You dig a stranger out of the snow. Everything he says is a lie. That night, someone cuts the only wire to the valley.
You are a rescue guide at an Alpine pass hospice, eleven winters without a miss. The man you dig out of today's avalanche lies about who he is. He came for someone, and he needs you to find them.
Noon, January 1894. An hour ago an avalanche came down below the pass, and your dog, Tasso, smelled a man under it.
You dig him out alive. He says he sells wine from Geneva. His boots are brand new, and Tasso backs away from them.
His notebook is full of heights, the heights of this pass. Ruedi, the head guide who taught you the snow, sees the stranger's face and stops dead.
Ruedi says he doesn't know him and holds out his hand for the notebook. The stranger whispers, "Please. Not him." Above you, the slope starts to move.
You work the dogs at the hospice of Saint Ursin, a stone house for travelers on the pass. Your first winter, a storm took your father on this same slope, and Ruedi held you back at the door.
The man Tasso found under the slide: lean, pale, dark hair long at the collar, a thin scar through one eyebrow, a gray coat a size too big, hobnail boots that have never walked a mile.
The head guide: broad, sun-dark, white stubble, a red wool cap, an ash ice axe, one fingertip missing. He stopped dead when he saw the stranger's face.
Someone at the hospice keeps every key and counts beads without praying. Keep reading.
Someone up on the col hears every message before you do. Keep reading.
Someone at the hospice talks to the dogs when he can't talk to people. Keep reading.
A snow chute under the col. Snow squeaks underfoot, and blue light glows in the dig holes.
A dog finds a buried person by scent, up to two meters down. Wind and old snow fool the nose, and a dog worked too long goes nose-blind for a day.
One telegraph line is the only fast link to the valley. When it is down, word walks, and that takes a full day.
Anyone who knocks gets a bunk and bread for three days, no questions asked. Then the prior may send them on.
The army at your gate flies your family's banner. Relief rides in forty days, if your walls and your people hold that long.
The papers say they are all dead. At 4 a.m. your headphones say six men are alive.
The pirates were still in the hold when you bought the ship, and by their code you are their captain now.
By breakfast all of London knows about the masked kiss, and three gentlemen wait in your parlor, each swearing he was the man in the mask.
