Into the Raging Mountains

by Caroline Gill

  “It's all I have to give, my last vanity.” She whispered. “Will you take it?”

  The silence in the room was deafening. Then, the doorway emerged from its secrecy, allowing her entrance to a realm of mystery and awe. I did it! The light of the doorway expanded, glowing. Solid and real to the touch, the passage had reopened. I can enter!

  “Do you mind?” she asked quietly, to nothing at all. “Ilion will need this again.” She picked up the ruby stone, pocketing it with the sapphire, and walked the few steps to the doorway.

  The towering beauty of the structure, the tympanum, the stalwart pillars, all of it was cold to the touch and yet not foreboding. Her hand pushed down on the handle and the portal swung open. She saw all the detail, all the wonders of the carved opening, but they didn't register with her consciousness; Ilion was her only thought, her only concern and her truest goal. With no hesitation, Alizarin took the ruby stone, the sapphire gem, the shining topaz and her fierce courage and stepped through the great stone door.

  *

  With great care, he walked on, trusting his guide only a little, enough to follow but for his safety not too closely. It took a great deal of time to actually arrive at their destination. Ilion's thirst grew greater and greater. His burns smarted, even shielded as he was by the power of the miraculous staff. The pain was not healed. The damage was simply halted.

  He reached up and touched the orange, stray figment that obscured his eyesight. That slight finger pressure caused most of his eyelashes to fall off. His eyebrows fared the same. He was singed and burned by the sheer power of the room, cocooned from its destructiveness, but damaged all the same.

  Squinting against the brightness of the flames, he walked on, following the guide who had answered his plea, although he knew now that she was untrustworthy and deranged. It seemed to his mind, desperate for refreshing water, that they walked for half of his lifetime, as if the journey would never end. Mostly, they walked in silence, although he could often hear her talking to herself or singing the most common of the ancient tunes. Since he had separated himself from the roly-poly bug in an effort to gain a few moments advantage in the event of the very likely coming task or attack, Ilion could no longer hear the details of her soliloquy. It was enough for him that they progressed, that they traveled forward towards the next goal.

  The idea of stagnation irritated him. To stand by and do nothing but watch the world as it turned past the sun had been the common form of his childhood's punishment. His mind clamored to be actively engaged in the moments of life, constantly seeking the new knowledge, the next language, the rare objects, a quality that made him excel at his work.

  Ilion thought about many diverse things as he walked. He reminisced about rose ale and the Gurgling Dove. Flashes of Kalina's smile interjected themselves throughout his wandering thoughts. Over and over Alizarin’s words, “If happiness is a choice, then I choose you,” kept playing, running through his mind like falling water over stone. It was almost an obsession the way that thought intruded on all his other immediate concerns.

  Gathering in was possible while walking, Ilion had discovered. Although it did require a certain amount of greater concentration, still he found he could push thoughts around in his head, organizing, deliberating. As he trailed his reluctant and odd little guide, Ilion thought back to the red light that had come from the ruby stone, the slicing power, the definition of precision. Could he learn to control that? What about the sapphire and the topaz? Both of them had seen the gemstone flash when he had held it at the farmhouse.

  Sadly, he had given the stone to the goddess Bira, if this was indeed her temple, and now had only control over aspects of invisibility as granted by the honeycombed chalk-white staff.

  The phrase came back again, interrupting his thoughts again, if happiness is a choice, then I choose you. Why did Alizarin say that? Does she really feel that strongly towards me? Or was it just the shock of all the dangers that surrounded them?

  He enjoyed her company, for certain. But he wouldn't have uttered those words if he had thought them. Too much pain comes from love. Too much. It's just not worth the energy to bother.

  Perhaps it was just a light-hearted comment, a girl's infatuation. Perhaps it would pass and they would still be friends? After all, we are in this together. And only the two of them seemed capable of fighting or even seeing the monsters cloaked in human flesh. If happiness is a choice …

  The roly-poly woman abruptly stopped.

  Immediately, Ilion looked around, trying to locate himself and the scene before him, attempting to gain his bearings, even as his innate caution prickled. They had reached some part of the far wall into which had been cut another alcove and another simple stone bench was placed. On the cut-away shelf that was dug out the deepest, a glass glinted. A shining crystal cup, intricate in its carvings, delicate as all else except his guide had been so far in this journey. It was a cup of exquisite beauty, fit for the table of a great lord or ruler.

  Stepping closer, Ilion looked around for his guide. She talked to herself off to one side. Unintelligible words, tunes, and the ancient languages kept issuing from her. It didn't make any sense.

  “What do you want me to do?” Ilion queried. “What is the task?”

  Her foot kicked something towards him that had been hidden by her voluminous tattered clothing. It took a moment to distinguish it from her ripped and trashy robes: a wooden bucket.

  The anger that had been rising in his gut gushed forth. “This is what you offer to fight the nightfall beasts? A wooden bucket and a crystal cup? How will that do anything? How can I fight them with these items? This does not make any sense!” Both fear and hopelessness tore at his heart.

  The ball of a woman, hidden from view, clothed in rags, full of riddles and cynical humor only laughed at him, answering nothing.

