Fractured Everest Box Set

by D. H. Dunn

  A gloved hand thrust in under the chaos, reaching for her. She looked up.

  Drew looked back, smiling. Nima put her hand in his, letting him pull her to her feet.

  “Drew?” she said. “How?” He was burned, his face and chest covered with sores, yet his grin was beautiful all the same.

  “Upala and Merin are holding the portal,” Drew said, pulling her toward the doorway. Vihrut flopped onto the ground, nearly shaking them all from their feet. “Come on.”

  “No,” Nima said, pulling back and planting her feet.

  Vihrut was already pulling itself together, shaking his head back and forth in the small chamber. His wings unfurled again, the edges scraping against the inert portals on the walls. He looked too big to fit through the portal to Nepal, but she knew he’d find a way; he had Jang inside him. Nima was committed to stopping Vihrut once and for all, she had to see it through.

  She reached into her pack, pulling out the long coil of rope. She and Pasang had each packed one rope for their descent from Everest. Drew was complaining, but she was not listening. She quickly stripped off her belt and tied a strong knot around the rear. Replacing the belt, she handed the end to Drew.

  “Hold on to this,” she said, looking him in the eye. She always felt safer with Drew at the other end of her rope. “Pull me out; you’ll know when.”

  Drew nodded, coiling the rope around his arm and waist. The beast had not yet noticed them, with his one good eye he was turned toward the gateway to Nepal, twisting his body in an attempt to fit through. Nima ran at full speed toward the titanic creature, not giving her fear time to catch up with her.

  “Wait!” Drew yelled. “Pull you out of where?”

  Pushing as much strength into her legs as she could, she dove at Vihrut’s translucent belly with all the force she could bring to bear. Taking one last gulp of air, she passed through the outer membrane, lodging herself inside the creature’s stomach.

  The agony was instantaneous, like a thousand insects eating at her skin. The ooze inside Vihrut worked into her ears and up her nose. It filled every free space of air in her clothing, covering Nima in a warm, jelly-like coat of pain. She bit her tongue to stay focused, kept her eyes and mouth shut.

  She could feel the minds of Vihrut probing at her, many thoughts and emotions at once. Jang was there, angry and scared. Many other voices, wants, and needs. Which was the real Vihrut? The question was like a hook, and Nima refused to be the fish. She was holding her breath, but there were more threats here than suffocation. She needed to hurry.

  She felt around with her hands, she gathered as many of the shapes she was looking for as possible. The burning against her skin was growing stronger, a strange whine starting to build in her ears, like a pot ready to boil over. She knew she had to get out. She waved her arms, hoping Drew could see and understand her signal.

  Her body started to move, pulled by the rope tied to her belt. Nima clutched her prizes, it would be all for nothing if she dropped them. She felt her legs pass back through the membrane, the sensation of stinging wasps mercifully leaving her lower body. Another yank at her waist, and she felt the coolness of air again.

  Nima gasped, sneezing and coughing the vile fluid from her. She rubbed her eyes clear with her forearm, keeping her hands locked shut. Drew called to her and began to pull her toward him when she felt Vihrut’s claws close around her left calf, yanking her back.

  “Nima-food,” Vihrut said, the rage making his words almost unintelligible. “Punish you, then your family, then Nepal.” He yanked at her again, pulling her into the air and dragging Drew with her.

  Nima was thrashed about, Vihrut’s claws clinging to her leg as Drew struggled to pull her away from the creature, yelling her name as he held the rope.

  Nima couldn’t focus on him, she had to make her move. Vihrut was not going to give her another chance, another moment to live.

  Her hands filled with crystals, she began throwing them at the inert ovals of stone surrounding the room with all her might. She couldn’t see which crystals were headed for which portals, but that was the point.

  “You want another world, Vihrut?” she yelled, kicking at his claw with her other leg as her projectiles smashed against their targets. “Here are many to choose from!”

