Chapter 33

  Elizabeth Eddison

  And were he so fortunate as scape these mantycores, yet couwlde hee never climbe up the gret cragges of yce and rocke on Koschtre Beloorn, for none is so stronge as to scale them but by art magicall, and such is the vertue of that mowntayne that no magick avayleth there, but onlie strength and wisdome alone, and as I seye these woulde not avayl to climbe those cloffes and yce ryvers.

  - E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

  One step at a time. The wind’s bite was colder, harsher than it had been on the first day. The snow had become ice. Shale and rubble marked her way instead of frozen trees. Chasms opened in the stone across her path, and her powers of movement, now reduced, could not always safely carry her the distance.

  Onward she trudged, all bundled in warm winter clothes, prepared as she thought necessary for the trials and dangers of the Mountain. The magical poetry book remained functional, though its paper was little help beyond fueling fire.

  She became absorbed in her thoughts as she hiked up and up, retreating from the cold into the space of her mind. She spoke to herself on occasion, or to Callie, her words whipped away into the bright distance by the wind. Here at last was time and solitude for reflection, for processing.

  She considered the Narrative. How many times? How many times had she done exactly what she was doing now? And to what end? Even Nicholas Carter didn’t know what would happen if they opened the white door. But what choice did they have? Earth was gone.

  Even now, it all seemed unreal. And why shouldn’t it? She was in a dream; everything felt like a dream. Madness. How could Earth be gone? How could the sky have cracked open like a shell? Surely she would wake up soon, cozy and warm in her bed back home in Pennsylvania, and everything would make sense again. But she’d been thinking that for two weeks now.

  She recited poetry. She knew many poems by heart. Tennyson, Longfellow, Frost and Milton. Dickinson, Millay, Browning, Shelley, Swinburne. Obscure regional writers as well—residents of her collection of unfamed poets and their once-printed verses. Dorothy Bentley Alderson, Julia Alken, Kenneth Hollingham.

  One kept coming back to her. She panted it rhythmically as she ascended, step by step: “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep.”

  The only warning was a burning pain on her stomach and leg. A painful pinprick tingling crawled over her skin, as if the words were moving.

  Cold gravel cascaded; boulders tumbled down the mountainside; the icy granite shook and shattered. The scriven beast emerged from some dark burrow to her right. It growled and huffed as it crawled into the light, scoring ice and stone alike with gleaming claws. It was like a bear with tusks, furry and white, but it flamed with violet Script.

  Its eyes were amethyst aglitter with malice, but it seemed to smell her more than to see. Perhaps the dazzling brightness blinded it; Elizabeth wore shades to counteract the light. The top of the Mountain was always dim, they said, but that was yet far.

  It would smell her out, she knew. It would follow. She had to take care of this, and the best time would be now, while the light dazed it. The Mountain drained away magic with elevation, but Elizabeth still had enough of her power to deal with this.

  Callie, who seemed immune to the Chirographic, appeared behind the beast, snapping at its heels. The bearlike monster, still groggy, turned to swat at Callie. Callie vanished; the creature’s attack carved a chunk out of the solid stone of the Mountain. Scriven beasts were unnaturally strong.

  Elizabeth’s knee took the creature in the side as it lumbered back around to face her. A trail of swirling snow sprayed behind her with the speed of her movement; now with a touch she transferred that speed to the bearlike beast. It slammed into the mountainside with a force that shook free avalanches on the surrounding slopes.

  Elizabeth dropped to the ground, inconvenienced by her bulky attire but unwilling to shed it for mobility. The beast snarled, clawed its way free of the depression of its impact. It was bigger than she had thought at first. It looked like a bear, but it was more the size of a small elephant. And she had hit it as hard as she could, but it hadn’t been very hard. Not nearly as much as she could have done down below, off the mountain.

  She had to make this quick.

  She dodged away as the beast stumbled at her, roaring. A flicker of momentum and she soared in a graceful arc up into the air. It didn’t appear that the beast could fly. She spotted the dark shapes of boulders dislodged overhead, gaining speed as they rebounded down the irregular slope.

  The bearlike beast couldn’t fly, but it could jump. It pounced at her in the air, suddenly more feline than ursine. Purple flame bled from its pelt, dripped like molten amethyst from its jaws. The fire reached out for her, forming cursed words as it flickered in the air, eager for her.

