Sacrifice 628-4 had been walking across the ice for three days. He was cold, horribly cold, and he had only one piece of seal jerky left in his pack. He didn’t know how long a sacrifice was meant to walk on the surface before the Great Tizheruk consumed him – no-one knew – so they had provisioned him with the same supplies they gave every sacrifice, three days’ food and water. Sacrifice 628-4 had rationed it to last four days.

On the second morning of his trek he woke to see an arctic wolf, big as a pony, watching him from several paces away. He had brandished his small bone knife (the only tool allowed to a sacrifice) and shouted in a brave voice, but the wolf had made no move. It had simply followed him as he walked.

It was like that through the second and third days. A wolf would appear and join the growing pack that flanked and followed him. At night 628-4 thought he heard a few of them slink away – perhaps to hunt – although he never rose to see for himself. And though there were more than a few red muzzles in the morning, the wolves did not share their kill with him.

It was morning on the fourth day and 628-4 chewed his last piece of seal jerky slowly. And walked. The faint tracks his feet left in the light dusting of snow were quickly covered by wisps that blew across his path. The ice felt different than it had in previous days. 628-4 suspected that he had left solid ground and all that was between him and the abyss of the sea was a thin sheet of ice. He ignored the thought. He ignored the wolves. What else was he to do?

In time, a strange silhouette rose above the flat plain of ice. As 628-4 neared the object, he saw it was a body, half consumed by the layers of ice that had formed each day since the man had lain down and died. The badge on the dead man’s parka identified him as Sacrifice 627-9, one of last month’s offerings, and a known glutton.

It was not uncommon for sacrifices to fall into one vice or another. They lived a life apart, even from each other. The loveless existence of a sacrifice was a crippling void, begging to be filled. 628-4 supposed the dead man had eaten his entire ration of food on the first day and been too weak to carry on after two more days.

At dusk on the fourth day the wind carried the howling of many wolves to 628-4′s ears from a great distance. He counted his wolves (he thought of them as his, though he had begun to suspect, with no shortage of trepidation, that he was in fact theirs). They were all still with him.

As the sun dipped below the horizon 628-4 lay down to rest, and for the first time in his life, was unable to find sleep. The image of the dead man haunted him every time he closed his eyes. He wondered if it had been a difficult choice for 627-9 to abandon his mission, his one important contribution to his people. And where was he now?

Sacrifice 628-4 had been bred and raised as an offering. He had known from his earliest awareness that he would be fed to the Great Tizheruk, god-beast of the sea, in order to save his people from its hunger and wrath. Until now, his worth as a prophylactic against that wrath was the only value he had placed on his life. It wasn’t the pain that made him anxious – he had been trained to ignore pain – nor was it the dying. What chilled his blood more than the biting cold of the icy plain ever could was the possibility he might end up like the corpse he had passed that day, a waste, a failure.

Sacrifices were given the highest place in the Beyond-Life. But he wondered: What happened to a sacrifice who didn’t succeed in feeding Tizheruk? What use was he if he failed, would he even deserve a place in the Beyond-Life at all? He was out of food, and had no water left. He could die tonight as he slept, uneaten.

But that was not the worst of it; a still darker thought entered his mind: What if there was no Great Tizheruk? Perhaps all sacrifices simply died of exposure after running out of food and water and were swallowed up by the ice. Perhaps tomorrow he would find a scattering of half buried, frozen corpses, chunks of flesh missing where desperate predators had taken a cold meal. The thought of it sickened him. Such a waste.

One by one, his wolves moved in toward him. He bared his throat in a moment of weakness, giving into despair. The first wolf reached him and opened its fanged jaws. Sacrifice 628-4 closed his eyes, bracing himself for the brief, but final pain. Instead, there was warmth and wetness pressed against his cheek. The wolf was licking his face. Each wolf took its turn comforting him, pressing their bodies against his to keep him warm. The youngest wolf, barely past being a pup, nuzzled up inside his embrace and wriggled affectionately. It made him feel better, and finally he slept.

The fifth day dawned and 628-4 rose and walked. He ate nothing, for there was nothing to eat. He came to a place where the ice was thin enough to glimpse the darkness of the churning sea beneath. The debilitating cold was now eclipsed by the numbness of exhaustion, and fear of failure and despair began to creep back into his mind. He saw nothing for miles in any direction. No trace of the god-beast, no hope of reward in the Beyond-Life.

