by BJ Hanlon
Edin slipped out of the cave and began down the slope toward the river. The mintweed tended to grow near other plants. It supposedly liked to choke water and nutrients out of its neighbor like it choked sickness out of the people who drank it.
It may have had four leaves or maybe five, but he was sure it was a wrinkled leaf and oval shaped. Edin stared at the plants as he traveled the ravine hopping up and down small ledges and boulders looking for the elusive plant.
The rock walls sloped from a near vertical to overhanging for the length of his walk. It was as if the entire land was carved out by a giant river over thousands of years. But it couldn’t have been the stream below his feet. That thing could barely carve out a channel the size of a watermelon.
He thought about Grent and Dephina and about the stone giant. Where were they? Edin kept himself from dwelling on it. Berka needed him.
“There,” he said to himself as he saw it. Edin leapt a nearly crushed rock, barely noticing the fact that it looked to have been pounded down by a giant’s blacksmith hammer. Edin stopped before the plant. Short-stemmed and next to much prettier plants. He noticed the thin little vines snuck out of the stem and reached around others. This one was growing rapidly. Edin pulled a leaf off, oval and wrinkly though it was small. He shoved it in his mouth hoping it was right.
Bitter and disgusting were the first thoughts. Then hot and itchy. Edin coughed and shot it out of his mouth. The stream was a few yards away and Edin dashed for it. He dropped to his knees feeling the hard thunk of rock on knee and slammed his face into the water.
Mouth burning now, Edin coughed, breathed in a bunch of water, and coughed again. He took up more, pulled back, coughed out water and threw his head back in. Then he drank. Large mouthfuls for at least a minute before he came back up for air.
His throat tickled. He coughed and hurled up over half of what he’d just swallowed. Then he collapsed and rolled to his side. He laid there for a few minutes. Or it felt like a few minutes before he finally got up.
“Blasted mintweed,” he rasped. Deep inside that, was the taste that he’d experienced far too many times in his life. But on the surface was something different. The fresh leaf and he thought maybe it was poison. At least he didn’t ingest it.
“Moron, blotard,” he said and let his head thump to the stone. After a few more minutes, he gathered some of the leaves and brought them back toward the cave.
The fire was still roaring when he returned and Berka was still asleep. But after searching the pack, he found that there were no pots.
Only Dephina must’ve had one. How could he boil water to make the tea? Berka groaned and opened his eyes.
Edin cleared his throat. “Found some mintweed,” He said and Berka grimaced, “but I don’t have a pot, and you don’t want to eat it raw.”
Berka stared for a moment either confused or possibly a bit constipated. Edin didn’t know how to help him with the latter. Then Berka spoke. “Hot rocks a-hole.” Then he closed his eyes and laid his head back.
“What?” Edin asked nearly shocked, was he calling Edin a..., no he wouldn’t be calling him that. “Berka?” But Berka’s snore said he was gone again. “Hot rocks a-hole? Why would you call me that?”
No answer.
Edin forgot about it, at least as best as he could. Then he thought, could he do something with the talent? Maybe control a ball of water with the leaves in it and put it over the fire. But what if he dropped it and the fire went out? That would be a pain.
He reached into his pack to look for something to eat. He found nothing; there was no food.
“Gods,” he muttered and leaned his head back to look at the stone ceiling. His stomach growled. He’d been so busy trying to figure out how to help Berka he’d forgotten to even check. That was not a good thing. Without food he’d grow weaker. Now he’d have to hunt for something. Maybe a goat would wander into his path, or maybe there was something living in that stream.
Though it was still rather early out, he was growing tired. He closed his eyes and laid near the fire. Later he’d hunt.
An annoying, chattering sound like a windchime of bones came from near him. Edin blinked open his eyes and saw Berka shivering and a sheen a sweat on his brow. He looked about as far out of it as a man could be.