  As a unit, the portals sprang to life. Opened by the incorrect crystals each bellowed out a maelstrom of colors, Nima felt the suction of the gateways already tugging at her.

  Vihrut roared, releasing Nima as he dug his claws into the floor, trying to resist the growing force of the competing gravities now working on the room. One wing was almost completely inside a portal that spat rain like a monsoon, one of his legs was being pulled toward an oval showing a world that seemed completely on fire. His tail whipped back and forth, Vihrut’s head still straining toward the open portal to Nepal.

  Now free, Nima fell to the ground for only a moment before being lifted into the air by the tremendous forces working upon her. She heard Drew yell for her. Looking over her shoulder she saw him holding the rope while trying to move back down the passageway. The knot on her belt seemed to be holding, yet she was still being dragged forward toward the many escalating vortexes, Drew being dragged along with her.

  Nima looked again at Drew, gripping the rope with both hands while spreading his feet and arching backwards. He was still in the passageway, still free of the force of the gale itself. If he would let go, he would be safe. But Drew would never let go. She watched as he was pulled another meter forward.

  Before her, Vihrut was stationary in the air, wings and limbs each being pulled in different directions. Only his head was still free, the creature’s long neck straining toward the blue and white oval that led to Nepal. Inside the great belly, the remaining crystals and round stones rolled and sloshed, some leaking out of the hole Nima created on her departure. One or two bounced for a moment, only to be picked up by the wind and deposited on some mysterious world.

  As the intensity of the storm grew, Vihrut began to scream, the tone changing quickly from anger to pain. A tearing sound could be heard above the whine of the wind and the beast’s bellows, fissures and tears appeared across Vihrut’s red-scaled skin. They crisscrossed his body, the force of each portal pulling parts of the monster in different directions.

  Vihrut’s head swiveled back toward Nima, mouth agape and eyes wide with something Nima thought might be surprise or fear. It uttered something, but Nima could not hear anything over the wind.

  Then Vihrut simply shattered, his body exploding in a shower of blood, flesh, and fluids. The composite pieces of the monster were dragged into the hungry wind. Within seconds, no sign of the beast remained.

  Nima found herself pulled toward the center of the room, the passage to Nepal now far to her right, too far to reach, even if she could get back to the floor and crawl. Looking back at Drew, she saw him struggling to wrestle her back to the passage.

  He would not be able to pull her against the strength of the many portals working against them, but Drew was still far enough out of the room he could escape the suction.

  As with Pasang, the decision was easy.

  She reached her hand behind her and began to work at the knot holding the rope to her belt. The line had been pulled even tighter with the strain of connecting her with Drew, but with some effort she began to move it.

  “Nima!” Drew yelled over the din. He knew what she was doing. “No! Wait! I will get you out of there!”

  Of course, he’d want to save her, that’s what he did. He was her big brother after all, and wanted to keep her safe, just as she had been driven to keep Pasang safe. Not this time though, it was time for all of them to move on.

  “You can’t!” she yelled back. “I love you, big brother, but you have to let go! Go and be happy!”

  She worked her fingernails under the knot. It would only take one more pull and she would be free. The winds would decide her fate, and she trusted Chomolungma to guide her.

  “No!�
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  Drew would not relent, she was not surprised.

  “You saved me; I need to save you!”

  Her mind flashed back to that day in the Khumbu, when she found an injured American man struggling for his life, deep in a crevasse. She had climbed down and hooked her rope to his. Together they had climbed out of the darkness.

  “We’re both saved already,” she said, knowing he couldn’t hear her. She pulled the knot, the suction grabbing her the instant the rope came free. Drew’s screams of protest were in her ears for only a second before all sound was ripped away by the force of her velocity.

  Nima willed her eyes to stay open against the rush of air. Whatever was coming she wanted to see it, wanted to embrace it.

