presence, Jenna assured him "No problem there."  They walked a few more feet, and Jenna remarked upon the gloominess of the crawlspace.  "Not that I'm scared or anything", she assured him, just narrowly avoiding walking straight into a spider's web.

"Gloomy?" Balto retorted wryly, brushing the webs aside with his tail.  "You kidding?  It's the most beautiful spot in the world."  They walked on, ducking under a large beam draped with a ratty old cloth, which Balto held up with his tail as Jenna passed under it.  "Dogs travel for years just to be right here", he mused.

"Here?" Jenna replied.  "I can't see why."  Balto leaned over towards her, half whispering "That's 'cause you're looking at the bowl half empty."  He strode up to a pile of refuse and dirt, lit from above by a light shining through a floor grating.  Atop the pile were various pieces of broken glass bottles, of various colors.  "See this?" he asked her, pushing the glass directly underneath the grating and into the light.  "It's the polar ice caps."

Jenna stepped forward, looking befuddled.  "Balto", she remarked, "those are broken bottles.  And they're not half empty.  They're all empty."

In response, Balto merely looked up at the grating above him, into the shaft of light pouring down through it.  "The sun", he whispered.  Jenna backed up, becoming more confused.  "Ah, Balto..."

But Balto turned, his body between the light and the bottles.  "Aaaand, to the north?"  He then stepped out of the way of the light, and it hit the bottles, sending forth a cascade of colors towards the wall across the room, to which Jenna to gasp in complete awe.  "The northern lights", she murmured.

On the wall behind them, the cascade of light danced and shimmered very much in the manner of the actual aurora borealis.  "Balto, you're right", she exclaimed.  "It's beautiful!"

Balto looked at Jenna with an adoring expression.  He was completely in love with her...a situation with bothered Steele as he watched it happening.  "Yeah...", Balto observed, "...beautiful."  Jenna turned and her gaze met Balto's, and for that moment, they were both enraptured.

Their romantic moment, however, was suddendly broken by the sound of human footsteps coming from the hospital floor above them.  The light coming through the grate was suddenly blocked by something above it.  Balto and Jenna walked carefully up the grate to investigate.  A kindly voice was heard in the room above.  "Good night, Rosy."

In response came young Rosy's voice.  "I'm so cold".  Jenna and Balto saw the doctor through the grating, and he was standing next to a bed.  "Well I have another blanket for you right here.  You stay warm and get some rest."  The doctor turned and walked across the grating, followed by another adult--Rosy's father.

Balto and Jenna noticed they were walking across the floor, and into another room with another open grating.  The two dogs quickly moved over to stand underneath the other grating and listen.  They heard the concern in the voice of Rosy's father.  "Doctor, how is she?"

"Exhausted from coughing", the doctor replied.  "And her fever's getting worse."  Jenna gasped in fear of the news.  "Looks like diphtheria", the doctor concluded.  "She's the eighteenth case this week."  The doctor sighed as he reached for a bottle of medicine.  "And I'm out of antitoxin."

Steele was surprised to find himself feeling badly for Rosy, and for Jenna.  He turned to the spirit and inquired grimly "Spirit, tell me--will Rosy live?"

The spirit looked out into space without meeting Steele's gaze, and replied "I see a vacant seat in the poor fireplace corner, and a little musher's cap laid upon it, and carefully preserved.  If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child--and many others--will die."

"Can't she be spared?" Steele asked, almost begging.

The spirit turned towards him with a solemn expression on its face.  "Why?  'If this town loses one or two more, it makes little difference', does it not?"

At that, Steele recalled the words he spoke much earlier that night, which the spirit now echoed, and he was overcome with a wave of remorse.

Steele then looked up and noticed that Jenna too broke down in utter sorrow, and that she started to slip away.  :"Jenna?" Balto asked.  "Jenna!  I'm sorry I...Jenna I...".  Balto followed Jenna, and the scene began once again to fade from Steele's view. 

Steele found himself standing alone, with the spirit, out on Front Street in town.  He turned towards the spirit, and was shocked to find it had appeared to age considerably...something which he had taken no notice of during their brief time together.  Had it happened just now?  Or was it happening all along?  Steele simply did not know.  He shook his head vigorously to clear his thoughts, asking the spirit "Where are you taking me next?"

The spirit looked at him plainly, replying "My time with you is nearly done, Steele.  Will you profit from what I have shown you of the good in the hearts of most men and dogs?"

Steele grew frustrated again.  "I...I don't know.  How can you expect me to promise to become anything other than what I already am?"  It was then that he noticed, skulking about behind the feet of the great bear, what seemed to be two puppies.  But he could not make out any detail just then.

"If all that you have thus far seen is simply too hard to digest, then learn this lesson!"  The great bear stepped aside, and revealed the two creatures behind him.  They were indeed two puppies, one girl and one boy.  Steele at first thought this was a chance encounter, that they had stumbled upon a couple of stray waifs lost in the cold night.

These were not the cute, fluffy and irresistible little creatures often taken so eagerly and lovingly into the arms of a human child, or a protective musher.  They seemed disheveled, gaunt and feral in appearance, and they shrunk before Steele as they were revealed to him, contuining to skulk unpleasantly at the feet of the spirit.

"Who are they?" Steel inquired.  "Don't they belong to any human in particular?"

The spirit ignored the two puppies at his feet, but continued to scrutinize Steele.  "They belong to no one...and everyone.  They cling to me for protection from their fetters...the very nature of man and beast which defines what they are.  This boy is arrogance and this girl is contempt.  Beware them both, but most of all beware this girl, for on her brow is written much of your doom, lest it be erased.  Shun it!  Renounce it!"

Steele looked at them fearfully, imploring the spirit "Can't we find some resource for them?  Some refuge?"

The spirit began to fade from Steele's view, as did the puppies...but the spirit's final words boomed and echoed in Steele's ears so loudly that he crouched down and buried his head in his forelegs.  "They might as well die and make room for those strong enough to fight it!"  Steele remembered the words he spoke so disdainfully earlier in the night, and he was now finding himself fearfully embarrassed.  The words echoed a few more times and then faded out, leaving him standing alone in the darkened street as a strange, silvery fog began to creep down the street and out of the alleyways.  It eventually concealed most of the ground under Steele's paws; concurrently, he began to feel a strange and unnatural cold settling around him, and penetrating his fur.

"That's odd...", he mumbled to himself, "...fog at this time of year?  "And so cold!"  He then felt suddenly aware of a bone-chilling dread coming over him, just as a loud bell chimed the hour...a spectral sound originating from no visible clock.  One...two...three bells.  As Steele gazed out into the darkness, he noticed a strange figure slowly approaching.  His body was shivering.  But whether that was from the strange cold or the events transpiring before him, he could not tell.
 

CHAPTER 4: THE THIRD SPIRIT

Steele watched intently, and very ill at ease, as the figure stalked its way towards him from out of the creeping fog.  As it came fully into view, it proved a terrifying sight indeed.  It was a gaunt figure, dark almost as the night itself.  It let out a low, rolling growl as it approached, which was broken only by an occasional long hiss as it appeared to breathe in.  Steele took a good long look, and grew ever more afraid of what he saw.  It appeared, in fact, to be a wolverine...but none like Steele had ever seen or heard of before.  Its unruly fur was mostly black, broken by only occasional and irregular patches of dull brown.  The creature looked horribly emaciated...almost sickly.  It's skin and fur seemed so tightly drawn over its gaunt frame that one could easily discern its ribs and spine and other bony structures prodding at the carcass from within.  Its face was frightful to look at...the eyes, sunken and almost skeletal,