MOUNTAIN

Wind broke across the ice in violent gusts, tearing at Noel’s cloak, howling through him, threatening to blow him right off the mountain as it sent tiny frozen crystals ripping at the flesh on his face. The air was thin and wet, and with every breath his lungs burned, seizing up with a cold unlike any he had ever felt before. What the hell am I doing here, he wondered as he knelt down behind an outcropping of rock to shield himself from the blasting air and threw open his pack. He pulled out the thickest shirt he had with him, a shirt which reeked of smoked wallaby dung and weeks old sweat, and tied it around his head like a keffiyeh to protect his face and hopefully keep some of the warmth inside him as he breathed deep, filling his lungs. He tugged an odd pair of socks, caked with dirt, onto his hands, though his fingers were already numb and he doubted they would do him much good in such harsh conditions. At least his cloak did its job as long, as he could keep the wind at his back, he thought, adding in a mutter, “But I’d better find the way in fast, or I’m going to die of hypothermia and become part of this place too. Aw, Taree would be so proud.” As he stood, he was laughing at what he imagined his old shaman friend would say at finding him there, of all places, but as soon as the wind caught hold of him, he decided it would be best to continue on in seriousness, given the state of things.

Trudging over the glacial mass in the darkness, he had only the light of the stars to see by as he made his slow way down and across the peak, hoping to find some sign of human life, a light to guide him, a sign pointing the way, but with every careful step there was nothing to be seen but meters thick ice and blowing snow, rock and the occasional cloud that rolled over him, leaving him wet as it blinded him to his surroundings, more than once forcing him to seek shelter. Somehow he doubted anyone who might live in such a forbidding place had bothered to lay out a welcome mat. These people were isolated from the reach of the rest of the world, a damning cold their guardian and gatekeeper, if they even existed anymore, he thought, reason battling against the feeling in his gut that kept him moving forward in spite of himself and the icy fury all around him. Assuming what he had experienced little more than a week ago was real, even if the ones who listened to Fate had once lived here, for all he knew he was searching for the entrance to their tomb buried under thousands of years of ice, instead of some paradise lost, he thought as he lowered himself carefully down into a fairly deep crevice, hoping to find the entrance hidden in its depths, but at the bottom, the rock faces came together in a steep point, and he took the opportunity to lean against the wall for a rest. The prophecy in the Book of Ages had been given to his forefathers almost a thousand years before the Fall, and by the time Eurial’s great grandson got around to recording it in his book in the aftermath, any elf who might have known who A.D. was and what the prophecy truly meant had been slaughtered. Noel’s throat tightened at the thought of millions of his own people cut down, their lives savagely ended. For want of power that never came? Revenge? All of the five races had suffered under Fate’s curse ever since, so surely the people who called this mountain home had suffered as well, otherwise why wouldn’t they have made themselves known to the rest of the world in all that time, unless they had something to hide under all that ice and rock?

As if in answer, a heavy cloud passed overhead, blanketing the world in darkness, and Noel heard the wind pick up, whistling angrily over the opening of his crevice as sleet began skittering across the rock and hardened frost. He might have stayed there where he was relatively safe from the elements, but the mountain gave a menacing groan around him and to his imagination the sleet began to sound a lot like rock sliding against rock somewhere beneath him. Fearing the mountain was preparing to snap its jaws shut, Noel darted up into the sky, expecting to fly up above the level of the clouds. Instead he was met with a great blast of wind that sent him tumbling blindly. As he fought the currents, viciously whipping him around on himself, he feared he would wind up broken against a wall of stone at any moment, but after several seconds, the turbulence subsided and he landed gracelessly, splayed out on his belly like a child, hugging the ground tight as his cloak was pelted with ice.

