by BJ Hanlon
Edin sighed. Even if Berka were healthy, this wouldn’t be a fun journey.
Something about the vastness of the land, the huge mountains, the grand scale of things gave Edin a chill that he couldn’t quite attribute to the wind. Edin swallowed as he pondered what his job was.
Could he even do it? Could Edin stop the dematians and that thing.
It couldn’t be him, Edin thought. Hoped really.
As he thought about it again, still climbing the long tunnel, Edin felt that despair. Sweat broke out and he closed his eyes. Edin felt dizzy for a moment and reached out. A stone nub stabilized him.
He thought of his breathing and the feeling of the breeze in his hair and the hard stone beneath his feet. Edin lowered himself down.
He sat and remembered the stories and legends of the past. The heroes and heroic deeds of men. The journeys or the battles always seemed so quick and there was never any doubt as to who would win in the end. Whether it was Nilipsus the Dragon Slayer or Helicart the Titan, a man who fought off an entire invading horde of wild men.
There never seemed to be a moment in those stories when there was doubt, when there was little hope. Nilipsus seemed so self-assured; Helicart was the biggest and best fighter of his age, maybe of any age. Their stories never told of such fears and uncertainty. Maybe they didn’t have those... Maybe it was only the ones who’d failed that felt overwhelmed by the task at hand.
“One thing at a time,” Edin whispered to himself. “Just one thing at a time.” He repeated as he laid back on the tall stone slab and closed his eyes. In the morning, he’d get a better view, hopefully. But for now, he needed those doubts silenced. Though he was almost certain that the one leading them was Yio Volor, God of the Underworld.
10
A Fearful, Uneasy Feeling
They were still rising. All of them. An army of beasts and demons, monsters from ages past following their leader. There was no sleep for them, there was no tiredness. They were following the long tunnel to the place where they could break through. But they couldn’t break through; not yet.
They needed something. That, Edin knew.
Despite this, they were moving at a heck of a speed, the giant spider chattered, its hooked feet clicking on the ground. There were giants stomping, flying beasts screeching and cawing, large serpents slithering as they followed their master up the long road from the underworld. How long would it take them?
They cannot open the door without me, he thought. But it didn’t sound like his thought. So much so that his sleepy mind asked “Who said that? Who are you?”
There was no answer.
“Then I’ll just stay away.”
“A good plan, it will not work,” his voice said.
The sun light didn’t wake him. It was the crowing of some bird, the sound piercing his head like that of a whistle during a hangover. Edin leapt from his spot and stood.
He was still basked in the shadow of the mountain that was aimed toward the humpbacked peak he’d seen the night before. To the left and right, a bright yellow sunlight glowed on the trees and broken landscape below.
The weight of an upcoming difficult task fell over him.
Seeing the mountains during the day didn’t make them look any smaller. And he was certain he couldn’t see the end of the mountain range.
He peered off both ways to see if he could find Jont’s pass. He wasn’t sure if he was south or north of it. Heck he could be west of it too.
To the northern side, he saw a long line of stone pillars that looked like a hundred different sized quarterstaffs lined up next to each other.
On it, he saw movement. Edin closed his eyes as he watched the thing, two arms and two legs, climb up one of the handles until it reached the apex, then it looked back and forth and leapt down to the next one, almost fifty feet below.
There was no sound. Not like there should’ve been. The drop was completely silent. He thought for a moment that it was that stone giant. Edin watched the thing continue to the next pillar, the thing climbed it, reached the top and jumped down on the other side to a lower one then strode across.
Edin was fascinated and watched until it reached the edge of the line of pillars then it turned and leapt off what Edin considered the backside. He knew that wasn’t Jont’s pass.
Soon, Edin descended. It took a long time to figure out the way he’d come up. Heck he could barely remember some of the shafts he’d followed or why he’d turned left instead of right or gone straight instead of back.
It took more than an hour to find his way back to the base of the cliff city. A defensible place where man could hide. Probably did hide in eons past.
Once down, he saw Berka still next to the fire and the waterskin was a few feet away. He was snoring though it wasn’t a sick snore. It was one that said he was getting some much-needed rest.
It was too bad he didn’t have time for another day off.
Edin bent over and shook Berka. “You awake?”
“Now I am,” Berka muttered after a moment. He looked up, his eyes were red and there were a pair of small rocks stuck to his forehead. His face looked like a map of a canyon with lines from the rock pillow.
“We lost a day; we have to get moving.”
Berka groaned and rolled over, his stomach growled but he said nothing.
“We’ve got no food and there’s a stone giant a half mile north of here.”
Berka rolled over and raised an eyebrow. After staring at Edin for a moment he nodded and got up.
They crossed the creek. It had risen since the last time he went through. It was a foot and a half deep now. That was a lot for one night, Edin thought. Somewhere snow must be melting quickly.
The rock walls on both sides were nearly shear with little in the way of a hand hold and a couple hundred feet tall, not something he’d want to risk.
