Dirt

by CC Hogan

  Chapter 8 – Companions

  Since the mountain was off limits to dragons, the path that led to the peak was very much human sized, though small goat sized may have described it better. Unlike the rest of the Cartre Sarad and its grand surrounds, the entrance to the path was tucked behind a small building, unguarded and unremarked on, and the only barrier was a little wooden gate with a simple latch. The few weeds growing around the post showed it was not often used.

  “We needed permission for this?” Farthing was bemused since it looked as if anyone could just walk through.

  “Much of the path is exposed, and with all the dragons flying around, anyone on it would be noticed and reported to the caretaker. Since we have permission, he won’t allow dragons to throw things at us like large boulders and so on.”

  “They would do that?”

  “Most wouldn’t,” the magician said, chuckling. “But I could think of one or two who would find it fair sport.”

  Farthing skirted around the thought that throwing anything at Weasel would be considered fair sport by most people, whether he was on a mountain or not. He was still feeling bruised by his poisoning, though a lot better than he felt that he should be after such an ordeal. He was aware that Weasel had at least a small part to play in his salvation, but he didn’t really understand how.

  “I gather I owe you thanks, Weasel. Fren-Eirol tells me you saved my life.”

  “I merely hung onto your life for a day or so. Mab-Tok and his revolting purge did most of the lifesaving, to be honest, and if Fren-Eirol hadn’t flown nearly thirty hours straight, there wouldn’t have been anything to save.”

  Farthing thought through what had happened as he scrambled over some loose rocks. “I didn’t think she could fly that long while carrying us.”

  “She can’t, or at least not at a sensible altitude. She flew much higher than normal with help from our ugly Scimra friends, and was able to take advantage of the thin air and high winds. She doesn’t need to flap up there so much.”

  “But we, I mean, you and I, can’t breathe at that height! She told us that before.” None of this was making much sense at all.

  “I know. Mystery, ain’t it?” Weasel picked up the pace and marched on up the path. Farthing shook his head. For a brief moment, back at the Shallow Sea, he thought he had a handle on what they were doing and how they were doing it. Now, it had become like wading through treacle. He headed up the mountain after the thin, annoyingly fit magician. How old was this bloke meant to be?

  It must have been some time since any humans had climbed the mountain. The path was overgrown in places and was only clearer where the local goat population had appropriated it for their own needs. It was also steep and gravelly, and both men slipped and slid often. Without any discussion, the two put a safe distance between them so that they did not slide into each other and had time to warn the one lower down that a rock was coming their way. Weasel led for the first couple of hours at a quick pace, but as the mountain steepened he slowed down and let Farthing take over for a bit. It was not as if they were going to get lost. It was pretty obvious which way they were going; up.

  “The path just zig-zags on this side of the mountain for most of the way,” Weasel explained when they stopped for a rest. “The seaward side, the eastern side, is one cliff from top to sea and is impossible to climb though the goats seem to manage. You will get a better idea nearer the top as we will cross around to the far side for the last fifty paces or so. Upwards, that is.”

  “Do we have to be right at the top?” It struck Farthing that any height would help, it did not need to at the summit of this needle-sharp peak.

  “I can’t feel the boat through the mountain. I need to be facing where they have gone and I am confident from the very faint echo I sensed when we flew in that they are continuing towards Bind. That means we will need to be as high as possible and see over the other side of the mountain; we can only do that at the top.”

  That, at least, made some sort of sense, thought Farthing, though how the Magician could “feel” a boat that was hundreds of leagues away would be a mystery forever; of that he was certain.

  By the end of the afternoon, they were two-thirds of the way up, and took their rest in a small stone hut. There had been more of these up the mountain in times gone past, but they had fallen to ruin over the centuries and the winds and rain had removed what had remained.

  “We have been lucky,” Weasel said, laying out his bed roll on the floor. “There isn’t much wind and no mist. These huts are essential when the weather is worse. The trouble is, no one has maintained them for many years and most have gone. Just this one and one on the other path now.”

  “Other path?”