Noel rolled over onto his back, his cloak crunching with the ice that had already frozen to it, and gave several grievous sighs before getting to his feet, pulling his makeshift keffiyeh up over his face. He was shuddering to the core as he looked around him. He had been blown off course, not too far, he was sure, but far enough that he could no longer see his own tracks in the snow where he began his descent from the height of the peak, and there was no sign of the crack in the mountain that had threatened to eat him, but he believed it was somewhere not far above him. Nothing looked familiar, so shaking his head, gritting his teeth stubbornly, he began to climb, hoping to quickly find his way back to where he had left off, before the next cloud rolled through.

Noel was not the sort to willingly admit defeat, in fact, he was exactly the sort to refuse to let a bit of inclement weather force him to give in so easily, at least not until he had covered the whole of the summit, but by now his strength was fading fast as he struggled against the wind and the cold, pulling his cloak as tightly around him as he could, turning his body and keeping his head low so his hood blocked the worst of the brutal winds. The truth was, he knew he wouldn’t be able to continue much longer, so to motivate himself to continue ahead anyway, he was just considering, with the sort of sarcastic air he was prone to, why he shouldn’t just go on home now, come back another time, bring Phileas and Paul with him to help, maybe in the summer, when the freezing temperatures at the top of the mountain would be more bearable, especially with the appropriate gear, when the valley below promised plenty to keep them occupied while they weren’t busy searching for a lost civilization, but as he laughed at his own idiocy, mostly for coming there without even considering the climate, he took a careless step up into what looked like an ordinary snow bank piled against the face of a rock that seemed easy enough to scale, its surface being marked with several fractures he thought he could use as grips.  The frozen layer shifted beneath him, as if in mocking, and fell away. His left foot slipped right through the ice and snow, as his right leg twisted and crashed against the rock sending him sliding into the hole with both feet, and before he could even work out what had happened, he found himself clinging to a ledge by sock-covered hands, his painful, bloody chin providing a tiny bit of extra grasp on the mountain, which he was certain by now was desperately trying to kill him. Unable to feel any earth under his feet or anywhere around him with the exception of the bit he clung to for dear life, his right leg throbbing, Noel stared up at six feet of snow above him glowing blue and twinkling in the starlight, his face pressed into the frozen underside of the exposed stone where he had managed to catch a grip purely by chance. Just above the line of the snow, from the angle he was forced to look by his present circumstances, he could clearly make out a hidden cleft between the glacier and the rock beneath it, where the darkness beyond seemed to go on forever. He knew he would never have found the cave behind the ice face, never in a million years of searching that place, but there it was, perhaps fifteen meters away, and miles out of his reach as he dangled there precariously, wondering what he should do, what he could do, as he felt himself quickly losing his hold.

He didn’t know how bad his leg was, but he could tell he was bleeding because he could feel the warmth oozing out of him. He couldn’t muster the strength to fly now, even if he might have been able to ignore the pain long enough to take off and managed to maintain control in the deadly winds. “So this is it,” he growled against the mountain. “You’ve already raised a bloody glass to me.” And with that, he did something he had never done before.  He let go, imagining tumbling down the slope below, leaving parts of himself splattered against the gargantuan beast, a trail of carrion for the vultures to feast upon the next day. For some reason, as he was falling through the air watching his ruddy socks still hanging above him, stuck to the frozen earth, probably destined to remain there for the rest of time, Noel thought of his father, whom he hadn’t thought about in years, not since the two of them had properly agreed they would never see eye to eye about anything except never seeing eye to eye. In that moment, in preparing to meet death head on, most people would have searched their souls for some measure of forgiveness, made their peace with this earth and those they left behind, but all Noel could think was how pleased his father would be to know he had always been right about him, and the thought of his smug, bitter grin upon learning the details of his foolish son’s death was enough to snap him out of his temporary willingness to accept whatever Fate and that mountain had in store for him.

He cried out in agony as his body crumpled against the solid ice below and he use every bit of strength he had left to force himself still, his words ringing out and echoing back at him as his body scraped across the frozen ground, “Not yet!”