Though he could buffet a fall, he still didn’t want to climb.
The trek was hard over the rocky uneven valley floor. After a half mile of going, mostly southwest through the gorge, the land on the sides of the stream began to disappear as the walls of the ravine crowded in on them. Plants were gone now too and every few steps were in the water. It didn’t take long for his left foot to feel waterlogged. Above them, the sun couldn’t penetrate down below and it was cold.
“See these lines on the walls,” Berka called out from behind. Edin turned back and saw. Brownish lines, a few of them every two or so feet. He knew what they were but hadn’t said anything.
“Water lines.”
“There are times when this river is much deeper than now.”
“Times like spring, after the snowmelt.”
Edin said nothing and began forward. He stepped on a stone that tilted under his weight. He stumbled but caught himself by grabbing a root growing from the side of the wall.
His foot splashed into the water and he felt the chill to the knee. “It’s rising.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Berka said.
They started to pick up the pace. The ravine that had been about fifty feet across near the cave was now barely ten and there was no dry land. They kept going and the walls pushed in on them even more until they were barely three feet apart. “How much further does this canyon go?” Berka huffed. The water was mid-thigh now and they were splashing their way through.
“I left the map in my other pants.” Edin said.
The light barely made its way down here, but he could see ten feet in front of him, maybe more. Though that was when the ravine didn’t turn which was almost never.
Something began to sound from behind them. Something rather loud, like the ride of a cavalry. In front of them the water didn’t only flow; it began to tremble.
Edin stopped and looked back at Berka.
“You can handle this right? I mean you’re part glasorio.”
Edin remembered being pummeled into near oblivion in the river near Alestow. A phantom pain in his shoulder was like a kick to his consciousne
ss. “Have you ever tried to hold back a river?” Edin asked. “I don’t care how strong you are, water always wins.”
“Being bashed into nothingness by a raging flash flood, not the way I’d hoped to go,” Berka said in a solemn voice.
“Me neither.” Edin had an idea. He reached up and touched the walls on both sides, the left then the right. They were smooth but there were a few indentations here and there. “Remember that story about the two thieves that were thrown in an abandoned well to die?”
“That fake story? What do you call it? Fiction.”
“Yes.”
“You know I do not read.”
“It’s about time you do.” The water began rising. It hit his groin now. “Back to back, lock our arms together.” They did so, Edin was facing the right wall, Berka the left. “Okay, left foot first. Use your legs to push into my back.” The pounding was growing louder behind them. The sound of cavalry, though it wasn’t actually cavalry in the sense of coming to rescue them.
“Ready?” But as he said it, he felt Berka push.
Edin flopped forward and nearly face planted into the wall. As he righted himself, he screamed, “Wait for my signal.”
“You said ‘ready.’”
Edin looked down and saw the water rising much more rapidly now. He glanced up and could feel the white water. It was almost a part of him. His heart thudded in his chest. “Now,” Edin said.
They pushed into each other’s backs. After two steps, they were out of the water. Edin gasped. “Right, left, right, left.”
Then he saw it. White and running like the horses in the cavalry. In a blink, the water moved from around a slight corner and raced at them.
Without talking, without any sort of communication, they tightened their arms like vices and moved much quicker. Foot after foot.
It rushed below. Drops splashed up and wetted his butt like he had an accident. Then a tug at his sheath. He felt the hilt of his sword digging into his thigh.
Another step and it dropped back to its rightful hanging place. They stepped again and were now three feet above the raging river.
“Stop.” Berka huffed.
Edin did. His chest pounded, his muscles were shaking and he was sweating from more places than he thought possible. Edin looked up and saw the blue sky beyond the lips of the two cliffs. It was maybe ten feet up.
Below, he heard the water slowing. Edin looked down and saw the line dropping. They could continue up or go back down.
“What, do you think?” Edin huffed.
Berka’s head flopped around behind him. “I don’t want to have to do this again,” Berka panted. “Ever.”
It was settled. “Left, right.” They went slower as they climbed closer and closer to the top. Then as they were nearing the edge, he realized that there wasn’t a way to pull themselves up. One could push and the other would fall, unless.
“Hold on for a moment,” Edin said. He concentrated on an area below him. He remembered one of the first things he practiced. Making an apple turn into a huge ball. Edin held a hand below him and thought about it.
Normally, it wouldn’t take much concentration, but being here, exhausted and sweating profusely thirty feet above a less than raging, but still deadly river, took a bit extra.
Edin saw the ball expand outward first so that it reached the walls and then slowly, it began to rise like bread after the yeast was added. He felt the center pushing him up first, his feet sliding against the rock wall as they rose.
The pain in his thighs lessened and he saw over the apex of the cliff. Then Berka’s back was gone. Edin yelped and had the ball push up quicker. It flung him forward about five feet. Edin slid on the ground picking up scratches from rocks and fallen sticks. He was beneath a large tree that was beginning to bloom.
He laid there breathing heavily. His eyes hurt from sweat, his body was sore from the climb and the water. Now he could just sleep.
