by James Somers
Daniel began walking down the left hand path as Fiddler had suggested. The stone steps began to ascend quickly, taking Daniel up into the mountain. He replaced his sword in its sheath as the steepness required the use of both hands to make his way. But within ten minutes he was already completely out of sight.
Fiddler stood watching, even waving when Daniel took a last glance back in his direction, where the paths began and the boulder stood. When Daniel walked out of sight, Fiddler turned to the rock and its cryptic message. He scoffed at it and then turned an eye toward the heavens and smiled.
“He has taken the road most traveled,” Fiddler whispered to the sky. His visage changed at that moment, leaving Mortis standing in his place. He looked back to the left path which Daniel had taken. “Just like all of the rest,” he mumbled and then a flame of green and red enveloped his entire body and he disappeared.
ELEMENTAL EARTH
Daniel did not know what to make of Fiddler. He seemed nice enough, but there was something about him which made Daniel uneasy in the pit of his stomach. This path, Fiddler had suggested, appeared well worn. I wonder how many people have taken this path for it to be this way.
After traveling nearly an hour, Daniel saw a set of steep steps which appeared to lead up to another plateau like the one he had begun at. He made the climb up and came to an alcove hewn right out of the rock of the mountain side. “Whoa,” he whispered as he tried to take in the sights surrounding him.
He saw all manner of strata visible along the back wall and the ground. Daniel recognized veins of precious metals, marble, granite and sandstone running among the rock beneath his feet. Clusters of precious gems had fused with the wall in various places—emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds.
“Boy, my dad would love this place.”
When he turned to look back toward the direction he had come by, Daniel immediately noticed another boulder set near the steps. “Hey, that wasn’t there before,” he said.
The same inscription appeared on the face of the stone. “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end of it is death.”
Daniel studied it again, trying to decipher the meaning of the message. It seemed obvious someone was trying to tell him something through this riddle. Why does everything in this world have to be so difficult to understand? he wondered. Can’t things just be told to me plainly?
Daniel heard a noise from behind. He turned and saw a mound of dirt rise up from the surface of the ground. It shot up taller than Daniel and then stopped. Daniel pulled his sword from its scabbard. The dirt fell away from top to bottom revealing a person underneath.
This person wore black clothing like a ninja warrior. The face remained hidden behind a traditionally styled mask leaving only the eyes staring out at him.
“Are you the warrior who is supposed to help me?” Daniel asked. He kept a tight grip on his sword just in case.
The warrior in black extended his right hand slightly out with the palm toward the ground. The ground beneath his palm began to move. Daniel saw shiny liquid, like mercury, leeching from the ground into a pool under the warrior’s control. The pool of liquid metal then extended into the air toward the warrior’s hand and solidified into a shiny silver sword.
“Fiddler said there would be three trials I would have to go through which would help me. Are you one of those trials?”
The warrior walked toward Daniel, but said nothing. He held the sword steady out to his right side. The light reflected off the blade into Daniel’s eyes. He brought his hand up to block the flash.
“I’m Daniel, aren’t you supposed to help me learn how to fight the dragon?”
The warrior continued his approach. This didn’t look good. Scenes of his own dismemberment flashed through Daniel’s mind. There’s no way I can fight this guy.
Then the warrior cried out and leaped unnaturally high into the air toward Daniel. He held his blade aloft for the strike as he came down. Instinctively, Daniel pulled his own sword up to block the attack. It worked. The warrior’s sword struck against his blade, clanging loudly. The warrior struck at him again and again driving him back. And yet, Daniel managed to block each successive strike that came at him. How am I doing this?
Daniel felt like his body acted independent of his mind. His arms and legs fought with a will of their own and they were good. The warrior in black slashed at Daniel with the silver blade and followed through in the same movement with a round-house kick pummeling Daniel across the jaw. He reeled and fell back into the dirt.
The kick to the face hurt a lot. When Daniel felt his mouth with his fingers, the corner of his lip stung. It had split open and bled down onto his chin. Daniel looked up only to find that the warrior had withdrawn. He now stood fifty feet away nearer the curved wall of the alcove. Clusters of gemstones sparkled in the light around him.
