Now another impediment presented itself. The floor of the crater was not composed simply of bare lava. It was almost everywhere covered with a substantial layer of compacted ash – easy enough to walk on when it was dry. But the melting snow had turned it into several inches of thick, clinging muck. Walking quickly became a torturous struggle.
The muck stuck to his boots; soon they had grown to twice their normal size and weight. Eventually he stopped, miserable and confused, and realized that he was going nowhere until the storm abated enough for him to take a bearing on the mountain. He could not sit; the muck had turned into warm slurry, sitting in it would only add to the wretchedness of his situation.
Then the wind arose again, driving the snow before it. He looked up expectantly, but the wind clarified nothing; instead its rising force turned the tumbling white blindness into a slanting icy onslaught that did not reveal the horizon but only deepened his misery. The wind bit through his sodden clothing and gnawed at his flesh with teeth like shards of cold steel. Miserably, he turned his face into it but then a thought came to him. The day before, the wind had blown unceasingly from the north, from his left as he went toward the mountain. Perhaps it arose from the same quarter today?
As he pondered this, turning his left side to the wind, wondering if he could trust it, the snow lessened, the clouds began to lift, and the sky brightened. He looked up in hope. The storm was breaking up. And there, after a few minutes, closer, much closer than it had appeared the day before, was the broad bulk of the mountainside, looming beneath the clouds. Ignoring his misery, relief lifting his heart, he began to trudge through the muck toward it.
After a while, the snow stopped completely, and the clouds lifted further. The wind, though it numbed him, dried his clothing. Shortly after, the mud began to dry and fall in clumps from his feet. At midday, he saw the sun, pale and tenuous, peering through the thinning overcast. The storm had not been as big or as intense as he had feared; it was merely a forerunner of those that would come later in the winter.
His thoughts went then to the horses, no doubt still well out upon the plateau, no more than halfway back to the relative safety of Vallenvale. As miserable as he was, he was grateful more for them than for himself, that this had not been the big storm that might have trapped them in that desolate high place, and perhaps killed them.
He could clearly see the mountain now, all of it; the clouds fled eastward and the great cone of rock with its mottled greens and grays towered above him. It was close enough that he felt certain that he would make its base before the end of the day. He had to lean slightly backward to peer up its immense flanks and take it all in. Kelven’s mountain presented a magnificent and awe-inspiring sight, broad and tall, its summit puncturing the very sky somewhere far above. But the howling wind soon forced him to forego the pleasure of viewing the mountain’s majesty as he walked toward it and he lowered his head and hunched down into his jacket as he went forward.
After a few hours of steady travel, he raised his eyes into the wind, once again to take a bearing on the mountain and stopped in astonishment. The mountain was very close; in fact he was almost to its base. The great cone rose upward like a gray-green behemoth before him, the base of it curving gradually away out of sight in both directions and he could see up the steep slopes all the way to where its peak became lost in the blue.
Its very size had fooled him for two days, seeming to grow broader but no nearer, shrouded as it had been in the low overcast of the storm. But it was there, no more than two or three miles distant – and there was something more that was wonderful; he could clearly make out the vivid white froth of streams rushing down its slopes. More astonishing even than this, however, there on the steep side of the mountain before him, his eye could resolve the lush greenness of deciduous trees in full leaf.
As his gaze swept up and over the broad slope he spotted another thing of interest. Four or five thousand feet above him, winding from left to right up and around the slope of the mountain, there was the indication of something artificial, a line in the trees, girdling the mountainside. A few thousand feet or so above that the pattern was repeated. He realized instantly what it was – the road that Florm had told him that the men of old had walked when summoned to the summit. It was the road taken ten thousand years ago by Manon and his army, when Kelven was besieged and defeated. Judging by its position, it probably began its ascent from the plain on the south side of the mountain, somewhere around its base to his right.
He hurried forward now, without undue fear or caution; the size and number of fissures had decreased the further he had come away from the crater’s walls, and he was anxious to at last be free of the desolate plain and to stand on the mountainside. Those tall, thick stands of trees beckoned to him to get in among them and revel in their marvelous mystery.
The gray rock, forests of trees and bounding streams of the mountainside seemed magically incongruent with the spare desolation that surrounded them. Substantial, tumbling streams fell frothing to the crater floor where they sizzled and then fell silent and ceased, not so much sinking into the poisonous ground as dying atop it. And though he was still harassed by a howling, frigid wind, those distant trees appeared unaffected by anything more than languid breezes, warm enough surely that their green leaves were untouched by the cold hands of impending winter.
Florm had told him that there was no winter on Kelven’s mountain; his eyes now confirmed it. Very shortly, he would be free from the hellish climate of the crater floor and drink his fill in the tumbling streams. Summoning the last remnants of his strength, he ran the last mile.
When the sun had less than an hour in the sky, he came to the base of the mountain. Its granite fastness rose abruptly and steeply, without preamble, from the surrounding plain. The cold wind died the instant his feet left the floor of the crater and stepped into the lush green grasses and thicketed underbrush beneath the trees. And the air was in fact wonderfully warm, not like the unnatural warmth of the crater floor; rather it was imbued with the desultory pleasantness of a day in late spring.
