But they’re all dead…
William knew what he must do to escape the fog of despair. He had no appetite but he drank from the pitcher and poured water over his head to wash away the threads of sleep. The wolf padded over to lap at the puddles in the dirt. It does not seem troubled by what happened in the jungle. Does it have no conscience? He pushed the wolf away from him, but when it whined, he remembered how it had braved the hordes of flies in the depths of a long-gone night to find him. It must serve a higher purpose too. His heart softened and he stroked the wolf’s side, offering it the pitcher to drink from.
Who am I to question the workings of this realm? I am only a servant to my master… Doubt crept into William’s mind to destabilize this foundational belief. Who is my master? Do I serve my Father—the essence of Light—or do I serve Fate itself—the struggle to balance Light and Darkness?
While William pondered thus, he pushed himself to his feet and started gathering his belongings. The wolf followed as he slipped between two pillars and emerged into the vast stretches of the plain. Unable to figure out who he really served, he felt like his foundation was crooked; the only thing he knew for sure was that he had no choice in the matter. Am I a lamb being led to the slaughterhouse?
William circled around the monument until the mountain came into view, standing tall on the horizon with clouds swirling over its peak. Even at this distance its enormity dominated the plain. He smiled ruefully at it. My greatest challenge is yet to come... why does this have to be so difficult?
William started laughing, his ribs aching with each mirthless chortle. The wolf glanced up at him with its piercing eyes, its ears drawn back. He kept laughing until the self-pity loosened its grasp on his heart. When he felt at peace with his lack of free will, the laughter died away and he wiped the tears from his face. He looked down at the wolf and muttered, “Everything will be as it must be, you just stay by my side.”
The Sun drew long shadows before William and the wolf as they left the monument behind them. As he walked, he found that the physical exertion kept his mind focused on the Moment—the ground passing monotonously under his feet, the clumps of grass that livened up the plain. How wonderful it is to be bored! He broke into a jog, as if he could outrun all the heavy thoughts, but his body started aching like his bones were grinding against each other. Not wanting to be reminded of everything he had been through, he slowed to a walk and kept his eyes on his immediate surroundings so he would not have to think about the past or the future.
As the boredom began to lose its appeal, William spotted a shapeless heap in the distance. He approached and discovered it was a hyena’s carcass, entrails spilling out of the torn body. As the wolf padded closer to sniff it, he took a closer look and saw thousands of maggots crawling within the decaying flesh. A wave of nausea swept through him, and he pulled the wolf away before it could take a bite, clasping a hand over his nose as he retreated from the sight. The wolf gave the carcass one last look then followed after him.
Why is Death forsaking its duty? William pressed on, and a hundred meters further came upon the bloody carcass of a headless Komodo dragon. He called the wolf to his side as it approached the dead lizard; it whined but obeyed and they skirted well around it. “I know you’re hungry, boy,” he said. “But this meat is rotten.”
Their path brought them past carcass after carcass, rancid and putrid; though William kept his distance from them, each reminded him of the maggots squirming in the hyena’s carcass. His stomach twisted up into a knot and he decided it best to keep his eyes locked on the mountain and ignore whatever the wolf did.
What if we run into the beast that killed all those animals? I will not hesitate again, like I did with the panther. He took a swing with his sword and did not see the low-lying boulder in his path, walking right into it. A sharp pain seared through his right leg and he dropped his sword, stumbling forward and reaching out to brace himself against the boulder. He winced and started hopping around in a circle, trying to suppress a cry. The pain diminished to a throb and he slumped down on the boulder, setting his sack next to him. The wolf sat on its haunches and watched as he hiked his cloak up over his thigh to check for damage. Blood trickled down his shin from a scrape right beneath his kneecap, the skin around it turning purple.
As William thought about tending the wound, weariness overcame him like his spirits were puddling in his boots. He craned his neck back and saw the Sun had passed its zenith, then he glanced behind his shoulder at the mountain towering over him. Rubble was strewn all across the ground ahead of him, so he knew he would have to muster his strength for the next leg of his journey. He projected a thought up through the atmosphere: Father, I am sorry for doubting You. I have not given up, but I need Your assistance.