  “There is a path up from the very bottom of the mountain starting at a small fishing harbour that dates back to a much earlier time but is abandoned now. It is a difficult climb and the path is only accessible from the harbour which is in ruins and you cannot moor a boat there. The Caretakers are quite happy about that, needless to say, as it undermines their authority to refuse permission.”

  “Do they do that? Refuse, I mean.”

  “I am sure Bren-Diath will set a trend.”

  “You don’t sound like you have much time for dragon politics.” Farthing had noted the slightly sarcastic edge to Weasel’s opinions about the dragons at Taken.

  “Well, to be fair to me, most dragons don’t have time for dragon politics either. It is a pointless exercise since not only do they not recognise borders, but have no concept of the idea of an independent country; they don’t even have a word for nation in their language.”

  “But you call Fren-Eirol a queen; doesn’t that have to mean you are the queen of something?”

  “It has a different twist. When dragons pair, they don’t call it marriage. The Bren and Fren they adopt loosely translate into our language of Adelan as King and Queen, but the meaning is more like husband and wife. A dragon’s name carries a lot more power than a title. Bren-Aneirin, Fren-Eirol’s pairing, was highly respected throughout dragondom and both he and Fren-Eirol helped to smooth many problems between the dragons, the humans and the callistons. Just being part of that history carries a lot of weight. They also were the ones that encouraged the sea dragons to keep their relationships going with coastal humans. Interesting considering that Bren-Aneirin was a red mountain dragon.”

  “I don’t think I have seen a red mountain dragon,” Farthing commented. He was enjoying this conversation because it took his mind off his sister though that also made him feel a little guilty. Her fate weighed heavily on him, and as they climbed, his mood had started to darken. Talking about dragons dragged him out of it; the stories felt like those told to children. “Red dragons are much bigger, aren’t they?”

  “Well, Fren-Eirol is unusually large for a sea dragon, male or female, but male red dragons are much bigger again than her. Aneirin was more than twice her size.” Weasel had a faraway look as he remembered the long-dead dragon.

  “He was your friend, wasn’t he?” Farthing knew the answer but was interested.

  “We were young together,” Weasel said absently.

  “How can that be? I thought he was old when he died?”

  “Old, but not old for a dragon. Bren-Diath is older. I was born in Tepid Lakes, but I got out of there as soon as I could fend for myself and headed to the mines in the mountains for work. Mab-Aneirin’s father was involved in one of the mines; it was about as near as any dragon got to owning anything land shaped and very unusual.”

  “Mab? Son of?”

  “Vaguely. Really, it just means male. The male dragons of a line used to have this habit of using the same name again and again. Bloody confusing to be honest, especially as they are so long-lived that you can have several generations going at the same time. Mind you, it is rare for a male to have a child for the first few hundred years, so that helps. I am not sure many keep up
the tradition now; dragons are not family minded. The female dragons have their own names like humans. Female dragons are generally a lot more sensible than males. But then, I see that in humans too.”

  “You talk as if you are not a human!” Farthing laughed a little and tried to get more comfortable on the stone floor of the hut.

  “Well, there is some debate about that, to be honest.” Weasel looked thoughtful as if judging how much to say. “You have heard the stories about humans not being from Dirt?”

  “Yeah, loads of them. Some that we fell out with a god who kicked us off our own world, others that we were created because of some argument between gods who wanted to upset the people here. Another I remember was there were two worlds and we were from the other one, but it was destroyed and we came here, though I can’t see how we did that.”

  “And there are a lot more,” the magician pointed out before the list grew too long. “But they all have one thing in common; none of them talk about magicians. Assuming that none of the stories are actually true, but all may have the tiniest grain of truth in them somewhere, where is the magic? Where are people like me who can do things like tracking your sister?”

  “I still don’t understand how you can do that.”

  “And that is the point, I suppose. I don’t understand why you can’t. Two things about me are different from you. You can’t do things with your mind like I can, and you are utterly incapable of living anywhere near the length of time I can, allowing for accidents and acts of violence. Both of those things are as natural to me as digging a hole is natural to you.”