  Elizabeth accelerated herself downward, narrowly avoided the Chirographic. She struck the ground hard and fast, her momentum dispersed into the stone to avoid injury. The sudden force caused pebbles to leap up around her. With a graceful sweep into a standing position, she charged these pebbles with as much momentum as she could muster. They shot like a rain of bullets at the airborne beast.

  The boulders arrived. She danced among them as they shuddered and smashed down the Mountain; she graced each with a light touch to redirect and redouble their velocity, to deliver them at great speed toward her foe.

  Elizabeth had still not quite learned to place full trust in her ability to stop objects. She could not help but flinch when her delicate hand met the onslaught of a ten-ton stone in full tilt, though she knew by now that she could make the stone stop rather than smash her to pieces. Maybe she would never get used to it. That would be fine with her.

  Her aim could have used some practice. Only three or four of the great projectiles connected with the beast. One, however, caught it square-on. A cannonball the size of a cannon, directly to the chest. She heard the gristly crunch of its body breaking. Worse, its shriek of agony. She thought she heard the words on its body shriek along with it, though that might have been her imagination.

  She knew she was safe when the awful tingling on her abdomen and calf subsided to the regular slow burn. Her script might attract the beasts, but at least there was this: it also warned her of their proximity. And when they had perished.

  She continued on up. Step by step, as a storm mounted and the wind became a blizzard. Miles to go. Further up and further in, that quote Isaac always used. What was it from, again?

  A faint ding in one ear interrupted her thoughts. A message. She reached up and tapped the earpiece. “Who is it?”

  “Rasmus, Thunder God,” ARKO replied in a relaxed, neutral tone.

  Fine. It would take her mind off the climb to talk to someone. “Put him through.”

  RA: WELL DONE

  EE: Thank you. I heard you also suffer from the Chirographic?

  RA: INDEED

  RA: IT HAS PROVED TROUBLESOME ON OCCASION

  RA: HA HA HA!

  Her headset rendered Rasmus’ text into a featureless monotone voice, and it transcribed her own speech flawlessly. She wondered what Rasmus really sounded like. Just how big and loud was he?

  EE: Do you have any advice for me on dealing with it?

  RA: YES

  RA: DO NOT GET ANY MORE ON YOU

  EE: Sounds wise. According to Fiora, you have been afflicted with quite a lot?

  RA: INDEED

  RA: ALTHOUGH IT IS SCARCELY A DANGER FOR MYSELF

  EE: Oh? And why is that?

  RA: I AM INSURMOUNTABLY STRONG

  EE: Really.

  RA: HOWEVER, IT POSES A THREAT TO OTHERS

  RA: YOU TOO MUST BE STRONG

  RA: THE SCRIVEN BEASTS WILL ALWAYS FIND YOU

  RA: AND DO NOT ATTEMPT TO READ IT

  EE: I have no such intentions.

  RA: BE WARY OF MIRRORS

  EE: Why is that?

  RA: IT LIKES TO CREEP ABOUT BEHIND MIRRORS

  RA: AND AT CROSSROADS

  RA: THE PAIN WILL FADE IN TIME

  RA: THANKS TO FIORA

  RA: BUT IT WILL NEVER DEPART ENTIRELY

  EE: There is no way to remove the script?

  RA: YOU COULD TRY REMOVING YOUR SKIN

  RA: BUT IT BURROWS DEEP

  RA: BEYOND THAT, I AM SURE A WISH WOULD DO

  RA: THOUGH IT IS BETTER TO OVERCOME BY MAIN FORCE OF RESOLVE

  EE: What is the Chirographic Script, exactly? Do you know?

  RA: IT IS LIKE A LIVING, THINKING FIRE

  RA: OR LIKE A DISEASE MADE OF WORDS INSTEAD OF TINY CREATURES

  RA: IT IS EVIL

  RA: MORE THAN THIS I CANNOT SAY

  EE: The real mystery is why it bears such a redundant name.

  EE: Is it of the Dark World?

  RA: PERHAPS

  RA: THE SCRIVENERS SEEM TO WORK IN ALLIANCE WITH THE DARK RULER

  EE: So. You’re the Thunder God. Can you do something about this storm?

  RA: I AM NOT HE

  RA: THOUGH I CARRY A PART OF HIM WITHIN ME

  RA: HE APPOINTED ME AS SCION

  RA: TO GUARD THE TEMPLE OF THUNDER, AND TO WORK THE FORGE OF THE STORM

  EE: Who did? The real Thunder God?

  RA: YES

  RA: THERE TRULY WERE GODS, ELIZABETH EDDISON, AND I MET ONE FACE TO FACE BEFORE HE DIED

  EE: He died?

