Northwestern Kazakhstan, circa 1991

This was the fifth ewe he had lost in less than a fortnight. Mukhtar’s star was definitely not on the rise this season. And even worse, they had all died birthing their lambs so the loss was a double blow, a loss he could not afford, that none of them could these days.

The dogs had found the ewe first, sniffing and whining, circling warily around an outcropping of the granite rocks that dotted this place where the wide open steppes gradually melted into hills and stony peaks. Mukhtar had only looked down at the remains, his face as stony as the granite that made up these hills. The ewe rested in pool of its own blood, a dark red stain that had soaked into the soil. The lamb had been drug some distance away and partially devoured by predators. Yet enough remained to tell Mukhtar that this one, much like all the others, had been hideously malformed. Its mother had to bled to death, probably shortly after delivering the afterbirth. He had seen that before, far too many times now.

He patted one of the dogs as it pressed its nose against him. The poor beast looked guilty, as if somehow believing the ewe and her lamb’s death to be its fault. It is not you, but the poison that is in the air and in the earth, which now seems to spread farther and farther.

It was a poison they could not see, nor smell, one they had no way of being sure just how far it had spread or even to where. Yet they all knew where it came from. The leftover legacy of decades of an evil that the Russians had brought with them, an evil they had ruthlessly and shamelessly practiced on the ‘free riders’, the Kazakhs, descendants of those mighty horse-lords, the Scythians that may have been the inspiration for the Greek’s tales of Amazons.

Like most nomadic people, the Kazakhs had a strong folklore tradition. Mukhtar been raised on a steady diet of tales woven from the fabric of oppression, of the indignities visited on the land and the people of the steppes. The mighty khans now only rode in campfire tales. Mukhtar’s grandfather had passed on numerous tales of things the Russians had done. In the time of the Russian’s last czar Mukhtar’s grandfather had been part of the revolt that had taken place. Traditionally exempt from Russian military service, the government had changed its mind and attempted to draft the Kazakhs into labour units. The infamous (at lest in Kazakh eyes) General Koropatkin had stepped in and drove the rebels from their lands and then gave those lands to Russian settlers who then put the steppes to the plow. Mukhtar remembered the old man shaking his head sadly, tears welling up in his clouded eyes.

His grandfather had said as bad as the days under the czars had been, those that followed were worse, much worse - the Bolsheviks. He cursed Stalin as tool of the devil, maybe even a demon in human guise, for there was no other way to explain a man so evil. Stalin, he said, had been bent on destroying them utterly, on stealing their very livelihood from them. Ever and ever had the Ju:z, their tribe, moved across the great steppes, their vast herds with them, his grandfather would tell him. He loved to tell Mukhtar of the yurt he had been born in, of his first horse. ‘This is the way things had always been done,’ his voice trembling as he continued, ‘and the steppes, they had always provided. But the Russians they came and only saw a land idle. The grass they could not abide and they brought their plows ...’

When Mukhtar had been little he had always clung to his brother for the next part of the tale, sometimes even covering his ears. It was too horrible to be believed, for it was not enough for that they brought their peasants to put the steppes under the plow, they now forced the Kazakhs to give up their herds and to become farmers, too. ‘But many of us refused, slaughtering our herds before the Bolsheviks could take them from us. And then they wanted us to raise pigs, too.’ A collective gasp from the audience (even if they had heard the tale a hundred times before) always followed that last statement. There were few greater insults than to ask them to raise pigs! ‘A horrible famine followed, for the little land they allowed us was not enough. The herds died in droves and the people soon after. Some fled to China, others to Afghanistan and even Mongolia. But some of us remained. And still remain,’ the old man would say, nodding his head grimly. Mukhtar could still vividly remember the old man’s funeral. He would never again see so many of his kinfolk gathered in one place again. It had been more than three decades past, but long enough for the old man to witness the building of the worst evil yet to come. It was the evil that was now killing off Mukhtar’s herds along with the herds of others, an evil that was also slowly poisoning and weakening his people, an evil that he felt would eventually kill them all.

He had not yet been born on August 6, 1945, but his Mukhtar’s father had been a boy of around ten on that day. His father could always recall the time when they first learned what had happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There had been hushed, awed and horrified murmurings throughout the village. What kind of weapon could do such a thing? And why would anyone want to make such a thing? More heated discussions were carried out about mankind having such power. Everyone had worried and wondered, little knowing that in two years that they too, like the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would come to know all too intimately the power and the horror of the nuclear age.

