by Неизвестный
If the Sun Rises Again
Dylan Sabin
When had he last seen a pilgrim ascend the snowy path? Had it been days? Weeks? Would he ever see the sun again? He found he had been asking himself these questions more and more as time wore on.
His wits and strength were tested when he overthrew the age-old evil infesting the mountain’s peak. He felt the heat of a rising sun on his heavy armor, heard the crunch of snow under his near-comically oversized boots. As swords were swung and his enemies fell before him, the threat that once plagued the world was extinguished.
For centuries, every last villager was terrified of the mountain. They lived in hushed solitude, huddled within the confines of the walled villages bordering that fearsome slab of rock and snow. He’d arrived from a land far away to rescue them, armed at the outset with nothing more than a rusty sword and a worn pair of leg plates. Without assistance, he climbed that ominous crag and became the savior for an entire race of helpless pilgrims.
As he made the climb, the sun blazed above, inching higher and higher with each step he took. After a time, he noticed that the sun moved at a speed relative to his rate of progress. The longer and more often he moved forward, the closer the sun approached its apex.
At the top of the mountain was perched a throne of stone, a seat from which the mountain’s ruler could see a panorama of the land below. He earned his title by savagely tossing the mountain’s previous owner off the edge. The sun was at its highest when he claimed the peak, a shining beacon that cast down its approval upon him as he stared at the stone slab.
Rumors abounded that this seat allowed one’s senses to be heightened far beyond natural ability, this power coming only at the cost of being locked to the chair for an indefinite length of time. This was a rumor he was willing to both believe and accept as he took the few needed steps to place his plate-guarded rump upon the slab. He shouted as best he could, a booming baritone voice rolling down the mountain to signify that he had saved the world.
As news spread across the land, pilgrims started making their way up the mountain, excited to see what wondrous things were along the most treaded path. They joyously broke down their obsolete village walls. With no snarling evils to harm them, these well-off yet doe-eyed citizens could make it to the peak without fear, eager to heap praise and gifts upon their savior. He accepted both willingly, and why wouldn’t he? After all, he rescued these villagers from the constant threat of monsters rampaging down from the mountain. He saw dignitaries, artisans and commoners alike; anyone able to make the climb shared something with him. Anything he needed or wanted was brought to him: food, literature, exotic new weaponry, all manner of mortal delights were on display for him from his peak atop the mountain.
The role of a diplomat was a much simpler life than he expected so soon after setting out from his home. He still hoped for struggle and conquests to last him a lifetime, not an early shift to silver platters and wheels of cheese. There was so much more to the world that he could see, but couldn’t touch and experience for himself. He could hope for little more than sitting on this throne as unending day stretched on.
In many ways, he’d become a part of the community without wanting to. He offered advice on political conflicts he had no business getting involved with and counseled citizens who could likely get through their days without his intervention. Whenever he started reconsidering his involvement, a new crisis arose to force his hand. The tittering voice of doubt was drowned out by the needs of his subjects.
Time passed and the sun refused to set, blazing high above the peak of the mountain. It led the commoners to strengthen their belief in his power: surely it was he who brought them the gift of light. They praised him and the sun alike, showering more needless tribute upon him while he remained comfortable and calm upon his throne. Trickling thoughts of complacency began burrowing into his mind, a siren’s call leading him to wonder if he would live out the rest of his days with such simplicity.
Eventually, the sun began its dawdling decline and he started to worry. Visitors to the peak were slowing in frequency and he could see the specter of doubt in their gaze, sensed the caution in their prostration and tribute. When he peered down into the valley, his picturesque view was tainted by scraps of wood and steel coming together over time, forming the base of new walls along the edges of villages both near and far. He questioned the citizens who came to praise him, but they gave no answers to their once-fearless savior.