  “Oh, you heard about that then.”

  “Geezen went into some detail, yes. I think that is why she is so keen for you to get back.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Farthing laughed at the joke. Maybe Weasel was not so bad after all. Still irritating, however. He had also started to notice that the magician seemed to have more than one trick up his sleeve. Farthing would not pretend for a moment that he was any sort of expert on magicians, but it was common knowledge that those with many talents were exceedingly rare, in fact, more legend than anything else. They were also highly distrusted, for some reason he could not remember, but he felt it better not to pursue that conversation. He gave up trying to get comfortable, stood back up and pushed open the wooden shutter of the one window.

  “How long will it take us to get to the top?” The mountain had noticeably narrowed, but from what he could see the path was much steeper.

  “The next stretch is the worst, more of a climb really. You will wish you were a goat by lunchtime tomorrow. Then we will have to make our way along a narrow ledge to reach the eastern face. The final path, though steep, is much easier and very short. Some kind fool cut steps into the rock for the last few paces, so it is little more than climbing stairs; the drop is a lot more spectacular, though.” Weasel sounded almost pleased at the sheer danger of it all.

  “After that?”

  “Then you make yourself as comfortable as possible and rest while I try and find your sister.”

  “Rest? Why?”

  “Because you will have to lead us back down to this hut. I will only just be able to walk, I reckon.”

  “Oh.” Farthing looked down at the magician who had his eyes shut. “Thanks.”

  “Get to bed. We will start to climb before the sun is up.” And with that, Weasel rolled over and went to sleep.

  Farthing woke with a start and shook his head. It had taken an eternity to get to sleep the night before. His mind was a whirl of ancient dragons and his missing sister, but he had slept eventually. The magician’s bedroll was already tied up and Weasel had stored it on top of a high shelf; they would not need most of their belongings for the final climb, though Farthing would be carrying food for both of them in case. Farthing stowed his own gear and joined Weasel outside where he was drinking from a small spring.

  “That kept me awake for ages,” Farthing grumbled, remembering the continuous trickling sound from the night before that had complicated his already restless thoughts.

  “I will tell Bren-Diath to turn it off for you next time,” the magician muttered between swallows. “Can you refill our water? This is the last spring on the climb; none at the top.”

  Farthing filled their skins and the two men headed straight off up the steep path, munching on some oat biscuits. Weasel was right about this first part of the climb. The path started out as a small trail between random gorse bushes and then quite simply turned vertical. It was not just steep, they had to scramble up the side of the mountain hanging on with their hands most of the time. Farthing was the bigger and the stronger of the two men, but this was no advantage here. Weasel’s light frame gave him a lot less to carry and he almost wriggled up the steep path. It was still in semi-darkness too. Although it was early morning, the sun rose on the far side of the mountain and they were in the shade till the sun climbed higher. Conversation vanished as each of them worried about their own progress, but by late morning they had reached the path to the ledge and Weasel suggested they rest.

  “We will wait here for half an hour,” he said. “The ledge is really narrow and it's not the place to be if your heart is racing from the climb.”

  It made sense, thought Farthing, as his own heart was beating like a demented drummer, partly from the climb and partly from the thinner air. It was easy to forget that the hall and plaza from where they had started were already a couple of thousand feet up from the sea; they had just added another couple of thousand to the tally.

  Up here he felt he was up with the clouds, though they were still thousands of feet above him. Down below he could see the apron of land jutting out from the mountain and the tiny buildings that made up Taken Town. Weasel pointed to the distant harbour.

  “When we get back down again, we will go visit the town. Fren-Eirol and Mab-Tok won’t be back yet and I really do not want to be hanging around with the dragon mob while they are still acting shocked at our mode of arrival. Fren-Eirol will know how to find us.” Farthing had only just started to grasp how significant flying with Fren-Eirol had been. He had grown up with the idea that dragons did not carry humans, but it was just how things were and not of any importance. Here at Taken, however, it was being treated as a major event and that had come as a surprise.