_______________________

Tale of Two Mountains, Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5, Pt. 6, Pt. 7, Pt. 8, Pt. 9, Pt. 10, Pt. 11, Pt. 12, Pt. 13, Pt. 14, Pt. 15, Pt. 16

Last week I decided I would publish a short story to the site about Isabella and Noel, minor characters in The Eleventh Age.  This week continues below with the second installment, but if you haven’t already read the beginning, you should see last week’s post.  I’ll do my best to be diligent with my links as we go along.

ISABELLA

“We apologize for interrupting your solitude, Zo,” Edward Frank said quietly, so as not to wake the children, asleep on their reed mats scattered across the layered rugs padding the ground of Zo Asan’s private quarters. He gave a gracious nod, laying his work aside, blowing out the lone candle that had lit the over-sized yurt, filling the room with the scent of long, warm darkness Isabella remembered from her childhood, as her father rose from his chair, his devotion to their Mardraim apparent in the quickness of his step as he crossed the room to wake his daughter. She had been pretending to sleep for the past hour, as she had done so often as a youngling, though her father had rarely allowed her to get away with it in her youth. She was certain he had been pretending as well, as he pursued his studies. That evening, his spirit had been still as ever, for the sake of the children who had been brought to spend the night under the watchful care of their Omdra, but he had withdrawn into himself shortly after Isabella’s breaths fell into deep whispers, lengthening like dreams in the night, and she suspected his solitude had been constrained by worry over the wanderer.

“He flies with such purpose,” she whispered, unable to contain her smile as her father bent down and laid a hand on her shoulder, not at all surprised to find her awake. The corners of his mouth drew up warmly, but there was concern still in his eyes. Perhaps she should have been afraid, she thought as she sat up, though she knew that was not what her father wanted. The outside world was a dangerous place, especially for young empaths, but this was just one lone man, hardly worth their worry. She had felt him take off from the ground only a few minutes before, swift as a black kite ascending for the hunt. Living in that mountain, their whole lives spent as stewards of Fate, Isabella had never known anyone to be consumed by such a desperate intention as this man was. It felt enlivening to her. How could she be afraid when she only wanted to know what he sought and why it drove him so, just as everyone else?

“Quickly, Issa,” her father answered as she crawled from under her blanket, “fetch your mother to watch over the children, and meet us in the chamber.” She hurried to do as she was told and began rolling up her bedding like she would any other time, but her father clicked his tongue as her mother used to do to hurry her along to her lessons with the mothers, holding out her aspirant’s tunic to her as he added, “Leave that. I doubt we will return before morning, and she will want to rest.”

“Forgive me,” the young woman smiled, kissing him swiftly on the cheek, pulling the pale yellow garment over her shoulders and tying it at her waist as she hurried out past the Mardraim, who stepped aside chuckling silently.

Harvey Frank, the Madraim’s grandson and aspirant for his clan, was waiting outside, leaned against the garden gate, but quickly fell into step at Isabella’s side as she cut across the vegetable patch, both of them darting through the vines that sprawled at their feet. “You are too happy,” he said, following her lead as she hopped over the garden fence. “You are aware you’re the only one enjoying this?”

“I’m aware. Do you really think he will find his way inside?” she asked as they hurried up the well-worn path toward the birthing house where her mother was working.

“He will,” Harvey answered darkly, with impossible conviction.

“And you are still convinced he brings misfortune?”

Now and then wanderers came to the mountain, to climb the summit, to explore the gorge for forgotten flora, to drink the pure waters from her many streams and listen for the whisperings of Fate, though only a very few had ever heard anything more than bird-songs and the mating call of the wild takin. Rarely were any of those who made their way to their home intent on actually finding a way inside, and never had anyone come seeking the council of the Mdrai. The Danquin people had long believed the outside world had forgotten the seers of old, messengers of Fate, yet somehow this son of the elves knew where to find them. Isabella’s father had felt the man coming the previous day, when he was still speeding toward them out over the ocean, though he said his exact purpose was not entirely clear. Harvey had felt him sooner, and he was certain the man sought to speak with the Mdrai of an ages old prophecy, yet this visit was nowhere to be found in their records.

