What’s the point of standing? I think.
There is no place to go. Despite the cold, I’m not going to die. In fact, I might already be dead. So I should probably just sit down, grit my teeth and wait for eternity to end.
A moment later, I shake so bad that I don’t have a choice. I fall down to my butt and pull my legs in close. But there is no escaping the cold. Nor the loneliness. This is the fate I chose when I stepped back into the gates of Tartarus. This is the sacrifice I made to save Luca. As I begin to weep, a shift in the orange sky at the horizon catches my attention.
There’s something there. Something different from the endless rolling stone hills and swirling sky. It’s sharp. And vertical. A tower, I realize.
I stay rooted in place. In this place, the tower can’t be a good thing.
But it’s something.
Where’s Ull? I wonder. Ull is my middle name, given to me by Dr. Merrill Clark, a friend of my parents, husband of Aimee Clark, whom I kidnapped and delivered to the Nephilim, and the father of Mirabelle Clark, the first girl I had any kind of romantic feeling for. But Ull became my one and only name after I was broken by Ninnis and turned into a hunter. I served the Nephilim Ull, son of Thor, before killing him, too. But ‘Ull’ is now how I identify that dark side of me—the side that enjoyed being a hunter. He is part of me, but also separate from me. In fact, we generally loath each other, though we worked together to force Nephil from my—our—mind. But I have yet to sense his ferocity, his strength. I fear that aspect of my personality has either been suppressed or removed. Ull’s passion would help me now, and I suspect helping someone, even a split personality, might be against the rules of this place.
With shaking hands, I dig into one of my pouches and take out the telescope given to me by Ninnis on my birthday, back when I was still Ull. I fight to extend the frozen metal as it clings to my skin. But I get it open and peek through the lens, careful not to let my eyeball touch, and flash freeze to, the metal. The tower comes into view, still distant, but clearer. It’s not natural, I think. Someone built it. But why? And when? And for what purpose?
Where Ull is passionate, I am curious. And in this case, the resulting action is the same. I push myself up against the cold and set out toward the tall tower. I could probably figure out how far away it is, but have no need to figure out how long the journey will take.
I have eternity.
2
I wish I could say, “I can’t remember the last time I felt this desperate for warmth.” But I can’t say it. I remember everything. The last time I should have felt cold was a few years ago when I first climbed down the airplane stairs and stepped onto the Antarctic ice. I wore only pants and a long sleeve shirt. The cold should have stung me then, like it does now. But I felt nothing. Immunity to the temperature on, and under, Antarctica was the first manifestation of my connection to the continent. For the past several years, I’ve experienced the elements somewhere around seventy-five degrees, night or day, covered in snow or standing in a fire pit.
But now…
A shudder quakes through my body.
I push through it, walking in what I hope is a straight line, toward the distant tower now hidden by the rising grade before me.
As I walk up, I search my memories for warmth. Before coming to Antarctica, I was a cartoon junkie. At least, I was on Saturday morning, when the good cartoons were on. But it’s not the shows I focus on. It’s my afghan. My mother knitted the rainbow colored blanket for me and it rested at the end of my bed, every night of my life. My father turned down the heat at night, which left the downstairs bitterly cold on winter mornings in Maine. So the afghan found its way around my shoulders most winter mornings and warmed me while I ate my cereal, watched cartoons and drew.
The memory warms my heart, but does little to improve my physical condition. I’ve heard that just thinking about fire can warm your body, but I’m now positive that’s a bunch of malarkey.
Malarkey. Justin’s mother used that word a lot. Mostly when we’d done something awful (like leave a scuffmark in the pristine, forbidden living room). We were always full of malarkey back then.
I trip and fall to my hands and knees. I hit hard, but feel no pain. I’m too numb to feel it. When I look up, I realize my reverie had done its job distracting me. The hill is gone. I’m in a gorge, but I have no memory of cresting the hill, descending the other side or entering this valley. I look back and the stone walls wrap around a corner, obscuring my view of whatever terrain I covered to get here.
The dream-like quality of my arrival in this new place disturbs me, but there’s no wind here. I’m also somewhat comforted by the stripes of stone strata surrounding me. If not for the strip of orange sky thirty feet above me, this would feel like the underground, which, if I’m honest, has become my home.
I search the area for a cave, or even a good-sized crack I can squeeze into. If there is an underground here, maybe I could warm up. The ambient temperature just ten feet underground is fifty-five degrees. Not exactly warm, but it’s an improvement. Survivable. Not that I’m dying. I don’t think it’s possible to die in Tartarus. What good would an eternal land of torment be if you could simply die to escape?
I can’t see the tower anymore. The gorge might lead me in the wrong direction, but going back doesn’t appeal to me. My bare feet slap on the smooth stone floor as I begin walking forward once more. The smoothness of the stone tells me that a stream once ran through here and eroded rock. Which means that there could be water.
Ice, more like it, I think. But I could melt it.
Thinking about water kick starts my stomach again. I fish into a pouch and pull out a dry stick of meat. It’s tough, and I need to grind my teeth to eat it, but the two bites I ration for myself feel like a Thanksgiving dinner.