  Hearts calmed down to a sensible level, the magician and the young man made their way along the ledge. It wasn’t as bad as Farthing had imagined, but it was narrow and the drop to his right was steep and deadly. He doubted he would stop before he hit the bottom though he would probably bounce a couple of times on the way down. A distant, forlorn cry made him look up and he had to steady himself as his body lost its sense of balance. High above, Farthing saw the thin, curved shapes of the scimra flying to some unknown destination. Before this trip, he had never noticed the birds. Maybe they did not fly over the mainland so had simply not been there to notice, or perhaps in his small world back in Wead-Wodder, a person never looked high enough to see much beyond what they had to contend with day in and day out.

  It had not been that many days since he had left the town of his birth, but already it felt distant and strange. Other than a couple of short trips up the banks of the river Wead on foot and the short time he played with being a fisherman, he had never left the town for any length of time. Had his world really been so small? He supposed it had. And then, wasn’t it the same for all those like him at the bottom of the pile? Truk might have made it as a trader, but for every one of Truk, there were several hundred like Fennerpop, pushing dirt in a rickety old cart till one day you keeled over and your ashes scattered over the very dirt you had spent your life shifting. It was an inevitability of life in Redust that never changed, and that troubled Farthing.

  Weasel had disappeared around a turn in the exposed path and Farthing edged along after him. The path widened out a little her
e, ran horizontally for a short distance, and then up the eastern face of the peak. Looking down cautiously, Farthing could see what the magician had meant. The cliff was sheer and featureless with little in the way of handholds or places to climb. Despite that, and to Farthing’s complete astonishment, scattered over the cliff face was a handful of the small, sturdy, mountain goats.

  “Amazing creatures,” Weasel called back to him. “They have these really sharp, pointed hooves which they can fit into any tiny crack in the rock and are incredibly strong. They must be the most sure-footed creature on Dirt.”

  It was much windier here than on the western slope and yet it seemed to hardly worry the tough mountain goats. Farthing made his way up to where Weasel waited, and raised his voice against the buffeting wind.

  “Why have they built the path this side?” It seemed an odd thing to do since it was steeper than the west.

  “They didn’t; this is a natural crack in the rock, and they have just cut out steps to make it easier to use. Someone did try and cut a path up the west slope, but the rocks there are not very stable and it kept breaking up. This was the better option.”

  “How the hell do you know all this stuff, Weasel? This path has to be older than you!”

  The magician laughed. “Oh, thousands of years older, but when I get bored, I listen to people. Eventually, given enough time, you learn quite a lot.” Farthing saw the logic, but you would have to live several lifetimes to learn all the knowledge the magician seemed to own. Then again, Weasel had lived a lot of lifetimes by Farthing’s reckoning. “It is just up this path now,” the magician continued. “At the top, there is a large flat area.” He clambered up the steep, but well cut steps, Farthing on his heels.

  At the summit, it was like another world. Suddenly, the rough rockiness disappeared, and instead, the flat ground was covered with very short, goat-mown grass and assorted mosses and small, tough bushes. Farthing turned slowly, taking in the view. Meindir Gydaynis, Mount Taken, might not be the highest mountain in the world by many thousands of feet, but its position was unique. On every side, as far as the eye could see, was water. He could not see the rest of the island from where he stood, just the top of the mountain and they might as well have been flying again. It was simply magnificent. A short, annoyed bleat announced the arrival of a small, angry-faced white goat. Its slightly tilted head and intense glare said it all. “What are you doing on my mountain?”

  Farthing chuckled. “I think both humans and dragons have the true ownership of this rock entirely wrong,” he said.

  Weasel looked up as he made himself comfortable on a small patch of soft grass. “You are probably right at that. Goats don’t need to make up stories to justify why they are here. They just are.” He smiled at the goat. “Go and chat to the goat for a while. Hopefully, this will not take too long, but I need to concentrate.”

  Farthing wandered off to see if the goat wanted to fight for ownership of the rock, but the creature had said his piece and was now getting down to some serious grazing. Not a bad thought at that, Farthing said to himself, and sat down to chew some of the tough bread they had brought up with them.