Daniel had been forced back close to the edge of the plateau. When he glanced behind him, he saw just how high up in the mountain he had come. The warrior’s sword spun through the air at him. He dodged the sword easy enough.
The warrior made motions in the air around him as though reaching for, grabbing and throwing something toward Daniel. At the same moment, gemstone shards burst away from the outcroppings on the alcove wall and hurtled toward Daniel like beautiful daggers. He panicked, but his body reacted.
He copied the warrior’s style of motion and reached for the ground in front of himself. When Daniel pulled upward, the earth obeyed. A wall of rock thrust upward from the ground as though shot from the core of the planet itself. The gemstones embedded into the wall.
Daniel felt the urge to attack and allowed his new awareness to lead him. He pushed at the air behind the earthen wall and it exploded forward sending the mound of rock and soil toward the warrior.
Controlling this kind of power felt indescribable. Daniel immersed himself into his new heightened sense of reality. How am I able to do this? It’s amazing!
The wave of rock and soil flew across the expanse between Daniel and the warrior slamming into the back wall of the alcove with a massive boom. Dust hung in the air, but there was no other perceptible movement…yet.
The warrior launched out of the dust cloud and into the air toward Daniel. The man in black lashed out with his hands toward the ground Daniel was standing upon. The ledge of rock fractured and separated from the side of the mountain.
Daniel clamored for the solid ground. He screamed in terror as the rock he was trying to run upon fell away from the plateau. He had no solid foothold. Every kick of his legs pushed the rocks out from under him faster. The air rushed past his ears as the mountain slipped away.
Instinct took over and the euphoria returned. Facing the mountain side, Daniel pulled at the air. A shelf of sandstone jutted out from the face of the cliff below him. Daniel crashed into it hard along with much of the soil and rock which had fallen with him. Large pieces of stone landed on and then rolled off of Daniel’s arms and legs before tumbling over the side of the newly formed ledge.
Daniel thought he might pass out from the pain. The drop had knocked the wind out of him and he wondered if he had broken any bones. He lay on his side on the sandstone shelf half covered in soil and gravel chips. The remainder of the rock and soil crashed into the valley below.
The mysterious warrior did not pursue the attack any further. Maybe he thinks that he killed me. Whatever the reason, Daniel had a short reprieve from the battle, but he couldn’t stay here. He gathered his strength and stood up on the shelf.
The sheer face on the cliff loomed before him—no way to climb up. The warrior had been able to leap very high into the air, but Daniel didn’t feel able. His body ached. Daniel bled from small cuts all over his face, chest and arms. He managed to stand, but the pain coming from several spots on his legs, told him he wouldn’t be running any races for awhile.
Daniel felt for the power within and found it. He pulled at the air with his hands and applied thought to matter. Stair steps pushe
d out from the face of the cliff beginning next to the sandstone ledge he stood upon. Daniel completed the formations and then started climbing back up toward the plateau.
When he came to the top step, he found himself back at the stair steps cut into the mountain on the path he had originally come by. Daniel walked up and peered over the top step looking for the mysterious warrior in black. The man had disappeared.
He climbed back to the plateau and faced the same boulder he had seen earlier. Its cryptic message, “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end of it is death,” still taunted him.
What did it mean? Fiddler had told him to take this path and true to his foretelling, Daniel had seen latent powers emerge. How could that be “the ways of death?” After all, he had survived and the warrior had disappeared.
Up ahead on the other end of the plateau, Daniel noticed more stair steps progressing up the mountain. He felt sure they had not been there before. With the warrior gone, Daniel assumed he was meant to begin his ascent further into the mountain. He crossed the plateau cautiously and, with no further hindrance, began his climb up the mountain again.
ELEMENTAL WIND
When Daniel came to the next level he stood before a tunnel hewn right through the mountain side. He looked around for some other way he might ascend, but the steps terminated at this place. Daniel looked down the tunnel. He saw light at the other end.
