by P. M. Biswas
Nala rode forward, reaching back to steady Soma as their horse stopped. Nala gazed into the distance, her eyes focused on things Tam could not see.
“There are no enemies around Zivan. Danis’s army must still be marching toward it, but even if it is, it is too remote for me to pick up any signs of movement along the ridges of the mountain. Seer, would you like to consult the Stone to cast your Sight farther than I can?”
“No, dear, that’s quite all right. I had Seen where the army was before we left, and it could not have marched much closer in these four days. Besides, the more I consult the Stone, the more it’ll expose the Stone’s magic to Danis, or to whomever Danis’s sorcerer is. I will only unwrap the Earthstone when we are in the terminal stage of our journey, and when Danis’s army will be close enough to justify the Stone’s use.”
“Let’s ditch our horses here, then. We should start climbing.” Tam jumped off her horse, only to see Loren gaping down at her like she’d just performed an acrobatic feat. “Aw, the princeling can’t leap off a horse, can he? Not when he doesn’t even know how to ride.” Tam held out her hand. “Off you come, Prince. Take my hand.”
“I—I don’t need your—”
Tam just grabbed Loren’s hand and hauled him off. Then she hauled off everything else that was on Maple’s saddle—her share of the climbing equipment, Borik’s overstuffed sock full of clothes and cakes, and her spear.
“To you, I’m just luggage, aren’t I?” Loren tottered on his feet at his rough landing.
“Luggage that talks, yes. Very pretty luggage,” Tam reassured him, and Loren spluttered like he so often did.
Nala provided Soma with a much gentler dismounting, after which they all stood there, staring up at the towering hulk of Mount Zivan. Its peak was so far away that it was shrouded in clouds. It looked impossible, like a painting of some fantastical landscape—not just impossible to climb, but impossible to exist.
“Well,” said Tam, “the good thing about the peak being so ruddy high is that it’ll be freezing cold when we get there. It’ll give us some relief from the summer heat.”
“Or frostbite,” Nala said fatalistically. “It might give us that too.”
Tam continued doggedly. “The other good thing is that, when I stand on the peak, I’ll finally be taller than everyone else in the world.”
“For about five minutes,” Nala added. “Before you die.”
“What a way to go, eh?” Tam refused to let Nala’s pessimism get to her. “Like heroes. Bringing down Danis’s army.”
“While bringing down a landslide that may kill us all.”
“May being the operative word, Nala. Perk up, will you?”
“I am perked up.” Nala adjusted her quiver of arrows and gazed upward at Zivan, a strange, thin, almost-not-there quirk at the corner of her lips.
It couldn’t be a smile. Could it? “Are you smiling?” Tam goggled. “Is this what it takes to make you smile? Imminent death?”
“Giving myself in service to my people,” Nala corrected, and for once, Tam could empathize with her.
“Me too. We’re lucky, aren’t we?”
“Both of you….” Loren shook his head. “Your interpretation of the term ‘lucky’ leaves something to be desired.”
“We elves have a saying,” Soma said meditatively, gazing upward as well, although what she saw with her Sight, Tam couldn’t guess at. “Love is death, and death is love.”
“What the—” Tam recoiled. How morbid. “Why?”
Soma’s milky, swirling eyes swung to Tam. There was an uncanny knowingness to those eyes, as though they had read whatever destiny Astar had scrawled on Tam’s soul and had understood it more deeply than Tam ever could. “We elves are immortal. We cannot die unless we will it. Time and again, it has been proven that there is but one reason we choose to die—for love. For love of a cause, for love of the earth, or for love of each other. Only love can kill an elf. Hence, love is death.”
“And death is love.” Nala said it with a conviction that was almost joyful. It must be the closest Nala ever got to joy. “I have no lovers and no family, nor do I yearn for those. They are distractions. All I have is my service as Sentinel, and I will give of that service until I am empty. That is the only love I have—and that is the only love I will permit to kill me.”
Loren said nothing. He must be thinking about his mother, because there was a longing in him as he looked up, as if he were looking up not at the peak but at his mother’s face, so distant from him but perhaps within reach.