  She nodded once and said “Fill the cup.”

  He looked at the cup and the bucket, trying to get some sense of the task. How is that difficult? Fill the cup? Fill the cup. Fine.

  Reaching down, Ilion grasped the handle of the bucket, using the staff for balance.

  When he stood up, he looked around the Room of Flames, wondering where he would find the water to fill it. “Where's the water found?” he asked.

  But his companion was gone.

  There was no one in the heat-blasted area, just Ilion. Ilion and Ilion's heart were the sole competitors in the completion of the task. Taking a deep breath, he examined all the surrounding area. There was no obvious outlet, no trace of water in a room that stole wetness from his eyes and brow.

  The best he could figure, he had to find it. It had to be here somewhere. Stomping with his feet, he listened for sound that was different in the timbre of the echoes. He stomped and kicked and pounded. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk! And still he kept on, hitting the wall spaces he could reach, smacking his hand against the hard rock, jumping up and down around the area, searching for a covered well or a hidden spigot. Nothing.

  All the seeking and sounding was quite tiring though. He was parched. Filling the whole of his mouth, his swollen tongue felt like dried cotton. Then he saw it. There! Leaning against the wall next to the stone bench, there was a shovel with a hand grip. Grabbing it, he began to attempt to pry up stones from the floor and wall. Nothing happened. Nothing moved.

  Ilion sat for a moment on the bench, completely perplexed. There was no source of water to be found.

  No source except him.

  The answer was clear and obvious. The sacrifice was definitive and self-imposed.

  It was not as if Ilion had tears to shed nor any to spare, his eyes were so dry and red from the harshness of the heated air. He was pretty certain he was not supposed to fill the cup using non-drinking liquids but maybe he was wrong. The only water available to me immediately is either my blood or, well, Ilion just didn't want to follow that thought.

  Reaching up with great care, his fingers gently touched the edges of the gleaming, sparkling
glass. With a slow and steady movement, he took it down from its perch, holding it. A reflection from the multitudinous incisions in the crystal's surface showed him that a strange and desperate face had replaced his own. Who have I become? He had changed so greatly from the cultivated, civilized man of means who had walked the streets of Dressarna and dared to peek into the secrets buried within.

  Moving beyond the reluctance of that wry thought, he lowered the glass gently and placed it next to his foot on the baked ground. He leaned the staff against the side of the smooth wall. The room's heat slammed against him again, its return brutal to his senses, the pressure inescapable.

  Ilion took the shovel in both hands and cut his thigh lightly. He began to force blood drop by drop into the cup. He had to act with speed and care to catch the blood. It was tricky. When the blood coagulated a bit at the wound site, he took the edge of the old shovel and drew it over the back of his wrist. More liquid for the offering. The cup was quickly filling. One more slice against his alternate forearm, crimson welling forth from parched skin and thirsting veins, the task was finally accomplished.

  He had no cloth to bind his wounds. There was only the pressure of his hands and the heat of the place. Leaning down to lift up the full crystal cup, brimming with his life's force, Ilion felt a powerful feeling of dizziness sweep him, stronger than even the confusion and dullness that the dreadful thieving blow to the back of his head had caused. He concentrated on grasping the crystal glass, brilliant in its full and deep redness. His eyes swam. Unwillingly, his knees buckled and he fell to the stones, barely conscious.

  It was not possible to measure time in the intensity of the place. His hair had singed off long before, and his viewpoint was awkward as he lay on his side, slowly bleeding out. He tried to whisper. It was very difficult to speak out of a dry parched throat. His mouth felt more like a handful of carded sheep's wool than anything else.

  He tried to swallow. He tried and failed. Closing his eyes against the brutality of the fire's glare, Ilion tried to hold on to his thoughts. All his efforts seemed to flow from him like a trickle of water melting off the snowcaps in the planting season, growing ever faster, leaving him so quickly that he could not hold them.

  His words were only exhaled breath, inaudible. Mumbling them over and over, Ilion couldn't help watching small pools of blood form on the floor around him. Falling from his damaged arm and wrist wounds, they spattered onto the heated stones, each drop loud to his ears as they accumulated. His vision was blurring.

  Ilion tried to find enough strength to raise himself up on hands and knees, hoping to have enough will left to reach the staff, still leaning exactly where he had left it, against the warm stone wall. Marshalling all of his energy, pushing and straining, he barely managed to lift his head.

  The room cooked his flesh while Ilion's blood ran and ran.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Persistence

  When the door opened and her eyesight adjusted to the light of the hidden room, Alizarin looked around, searching for her friend. Without really intending to notice the intricate detail that was lovingly carved into the stone walls, arcing up and over her head, high into the true sun's light that beamed down into the room from intricate half-oval openings cut into the very top of the mountain, the young woman entered the concealed space, open to the newness of all she saw. The warmth that had come through the stone into the tunnel's end and heated the balance and the stone bench was pleasant enough, rather like being hugged by a shawled and bejeweled old lady. Her initial impression was that the secret room was small, warm and, though elaborate in its bas-relief designs, empty of furniture.