  Magic is an odd thing if it is really a thing at all, thought Farthing. Magicians generally got a rough ride, but when he watched Weasel supposedly doing something magical, it was the most unspectacular of events. The magician just went very quiet, very still and frowned a lot. Then, after about half an hour he simply fell over. Farthing reacted by doing nothing. It wasn’t a dramatic fall or accompanied by any cry or other noise; Weasel just slumped over in silence. Farthing shook away his inactivity, leapt up and rushed over to the magician.

  “Weasel!” He rolled the man over onto his back, but he was out cold. “Weasel,” he repeated, shaking him a little. Nothing. Not a groan, not a twitch. If he hadn’t had been breathing, Farthing would have thought him dead. The goat wandered over and looked at Weasel then up at Farthing.

  “Is he dead?” the goat seemed to ask.

  “He will be if I don’t get him off this mountain.” Farthing looked out east. The sun was now lower in the sky and a huge bank of angry clouds was making its way to Taken at a pace. The wind had picked up and there was already a damp, electric feel to the air. “Sorry, Mr Goat, but we aren’t built for this weather.”

  Farthing tried to wake the magician again, and the goat joined in with some random bleats, but nothing worked. The young man thought through his choices. They could wait out the storm up here or he could try to carry the magician down. Up here was flat, but there was no shelter and the storm looked dangerous. The path was much more sheltered, but it was narrow and the fall would kill them.

  “What do I do?” Farthing asked himself and the goat. The small goat bleated once again, looked towards the clouds, and scampered to the path and disappeared. Farthing sighed. “That answers that then, Mr Goat. If you are not prepared to stay up here, then this is no place for us either.” With a grunt, Farthing lifted the magician and slung him over his shoulders. He was surprisingly light, even for his thin frame, and Farthing wondered how well the man had been eating over the last however many years. Still, for the moment, being light was perfect. Farthing pulled a short rope out of his bag and tied the magician on so he had his own hands free, then headed down the path.

  The steps were awkward, but since they were cut into a natural cleft in the cliff, he effectively had a low wall between him and the sudden drop. Farthing could step down without too much difficulty though on some of the steeper steps he about turned and climbed down backwards. The clouds rolled closer, growing blacker and more threatening. Misty, finger-like curtains of rain brushed the sea, illuminated by the sun slowly setting in the west. He had to be off the ledge before the rainstorm reached the mountain and the path became dangerously slippery. Farthing pulled the magician tightly to him with his left arm, put his right hand out against the cliff wall, and marched purposefully along the ledge.

  At the turn that led back around to the western flank of the mountain, he hesitated. He hadn’t really appreciated how narrow the path was at this point on the way up. As he tried to navigate the turn, he felt the weight of Weasel’s body pull him out from the cliff face. He backed up quickly. The magician was still comatose so he was going to have to carry him; he had no choice. He turned to face the cliff and edged his way along to the corner. The path became narrower still and he pushed his face and chest as flat against the rock wall as possible, moving inch by unsteady inch. Slowly, he walked around the sharp corner and stepped quickly onto the path beyond. For a moment, he swayed as he lost contact with the wall and automatically put his arm out away from the cliff to balance himself. Wrong! Farthing realised his mistake and snatched his arm in and leant back against the rocks, his heart banging in his ears. A few drops of rain dripped onto the ledge. The goat appeared just ahead of him and bleated.

  “I know; I have to hurry!” Farthing called out. The small, sure-footed animal scampered farther along the ledge. “I wish I had your feet, Mr Goat.” Farthing took a deep breath and pushed on. There were no dangerous turns now and the rock wall wasn’t as vertical, but the path was narrow and the rain was building. Farthing pushed thoughts of height, wind and rain from his head and concentrated on his feet while keeping his right hand always on the rock wall.

