Solineus

by L. James Rice

  He sheathed the Sister, nabbed his walking stick and stood, taking a few moments to breathe. A third of the way to the summit, he guessed. Eyes ahead, steady steps and breaths.

  Around the next bend he found a field of jagged snow just as Morik had said he would, a slope known as Yôgul’s Fall. Folks didn’t so much die here, as they turned back. Steep and slick and without a rope, its quick rise in altitude was what had turned the priestess for home, sending her to the Temple of Arumbor to serve the mountain and its shrine as Lady of the Mountain.

  The climb was twenty paces forward, pick and stick, with slides ten paces back if you messed up. His lungs and muscles burned, and his tongue cursed every time he fell back. He slammed a spiked toe into the ice and pulled the Twins. The blades sunk easy into the ice and he pulled himself up with the help of his cleated boots. So pleased with himself he forgot to breathe; his head spun and the whispers of the Twins wrenched his wits back into his head.

  Deep breaths. And he didn’t slip another step on this section of climb.

  Atop Yôgul’s Fall sat a flat ledge, and here he again took a break for water and a few bites of meat, before moving on. He glanced at the world from these heights and mused it might be beautiful if the mountain weren’t trying to kill him. Maybe once resettled in the valleys, and I forget the aches and swimming head, I’ll appreciate the grandeur.

  The path was smooth with snow and ice, and broader than he was tall, and even if he fell from a side, he doubted it’d kill him outright. Death would instead be slow as he struggled to climb back. Muscles tingled and ached, and his count to one hundred skipped numbers here and there, or fell back to start again. Catching himself, he’d kneel and breathe, drink. And breathe. And it wasn’t long before he saw the summit ahead.

  But it was still a long time away. Or a short time, if he walked in a green valley. But here, a couple hundred strides of climb felt as an eternity, and might be just that if he failed; a precipice sat at the bottom of the climb, and its fall held a crushing end several hundred feet below. Steady steps and steady breaths, and a candle later his head poked over the crown of the world, and his breath near disappeared. If not from the sun burning the air away at these heights, if not from a god stealing the air, then from what he saw: The world of snow and ice turned ruddy stone brown and gray, barren of life or chill, but the plateau lay spotted by the dead.

  The nearest fur-clad corpse lay no more than twenty paces away, frozen in an eternal crawl toward a rise of black obsidian, maybe five feet high, which resembled a skinny volcano with what he suspected was a hollow crater on top. He counted the bodies but stopped at thirty; how many died didn’t matter. Every one of them faced the shrine, each failing to scratch and claw their way to the treasure and the renown it would bring.

  He spiked his boots into the ice and peered over the edge, getting as comfortable as he could to study the scene. None of them looked eaten on, at least from this vantage, despite seeing bones, but this only eliminated normal critters; there were things in the world which fed on other than flesh and blood… or, their blood could be drained. There was no way to know anything for certain, and if a creature did this, odds on it stared at him now.

  His eyes discerned nothing that might be a predator.

  Dead air? If so, it was more than altitude, because his head was above the plateau’s plain and he breathed well enough. How many of those dead in front of me stood here, thinking, and still they died?

  Deep breaths. Clear thoughts.

  And a puff of air tickled his face. Dead calm, except for that single puff; there was never not a wind, until now. He raised his fur clad mitten and watched as the hairs leaned, then stopped. So soft, as if he blew on them from a foot away. Flickers later they reversed, leaning back toward the shrine, and he turned his head. The puff hit his face from the other direction. A gentle breeze on a mountain whose winds threatened to carry him from its face a hundred times. A gods-cursed place at the top of the world; no, there needn’t be some monster here to bare his bones to the winds and sun.

  Bones. The bodies should never thaw, how are there bones? And no snow. The mountain height slowed his brain.

  He reached for the bare ground with a fur-clad hand and lay it there. Flickers later his hand warmed through the mitten. “I’ll be damned.” He slipped his hand free, bare skin to the rock, but it wasn’t just the stone which warmed his fingers. The air was pleasant, warmer than anything felt since trekking from Shuntiskâ.

