Into the Raging Mountains

by Caroline Gill

  Was Rethendrel, then, a true friend of Alizarin's? Ilion had never thought of it. Everything had gone so sour when he had arrived that it had never occurred to Ilion to consider the farmer-trader's motivations and feelings. All kinds of corny songs, some ribald, some sentimental flipped through his mind, all with varying levels of friendship and betrayal, loyalty and sacrifices for those who were loved.

  “Alizarin?” He called out to her, across the great expanse. “Alizarin?”

  Her shaking form grew still, as if she heard him, which he was not sure about at all. The crying woman stood, dusted herself off and took out her topaz stone. Its light had been hidden by her folded arms as she wept. Now it beamed brightly again, filling the darkness of the void all around her, lighting his way to her side.

  Watching her, standing there with the deepest sorrow on her face, still unaware that he was running to her, it almost broke Ilion's heart. Almost. He was right in front of her, if still a ways off, yet she did not see him, did not acknowledge him. Couldn't she hear his voice? “Alizarin!?” She looked at him for the first time, but with the gaze of a stranger.

  Surprise leapt in his heart, from a small kindling flame to a roaring bonfire, as his friend Alizarin aimed the yellow ray of light directly at the ground in front of him and spoke a strange, unintelligible word. The ground fell away from his feet and Ilion spun down into thundering darkness and falling clods of earth.

  *

  It was as if someone whispered in her ear; her resolve hardened. Shaking her head free of all smothering sorrow, Alizarin decided. Then, I will stand alone! If that is all I have left to follow, I will fight on! The uncaring Goddess will hear me! No gap of earth and dirt would stop her from finding Ilion.

  Wiping her tears away from her swollen eyes with her sleeves, Alizarin took stock of the possibilities. That burnt and naked man who laid on the ground impossibly far off in the distance had to be her friend. She had his clothes still wrapped around her forearm. There couldn't be that many naked men traveling around in the hidden temple. Filling her heart with her hard-earned resolve and grim determination, Alizarin decided to strike forward against the imposed barrier of chasm that blocked any rescue. Nothing would stand in her way.

  Remembering his teachings at the wall of Mira-Sang, Alizarin gathered in, or tried to. She had no doubt that a true practitioner would reach a deeper and more stable state of calm and control. There was no hope for that kind of centered focus for herself. Her heart and mind were full of emotions, brimming with questions, declaring her need to be heard, her hope to find answers.

  Pulling all of the chaotic noises in her mind's storm into a single bolt of energy, she raised her palm up and spoke a word. It was a word that she had heard somewhere before, a word she did not know the meaning of, and yet she did. It was a word remembered more than learned, a word of praise and command.

  It opened a window of memory. Her little hands trembled at the curtain, pushing it aside slightly as if the wind had only stirred the fabric. Such a tiny movement, she hoped it would go unnoticed. Alizarin adjusted the fall of the cloth enough so that she could see the kitchen table and the woman who sat at it, knife in hand.

  Looking up at the seated figure, familiar in every curve and bump of skin, bone and muscle, she could only watch, certain that even that was forbidden. There was something in her mother's hands, something that sparked, something that lit the dim interior of their little cottage in only glimpses of flash and flare.

  What is she doing? What has she done?

  There had been such storms, such fires across their land, the survivors had little to eat and less to trade. So many had left, to travel on, to find a new life amongst new people. They would leave in the next tenday, her mother had whispered as she had tucked her into bed. They would leave and look for a better place to begin again. Her sleep had been troubled as her mother's words rushed through her thoughts, as her worries rose in swirling currents. She had awoken only because she had heard a word.

  Her pillow was soaked in sweat, and whether she would have rested at all that nightfall was dubious, but what called her out of her internal struggles, her sorrow and uncertainty was a word. So carefully had she risen and crept to the curtained wall that her mother's keen ears had never heard her rising. From her mother's lips that word repeated. The flare and the shimmer followed.

