by David Rice
Kirsten tried not to roll her eyes. “Anyone else with more hope than me willing to take my place?” She was trying to make a joke.
Huzzail growled. “Petulant girl. Everyone dies if you do not act.”
Kirsten lowered her head and gripped the Fahde. She already knew what their answers would be. “I know,” she mumbled. “You sound just like a friend I lost.” She looked towards the stars and then winced. Too many memories of her Papa were anchored there, now forever staring over her shoulder. She looked at the sand and paused while the crowd’s eyes played upon her. “I’ll go,” she finally whispered.
“You must leave at once,” Huzzail insisted. “Time is ending for us all.” Kirsten exchanged glances with Olaf and Grumm.
Grumm shrugged. “I need new socks,” he said. “And a few other—things.”
Olaf’s face twisted with guilt. “I won’t be any help with this so I should just head home—what’s left of it, that is. I can travel with Nezzil. I bet he’s wanting to get back to
Thunderwall.”
Grumm scowled at Olaf. “You are my climbing partner, or don’t you remember?”
“But—”
“You’ll go as far as ye can manage, an’ when we finish the job, we’ll all take Nezzil back to Thunderwall, ye’hear?”
Olaf knew when to give in.
Her mind dancing with unacceptable possibilities, and with rest proving impossible, Kirsten climbed atop her gohan as the moons were rising, and her party began their journey towards the world’s tallest peaks. After all, she had created half this problem, it was only right for her to try to fix it, too. She groaned as she gripped the Fahde’s hilt. She had never wanted any of this pressure. Why did so many have such confidence in her? Or were they just relieved that it wasn’t them being called upon to face the dragon?.
***
They rode for days and nights, only stopping when necessary. The gohan were quite effective at keeping away all scavengers and predators, and they never seemed to tire. But when the gohan finally halted, Kirsten knew the rest of the climb would have to be on foot. As the Seer had claimed, the shield and sword were pushing away fatigue and sustaining them beyond all expectation.
They dismounted on a winding barren path halfway up a mountain that was crowned with clouds. The path ahead led through rockfall and scree until it disappeared under walls of ice and snow. Reaching the face of the glacier took until nightfall, and they set up tents and a small fire to keep themselves warm.
The meal was simple, spiced meats wrapped in a broad leaf and roasted over a low flame, and the talk was sparse.
Grumm announced his final bite with a question that pierced Kirsten to the core. “When it comes right down to it, will you have the heart to do it?”
Kirsten attempted to ignore the question. “Do what?”
“You know what,” Grumm mumbled. “Like Hussail said. Kill the dragon so it can’t have another. End the cycle.”
Kirsten bit her lip and avoided eye contact. “I don’t know, Grumm,” she finally said.
Grumm huffed. “I know the sword’ll burn me, but if ye need me to do it, I’ll deliver the final blow.”
Kirsten looked up at her friend and recognized the worry in his eyes. He recognized the burden she carried. She stuck out her jaw and tried to smile. “I’ll do what needs to be done, Grumm. Like you said, it’s my calling whether I want it or not.”
Grumm nodded. “I trust ye. I know ye’ll do right.”
Kirsten turned away to hide tears. She needed Grumm to be right.
As darkness wrapped itself across the top of the world, the cold seeped into their bones and the air grew so thin that Kirsten could only keep herself from dizziness by placing a hand upon the shield. The wind grew stronger through the night, rippling the sides of their shelter so loudly that only Grumm managed to sleep. When the sun rose, it was diffused by the clouds above and did not warm them. Grumm shook off the discomfort but Kirsten could see that Olaf was jittery and miserable. His lips were blue, his skin pale, and he couldn’t stop shivering.
“Olaf? You need to turn back.”
“N-no,” he said. “I’ll be fine when the clouds burn off.”
Grumm snorted. “Those clouds have been here for longer than you’ve been alive, I think.”
“There’s no shame in it,” Kirsten added. “It’s just going to get colder and the air’ll get even thinner as we climb.”
“I can do it,” Olaf insisted through bloodshot eyes.
Kirsten frowned and then hugged Olaf tightly. She could feel his cold body through layers of clothes. “I don’t want you to die up here,” she said. Then she gently turned the gnome around to face the descent. “Go. And when we are finished, we will find you again.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Kirsten nodded. “Hurry down to where it’s warmer before you freeze solid.”
Olaf stood there for a moment shivering and then started to walk, stiff legged, down the trail.
Grumm quietly watched him go. “Don’t fall down!” he shouted once the gnome was just a speck on the mountainside. “It’s good advice,” he added.
Kirsten looked towards the ice wall. “There’s a narrow gap where we could climb to the next plateau.”
Grumm took out rope, hammer and pitons. “Fair enough. Just like goin’ up a chimney,” he said.
Dangling their own bodyweight in supplies underneath them, the pair climbed.