  RA: BEFORE MY EYES

  RA: ALL THE GODS OF INFERNUS PERISHED

  RA: HE WAS THE LAST

  RA: JUST AS WE, NOW, ARE THE LAST

  EE: Tell me about your world. Infernus.

  EE: It will take my mind off the climb.

  RA: WITH PLEASURE!

  RA: IT WAS A HARSH AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD

  RA: AN OLD WORLD, OF GODS AND BEASTS AND HEROES

  EE: Magic?

  RA: AND MORE!

  RA: HA HA HA!

  RA: WE DAIMON BUILT GREAT THINGS

  RA: WE CRAFTED MACHINES TO RIVAL THE GODS

  RA: WE EXPLORED THE DISTANT STARS AND WITNESSED THE WONDERS AND FURIES OF THE OUTER WILDS

  RA: BUT OUR WORLD GREW OLD

  RA: AND THE GODS PERISHED

  RA: AND WE DAIMON CEASED FALLING FROM THE STARS

  RA: IN MY TIME THERE WERE MORE STORIES OF GODS AND HEROES THAN THERE WERE GODS OR HEROES THEMSELVES

  RA: ALAS

  EE: Were you sad to leave your world?

  RA: VERY MUCH

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  RA: WE ARE HOMELESS NOW

  EE: What do you miss the most?

  RA: HMM

  RA: I MISS MY FORGE

  RA: AND THE STARS

  RA: BUT I MISS MOST ONE WHO IS NO LONGER WITH US

  RA: WHOSE ABSENCE HAS LEFT ME AS LEADER

  EE: An unenviable position, by all accounts.

  RA: AHA!

  RA: INDEED

  RA: AND ARE YOU NOT IN A SIMILAR POSITION AMONG THE HUMANS?

  EE: I don’t think we really have a leader.

  EE: Maybe we don’t need one like you daimon do.

  RA: YET IS IT NOT SO THAT THE REST WILL DO AS YOU ADVISE?

  EE: Perhaps.

  RA: YOU ARE REMARKABLE, ELIZABETH EDDISON

  EE: What has led you to this conclusion?

  RA: MANY HAVE TOLD YOU OF THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF THE ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN YOU NOW CLIMB

  RA: YET THERE YOU ARE

  EE: What choice do I have?

  RA: YOU HAVE MANY CHOICES

  RA: YOU COULD, FOR EXAMPLE, BREAK YOUR TALISMAN, SACRIFICNG YOURSELF FOR A MIGHTY WISH

  RA: YET YOU HAVE CHOSEN THE MOST DIFFICULT PATH BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IT IS RIGHT

  RA: THAT IS ADMIRABLE

  EE: I don’t care if they say it’s impossible.

  EE: I’m going to try.

  RA: NO

  EE: No?

  RA: SAY NOT THAT YOU WILL TRY

  RA: SAY THAT YOU WILL SUCCEED

  EE: But what if I can’t?

  RA: KNOW THAT YOU CAN

  EE: But what if it truly is impossible?

  RA: THAT IS THE WRONG QUESTION FOR ONE SUCH AS YOU, WHO NOW ATTEMPTS THE TASK

  RA: YOU MUST SUCCEED

  RA: EVEN IF SUCCESS IS NOT POSSIBLE

  EE: I don’t understand what you’re saying.

  EE: Do you even understand what you’re saying?

  EE: You can’t argue with definitions.

  EE: If it’s impossible, it’s impossible.

  EE: Two and two will never be three, no matter what you believe or how hard you believe it.

  RA: MATHEMATICS HAS NAUGHT TO DO WITH CONVICTION

  EE: Has logic to do with conviction?

  RA: ASK RATHER: WHAT HAS LOGIC TO DO WITH STORIES?

  EE: That is a foolish question.

  EE: Suppose the impossibility of climbing this mountain is written into the fabric of the reality of this Narrative. What then?

  RA: THEN I ASK:

  RA: SUPPOSE THAT YOUR FRIEND JIMOTHY WILL SURELY DIE UNLESS YOU SCALE THIS SUMMIT

  RA: WHAT THEN?

  RA: GIVE UP, WILL YOU?

  RA: SURRENDER, WILL YOU, HERO?

  EE: No.

  RA: THAT IS UNREASONABLE, ELIZABETH EDDISON

  RA: WOULD YOU TRY?

  RA: OR WOULD YOU SUCCEED?

  EE: I have no control over that.