He nodded, and Isabella loosed a hefty sigh. “Did Fate show you what this elf would do?” she asked, stopping to face him as they reached their destination. Harvey shook his head and pointed impatiently to the door, pushing his glasses up his nose, the way he always did when he was annoyed with her. She could not blame him. Fate did not speak directly to Harvey Frank. Though many augurs were neither empaths nor nurturers, it was highly unusual that they lacked the natural propensity as seers for receiving the Veils. Harvey considered this lack of ability his only flaw, though Isabella would have gladly pointed out several others, if her friend were ever to ask. It wasn’t as though he required foresight to be an Omdra. As an augur, he could still see all of the prophecies in the ancient books housed in the hall of records and interpret the visions of the seers, and his capacity for empathy was astounding, which was the reason his grandfather chose him as his aspirant. Isabella hadn’t intended to offend him, pointing out the one thing in the world he was insecure about, she only meant to remind him that as aspirants they were supposed to be learn wisdom, not rushing to cast judgment on every random elf who turned up seeking their guidance. Considering his extraordinary talent for empathy, she was certain he understood what she had intended the moment she said it and chose to be offended anyway—one flaw among many, she thought, smiling as she pushed open the door. “Harvey, even if Fate had shown you exactly what would happen, you should hardly speak with such certainty,” she said, pointing to his feet, as the mothers would.

He shifted anxiously, looking down at the ground where the imprint of his feet on the grass was supposed to remind him of one of the first lessons the mothers taught to every child in the mountain, whether seer, nurturer, or empath— The blade of grass does not bend before the takin takes his step. No matter the will of Fate, no thing can be done until it is done. This lesson of patience had been impressed upon all of them since they were very small, patience in each other, patience in oneself, and mostly patience in one’s dealings with Fate. Harvey raised an irritable brow, and huffed, “Do as your Omdra told you, Issa, and fetch your mother.”

“Ah, so you know I’m right?” Isabella laughed, shaking her head at him as she hurried inside. The old wood squeaked as he leaned against the wall to wait for her, and she heard him laughing quietly to himself as she started up the hall.

Given all of the lessons they had learned at the knees of the mothers, it was strange that patience was a courtesy the wanderer had not been afforded, Isabella thought as she sought out her own mother among those nurturers in the birthing house. To her, the stranger seemed perfectly harmless, if a bit preoccupied by the burden that was the source of his eagerness to find them. It was apparent his intentions toward them were not malicious, and she had the feeling that he considered the mountain his last resort, that he was as uncertain of that place and what he would find there as the Danquin were uncertain of him, and if he did not find a way inside, he would likely turn away and never look back, not just on their mountain, but on this thing that held onto his soul. But even if he did happen to find the way inside, it was not likely he would make it past the many hazards set in place, to keep intruders at bay. They could have just waited him out, to see what would happen, or even gone to meet him, but instead, as this elf set up his camp in the Tsangpo Gorge the previous night, the aspirants had been called to the divine chamber, a rare occurrence for an even rarer occasion. For years the Mdrai had made regular treks beyond the mountain to learn of the outside world, so they could teach their people about the world the prophecies foretold. They knew the elves were a gentle-natured people, mostly fishermen and farmers with herds of sons. Omdra Yang even pointed out to the Mardraim, “What harm could a fisherman’s son do in our mountain?” and Omdra Wallace had added with laughter, “If a fisherman’s son could make it inside.” But while it was clear they were unconvinced the man posed a real threat to their people, the Mdrai concluded they could not take any risks with someone who had come there with such an obvious aim of finding them, so they turned their attention to Fate. Throughout the night and well into the morning, the Mdrai and their aspirants drank of the waters that wash up from the deep beyond time and interlaced their souls with the energy of Fate, hoping Fate would see fit to give them some clue as to what this man came seeking.

