The Empire Of The Wolves

by Jean-Christophe Grangé

  She turned around. With tears in his eyes, Kudseyi was waving his hand. She hesitated for a second, then bent below the continuing gun blasts, climbed up the steps. The old man groaned in thanks. He raised his shivering, gaunt red hand, but she did not take it.

  She stood up, braced herself and took aim, like a bent bow.

  In a flash, Kudseyi understood why she had come back to Istanbul.

  Quite simply to kill him. To cut off that hatred at its source. And perhaps also to avenge a tree of life, which he had had cut off at the roots.

  He blacked out again. When he next opened his eyes, Azer was diving onto Sema. They rolled down to the foot of the steps, among the scraps of leather and pools of blood. They fought as waves of fire still continued to break through the smoke. Arms, fists, blows-but not a single cry. Just obsessive, obstinate hatred. The physical fight for survival.

  Azer and Sema. His evil brood.

  On her stomach, Sema was trying to raise her gun, but Azer was pushing down on her with all his weight. Holding her by the nape of the neck with one hand while with the other he pulled out a knife. She slipped from his grip and rolled onto her back. He lunged and stuck the blade into her belly. Sema spat out a muffled cry of blood.

  Lying on the dais, Kudseyi could see it all. His eyes, like two slow valves, were pulsing in a counterrhythm with his arteries. He prayed that he would die before the end of the fight, but he could not resist watching.

  The blade flew down, rose, then went down again, ferreting its way into her flesh.

  Serra arched up. Azer grabbed her shoulders and forced them back to the ground. He threw away his knife and plunged his hand into the open wound.

  Ismail Kudseyi drifted far away into the shifting sands of death.

  A few seconds before the end, he saw crimson hands stretched toward him, carrying their cargo…

  Sema's heart in Azer's fingers.

  EPILOGUE

  In eastern Anatolia, the snow at high altitudes begins to melt at the end of April, thus opening a path to Nemrut Dab, the highest peak of the Taurus Mountains. Tourist excursions have not yet begun, and the site remains perfectly preserved, in total solitude.

  After each mission, he looked forward to this moment when he would return to his stone gods.

  He had taken a flight from Istanbul the day before, on April 26, and had landed at Adana in the late afternoon. He had rested for a few hours in a hotel near the airport. Then, later that night, he had taken the road in a hired car.

  He was now driving eastward toward Adiyaman, having covered two hundred fifty miles. Long pastures surrounded him like flooded plains. In the darkness, he sensed their vague, supple undulations. These rippling shadows were a first step, the initial shift toward purity. He remembered the beginning of a poem he had written in his youth, in old Turkish: I have sailed the seas of greenness…

  At half past six, he drove past the village of Gaziantep, and the landscape changed. In the first glimmers of daylight, the Taurus Mountains appeared. The fluid fields became stony deserts. Bare, abrupt, red spikes poked up. Craters opened in the distance, like dried sunflowers.

  When confronted with this scene, the average traveler always feels rather apprehensive and vaguely anxious. But he loved these shades of ochre and yellow, growing deeper, brighter than the blue of the dawn. He was at home. This aridness had forged his flesh. It was the second stage of purity.

  He remembered the next line of his poem:

  Kissed the borders of stone, the empty eyes of shadow…

  When he stopped at Adiyaman, the sun was struggling to rise. At the garage in the town, he filled his gas tank himself while the employee was cleaning his windshield. He stared at the pools of iron and bronze-tinged houses laid out as far as the foothills.

  On the main avenue, he saw the Matak warehouses, his storerooms, where thousands of tons of fruit would soon be stocked before being treated, turned into jams or exported. He felt no pride at all. Such trivial ambition had never really interested him. Instead, he sensed the approach of the mountains, the nearness of the ridges…

  Three miles farther on, he turned off the main road. No more asphalt, no more signs. Just a track cut into the mountain, snaking up through the clouds. At that instant, he truly felt that he was back on native soil, amid the flanks of purple dust, the spiky grasses forming aggressive clumps, and gray-black sheep parting just enough to let him through.

