The study is small and very dim, lit mostly by the radiance coming from the fireplace. Picture frames press tightly to walls, their images and writings too dark to see. Latino artifacts, religious icons, and Mayan antiquities nestle in the shared space of shelves and cabinets, arranged in no particular grouping, with travel mementos and College sports trophies. They stand out in sharp relief, seemingly alive, flickering as the fire does. The incongruous clicking of computer keys rises above the crackling fire and the only other light source washes out of a computer screen, illuminating the man in front of it in an electronic white halo.

     The clicking stops, and the man sits back for a moment in thought, all the while staring into the brilliance of the screen. With a resignation that seems overwrought with sadness, he leans forward and again begins to type. His face, lit in an intensity of white light, is set in exquisite emotional turmoil. Concerted effort forces his concentration.

     The words stream across the monitor, dark symbols against the brilliance of a modern age, giving meaning to the memories that flow from his mind, through each clicking key and out into the world for all to see and, yes, to judge:

"I write this account out of love. There can be no mistake about this, for the crimes I have made against the world stem from that love. What I have just done, to end this tortured history, this too was out of love. But, are these words just my cry of atonement, or for forgiveness from those who would pass judgement? Maybe both, maybe neither. For truly, nothing can be forgiven. It has been done. Possibly, in the morning or the mornings after, the truths will seem unbelievable, and so the pain a little more bearable.

“I will tell my-, no, his story from the beginning. The beginning for me, as it were, but the rebirth for him. My name is Sergio Carerra. Not a name to be attached to heroic feats or memorable myths, but a good name. Quite adequate for a doctor.

"Although this story has its origins two hundred years past with quite a famous name, he, in fact, wasn't a doctor at all. A simple misnomer brought on by the advent of cinema. Who knows where I will stand when added to this infamous history?

"The true beginning for me was probably the same as for most people: The high school literature class, reading the one book everyone really wanted to read. But for the world, and myself, this accounting begins in the Arctic, up around Greenland. I wasn't there, but some tourists from a cruise ship were."

*

     The helicopter arced across the brilliance of the flawless blue sky, a speck of silver glitter wafting on arctic winds. Turning toward the great glacial wall, where history melts away at 300 feet a year, the copter stopped its decent at a thousand feet. Inside the overheated, vibrating machine, the muffled rhythm of the helicopter blades timed the pulses of every man, woman and child. The luminous celestial blue light colliding with the choppy, ice cold, unholy terror-filled blue of the water, filled all those wide-eyes with a radiant splendor usually reserved for painters or poets. This, almost subliminal glory, was cut off in a painful, eye-squinting instant as the chopper cleared the height of the glacial wall to be engulfed in a reflective, white light intensity on its way up the primordial frozen river below. The view as they descended gave them entry into a heavenly wilderness of ethereal luster, accented by glimpses into treacherous glacial gashes. A kilometer from the edge of ice and sea, the helicopter touched down, a plume of white billowing up, obstructing the view, then a slight, jarring thunk.

     The pilot flicked all switches off, and the engine torqued down whining a desperate cry. The white void everyone stared into slowly dissipated, revealing a magical frozen ocean of ice, its waves frozen in an instant, preserved for eons for all to see.

     As soon as the doors opened, the half-dozen children bounded out of the copter, releasing pent-up, ear-splitting shrieks into the chill air. The three sets of parents followed cautiously, outfitted from head to foot in tundra gear, standing stiff and bulky, moving their bodies as a unit as they looked around in awe and wonder. The crisp, but not so cold, clean air, breathed subtly sweet, like gumdrops.

     Only moments passed, as pairs of adult eyes met one another, before they realized, in unison, that if they didn’t shed the multiple layers of clothing they were swathed in, they might all spontaneously combust. They glanced over at the pilot, slipping from the cockpit, wearing jeans and a typically worn bomber jacket.

     The children, dressed in high-fashion parkas with colors bright enough to melt the ice around them, immediately tried to make snowballs.

     "Hey, this is ice!" a little boy squealed.

     "You can't make snowballs outta this," another complained. "It's too hard!"

     A five-year-old, with a great chunk of frozen crystals in her, smiling mouth, happily found her own solution.

     “Tastes like a Snow Cone!”

     A motherly hand quickly smacked the pure ice from her hands. “Dirty!” she snapped, scowling at her daughter.

     A slightly older girl, scrunching up her face, threw out her revelation as an accusatory whine, "Is this all there is, is a bunch of ice?"

     The gleaming ice floe, with its undulant surface converging somewhere in the distance and winding gracefully between granite cliffs, traced its way back to the North Pole. To the sides of this frozen sea, ice mountains and granite peaks competed to scrape the sky.

     The expanse of the glacier dropped off suddenly into the ocean, leaving a clear, magically magnified view over its deep blue turbulence. Dark and opaque as the sky was bright and translucent, both stretched out forever to blend in a frosty haze at the edge of heaven.

     The twisted ruts and yawning crevices seen from the air were now hidden in the gleam and sparkle of reflected sunlight. Huge ice towers, indiscernible from above, were scattered like glistening blue-white fairy castles.

     The children, fascinated by whatever wasn't near at hand, began to stray.

     "Now children, don't wander. Those hills are much further away than they look," spoke a seemingly knowledgeable mother, "And there are deep ravines to fall into, as well."

     "Give it a break, Claire, will you? They're not stupid, you know," acidly offered her husband.

     The pilot interceded with neutral authority.

     "Safety is always a good idea, especially out here. Your eyes can easily deceive you. It's best to stay close by.”

     Claire gave Fred her best "I told-you-so" look.