Fate had answered their impatience with resounding silence.

Isabella rounded the corner to the nursery to find her mother standing by a window, cast in the blue glow of night, rocking a restless newborn soul to sleep, quietly humming the dragonfly’s lullaby she had sung to her own daughter every night until she was too big to sit on her lap. Her mother had likely sung this song to every newborn empath in the mountain for longer than Isabella had been alive, but this did not stop her from feeling as though it was her own. She listened from the doorway, taking comfort in the nurturing of her mother’s sweet voice until the song was through and the woman turned back to find her daughter standing there. “Father needs you to watch over the children now,” she whispered at last as the woman smiled the way only a nurturer could, peacefully, as though everything was as it should be.

“The traveler?” her mother said quietly, pressing her lips against the infant’s forehead as she went to lay him in his tiny, woven cradle, brushing a soft, warm hand over his sparse golden hair. Isabella nodded, and not wanting to worry her mother or to disturb the new soul under her care, she turned quickly to go meet Harvey, so they could make their way to the chamber where their Mdrai waited for them, though she was uncertain just what could be done, considering Fate’s silence. But as she stepped out into the hall, the lonely wanderer landed hard upon the summit, shivering with cold and no less driven in his determination to find them, and it was as if the entire mountain shuddered as fear rose up like a perfect storm inside her, and as the newborn empath her mother had been nurturing cried out into the darkness at his first taste of dread, Isabella felt the panic rise inside her and ran to find her father.

____________________

Tale of Two Mountains, Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5, Pt. 6, Pt. 7, Pt. 8, Pt. 9, Pt. 10, Pt. 11, Pt. 12, Pt. 13, Pt. 14, Pt. 15, Pt. 16

If it weren’t for the fact that J.K. Simmons won the Oscar for best actor in a supporting role for Whiplash, I’d probably feel guilty for not posting last week, but now and then life just happens, and last week was particularly happening.  Sorry about the unannounced absence.  Hopefully that won’t occur too often.

While things were happening, I didn’t get the opportunity to work on the book (small house equals little privacy when people are home sick and your desk is the dining table), however I did write a bit of backstory on Elijah‘s parents, Isabella and Noel.  Over the next few weeks I thought I’d publish it here in mini-chapters for your entertainment, though I may post other things here and there.  It’s something you won’t get in the books (book one glances over it), but I hope you’ll enjoy anyway.  Without further ado:

NOEL

Nearly a year had passed since he left Fendhaim in the middle of the night, in search of something most believed no longer existed. Just one more year among thousands, Noel thought as he looked up at the towering wall of black looming over him, the Milky Way casting an eerie glow on its snowy peaks. He had expected to feel something once he arrived, an intrinsic connection to that place reassuring him of the things he had experienced. Instead, he was beginning to think Foote was right. Maybe they were all right, and he was chasing ghosts, but he couldn’t sit around anymore, waiting for miracles, training up an army of Nobles, and for what? A fight that may never happen? For a girl who might never be born? He had long considered that it might all be nothing more than stories, passed down for generation upon generation, until they became the stuff of legends, and none of it was ever meant to be taken seriously. Ten thousand years was an awfully long time, after all. Ten ages had come and gone, yet here he stood, and all he felt was cold.