  He slipped the mitten back on and stared. Any man would welcome this reprieve after the climb to get here, but for the dead littering the area. Death by warm breeze, no doubt, it could get worse than that.

  A candle later he stared still at the macabre scene, chewing on spiced goat and breathing. Nothing moved, nothing changed, just the breeze back and forth across his exposed skin. I didn’t come so far to turn back. But he didn’t come so far to die, either.

  He stuffed his meal back in its pouch and huffed, making the same godsdamned determination he guessed many of the dead before him had made: There was no way to know how to defeat the danger he faced without experiencing it.

  He crept forward, sticking his face into the incoming breeze.

  Warmth.

  Before air surged into his chest. His lungs felt near to bursting and his cheeks filled. He coughed with the rush of air, head spinning. Lost his footing. Slid.

  Scrambling for a grip the ice defied his clutching fingers and cleats alike, and he rolled onto his back, hammering spiked heels. He slowed, creeping toward the sheer cliff at the end; if he lifted a heel, he might never slow himself again. He drew the Twins with caution, their voices subdued as if to not overwhelm his mind, and he slipped their tips into the ice. Heels and blades were enough to stop him, but he was three feet from his toes dangling. The Twins cut the ice too easy, the climbing sticks were worthless here, dangling from his wrists, and his pick-axe was at the top of the climb.

  A deep breath before lifting his left foot, and he could feel the spike of his right heel shift. He slammed his boot, tested its grip, and shoved back. Step by step back up the slide until he felt secure enough to roll over and put his toes spikes to use. Only on reaching the top a second time did he stop to consider what the hells happened.

  A te-xe? A wind forced into my lungs, but not hitting my skin. An air elemental might explain the rush of air into his lungs, but he saw nothing of a creature. How the hells would I know if a being of air is able to be seen? An insubstantial and invisible enemy was something he couldn’t defeat with a sword; he couldn’t be certain it was even there. Reaching the coin wouldn’t be a fight, it’d be a struggle.

  Thinking did him no good; there was one direction, and that was forward. Three deep breaths, a drink, and more deep breaths. He waited for the breeze to hit his face, held his breath, and clawed his way onto bare rock. The surge struck, and he clutched his nose to keep the air from penetrating, and he dashed toward the shrine.

  The breeze ended.

  Reversed.

  And breath sucked from his lungs.

  No stopping it. He gasped and flopped to the ground, his eyeballs dried and swelling in their sockets. Against reason he drew the Twins, their voices surging within his mind, terrified for his life without an enemy to battle. He flailed as a fish tossed ashore, knees and elbows lumbering as a wounded bear toward the shrine, Latcu blades notching the stone where they struck.

  Tranquility. And the puff of breeze returned. His nose and throat burned with assailing air, and he tucked his face into an elbow, biting his lips to keep them closed. He scrambled to his feet and dashed, striking the obsidian shrine with his shoulder as the air was ripping from his lungs. He glanced to the body of a woman beside him; they’d both gotten this far, so close. He sheathed the Brother and buried his face in his elbow, clenching his eyes shut, waiting for the air to return. Still air. The rush.

  Nausea and pain, but he clenched his lips and stood, throwing his hand to the top of the shrine. Somet
hing rattled beneath his fingers, but his eyes wouldn’t open. He shrugged his mitten off and grabbed a warm disc of metal.

  The coin.

  It was his.

  But his breath was not.

  Air ripped from his lungs and he collapsed to his back, staring at a dark blue sky that went black.

  Vision drifted to blue and gray, swirling, the familiar worms of the Lady’s world crawling beneath his skin with the warm waves. He breathed, but there was pain, and speaking spun his mind, and the words came out all wrong. “You are… where… I’m…”

  Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “Hush, love. Don’t waste your breath. Think, don’t speak.”

  Three breaths, deep. Three deep breaths. Remember to breathe. “I’m dead.”

  “Not quite, and I’d prefer you didn’t. I’ve grown fond of you.” The Lady faded into existence by his side, her body stretched down the length of his, her lips close, her breath warm on his cheek. “Relax.” And her lips covered his.