***
Another day of intermittent climbs and rests took the pair through the mists and into the open air. The sky was a vivid blue, and even distant mountain peaks looked so sharp and clear that she almost believed she could jump across the divide and spring like a goat from peak to peak. The smaller moons were just as crisp and it was easy for Kirsten to imagine herself reaching up and touching them. But what was it that Ardir had said? That the moons had been speeding up and they might collide? That they were part of a prophecy of doom? Her mother had made the same threat
Prophecies, she grumbled to herself, they were just opinions used to stop the curious from asking questions or making choices for themselves. Kirsten’s eyes narrowed and she watched the smaller moons carefully. They had definitely slowed down again, she recognized, and her spirit warmed a little.
Perhaps the One had done that, too.If the dragon didn’t die would the One allow the moons to touch the world? How could a creator destroy all of its children? It was too horrific to think about.
Grumm cleared his throat and wheezed for breath. “We still got a climb ahead.”
Kirsten snapped back and continued upward. They were sharing the shield between them but at this height it was no longer proving to be enough. Kirsten found herself stopping every tenth step to gasp for breath. Grumm was doing the same. Above them, there remained one lengthy climb to a platter of rock that thrust from the peak of the mountain like a twisted top hat. Kirsten watched Grumm’s half frozen fingers fumble with knots and drop his hammer repeatedly.
“It’s too cold and we’re too tired,” Kirsten said. “I’ll go on from here.”
Grumm scowled through a beard caked with ice crystals. “Yer daft,” he said. “I’ll see this through.”
“You’ve got me this far, Grumm,” Kirsten replied. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
Grumm blushed. “Yeh. Yeh mighta managed.”
“Go down. The ropes are still there, and the tent with a cache of supplies.”
Grumm looked away, embarrassed. “I’ve been using the shield to get this far,” he said regretfully. “But going down should be faster, right?”
“I can give you the shield,” Kirsten suggested.
“No,” Grumm said forcefully. “You’ll need that.”
“The other gems should do the trick,” Kirsten replied. “I’ve been able to weave some stormcharms from their spark.” She reached for her pouch and drew out the bag Olaf had carried. “I have these chunks of the Ameliss, too. They st
ill have a spark in them.” Then she opened the bag and cursed. “That tricky—rascal,” she grumbled. “I can’t believe it.”
“What is it? What did the gnome do?”
She showed Grumm a bag full of simple rocks. “He switched them, and took the pieces of the Ameliss with him.”
Grumm cursed in dwarven, grabbed the bag, and heaved it as far as he could throw. “Mebbe that’ll hit the bugger.”
Kirsten began to laugh.
“I don’t think it’s funny,” Grumm responded. “He shoulda at least asked. After all we’ve been through.”
“I don’t even know why I’m laughing.” Kirsten brushed at her eyes. “Too late now. Maybe he needed something to take back to his home. To whatever is left of it.”
Grumm mumbled and cursed some more and then stopped suddenly. He grabbed his hammer and the shield. “I have an idea,” he said.
“Wait,” Kirsten pleaded. “You’re not going to—”
Grumm tapped the metal lip around the gem several times and then braced the shield and drew back.
“Don’t!”
Grumm’s hammer hit the shield precisely where the lip was thinnest and the glowing blue gem popped free like an egg.
Kirsten caught it before it tumbled away. “What are you thinking?” she yelled.
“I’ll take the shield an’ you take the gem.”
Kirsten wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like it.”
Grumm shrugged, “Then you take the shield an’ I’ll take the gem,” he offered.
“I definitely need the gem. I might need the shield.”
Grumm grinned. “Then I either go with you or I leave now and go without.”
Kirsten shook with frustration. To be so close and to have to choose. Again.
“I was just bluffing to help you see clearly.” Grumm nodded and tapped the gem back into the shield. “You’ll need all it has to offer, girl. I’ll be good on my own.” He grabbed the top rope and began to rappel down the ice face before Kirsten could intervene.
“Wait,” Kirsten called after him. “I don’t know if I can do this, Grumm.
“Ye’ve gotten this far, haven’t ye?”
Kirsten shivered. “It’s just too much to bear. Everything resting on me and my choices.”
Grumm nodded slowly. “Mebbe it’s not up to you, after all.”
“What do you mean?”
Grumm looked across the mountainside and towards a world dwindling in the misty distance.
“Mebbe getting the sword and shield to that peak is all ye need to do. Mebbe that’s yer task in this. What happens after that isn’t yer burden. The One’s testing all of creation with this. We’ve done our parts. Be proud of that.”
Grumm’s words ran through Kirsten like a scalding stream, melting the weight from her shoulders and filling her eyes with tears.
“I wish you could be with me.”
“No time,” Grumm shouted. “Ye said it yerself. I’ll wait fer ye in Thunderwall. You’ll get the job done right.”
“Wait for me in Graniteside,” Kirsten strained to shout. “That’s where Besra’s waiting on you.”
“Ye think so?” Grumm gave a quizzical grin. “Well, I’ll be,” Grumm hollered and began his descent. “Graniteside then.”
Kirsten didn’t have the breath to shout another goodbye after her friend.