“You lot are delightfully fatalistic,” Tam commented. “Don’t think you’re so special. Love is the only reason we humans choose to die too. Not that we can always choose how we die—some of us die on the toilet with our pants around our ankles, and trust me, nobody wants to die like that—but if we do get to choose, we choose death because of love.”
“What of death because of sorrow?” Loren asked.
“No,” Tam answered. “Being miserable enough to choose death isn’t a real choice, because you’re ill if you’re that miserable. You need a doctor, same as you would for any fatal sickness.”
“I needed a healer while growing up, after my mother passed,” Loren confided unexpectedly. “I was convinced that if I chose death, I could be with her. That I would be dying out of love, just as she had. The healer convinced me otherwise. With herbs, potions, and guidance.”
The truth of the situation abruptly registered with Tam. “That’s why you want to be a healer, isn’t it? Because a healer saved your life?”
At Tam’s pronouncement, Nala whirled around to confront Loren as if he had just confessed to murder. “You do not wish to be the prince?” Nala demanded, like it was the worst dereliction of duty imaginable.
Loren glowered at Tam. “I did not confess that to you so you could bandy it about.”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t mention it.” Still, guilt roiled within Tam. “How was I to know? But I’m sorry, in any case. Truly. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have said that.”
Loren calmed down, likely picking up on the sincerity of Tam’s apology through the bond. “I suppose it’ll do no harm if all who heard it die here,” he quipped, like it was funny. He didn’t know how to joke either, did he? Just like Emeraude.
Nala had likewise calmed herself, if only because she’d figured that Loren’s willingness to sacrifice himself made up for his wishy-washy attitude to rulership. Tam could practically see Nala coming to that conclusion, given the curt little nod Nala gave to herself.
For a person so expressionless, Nala was surprisingly easy to decipher, probably because she had very few internal complications. Like Tam, Nala’s vision of herself and her purpose was as clear as glass, but she could forgive murkiness in another if it was well warranted.
“We should send our horses back,” Tam said to shatter the somber mood that had taken over their party. “The silly animals won’t leave unless we make them.”
“They are not silly, but loyal,” Soma chastised mildly. “Szaja will not leave because he is concerned for me.”
“Is that his name?” Tam considered the gray gelding, who was, indeed, mooning over Soma with doe-eyed adoration. “Quit making doe eyes,” Tam upbraided him. “You’re a horse, not a doe.”
“Love makes fools of us all,” Loren said.
“Dead fools, apparently,” Tam murmured. Love is death, and death is love.
For immortals, the elves certainly had a flair for the dramatic. At least humans had the excuse of mortality to hone their desperation, their sense of the theatrical, the flamboyant. But the elves? The elves could spend eternity feasting and singing and dancing, and instead, what did they do? Die for love. And keep loving despite knowing that love would bring them death, when nothing else could.
Tam didn’t know if that was brave or just defeatist. Or maybe it was some convoluted means of population control. Gods knew the elves were overly convoluted. Loren was so convoluted, he
resembled a sailor’s knot more than he did a boy. Nala was the exception to the rule; only she was uncomplicated enough for Tam to wrap her mind around.
And Ato. All Ato seemed to care about was his wife, their soon-to-be-born baby, and baking. Could baking kill someone? If they loved it enough?
Fine, so perhaps Tam ought to stop generalizing about the elves. But still. There had to be a method of dying available to the elves, or else they’d overpopulate the Wanderwood and spill over onto human land. That was what this love-is-death business must be about. Nature must have instilled that in the elves, just as it instilled some form of lunacy into every species there was. Humans, particularly. As a human, Tam could testify to that.
And Tam had thought she was bad, wanting to die for her country. She should be grateful that the circumstances of her death were not completely up to her, and that she could theoretically be killed by a stray wagon wheel. Else it would make her loved ones bear the sole responsibility for her death, and Tam wouldn’t want to put that on them. Tam wouldn’t want them to bear that weight. Ever.
