The Mountains Rise

by Michael G. Manning

  “Why have you escort me at all then?” asked Daniel.

  “To show you where to go and advise you if you are about to do something that will result in punishment from Thillmarius. There isn’t anywhere to run, Tyrion.”

  “He made sure I was aware of that,” replied Daniel.

  When he was back in his room, Daniel relaxed by using his aythar to peel away some of the outer layers from the wooden block that he had originally cut from the ‘table’ in his room. The table itself had healed over and grown back to its former shape, while the piece he had cut free seemed to be slowly drying out.

  Daniel only peeled a small layer off, helping it to dry more evenly, but he was mindful of the fact that if it dried out too quickly it might begin to crack. He kept the piece in the soil under his bed most of the time, to prevent it from drying too fast.

  Today he took the shavings and let his imagination play with them. Thin layers of wood became petals and small fibers peeled from the edges knitted themselves together to hold each in place, attached to a slender wooden stem. After more than an hour of delicate concentration Daniel found himself with an interesting facsimile of a rose. Drawing up reddish pigments from some of the soil, he tinted the petals a faint red color while leaving the rest a light brown.

  Then he waited for Amarah.

  She hadn’t spoken to him since their ‘punishment’, but she continued to bring his food and water twice daily. He plied her with words and apologies, but she shrugged them all off without any sign of interest.

  Today he blocked her exit again, “Wait.” Before she could protest he produced the wooden rose. “This is for you.”

  Amarah’s eyes went wide. “What is this?”

  “A flower,” said Daniel simply. “I have nothing here, other than memories. I made it to remember the past. I thought you might like it.” Before she could respond, he pressed the wooden stem into her hand.

  She was gone before he could guess what she might be feeling.

  The weeks passed slowly after that, without much to relieve the tedium. Daniel was summoned each week to face a new competitor, but the fights were no longer a challenge. The arena had become his playground, and each contest was merely an opportunity for him to practice his skills in the open air and sunshine. He killed men and women without compunction, though he was glad that he hadn’t been forced to fight any more children. Apparently that was only for the inexperienced.

  He could no longer be certain exactly how long he had been there, killing and living in near complete isolation. The seasons passed, and he knew when summer arrived again that it had been at least a year.

  The block of wood he had saved was fully dry now. There were some small cracks in the exterior but Daniel’s magesight could see that they didn’t run deep. The main body had dried slowly and remained whole. Taking his time—he certainly had plenty of it—Daniel used his ability to slowly remove material from the outside, carving away pieces of wood to create the body and neck of a cittern.

  His mother’s cittern had been constructed of several pieces of light wood, carved and then glued together. Notably, the body had been made from two large pieces to form a bowl and the open face, while the neck had been an entirely separate piece. The frets and other protrusions were additional pieces of wood and metal that had been glued into place.

  Daniel had no glue, nor did he have any metal, but he had patience and a tool that allowed him to remove fine amounts of material even from the interior. He slowly carved the interior of the bowl out and shaped the neck, crafting the entire thing, including the frets, from his single block of wood.

  The tuning pegs he was forced to make separately, using some larger pieces he had removed while shaping the body. Using his aythar, he carefully drilled holes in the head, tapering them so that the pegs could be withdrawn slightly when tuning and then pushed firmly inward to wedge them in place once the desired tension had been found.

  Amarah took notice of his strange work when she came twice a day, even pausing on occasion to watch him for a minute or two. He always complimented her, and attempted conversation, but she rarely spoke.

  After a couple of months his work was nearly complete, and his unformed block had become a well-defined and elegant looking instrument. It lacked some of the color of his mother’s, but it made up for that in the fineness of its woodwork, along with delicate patterns of wildflowers etched into the face of it.

  Eventually Amarah’s curiosity got the better of her, and she asked him a question. The first question he ever recalled coming from her in fact. “What is that?”

  “A cittern,” he replied quietly.

  “What does it do?” she continued.

  Two questions! Today was a landmark in his communications with her. “If I can finish it, I will show you,” he told her. “But I don’t think I will ever get that chance.”

  “Why not?” Amarah was obviously fascinated by the beautiful and utterly foreign device.

  Daniel sighed, “No strings.”

  His mother’s cittern had had metal strings, an expensive luxury, but they made for a lovely sound and held up well over time. Daniel had no hope of finding anything like that in Ellentrea. He had also seen strings made more commonly from gut, which was something he probably could get ahold of, if he was sufficiently brutal during his next arena match. In the past, the thought of using a fellow human’s intestines would have sickened him, but he had descended far past that, to a level of practicality that was just shy of animalistic.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t really an option either. Even if he carried a grisly trophy back from his next match, he had no idea of the method used for curing and producing strings from gut. He did know how to make string from hair or wool, by twisting and splicing fibers one at a time, but he had no good source of hair, other than his own.

  He tried initially to craft strings from wood fibers, using his aythar to separate and wind the tiniest of fibers into a lightweight string, but it had proven brittle and weak. Using his own hair produced something more serviceable but it still broke when he attempted to play on it.