Birds flitted in abundance in the branches of the trees, looking for places to settle for the night, and small animals, squirrels of all kinds, rabbits, and mice moved in the undergrowth. Short bushes, some with ripe berries, some with berries that were still green, and others just now in bloom covered the hillside. Aram went after these berries ravenously, pulling them free in great handfuls, giving no thought in his hunger as to whether or not they were even edible.
In fact, they were delicious, tart at first bite, then sweet in his mouth. Working his way across the steep, rocky hillside, eating as he went, he came to one of the smaller streams where its frothing water eddied for a moment in a small pool before plunging on down the mountain and out onto the plain.
He pushed his face into the cool, clear water, washed the filth of the crater’s floor from his face and hair, and then, when the quickly moving stream ran clean again, drank his fill of the wonderful liquid. He rinsed his deerskin canteen and filled it as well. Then, exhausted, but with his belly full and his thirst quenched, he lay back against the sharp slope of the mountain in a patch of thick grass. The sun was well down the sky to the west, just above the peaks of the distant mountains that showed above the rim of the crater.
Having got clear of the grinding desolation of the crater floor, he decided to indulge himself with rest. He felt safe on this mountain, he didn’t know why – besides, whether it was true or not didn’t matter, he was exhausted and meant to sleep. He laid his weapons aside, put the heels of his boots against some protruding rocks to keep himself from sliding down the slope, folded his hands across his chest, and closed his eyes.
Morning woke him. It was cool, with a tenuous mist rolling down from the heights, and deeply shadowed; the sun was behind the bulk of the mountain to the east. He drank again from the stream and ate a breakfast of berries. Then he sat for a few minutes looking to his left, toward the south, beyond the heavy sha
dow of the mountain and watched the flat morning light color the crater floor from orange to yellow to tan as the sun rose higher.
Then he arose, turned, and addressed the mountainside above him. It was steep enough to be daunting, even though trees and brush and protrusions of rock provided abundant handholds and footholds. It was not anywhere near as steep as the sides of the crater out beyond the plain but it was formidable nonetheless. For a moment he considered going back down to the plain and heading southeastward around the mountain until he came upon the beginnings of the spiral road.
He dismissed the idea immediately. The night’s rest had refreshed him and the road was only a few thousand feet – a mile or so – above him. The point at which it began its inclined ascent up the mountain was probably close to thirty or forty miles, perhaps more, away to the south – a full day’s journey at least around the base of the mountain. Though a straight climb up this steep slope would be difficult, perhaps even treacherous, it was something he could no doubt accomplish in a day if he drove himself hard. And at the end of that day he would be on the road anyway, a full three-quarters of the way around the first circuit instead of at its beginning on the crater floor.
And so he climbed, hand over hand, up through the enormous tangles of thick, tough roots with which the trees clung to the slope. His weapons soon became impediments, especially his bow, which was slung around his neck and for a time he thought about leaving it behind, but this bow was his best and he couldn’t bring himself to abandon it. Every so often, he would stop to refresh himself at one of the churning pools below the unending series of waterfalls, and dine on berries.
About midmorning, as the sun came around to the south of the mountain and shone upon him, he found a walnut tree. The ground beneath it was littered with mature nuts still in their husks, and he enjoyed a rare treat and a welcome change from the berries. There were plenty of small animals and partridges, but he would kill nothing here except at extreme need; it did not seem right to him. It would be berries and nuts for him as long as they were available.
Throughout all that day he climbed, as the sun passed through the apex of the sky and wore away to the west and began to settle toward the distant mountains. As yet, there was no evidence that he was nearing the road; every time he paused to peer up the slope there were only more trees and more undergrowth. Judging by how far the crater floor had fallen away beneath him, he had climbed well more than four thousand feet up the mountain but when the sun slid behind the rim of the crater to the west, he was still on the steep slope, among the trees and rocks.
Then, as twilight failed, and he was moving carefully to his left toward a grassy patch where he intended to pass the night, he looked to the right, between the trunks of two enormous trees. There, on level with his head, he saw a pathway of smooth stone, angling up the mountainside from his left to his right. Digging his fingers into the serrated bark of the tree trunks, he pulled himself the rest of the way up between them and stepped out onto the road. Overhead, in small patches between the spreading branches of the great trees that lined the road to either side, there was a clear sky filled with stars, and beneath his boots, there was smooth stone. He’d found the road that would take him up and around this mountain to the very summit where, according to his ancient friend Florm, the lord of all horses, it was his fate, his summons from the mouth of mysterious destiny, to come face-to-face with a god.
Two
He stood for a moment on the smooth stone of the gently sloping road, breathing hard from the day’s exertion, and then sat down where he was and lay back. The night was pleasantly warm and the cool stone felt good against his sweaty back. The angle of the road was relatively mild compared to the sharp slope of the mountain; there was no danger of sliding here. He closed his eyes and despite the coolness of the evening and the hardness of the road’s surface, he slept.