Images of Thanksgivings past rocket through my mind. I hear family laughing and telling stories. I smell the turkey cooking. My mouth waters as it remembers the tangy sweetness of mom’s homemade cranberry sauce.
In a flash, the two bites of dried flesh seem entirely inadequate. My stomach shouts for more. I’m tempted to consume all of my meager food supply, but life in the underground has taught me discipline. I turn my thoughts away from food.
I look up and find the gorge transformed. I’ve lost myself again. It doesn’t look like I’ve gone as far this time, but who’s to say this gorge isn’t a hundred miles long. Not that time has any meaning here. I could have just walked for a year. A hundred years. The Nephilim might have already taken over the planet. Luca, Em, Aimee and Mira might all be dead and buried. Maybe there isn’t even a human race to return to?
Could this be the torture of Tartarus? Not knowing? Have I been here for ten minutes? Or ten years? I feel my face, expecting to find the long shaggy beard of an older man. But there’s nothing. Not even the quarter inch of fuzz that had grown on my cheeks. My skin is smooth. Soft even.
I look at my arms. They’re thin and frail. Like I was before life underground. The arms of a nerd. What’s happened to me?
Weakness, I think.
This place is searching for my weakness. I’m unaccustomed to the cold, so it freezes me. My memories hurt more than help. And now my physical strength has been taken. One at a time, I think. This place is going to whittle away at me, bit by bit, until I’m so pitiful that I wish for death. Which, of course, will never come. The process won’t be quick, either. There’s plenty of time.
How would this play out for a Nephilim? Pain would hurt. Really hurt. They would be vulnerable. Frail. Small. Helpless.
Like me.
Like the real me.
Pitiful.
To be pitied.
My thoughts turn down a dark road of self-loathing and I’m not going to stop it. I deserve this. I asked for this.
As my attention shifts inward once again, I lose sight of the stone walls around me. The world slips away.
For a moment.
And then it returns with a sharp impact.<
br />
I stumble back, hand to head, confused by what’s happened. The tunnel turned and I didn’t turn with it. I walked straight into the wall.
Klutz.
The sharp pain brings tears to my eyes.
Crybaby.
The voice in my head reminds me of Ull, but it’s not him. It’s me. Or this place. I can’t tell the difference, but wherever it comes from, it knows exactly what to say.
“Shut up!” I shout. My voice echoes through the crevasse. To punctuate my anger, I make a fist and swing a punch toward my own leg. But the pain of the blow is dull. At first I think it’s because my body has become so frail, lacking the strength even to inflict pain on itself. But that’s not it. I punched something.
Something solid.But not like a rock, or it would have hurt my hand.
I look at the pouch hanging off the right side of my belt. Something large and rectangular fills it. After untying the leather strap holding it shut, I flip the pouch open and gasp.
It’s a book.
A book.
My memory of the thing returns. I took it from the Nephilim library in Asgard, when I returned to see Aimee, before heading for the gates of Tartarus. I pull the brown leather-bound book out of the pouch, and I look at the faded gold text on the spine. Despite the tortures of this place, I smile, and read the text on the front cover.
The Pilgrim’s Progrefs
John Bunyan
I note that the title is spelled with an “fs” at the end, which was common in the sixteen hundreds. This is an old copy, I think, and I gently open the cover.
THE
Pilgrim’s Progrefs
FROM
THIS WORLD,
TO
That which is to come:
Delivered under the Similitude of a
DREAM
Wherein is Difcovered,
The manner of his letting out,
His Dangerous Journey; And fafe
Arrival at the Defired Countrey.
By John Bunyan
LONDON,
Printed for Nath. Ponder at the Peacock
in the Poultrey near Cornhil, 1678.
1678… 1678! This is a first edition, I think, growing excited. Before coming to Antarctica, reading books was a passion of mine. My parents had thousands. I read them all and then some. I consumed them. But not this one. I’ve never read this book. I turn the page and read.
The AUTHOR'S Apology For His BOOK
When at the first I took my Pen in hand,
Thus for to write; I did not understand
That I at all should make a little Book
In such a mode; Nay, I had undertook
To make another, which, when almost done,
Before I was aware, I this begun.
By the time I reach that seventh line, I’ve forgotten the tower. The cold. The pain. And my feeble condition. The horrible world I now live in slips away as these words, written more than three hundred years ago, reach out across time, and maybe space, and deliver a gift I thought impossible in this place.
Hope.
3
I read each word slowly and with deliberation, as though I’ve just learned the language. The old English text is rich in a way that modern books aren’t. I reread most sentences two or three times, just enjoying the cadence of the words. The plight of the main character, Christian, whose story is an allegory to the modern believer’s life, fascinates me as many elements reflect my own journey over the past years. He’s plagued by doubt, fear and the heavy burden that comes from the recognition of your own sins.
My sins weigh on me every day, impossible to forget thanks to my perfect memory.
I kidnapped Aimee and delivered her to the Nephilim, robbing Mira of a mother and Merrill of a wife.