     Off by herself, their little girl of seven had made a gigantic ice ball and was scoping out a little boy she intended for a target. She let fly- Thwack!- a square hit on the back of the head!

     The tyke let out a wail, spun around in fury, spotted the little sniper and gave chase. On the opposite side of the copter, they ran away from everyone. Puffing like a little steam engine, the little girl easily outran her victim. He soon gave up and turned back.

     She glanced over her shoulder, stopping when she saw him turning away. The copter and the people were now only little black specks against the painfully brilliant white. She looked around, surveying her surroundings. Nearby, ice towers over fifty feet high were formed in fluted shapes allowing one to walk into them like miniature canyons. She looked back, once again, to the little specks around the helicopter. She chewed lightly on her lower lip, a decision making function. No thoughts of rebellion or wiliness crossed her mind. Just curiosity and, I’m a big girl, now. I’ll only be a couple of minutes. Won’t go too far.

     In she went.

     The smooth, slick walls stretched upward to the sunlight they reflected with such intensity the light appeared to emanate from within the ice itself. The canyon walls were three to four feet apart, with an easily walkable path snaking through. She walked and skipped along, humming through pursed lips in a futile attempt at whistling. More trails intersected from the left and the right, some splitting the one she traveled. A trick of the enchanting light would draw her down one path or another to investigate. Suddenly, she was lost in the beautiful shimmering maze. She began running in a blind panic.

     The adults, near hysteria, and the children, now subdued, gathered near the helicopter. The pilot pulled some rope from a storage compartment and hefted it onto his shoulder, then picked up a pickaxe lying at his feet.

     "Listen, let's keep under control, people," he said, "She couldn't have gone very far. And please don't think the worst. We chose this place because of its relative safety."

     "But, not totally safe, not totally," a nervous father interceded.

     The pilot glanced around the group of expectant faces. "OK, one of you stay here with the children; the rest come with me." Then he added, "And please, do exactly as I say."

     The parents hugged their children with an intensity they never realized they had, then headed out toward the ice towers in a tight bundle trying to follow as closely as possible in the pilots footsteps.

     The lost little girl was now crying as she stumbled along, tears steaming down her red puffy cheeks. She came upon a fork in the path, like so many others she ran blindly past, and stopped. The two ice canyons she had to choose from were virtually identical. Fear and indecision rippled across her face, and she let out a shrill, piercing scream, stomping her feet in frustration.

     She went several feet down one path, craning her neck for a better look, then turned back and took the other. Some seconds into this path, she came to another split. She burst out crying hard again and slumped against the ice wall, sliding to a sitting position. Sobbing prayers poured from her to the only deity she knew for sure: mommy.

     “I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I promise! I’ll do everything you tell me, right away, even before you tell me. I’ll be nice to everybody and never make mommy and daddy fight again. Oh please find me, oh please find me!”

     She looked through wet eyes down the two paths from her new vantagepoint. Something caught her eye. Her whimpering slowed to a few involuntary hiccups. She slowly stood. Her eyes fixed and trance-like, she slowly started down one of the paths. Several dozen yards in, she stopped, gazing up in wonder.

     Two couples came together again after an initial, but fruitless, search. They shook their heads wordlessly, their angst expressed by the creases between their brows. The pilot appeared from an ice canyon and trudged toward them.

     "I'm sure you can see now why you shouldn't go further than the first split of the paths," he said. "It's extremely easy to get confused. I'll have to cut markers as we go.

     "Mr. and Mrs. Lyons, would you both come with me. Mr. and Mrs. Kurinski, why don't the two of you try yelling for Tristin at each entrance. But, don't go in if she answers. Tell her stay put and mark the entrance, then wait for us. Understood?"

     The Kurinski’s nodded in silent unison.

     All turned and started in their respective directions when, from out of a nearby canyon, came Tristin! Her face was bright and smiling, and all that remained of her tears were the salt tracks down her chubby cheeks.

     The Lyons, ran to their daughter with screams of joy, falling to their knees, grabbing her in great hugs.

     "Oh honey, you scared us to death!" her father fairly whispered. "What were you thinking?"

     The others approached and gathered around. Tristin looked up and around at all the concerned faces and smiled.

     "I was lost and scared, but then the man in the ice showed me the way out."

     Everyone looked at each other, then crowded in closer.

     "Man in the ice?" her mother asked.

     "Yes, Mommy," Tristin answered, her voice sparkling. "He was pointing."

     The pilot squeezed through and hunkered down to her level.

     "You saw someone frozen in the ice, Tristin?" he asked calmly, seriously.

     She nodded her head silently. He looked at her parents, who shrugged and then at the others towering above him.

     "Could you show us where you saw him, honey?"

     With Tristin leading the way, the pilot and her father followed close behind as they entered the canyon from which she had appeared. At every branch in the path, the pilot hacked an arrow in the ice with his pick.

     Tristin glanced up and back to the pilot, smiling, "I don't think it's too very much further."

     She and her father disappeared around a corner while the pilot cut another arrow.

     "Here he is!" came her shout from some distance down the canyon.

     "Oh my God!" overlapped her father's incredulous gasp.

     The pilot stopped in mid-swing of his axe and broke into a run down the curving trail of the canyon, came around the corner and skidded to a stop, looking up in astonishment.

     "See, I told you he was pointing," Tristin pronounced proudly.

     There, frozen deep within the blue-white swirls of ice, was an incredibly huge man, his entire bulk covered in furs with only the vaguest impression of a face visible. It was hard to say how big the man was, for it could have been a trick of magnification from the ice. One thing, though, was certain. His arm was outstretched and pointing.

end of chapter one