  There was a blur of color―greens and blues and yellows―racing toward her. A world she had never seen, perhaps one no one had ever seen. Whatever mysteries were on the other side, she would be the first. Chomolungma had chosen Nima, the goddess’s daughter of the mountains.

  It was a gift, and one she would welcome with joy. With a smile.

  Nima passed into another world, her laughter echoing through the room as she disappeared.

  30

  “Thuji Chhey, Chomolungma.” (“We are grateful.”)

  —Tensing Norgay on the summit of Everest

  Drew placed his hands on the dark stone, the inert oval face of the portal back to the Under cold and impassive to his touch.

  Around him the cold winds blew, the view from the ruins of Upala’s library both familiar and strange. Ish Rav Partha, the mountain was called here.

  It was warmer than Everest, the air richer and easier to breathe. The temperatures were still frigid enough to require him to pull his jacket tightly closed in an effort to retain some of his body heat.

  He had only been in this new world, this Aroha Darad, for a few hours. Immediately upon arrival, there had been signs of the chaos Merin had been worried they would see.

  Walking through the ruins of her keep, they had found the entire structure completely abandoned. Though they had searched with as much diligence as their exhausted bodies would allow, they had found no signs of Upala’s people nor any clue as to where they had gone.

  Placed high on this world’s version of Everest, the former site of the library would have afforded an impressive view from which to scout the lands below, but for now the moonlit mountain was shrouded in clouds, keeping the fate of all secret.

  Drew’s mind brimmed over with questions, but he had silenced them upon arrival, in deference to Merin. For her there was only one question, her fatigue and injuries were the sole reasons she had not run down the peak in search of the answer.

  Merin’s children were being kept in what she had referred to as the Lower Library, a building located more than a thousand feet down the mountainside.

  Despite any other concerns she might have had, any desires to check on what remained of her library near the summit, Upala had insisted they rest and then start their descent at first light.

  There would be more concerns beyond that, Drew was sure.

  In time, he suspected, they would have to face Kater’s remaining forces, not to mention any insurrections that might have developed in the power vacuum.

  Even now, as he glanced past the cold, stone parapets of Upala’s fortress, he could see the fires of battle in the valley through breaks in the clouds.

  Revolutions and war; nothing new here.

  People who could use his help was nothing new either, but it was a problem he welcomed. There had been little left for him on his other world, still technically his home. Nothing in Oregon, where his father didn’t want his help and he had no other surviving family to offer it to. Nothing in Kathmandu, or even Gorak Shep.

  With Nima lost to some unknown world, there was nothing anywhere in Nepal, or even the Under, for him. The only people he could help were right here.

  The stone was still cold on his fingers, the inert portal now just another wall in the shattered remains of Upala’s keep. It shouldn’t matter, he reminded himself. Nima said she was happy, she was getting a chance to create her own life. A life where no one needed her, and she could finally explore life for herself.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Merin’s face.

  Not long after arriving in Aroha Darad, Merin had said goodbye to Kad on the windy parapets of Ever Rest, while Drew and Upala had looked on.

  Merin had burned the remains of parchment they had found, casting the ashes into the winds in Kad’s memory. “To let his spirit scout anew,” she had said, and wept while refusing all offers of comfort.

  “We will find a way back to Nima,” Merin said. Her voice had less pain and anger than the night before, though a sharp edge was still present. “I have known Upala a long time, should she focus on a problem she will find an answer.”

  “I know,” Drew said. “I just needed to say goodbye to her.”

  His hands on the stone told him he needed her still. He would have to learn to face life without her.

  “Goodbye for now, little sister.” he said to the dark oval. “Only for now.”

  He walked with Merin to the carved steps leading down Everest’s exterior. Ish Rav Partha, he reminded himself. A cold wind blew in from the South Col, but, again, not as cold as the one on the Everest he knew. What else would be different here?

  Drew had found enough material in the debris to cobble together two makeshift tents, placing both inside the limited shelter of the library ruins.

  Merin had moved one tent away from the shattered stone and out into the elements, lashing the structure to the remains of an archway that overlooked their descent down the mountain.

