered bonus payment in way to incentivize me, which I gladly declined.
They know not yet that this journey began too late in the year.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Magpie's Log: 21 June 1869
We travel with horse, we travel with wagon, we travel with provisions and people.
I hold my rifle close to my body as we march, I sling it over my shoulder when we break for camp.
They jeer at my apprehension, as they have not met Siberia fully.
They may yet hunger for other things before this is done.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Magpie’s Log: 28 June 1869
A horse died today.
We are traveling on our last summer road. The journey when we leave it will become much harder. My suggestion was that nothing goes to waste; when meat is available it is available.
The party listened, for once.
We have broken for camp here, in a copse of trees on the edge of the bog.
I know I have been here before, but it is like as a dream from childhood, all vague and discoloured. The trail weakens moving forward, that I know, and all but vanishes in the swamp.
We will be changing transportation methods soon, taking boats down the Ob river. The horses would stumble in a swamp such as this and perish to disease. There is a native village on its banks not far from here and tomorrow we shall make contact. I have prepared for this, bringing along an offering in bundled furs and hides, and some silver, should they be of a more refined taste. My employers disagreed with this method, so it is something I alone have prepared from my own salary.
I suppose I should create a record of those in my party so as to make body identification easier:
Konstantin Radishchev, Naturalist
Nikita Pisarev, Surveyor
Fyodor, Porter
Dimitri, Porter and cook.
3 horses
1 wagon
Magpie
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Editor’s Note: This is a letter sent by Russian imperial post back to St. Petersburg by Konstantin, this was written approximatly two months into their journey.
Gregor,
We are alive. Fly-bitten and starving, but we are alive.
I promised you an update when I could send one. Last night we pulled our boats into the muddy banks of the river and entered a military outpost and I write to you from here now. It has been six weeks upon the river Ob, with nothing to either side but false-forest that is in actuality the thickest swamp ever known to man. We bid for a guide at the village where we purchased the boats — imagine my consternation when I discovered that the salary of the guide was not included in the prearranged price of the boats — and received not a voracious hunter or an esteemed warrior-scout, but a young woman! The daughter of a local merchant that has made frequent trips to the villages in the north.
I disapproved, but Nikita was alive with the suggestion we hire her. I think the young man is taken with her, to be quite honest. The Cossack approved of it as well, so I relented. But she did well and proved herself to me over these six weeks on the river, guiding our boats safely as promised. The young woman’s name is Es.
When Es discovered our plan, to visit the village of Nyurba and find a local to take us into the hills, she warned us against it. For the people of Nyurba are strange, stranger than most tribals in Siberia, and their religious rites are wholly alien even to another tribal like her. She says they worship a dark god from ancient times, one the world has long since forgotten.
I am a man of science. I have no use for superstitions. The Nyurba beliefs are interesting enough to merit further study by a trained anthropologist, which I am not. Gregor, you know of one, I'm sure. Send word onwards, and if His Imperial Majesty sees fit to send a religious mission along with him, then so be it.
Regards,
Konstantin
Magpie’s Log: 2 September 1869
It is the waning weeks of Summer in Siberia.
We are ill-prepared for the coming snows.
Winter always comes on quicker than expected in the North.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Magpie’s Log: 3 September 1869
Today I awoke to Winter's first kiss.
Frost on the canvas of my shelter.
A copper taste in the air.
My fat-bellied friends are not so fat anymore.
Es says we will reach Nyurba by nightfall.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Editor's Note: The following are the hasty scribblings Konstantin wrote in the pages of his field book.
It is real!
By all holies of holies, it is real!
An outline of the discovery is here:
We entered the native village of Nyurba at midday and the Asiatic villagers seemed none too surprised at our intrusion. They had already set aside a small unused cabin for us to shelter in. I spoke to them through Es and her common trade tongue, of what we wanted to see, of a buried mammoth, and they seemed to understand what we meant. They showed us raw ivory tusks, and we are elated!
Some of the tusks are as twisted and stunted as I was informed of, but others are of good stock. I wonder if these discrepancies can be explained by an as-yet undiscovered species of mammoth? What a discovery that would be, I would be historically famous across the science world.
I spoke to their chieftain of the hills around the village, of the frost and the ice, and of their god. I told him I wanted to remove the mammoth from the frozen ground and take it away for study. He was surprised, but welcomes the idea. It is a journey of two days from here, and I must rebuild my stamina after such an arduous journey so far from civilization, so we will commence when we are rested and well-fed.