  He needed a longer hair, with a thicker shaft. At home, he had spliced hair from the tail of his father’s horse, using it to create string and short ropes for halters. That would be ideal, but he had no idea where the wardens stabled their horses, nor how he would convince them to let him use their hair.

  “What do you do with strings?” she asked.

  Daniel mimed playing on the instrument, strumming with one hand and pressing down at various points along the neck with the other. “You play them. The strings generate the notes, if you pluck them properly. Can you get string?” Seeing her interest, he began to wonder if perhaps she might be convinced to help.

  “They have a thick yarn here…” she began.

  Daniel interrupted, “No, yarn won’t do. It’s too thick. Horse hair would work, but I have no way of getting it.”

  “Horse hair?”

  “From the tail,” clarified Daniel. “The long pieces. White hair is usually stronger if you can find it.”

  Amarah stared at him for a moment before turning and leaving without comment.

  She didn’t ask him about the instrument the next time she returned, but after a week she surprised him one morning. Placing the tray with his food on the table, she waited rather than leaving immediately.

  That was unusual behavior for her. Then Daniel noticed the mass of hair piled along one side of the tray, long strands of white hair, most of them over two feet long.

  “How did you get this?” he asked her.

  “Some days I care for the horses,” she told him, making a brushing motion with one hand. “No one notices if I take a few from the tail.” Her lips parted slightly, exposing her upper teeth slightly.

  Is she smiling?

  A flood of emotion struck Daniel at that realization. He had never seen Amarah, or anyone else in Ellentrea, smile. He didn’t count Thillmarius. The She’Har’s smiles were often more
frightening than his serious expressions.

  Standing suddenly, Daniel put his arms around Amarah before she could retreat, his cheeks wet. “Thank you,” he said honestly, though his voice had gone hoarse.

  She stiffened in his grasp, unfamiliar with such affection. “We’ll be punished again,” she said fearfully, probably thinking he meant to seduce her once more. She tried to pull away.

  He held her tighter. “No, this is different. I won’t try that again. This is just a hug.”

  After a long moment she relaxed, returning the embrace, and the two of them stood there for some time, content. Finally she spoke, “You are crying,” noting the wetness on her bare shoulder.

  “So are you,” returned Daniel.

  Touching her own face, she seemed surprised, “I am.”

  They continued holding one another until Daniel began to become noticeably aroused and released her. “We’ll be punished,” he observed sadly.

  Amarah glanced at him once more, making eye contact, which was unusual in itself. Then she glanced downward, eyeing his erection. “You are beautiful,” she said, borrowing one of the phrases that Daniel greeted her with each day. Reaching out she touched him there casually before turning and leaving without another word.

  Oh hell, thought Daniel, suddenly overwhelmed by lust.

  Later, when he had regained his calm, he couldn’t help but laugh as he reviewed her statement. “You are beautiful,” he mused aloud, “that has to be the first time any woman has ever said that to me before, especially when referencing you.” He glanced downward.

  Chapter 27

  Daniel spent considerable time using his aythar and both hands to carefully splice the horse-hair into fine but strong strings. The amount she had brought him wasn’t enough to completely string his cittern but it allowed him to make enough to string one and test it. It produced a different sound than the clear notes produced by his mother’s cittern, but it was strong and vibrant.

  Amarah appeared with more horse hair a few days later, and he was busily working on it when Garlin arrived that afternoon, motioning for him to exit the small room.

  “It’s time,” he told Daniel.

  Sighing, Daniel followed the warden, impatient to finish the arena match and return to his project. Crafting the instrument was the first thing that had given him any hope in the bleak existence that his life had become.

  A surprise awaited him at the arena, however.

  Thillmarius walked with him to the edge of the field and waited for his inevitable question.

  “There are two men,” said Daniel.

  The She’Har smiled, “Indeed, Tyrion, there are two. The crowd was becoming tired of the old matches. You were besting your opponents too easily.”

  Daniel glared back at him, “Two doesn’t make a challenging match, it makes for a slaughter!”

  Thillmarius raised his eyebrows, “Perhaps, though I think you may be underestimating your abilities.”

  Daniel began swearing, but he strode forward into the arena boldly nonetheless. The crowd’s voice surged as he walked to his place, and the small contingent of Illeniels who had begun attending over the past months cheered more loudly than any. Daniel ignored them, listening to the announcer in order to hear the names of the groves that his opponents hailed from.

  Centyr and Prathion, he noted clinically, an interesting combination.

  The signal lights turned red and his two opponents wasted no time. The Centyr surrounded himself with a strong shield while quickly starting to craft a magical companion. The Prathion vanished.

  Daniel didn’t hesitate, running sideways, he didn’t bother drawing a circle; instead he ripped a massive section of earth ten feet deep from the area the two men were standing in, sending it skyward and then pulling it toward himself.

  The Centyr mage was forced to abandon his cast in order to save himself from an awkward fall, while the raging wall of earth made the Prathion abandon his invisibility and shield himself or lose his skin.