  “Though I wish to race down Ish Rav Partha now, I hear the voice of my Kad in my head. I will be of no value to Arix or Lam if I perish on the descent.” Merin gripped Drew’s forearm tightly, her gaze as cold and sharp as any ice Drew had seen. “I will rest, for a time, then I will await the both of you on first light.”

  “I will be right there with you, Merin. We’ll find them.”

  She nodded, though Drew was uncertain if he had reassured her or not. He supposed there was no gesture that could feel like comfort to Merin. She turned and headed away from the ruins and into the snow, pulling her cloak tight against the cold.

  Beyond the arch he could see frayed banners flying, pennants of blue and gold. The sight reminded him of the torn flag of the Machias, the last thing he saw of the vessel before she and Artie sank beneath the waves.

  A hand found his own; Upala’s warm fingers intertwining with his.

  Drew turned, his surprised reaction generating a whimsical smile from Upala. He felt the heat rising to his cheeks. Her face was just as beautiful in her own world as it had been in his.

  “You thought, perhaps, it was a passing thing?” Her voice was like chimes on the wind. “That moment between us?”

  Drew shook his head. “I uh, I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to assume anything.”

  She smiled at him, her dark eyes sparkling in the night. There was a warmth in her smile he had not felt before, an expression that brushed aside any doubt his heart might try to conjure.

  “You should learn to trust your assumptions, Drew Adley.”

  He laughed and leaned in, his lips finding hers. Her kiss was as full of magic and potency as he remembered, a warm wind of comfort that calmed the turbulent seas inside him.

  They broke the kiss, both looking out at the cold, flat field of snow upon which Merin had placed her tent. The woman now knelt beside the makeshift canvas shelter but did not enter it, choosing instead to stare down the mountain as the wind whipped around her.

  Upala sighed, her hand gripping Drew’s even tighter.

  “She is angry,” Drew said. “It will take time.”

  “She has just cause to be.” Upala looked past Merin. Drew followed her gaze down the mountain and into the clouds. Somewhere below, Upala’s people waited. “They all have cause to
be.”

  “Look, no one knows better than me, the past can’t be undone. Those who are lost can’t be brought back. Your remorse”―he paused, nodding at Merin but seeing his father―“her anger, neither will change what has happened.” The lives of his brother, his mother, and hundreds of other sailors were gone. Nothing he had done since, for good or ill, had changed that fact. “I guess what matters now is what you do next,” Drew said. “What we both do.”

  “Then I will make amends, somehow,” Upala said. “By the Hero I swear it. It will be a mountain of its own to do more good than the harm I have allowed to occur, but I will make the ascent.”

  “You climb mountains one step at a time. It’s a brave thing, to try and change. I’d like to climb that mountain with you, if you’ll have me.”

  Upala took Drew’s other hand and stood, helping him rise to his feet. The moonlight gleamed on her olive skin, the tears on her cheeks contrasting with the hope in her eyes.

  Maybe there was hope for him there, too.

  “I can think of no better guide, Drew Adley,” she said. Releasing one hand, she held onto his tightly and began to walk him toward the nearby tent.

  There was work to do here, and it was good work. Perhaps what he did here would silence the guilt in his heart, maybe here he could find peace not just for Artie, but for himself.

  Drew found he was smiling, his heart light and hopeful at the prospects ahead. Lost and adrift since that awful morning in the Indian Ocean. Perhaps here on this strange world he had finally found a path he could walk and find peace.

  Even with her eyes closed, Nima could feel the sun on her back. The warming light was something she had not felt in what seemed like months, radiating even through the grass she was laying on. She allowed herself a moment to just enjoy the sensations around her.

  Everything was new, different, and glorious.

  The grass had a softness to it unlike any she had ever felt in the Khumbu, a feeling of refined and soft texture against her cheek that was more comforting than any mattress she had ever lain on.