  By the time he was back on the west flank of the mountain, the wind had become gusty and the drip-drip had turned into a misty rain. The storm was coming in fast now and he could see and hear lightning dancing within the clouds. Faced with a choice again of whether to attempt the steep path to the hut or wait out the storm here, he looked for the small goat, but couldn’t find it. Farthing adjusted the still unconscious Weasel on his back and was just about to start backwards down the path when he heard the goat from some way ahead. Where was he? He peered through the mist and saw a faint white shape fidgeting with impatience a little way around the mountai
n, away from the path.

  “You can go places I cannot, Mr Goat,” Farthing shouted. “You better not be leading me the wrong way.” Shaking his head sceptically, he marched over to where the goat waited. As he blinked in the wind and rain the goat disappeared, just dropping off the side of the mountain. Farthing nearly turned around on the spot, but wanting to trust the goat, he gingerly peeked over the edge. There, about six feet down was a better path leading off at a gentle angle. It looked like another cleft like the one that ran up to the summit, and though it hadn’t been worked on, it was more sheltered than the path they had come up by, and the rain was getting heavier.

  A six-foot drop on a steep mountain in the wind and rain is difficult at the best of times, but carrying another person, it is almost impossible. Farthing somehow had to get Weasel down first. He untied the unconscious man and laid him on the edge. If the drop had been smaller, he could have jumped down and then pulled the magician after him, but it was too high for that and he risked falling backwards off the path. The only alternative was to lower him. Farthing tied the rope around the magician’s legs and feet.

  “Sorry, Weasel, but your legs are stronger.”

  Then, very gently, he pushed the small man off the ledge and, straining with the load, lowered him headfirst down onto the lower path. Right at the last moment, a huge lightning blast cracked above him and he banged the magicians head against a rock.

  “Oh, that had to have hurt! Sorry.”

  Still, the man was already unconscious. The rain started falling in earnest now, the wind whipping the water into vicious little dancers. Farthing lowered himself off the edge, accidentally treading on the magicians face in the process.

  “Sorry again!” The Goat waited along the path and seemed to be laughing at the slapstick-awkwardness of the humans. “I know, I am coming,” the young man said irritably. He picked up Weasel, slung him over a shoulder and marched after the goat.

  The path was not entirely free of obstacles. Several times Farthing had to slide down steep slopes more or less on his belly, pulling Weasel after him, but it was far less of a climb than the other path would have been. By the time the hut came into view, the wind was howling and Farthing could hardly see through the rain. When he reached the door, he turned to look for the goat, but it had already run off down the mountain by routes that were very definitely goat only. He smiled in thanks to the tough little creatures who owned this rock spire, and pushed through the door into the hut.

  “How long have I been out?” Weasel asked later. Farthing had shut the door tightly, and using some of the tough gorses from around the back of the hut, had managed to get a small fire going that took the cold edge from the storm raging outside.

  “Several hours,” Farthing answered.

  “How did we get here?”

  “I carried you.” Farthing opened the door slightly. The rain was still pouring down, but it was beginning to get lighter and it would pass soon.

  “Why did you do that?” The magician was still not fully conscious and looked like he was struggling with reality.

  “A goat told me to.”

  “Huh? What?”

  “Forget it. Did you find the boat?” Farthing had been desperate to ask whether the magician had achieved anything or if it had been a waste of time. Weasel rubbed his temples.

  “Yes, I did. Well I found its trail and I know roughly where it is heading, but it is a long way ahead of us and I couldn’t pin it down accurately,” the magician said. Farthing slumped onto the floor. At least, the boat and his sister were still out there, but he had hoped for more. Weasel peeked at the young man from under an aching brow. “It is a good start, Farthing, and maybe a little more than I thought I might get. I know enough to probably mark an area out on a map. What we need to do now is find someone who can tell us what is there. But first…”

  Suddenly the magician jumped to his feet and shot out of the door. From outside, Farthing heard the sound of retching. When Weasel staggered back in, Farthing handed him one of the skins of water. The magician took a long swig, gulping thirstily.

  “But first,” he continued, “I must sleep.” And with that, he collapsed onto his bedroll. “Oh, my head,” he said as he slowly passed out. “Why is my head hurting so much?”

  Farthing shrugged, innocently.