  RA: WRONG

  RA: IF YOU ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE, YOU WILL SURELY FAIL

  RA: BUT IF YOU SUCCEED AT THE IMPOSSIBLE

  RA: BECAUSE IT IS WHAT YOU HAVE RESOLVED TO DO

  RA: THEN YOU SHALL MOVE EVEN THE STARS THEMSELVES

  RA: THESE MINE OWN HANDS HAVE DONE THAT WHICH COULD NOT BE DONE

  RA: UNTIL I DID IT

  RA: BECAUSE I HAD SO DECIDED

  RA: SO IT IS THAT RESOLVE CAN TRANSCEND ALL LIMITATIONS

  EE: I do not understand how you can believe that.

  EE: I understand what you are trying to say, but it is patently absurd.

  RA: DO YOU BELIEVE THAT, WITH THOUGHTS LIKE THOSE, YOU CAN CLIMB THIS MOUNTAIN?

  RA: PERHAPS YOU DO NOT CARE ENOUGH ABOUT YOUR REASON FOR CLIMBING

  EE: Don’t you dare.

  EE: Don’t you dare say that, Rasmus.

  EE: Simply because I am not some Superman like you, able to do the impossible, gives you no right to question my conviction.

  RA: I BELIEVE IN YOU, ELIZABETH EDDISON

  RA: I WISH TO SEE YOU SUCCEED

  RA: YOU MUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

  EE: What does belief have to do with reality?

  EE: Don’t answer that.

  RA: MUCH

  RA: OH

  RA: MY APOLOGIES

  EE: God, you sound like Isaac.

  EE: I understand what you are saying. The Narrative is a story. It plays by the rules of fiction. Rules of flexible logic. I shall take your advice into consideration.

  RA: VERY GOOD

  EE: Now. Keep telling me about your world. Infernus. Tell me stories about it. About the gods.

  RA: HA HA HA!

  RA: YOUR REQUEST DELIGHTS ME!

  RA: THIS IS A FAVORITE TOPIC OF MINE

  RA: I KNOW MANY TALES OF THE GODS

  EE: Pick a favorite and go.

  RA: VERY WELL

  RA: THIS TALE BELONGS TO THE LUCKY GOD

  RA: NOW THE LUCKY GOD WANDERED THE WORLD WITH HIS EYES OPEN

  RA: AND IT CAME TO PASS THAT HE ENTERED THE REALM OF THE IRON WHITE...

  She listened to the Thunder God while he told his tales. It soon became apparent that he loved stories of the Gods. It became apparent also that the gods were real indeed, not mythological figures. They had shaped the world of Infernus from which the daimon originated. And what a strange world it was—a place of magical beasts and space travel all wrapped up together, in which dragons and starships and wrathful gods might all appear in the same story. Something Isaac would come up with. Curious also how much of it coincided with the human imagination. Unicorns, sphinxes, sacred trees.

  The storm worsened as she ascended. She sheltered in a garden of immense statues, scattered throughout a broad valley that cleaved deep into the Mountain. The Mountain was vast enough to contain varied landscapes within itself. The statues in this valley were weathered and worn; broken fragments of them floated in the air, unmoved by the howling gale, stubbornly maintaining their original positions. Elizabeth huddled in the shelter of a cupped hand, curiously human in appearance.

  She returned Rasmus’ favor, for he was eager to hear stories of her own world. She told him that Earth had no monsters, no dragons or magical beasts, no godlike machines, no gods that she was aware of, and only the most meagre of space travel. Rasmus had been so disappointed by all of this that she told him,

  EE: We do have heroes, though.

  So of course she had to explain to him about Joan of Arc, Oscar Schindler, William Wallace. Besides a keen awareness of her deficiencies in historical knowledge, this exercise made her also realize a striking difference between Earth’s heroes and those of Infernus. Heroes on Earth opposed other people. Their status as ‘hero’ was therefore largely subjective depending on who you asked. But the heroes of Infernus fought beasts and monsters, seldom other daimon. They typically opposed tangible and incontrovertible evil.

  Rasmus wanted dramatic tales, action and adventure and mighty deeds; he hardly understood what was heroic about Oscar Schindler, and he had no time at all for Martin Luther King Jr and his pacifism. So Elizabeth told him instead about Alexander the Great, the Alamo, the Battle of Thermopylae, the siege of Troy. These were more to his taste.

  She spent the night in the vale of statues, talking late with Rasmus. The storm worsened the next day, but she pressed on. She had limited food; she had to keep going.