Before dawn he awoke shivering, wet with dew. The brighter stars still shone in the heavens but the rim of the crater, out beyond the deep darkness of the plain, was becoming visible as the coming day began to push back the night. He rubbed warmth into his stiff muscles, gathered his weapons, and stood up. The roadway, going away from him in both directions, was still lost in gloom, so he moved to the uphill side and began easing southeastward, up the mountain and toward the new day.
Within less than a half-hour it was light enough for him to stride up the road with confidence. When the sun broke upon the world out beyond the mountain, he stopped to eat and drink and marvel at the abundance of life that awoke around him – up in the trees and down among the brush.
There were no bridges where the many streams that tumbled down the slopes passed under the road, but rather each stream flowed beneath the road through a rounded culvert. The road itself was perfectly smooth as if it had grown out of the mountain rather than having been cut from it. For all Aram knew, it might be so. Perhaps Kelven had formed the road at the same time he built the mountain, by the same processes. Kelven was after all, as Florm was wont to remind Aram, a god. Disembodied now perhaps, but a god nonetheless, and once, long ago, he had been extraordinarily potent.
Later in the morning, as Aram made his way through the underbrush on the upstream side of the road toward a pool where he could drink and replenish his canteen, the mountain astonished him again. Something crunched beneath his boot and he hopped quickly backward, wondering for a moment if he’d damaged a living thing.
It was an overripe apple that had begun to rot. Amazed, Aram looked up into the branches around him and found that he was standing in a small grove of apple trees. And like the berry brush scattered across the mountain, the trees contained fruit in every stage of ripeness; a couple of trees were just now coming into bloom. Apparently, the changing of seasons meant nothing on Kelven’s mountain. Aram ate well that morning, seated by the falling stream, munching on the sweet meat of red and gold apples and gazing out upon the world far below.
Throughout that day, as he climbed, he discovered groves of other kinds of fruit as well, above and below the road, plums, cherries, pears, and even figs. Though it was obvious that all the trees were wild and untended, they were in the most robust of health and produced in profusion. He also discovered more and various types of nut trees scattered across the slopes. Apparently, he would not lack for sustenance as he journeyed to the top.
That day he made forty miles or so, coming around onto the southern quadrant of the mountain. He had risen above the level of the crater’s rim and could see into the country beyond, to the south and west of the mountain. To the southwest, on his right, rose the ramparts of the rugged mountains beyond which, he believed, were the high plains of the horses. There were clouds gathered among those peaks and the mountains themselves were white with new snow.
He wondered if his friends, Florm and Thaniel, would manage to get home to that unseen country before the onset of full winter. There would be many miles and days – weeks, in fact – of travel before they would reach that haven, but perhaps by now they had at least gotten beyond the cold and wintry high plateau to the west and into the more hospitable clime of Vallenvale. He looked into the west where he could see the high, barren country he and the horses had crossed a week before. There were patches of white there, too, undoubtedly snow, but most of that land was still open.
He turned and gazed into the south, into the land east of the mountains. All that his eye could resolve, here and there, just above and beyond the crater’s distant rim, was a tumbled mass of broken foothills, covered with the mottled reds, browns, and grays of trees in late autumn. As he rose higher on the mountain in the coming days, he might be able to see the nature of the world’s landscape in that direction, but for now it was a mystery.
That night he slept on the road again. By the end of the next day he was on the southeastern slope of the mountain and a couple of thousand feet higher. Now, as he looked out through the trees, he could see the country to the south a bit more clearly. In that direction, beyond the rim of t
he crater that surrounded Kelven’s mountain, wooded hills rolled away to a series of broad, deep valleys, also heavily wooded, through which ran several rivers. This thickly forested region seemed to run away unchanging to the end of the earth. Down there in the southern part of the world, he knew, was the sea, but it was somewhere far beyond that vast ocean of trees.
To the east, just beyond the rim of the crater, were more mountains, still so high that they blocked any view of what might lie behind them. By the end of that day, he’d circled far enough around that the sun went behind the bulk of the mountain to the west before it set. The floor of the crater was now more than ten thousand feet below him; his eye could no longer resolve its smaller details.
Another day of climbing brought him to the north side of the mountain. On that side, as he looked to the horizon, frosted, sharp peaks poked into the sky and seemed to run away to the limits of sight. Beyond the northern rim of the crater, there existed only a world of rock and ice. Nearer at hand, the nature of the trees upon the slopes of the mountain had begun to change subtly. Huge conifers were now mixed here and there among the hardwoods, though fruit and nut trees were still plentiful and the berry brush still grew in patches beneath them.
That night was slightly cooler but Aram knew that this had more to do with altitude than with the lateness of the year out in the world beyond the mountain. There were no seasons here; he now knew that to be absolutely true. The berry brush contained berries in all stages of ripeness, and there were still plants just coming into bloom. Like their counterparts further down the mountain, many of the trees were just now making nuts while others had already dropped their fruit upon the ground. He did not hunger, nor did he lack for variety. Several different kinds of berries grew and a broad variety existed among the nut and fruit trees.
Kelven's Riddle Book Two Page 2