Es beds by herself in her own shelter that she has carried with her this whole way. I find myself envious of its durability and resilience. The nights have grown cold here and my own canvas tent has frayed and gives up more heat than it keeps in.
The cabin, however, suffices.
Anything at all suffices!
Nikita and I will be showered with praise by His Imperial Majesty upon our return!
Addendum: This needs to be noted among the other discoveries, it is far too important to get lost in the rest of my writings.
This evening, the villagers of Nyurba brought us into their longhouse. It is a place of worship, it would seem, for there is an altar of sorts in its center. This is where they had laid out a sort of ossified, insectoid leg. It is huge, near 3 meters in length. Nikita is organizing our report on it as we speak.
I am told it comes from the same creature the tusks do.
I had to be sure that something wasn't being mistranslated, so I went over it again and again with them, through Es. But that is what they explained to me several times: the mammoth tusk and the insect legs were taken from the same mammoth carcass.
They are either confused or I have just stumbled upon one of the strangest biological discoveries in history. This is as equally intriguing a discovery as any frozen mammoth.
The Nyurba people are full of surprises, it would seem.
Editor's Note: The following is the only surviving writing of Nikita Pisarev. His report on the leg was folded in with Konstantin's own field notes.
Material seems of some unknown biological matter, not geological, but more like hardened carapace. It is approximately 2.5 meters long, with a circumference of 22 centimeters. 'Hairs' protrude from it at every angle; stiff but flexible, like the bristles of a brush. The 'leg' sits upon a table or pedestal inside the village's longhouse, which serves as a ritual place of worship. People may freely touch it, as I have, but it would be difficult to leave with it. Offerings surround it, on the floor and on the pedestal, figurines people have made from ivory, coins from Moscow or Tomsk, spikes of iron and other things they find valuable. This 'leg' does not bend — it is an old thing, stiff in its presentation and long dead, if indeed it ever did come from a creature of God. One can't help but wonder as to the size of the animal if a leg is taller than any man, if a leg stands at the height of a mammoth's shoulders. The material is hollow on the inside, I suspect that it may have been hollowed out over the years through natural process, and collapsed partially.
This goes beyond the scope of a simple report, but the eyes of the villagers are not upon this researcher while he studies their holy artifact. They seem unconcerned that I may try to steal or damage it.
Magpie’s Log: 5 September, 1869
I am unused to the way the villagers here dress.
In other parts of Siberia it is bright colours, gaudy headscarves, carved wooden jewelry.
The people of Nyurba seem destitute.
Es claims it is their way, part of their unusual customs to dress so plainly, to possess so little.
I notice the tattoos on their necks, the red and black ink used.
I wonder what the dye is made from.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Editor's Note: This is an unsent letter written by Konstantin and was found among his other writings.
Gregor,
I will recount for you the sobering events of the journey from Nyurba to their holy site beyond the hills that surround the native village. I am breathless as I write this, but please trust that I am recounting as accurately as my memory allows.
It was myself, Nikita, Magpie and Es. Our porters stayed behind in the village. We had more than enough villagers to carry our gear, and, truth be told, they kept us supplied with food and vodka. The vodka is a trade item, I am certain it is new to the village. Their men drink it with the careful sips of women, and their women drink it not at all.
We journeyed by foot, and as I walked their chieftain spoke to me through the translations of Es. He told me of his god, how it had watched over their village for generations, how it had protected them from the previous flood and would protect them from the next, how it provided them with ivory for trade. I inquired at the name of their god and Es told me the village simply uses the same word missionaries use for the Christian god.
God is frightening, he said. God appears as a dangerous creature because we lack the understanding of his ways. God sometimes has to kill humans to achieve his goals.
I asked, is God a mammoth?
He told me God is all things.
I asked, is God alive?
He told me that God is sleeping. That there was a large battle long ago and now God must rest. But he will awaken soon.
I asked, is it safe to be near God?
He answered, sometimes, when properly dressed.
Does God like outsiders? I asked. Or non-believers?
Outsiders are always welcome near God, he said. But there are no non-believers.
Magpie, I noticed, was listening closely to our conversation. He is a paranoid man, and keeps his rifle at hand, not fully trusting these villagers.