A response soared down: “There is no need to apologize, my son. I understand.” A steak and a loaf of bread materialized on the boulder beside him. William gave his thanks, then he and the wolf ate and drank their fill.
FOURTEEN
William poured some water down his leg to wash the blood away, and it all pooled in his boot, which he wrenched off his foot and dumped into the dirt. When he crammed his foot back into it he felt a blister on his heel pop. The scrape below his kneecap had started clotting, but the bruise throbbed under his touch. He took a few practice steps, submerging this new pain beneath the generalized ache. He gathered his belongings and stepped past the boulder to survey the new terrain ahead: boulders strewn about in a weirdly organized pattern, a generalized rustiness that drifted in the breeze like dust, stretching kilometers up into the foothills of the mountain
I could be up there tonight… if I can get through all of that. William sighed and gathered his belongings, then started picking his way forward through the field of debris, skirting past the next few boulders. The wolf put its snout to the ground as it followed him, marking the third boulder they passed. Its nose led it to mark several more boulders as they zig-zagged between them, like a rock garden which had been designed by entropy. The further they progressed into the rock garden, William felt the ground rise up under his feet and found the boulders seemed to be gaining mass and coming closer together the further they penetrated the new terrain.
A wall of squarish boulders took shape ahead of them, all of them towering over William as they stretched away from him. Is this some ruin? What civilization lived here? The wolf grew more tense, falling behind as it sniffed the ground, but as William walked beside the wall, he soon came upon a narrow passage between two of the stone blocks.
When William emerged on the other side of the wall, he came upon a an even larger boulder, four meters high and two ahead of him. Lower, more weathered walls arced away from him in both directions, with blocks that grew wider and shorter, down to the height of his waist. Chunks of rubble were piled in spills from the wall behind him that stretched into the widening lanes, bits in the rubble that sparkled in the sunlight.
The wolf stepped beside William and followed its nose to the left. William glanced that way and saw a passage through the wall up ahead, rubble covering the ground at its entrance. He followed after the wolf as it crouched down with raised hackles and started growling. He raised his sword into a defensive posture as he came to a stop beside the wolf, hearing a faint rustling and the crunching of rubble, and he saw the mottled-green head of an enormous snake slide out of the passage. Its tongue flicked out to taste the air, in and out again. The snake swiveled its head to face the two companions and started slithering out into the lane.
William patted the wolf’s haunch and whistled as he turned to flee. It took a last look at the anaconda slithering its hulk into the shadowed lane, it scales shimmering in the sunlight, before scampering after William. He stopped before a block that came up to his stomach and set his belongings on it before using the rubble as a stool to climb onto the block. He whistled and the wolf leapt up after him, its claws scrambling against the stone.
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br /> William raised his sword and turned to face the barreling anaconda, its five-meter body undulating from side to side, crushing rubble into the dirt. The wolf hopped down the other side of the boulder while he crouched low and darted higher up the wall, clanging his sword against the stone. The anaconda slithered to his spot and lifted its head to look at him, its forked tongue flicking between razor teeth. It started slithering up the rubble and raised its head to push itself up the wall.
William looked into the constrictor’s beady eyes and saw the void reflected through them. Another machine running on autopilot. He took a step back and gripped his sword in both hands with its blade aimed at its head. The tongue flicked above the boulder, then the snake’s head lifted into view. It hissed, unhinging its jaw as its head flopped onto the stone, and William lunged, piercing its head through its mouth.
The swordtip splattered blood into the air and the anaconda recoiled, pulling the weapon out of William’s hand. It toppled over, sliding back down into the rubble where it started thrashing about on the ground, cracking rubble beneath its spasmodic coils and kicking dust into the air. The juggernaut shuddered and started coiling into a mound as the spasms drifted out of its body. The dust settled down on the coiled snake, covering up the shimmer of its scales.