  He passed his village. Women in gilded head scarves walked by, with faces of red leather, fashioned like copper trays. Wild creatures, as hard as the earth, immured in prayer and tradition, just like his mother. There might even be some members of his family among them…

  Higher up, he saw shepherds clustered along a slope, wrapped up in baggy jackets. He could see himself, twenty-five years before, sitting in their place. He still remembered the Fair Isle sweater he had worn as a coat, with its dangling sleeves, his hands pushing out a little farther each year. The stitches in the wool were the only calendar he had.

  He felt a tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers-the feeling of his hands on his shaved scalp when he was shielding himself from his father's blows. The softness of the dry fruit as he ran his hands over the surface of the grocer's large bags on his way back from the pastures. The walnuts he gathered in autumn, whose juice stained his palms all winter…

  He was now entering the veil of mist.

  Everything became white, soft, damp. The flesh of the clouds. The first clumps of snow bordered the road. A special sort of snow, impregnated with luminescent pink sand.

  Before going up the final section, he put chains on his tires, then continued. He bounced on for about another hour. The snowdrifts shone more and more brightly, assuming the shapes of languid bodies. The final stage of the Pure Way.

  I have caressed the snowy slopes Scattered with pink sand, Curved as a woman's…

  Finally, he spotted the garage at the foot of the rock. Above, the tip of the mountain remained invisible, shrouded in layers of fog.

  He got out of his car and savored the atmosphere. The silence of the snow weighed down on the scene like a block of crystal.

  He filled his lungs with icy air. Here, the altitude was over six thousand feet. There was some nine hundred feet still to climb. In preparation for the effort, he ate two chocolates. Then he set off with his hands in his pockets.

  He passed the janitor's lodge, closed until the month of May, then followed the path of stones that barely emerged from the bed of snow The climb became difficult. He had to make a detour to avoid a steep slope. He advanced, leaning sideways, his left hand on the slopes, being careful not to fall into the void. The snow crunched beneath his feet.

  He started to pant. His entire body felt strained, his mind alert. He reached the first terrace-to the east-but did not linger there. Here, the statues were too eroded. He just allowed himself a few minutes' respite on the "altar of fire"-a platform of bronze-green frozen rock, which offered a hundred-and-twenty-degree view of the Taurus Mountains.

  The sun at last graced the landscape. At the bottom of the valley could be seen red patches, yellow cracks and also clumps of green, vestiges of the plains that had created the fertility of the ancient kingdoms. Light lingered in the craters, digging out white, shimmering pools. In other places, they seemed already to be evaporating, rising up in powder, reducing each detail to a myriad of spangles. Elsewhere, the sun played off the clouds, with shadows passing across the mountains like expressions on a face.

  He was gripped by an inexpressible emotion. He could not convince himself that this was his land, that he himself belonged to that measureless beauty. It was almost as if he could see his ancestral hordes arriving over the horizon-the first Turks bringing their power and civilization to Anatolia.

  When he looked again, he saw that there were no men, no horses, but only wolves. Packs of silvery wolves, blending in with the reverberations of the earth. Divine wolves, ready to bond with mortals and so give birth to a race o
f perfect warriors…

  He continued on his path toward the western' slopes. The snow became at once thicker, lighter and smoother. He glanced back at his own footprints. They made him think of a strange script, translated from silence.

  Finally he reached the next terrace, with its Heads of Stone.

  There were five of them. Colossal forms, each measuring over seven feet tall. At the beginning, they had stood on huge bodies, at the summit of the burial mound itself But earthquakes had knocked them down. Some people had then stood them up again, and they seemed to have gained extra strength on the ground, as though their shoulders were the very flanks of the mountains.

