Klaybear groaned as he rolled onto his stomach, levering himself onto hands and knees. He crawled slowly, painfully to the stream, putting his face close to the water, drinking deeply. The crisp liquid cooled his parched throat, filled the emptiness, refreshed his soul. He rolled carefully onto his back, looking at the cedars towering above, slowly replenishing his energy. His palm and forehead burned as he drew energy to himself, but long before he could refill his empty reserves, the pain and burning rose to a fever pitch. He stopped the flow, still feeling weak, unable even to ward off the simplest elemental attack.
“My Lord!” he moaned. “It’s not supposed to be like this.” Tears welled in his eyes, flowed hot down his cheeks and into his ears. He sobbed. “It isn’t supposed to happen this way! How could I be chosen, marked as I am with the sign of thy rebel son? Who will believe me? Who will allow me to help?” He sobbed again. “Of what use am I with the sign of thy enemy emblazoned in my right palm and forehead? My Lord!” He rolled onto his side, cradling his aching head in his forearm. Tears flowed and sobs wracked the young wethi robed in green–a kailu of Shigmar, servant of Elos, loyal son of the One, marked with the sign of Gar, the One’s rebel son.
Chapter 5
For the kortexi, all sin is unforgivable, unless by the One, Himself, but such has never happened, and probably never will. . . .
from the Kodex Kortexem by Sir Karble III
Blakstar groaned and rolled onto his back, but the action only increased the pain throbbing in his head and the aching over his entire body. He managed to open his eyes but could see little, his vision blurry, clouded by tears. He lay for a time blinking at the sky, until the blurred lines sharpened, and he saw a dark line of twisted trees, a jagged demarcation between the shadowed trees and the Mountain of Vision drenched in the golden light of the setting sun. He saw a face outlined on the mountain and rubbed his eyes, thinking that the tears must still be clouding his vision, or, since he found himself in the place he had been in the strange dream, still caught in his dreams. When he looked again, the face still looked back at him from the stone, through deep blue eyes that seemed to open into the infinite depths of space; the blue eyes reminded him of the eyes of the girl who he had seen in his dream, the girl who was meant to be his future wife. The mouth smiled and opened, as if the figure were beginning to speak. Blakstar felt, rather than heard, the soft yet piercing voice within his mind.
“Sir Blakstar,” the voice called, “I have been waiting since the beginning of time for your arrival. Even now, I wait at the mountain’s summit. Climb quickly, that I may place your feet upon the path of your destiny.”
“But Lord,” Blakstar spoke aloud, rolling painfully to his knees and trying vainly to cover himself with the tattered remains of his clothing, “I cannot remember how I got here, or what happened to me, how I got these wounds . . . my clothes . . . I fear . . . ,” he sobbed, unable to continue as he noticed his tunic and hose had been torn open from his neck down to his knees. He saw the red line inscribed on his naked chest and loins; he felt an unfamiliar ache in his groin, almost a sharp pain, and there was something wet and shiny on his front. Clouds moved in from the northwest, blocking the sun’s last light, but the face in the stone glowed with its own light. “I feel filthy,” he went on after controlling his emotions, “and defiled, but I don’t know why . . . I was trapped for a time in my own dreams, but someone came and . . . ,” he trailed off into silence.
“Do not be concerned over what might have happened. Climb the mountain and be cleansed of my son’s forced violation.”
Blakstar lifted his head and saw tears filling the eyes and falling down the cheeks of the face in the stone of the mountain. The face faded, and Blakstar felt warm drops splashing his face and arms. He stood, face turned toward the clouds, as the drops fell faster, quickly becoming a downpour. The warm rain washed the blood from his wrists–cuts he did not notice until the rain washed the blood away–from the lines inscribed on his chest, and belly, and the stains from his whole body. The raindrops eased the pain of his wounds, the ache of his head, and touched his spirit with peace. When his burdens no longer troubled him, the rain stopped. He turned toward the mountain, and as he turned he noticed aches in his legs and buttocks, sore muscles he did not know he even had.
“Thank you, Lord,” he whispered, his voice cracking, “I will come.”
Blakstar gathered up the broken strips of leather lying beneath the bent and broken tree and used them to tie his breeches, hose, and tunic closed. Not up to his mother’s high standard for repairs, he thought, but good enough to keep them on. He looked around the clearing, wondering what had become of Wingfoot and saw his steed tied to a tree at the clearing’s edge. He moved toward the horse and the clouds parted, the last golden rays lighting the mountain. In the fading light, he saw that Wingfoot had been stripped of all his gear; breath exploded from his lips and trailed off into a sigh. He did not relish the idea of trying to return to Karble without tack or harness, and what little money he carried was in his missing saddle bags. Wingfoot nuzzled Blakstar, sensing his master’s mood. Blakstar absently scratched the horse under his muzzle, his mind on the strange dream and the elfin face of the girl with golden hair, before untying the rope and leading him toward the mountain hovering overhead. Other strange images flashed across his mind, including the golden-haired wetha in a black robe along with flashes of a pura and a pair of ponkolam that he somehow knew were related; he also saw the image of a girl named Marta, daughter of friends of his parents, and something about her image caused his cheeks to color. He jerked his thoughts back to the present.