William stood for a moment in wonder at the monstrosity tangled up with rubble down there, then he hopped down from the wall and walked around the carcass until he found the head, slumped over a coil with his sword’s hilt stuck out between its razor teeth. He braced his foot against its coil and grabbed the hilt, yanking the blade out. The snake’s mouth fell closed and he wiped his sword off against its scales.
William climbed back out of the lane and saw the wolf standing up against the other side of the wall to stare at him. “How the mighty falls without brains to match,” he said, grabbing his sack and hopping down next to it. They crossed a swell of rubble and came upon a decrepit wall with stone columns interspersed between the blocks, bits of stone flooding down into the lane. It stretched in a different direction towards the mountain, the storm swirling around its peak, crackling with energy and shredding clouds out through the sky.
I knew Death was up to something. Is this maze its game? As William led the way towards the mountain, passing around a curve and finding himself at a cross roads, where a new lane opened to the left, limned by crumbling walls that stretched deeper into the ruins. The wolf sniffed around the ground and marked significant chunks of rubble. What if the snake’s thumping alerted even worse monsters to my presence? He tensed but then chuckled, remembering the visceral mass of the anaconda, how it could have crushed him easily if it had a chance, but by giving up the opening move it had left itself vulnerable.
I suppose the deadliest weapon is not a claw, a fang, or a sword; rather, the deadliest weapon is intelligence. The wolf stepped into the new lane and led William forward, who kept his sword raised as he stumbled through the rubble. Did the plain design this maze to trap me? Is there a way out? He glanced up at the mountain, rising high to his right, and at the vigilant wolf. How could the plain hope to trap me when I have guides?
A narrow passageway spilled a line of sunlight into the lane a hundred meters ahead of them, but William pulled himself up onto the wall so he could get a better view of his surroundings, see if anything was moving out there. The wolf leapt up after him, hitting the edge with its stomach and clawing at the stone. William put aside his sword and grabbed the wolf, which yelped when he yanked it up beside him. It sat down and pushed its snout into the bandage wrapped around its side.
“Does it need to come off, boy?” William surveyed the next lane before he knelt beside the wolf and unwrapped its bandages, tossing the stained strips of cloth into the rubble behind him. The wolf looked like it was shrinking as dried mud crumbled into dust and drifted from its torso, grey powder coating its fur. William hopped into the next lane, sliding down a bank of rubble and crossing a patch of earth to the ruins of the next wall, where he climbed a frozen avalanche of rocks, and the wolf hopped up as he pulled himself onto the wall.
William climbed higher up the wall to get a view of the surrounding maze, but the walls stretched so far, leading the lanes towards the mountain or away from it in all directions. Rubble filled vast stretches of ground between different lanes and blocked some of them, but narrow passageways connected the different lanes at intervals. Better to stay on the walls… The wall he stood on stretched the wrong direction, so he hopped into the next lane and led the wolf up the next wall of rubble, following along its curvature toward the mountain until it turned in a new direction. He stumbled down through a field of rubble and clambered up and along the next wall, the next and the next, alert for the presence of any stalking monster down in the shadowed lanes as he progressed across the maze.
The Sun dropped through the sky before William as he navigated the ruins. His body felt tense from managing so many aches, and his shins started to burn like a flare from negotiating the terrain. He dropped down into a lane that dead-ended into a wall of rubble. He slumped down onto a chest-shaped block in the middle of the lane, and the wolf padded up beside him as he unwrapped his sack.