He plodded onward, his thoughts spiraling downward in a pattern of misery. He did not notice when his wolves stopped to sniff the air. He did not notice when as one they reached silent agreement and formed a line, facing him, blocking his path.

The firm resistance of warm fur stopped Sacrifice 628-4, jarring him back from the edge of that place where the mind itself goes numb with cold. He looked up and down the line of wolves. He saw it now: The affection of the wolves the night before had been a dream. There was no Great Tizheruk; his people fed themselves to these midnight predators who had been patiently stalking him to his death. His life had been a lie. He was not a sacrifice to a powerful and terrible god of the sea, but a meal for a common animal. A distracting morsel flung out in desperation by a people too timid to defend themselves against wolves on the hunt.

But the wolves did not fall upon in a frenzied feed. Instead, the largest of them padded up to him and bowed, then moved off to the side. One by one, the other wolves followed. A few nuzzled his face in a gesture of affection. All of them, though their faces lacked human expression, somehow looked sad. When each finished its part in the ceremony, it moved off to join a large ring forming around him.

Finally it was the smallest wolf’s turn to pay her respects to 628-4. The one who had slept in his arms the night before. She made her bow and, despite her effort to steel her will, a whimper escaped her throat. Then the little wolf abandoned all propriety and pressed herself against his leg, howling. Sacrifice knelt and wrapped his arms around her, kissing the soft fur of her forehead, calming her cries. An older wolf interrupted the embrace, picked her up and took her to her place in the ring.

Sacrifice 628-4 looked at the circle of animals; whatever was going to happen, was going to happen now. He stood ready to face it. The wolves began thumping the thin ice with their huge paws in time to a rhythm they shared. The pattern repeated over and over for what seemed like an eternity. Day turned to night, and still they beat their rhythm. Then the ice beneath 628-4′s feet began to shake as if the sea beneath it boiled. He looked down and saw a bright light, deep in the water, rising rapidly toward him. Then the ice broke.

The force of the rupture knocked 628-4 on his back. When he rose, a vision of untold glory stood before him. It was the Great Tizheruk; it had to be. It was monstrous, terrible, and beautiful beyond anything 628-4 could have imagined. Its body was molten silver, shining brightly with inner light. Its six eyes were burning rubies that pierced his mind as easily as a needle pierces silk. Its lengthy bulk was segmented and tapered to a sort of pointed tail. Each section plated in shining armor. It had two powerful, almost skeletal, limbs ending in glimmering talons. The joints in its limbs made a faint whirring sound as they flexed.

Sacrifice 628-4 could not look away, nor did he want to. The god-beast’s armor seemed to flow like quicksilver, mesmerizing him as it hauled itself out of the water and onto the ice. Its song, a high, lilting croon, not unlike that of a whale, hypnotized him. As Tizheruk approached, 628-4 saw that luminous patterns moved in rapid lines and spirals on its gleaming mirrored skin. Strange, detailed symbols writhed in unpredictable paths up and down the length of its massive body.

628-4 had prepared for this moment his entire life. He had been born to die at this magnificent … thing’s … hand. And yet, when faced with the reality of it, the concept was so alien, so foreign to his mind. How could something this beautiful, this glorious, have any interest at all in him, a man who didn’t even have his own name? Sacrifice 628-4 wept in gratitude.

It was only when the monster-god loomed directly above him that 628-4 saw it had no mouth. How would the Great Tizheruk eat him? Then 628-4 was bathed in a wide beam of warm, white light, emanating from the god-beast’s belly. The not-quite-whalesong crescendoed, and the wolves began to howl. 628-4 felt himself begin to dissolve; his hands and feet first, and then the rest of him. In the last moments before he was gone he turned his head and found the youngest wolf, the she-pup who had shown him love. He fixed his eyes on her until he had no eyes. Until he was one with Tizheruk.

The wolves saw something then, something they had never seen before. The Great Tizheruk, the hungry god of the deep, did not simply slip back under the waves. Instead it moved toward them, toward the young she-pup. They scrambled to protect her – this was not the agreement. No wolf was to be harmed! But the pup broke free of their grasping, protective jaws and ran to meet the monster. The Great Tizheruk bent its mouthless head and touched its foremost point to the soft fur of the she-pup’s forehead, where Sacrifice 628-4 had kissed her. It looked longingly to the stars, shining in the darkening sky. And then the Great Tizheruk fell away beneath the ice, back from where it had come.