The first night into the hills, after we had made camp and night had fallen, and Nikita and I sat shivering in our tent, we heard noises. The others in the camp grew quiet, and we focused on the noise coming in over the night air. It was a rustling whisper, like wind through leaves, though much louder. It grew and transformed like one continuous note, becoming at time ears-piercingly shrill and others low enough to make my bowels tremble. We dared not leave the confines of our tent and could only pray as the Nyurba people answered this call from their God with one of their own. They yipped in reply like wolves, others screamed out words in their strange tongue, still others brayed like horses.
Or, I suppose, like mammoths.
At last, it was over, and the night was quiet and still once more, the whole experience lasting perhaps a quarter of an hour.
We were terrified, but it was the next day that saw us in the most danger we had been in on this expedition yet.
We descended into a narrow valley, the valley floor little more than mud that had been frozen solid, but there were odd gray objects sticking haphazardly out of the earth. Upon a closer inspection these were insectoid duplicates of the limb we had studied back in the village. That isn't all, I also found more mammoth tusks. They were everywhere, in all directions, a forest of limbs of various lengths and thicknesses, all of them stiff and ossified like the original.
Gregor, it sheds its limbs. Like a bear sheds its fur in the spring when its no longer useful to have.
My head spun at the revelation and I wanted to throw up. I stymied my bile, though, afraid at the thought of what the villagers might do to me if I sullied their holy ground.
We approached the rocky entrance of the cave where God was supposedly sleeping, and my apprehensions were growing. Magpie, smartly, refused entry into the cave. I noticed for the first time that journey the wooden cross he wore around his neck with a twist of hemp, and which he now gripped tightly. Nikita, as well, was cautious, but still curious, and we decided we would go in together.
The posse of villagers unpacked their equipment and made camp right there at the entrance of the cave. Their chatter had ceased, and the mood had grown serious. Several times I caught them averting their eyes from me.
It was myself, Nikita and the chieftain that went in. I felt some desire for Es to follow, so as to translate, but she was not allowed to enter. The floor of the cave was smooth, as though some ancient source of water had once flowed through here. Calcium deposits pointed down on us from the cave ceiling, a distant reach in such a large space.
At the deepest part of the cave, stuck partially in frozen mud, we found God.
The Nyurba mammoth is not unlike a massive grub. This is as accurate as I can be in my descriptions. It matches no known species from this planet, features far too many limbs as to be practicable, has a body made up of a thorax, an abdomen, a thorax again and perhaps more buried beneath the earth. It has no discernible head, and those same hairs found on the limb at the shrine back at the village cover the entirety of this body. And, yes, several mammoth tusks protrude from it. They were of different sizes, some long and curved as they should be, with others short, fat and straight. What a wonder that a creature can have so many tusks that are completely useless to it.
Nikita rushed from the chamber, so disquieted by our findings. I remained, examining the thing, wondering how we might begin to thaw the beast and cart it out of here.
The chieftain made several gestures of ritual deference before I was allowed to approach his God. I pushed on the creature, finding the flesh to be as frozen solid as I had imagined. It had been here for a long time.
After exiting the cave I held a very frank discussion with the chieftain. Might I work to free his God, to study it further?
He agreed.
The religion of Nyurba village is so specific to this one place. While other tribes in the region practice animism or have already turned to Christ, Nyurba believes that there is one God, that he is sleeping, and that when he wakes up again they will be rewarded or saved in some way. I think about going to the church and requesting of the patriarch to crack open a saint's reliquary, what his reaction would be. Certainly it wouldn't be as enthusiastic as Nyurba is.
I spoke to him that I didn't have the means to extract his God just yet, that I would need tools and shovels and fire and men. We would return to the village and make haste back to Tomsk, to collect what we needed, and return on a separate expedition next year.
That was my plan.
Last night I dreamt of it, the mammoth, or God. Sitting out here in the vast Siberian lands, my tent gone, full sky of stars overhead. God approached my tent, explored my thoughts, sniffed my hopes and fears... and he spoke to me, Gregor. God spoke to me.
I need to release him.
Your confidant,
Konstantin
Magpie's Log — 8 September, 1869
The village, again.
The cabin where our porters wait for us. Dead. Two of them.
Konstantin, Nikita — both of them are unaware of this. They assume the porters have run off and won't listen to my reasoning.
I see things: a deep scratch on the floorboards that wasn't there before, a small shard of broken glass that matches the vodka bottle Dimitri carried with him, always, their most important possessions left behind.
Es and I share our looks.