It was unfathomable, surely. He’d rescued them from the jaws of tyranny. Were they growing afraid of him? Did they expect him to turn on them just like the tired, old creature that he had deposed? How preposterous! They were his flock, subjects and citizens alike. He’d saved them, brought them the gift of light...but now that gift was leaving them.
He sat atop his throne of stone, preparing himself for a day when no one would come to visit him. He felt his tone growing shorter as he spoke with the petty rabble. If they were going to stop believing in his superiority, why would he waste any more time with them than necessary? They gave their gifts, asked their pointless questions and moved down the mountain, back towards their hovels and their walls. Let them leave.
The sun moved further down, inching ever closer to the horizon. As it made its slow decline, the number of villagers approaching him ground to a halt, much as he’d feared. Only one pilgrim came to visit him lately, a haggard old woman he’d never seen before, dressed in thick heaps of cloth. She took a seat in front of him, straining to keep her legs crossed and eyes drawn downward, refusing to address him in the frightened manner most commoners used in the interminable stretch of time that was the sunset. Minutes, perhaps hours passed while they sat in each other’s company. The warrior wondered how much time he had before the sun vanished entirely. He questioned her motive; her demeanor and the noticeable lack of burden on her shoulders were entirely foreign. Even the poorest civilian brought something to him, but she traveled with only the robes on her back.
When the woman decided to speak, the tone she used caught him by surprise. It was level, almost calculated in its austerity, but the intensity in her eyes worried him the most.
“You near the end of your journey. The mountain has been kind to you, has it not? It showers you with gold, towers of equipment and weapons like no man could hope to see again. When commoners saw nothing but fear and despair, you brought them the sun.
“You have accomplished the impossible, Danethor the Strong. I say this not to exaggerate or overstate your efforts; if anything, my words couldn’t be more precise. Have you paused once since you rested upon that throne to question the sheer absurdity of what you have done?” He looked at her with contempt, unable to piece together what she was saying. Her words sounded like the maddened gibbering of someone with sunstroke.
“A thousand creatures roamed this mountain, their aims guided by a single monster who sat where you rest now. You tore them apart one by one, surviving every encounter without a scratch. At no point did you pause; at no point were you forced to relent and move back down the ascent. Nobody in this land would dare step foot within a mile of the mountain’s base, and you did so with ease, with callous disregard for your life. Why?”
It was a question he never considered before or after his ascension. There was but one goal when he arrived here, his whole essence devoted to freeing this mountain from its tyrannical, monster-spawning monarch. That relentless pursuit was his one constant, but as to why he’d come here in the first place, no answers sprouted from his mind. This angered him more than he expected, his brow furrowing as he gave a dismissive gesture. “Be gone from my sight, hag. Insolence is not a proper tribute.”
“Think back,” she began, standing up and looking past the throne, “can you remember anything before setting foot on the mountain’s base? Can you piece together a single instance—”
“Leave!” He couldn’t help yelling now, that booming baritone voice cascading down into the valley and frightening the common
ers below as it cracked with worry. “Your words are meaningless! This is my domain now: I have rescued this land from its oppressors. You will not change that!”
“I will leave, but first I must ask you this: what will happen if someone sees you as the oppressor, Danethor the Strong?” She started down the hill, passing out of his sight without so much as a farewell. As she moved past a large spire, he felt a chill running down his spine. A brief glance backwards confirmed his worst fear: the sun was set at last, every last inch of radiance obscured beyond the horizon as the land fell into twilight.
Now he sat there, supernaturally adhered to a slab of granite and abhorring his decisions more by the minute. When he first saw the throne, sitting on it seemed natural the moment the previous occupant met her end on the rocks below. Now, the twin voices of doubt and self-deprecation gnawed through the recesses of his mind. He made a soft grumble, finding that his voice still carried further than he cared for. The echo rolled down the mountain slopes, turning into the briefest hints of thunder as they approached the nearest villages.