For it was plain that Loren was still bearing the weight of his mother’s death. Nala must be bearing the weight of several deaths, too, given her revulsion toward all familial ties. She obviously thought deaths born out of such ties were undesirable—or more undesirable than a warrior’s death. A Sentinel’s death.
What about Soma? How many deaths had Soma seen? How many had died for her, leaving her behind to endure the relentless plodding of eternity by herself, placing each step in front of the other as her family and friends fell away one by one, leaving her alone?
Tam shuddered. It was horrifying. Suddenly her own fragility, her own transience was a comfort; enduring infinity in solitude would be unbearable.
Soma petted and praised Szaja like she would a child, and Szaja preened under the attention. Tam snorted and turned to Maple, who was watching Szaja’s capitulation with an unimpressed apathy.
“You’re not that simple to please, are you?” Tam ran her fingers through Maple’s glossy mane. “I’d have to grovel and beg for you to favor me with so much as a nuzzle. But not Loren. You’d do anything for Loren. Not that I’m jealous. Because I’m not.”
To Tam’s astonishment, Maple did nuzzle her—the quick brush of a wet nose and the swipe of a broad, cool tongue across Tam’s cheek. “Stars above,” Tam marveled. “I must really be going to die if even you would deign to lick me. Go on, go slobber all over Loren. You must be pining to.”
Maple proceeded to slather Loren with noticeably greater quantities of saliva, but Tam didn’t resent Loren for it. Tam wasn’t the one with horse-spit making her hair stand on end, and yet more spit coating her face like some type of sticky, translucent glaze. Loren bore it all like a man withstanding punishment, but Maple was unrepentant when she withdrew. Aged as Maple was, her eyes still shone as happily as a filly’s, and her tail flicked friskily. It was as if she’d drunk a mythical antiaging potion. By the gods, she must’ve been in ecstasies about having Loren on her back!
“Fare thee well, then, Maple,” Tam said, while Loren wiped the drool off himself with his sleeve. “Live long, dine on the greenest grass, and enjoy the royal pastures after your retirement.”
Maple didn’t budge.
Tam shooed her. “Off with you! You can’t climb Zivan with us. You’re not a mountain goat. Lead Szaja back to the Wanderwood and look after him, would you? That’s your job. Now do it.”
Maple dithered until Loren, too, told her she should go, after which Maple trudged off with her head hung low and her tail drooping. Szaja loped after her, similarly despondent about parting with Soma.
“I pity them,” Tam said, “being forced to leave their sweethearts like this.”
“I’m… I’m not her sweetheart!” Loren yelped.
“But the Seer is Szaja’s?” Tam unwound the climbing rope and began to tie it around her waist. “What of you, Nala? Are you going before me or after me?”
Nala disentangled her own rope. “I should lead the climb, as I am the protector and the Sentinel. The acuity of my senses will prevent accidents. The Seer should follow with you directly behind her, to support her if she weakens. The prince should go last, as he bears the Stone and must concentrate on safeguarding it. He cannot focus on leading, as I can, nor on supporting the Seer, as you can, Tam.”
“It’s nice to hear you address me by name and not just as an ‘it,’” Tam said feelingly.
“My king commanded me to do so,” Nala said. “Else, I may not.”
“Only may not? You softie, you. You’re an expert at the art of flattery, aren’t you?”
“The art of archery,” Nala amended, and spoke to Loren. “Your Highness, do you concur with this plan?”
“Yes,” said Loren, looking utterly at sea. “I concur. I’ve never gone climbing, so I’d appreciate it if you led the group.”
“Hmph,” Nala grunted, in what might have been a noise of approval or disapproval. “It shall be as you order, Your Highness.”
It hadn’t been an order, but perhaps Nala had to believe she was receiving orders for her to be the obedient Sentinel she cast herself as.
Each of them wound the rope around their waists, creating a chain to prevent anybody who lost their footing from falling. Then each climber took a pair of picks for leverage, to penetrate into the rock face, with Nala carrying extra picks to substitute any that were misplaced.
“The climb won’t be too steep until we near the end,” Tam said, “so we ought to be able to stop and camp on the ledges jutting out of Zivan. Seer, please let us know if you need rest!”