  My mother, my mother—

  She blasted at the chasm that impeded her, at the mother who had left her, at the Gods who mocked her. From her lips that word sprang, full of fire and fury and the end of all obstructions.

  *

  Disbelief. That was the first thought that flickered through his mind as his body fell free of any support: stunned disbelief. Why had Alizarin aimed her beam of light at practically his very feet? He was running, well, walking, as fast as he could to reach her, to tell her what he knew, damn it all! He had even come back from death to tell her! And then the next thing Ilion saw, practically the last thing he saw, was his friend aiming the gemstone's power directly at him!

  His weak body, only slightly repaired from the miraculous water was still poorly able to do anything in response. Ilion fell with his arms clutched over his head, huddled in the same posture as a newborn baby. He fell through the air, pounded by the earth, knowing it would not end well for him. Alizarin's eyes had been so strange. As if she did not know me?

  With the abruptness of ripe fruit falling from the nurturing tree and hitting the ground with a resounding fullness at the earth's pull, Ilion smashed into the waiting arms of the collapsing ground. He was cradled only slightly from the drop and immediately covered by the continuation of falling debris, rock, and suffocating mountain. What has she done to me? He didn't even have a moment to get angry as the dirt fell around his head and hunched shoulders, pounding his upper back and arms with solid punches.

  Ilion made a tiny breathing space just by curving his neck into his chest and holding his folded arms over his fragile head. The collapse went on for a few moments more and then a great and vast silence fell over him, enshrouding Ilion in the bosom of the earth. It was a grasping hug that literally killed with its embrace. Suffocating, he knew he only had a few precious moments to do something, to dig his way out, to scream for help, to … to …

  Refusing to concede a defeat against this latest cosmic joke, Ilion filled his lungs with the pocket of remaining air and began to tunnel his way up and out of the fallen cavern. It felt as if he were swimming in dirt. Ilion could only dig, push, and step over the falling soil as he sought deliverance from its firming grip. With her yellow fire, she shot at me!

  The need for breath, for clean air was growing in his ribs. First, the shock had covered him from its intensity, but with each scrambling attempt to gain the surface of the rockfall, the hunger, the pain of his need increased. There wasn't much time left. In fact, there was no time left.

  Ilion's struggle for breath was elusive. His hands moved feebly, bereft of air. He struggled a few more grasping extensions of his arms, seeking to pull the dirt around and past him. His efforts slowed. His recurring dream became reality.

  Surrounded by brown, damp earth, caressing, smothering, grasping, and enclosing him in a tender vise, and unable to inhale the scarce air, he felt a terrifying sense of unfamiliar helplessness. Exhausted, Ilion pushed against the enclosing dark, attempting one last struggle against his approaching, inevitable death. His efforts to reach the surface stopped. There is no need to struggle. It is no use.

  The Gods had willed his death this day and he knew it, bowing to their plan, even as his lungs cried out for air, sweet and pure, fresh and clean. Ilion knew he had done all that he could. He only hoped it was enough. As the darkened land encompassed his last gulp of air, as his eyes swam with the bright and sharp light dancing illusory inside his eyelids, as he faded slowly into the pitch, a voice called to him.

  Uncertain of the sound, silent in his grave of collapsed earth, Ilion retreated into his boyhood training and exhaled his last
breath to answer. Alizarin!! It is her voice! To answer—to answer, it became the focus of his shrinking consciousness. Ilion's reply stole from his lips, empty of air. Voiceless, cut off, and drowning in dirt, he mouthed his reply again. “Do you hear me? Alizarin?” Was he heard? “Go to Dressarna! Aliz—”

  He felt panic in the silence, and then resignation. If only he could be certain that she knew. The help they needed, the way to fight was in Dressarna. Could she even hear him?

  A fiery warmth surrounded him, as the night of suffocation enclosed him in eternal sleep. There was nothing left to do, nothing he could do. It was enough. It had to be. Even within his gathering, Ilion began to fade into death's embrace, accepting it as divine will.