We know.
Editor's Note: This is an unsent letter written by Konstantin and was found among his other writings.
Gregor —
It is a miracle! A few of the villagers made contact with some traveling merchants a few days outside of town and purchased their entire stock! They returned with shovels, picks, lanterns, oil, civilized rations... everything I need to extract God from the earth.
I am ecstatic, though Magpie, that pour soul, has been taken with one of his paranoia spells. He has urged me more than once to leave this village before first snow, that it's dangerous to remain any longer. And didn't I say I wanted to hurry back to Tomsk?
I told Magpie to leave, if he was so inclined. He explained that he has a duty and will see it through to the end. Nikita appears caught in the middle of us, he is not so taken with our discovery as I am. I suspect that he has begun to wish he never came, that he had stayed at the Academy.
Tomorrow we travel back to the cave with sleds and carts and a larger posse of men than before. We will dig beneath the corpse and light fires to thaw it. We will chip away at the permafrost little by little, before dragging it out into the sunlight.
Then I can show them both that God is nothing more than a creature, like all of us.
Konstantin
Magpie's Log — 29 September, 1869
We are past the point of no return. We will be overwintering in Nyurba.
I stand watch on a hill overlooking the cave entrance.
The men perform the backbreaking labour required to free their idol from the frozen ground.
A light dusting of snow already covers the valley, and more is expected.
They cart out buckets of frozen dirt, throw it to the ground outside the cave, splashing the white with brown.
I have not lain eyes on the thing and I expect to never do so.
Es remains with the expedition, despite her preference to return home. Possibly she shares the same inferno curiosity as the others.
Possibly she feels honour-bound to ensure our safe return.
Respect, respect.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Magpie's Log — 9 October, 1869
One of the villagers carries the sharpened kindjal of a Cossack.
I asked him how he got it, through Es, and he said he had found it outside the village.
Just like the other equipment they found.
Outside the village is a resourceful place.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Konstantin — Field Journal Entry — 17 October 1869
A discovery made this morning:
A simple dig and thaw was enough to loosen the body from the permafrost over many weeks. On dragging the body by reindeer from its hole (it slithered out like a wet sock), I discovered the thing extended even further into the earth. It was much larger than I had anticipated, and I had to make the decision to sever it between this thorax and the next section if I were to ever get it from that cave. It cut away like sticky tar.
Like a fungus it has remained mostly underground, only sprouting a small fruiting section of itself, which is what I thought was the main body.
What is this animal? What kind of creature exists like this?
Now is a short break after many weeks of hard work.
Addendum:
Tonight we hauled God out of the cave and turned him over, seeing something incredible.
On the underside, covered by dirt this whole time, was a face. A human face!
It is the serene face of a young man. This face has no eyes, no sensory organs at all, it's only the shape of a face. The feel of a face. It is fleshy and loose but nothing exists beyond the opening for the mouth, eyes or nose, all covered in those bristle-like hairs.
Nikita cannot bare to look at it, but I must. I sit, and I stare, and I study it and wonder at its glorious creation.
The natives seem unexcited by this discovery, as though they expected it. They are quiet as field mice in the midst of a circling hawk. They look upon God with reverence, and touch him carefully, but never speak when they are close.
Magpie's Log — 18 October 1869
I don't like entering the valley, but something did catch my wandering mind.
They have their slippery devil out in the air of the world now.
I am no naturalist, but the forest of limbs, now sticking from the snow, offers a less digusting sight. I go to investigate.
Some of these limbs are like insects, thin and spindly.
Others look like cloven hooves.
There are others still that resemble the paws of a huge bear.
I have found many more mammoth tusks, as well.
This would not concern me too much.
Normally.
But I found one limb, as large as the others, that resembles a human hand. It is grey, the flesh unyielding.
When I attempted to chop it down with my wood axe, the hand grasped at the air.
I retreated to my hilly observation post. I have no intention of returning to the valley.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Konstantin — Field Journal Entry — 19 October 1869
Just as we prepared to set off and cart the body back to Nyurba, I discovered that Nikita had vanished. He has been jittery these past few weeks, and was so uncomfortable with the idea of being in the cave with God that he refused to go in, instead organizing things from outside, in the work camp.
He also contributed his own dig in the valley floor. Nikita dug, and warmed the earth, and dug some more, and he broke through the frozen ground.