William gulped from the pitcher, pausing for breath before he got his fill, and he set it in a patch of dirt for the wolf. With bleary eyes, he saw the back of his hand smeared with blood from dozens of scratches, the front of his hand even worse. Like a wind blew out of him, he slouched down, staring blankly at the weathered stone on which he sat. He became aware of a chip in the block, surrounded by a network of cracks. The pillars had marks…
…these ruins were created by hand. Overcome with the epiphany, William fell to his knees. The plain only destroyed what people built, it could create nothing of its own. He looked at the ruins around him with a new eye. This city weathered the entire Universe and still crumbles around me. He gasped as he imagined how many people had passed through this city like a cauldron, boiling all together for a time and passing away. All the feet tromping through the streets, passing him by an eon before. He imagined all the hands that had chiseled these stones into monuments to the grandeur of Life, into homes for the dreaming people. He became aware of a subtle vibration the stones emitted all around him, a dormant lifeforce within the ruins. People congregated here to find community, they deserve no blame for the systems that exterminated Life. Humanity could be a destructive force, but they had vast potential for creation. How can I balance these drives?
William felt the stony lifeforce like a spark in his soul, a new wind to lift his body. He wrapped the sack up and used his sword as a cane to stand, then he climbed the next wall to survey a course to the mountain. The wolf hopped up beside him as he gazed down into the next lane. His heart jumped to his throat—a great mass shifted through the shadows, sunlight splashing upon a tiger’s head as it prowled away from them.
The wolf made to jump into the lane behind the tiger, but William grabbed it in his arms and threw his body weight back so they tumbled down into the previous lane. The wolf yelped, trying to squirm out of his arms, and the tiger turned toward them as they fell down into a bed of rubble. The wolf rolled over and picked itself up, limping away as William retrieved his sword and the sack from atop the wall. He ducked back down as the tiger let out a roar that ripped through the dusty air. The wolf froze in its tracks and looked back at William, who nodded, setting off on a crouched run past it. He straightened up as they passed a less-ruined stretch of wall and sprinted across the rubble until they came to a lower segment. He launched himself up the wall, the wolf jumping up beside him as the tiger pounced into the shadowed lane they had vacated.
William dropped into the cleared lane and ran across it, hurling himself up and over a dilapidated wall, mindful to protect the pitcher jiggling within his sack. The wolf made the leap as he rolled down into the next lane, landing in a crouch and glancing in each direction. A narrow passageway cut through the stout wall a dozen meter
s ahead, and William led the wolf into it, pausing in a deep gloom to survey the next lane for danger.
Seeing no movement, William stepped into the sunlight, his muscles twitching for him to sprint across the rubble. Will that beast pursue us? It had not seen what direction he and the wolf had fled, but he assumed it could track him by sense of smell. They could continue fleeing from one lane to the next, trying to throw the feline off their track, but what if they ran into another predator? The tiger had twice the bulk of the panther he had faced in the wastes; he shuddered to think what it could do to him, but he knew he had to put an end to the pursuit before they could press on. Would I have an advantage on the wall or should I stay down here? Having seen the tiger jump a wall, he figured that its agility posed the greatest threat.
William looked back at the passageway they had come from—jammed with rubble the tiger would have to squeeze through. If the tiger had their scent, it would pass through there. He called the wolf behind him and set himself up beside the opening, raising the sword so he could strike at a moment’s notice. Straining his ears for signs of the beast’s approach, the adrenaline started draining from his body as though it had fulfilled the demands of flight. Does it know I am geared up for a fight?
FIFTEEN
As shadows started creeping up the wall across from him, William’s arm grew sore. He lowered the sword and stretched out the muscles, wondering if the tiger had not pursued them after all. Before he could turn away, his ears picked up the crunch of dirt from beyond the passage. The wolf came alert and sniffed the air, but he touched its flank before it started growling, nudging it behind him. The thrill of adrenaline spiked as he brought his sword back up, silent as a specter.
Rubble crunched as the tiger padded closer to the passage. The wolf breathed softly behind him; William tightened his fingers around his sword’s hilt. He could sense the tiger looking into the passage, heard it sniffing, and then the crunching again. A rancid stench drifted out of the passage, followed by the tiger’s striped head, snout to the ground. He chopped his sword down as the beast stepped into the lane, the blade crunching into its neck as blood soaked into its fur. He tried to pull his sword free, but the tiger roared and he scampered away with the wolf.
Fate’s Peak Page 9