  Accepting death, he was almost eager for it with his beaten body and tired heart. He welcomed it and the new journey beyond. The alluring pull of quiet slumber wrapped him tightly. This was how Ver’Ilion d'Coeur would end, lost fittingly in the crusty and bitter heart of the Raging Mountains.

  I am ready to go, to travel on … but something in his core ember, his minute soul refused. With a passion for life and a defiance of fickle gods, the unknown, unacknowledged trickle of flame-being flared against the oncoming tidal dark. There was no strength left in his body, destroyed as it had been by heat and blood sacrifice. There was no strength in his mind, shutting down of its own accord, accepting the end of its purpose within the greater plan of the gods. But there was strength still in Ilion, in his heart—in his unclaimed heart!

  “Alizarin!” he cried without sound, without words, without answer. “Alizarin.” I cannot leave her. I cannot leave yet! I will not. A part of Ilion that had been cut and frozen, flamed brightly. Catching power and influence, Ilion's heart raged against defeat.

  His mind registered a baffled amazement as his body began to burn in flames of feeling. Engulfed in a flicker of soul that surged in power into a raging bonfire, Ilion resisted death's welcome. Shrugging off his resignation, his heart shone with purpose. He needed no gemstone, no staff. The coarse dirt around him melted away and hardened, leaving him space to breath and room to dig.

  He prepared himself to fight the greatest of all attackers in order to shout his reply, knowing now that the true test of his worth this day was the power of true friendship. She is my friend. She was more than that. Alizarin is my equal and I will not leave her!

  Opening his mouth, spiritually full of power and light, his voice echoed its message with the vastness of a deep gong. “Alizarin!? Can you hear me?” He shouted the words but his heart was calm. Steady in purpose, Ilion finally knew what he wanted.

  He called to her again. She did not answer. So he began to dig, climbing up the fallen rock to find her. He had done all he needed to do in this life. The rest of his energy was focused on Alizarin, to be near her, to help her; Ilion would not leave her to fight on alone. Nothing could stop him, nor bar his path. Pebbles and boulders, rocks and stones fell as Ilion insisted on his passage, clawing his way back from death's reward.

  *

  She held out her hand, bending the force with the power of her will. Build a bridge for me, a bridge to cross this chasm. Strengthen the dirt, melt the soil, raise the formations, lift the earth. The initial surge of energy blasted the opposite wall of the chasm, sending torrents of loosened rock and dirt cascading down into the vast pit. Alizarin thought of her mother, of secrets, and of disappearances. Alizarin thought how her own life would have been different if anyone had bothered to inform her as a child as to who she was and where her talents lay. Clearly, webs of omission had both cocooned and clouded her path.

  The truth could not be half as hard to bear, she thought. Out with it all!

  The ground before her feet began to harden, solidifying into a walkway that crossed the barrier with sturdiness and grace. Gladly, fiercely she stepped onto the newly made Bridge of Sorrow and walked across. With great care, as the distance to fall was deep and worrisome, yet with growing confidence, the young woman walked. She kept peering ahead, squinting her eyes to seek the form of the man she had spied but a few moments before.

  The figure that had lain beaten and apparently nude was not visible. She should be able to see the man better from her vantage point, not worse than from the far side of the chasm. He was nowhere to be seen.

  “Enough with the grand illusions! Enough!” she cried in frustration. “Let me see truly!” The light shone out as if she held the sun in her palm, brighter than the moon or the fallen stars, a beacon to her friend and a warning to her enemies. With steady progression and a healthy body, it did not take long for her to cross the chasm.

  Reaching the other side with gratitude, Alizarin was alarmed to discover no one was there. More precisely, there was a bench, a twin to the one she and Ilion had first encountered. And above the bench there was a crystal goblet, beautifully cut, but no Ilion.

  I am done with crying! Done with desperation. It was apparent to her that the whole damn structure was some kind of a test, although she couldn't help but feel like a toy broken repeatedly by an overeager toddler. Thinking, thinking, summing up the whole, she wondered what the next move should be.