As he breathed a cautious sigh, he watched his breath curl away, like a cloud before him, drifting off on a westward breeze. If he didn’t find the entrance within the day, he decided, pulling his cloak tighter around him, bracing himself against the furious chill that waited for him at the top of that mountain, he would head for home. Perhaps he should have told someone back home exactly where he was going or at least that he had left the Australia at last, in case something happened to him, but if Foote knew what he had gotten himself in to, he expected he would laugh himself blue in the face. Phileas Foote was no stranger to adventure. He had been all over the world searching for clues as to the prophecy’s meaning, some hint that might tell them just where or when the child might be born, so he knew all about chasing ghosts.  Noel couldn’t help but think he had grown apathetic towards it after all of these years.  Every time Phileas came home from some remote village, untouched by the modern ways of man, bones in his beard, face stained with the droppings of some rare tropical bird, they all laughed at him, and none harder than Noel. What he wouldn’t give to be back at the Iron Bones now, nursing a pint of honey mead with Phileas, Wells and the others, laughing as Murphy wove yet another tale of how Foote was caught deflowering the daughter of a tribal chief and just manage to escape with his head, trousers still hanging round his ankles. Instead he was contemplating over seven thousand meters of rock and ice, in the dead of night, following clues he had found in a dream. It was madness.

Phileas assured him before he left Fendhaim that he had already traversed the whole of the Australian continent and spoken with every rumored Shaman along the way, though none of the ones he held brief audience with were very eager to own the title, their world now being dominated by Christian men, who don’t look kindly upon magic of any sort. When he returned from his latest journey, he told the elders there was no point in spending anymore time there, that the aboriginal tales, while hinting at a deeper truth, were just like the stories of all men—distorted and confused, impossible to decipher because Fate had flooded their minds in the culling, as man’s punishment for their part in the Fall. Every one of the people Phileas interviewed told him the same thing, to look to the people north to find a true Shaman who could answer his questions, so he had looked to the north of that island until there was no further north he could go, which was when the last of the would-be spiritual leaders told him the truth: the real magicians were somewhere in the islands north of there, yes, but if one were to go looking, he would never find them, because such a place only existed in the Wangarr time, the Dreaming, the beginning from which the Aboriginal people believed everything came. That’s when Phileas Foote gave up Down Under.

But Noel was intrigued. The culture of these people, their stories, had been around for more than sixty thousand years, according to some, long before Fate cleansed the earth, even before the prophecy was set down in the Book of Ages. As far as he was concerned, the Shaman had been speaking in riddles. Rather than seeing this metaphor of looking to the north as one more unreachable, mystical end, beyond which mankind had none of the answers, Noel thought Phileas had failed to realize he was being tested from the moment he landed. Noel told him he should have asked about the Dreaming, asked the Shaman to explain, that the only way they were only going to get any real answers was if they learned the ways of the Yolngu people, the tribe of that last Shaman, taking their time to understand the Madayin law, not just throwing up their hands and walking away because their ideas seemed primitive. The Shaman had to see them as more than just balandas, white men intruding on their customs and faith, after all it was not so long ago that the balanda came into their lands and slaughtered many of the Yolngu clans driving them nearly to extinction. Even today they have difficulty trusting and understanding those who have for so long sought to change them, to force them to abandon their sacred history, he reasoned.

Phileas agreed he had not taken much time to really understand the people he met on his path, but still he refused to go back, except when he was needed at Perth, to help Paul and Henry with the training. So Noel, reliable, skeptical Noel, went to Fendhaim and volunteered to return in his place, telling the elders that he hoped the Yolngu would at least be able to give them some hint about the people who received the prophecy of the last hope ages ago, because it was obvious these people couldn’t explain why ten ages had passed and the prophecy remained incomplete. The Aborigines had survived the Fall and the upheaval of their lands during the culling, survived with their stories of ancient times mostly intact. Ten thousand years was a very long time to wait for the culmination of one prophecy, but sixty thousand years was a good deal longer. It was their best hope, he reasoned. Though Phileas advised against it, Noel insisted he would just go anyway if he wasn’t given permission, so the elders gave him three months leave to explore his ideas, and he set out that very night, before anyone else tried to convince him he was pursuing a lost cause.