Above the entrance to the tunnel, there was an inscription, “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end of it is death.”
Now Daniel began to get frustrated with these riddles. What do they mean? He put his hand, palm out, toward the inscription in the rock. I can use my power to erase these words from the stone.
He exerted force upon it, but the inscription did not remove or the face of the rock change. Daniel exerted more and more force upon it until he saw shimmers of power vibrating in the air between him and the inscription. Still it did not change.
Daniel felt like his arm would fall off if he didn’t get rid of the pressure building in his body. He turned away from the tunnel and let the energy escape. Two hundred feet away, the burst pulverized a large boulder when the power wave hit it. Chunks of a stone outcropping cascaded down the side of the mountain causing a minor avalanche of stone along the way.
Daniel looked back at the inscription. Why can’t I change it? It puzzled him so much, that he almost got a headache from it.
“COME!” said a voice so low and powerful that Daniel thought the mountain itself had spoken.
The voice emanated from the other end of the tunnel. Daniel took a deep breath and decided to walk on through. He glanced back to the words overhead, wondering why the same phrase kept appearing in the rock. I’ve heard it somewhere before, but where?
Daniel started through the tunnel. When he had stepped fully inside, where the sunlight could no longer find him, the tunnel became much darker than it had been. When he turned to investigate, he found the tunnel closed behind him as though the entrance had never existed at all. Daniel launched himself at the rock wall. He felt with his hands—solid. No turning back now.
Daniel turned around and walked toward the other end. A wind of monsoon proportions started blowing down the tunnel. he had difficulty walking against it. He leaned at a forty five degree angle toward the ground as he desperately plowed ahead.
The wind grew in strength. Daniel felt the euphoric sensation again. His power called to be released into action. He wondered how manipulating the rock around him might allow him to get to the other end of the tunnel against this wind.
Then the thought struck him. Can I manipulate the wind the same way I manipulated earth?
Daniel placed his hands together as though he were about to pray. Then he divided his hands again. He felt the power take over. As he divided his hands, the wind divided. When Daniel had spread his hands as far as the width of his own body, he found that he was no longer hindered. In fact, he continued between two halves of the hurricane and walked toward the open end of the tunnel unhindered.
When Daniel arrived at the other end of the tunnel, he found himself standing upon a semicircular ledge made of sandstone. He surmised that he must have come through one of the lower peaks for there was no other place for him to go.
A large gulf stood between the ledge and the opposite side. Daniel saw the beginning of another set of stairs leading off into the mountain again across the gulf. How am I supposed to get over there?
The wind remained very strong and Daniel thought he might actually be swept off the ledge if he continued to stand there. He turned to step back into the tunnel only to find solid rock in the place where it had been.
Daniel put his back to the rock and splayed his arms out to the wall as the wind picked up strength. The loose portions of his clothing whipped out to his side.
“I can’t do this!” he shouted to the wind. Daniel hoped someone might help him. Perhaps Fiddler or even William’s Mem might cause the winds to cease and show him another way to go. Daniel remembered seeing William pray during hard situations in his life and finding comfort from it. Maybe, he thought, I can bargain with God. I could always stand to be a nicer person or maybe if I promised to go to church with William more when this is all over.
The wind tore away the ledge where Daniel stood. Beginning at the outer most edge, the sandstone rapidly eroded and blew away with the wind. Daniel turned to the wall looking for a foothold or something he could hold on to. But there was nothing. When the ledge gave way, so would he.
He tried to find the power again. Perhaps he could make another ledge for himself, but the power did not obey. What’s wrong? Why won’t it work now?
Daniel turned back to find the ledge halfway gone already. He panicked. The urge to pray for help grew stronger. Then he felt his own strength return and the euphoria with it. In that moment he felt his own potential as the energy surged and he forgot all about prayer.