  Marching forward, Daniel met the oncoming wall of earth and wrapped it around himself, forming it into a cyclone of screaming sand and small stones. Imbuing it with his aythar, the storm created a deadly and impenetrable shield of violence around him. It extended for ten feet in every direction, and his control was absolute. Advancing steadily Daniel’s furious storm kept pace with him, never wavering.

  The Centyr mage began again, this time managing to finish his creation, a large bull-like monster. Meanwhile, his companion had become invisible again, once the earth had bypassed him and become part of Daniel’s cyclone. The magical bull charged at him but Daniel ignored it, continuing to move with his storm, steadily approaching his Centyr foe. At the same time he extended a thin, woven mat of aythar along the upper surface of the ground until it covered the floor of the arena.

  The mat was a trick he had used countless times in the past. It didn’t require a lot of power, and while it was in place, he could pinpoint the footsteps of his opponents, a useful ability when dealing with invisible mages.

  The bull was thrown back when it attempted to breach the cyclone and get at Daniel. The storm kept moving, and the Centyr man was forced to run before it, knowing his shield wouldn’t stand up to its relentless violence.

  The Prathion mage abandoned his invisibility as he realized its uselessness given the strange power covering the earth. Instead he directed his strength into raising a wall of earth to try and slow the storm’s advance and buy his ally some time. Moving sideways, he passed close to where Daniel had been standing when he had first summoned his storm.

  Two arms encased within blades of pure aythar erupted from the earth, neatly bisecting the Prathion mage from groin to shoulder. Rising from the loose soil Daniel stood, covered in dirt and grinning evilly at his remaining opponent. He had hidden himself under a thin layer of earth while his dirt-devil had hidden him and then used his mat of aythar to occlude his enemies’ magesight while it moved onward. They had assumed he was still within the storm, and the power that covered the ground had prevented them from finding his true location.

  The mage still alive gasped as he realized the ruse. Calling his beast away from the storm he directed it toward Daniel’s current location while he continued running from the raging winds. Daniel ignored both and picked up a loose rock from the ground. Imitating the highly effective attack he had learned from another opponent almost a year ago, he sent the stone hurtling toward the Centyr mage as he ran.

  Daniel was already tiring, so his stone struck with less force than it might otherwise have had, but it served its purpose. The mage was knocked from his feet and the cyclone swallowed him before he could recover.

  Diverting the remainder of his strength, Daniel hastily drew a circle on the ground and erected a much stronger shield around himself just before the bull reached him. He was so weak by then that it almost failed, and he was forced to release his concentration on the whirlwind. It hardly mattered, though. The second mage was already dead, his mangled corpse falling to the ground as the winds died.

  Daniel stood, victorious, although his limbs shook with weakness and spent adrenaline. It was all that he could manage just to keep the circle up until the She’Har came to destroy the Centyr spell-beast and declare him the winner, but he refused to show his frailty to them.

  The audience watched in stunned silence before erupting with a wall of sound, cheering for the wildling’s victory. Over the past year, Daniel had gone from disregarded to become their favorite, and his latest achievement sent them into frenzy. “Tyr-ion, Tyr-ion, Tyr-ion…,” their chants affected him like a drug.

  “You continue to develop, wildling,” said Thillmarius as he walked Daniel back to meet Garlin.

  “Until you manage to kill me,” Daniel responded.

  “You will never face less than two again,” warned the She’Har lore-warden.

  Mad with blood, as he often was after a match, Daniel grinned fiercely at him, “I like a challenge.”

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  A few days later Daniel had finally spliced and whipped enough horse hair to string his cittern. He plucked it lightly at first, fearing to break the strings, before he began to carefully tune it, trying to match the sounds it produced to the notes he remembered when he dreamed of music.

  He had always had a good ear, but he was forced to retune the cittern after playing a bit, realizing some of the notes weren’t correct after all. His fingers felt awkward and clumsy even though they remembered the patterns readily enough. Faltering at first, he began to play, slowly, but not daring to stop.

  The first short melody reduced him to tears. He had been denied music for so long, it seemed almost too much for his soul to bear. It took him half an hour before he felt composed enough to begin again.

  Once he started, it was impossible to keep his hands off the cittern. The pegs turned out to be too smooth and he was forced to retune the instrument after almost every song. He eventually grew tired of the constant retuning and created new ones from some of his left over wood, making them slightly larger to fit more tightly into the holes.

  The new pegs worked much better, and soon he could play for a while before needing to tune the cittern again. An hour passed before he broke the first string.

  Frantic he put the instrument aside and began repairing it, using the unbroken end to begin a new splice with some of his left over hair.

  I’ll have to make spare strings if Amarah will keep bringing me more, he thought to himself. Stopping to work on it drove him to distraction now that he had once again been able to enjoy music.

  When Amarah arrived that evening he didn’t tell her that his project had been completed. He asked her for more horse-hair instead, wanting another day or two to practice before showing her what he could do. He was rusty and to his ear his music sounded rough and awkward.

  Her first time hearing music should be something she’ll remember, not my clumsy clawing at the strings.