Mukhtar left the remains of the ewe and lamb behind for there was nothing worth salvaging at this point. Whistling to the dogs, he set about gathering up the rest of his flock and getting them back on the trail and into one of the valleys where there was still grass. His bones ached horribly, and he wished he still had his horse. It had died last fall and he did not have anything he could afford to barter for a new one.

It felt odd to walk after a lifetime spent on horseback. His kin had fled into the hills and mountains on the northeast edges of Kazakhstan and into parts of Mongolia in an effort to not only find food but to preserve their way of life. It was a terrible irony that now that many of the Russians had been forced into the nomad’s way of life that their government had tried so hard to stamp out. The steppes were again home to villages on the move, to camels and horses, to the great yurts. The Russians starved and died while the Kazakhs survived. It was an ephemeral sort of victory. Rumours flowed and ebbed on trade and black market routes - but they all said the same thing. Earth no longer belonged to humanity. They were simply here on borrowed time.

Mukhtar remembered the first time when he learned what it was that had really brought the Soviet empire to its knees. Everyone in his village had laughed for days afterwards when they first heard the rumors and stories. It was simply too absurd to have been believed. Yet ...

Mukhtar’s cousin, Nursultan, had led the two strangers into where their village was encamped at dawn one night. He could see at once that this three, bedraggled strangers were not Kazakh or even Mongolian. They were too pale, too tall. A closer look showed that they were soldiers, or had been at one time. Recruits into the Red Army by the look of their faded uniforms. They could not have been older than their late teens or early twenties, quite young and obviously quite terrified.

Nursultan led his two ‘guests’ to his yurt and ushered them in. By then a very curious crowd had begun to gather. Who were these soldiers? How did they get here? What did they want? Past dealings with the Red Army were not likely to make them welcome here, but guest laws were still held sacred amongst their people. Besides, Nursultan was known as a man of eminent good sense and could always be relied upon for good counsel. So he must have had good reason to bring them here ... but what?

Nursultan held up his hand for silence as he began to be peppered with questions from all sides. There was no reason to keep their voices low; the Kazakhs might learn the language of the Soviets, but never was the reverse true. First, said the cousin, someone must go down the southern passage of the river valley and fetch back a vehicle which would be found there. Bring strong horses to help pull. Second, continued the cousin, these men have come to us not as soldiers but as men in need of refuge. Gesturing that he would tell speak more with them later, the cousin went back into his yurt to attend his guests.

Mukhtar had been a member of the party that went to look for the soldiers’ vehicle. It was a dun-coloured jeep, army issue, a faded red star on its hood. From the looks of things the soldiers had been using it as a sort of mechanical pack-animal. They could see a tent, canteens, canned foods, blankets, evidence enough that these men had been living out of their jeep. Could they be defectors? Questions were bandied back and forth between the men, leading to much rampant speculation. Defectors seemed the most likely answer, yet why would Mukhtar’s cousin help defectors? That was of no interest to them. Indeed to harbor defectors would invite the kind of attention they desperately wanted to avoid out here. They had fled the oppressive hand of the early Bolsheviks and they certainly did not wish to have the Bolshevik’s descendants reaching their fingers into their mountains to seek them out once again.

It was past noon when they returned with the jeep. A crowd had gathered around Nursultan’s yurt and after leaving the jeep on the outskirts of the village, the retrieval party made their way to the yurt where they were quickly ushered into its cool, dark confines. The two soldiers were laying on some cushions, their bodies and eyes drooping heavily from exhaustion. One of them, a young man with a bad sunburn and a shock of pale yellow hair, was addressing some of the men gathered in the yurt. There were some men in the village who could speak and understand enough Russian to converse with these soldiers. Mukhtar was one of them and he moved closer so he could hear what this soldier had to say.

He found himself frowning in puzzlement and disbelief at what this young soldier had to say. The young man spoke in between swigs of water from a canteen, water he gulped down eagerly. His voice was hoarse and quite in earnest, though his words were unbelievable.

“It is done. Finished. I would not have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. We were patrolling the outer fringes of the Polygon when suddenly the sky seemed to turn red.” Another swig, and he continued on with his fantastic tale, “Red as blood. Sounds of explosions and screams. We took up our weapons and drove toward the gates. We could not raise anyone on the radio. Nothing but static.” The young man paused, drawing in a deep breath. Mukhtar noticed how thin these men were, the way their uniforms hung from them like limp rags. The young soldier closed his eyes and was silent for a while before resuming his tale. “It was like the gates of Hell had burst open and all the demons poured out. Men had come streaming toward the gate, battering it down, screaming and yelling. The noise was awful.” The soldier blanched visibly at the memory of his terrified comrades. “They ran past us. Their eyes ... it was terrible, they were not seeing us. But that was not the worst. The worst was seeing what had made them run away.”