“Blast it,” Edin said and twisted to his feet and searched for the leaves. They were in the pack but again they weren’t eatable. Boil and drink, clearly the only way. There was something in them that made it irritating to eat raw, and healing, albeit disgusting, when boiled.
Edin moved over to him and shook Berka. “Berka, you awake?”
No answer.
He remembered what Berka had said. “Hot rocks,” he paused, “a-hole.” Then Edin screamed. The sound echoed through the cavern and then out, bouncing around the walls of the gorge like a confused fish trying to find its way out of a small pool.
Outside there was sunshine high above but the gorge cast shadows that began twenty yards or more above them. The sun was already behind the mountains and it’d be very dark soon.
He left the cave. Maybe that hermit was around. As he was moving, he saw a small hole in the ground with water in it. Edin paused for a moment as he looked closer. It was nearly completely round and reminded him of a bowl.
“Hot rocks, a hole…” Edin said as the memory dawned on him. A story from a treasure hunter, one of the many people who’d come through the Crane and told their tale. Edin and Berka listened, trying to glean some knowledge from him and although the name of the man didn’t come to him, he remembered the tale.
The man was in the woods somewhere west of Yaultan hunting for what was called the High Scepter of Yalin’Tor.
Something he’d never heard of and something the man didn’t go into much detail about, but he would talk about the time he lost his only tin pot for boiling water. The man was a storyteller. Edin pictured it in his mind right there. His face seemed to be worried for himself in his own story. A few girls and many of the men from the Dancing Crane were listening as intently as the most pious at the Vestion during a service.
“I was dying of thirst,” he paused, his gray eyes wet, “I was searching for a source of fresh, clean water. But there was none. I closed my eyes and dropped to my knees. It was like hell, all the life around and no drinkable water only this stagnant pond. I thrust my arms in the air as I cried out,” the treasure hunter acted out from his barstool. “Vestor, god of men and savior of the world, help me. Save your loyal and proud servant from this wretched pain.”
The room was silent as he held his hands in the air with his eyes shut for what seemed like an eternity. Then slowly, his eyes lowered and he looked at the crowd around. Catching each of his audience in the eyes with a look. A look that conveyed all the terror and confusion and hopelessness that the man felt in that single moment and thrust it upon them.
Quietly, intently he then spoke; “Then I was hit by a vision. It was as if Vestor himself had come down and told me what to do. And you want to know what? It worked. I had a nearly endless supply of drinkable water and was able to continue my hunt for the scepter.”
“What’d you do?” a woman gasped. She was a traveler also so Edin didn’t know her name. She was close to the man’s right and her low-cut blouse showed much of her ample bosom. But Edin barely took his eyes off the man, such was the power of his story.
“I tell you lass, what I did was I dug a hole in the ground about a foot around and a foot deep near the pond. At first, I thought it’d fill up, but it didn’t. So I got this thought. Stones can grow hot in the sun. Too hot to stand on.” The man put his hand on the ladies’ shoulder. It was a grimy and disgusting hand, mangled and lacking at least two fingers. But she didn’t seem to mind.
“So, I found some rocks, small ones,” he made a circle with his hands, “and set them in my fire. See I still had my sparkstone and it was the woods so there was a lot of fuel. After an hour I carefully picked them up and threw them in the water and would
n’t you know it, the water boiled. Drinkable water.”
“Probably tasted like dirt and scum.” A patron said.
“Aye it did, but I survived and I lived to tell the tale.”
“It’s an old trick,” someone called out and people shot him an angry glare. But it seemed to break the trance of the girl and she quickly excused herself. Though the man was disappointed from missing out on the girl, many of the locals bought him rounds of ale.
Edin had always thought the tale was rubbish, especially the part about Vestor coming to the man with the vision. Now he couldn’t be certain, not with the seeing stones and the visions he’d had. There was much in this world he didn’t understand.
And what if it worked? There was a hole with water inside. He’d almost stepped in it at one point. He found a few rocks. Some a few inches long and wide, others smaller and set them next to it. The hole was only about six inches deep but almost a foot in diameter. More of a divot than a hole.