  Warmth. Sensuality. Perfect calm. And he breathed with her breaths instead of the mountain’s puffs, the scent and taste of lilac on his tongue and breath. He breathed through her lips, into his lungs, then back into hers in a strange unison, bringing to his mind the push and pull of working a two-man saw. The union of circular breathing felt unnatural at first, but he grew accustomed to the back and forth, and his lips molded with hers.

  Her thoughts entered his head: Five more breaths and I release you. Hold my breath and walk, reach the clean air, I may not be able to save you a second time.

  He gazed into her consuming eyes, his lips shaping hers into a smile. I won’t need a second time.

  The Sister murmured in one hand, and the other clutched the coin, as his eyes flicked open. He stood with full lungs and the lilac scent of the Lady still in his nostrils, and fought the urge to run. The mountain’s puff buffeted his face, and on departing pulled at his lips and nostrils, but the Lady’s air wouldn’t leave his lungs. Still, it was a long time to hold a breath while walking slow.

  He stuffed the coin in a pouch, sheathed the Sister, and walked with calm and confidence until he reached the edge of the plateau. He dropped to his knees then lay flat, sticking his head out into the snow before exhaling with a rush. And he grinned as frozen air filled his lungs.

  Exhausted, muscles burning, and his head spinning, he doubted he’d survive the climb down to the next ledge, let alone beyond. He reached into his pack and pulled out a heavy fur and wrapped his face and head, tucking the remainder under his head for a pillow. A short rest.

  There wasn’t a choice. No better one, anyhow.

  And so he curled there, breathing deep of frigid air filtered through fur, while the rest of his body lay on bare stone, warm as if camped in a low-land valley.

  5

  Share and Share

  Whisker twitch scenting the wind,

  the Hunter’s tongue tasting dirt—

  Oh! the flirt, the hurt, the nonsensical Blurt!

  Ha-ha-ha! Strike the laughter! No!

  Scratch the strike!

  A proof of humor is a proof of mortality.

  A proof of sanity in the inanity.

  I digress into the egress.

  The predator eats the bunny,

  and the artist swipes swaths with

  whisker brush. So noble, to die for another’s art.

  Ha-ha!

  — Tomes of the Touched

  Solineus stumbled into Camp Zjindinfôk by the light of the moon and leaned on the entrance to the single building to find it barred. His shoulders ached, his body stiff at every joint. He rapped the wooden door with a knee thrice, and it opened to reveal a familiar and hairy face.

  “Are you a ghost?”

  “I reckon a ghost wouldn’t be this godsdamned cold and tired.”

  Morik slipped beneath his arm and helped him to a seat beside the glowing stone as Solineus glanced around: The priests were gone. “They left early?”

  “You arrived late, and they assumed you dead.”

  Solineus unwrapped his right hand, its mitten still sitting atop the mountain, and warmed it on the stone as the man stared at him. “What?”

  “What? What do you mean, what? The coin, did you get it?”

  Solineus wiggled the stiff from his fingers and reached into a pocket. “Too godsdamned big to be a coin, but I found something.”

  Brilliant gold in color, but he suspected it was an alloy or some such. It was so big his fingers needed to stretch to palm the thing by its edges. A disc, half a finger thick, imprinted with animals and characters he didn’t understand.

  “The Five Earls be one—”Morik stroked his beard”—you did it.”

  Solineus stared at the thing; no doubt it was valuable, but no doubt in his mind it wasn’t worth the lives scattered across the mountain’s slopes. But he’d been wrong before. “If’n you say so.” He proffered the coin, and Morik took it with tentative fingers.

  The Kingdomer tumbled it from hand to hand. “No idea what it says, though the lightning and war-hammer refer to Hîmr.” He buffed the coin against his fur-clad leg and held the thing to the light of the stone; a translucent purple shown, shaped as a flower, with the illusion of being deeper in the metal than the disc was thick. “The metal is Timôu, like gold but so much more. It weighs half a brick… worth a fortune even without its provenance.”

  “So, men would kill for it?”

  “Would men kill for it?” Morik laughed and handed it back to him. “Aye. You hold it safe with them swords. And might I suggest, again, a shield?”

  Solineus grinned. “I’ll consider it.”

  “What was it like? At the summit.”