Suddenly the other soldier began to gesture frantically and let forth a burst of rapid-fire Russian that was hard for Mukhtar to follow. He thought the man said something about monsters. The first soldier gave his comrade a sharp look, but then nodded in a resigned sort of way. “Feodorvski speaks the truth. We thought there had been at first there had been an ‘accident’ ...” A murmur ran through the Kazakh tribesman. Even here they had heard stories of what went on in Semipalatinsk’s Polygon. “Or that somehow the Americans had come.”

The soldier called Feodorvski spoke out again. Although both men were haggard and gaunt, their eyes haunted, this one seemed to have been especially traumatized by what he had seen that day. “Monsters. With fire. Like dragons from stories. But they’re not supposed to be real?” He said this last part almost pleadingly, as if hoping someone could tell him he had imagined all of it.

Had these men been exposed to something that day that made them hallucinate bizarre things? Mukhtar could well believe the Soviets would do such a thing to their own men. They had no regard for anything or anyone. They were godless these Soviets. Mukhtar shuddered to think what kind of punishment awaited them in the pits of Hell. He knew once these Russians had been Christian, fellow worshipers of God, but when the Czar and his family were murdered and these Bolsheviks or Soviets, or whatever they had decided to call themselves, they persecuted people of faith, scoffed at them, and did other far worse things.

One of the tribesman who understood Russian, had begun to shake his head in disbelief and laughed. “Monsters? What kind of fools do you take us for? Monsters, indeed.” The other men chuckled, greatly amused at such a fantastic notion, trying to cover for a vague feeling of unease that had begun to creep into their minds.

Late into the night they continued to question these young soldiers, cajoling them, mocking them, but the young men never wavered from their story. They could not be shamed into changing or modifying it in the least. After a couple of days and rest and with some trading of supplies and good, the two soldiers had left the village. The tribesmen had wanted to know where they were headed, but the soldiers only looked at them sadly and said ‘far away’. The young men had left sometime the next day, leaving behind them a months of gossip, and a fantastic tale to be related at family get-togethers. But the tales had only just begun.

Eventually the tribe had picked up and moved out of the mountains and into their old grazing lands. Something had definitely caused the Russians to flee. Their bases and compounds that had dotted the steppes like boils, an unchecked plague had been either destroyed or abandoned. The stories of monsters were everywhere. Monsters had slaughtered Red Army forces, had drained the nuclear facilities of energy, had ripped missiles from their underground silos. Semipalatinsk’s buildings were only a pile of rubble now, charred concrete and cinder blocks. All around it the ground was cracked and smoking, noxious chemicals pouring forth great, dark plumes of smoke. It infected the clouds, turning the rain into a poison that seeped into the ground and from there continued to spread unchecked. The tales of monsters had ceased to be funny anymore.

Nothing human could have done such things.

Survival had become the order of the day. There wasn’t time to sit and muse on who or what had done this level of destruction. For a time the herds had grown fat, grazing on the steppes that the Soviets had fled from, steppes that were once again the domain of the Kazakh tribesmen. But the noxious evil left behind by the fleeing Russians had now begun to kill the grass, to turn streams and lakes into pits of liquid so noxious people were made ill by the very smell of them. And famine was again stalking the lands.

Monsters or no, Mukhtar still had a long day of work ahead. He would probably have to spend the night here once again. His flock was herded down one of the well worn mountain trails that led into the valleys, his dogs darting in and out, rounding up the stragglers. Late in the afternoon, when the sun was beginning to sink in the west, its fading light coloring the granite hills a dark red-orange Mukhtar paused to say his prayers and to eat. The sheep foraged for the tough grass that grew in ever thinning patches in this valley. A mountain stream that wound its way across the valley floor was still cold and clear. Fish could even still be caught here in this stream.

It was easy to sit and relax, to let his worries slide away from him. It got cold down in the valleys even as it did in the mountains. After lighting a campfire, Mukhtar stretched in front of it, singing softly to himself. The dogs gathered around, the warmth from their bodies taking some of the sting out of the night air, the sound of their breathing some of the sting out of the loneliness.