Edin brought a couple of sticks from the unending fire down and set it before him. Then he put the rocks on top.
He waited for nearly an hour, watching the stones. Staring at them and getting lost in thought. A part of him expected them to turn orange and glow like hot metal in Jassir’s forge. But they didn’t.
After enough time, he used his cloak to grab the stones and tossed them into the pool.
After the third, the water simmered and after the fifth, it was boiling. Edin added another to make sure and then added the mintweed leaves. There was so much water, he added all of them and hoped their potency wouldn’t be diluted.
He had to check his friend. Edin stood went inside by Berka while drinking the rest of the water in his skin.
Berka was still sleeping and it seemed breathing with difficulty. It was as if he’d stop at any moment. What would Edin do? What would he tell his family or El? Where were his father and mother? He hadn’t asked that. He hadn’t really cared since Vistach, the man who’d treated Edin like a second son, burned down the manor and killed his mother and Kes.
He and many more of the village. Many more old neighbors.
Berka coughed and a bubble began to form at his lips.
Edin finished the waterskin then went back outside and to the boiling mintweed tea. It smelled awful. Mintweed mixed with rocks and sediment. Edin waited for a while until it stopped boiling though it still steamed. He swallowed, took a deep breath and plunged the skin and his hands into the water. Edin clenched his jaw and rammed his eyes closed.
Then he pulled his hands out, nearly dropping the skin. He screamed and it echoed through the gorge. At that point he didn’t care. Not yet at least.
Edin quickly ran to Berka almost stumbling on the rocks due to the pain. Next to him he dropped and put the nozzle of the skin before his friend’s nose and let the odor waft into it. That was usually an aid.
Ten more minutes went by before he started to tilt the skin into Berka’s mouth.
At first, the ginger boy coughed it up. Then Edin learned to hold his jaw shut and he swallowed. Edin gave him three mouthfuls before he thought it was alright to leave for a few minutes.
Edin’s hand was bright red, nearly pink. He left the cave and ran to the small stream. He dropped to his knees and sunk his hands in the cold water. He held them there for a long time, until they tingled and became nearly numb. Then he sat back.
Overhead there was a dim orange light from the fading sun, but down here, it was dim to dark and he could barely see twenty yards. Shortly, it’d be darker. Edin didn’t want to spend a second night in nearly the same location but there was no way Berka was moving. A part of him wanted to go back up stream and see if he could find anything. Maybe Grent and Dephina, maybe that stone giant, though he had no idea what he’d do if he found it. How did one fight something like that? Could an ethereal blade and cut through it?
Now wasn’t the time to try.
Edin stayed quiet on the side of the gurgling stream until the only light was from the fire in the cavern. He returned, his stomach grumbling louder and sat down near the entrance. He didn’t know what was out there. Animals would probably be kept away from the cave due to the fire, the dematians wouldn’t care.
Inside, Berka was curled up and breathing a bit easier. Edin went to him and poured more of the tea down his throat. There was pain in his hand but he could deal with it.
After he was done, he sat back and his eyes wandered toward a back dark corner of the cave.
Edin wasn’t sure what was there, maybe something was hidden in the dark recesses, maybe it was another cave. What if there is a wolf or large man-eating cat that lived in it, or a giant serpent or spider. Edin shivered, he probably should’ve checked.
He picked up a thin torch from the fire and moved toward the darkness. As he got closer, he saw that there was a wall, but behind it, was a small nook. A closet or so he thought.
Then he looked in and saw he was wrong. It wasn’t just a small nook; it grew into a much larger room.
There were long slabs of rock about waist high. What could’ve been considered counters or beds. There were more drawings and lines on the walls. Impressions that could’ve been writing. Crosses, slashes, circles and dots.
