The Dog cocked her head almost sideways.
“It’s okay.” Owen waved his hand. “Go.”
“Come!” the Wanderer called again.
This time, the Dog took a few hesitant steps toward her new companion, yellow eyes still fixed on Owen, and she whined.
“You’re a good girl,” he said. “Keep going.”
“Come!”
The Dog took a few more steps, and a few more, until she finally broke into a trot that caught her up to the Wanderer, who reached out and gave her neck a pat. After that, the two of them grew smaller together on the Path, until they were gone.
Owen just stood there, watching, even after there wasn’t anything more to see. He didn’t say anything. He kept his face blank, and his eyes stayed dry. Natalya didn’t know what to do for him, because she still didn’t understand what had happened with the Dog, probably in the same way Owen didn’t understand what had happened with the Serpent.
“You ready to go?” Grace finally asked.
He nodded. “Sure.”
“You okay?” Natalya asked.
He shrugged. “The important thing is we just took care of devotion. If that voice at the beginning of all of this was right, that just leaves faith.”
Grace walked up to him and gave him a hug. He seemed surprised for a moment, but then he hugged her back and said, “Thanks.”
Then the three of them faced the Path ahead, but as they took their first steps beyond the Crossroads, the sky darkened, diving from gloaming to cold midnight with a suddenness that made Natalya gasp. It was as if someone had doused the sun.
“What is it with this place?” Grace asked.
“Maybe that guy was right,” Owen said. “Maybe we’re being punished.”
Grace shivered as they walked, the sky bright with stars that looked wrong, even though she couldn’t say how. She didn’t know a lot about the night sky, but she could identify a few constellations her dad used to point out when she was younger, and here in the simulation, those shapes seemed askew. The moon shone with a cold radiance, like a flashlight through ice, illuminating the Path ahead of them.
Their surroundings had changed, too. The easy rolling hills had steepened and sharpened, and the white stone bluffs had become gray rock cliffs. The Path found its way by staying low, changing course with the basins and the bottoms of the ravines.
Owen hadn’t said much since giving the Dog to the new Wanderer, but that didn’t surprise Grace.
“I had a cat when I was about three,” she said. “His name was Brando.”
“Brando?” Natalya asked.
“After Marlon Brando,” Grace said. “My dad picked it. He said the cat walked around like the Godfather, which he did. But I loved that cat.” She could still remember the way his nose tickled her ears when he was purring.
“What happened to him?” Owen asked.
“We found out David was allergic. So Brando had to go.”
“Oh,” Owen said.
“My parents got this older couple to take him. The day they came to pick him up, I locked myself in the bathroom. My parents were trying to get me to say good-bye, but I thought if I refused to say good-bye then Brando couldn’t leave. When I came out of the bathroom, he was gone.”
She hadn’t thought about that cat or the day he’d left in years. But watching Owen say good-bye to the Dog had brought it all back, and she was surprised that it still hurt.
“I’m sorry,” Owen said.
“Thanks,” Grace said. “And just so you know, that Dog didn’t even compare to Brando.”
Natalya chuckled and Owen laughed.
“Since I never met Brando, I’ll have to take your word for it,” he said.
“Trust me,” she said.
A moment later, Natalya shivered and looked up at the sky. “It’s so clear. You can see the Milky Way.”
The three of them walked in silence after that, staring up at the stars. The Path stretched on and on, without any branches, forks, or crossroads. It had only two directions: forward and backward, and they had already seen what lay behind them. Unless they wanted to hold still and do nothing, they had only one choice, so they kept moving.
The night seemed as timeless as the day had felt. The moon and stars held fixed positions, and they looked closer to the ground than they were supposed to be, as if they could dress themselves in clouds. The three of them walked and walked and gradually the high hills closed in, becoming a canyon with sheer walls to either side that pinched off their view of the sky near the horizon. But something up there caught Grace’s eye.
She thought it was a star at first, but it was very bright, and she realized it was too bright. It sat in the wedge formed by the canyon, and as they walked closer to it, the light brightened, and Grace realized it wasn’t in the sky at all. It sat at the top of a mountain.
“Is that the light you guys saw at the beginning?” she asked them.
“Maybe,” Natalya said.
“I’d say that’s probably the Summit, though,” Owen added.
Grace glanced up at the rims of the canyon, projecting forward ahead of them, and assumed that was where the Path led.
“It’s a long way away,” Owen said.
But it turned out it wasn’t. Their journey brought the mountain and its summit closer much more quickly than Grace had expected. Either the distance wasn’t as great as it seemed, or they walked faster than she thought they did, or maybe it was just the odd way time ran here, because they soon reached the end of the canyon, where an enormous human figure loomed over them.
It had been painted or burned against a sheer rock face on the mountainside, a giant’s simple shadow, without detail or gender. It stood at least a hundred feet tall, but maybe more. It was hard for Grace to gauge the distance from where she stood, and the darkness hid most of the mountain above. She also couldn’t see the light at the Summit anymore.
“I hope that’s not a self-portrait,” Owen said.