The remaining ledge crumbled, but instead of screaming and falling, Daniel launched out away from the face of the peak and into the arms of the wind. He might have expected to fall were it not for the confidence in his new ability. To his surprise, Daniel’s senses went back into automatic pilot and he went with what he was feeling. The wind caught him and bore him up as though by his thoughts he could will it to obey him.
Daniel sailed down and then back up just as he imagined. The ledge on the distant peak drew closer and closer. Daniel arced upward and the wind carried him to the other side. He swooped upward in Superman fashion and the wind deposited him safely on the other side.
Daniel became elated. The elements had obeyed his wishes. He had saved himself again. It felt so right and good to him. Daniel held out his arms to his sides and the wind sheers still tearing at him ceased altogether. He smiled because of the power he had found within himself. Could what Fiddler said be right, he wondered, could mankind really be like gods? But it’s not stable. It seems more in control of me than I am of it.
FIRE AND WATER
Daniel walked beyond the peak he had been brought to after the trial of wind. His mind reeled with excitement over the power he had experienced. He had been used to being picked on by Derek Wentworth and his cronies on a regular basis.
Those days are over, he thought. Just let Derek try something now and I’ll blow him away on a tornado or something. Still, something in the back of his mind bothered him. The cryptic messages upon the rocks, which he had not been able to change, haunted him.
Those words in stone and the meaning of the message remained elusive to him. Daniel walked the path which had been recommended to him. Fiddler seemed like a nice enough man. Besides, these trials actually made him more powerful and surely, he supposed, there was nothing wrong with that.
Daniel mused over the message as he walked. The path steadily carried him into the higher altitudes and the snow. Daniel shivered as the frigid air rushed over him. I wish I had some warmer clothes to wear, he thought. He had
ascended beyond the snow line without paying attention to it.
Cascades of water hung frozen as crystalline falls descending the face of the mountain side. On the ledges extending over his path, Daniel noticed massive icicles hanging like teeth ready to slam down into their prey. He quickened his pace to remove himself from harms way lest they should fall and end his journey right there.
The stone stairs led him up to a rise where the landscape flattened out again. The path continued before him through a long half-pipe shaped trough through the rock. Billowy white powder covered everything beyond. A winter wonderland lay before him and he thought of stopping to make a snowman. If Meineke had been with him, they might have started an awesome snowball fight. Meineke…he and Louie are still in trouble.
He had no time for childish things now. His friends needed his help. Daniel treaded through the massive half-pipe. He rubbed his cold hands together and breathed into them in hopes of warming up a bit. The snow came up to his knees in most places. If this gets any deeper I’ll have to tunnel through, he thought.
Daniel heard laughter from behind. He turned to find the source, but couldn’t see anything. Then a man appeared—the same warrior he had faced before. His ninja apparel changed from pure white, invisible against the blanket of snow, to a gradually darker color until it became completely black.
Daniel tried to run, but he stood waist deep in the snow. He couldn’t go anywhere quickly among these drifts. The man stood one hundred yards behind Daniel. The warrior laughed again, realizing Daniel’s predicament. He raised his right arm toward one of the sides of the valley. A flame sparked just beyond the man’s fingertips. The flames leaped away in bursts striking the top of the hill all along the ridge until the snow shifted and moved.
A cascade of white powder slid down the ridge into the valley. Avalanche! Daniel turned and tried to run, but it was no use. The snow was too deep. Then Daniel wondered if he had the same ability over fire the warrior had. His power had been the same as the warrior when they had battled before.
Daniel felt for the power and found it within. A semicircle of flame erupted from his mind to his hands. He felt some of the ambient heat, but the flame did not touch his flesh. Daniel threw his hands toward the snow in front of him and willed the fire forth.
The flames obeyed melting the snow in front of him. He realized the process would not be fast enough to get him clear of the avalanche moving down the side of the ridge.
Daniel lost sight of the warrior in the face of the ominous wall of snow barreling toward him. He thrust his hands toward the wave of powder trying to command the wind to halt the slide. A gale whipped up around him in seconds and surged into the snow, but its mass was too great to stop. With nowhere to go, he dove beneath the snow as the avalanche buried the area.