I fled the Nephilim for what I thought was two years, but it turned out to be twenty. I hid in fear and turned my back on the world I was uniquely suited to defend.
Because of my weakness, Tobias, father of Emilie and Luca, was slain at the hands of Ninnis, while I watched, helpless.
And most recently, when I contained the body and spirit of Nephil, I fear he was able to affect the world somehow. Any devastation caused by my inability to fight his influence is mine to own.
My burden, like Christian’s, is often unbearable. Even more so, in this awful place. If not for this book, and the distraction provided by it, I might have already gone mad. I’ve read the book now, cover to cover, several times. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting in the gorge, slowly turning pages, absorbing the words, but if I can just stay here, reading this book, I might be able to bear this place.
“Sorry Christian,” I say to myself, “but you’re going to have to share my burden, too.”
Then it happens. I reach the chapter that has tickled the back of my mind on every read.
The Slough of Despond.
Thus far, I’ve read through it quickly, ignoring the potent message and similarities to my current situation. But something clicks as I read through the text this time:
This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended: it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arise in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place: and this is the reason of the badness of this ground.
“I’m in the slough,” I say. My voice sounds deeper then I recall, but I think it’s from thirst and the echo of my voice on the crevasse walls.
The Slough of Despond, which essentially means, the Swamp of Despair, in Bunyan’s story seems to identify the burdens of the traveler stuck in the mire. In my case, the swamp is a dry wasteland, cut off from the rest of the world. But the effects of the place, like the Slough, focuses on the fears, weaknesses and burden of those unfortunate enough to be here. And the effect seems to increase with time, even if time makes no sense. If not for the book and its story of redemption…
My eyes are drawn back to the page. I don’t want to read this section again. Despite the similarities to my stay in Tartarus, it is actually ruining my hope. Not because it ends badly, but because Christian is eventually pulled from the Slough by the aptly named, Help.
Despite being stuck in the Slough of Despond, Christian still inhabits the real world, and while one friend abandons him in the mire, another comes along to pull him out. But here, cut off from everyone and everything, there will be no travelers coming along to lend me aid. I’m alone. Forever. And even if I do eventually move from my spot in the gorge, the only living thing I have any hope of finding in this place is a Nephilim. I’m not sure how many are here, if any, but I don’t think Nephil was alone in this place. And finding a Nephilim, in Tartarus, is not high on my eternal “to do” list.
I close the book, its words now adding to my burden. Maybe it’s Tartarus? I think. At first, the book provided a distraction from the power of this place, but even the words of this book couldn’t hold off Tartarus forever.
I look up and stare at the blank wall in front of me.
Whispered taunts flow past my ears.
You killed me.
The voice belongs to Tobias.
Emilie hates you.
I clench my eyes shut, trying to ignore a voice I know I can’t be hearing. Tobias is dead, I remind myself. He can’t speak to me.
Where do you think you are, Solomon? Alive?
“Stop,” I say. “You’re not him.”
Luca is dead.
“Stop.”
It’s a lie.
Murdered.
“Please.”
Luca escaped.
Because of you.
If there were fluid in my body to spare, tears would cover my cheeks. Tobias’s voice brings back a torrent of memories. The day we met, he and Em nearly killed me. But we became friends. We became family. I lived with them for a time, becom
ing a brother to Em and to Luca, whose six year old body was a perfect copy of mine, created by the Nephilim. We ate together. We hunted together. And Tobias trained me. I learned to use my powers more effectively. More efficiently. And he taught me to get back up. To fight. To win.
And right now, I’m losing.
This isn’t the voice of Tobias, but if it were, he would be ashamed of how I’m handling myself.
I replay a memory, tuning out the false-Tobias.
I’m running. The crunch of snow beneath my feet makes counting my footfalls easy: nine thousand, five hundred, and fifty-seven steps. Nearly five miles. I can run further. A lot further. And at a faster pace. But not while controlling the elements around me. Tobias has me running, cloaked by a swirling cyclone of snow.
We started with a single flake. It trailed me as I ran. Over time, we worked up to a trail of snowflakes. And when I’d mastered that, we moved to this. I think it’s a big leap ahead. My body certainly agrees. Not only do I need to create thousands of snowflakes, I also need to sustain a steady, and tightly controlled wind around my body. I managed okay for the first mile. But it’s been getting harder with each step.
To make matters worse, I can’t see where I’m going. Every hundred steps, I open a slice in the cyclone and peek out. The added effort hurts every time, but the terrain has been unceasingly flat and free of debris since we began. So when I hit nine thousand six hundred, I don’t look.
Ten seconds later, my foot kicks a spire of ice that I would have seen if I’d looked. I collapse forward in an embarrassing heap. I don’t even bother to raise my hands. I just slump to the ice like a freed marionette and slide to a stop.
Tobias is a gentle man for the most part, but not when training. And he’s pushing me hard, with an urgency that in hindsight makes me wonder if he knew his life would be cut short. He stands over me, shouting with a German accent that makes his words sound even angrier. “Get up! Get up, now, Solomon! Your life depends on it.”
The Last Hunter - Ascent (Book 3 of the Antarktos Saga) Page 2