  In the middle was Antiochus I, king of Commagene, who wanted to be buried amid these half-Greek, half-Persian gods, born of the syncretism of a lost civilization. By his side, there was Zeus-Ahura Mazdah, the god of gods, incarnate in lightning and fire; then Apollo Mithra, who demanded that men be sanctified with the blood, of bulls; Tyche, who, beneath her crown of corn and fruit, symbolized the kingdom's fertility…

  Despite their power, they had youthfully placid expressions on their faces, mouths like fountains, curly beards… Above all, their large blank eyes seemed to be dreaming. Even the worn and snow-covered guardians of the sanctuary, the Lion, king of beasts, and the Eagle, lord of the skies, added to the mansuetude of the parade.

  It was not the right time yet. The mist was too thick for the miracle to happen. He tightened his scarf and thought of the monarch who built this sepulchre. Antiochus Epiphanius I. His reign had been so prosperous that he had thought himself blessed by the gods to the point of becoming one of them, and he had had himself buried at the top of the holy mountain.

  Ismail Kudseyi had also mistaken himself for a god, imagining that he had the power of life or death over his subjects. But he had forgotten the essential point. He was a mere instrument of the cause, just a link in the Turan. By neglecting that fact, he had betrayed himself and the Grey Wolves. He had broken the laws that he had once represented. He had become degenerate and vulnerable. That was why Sema had managed to kill him.

  Sema. Bitterness suddenly dried his mouth. He had succeeded in eliminating her, but it had been no triumph. The entire chase had been a waste, a failure that he had attempted to redress by sacrificing his prey according to ancestral law. He had sacrificed her heart to the stone gods The fog was lifting.

  He knelt in the snow and waited.

  In a few seconds, the mist would drift away, wrapping those giant heads for a final instant, drawing them up with its lightness, implicating them in its movement-thus giving them life.

  Their features would lose their clarity and contours, then float above the snows. It was impossible at such times not to think of a forest. Impossible not to see them advancing… Antiochus first, then Tyche and the other immortals behind him, surrounded, beautified and enveloped in icy vapors. Finally, in that moment of suspense, their lips would open and they would speak.

  As a child, he had often witnessed this miracle. He had learned to catch their murmurings and understand their language, which was mineral, ancient, incomprehensible to anyone who had not been born there, at the foot of the mountains.

  He closed his eyes.

  That day, he prayed for the gods to grant him their forgiveness. He was also hoping for a fresh oracle. Misty words that would reveal his future. What would his stone mentors whisper to him now?

  "Freeze."

  The man did so. He thought he was hearing voices, but the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against his temple.

  The voice repeated, in French, "Freeze." A woman's voice.

  He managed to turn his head and made out a long figure, dressed in a parka and black ski trousers. Her dark hair, squeezed into her woolly hat, spilled out over her shoulders in two streams of curls.

  He was baffled. How could this woman have followed him all this way? "Who are you?" he asked, in French.

  "My name is of no importance."

  "Who sent you?"

  "Sema."

  "But Sema's dead." He could not accept the fact that he had been jumped like this during his secret pilgrimage.

  The voice went on. "I'm the woman who helped her in Paris. Who allowed her to escape from the police, to recover her memory, to come back to Turkey to confront you."

  The man nodded. Yes, right from the start, there had been a link missing from the story. Sema Hunsen could not have eluded him for such a long time-someone must have helped her.

  He blurted out a question, at once regretting his haste: "And the dope… where is it?"

  "In a cemetery. In funeral urns. A little white powder amid all the gray powder…"

  He nodded again. He recognized Sema's ironic touch, the way she had practiced her trade as if it was a game. It rang true-like a tinkle of crystal. "How did you find me?"

  "Sema wrote me a letter. She explained everything. Her origins. Her training. Her specialty. She also gave the names of her former friends-and current enemies."

  As she spoke, he noticed a sort of accent, a strange lengthening of final syllables. For a second, he looked at the statues' white eyes. They had not awoken yet.

  "Why are you getting involved in all this?" he asked, perplexed. "The story's over. And it finished without your help."

  "It's true. I got here too late. But I can still do something for Sema.”

  “What's that?"

  "Stop you from pursuing your monstrous quest."