When morning finally dawned their was a light frost on the ground. Mukhtar was awakened neither by the chill of the dawn air nor by the sun that was struggling through the sky even now. One of his dogs was licking at his face, whining softly. Sitting up, rubbing the sleep out of his eye, Mukhtar then noticed all the dogs were acting strange. Something had them greatly upset. Looking even closer, he saw that his favourite bitch was missing. She was past six years old, but was still not only an excellent herder, but also a fine breeder. Those of her pups that survived into adulthood were proving themselves to be as competent as their mother. Mukhtar had already been able to trade several of the pups last year for numerous goods and the year before that he had even been able to trade one of the pups for a couple of goats.

Standing up, he began to whistle frantically for the missing dog. He could not afford to lose her, not now. The rest of the dogs skittered around nervously, whining louder. They seemed especially distressed by a pile of boulders that been dislodged by a landslide. It must have happened earlier in the year, probably during the heavy rains they had had two months earlier.

A puzzled look on his face, he began to climb up the large pile of rocks and boulders. Something is not right here. The hairs on his neck prickled uncomfortably. Calling softly to the missing dog Mukhtar heard a soft whine coming from what sounded like inside the rocks. Calling again, he climbed up a little higher. Something was definitely not right here ...

Suddenly a large rock came loose under Muktar’s hand, triggering another landslide smaller rocks and pebbles flowing down in a flood of grey. A blast of rank air rose up from a gaping hole that was now revealed. He involuntarily raised his hand to ward away the strange smell that was coming from the black hole.

A cave? Hidden?

The hole was too neat though, too perfectly formed to be a natural phenomenon. Reaching a hand in Mukhtar could feel that the floor and ceiling of this ‘cave’ were as smooth as glass. He could also still hear the plaintive cries of his missing dog emanating from this fathomless pit.

One part of him wanted to turn and get as far away from here as possible, but he just couldn’t leave his most valuable dog behind. She was still alive. He didn’t know what her injuries might be, but he had to try to save her. Clambering carefully down the pile of rubble, he hastily grabbed cloth, oil and a good sturdy tree limb to make an impromptu torch. The flames would be easily extinguished by a anything more than a soft breeze but he prayed it would hold long enough for him to get to his dog and then to get out.

The ‘cave’ was more of a tunnel, wide enough to admit a man, but only just. It slanted down, through the hillside. His dog’s voice began to echo oddly into the tunnel as Mukhtar began to make his way through the dark towards her. A sharp, metallic tang filled his nostrils. What was this place? It was a strong testament of the value Mukhtar placed on this dog that he was willing to crawl through this strange, pitch black tunnel to find her.

After minutes of moving through the pitch black, feeling nothing but the slick walls of the tunnel, seeing nothing but an endless void of black, light slowly began to fill his eyes. A strange, unnatural light. His torch was secure in one hand and unlighted. He hadn’t dared ignite it in such a narrow space. Yet he could now see quite clearly the walls of the tunnel. It was made up of panels of metal welded together and smoothed.

Sliding down the last few feet, Mukhtar suddenly found himself in a huge man-made cavern. Illumination was provided by dim lights running along the edge of the floor. Clouds of dust puffed into the air as he glanced around, eyes wide with fear.

It wasn’t the sight of his dog lying with her left foreleg twisted under her, nor was it the sight of the bones of animals lying scattered around the floor of this cavern, clearly the leftovers of some predator’s dinner that had drenched him a sudden cold sweat.

Though he had never seen one, Mukhtar knew exactly what this cave had been constructed to house. It was something he had begun to pray fervently was just a vision, a bizarre trick being played between his eyes and his mind. The Soviets had scattered these all across the steppes, hiding them in underground caves they had scooped and hollowed out of the ground. He had never imagined they would have the daring, the gall to bring them here into the hills. But they had, and here before his eyes was the proof. It towered above him, some seventy feet tall, a phallic-shaped instrument of death. The ‘monsters’ that had toppled the Soviets had plundered their ICBM’s, the ballistic missiles, leaving in their wake empty holes. His hand trembling, Mukhtar reached out and touched a finger lightly to the cold metallic surface. They missed one ...

Layers and layers of dust and dirt gave proof that no one had been here for years. The generators were still running though, still powering the basic needs of this underground silo. With a sickening lurch to his stomach Mukhtar realized this missile could still possibly launch, could still be used as the weapon of mass destruction that was intended to be.

Carefully wrapping his injured dog in his robes, he resolved never to speak of what he had seen here, to never come to this valley again and pray that no one else got curious enough to see what this cave was hiding.