Deeper in, he found a corridor. He followed it as it delved further into the mountain. It met at a set of stairs heading up. He looked back at the black corridor and then up the stone stairs.
“What is this place?” Edin whispered. Did the hermit live somewhere in here? Edin began climbing. He could see scorch marks on the ceiling and came to a landing that spread out to the left and right in a corridor. Straight ahead of him was an opening the size of his head. It was squared off and at a forty-five-degree angle. Through it, Edin could see a full moon. It was perfectly shaped in the square opening as if it were a painting by some artist who made ultra-real paintings.
Edin stared for a while. It was longer than his mind grasped, until slowly the moon began to drift out of the square. Then Edin followed it and the room to the right and reached more openings, there were small windows in the mountain face that looked like they could’ve been natural caves, more writing, and more platforms. Other corridors headed out in different directions. It was a maze in the cliff wall. But maze wasn’t right, it was a city.
With the fire and his walking, he grew extremely warm. He sweat profusely as he followed, corridor after corridor into and out of cave dwellings and continued up hoping to find a place where he could get a better view of the surroundings. The small holes, windows really, showed only glimpses of the landscape. He saw mountains rising to the west and north, his only real view.
Edin’s stomach growled and he grew tired, though he did not stop. He would not stop.
There were more and more glyphs, artwork, and writing as well as more shafts that pointed up at an angle out of the mountain. Below them were what looked like fire pits. Whoever built this place didn’t have an unending fire.
Once in a while, a gust of wind whipped through and bellied the flames from some unknown hole. An hour later, he looked out a small window, one a bit more southernly and saw three mountain peaks that reminded him of a trident. In between them, he spotted something flying. A single bird of some type, though it couldn’t have actually been between the trident prongs, if it had, the thing would be huge.
Edin continued up, his legs began to feel like gelatin from boiled pig and cow hide. Even that thought made his stomach hungry. Finally he stopped at a corridor that led directly to a thin opening that rose from floor to ceiling. To the left and right were giant oval rooms with domed ceilings.
Moving forward, he saw broken pottery, nearly petrified wood, and crumbled parchment. He’d seen that sort of thing almost the entirety of the trip up. He knew none of it could help him at this point.
He couldn’t even read Highborn, which was still used in certain circles, how could he read a different, possibly much older language.
He reached the opening. It was barely two feet wide, j
ust wide enough for him to slip through without turning. Edin stepped out.
The cold wind hit him with a bite. He was on a terrace of stone. A great slab that could not have been placed there by anyone but a god.
The view was higher than the bridge, it had to have been. Below him, he could not see into the gorge, if the gorge was even directly below him. He’d traveled so far and made many turns. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he knew the way back down. The entire mountain seemed to have been one giant maze.
It was a town. Edin glanced above his head and saw he was barely halfway up the mountain. Edin spotted a constellation and remembered Arianne telling him about it. Gorto and the beast, the god fighting the giant serpent with his bare hands.
It was always to the north during the winter months. That gave him a sense of direction.
Other snowcapped mountains and trees, damp with moisture, were lit by the moon. They offered a sparkling silver twinkle.
He saw no trails or passes. Only crags, boulders and thick woods that covered the valleys and mountains. What path leads west?
The hermit didn’t want him going there, it was probably where he lived and didn’t want anyone. If he lived in the mountains there had to be food and shelter.
But there was no sign of him in these tunnels. Did he have another home? A more secret one?
The terrace was facing due west. Somewhere out there were the plains of Dunbilston and the elves. Edin looked north, he saw a broken landscape with hibernating trees and hidden streams flowing. He couldn’t see the ridge. Edin didn’t even know if it was to the north.
Back west, a mile or so away was a tall and rounded peak that had a large boulder jutting out of the side as if it were a humpback.
Below it was a small valley, but it was still above the gorge. Somehow, they’d have to climb to get out of it. Then they’d head toward that mountain. Once there, he had to find the next one and set the pace west until he was out of the uncompromising mountain range.