He hadn’t seen a soul near the peak in the time after that strange woman appeared, and since then he’d sat in this endless night with only the wind and his thoughts to keep him company. Keeping track of time seemed pointless now, as did worrying about the plight of the villagers who abandoned him. They’d survived well enough without his aid before, surely they could continue on after abandoning his wisdom.
With all the time in the world left to spend with himself, the nagging voices in his head now asked him questions he could no longer ignore. If time moved forward with any reason, he surmised that a few weeks had passed since the old woman delivered her cryptic monologue. The ticking of his internal clock was no longer what concerned him, too nebulous was the quiet of this endless night.
He could not remember the briefest second of a time before he started up this mountain. Each step of that journey was clear in his mind and filled him with vigor, but trying to dig further back resulted in nothing but a fierce headache. He strained and scratched at his brain to remember his homeland, his parents, his schooling—anything that wasn’t directly tied to this mountain. It took all he had not to scream.
He lifted his hands to his helmet, a proud shell emblazoned with gold etching and silver signets. With little effort, he lifted it off and tossed the steel to the snowy ground. It clanged weakly as it rolled away, kicking up and crunching snow before settling to a stop. The wind picked up and he could feel the frigid breeze on his scalp. Near-arctic chills rushed through a head of matted brown hair.
Forsaking just one piece of equipment felt strangely cathartic. The bitter irony in its new location just a foot or two out of his reach made him regret sitting down once again. His hands went to a shoulder plate, this one given to him by one of the wealthiest nobles below. It joined the helmet.
A thick steel gauntlet crashed on the ground as he felt the voice of doubt bubbling up to whisper to him once again; this time, he was in no mood to shut it out. It spoke to him in slithering tones, words passing through some sort of tainted sludge before reaching his ears. The question it asked was one he’d considered only once, refusing to think about its implications.
Had his purpose been solely to rise to the peak of this damnable mountain? It was a task only he could have accomplished, he admitted with reservation, but his life was meant for more than that, wasn’t it? He removed his other glove and tossed it further than the first, lamenting all the adventures he couldn’t have, would not experience because this was the story he had made of his life.
“Danethor the Strong, fearless savior and champion of the mountain,” he uttered with a sigh, “stuck to a bench for all eternity.”
The second shoulder plate hit the ground with a resounding clank, clattering against the steel of a gauntlet. That noise was followed by the unlocking of his chest plate, a towering heap of steel littered with sharp edges and sharper inscriptions. His armor seemed superfluous now, an obsolete relic. The bright steel glittered in the light of the moon, but he knew its time in the spotlight was up. He lifted the chest plate over his head and threw it to his side, not caring in the slightest that it careened off the edge of the peak in a violent plummet to the rocks below.
Both fur-lined boots slid out from embracing his feet with ease; he sighed with relief as he wiggled his toes in the frigid wind. He felt colder without the embrace of his armor, but the physical stress he endured from the mountain winds were only an echo of the storm in his mind. He grumbled again, loud enough to hear the thunderous callback as it carried down to the villages and hovels below.
He heard of the local religion in his talks with nobles and preachers, back in the time when he wasn’t left to his own devices. There was one god in their world, a nameless figure who guided their hands when they needed it most. This figure was more than a mere representation, preachers told him in confidence, of an individual’s ability to find strength within themselves. Danethor thought their notions a bit ridiculous, as he had no reason to believe in deities or unseen hands, but after so much lonesome time passed him by, the retired warrior found himself mumbling a prayer all the same.
Atop the growling mountain, he closed his eyes clad only in the steel leg plates he arrived in. The icy wind was terrible against his bare flesh, but still he prayed. He dreamed and hoped for just one more visitor, one errant pilgrim who remembered his perch up here. He strained his thoughts, pouring his mental being into beseeching a figure whose existence he still doubted, on the barest off-chance that there was weight to this dream and a new day for him to see.