Grace looked over her shoulder at the moon. “It seems like in this place, it could be.”
“Where do we go?” Natalya asked. “The Path ends here.”
Grace looked and saw that she was right. The Path stopped at the giant’s feet. But to the figure’s right, she noticed a narrow channel cut into the rock. It zigzagged up the mountain as high as she could see, and she guessed even higher than that.
“Hey, there’s a rope over there.” Natalya walked in a different direction than Grace was looking, toward the figure’s left.
She and Owen followed her, and they did find a rope descending from the darkness. Next to it, someone had chiseled a very narrow, steep staircase. It climbed vertically, straight up the mountain, each stair no more than a few inches deep. It was practically a ladder. Grace felt queasy just looking at it.
“Do we have to climb this?” Owen asked.
“I think we do,” Natalya said.
“Uh, there’s a path over there.” Grace pointed to the figure’s right. “Not the Path, but a path. It might be safer than this way.”
They crossed to the giant’s other side and looked more closely at the path Grace had seen. It didn’t have stairs, and was just a little over a foot wide, but not nearly as steep as the rope climb, because it switched back and forth.
“I don’t like either of these,” Owen said.
Grace agreed with him.
“I think we have to pick one of them,” Natalya said.
Grace did not want to agree with that. She didn’t like heights. She had never labeled it a phobia, but it was definitely a fear, one she had always thought healthy.
“Maybe there’s another way?” she said, even though she knew there wasn’t. The canyon stopped where the mountain began, enclosing them on three sides, and the only way out was up, or back.
“I don’t see another way,” Natalya said. “If we want to get up there, and that’s clearly where we’re supposed to go, we have to climb one of these.”
Owen looked at th
e path, and then stared off to the right toward the rope. “I think I’m leaning toward Staircase of Doom over Trail of Death.”
“Why?” Natalya asked.
“Look at this thing,” he said, gesturing toward the path. “It’s barely wide enough, and there isn’t anything to stop you from falling. You’re just on your own. At least with the rope, you have something to hold on to.”
Natalya nodded. The two of them returned to the staircase, and Grace followed them, unsure whether she agreed.
“See?” Owen grabbed the rope. “You just hold on to this.”
Grace looked up. “Yeah, but we don’t know where that goes. We don’t know what it’s attached to, or how old it is. What if it snaps? Without that rope, you fall.”
Owen looked up, and then he let go of the rope. “Good point.”
“So that’s what we have to decide,” Natalya said. “Use the ladder and pray the rope holds, or take the path and hope we don’t need the rope.”
Grace still didn’t like either option. It didn’t even help to tell herself it was only a simulation. But it was a simulation that held unknown dangers, and she wasn’t sure what falling to her death would mean in here. There were apparently some ways her brain just refused to compromise, and looking up at the path and the rope, she felt herself falling already. What if her mind couldn’t recover from that?
“I’m taking the rope,” Owen said.
“I think I am, too,” Natalya said.
Grace did not think so. If she had to choose, she would choose the option where she didn’t have to trust a mystery rope. The path told her everything it could, which wasn’t much, but she hoped it would be enough.
“I’m going to take the path,” she said.
The other two looked at her.
“Don’t you think we should stick together?” Owen said.
“Maybe,” Grace said. “So come on the path with me.”
“I think the rope is safer,” Owen said. Then he looked up. “Maybe we should ask the giant which one is best.”
Grace believed for a very brief moment that might be possible, because why not? This was a simulation of the collective unconscious. Who knew what the rules were? But when she glanced up, the massive figure didn’t move, or speak, or seem to notice them at all.
“I don’t think we should split up,” Natalya said. “I don’t think I can use that path. I need something to hold on to.”
The three of them looked at one another.
“Okay,” Grace said. “So we hold on to each other, if we need to.”
Owen and Natalya looked at each other, and when it seemed that they’d come to some unspoken agreement, they both inhaled and nodded.
“Okay,” Natalya said. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Grace sighed, and then made herself walk to the path. She knew that once they started up it, there would be no going back. They wouldn’t be able to turn around, or climb down backward. They would achieve the Summit, or they would fall.
“I think I can,” she whispered to herself, and Owen chuckled.
“So who goes first?” Natalya asked.
“I will,” Grace said.
Otherwise, she worried she would lose her nerve. So she took the first step, and felt the grit of the mountain’s stone beneath her shoe. She took another step. And another. And another. She leaned a bit toward the mountain, so that she could reach out with one of her hands if she needed to steady herself.
Natalya came behind her, followed by Owen. After Grace had taken a few dozen steps, she reached the first switchback, and she pivoted with the path, an inch at a time, until the mountain had moved to her other side, and for a moment she could see Natalya’s and Owen’s faces. They both looked grim, focused, and determined.
Grace took more steps, dozens of them, to the next switchback, where she changed direction again. She repeated this several times, and, with each fold in the trail, the climb up the path seemed to be getting easier. Even routine. But then she looked down.
Vertigo seized her gut and her head, nearly tipped her into open air, but she threw herself against the mountainside, her hands splayed against the ice-cold rock.