It took him two weeks to find Taree, the last Shaman with whom Phileas spoke near Dhalinybuy, an isolated community in Arnhem Land. It took him a full month more to convince the old Shaman he had not cheated, by avoiding the test of Madayin, coming to him with knowledge his friend had acquired during his journeys, instead of learning for himself, “as all must do, as it has always been thus.” Early on, he stopped communicating with the elders as they grew impatient.  By the time his three months were up, he had cut his ties all together, knowing no one would be able to find him if they came looking, as Taree rarely held still for long. In all, the past ten and a half months had been spent gaining the trust of the Yolngu people, wandering around at Taree’s side, learning their stories as told by the earth and the sky, learning their language and their way of life. When at last Taree told him he would be inducted as an honorary member of his clan, an adopted Yolngu, though the other men laughed at this notion, because only one born of Yolngu could ever be Yolngu, Noel was grateful enough for the things he had learned from these people, who derived so much of their identity from the distant past and the world around them, that he didn’t even flinch when he found out that part of the ritual ceremony was to drink an ancient potion that was meant to enable him to see the whole of the universe, a potion concocted from milk extracted from the root of the an-dubang and venom of the Taipan, among other deadly things. When they reached the sacred cave where boys were taken to become men, Taree told him he was either very brave or very stupid to embark on the path to knowing, as one who would never truly be Yolngu because he lacked a Wangarr spirit, but he allowed him to drink anyway, and he left him there, saying only, “Live or die, you become part of this place, Noel Loveridge.”

For three solid days, Noel lay alone, dying on the cold, hard floor of a cave covered in indigenous paintings that occasionally came to life and spoke to him of terrible things, though he did not understand them as anything more than indistinct ideas, but somewhere in between the dying and the drug-induced insanity he was living, he understood that he had entered what could only be described as the Dreaming, but in thus dreaming he did not see the whole of the universe, as Taree claimed those who reached manhood see, as proven by the scars borne by every initiate in their clans. Seeing was not the right word for what happened in that cave, because the fact was, once he entered the Wangarr time, he didn’t see anything at all, not even a vast expanse of blackness stretching on for eternity. Once he had slipped into that sleep, he had no physical senses any longer; he might have been there for only a moment or for a thousand years and it would have been no different to him. Instead he felt an answer, a single answer, clear and instantaneous, as though it were a part of himself and he had known it all along but required the Wangarr to show him:  Four thousand miles away, hidden somewhere in Pemako, a place sacred to the Buddhist Monks of Tibet, nearly at the top of Namcha Barwa, the Breast of Vajrayogini as it is called by those men who go there seeking spiritual truths, there is an entrance to a subterranean paradise, where Fate speaks directly to those who would listen, for they had always listened.

Eight days after drinking Taree’s potion, Noel woke up from his delirium certain he had touched the creator himself. As soon as he was well enough to leave Arnhem Land he set out for Pemako, where Phileas Foote had already spent plenty of time searching for inspiration, but Noel hadn’t been thinking of that when he first left Australia. That was two days ago, when the euphoria still held him firmly in its grasp, but now he wondered if perhaps it had all been an actual dream, a trick of his mind suffering the effects of a highly potent mix of neurotoxin and hallucinogens.

He could almost hear Phileas laughing.

“All right,” he huffed, picking his rucksack up from the ground and slinging it over his shoulder, “one day’s rest is long enough.” Pulling the hood of his cloak low over his face, Noel took off into the night, soaring straight up through the thinning air, his breath turning to ice on his lips and chin the higher he flew.

__________________

Tale of Two Mountains, Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5, Pt. 6, Pt. 7, Pt. 8, Pt. 9, Pt. 10, Pt. 11, Pt. 12, Pt. 13, Pt. 14, Pt. 15, Pt. 16, Pt. 17, Pt. 18, Pt. 19, Pt. 20, Pt. 21, Pt. 22, Pt. 23, Pt . 24, Pt. 25, Pt. 26, Pt. 27, Pt. 28, Pt. 29, Pt. 30, Pt. 31, Pt. 32, Pt. 33, Pt.34, Pt. 35, Pt. 36, Pt. 37,Pt. 38,Pt. 39, Pt. 40