“Maybe delivering the sword is all I need to do after all,” she reassured herself.
With the echo of Grumm’s advice fading in the shrouding mist, Kirsten turned towards her final climb, alone.
XV
As much as Kirsten hated to leave her friend vulnerable, Grumm was right. With the Fahde and the Almedef to herself, Kirsten felt her weakened body bolstered just enough for the final climb, and warmed enough to resist the aching cold.
Being alone gave her mind free-reign to run pell-mell through all of her memories, each happy moment leading to each surge of pain, until the steady motion of her body merged with the rhythmic beat of her heart, and she scaled the final distance as if surrounded by a caustic dream.
Finally, Kirsten had reached the summit. She sat down heavily, rested her head upon her pack, and tried to push her crowded dreams away. Instead, the choices of her past overlapped one another, interrupting coherent thought until all she had the energy to do was surrender to raw feeling. She clutched the warmth of her pendant and curled into a ball.
Being born. That hadn’t been a choice, and yet it branded her instantly, permanently, as an abomination. But she was not an abomination to Helba. Or Balinor. Or Raisha. Nor to Cinn, Grumm, Olaf, Plax, Galen, or Dria. Eventually, not even to her Papa.
Tears welled up and she whispered to herself through sobs, “I took you to Xlaesin to heal you, Papa. And I got you killed instead.”
They had believed in her. And yet she had wronged them all, hadn’t she? Her mind skipped and danced between gaps of time. She had made foolish choices and put others in danger. Raisha had risked her life on the Graniteside cliffs, and then sacrificed herself in a blast of fire. Balinor’s dog Rebel had died because of her carelessness and anger. Helba had stayed with her Papa to raise her, and that selfless act was only rewarded with cruelty. Dria had thought her impulsive example to be a model to follow, and now she couldn’t bear to imagine the suffering that Dria had endured, perhaps continued to endure. Grumm and Olaf were struggling to survive on this mountainside all because of a duty they felt they owed her. And her own Papa; he had almost died twice trying to save them all. And then—and then—she might as well have stabbed him herself. And her mother.
And she had ended the weave, hadn’t she? Or had the One wanted that all along? Which choices were hers? Which consequences?
She never meant to do harm. Did that count for anything?
A memory of Helba intruded upon her darkening reveries. Helba was smiling after she had ruined some corn cakes. “I’ve burned another batch,” young Kirsten had said. “Papa
would have punished me. Why won’t you?”
Helba reached out and gently lifted Kirsten’s chin. “Mistakes make us stronger if they aren’t polluted with shame,” Helba pronounced.
“I don’t understand,” Kirsten replied.
She remembered how Helba’s eyes would flicker from blue to green when she was about to say something she really believed. Helba’s green eyes held Kirsten in place and she pronounced slowly and clearly. “Kindness is stronger than anger,” she said. “It gives the One a better chance to nudge us all towards a better outcome.”
Kindness. How could that be of use now?
In her drowsy half-dream, she thrashed sideways and jolted to a halt on the very edge of the stone. A drop like no other spun away into drifting clouds and beyond to green hills and slashes of deep valleys ribboned with rivers. Shouldn’t there have been a desert?
She crawled away from the edge like a crab, her heart pounding wildly. From here, she could see a new land and, from a distance, it seemed untouched by destruction. Was this the land of the One’s first children? Or was this another dream forged by her exhausted mind?
Kirsten pushed herself to her knees and looked over the other side. Foothills drifted into the vast yellow desert to the south and mottled grasslands to the north. Clinging to the vestiges of the northern horizon, Kirsten imagined she could see the blue haze of Lake Halnn and the shining waters of the Raelyn River. Beyond, she hoped she would never see forests being devoured by fire again.
She returned her gaze to the east. There was another land. And even if her world, the one that worshipped greed, flaunted selfishness, and shaped cruelty like an art, was deserving of the pain it inflicted upon itself, this other world deserved to be preserved. Protected.
A rush of new emotion flooded through Kirsten. She was sent here to slay a dragon in order to save her world. But her world had forgotten to be humble. It had craved too much power, wasted its chances to be wiser, wasted the sacrifices and forgiveness of so many, even the One. This time it would need a c
onstant reminder of the doom it escaped.
Kirsten had a chance to make better choices than others who had come before. Perhaps her world could begin to learn how to do that, too. Her heart trembled with the intimations of a path that might save one world, and might give another chance to her own. If it worked.
She gripped her pendant and felt its warmth spread into her bones. Then she pushed herself to her feet, gripped the shield tightly and let its blue gem fill the sky with its light. She drew the sword and the ledge of stone ignited a pure white like a beacon. She knew what she was beckoning, and she made room for Her.
The dragon did not disappoint. Kirsten watched as the dragon’s stubbornly battled the thin air to climb towards this daunting height. It circled below the platform several times, slowly, painfully, creeping upward. Its girth was already noticeably wider, like a mare in foal, and Kirsten was wracked with chills. This was what must not be. This was what Kirsten planned to prevent.