***
“I’ve never even heard of half of these, dude.” Quiet clicking echoed through the apartment as Elroy scrolled through Dan’s exhaustive list of computer games. He rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to recognize the obscure and eclectic titles collected over the years. “Darwinia, NightSky...Legends of Pocoro? What bargain bins are you pullin’ these out of?”
“Hey now, don’t be hatin’ on that last one; it had a great first half,” Dan uttered as he removed a beer from the mini-fridge and walked over to the couch near his friend. His apartment was rather small, cluttered with memorabilia from high school exploits and videogame obsessions. Posters of elves in green caps and burly men wielding chainsaw-laden guns were plastered on the walls while assorted figures sat out in the open around a television. “Kinda sucks that it petered out after that point, though. So much potential...” He sat down and opened the bottle, taking a quick swig.
“What happens?” Dan’s larger, sunburnt friend rolled the chair around to look at him, eyebrow raised. The reply he received at first didn’t amount to much more than a shrug and another swig.
“It starts out really strong. You’re making your way up this mountain, there’s lots of action, some great boss fights, character customization to Hell and back…” Another drink before he set the bottle down on the coffee table, rubbing his eyes in mild frustration, “Then you get to the top, throw the bad guy off in a cutscene and the whole thing turns into some sort of...weird advice-giving scenario where you talk to the villagers you saved. I got near the end, but I’m not sure I ever finished it. You get caught in this overblown dialogue tree with some witch, right? Everything gets all dark and dreary, she starts hollering about ‘the next hero’...then she leaves, and that’s where I stopped playing. Didn’t really seem like it was gonna improve.”
“Ahh, you don’t know that, dude. Maybe she was talkin’ about a New Game Plus mode or somethin’,” Elroy offered as he double-clicked the icon for Legends of Pocoro, a small flag with bright green and red in four alternating squares. “Besides, you can’t just not finish a game unless it’s absolutely terrible. If I was forced to beat Sonic 2006, you can play through the rest of a couch potato simulator.” A single harp’s strings sounded in Dan’s speakers as the game began booting up. “We’ve got a little bit before Rob gets over here for Kart Night anyway, just boot up your save and give it one more go.�
�� Elroy removed himself from the plushy computer chair, motioning to allow Dan one more apathetic look into the world of Pocoro.
***
Cresting rays of sunlight burst out from the horizon as he opened his eyes. Despite whatever fates conspired against him, something was changing for the warrior. He could feel life stirring within his gut, and with a quick glance into the valley he saw people rushing out to praise the light’s return. Had his prayer brought back the sun?
“The Great One smiles upon us all!” He roared, blissfully unaware of how generic and dated the statement sounded. A second wind refreshed him, air rushing through his lungs and a gleam shining in his eye.
His gift had returned to this land, damn the woman and her vile words! They were nothing more than the ramblings of a maddened hag, just as he’d expected. A wave of relief washed over him, blotting out worries and silencing the voices of doubt and self-deprecation. He couldn’t help but smile, hoping they were gone for good.
The sounds of celebration resonated throughout the valley as the sun continued its rise. He found it hard to focus on anything now, feeling a worldly weight float off his shoulders. It was a stress realized only after it was gone, and with its disappearance he considered it another side-effect of his anticipatory prayer. He felt almost weightless, as if nothing would keep him tethered to the snowy ground his bare feet rested on, not even…
He made a pained attempt to remove his posterior from the slab, but it yielded no more than ever. Despite this sudden change of fortune, he couldn’t reverse his decision. His fate was fixed.
While the sun continued along its upward path, he considered again the idea that this was his fate, that sitting here was his destiny if only to serve the villagers. They were casting their defenses back down to the valley floor, an act that made him grin, but would that be enough? Would they make the long trek up the mountain to see him, bask in his presence and return to the villages below, having been enlightened? It was possible, he reasoned, but was it something he cared to see through to whatever end existed for him? With a heavy sigh and an arching of his back, he waited with anticipation for someone to visit him.