Nikita found more of God. God permeates the ground of this entire valley. We don't know how far into the hills He has grown, we don't know how much of His divine body has breached this valley. If I were a well-funded expedition leader I would dynamite this whole area, uncover all of Him, bring Him into the light! We could see His full aspect!
His limbs!
My God, His limbs!
Konstantin — Field Journal Entry — 20 October 1869
Nikita is gone. Run off into the wilderness, the exposure to God too much for him to handle with his feeble mind.
Konstantin — Field Journal Entry — 21 October 1869
A quick correction my last entry: Nikita has seen the true face of God, and been welcomed into His embrace.
Some observances: The people of Nyurba dance around God, close to His skin, finding a ritual rhythm to keep Him warm with their body heat. He is awakening, the chieftain says. He will protect us from the coming flood.
Nikita, tied with bonds of hemp rope, was pulled from the wilderness and lain down before God. I asked if this was truly necessary and the chieftain said it was, that Nikita was not a true believer in God. God would absolve him of his sins. He tells me that tomorrow we will set off and bring God into another valley that knows not His divinity.
Es is nowhere to be seen. I wonder at my ability to understand the man without her.
I wonder too, about my legs, I can't seem to move them. Looking down there it's like my mind conjures a shadow so that I cannot see what has happened to them. I can't recall the last time I walked. Perhaps I never could? Perhaps I have always existed right here, in the shadow of God?
He strokes me with His hands, reassures me that everything will be alright. Water flows around me, lifting me even now, inch-by-inch toward God's smile.
Who am I to question the Lord Almighty?
Konstantin — Field Journal Entry — XX October 1869
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Editor's Note: The indecipherable glyphs on this page of Konstantin's journal are not Cyrillic, nor do they match any other worldly language.
Magpie's Log: 22 October 1869
I have seen what they did to Nikita.
And I have seen what they did to Konstantin.
I cannot tell you which is the worse fate.
Konstantin, who still breathes, I will kill with one well-placed shot from these hills.
It is the small amount of grace I can afford to offer my employer before leaving. I will fly into the taiga and pray.
That is all for now, by the grace of God.
Magpie's Log: 23 October, 1869
As I sit here, freezing in the snow,
my wounds are grave, my blood stemmed for now
They were angered at my interrupting their ritual
I made good effort in getting away
But these people, these idolizers. Faster than they should
Es waits with me, allowing me some comfort in my final moments. Her hand is on my shoulder now, as I write this, her keen eyes looking out for signs of more trouble. I pray she does not wait too long beside a dying man.
Dusk has fallen. The ground sends a shiver through my body. Es's hand is one pinprick of warmth in the field of ice that is my body.
I have a wild fantasy that after I die I will become like that thing, fused into the ground, imprisoned by the frost. Forever frozen in place
I have requested from Es that she burn my body, should she find the means.
That is all for now.
18 May 1870
Siberia
Tegi Village
Dearest wife,
We reached Tegi village today, merchant cargo lightened somewhat. All in our party are secure, healthy and safe. We rest and trade here before traveling East to our next destination and then the next village after that. You'll be happy to hear that the last of the ice has melted from the Ob River.
We did abide by the will of God when two days previous to this we helped one of His flock in dire need. She is a small young woman, native to these lands, gaunt and delirious from hunger or thirst. Lost in the bog for a long time, I suspect. I was able to decipher some words she had, but most were addled in the chaos of the moment and the wild energy with which she spoke. I understood little, but she seemed to indicate she had come from the far North and wanted us to go there, I think. There was mention of a flood of some type, and I attempted to ask her if it was the biblical flood of which she spoke, but she didn't indicate if she understood me or even heard me.
The poor creature is resting right now in a hut with the local medicine man, we have offered them what we can from our own supply. We will leave her with them as the Khanty people are far more equipped to get her home, wherever that may be. They were pleased with the cargo she towed in a sled: what looks to be a short tusk, perhaps from a youngling elephant or mammoth, accepting that as payment. Rumors abound about mammoths frozen into the ground in Siberia, and the locals harvest their corpses for trade-ivory. I think it may be worth an investigation on our part. Do you still have contact with your brother at the university in Omsk? I think this would very much be of interest to him.
The village she spoke of is called 'Nyurba' and it is on the maps. Would be an arduous journey into the far, uncivilized North, but for the academically-minded could certainly be a fruitful venture if, indeed, the mammoth is still there.
Gracefully yours,
Husband