So the climb began. It would be more of a walk and less of a climb at the start, which would make it a lot easier on the Seer—on all of them, in fact. But by the third week of climbing, the terrain would become more difficult, the mountain craggier and more treacherous, with Zivan’s ancillary peaks leading to sheer, near-vertical cliffs. Thank goodness the weather was summery, because if it rained, it would make the dark slate beneath Zivan’s surface dust that much more slippery.
Tam closed her eyes briefly and prayed. O Astar, let us reach the peak. Let us dispatch our mission at the right time, so that it may have the maximum effect. Let us each play our part as You intend. Let none of us die, if that can be helped. And if not, please take my life and spare everybody else’s. They’re all more important than I am, and are more needed amongst their people than I am amongst mine. Consider me expendable and do not burden the others with protecting me or healing me. Let me not be a hindrance on this quest. Thank you for hearing my prayer.
If Astar did hear her prayer, He stayed silent, as He always did. But Tam felt His eyes upon her—upon all of them—as they commenced their climb. It was as though Mount Zivan was Astar Himself and He was watching them from the peak, their ascent as trivial to Him as the ascent of ants along a stick.
As long as they didn’t get stepped on like ants, that would be all right.
THERE WAS running water on the mountain, in shallow streams that spilled down the mountainside like strands of silvery hair, insubstantial and barely deep enough for Tam to dip her flagon in. Nevertheless, at least there was water for them to drink—and once they reached the peak, there would be ice. Thirst would not be the cause of their deaths. That was reassuring, wasn’t it?
They made slow and steady progress over the first week, with intermittent breaks to allow Soma to rest. There were almost-pathways made of crumbling rock that only admitted the passage of one pair of feet at a time, but those pathways were still not as challenging to climb as the peak would be. It wasn’t strictly “climbing” yet, just hiking at a steep angle. The broader ledges allowed them to sit down for meals of leaf-bread and—for Tam—Ato’s scrumptious cakes, but it was only under starlight that they made camp, because traveling in the darkness would be even more hazardous than traveling in the light.
Nala, who could see in the dark, argued that she could guide them all at night, but Loren
made the point that the rest of them wouldn’t be able to find so much as a foothold, and Nala’s leadership would be moot if her followers tumbled off into the void. Soma’s Sight was a spiritual one, not a physical one, so she couldn’t differentiate a heap of dangerously loose pebbles from a convenient toehold, even though she could identify the locations of conscious beings, trees, and sources of water.
Initially Tam had been unable to sleep even when they did make camp, because she was so nervy that her eyes snapped open at every whisper of wind and every rustle of mountain grass. But a week into the climb, Tam began to succumb to sleep out of exhaustion. Walking up a mountain all day with minimal rest, minimal food, and minimal water was taking its toll on her.
The remaining three or so weeks of climbing loomed in Tam’s psyche like a nightmare waiting to happen. It was dawning on her that this mission would be almost beyond the limits of her endurance. Her body, no matter how much she had trained it, could not heal its own strained, aching muscles overnight, like Nala’s, Loren’s, and Soma’s bodies did.
After sunset one evening, Tam sat by their very small, very quietly crackling fire, wincing as she rubbed her own calves.
“I can provide a massage,” Nala said apathetically.
“No, you cannot,” Loren rebutted swiftly, sharply. “Do not touch Tam.”
“You’d rather I was in constant pain, wouldn’t you?” Tam wondered if her features would become permanently fixed in a grimace after wincing so much.
“No, I—what I meant to say was, I can heal you. With my magic. Nala’s massages are unnecessary.”
“Eh, I’d never let her massage me anyway. She’d strangle me as soon as she got close enough to my neck.”
“How well you know me,” Nala deadpanned.
“I’d never let you heal me either,” Tam said to Loren. “Not unless I’m about to die, and even then, maybe not. You need all your energy for the climb. If I leech off you, you’ll tire sooner than you should. I’m a spare, but you have to transport the Earthstone to the summit. There’s no Pool of Healing here for you to restore your powers from, after healing me. So keep your magic to yourself.”