  He smiled and looked straight at her. She was a large woman, very dark and very beautiful. Her face was pale, crossed by numerous wrinkles, but instead of lessening her allure, these furrows seemed to frame and define it. Such a spectacle took his breath away.

  She went on. "I read the newspaper articles in Paris. About the murders of three women. I studied the mutilations you inflicted on them. I'm a psychiatrist. I could give complicated names to your obsessions, your hatred of women… but what would be the point?"

  The man understood that she had come there to kill him, that she had tracked him down so as to eliminate him. He was to die at the hands of a woman. But that was impossible. He concentrated on the stone heads. The light would soon bring them to life. Would the giants tell him how to react?

  "And you followed me all this way?" he asked to gain some time.

  "I had no difficulty locating your company in Istanbul. I knew that you'd go there sooner or later, despite the arrest warrant, despite your situation. When you finally appeared, surrounded by your bodyguards, I kept you in my sights. I followed you, watched you for days. And I realized that I stood no chance of getting near you, and even less of taking you by surprise…"

  A strange determination emanated from her words. She was beginning to interest him. He glanced at her again. Through the mist of her breath, another detail struck him. Her overly red mouth, made violet by the cold. Suddenly, that organic color stirred up his hatred for women once more. Like the others, she was a blasphemous creature. An exhibition of temptation, sure of her power…

  “And then a miracle happened," she continued. "One morning, you left your hiding place. Alone. And you went to the airport… All I had to do was follow in your steps and buy a ticket for Adana. I supposed that you were going to visit some underground laboratory or training camp. But why go alone? I thought you might be visiting your family. But that seemed unlike you. The only family you now have is a pack of wolves. So what were you up to? In her letter, Sema described you as a hunter from the east, from the region of Adiyaman, who is obsessed with archaeology. While waiting for the departure, I bought some maps and guidebooks. I discovered the site of Nemrut Dagi and its statues. The cracks in the stone reminded me of those disfigured faces. I then realized that these sculptures are your model. The model that structures your insanity. You were going on a pilgrimage to this inaccessible sanctuary. Face-to-face with your own madness."

  He had recovered his calm. Yes, he appreciated this woman's singular nature. She had succeeded in hunting him down on his
own territory. She had, so to speak, entered into the significance of his pilgrimage. Maybe she was even worthy of being his killer…

  He glanced one more time at the statues. Their whiteness now glowed in the sunlight. They had never seemed so strong to him yet so distant. Their silence was confirmation. He had lost. He was no longer worthy of them.

  He breathed in deeply and nodded toward them. "Can you feel the power of this place?" Still kneeling, he picked up a handful of pink snow and crushed it through his fingers. "I was born a few miles from here, in the valley. At the time, there were no tourists. I used to come and sit here alone on the terrace. At the foot of these statues, I forged my dreams of power and fire."

  "Of blood and murder."

  He nodded and smiled.

  "We are working for the return of the Turkish empire. We are fighting for the supremacy of our race in the East. Soon, the frontiers of Central Asia will break down. We speak the same language. We have the same cultural roots. We are all descendants of Asena, the white wolf"

  "You're just feeding your madness with myths."

  "A myth is a reality that has become a legend. A legend can become real. The Wolves are back. The Wolves will save the Turkish people."

  "You're just a murderer. A murderer who doesn't the know the price of blood."

  Despite the sun, he felt numb, paralyzed by the cold. To his left, he pointed at the ridge of snow, stretching away in the vibrant air. "Long ago, on that terrace, warriors were blessed with the blood of bulls in the name of Apollo-Mithra. It is from this tradition that baptism derives-Christian baptism. Grace is born from blood."

  With her free hand, the woman pushed back her black locks. The increasingly bitter cold was digging out and reddening her wrinkles. But that precise geography just made her all the more magnificent. She cocked her gun. In that case, this is a moment for rejoicing. Because blood is about to flow."

  "Wait." He still did not understand her audacity, her perseverance. No one takes risks like this. And especially not for a woman you saw for only a couple of days. What did Sema mean to you?"