  The image of the river that had decorated the floor of the tunnel had transformed now into a mosaic of sea life shimmering under her feet, as if she stood at the bottom of the ocean and could see the flitting and fleeting colors of scattered fish and water plants. Alizarin remembered her mother's tale about the “Seawife and the Fisherman.” If the bottom of the ocean is this beautiful, in truth, I would never leave it. Her attention was given to each and every carefully rendered image of marine life, so much so that she even felt that the sealeaves flowed and danced with the push and pull of an unseen current.

  For a moment or two, she forgot all else. Her concerns seemed small, indeed her life seemed small compared to the munificence of the whole of the ocean's bounty. Who am I that my life matters? Could I ever make a difference, a true difference to the larger pattern of Life?

  As she watched curiously, the arms of strange, elongated creatures seemed to move and slide under her feet. How was that possible? Long, grasping tentacles slowly reached out and wrapped around a nearby fish. Wait! What is happening here? Alizarin was alarmed and insatiably rapt at the same moment.

  Did the arm just move? Where is the fish that had just been swimming by my toes? Even as she blinked, trying to follow the ever changing tiles, the powerful tentacles retracted back to the bulbous body and the image of the fish was gone. Gone? How does artwork of stone and pitch change itself? Wonder filled her. What was this place that she and Ilion had found? Is this the hidden temple of Bira? Or some other location entirely?

  Pulling her attention from the beauty and mystery of the sea mosaic, Alizarin examined the rest of the room more closely. The walls are decorated here as well, just like at Mira-Sang. Only here they are carved with elements. Nearest the floor, carved images of blocks and crags of stone and sand were incised into the walls, strong and solid, immovable.

  As the piles of land rose up the sides of the interior, images of wood and plants seemed to sprout. Higher still, land, stone, and sand collided with line-drawn images of air, blowing and pulling the elements apart. Almost too high for Alizarin to see, so far up that she had to crane her neck and squint, the sun itself beamed brightly, carved precisely in between all of the intricate half-oval openings. Overlooking the whole of all the elements combined, the ball of Great Fire burned and burned, casting its heat ever downward.

  All of it was beautiful, all of it wondrous; probably a lifetime of study and truth was written on the walls and floor of the captivating room. But Alizarin was troubled that she couldn't find any trace of Ilion. They had only been separated for a small part of one day. He should be right here! she thought adamantly. With close observation taking in every detail, Alizarin walked the perimeter of the room. It seemed that she was alone in the mysterious, concealed cavern.

  She paced the whole of it. Though it seemed correct that she was the only one currently present, in her heart she knew it wasn't true. She had found no evidence of Ilion nor his presence, and yet, something was wrong. Something was sounding in her heart, pounding against what her eyes told her. She refused to believe what her senses perceived. More slowly this time, Alizarin paced the boundaries of the cavern again, determined to continue looking until she found him.

  Like everything about the place, the hidden room would not reveal its secrets so easily. As she walked, Alizarin pushed, touched and investigated the substance of the actual construction, leaving no stone unturned, no spot hidden from her prying. There! Against the back wall, the elements of land and stone collided with a fire emblem, completely out of place, away from sun and the heat of the inner heart of the mountain. She pushed at it with persistence, but nothing happened. Yet, she was certain this was the key to it all.

  Even though it was her command to ask the topaz to shine bright in the confines of the darkened room, still the burst of sun's light from the tiny object was initially blinding. Cupping her hands together, she focused the beam of light specifically at the recalcitrant design. The light shone unrelentingly. The targeted element slowly changed under the direct onslaught of light; the gray of the regular stone warmed to a yellow, a red, and then a white. A crack split down the decorated wall, veining from the heat of true fire, racing away from the white-hot, glowing square.

  Alizarin's heart lit. Gladness filled her for the first time in a long while. I can do this! I can do it on my own! Som
e small part of her mind did wonder why the pure beam of light focused by her fingers, cupped by her fragile hands, did not harm her? Something that powerful surely should have.

  Keeping the light directed straight at the fire sign, the baker noted the nearby presence of one other identical sigil. Shifting her fingers slightly, making minor adjustments to her grip, the one initial ray of light split into two specific beams. They shone from her hands and lit the stubborn wall's puzzle, burning with her desire to be admitted beyond the confines of even this concealed room. There is something more hidden here, I can feel it!

  A twin crack split the air with its screech, diving into the floor of the room. Alizarin's heart seemed so full of confidence fueled by discovery and gladness that she was certain it burned as yellow-white in her chest as the gem's light did from her palm.

  Then with a deafening crack, the marked wall between the two fire sigils snapped, damage fissuring out from both sides, joining in the middle, forming an opening in the wall the shape of a door, small but still passable. Just as Alizarin had known it would be.

  With complete assuredness, Alizarin knew she would not be denied entrance to the most guarded secrets of this structure. The shaky understanding of her self and her place within the whole of the world that had been so fragilely built on the rock of her relationship with her mother had fallen. And, when all the pieces landed around her heart, Trellista's daughter saw that her own confidence had arranged those tottering bits into a cohesive whole, a new foundation. It was enough that she was sufficient, in and of herself.