Blakstar passed through the twisted, burned trees, which gave way to living pine, cedar, and fir, growing green and normal. Within ten minutes he reached the foot of the mountain, and he circled west toward the sea. A breeze blew into his face, bringing the smell of salt and fish; gulls cried overhead, and the sound of their voices mingled with the sound of surf rolling onto a beach. At the place where forest, mountain, and beach met–a corner of the mountain jutting into the sea–a hut had been built and supplied by local farmers, marking the starting point for a kortexi’s ascent of the mountain. Blakstar led Wingfoot into the corral next to the hut, filling the manger from supplies stored under the hut’s overhanging roof. Wingfoot drank deeply from the trough before sniffing the hay and grain and giving his master a whinny of approval. Blakstar scratched him behind his ears as he contentedly munched on the grain; Blakstar secured the gate, looking up at the mountain looming overhead. The Mountain of Vision looked like a large, rectangular block of granite set on one of its smaller ends by some giant hand. Its four faces were sheer, and it could only be climbed by the teka path created for the kortexem. His masters had told him not to be intimidated by the mountain’s size, as the ascent took much less time than one might suppose. The teka path passed through the elemental realms before ending on the flat summit. The journey’s length, he had been taught, depended on how quickly the kortexi learned the lesson of each element, and his masters taught him that faith and trust were more important in these tests than physical strength, stamina, and skill. He entered the hut and began to eat a cold supper from the dried food he found stored within.
When he finished his meal, he removed his tattered clothes and boots and donned the simple white robe and sandals that would be his garb for the ascent. On the wall of the hut that butted against the mountain was a small round depression, chest high. Blakstar took the small token he had been given from a secret pocket inside one of his boots and placed it in the wall’s small depression. The token, looking like a small piece of carved obsidian, glowed with golden light and was slowly absorbed into the wall. When the token disappeared, Blakstar saw a door outlined, which he heard and saw grind slowly open. He passed quickly through, the door beginning to close as soon as it was fully open; it shut with a hollow thud, leaving no sign of a door. Magluku glowed along a short, rough-hewn hallway, leading to a vertical crack in the mountain’s northw
est face. He came to the crack’s innermost limit and saw that iron rungs had been driven into the wall, forming a ladder in the living rock. As he climbed the ladder, the sound of the surf and gulls grew. The ladder ascended nearly one-hundred feet, ending on a ledge that ran out to the mountain’s northwest face. He could see a few faint stars winking in the sky over the sea, and the hut looking very small directly below him. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, the last magluku well below the top of the ladder, he noticed a faint golden glow emanating from a rod of iron that floated horizontally in the air. The rod was about as long as he was tall, round, and an inch in diameter. This glowing rod brought to mind the words of his last master, who prepared him for the ascent of the mountain: When you place your right hand on the rod, your sight will change: you will enter a monochrome world, neither night nor day, in which the rod becomes a golden, glowing line. The line is your path up the mountain that will lead through the realms of the elements. Do not let go of the rod! It is your lifeline; it alone opens and maintains the path. Do not be alarmed by anything you see or pass through: the rod and line will protect from harm and allow you to pass safely through every obstacle. Once you begin to move do not stop or turn from the path: walk forward at an even pace, ignoring the forces that seem to assail you. The rod will protect you from harm. It is best in some places along the path to simply close your eyes and continue to walk forward. You will understand what I mean and what the rod represents when you walk this path.
Blakstar stood next to the rod and grasped it firmly in his right hand. The world changed. Darkness turned to grayness; the stars stopped twinkling and became white spots in the gray sky. The mountain turned black; the sea rolling onto the dark gray beach turned to a shade of gray lighter than the sand and darker than the sky. The only color in his world came from the rod: a golden line above and next to a path not before seen, shot from the rod out of the crack and curved to his left. He started to walk slowly forward, and the rod glided smoothly along the golden line. On leaving the crack in the mountain’s northwest face, the path and line turned to the left and began to climb the northwest face of the mountain. The path was clear for the first quarter mile, gaining elevation quickly through a series of switchbacks. Blakstar turned another corner and faced a bulge in the cliff that blocked his path. The golden line passed through the rock, becoming hazy inside the stone and regaining its brightness when it left the rock. His first impulse was to try and step around the rock, but as he moved to the side the rod left the line and grew suddenly heavy; his vision returned to normal darkness and the path under his feet faded. Remembering the words of his final lesson, he stepped back to the path pulling the rod back into the line of golden light. Monochrome vision returned; he saw the rod sliding into the rock. The rock faded, turning misty orange, as the rod followed the golden line, and the kortexi reached forward with his left hand to touch the rock’s surface. He was surprised to see his own hand begin to fade and turn a misty, golden-orange, more surprised when the same hand seemed to slide into the rock, even as the rock seemed to slide into his hand. As he moved slowly forward, his forearm faded and entered the rock, turning the same misty golden-orange as his hand, even as the rock entered his forearm. His left foot stepped forward and into the rock, fading as the rock faded, turned misty orange, and entered his foot, and for the moment he was inside the rock, his monochrome world became misty orange, returning to monochrome as he left the rock. He pressed forward, feeling the rock passing through his body as his body passed through the rock. He shivered as he left the rock, wondering how he could have walked through a stone. The path ahead turned into the face of the mountain, and the kortexi involuntarily slowed his pace, thinking of how unsettling the feeling had been of oozing through the rock as the rock oozed through him.