  It became dangerous. Her powers faded as she ascended higher. The air became thin and cold enough that even through all her layers of protection, she began to feel chill. She bunched her hands into fists inside her gloves and scrunched her toes between every step.

  Steeper, the Mountain. Darker, in stone and in light. She passed a garden—a garden, of all things!—its flowers as colored chips of ice.

  She turned her thoughts to Jimothy. A brain tumor? Cruel. Unfair. She hadn’t told any of the rest. She couldn’t say why. Jimothy: dying, with or without the various dangers of the Narrative. The fact wounded her. It enraged her. She found the strength for every step in her anger. This, she reminded herself, is why I am climbing this damned mountain.

  It became a climb in truth. She had to use her hands to scramble up the stone and ice.

  She thought: What kind of story is this Narrative? Back in Skywater, at that lovely delicious meal they had shared, all but Heidi, Isaac had theorized that it was built out of their own passions and interests. Part fairy tale, because of Kate. Space travel, because of Isaac. If all this was so…what kind of story was it all together? What kind of story would the six of them create?

  That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? What kind of story would they make?

  Well. Elizabeth had decided that she would make sure it was one in which Jimothy did not die of a fucking brain tumor. No matter what she had to do. Even if she had to go to the Bright World and sign a loaded contract that cost her everything.

  “I refuse,” she panted as she climbed, “to write poems about…losing a friend…like that.”

  She thought of Rasmus, his words of encouragement. Was it really true that he could break through the limits of reality through sheer resolve? If so, was it possible that she could do the same? Regardless, his encouragement warmed her. His words rang in her mind. Do not give up. Do what you have decided to do. And you are remarkable.

  She didn’t notice, not consciously, that she became colder and colder. Her body slowed, tired and sore, worn down by a mountain that refused to be scaled.

  She came upon a sheer cliff and had to trudge around. Long, slow, laborious.

  Around the cliff, a glacier, vast, rugged. She pressed on up, step by step, digging the spikes of her shoes into the ice. She nearly fell into a gulf in the glacier, too broad to leap. Too broad for a fabricated bridge made from mist. She was forced to retreat, to go around.

  On she went. Step by step.

  The avalanche caught her by surprise. Her mind, now sluggish, was slow to process the change; slow to react. She reached out a hand to stop the snow. But her powers were nearly gone, this high up. Unfair, she thought as it swept her away.

  When she came to a halt, disoriented and claustrophobic, but not panicking, she thought: How much progress did I just lose?

  Callie saved her. The lynx dug a shaft down from above through the ice. But Elizabeth did not particularly feel like moving. Callie burrowed around Elizabeth and huddled close in an attempt to warm the tiny space with her body heat.

  “Miles to go…” Elizabeth whispered. “Before I sleep.”

  She wondered about Rasmus. She hadn’t heard from him. Then she remembered: too high up now. She couldn’t hear from anybody. All alone.

  Miles to go.

  She struggled against the snow, but her arms didn’t seem to work very well. She was like a baby trying to swim. But bit by bit, she arose from the snow. Over a span of what seemed like hours, she dug her way out of the crumbly snowbank and into the dark air of the Mountain. The night sky wrapped itself right around the Mountain this high up. The sky wasn’t above her; it was all around her. She could almost reach out and touch the stars. She tried, but it didn’t work. They were just beyond reach.

  She couldn’t see the summit. She wasn’t even close. The air was thin; she panted lightly. She laid her head on the snow, and the snow felt unusually warm. Something pulled at her coat. Callie, now pawing at her, shaking her.

  “Miles to go…” she muttered. “Before…”

  It came, the flower bright. She saw it, cold and beautiful in the dark. Still so far away. She wanted to be there. She wanted to touch it, to see it. She didn’t understand…what? What did she not understand? She couldn’t remember.

  So warm. So tired.

  Something snarled. A tiger sound, so loud and deep and near that some ancient part of her mind wanted to scream. Instead, she laboriously opened her eyes. Or tried to.

  “Foolish girl,” said the great cat. Its voice was the starry sky, cold and close and impossibly far. “I have told you. It cannot be done.”

  She wanted to reply. To tell him something important. Miles to go.

  “You cannot so easily reach The End, hero,” said Old Deuteronomy.

  Amid the cold of winter.

  “I am here at the behest of one I know, the Hero of Storms,” her Guardian continued. “I will not save you again.”

  When half gone was the night.

  Something warm picked her up and carried her back down the Mountain.