To get somewhere there usually exists a right way and a wrong way.

 

— 〈  1  〉—

Neoxian had a writing contest ending in around an hour: somewhat less. He says: ``Write a short fantasy story. It should have a fantasy theme: wizards, warriors, dragons, orks, battles, dungeons, etc.'' I like a challenge. So then I wrote this story. I'll ... probably continue it.

A mist in the field; and a drizzle.

He stood on a straw stack. It swayed as he balanced on it.

At the top he had several questions in his mind: ``Where is my big spoon?'' he asked the wind.

Then: ``I wonder ... Is Solences still burning? ... Been a week ... However ... ''

Clearly they were not all equally important.

His thoughts were interrupted: ``Wekk ! '' Somebody was calling his name! He turned and lowered his gaze.

Behind his back rose the Mountain.

It rose from beyond the horizon: a gentle incline, uniform over enormous time and space, creates a vast and tall mass.

Unlike the strawstack ... you don't always need to scale steep slopes to attain a great height. And while many great heights had steep slopes, inevitable the very greatest heights had not.

The mountain was very far. And that was so prominently visible suggested to all who saw it and could pause and think some valid idea of its true size.

It stood behind him: violet, enormous, and dark.

Meanwhile he saw nobody. That made sense. He turned away.

In the distance, dim light from behind the mountain.

Descending clouds, dimming light, a red sun low in the sky, as if sunset.

But there was never sunrise and never sunset. Not in this place.

The locals, before they just about all fled, had a saying. It was very simple: that which never sets also never rises.

Like most of these sayings, it wasn't strictly true; but it was true often enough. And it made sense in that way. In the sense of frequency.

The sun sets: therefore it frequently also rises. And here ... not.

He sniffed.

An somewhat acrid smell ... Coming from behind the Mountain.

``Yes: Solences is still burning! ... It's been a week ... But ... Whatever ...''

 

— 〈  2  〉—
 

Though it rose by a gentle slope, somebody had cuts steps into the Mountain all the same.

It was work; and some people worked. And then it was done.

Not everybody asks what for in every case: not everybody thinks about what they are doing before they do it.

Much work gets done only for this reason. Because there is no other reason.

If men were rational, we'd all know it. — Most of the work they now do ... they just wouldn't do.

Nothing subtle. It'd be quite obvious really.

Our world is anything but subtle. This is not proof of that fact. It's not evidence of that fact: merely it's no exception.

When the sun is suddenly always in the sky and it's in the sky for seven hundred years ... what do you expect?

 

* * *
 

The same people who'd long ago cut the steps also leveled terraces in the rise.

Near the base of the Mountain therefore were taverns and temples. And taverns pretending to be temples; and temples pretending to be taverns; and why not? What goes on in such places: well, mostly fucking and drinking.

In a tavern ... or was it a temple ... they sat elbow to elbow. At their heavy wooden table they were alone.

There were only soldiers, a few in gilt armor, scattered around. Talking quietly.

One had a bushy beard to match his eyebrows and the dark hair emerging from his nostrils.

The other was bald.

(Yes: they were made for each other, the way puzzle pieces are cut. It was meant to be ... I say no more.)

After a brief silence, the bald one spoke: ``In the country, the peasant have all fled.''

Then: ``And that may be what we should've done.''

Saying this he collected his cudgel, picked and shouldered his curving sword. And then he left, leaving the other man gaping. Staring at the satchel on the back of the exiting man. Considering not fully consciously the insignia on the satchel.

The soldiers nearby, who'd heard him say it, also stared at him. Soldiers: they had their orders. Thinking is not part of orders. It was not part of their orders. And yet disobeying orders was ...

But then they saw who it was. They quickly looked away.

Lest he should turn and look back.

 

* * *
 

The other side of the Mountain.

Ascending the steps in dim light, he saw the signs.

A red garden of fire. Smoke plumes and flames.

And a town. Much like a sprawling city. But mostly low wooden, building. Not much stone. Many towns so near they are connected and basically one place. The lack of stone was a grave mistake.

But too late now.

The wind howls: it sings its lullaby. And then: the vast town is asleep.

It's dead.

 

* * *
 

Back in the tavern.

The bearded man is still looking at a door: thinking. And like I said, that is fatal for a soldier.

Where exactly were they going? To a wasteland? In midst of a civil war ... Good idea ... No, great idea ... Of course it was: it was the idea of aristocrats. They only ever had good ideas. Everyone says they have the best ideas. So it must be the case.

 

* * *
 

They were paid in silver. And received gilt armor. All from the treasury. Before they would have had to buy their own, and would be paid in wooden coin. But gilt armor does not stop fireballs any more than leather.