Do not slow down! a voice in his mind commanded, lest you have not the strength to go on!
By force of will alone, the kortexi strode forward, closing his eyes as the rock face faded to orange mistiness under the rod’s touch. He pushed the rod forward, knowing that if he did not push it to the side, it would follow the golden line. The rock oozed through him; the kortexi slid through the rock, but the darkness in his mind was pierced suddenly by flames, a ponkola face flowing into the face of Marta, a girl from his childhood, changing to the face of the girl in his dream blond hair bare skin lashed by white scars red blood his blood claws raking flames “b” rune inscribed in blood burning screaming pain Marta-ponkola head back face ecstatic hips shuddering flames clawing blood flames bloodpainflames screamingbloodflamesflames. . . .
His eyes jerked open. The golden line moved ahead through the misty orange world even as body and stone flowed through each other. He could stand the discomfort, he thought, more than he could the strange visions when his eyes closed, and what these images were or where they came from troubled him, for they were images of sin and he must avoid evil thoughts. He tried to ignore the chilly, oozy feeling, concentrating on where he went through the rock to keep his mind off the images, except the blonde wetha, who caused strange, excited feelings in his heart; he thought of her and wondered what her name was, and what the figure in white had meant when he said that Blakstar already knew her name–he had no idea what her name was, so he simply thought of her as his ‘princess.’ He noticed the temperature around him rising, saw the orange mistiness lighten, change to a red-orange glow directly ahead. He slid out of the rock and into a large cavern. Heat and the stench of sulfur crashed into him; rivulets of red-orange lava crisscrossed the space before him. Jets of fire shot up from the fire and molten rock, smashing into the ceiling high overhead and raining fragments of stone and gobs of melted rock onto the floor of the cavern. The golden line wound through the cavern, crossing over the red hot flows of fire and molten rock. The kortexi coughed as he walked, his lungs both oppressed and seared by the heat and stench of burning rock. The first rivulets of fire were narrow and easily stepped over, although the heat emanating from the surface scorched his skin. He thought he could see steam rising from his exposed skin, ruddy in the glow of molten rock. The rivulets turned into streams, and he found it progressively more difficult to cross them. The strength of his limbs and his resolve drained out of him, or perhaps, were boiled out of him by the oppressive heat. He leapt across the widest flow yet, holding tightly to the rod. A jet of flame and molten rock shot toward the ceiling, narrowly missing him as he crossed and raining shards of stone and hot ash onto his head. His coughing slowed his movement, in spite of his resolve, and the voice spoke again in his mind.
Do not slow! the command repeated, then the voice softened. You must trust me.
Blakstar tried to walk forward at his former pace, but the resistance to forward motion was greater, empowered by the heat and stench. He came to an even wider flow and leaped across, even though he knew it was wider than he could jump in his weakened state. He saw his foot fall short of the further side, felt the heat increasing as he fell toward the molten flow, felt the rod grow heavier as he pulled it down from the golden line, felt one foot seared by flames, heard the scream escape his lips, felt the other foot burning, heard the crackle and smelled the stench of his own flesh beginning to burn.
Feel the rod–trust in me! the voice commanded.
In the red anguish overcoming his mind, he noticed that the rod felt cool to his touch. His eyes turned to his right hand, and with Herculean effort, his arm raised the rod back into the golden line. He felt himself lifted, the pain in his feet ceased, his breathing eased, the air felt cool as it passed his lips and filled his lungs. He felt firm ground under his feet, although he knew he trod flames and liquid rock. No sensation of burning touched his skin; no smell of burning flesh and sulfur filled his nose; no sight of steam rising from exposed skin; no acrid taste on his tongue, left by the air he breathed. He noticed that he was surrounded by a blue glowing nimbus that protected him from the heat and burning. He looked down and saw that he crossed a wide pool of fire. Jets of flame were more frequent, lashin
g the sphere that surrounded him, curling around the blue-glowing nimbus without touching him. The golden line he followed swung suddenly toward the ceiling and again entered the rock.
As has happened here, began the voice, cool and pleasant in his mind, so shall your life be preserved until you complete your life’s quest, if you but trust me.
The Redemption, Volume 1 Page 8