“Come on blotard. Can’t rest on your laurels,” Berka shouted.
Edin glanced over to see Berka leaping the crack and sitting down next to him.
Edin said, “I didn’t get my beauty sleep yesterday like someone.”
“Too bad. You could use it.”
“You’d have to sleep for a decade to be as pretty as me.”
Berka slugged him in shoulder and then looked off at the mountains. “My question is, why didn’t you do that from the start? You could’ve let us ride up like we were on a waterwheel.”
“You try holding a culrian with a raging river pounding at it.”
“Always complaining, lazy abo— mage.” Berka paused. “Sorry, old habits.”
“At least you’re learning.” Edin said, “How about we rest here for twenty minutes then we can continue through this unending mountain range with no food.”
“Sure,” Berka said and laid down a few feet away. “You are a beast though. But it has only to do with your face not your talent.”
“Oh, go eat califoo’s poop.”
“A what?” Berka said and then started to chuckle. A deep throaty chuckle that echoed through the world around them as if they were in a great echoey vault.
The thought struck him as odd. He rolled over and looked above his forehead. There was a sloping hill covered in leafless trees to the west, at least according to the sun. The hill curved around like a half moon nearly encasing them.
The gorge from the river split it in two. On the far side, there was a cracked rock that could’ve once been flat. Edin looked up at the walls and saw small holes in the rock, ridges that were nearly flat. “It couldn’t be.”
“What couldn’t be?” Berka said.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said, ‘it couldn’t be’.”
“I did?” Edin said but Berka didn’t answer. “Does this look like an amphitheater?” Edin said raising a hand up as if he were showing it off.
“I guess.”
“And where we stayed, that was a type of village or city of some sort. People used to live here. Hundreds, maybe thousands.”
Berka was quiet for a few moments and then shook his head. “How? There are trees but no place to farm or graze cattle. I doubt this land could sustain even ten people. Or has your stomach not told you you were starving?”
That took Edin’s mind to his growling stomach. “It has,” Edin said. “But what about before? What if this was built before the time of Vestor, before civilization? What if this was pre-history?”
Berka made a funny face, almost a squint like he’d drank a bitter ale. “Pre-history? How can anything be pre-history? It’s either history or its present or its future. Heck even these words now are now history.”
“Pre-recorded history then,” Edin said. “Before people put pen to parchment.”
“Oh, how easy life would’ve been to not have to learn your numbers or letters. I could’ve spent all day wooing the ladies.”
Edin rolled his eyes. “Whatever, what does it matter? We’re still in these mountains blocked off from everything. We still need to find the elves and save the world from the dematians.”
He looked away. Edin wasn’t about to tell him about the vision of the monsters ascending to their world or the fact that something told him he was the one meant to release these creatures and their leader.
That wasn’t a good thing. To prevent it, any sane person would just kill Edin right there. Even if it was his friend.
“Well, we can get going,” Berka said. “If you’re done with your dainty rest my princess.”
“Don’t,” he hissed.
“Right, sorry.”
It was an easier climb through the trees and up the terraces. They were barely two or three feet above each other until they reached what he hoped was at least somewhat of a flat vale. He didn’t want to even think about his view the night before, the one of nothing but endless valleys and mountains covered in trees and bushes.
After two hours of climbing up and over the terraces, they reached the last o
ne. And saw that there were more mountains and valleys before them.
But between it, was a fat ridge with few evergreen trees and tiny shrubs, still bare, growing out of the ground. They sat down without consulting each other and stared at the path before them.
“If I don’t eat soon, I’m liable to cook you,” Berka said.
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yes, it is,” Berka said and flopped to his back, his chest heaving. Edin closed his eyes and let the world wash over him. The water down below, the wind through the mountains and over the crevasses and the bleating of something.
He tried to ignore it. All of it. He was too tired to think and wanted nothing more than to rest for a while.
“Do you hear?” Berka said.
Edin waived him away.
“It’s a goat,” he whispered near Edin’s ear the warm damp breath tickling the insides.
Edin blinked and looked up at the still high sun. “Well go kill it.”
“You’ve got all the talents. You could just you know shoot one of your knife things.” Edin didn’t say anything. The pounding in his head from listening to Berka was barely rivaled by the ache in his limbs.
Berka whined, “Come on, I don’t want to have to cut off your arm for food.”
Edin shot up. “Seriously? I know people say gingers have no souls.”
“That’s an old wives tale told by people who wish they were ginger. It was a lie then and a lie now.”
Edin looked at where Berka was staring. There were thick trees and rocks and roots but he couldn’t see a goat or anything else through it. He heard the bleating again but couldn’t tell where it even came from. “Do you know where it is?”
“In that,” Berka said pointing where they both had been staring.
His stomach growled as he thought about meat. Edin pushed himself up. “Alright, you go around the backside and try to flush it out. I’ll stay over here and take care of it when I have an open shot.”
Berka nodded and licked his lips like a hungry cat. That too was gross.