And silver in the hands of the dead buys nothing. Even birds leave it alone and walk around it as they pick and poke at the bodies, glassy eyed, in the fields of the dead.

Oh, then the bodies are be eaten by dogs, which fight with the birds. Over the flesh. Not over the silver. That is gone by then: carried away in the pockets of looters.

The silver left in the camp is stolen by the victors.

So it was. The peasants have an old saying, who knows where they got it: There is nothing new under the sun.

 

— 〈  3  〉—
 

Step by step, along hill and valley after hill and valley, they moved forward.

As fast as they could walk.

He approached the face of the cliff from the bottom.

The shelves on which he keep his books out of the rain were recessed into the stone.

He came nearer. Closer. No books on the shelves. Instead of the books, on the shelves, there was a bloody arm.

First of all, he looked down to make sure it was not one of his. (He was absentminded and he knew it.)

His four arms were all there. No: his books were gone. But he was still a wizard.

Only wizards had four arms.

Any they needed them all.

With a single mouth and one pair of lungs, you could not cast a single spell.

It required many voices.

Like everything big, it requires coordination.

No: it was not his arm. Not the arm of a wizard.

The hand was open: and it had no teeth. It had no mouth.

 

— 〈  4  〉—
 

The rider of the serpent knew he would have to descend into the Mountain.

She knew that like the stairs on its surface there were yet more stairs inside.

A writer long ago argued fiercely that to ascend you must first descend. Begin in the ground, in the dirt, like the roots of a tree, which however all the same, rises to great heights. Not in spite of its roots in the dirt: but rather because of its roots in the dirt.

To descend you must first ascend.

She dreamed of natural scenes apparently devoid of people.

Not that there were no people. Merely they were always at the edges of her visions. Or she saw a face, filling up her vision, very close, almost recognizable, but not quite, and no scene. Never both.

Inside the Mountain ... and she was one of the few who knew what was inside it ... she knew there would be no people for sure.

Persons ... yes.

But no people.

There float two angels in the center of the endless stairs, carved in the stone of the mountain, which leads down to the garden. The garden is well lit.

One stands on one of the wings of the other; the first has folded its wings, the second has spread them. The second floats in the light coming from below, the first stands in the darkness inside the mountain.

You can equally rise up the stairs or descend, but the light is only at the bottom. Therefore, predictably, a stream of men is going down. There is nobody ascending, though nothing prevents them from doing so and the two angels are both looking up and interrogating only those going down.

The stairs are not a helix but many spirals large and small of steps large and small altogether connected. One might say haphazardly, but men have long discovered the simple rule behind the form.

The rule is even simpler than the equation for a helix; angels are known to like that which is most plain. That which is most plain, however, is not always obvious at first glance.

Each of the beings descending the stairs has their own, equally simple, but at first glance complex skeletal form. Some have more than one body; the bodies usually have the same face. That's how they can be so identified.

Those walk down so close together they might as well hold hands.

None are huddled; all walk straight. They are not hurried; they walk slowly. They descend gently.

All the forms shuffle along the steps very slowly. No rails exist to prevent a fall.

A fall would get them to the garden immediately, but in the wrong way. Clearly they're not sure that they'll survive the fall. Else long ago some of them would've jumped.

That reveals that to get somewhere there usually exists a right way and a wrong way.

Every one in a while a stone is set loose and falls straight down along the middle, and the crowd wishfully watches it. Except for the angels, who continue looking above themselves, and when the stone comes don't even flinch. Not that one ever hit.

She knew she would hurtle, as usual, right past them to the bottom. To reach what was there.

It was necessary.

 

* * *
 

The trees passed by like so many blades of grass passed by a marching foot. — The rider hurtled through the air.

The serpent was hungry.

People most often let their dissatisfaction be known by making noise.

Serpents are, however, noble monsters. Utmost politeness was their defining way.

The serpent let its dissatisfaction be known its silence. Rather than by noise.

She knew it was dissatisfied.

Too much of that and it would throw her.

It was noble, not stupid.

She had to find it some food.

The trees passed by like so many blades of grass passed by a marching foot. — She rider hurtled through the air. Holding onto the serpent.

Five transparent wings, with no particular symmetry of distribution. Like a vast insect, moving amidst the clouds like a boulder thrown by a giant: in arcs.

 

* * *
 

Much like her dreams were the scenes.

Not merely landscapes, nature, but also human nature.

Empty towns ...

Half collected fields.

Burning villages ...

Muddy roads without travelers.

And then: a man standing on a haystack. Looking at the Mountain.

The serpent was hungry.

To be continued.

Above text and images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License  . . .   . . .   . . .    ©tibra. This is a work of fiction: events, names, places, characters are either imagined or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real events or persons or places is coincidental.    . . .     @communicate on minds.com