  She had given up her hair, her tears, her pride to the trials of the temple. What have I gained? Sheer confidence, a bullish determination, and a truer picture of her very self. Her own worth was greater than the whole of this place or any assistance she could find here. There is no reason to stay.

  All she had to do was find Ilion. He had been here, in this very spot. She was certain of it. There were unmistakable traces of blood on the ground, fresh blood.

  She paced and paced. Alizarin was about to turn again to walk the small distance back to the bridge when the ground began to quake. It was a minor tremor at first, the jostling of the earth as it spasmed and shook, cracking and crazing all around her. With alarm, she jumped to the highest available spot, the top of the rough stone bench. From her perch, the startled woman watched it all.

  The mountain's skin groaned, heaved, and rolled. The earth fought for balance and settled but something boiled from under the crust. Pushing its way out of the deepest core of stone and rock, a mighty vein of lava split the floor, pushing the level ground into a steep hill, urgent to explode. White-hot magma burbled, spewing forth, hissing its protestation to the colder air.

  It is like sitting inside of an oven, Alizarin thought, with no way to escape! Did I cause this? She began to feel like a boule of sourdough bread, beaten down, risen again, and thrust into the heat of the fire to quickly harden. She looked down to her hands, armed with one gemstone in each, both fully lit against the coming inferno, uncertain how she would escape this disaster, yet knowing that she could. I am ready to fight the mountain itself before I will give up again!

  She watched from the side of the room as the pucker on the skin of the earth burst and ran, red molten dirt covering every surface. The stone bench stood, unmoving. She wasn't certain if it would dissolve in the heat. Or what to do if that happens?

  The heat off the liquid rock was intense. Her cheeks reddened and sweat poured down her face. The river of lava poured away from the bench and the crystal goblet and fell into the ravine that she had just crossed, filling it. The burning heat dampened a little with the new direction of the lava flow. Alizarin dotted her hairline with her mother's apron, somewhat relieved.

  It was something they would argue about later, the degree of her astonishment. When a hand emerged from the font of the lava, pushing its way into the air and grabbing onto the edge of the air-cooled dirt, her mouth flew open. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, wondering at the deception. Another trick of the temple?

  When she looked again, a head and shoulders were clearly visible, freed arms pushing against the upturned rocks, pulling his entire body out of the molten earth. Stretching his neck a bit, he looked around and saw her. She stood on the bench, mouth open in shock, with wonder on her face. A bit sheepish, the lava man nodded at her, still covered from his bellybutton down in red hot glowing
magma, and said, “There you are.”

  Matter of factly, so calmly that he might have been sitting in the shade of a tree bough with her by his side, not half submerged in primal liquid earth, Ilion pulled himself out of the clutches of the mountain. She wanted to run to him.

  It is Ilion! His own dear self, not some fire god come to give advice or exact vengeance! Alizarin wanted to hug him. She just wasn't sure how.

  Bits of flame still lingered on his skin, crackling merrily as Ilion walked to Alizarin's side. Looking up at her, standing above him on the coarse stone altar, he held out his still burning hand and said the last thing she ever expected to hear, “My happiness is a choice, Alizarin, and I choose you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Will to Fight

  He no longer feared the forest. There was still much to fear. Yet, with the extra eyes and senses of the reptiles added to his growing understanding of forest lore, Cethel felt a certain amount of freedom. After all, at least he wasn't still sick in his bed or trapped in the midst of the currently crazed villagers. That thought dovetailed into his source of misery: his loneliness.

  But we are here, friend. You are not one.

  He missed his parents and, while the Lurkers companionship was vastly superior to being alone, they were not his family. Cethel knew he was as safe as he could be at the moment, but he dreaded his father's anger. Every time he thought of his mother, his heart welled up and he felt his eyes wet. She has given me everything she could, he thought, fingering the handle of his father's father's sturdy knife. Now, it was up to him.