“Are you okay?” Natalya asked.
They had climbed very high. As high as the giant’s shoulders, Grace guessed. The ground seemed very far below, the path little more than a red ribbon. The wind had picked up, too, and it was a freezing wind, with gusts that whispered in her ear that she would die.
“I’m okay,” she said, clenching her teeth against the chatter of the cold and her fear.
She took several deep breaths, and then resumed her climb. One step, then another, and another. One switchback, then another, and another. She kept her eyes rigidly straight ahead, but every so often, she risked a quick backward glance, just to make sure Natalya and Owen were still there. Together, they made steady progress up the mountain, leaving the giant far below.
“Hey, guys,” Owen said. “Look down.”
“Owen,” Grace said, “whatever energy my feet aren’t using, I’m spending it trying not to look down.”
“But the ground is gone,” he said.
A moment later, Natalya said, “He’s right.”
Grace stopped. Then she very carefully lowered her eyes, and this time when she looked down, she saw nothing. The view below them had turned darker than the sky, and Grace stared into an abyss. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she fell into it, but it looked as if the plummet might never end, and she would be trapped in her terror.
“How much farther is it?” Owen asked. “Can you guys see the top?”
Now Grace steadied herself with her hand and looked up. The sheer rock wall faded into the night, the Summit still hidden somewhere above it. “I can’t see it,” she said.
“Me neither,” Natalya said.
Owen sighed. “Just making sure.”
Grace resumed her careful climb, but not long after that, she felt the first twinges of fatigue in her thighs. Each step after that kindled a slow fire in her muscles, until they burned hot and red. But the top of the mountain remained out of sight, and she wondered for the first time whether she could even reach it. Not because of falling, but because it was just too high, and she physically couldn’t do it.
“Is anyone else getting tired?” she said, breathing hard.
“I am,” Natalya said.
“I’m slowing down,” Owen said.
“Should we stop for a rest?” Grace asked.
The other two agreed, so they halted their climb and very carefully sat down on the path. Grace wedged herself into a position as securely as she could and faced the night sky above, and the abyss below, with her feet hanging over the edge. She was too tired to talk, and since Natalya and Owen didn’t say anything, she figured they felt the same way. The three of them just sat there, resting their legs and catching their breath.
At first, it felt good, and reassuring. Her legs stopped quivering, her heartbeat slowed, and her breath came easier. But then the wind found her as it rushed up the mountainside, and it turned her to ice where she’d been sweating only moments before. It whispered to her again, turning her mind toward doubt, and she began to wonder.
What if there wasn’t anything up there? What if that light they had seen at the Summit was some kind of optical illusion, and they climbed toward an empty promise? What if it didn’t matter if the light was real, because they would never reach it? It was too high, and the path was too narrow, and they would fall before they ever got close to it.
At first, it seemed these thoughts came from within Grace, but she soon realized they called to her from the abyss as she stared down into the heart of it. It promised her open arms, and told her how easy it would be for her to simply push off from the ledge. Not much effort, and then she would need no effort at all. If they would never reach the Summit, or if they did, and they found nothing there, why make the climb at all? Why cling to an indifferent mountain that kept silent in the face of her struggles? The aby
ss heard her, asked nothing of her, and waited to receive her.
One little push. That’s all it would take. Just lean a little, and then a little push with her hands—
Grace gasped and looked up. Thoughts of her brother wrenched her sight and her mind away from the abyss. The stars and moon hung low and gleaming, almost closer now that they had climbed so far. Natalya and Owen seemed lost in their own thoughts.
“Guys,” she said.
They didn’t respond.
“Guys, listen to me.” She reached out and touched Natalya’s arm. “We have to keep moving. If we sit here, we won’t make it.”
Natalya swung her head toward Grace slowly, as if anchored to the abyss. “I’m beginning to think we never were going to make it. This is impossible.”
“No,” Grace said. “No, you’re wrong. That’s not what you think, Natalya. You’re the one who beat that Serpent, remember? You helped Owen find the Dog a new companion. We can make it.”
“How do you know?” Owen asked. He’d been listening to them, apparently. “How do you know we can make it?”
Grace didn’t have an answer for that question. She didn’t know they would make it in the way Owen asked the question. But she believed they would make it because she had confidence in herself and in them.
“I just know,” she said to Owen.
Natalya sighed and shook her head. “I think I’m done with this.”
Grace saw her lean forward, and in the second that she saw it and realized what Natalya was about to do, she reached out her hand and grabbed Natalya’s wrist.
“No!” she shouted.
But Natalya pushed herself off the ledge, and Grace braced herself as she held on.
Natalya dropped as far as she could until her wrist and her arm yanked her back around and into the mountain, almost pulling Grace over the side. But she lay down flat on the path, one arm hanging over the edge, and held on.
“Owen, help!” Grace shouted. She looked down into Natalya’s open eyes and saw terror. Whatever had prompted her to jump, that spell had broken.
“Don’t let go!” Natalya screamed.
“I won’t,” Grace said. But she couldn’t hold on forever. “Owen!”
Fate of the Gods Page 17