  Solineus took three breaths and drank, then breathed some more. “Something’s up there… maybe. It’s a warm plateau at the very peak, not a flake of snow, and this breeze is light on the face… it forces its way into your lungs like a gale til you damned near explode, then it takes every bit of your breath, trying to suck your eyes from your head.”

  Morik cocked his head. “Nothing I’ve heard of.”

  “A powerful te-xe is my only thought.”

  “An elemental of air? They aren’t aggressive, so I’ve heard.”

  “Hells if I know, friend. But no, it didn’t seem to be trying to kill me, or it damned well would’ve. The force… it just was. We don’t mean to kill every bug we step on, but we still do… that’s how it felt. I was caught in its nature, not its will.”

  “Or you’d be dead.”

  “I’d be dead.” He didn’t mention the Lady of the blue universe saving him. One crazy tale at a time. “I got lucky not dying the first time the air struck, so I covered my face, pinched my nose, and still damned near died. I wouldn’t try it again.”

  Morik grinned. “I wouldn’t try it a first time. When you are able, we should move down the mountain.”

  “Eat, warm these bones… the sun rises I want off this godsdamned mountain fast as I can… without rolling or plummeting to the bottom.”

  Morik laughed and put a kettle atop the boulder. “Tea with a sniff of whiskey… just a drop, to celebrate.”

  They reached Camp Îrginhîn a couple candles after sunrise, and though a dozen pilgrims resided in the buildings, Morik cautioned not to mention Himr’s coin. It was the first time Solineus saw Morik nervous around another Kingdomer, whether of Helmveline or more distant kingdom. His had been a fool’s question: would a man kill for this coin. He scoffed at himself. The unanswerable question was how many and who were they?

  By midday they reached Ûlf-Hôtindîn, and here they decided to rest and spend the night. They ate with a handful of pilgrims and their Temerêun porters and sang in the mountain tongue before bedding for the night. Come morning they hiked to Nelflûk, with a quick rest before heading to the Temple of Arumbor.

  A droning voice rose from the watchtower as they descended the final horizon; the secret of the coin wouldn’t survive much longer.

  Se
blêsu, Lady of the Mountain, swept toward them with hasty strides and met them three hundred paces outside the temple grounds. Her hands rubbed together, her eyes wide with curiosity. “You have the coin?”

  “I do.”

  She exhaled with a whistle and a smile. “My prayers suggested it was so, but it was too much to believe after the priests returned.” She turned her back to them and raised her arms. “Tonight, is the feast of Himr! The coin has arrived!”

  Stunned faces on those close enough to discern, and total silence as folks turned to stare, the words taking flickers to soak in. Then, cheers rang, echoing across the valley, and other voices sang in the Mountain Tongue. Two dozen men and women charged him, and if not for their smiles, he would’ve drawn the Twins. They circled him, hugging him in turns, thanking him for his feat.

  Seblêsu strolled toward the tower which held stairs descending into the temple proper. “Prepare the feast of Himr!”

  Solineus smiled and hugged every comer, stumbling as they pressed tight, but the coin rested deep inside layers of heavy cloaks where no hand would reach without him knowing. Surrounded by bodies and praise they made their way to the temple slower than he’d covered some sections of the climb.

  He bathed in steaming waters with Morik and several Helmveline men standing guard at the door. Already, folks had tried stealing his clothes, but not to find the coin. Folks desired a piece of history, artifacts of the man who conquered the mountain, relics to pass down to generations to come… or to sell for a fortune, if Morik spoke true.

  More disturbing? How much a vial of his blood might be worth.

  But hot water melted these concerns and turned his spirit to musings of Lelishen slipping into the water with him, and he dozed, imagining it so. When his eyes fluttered open the water no longer steamed, and his skin was wrinkled like an old and soggy potato. He stretched the kink in his neck and rose, throwing on fresh undergarments, blue and gold silk robes (where the coin now rested in an interior pocket), and the Twins on his back. Boots of mottled leather, nothing he’d dare wear outside in the frigid cold, slipped onto his feet with a supple hug and he wiggled his toes. He cinched his silken belt with satisfaction. Being an instant legend had its perks.