Early morning found us recovering in a rocky inlet at the foot of the Macros. The rope coiled around my heels, I sat on a boulder as a bitter breeze blew snow over my face. A steep curl wound up the jagged mountainside, a route we would trek in a few minutes time.
Kat was unfussy in the removal of his splinters. He yanked one lodged from his thigh and I winced at its width. I had minor cuts over my face and hands, but Kat certainly came off worse from the barn collision. He had earlier yanked a splinter eight inches long from the side of his neck, and several shorter ones from his wrist and knuckles. He either did not acknowledge this pain, or didn't care to.
"I can help you with that," I offered. "If you need — "
"What can you do that I cannot?" he griped, pulling the final splinter from his brow with trails of squirting blood.
The atmosphere between us was distant to say the least. I was still smarting from his earlier choke-hold, whilst the samurai was just being the samurai. Nevertheless I felt I should put personal complaints to one side; after all, getting on Kat's good side was the only way to gather information, and knowledge was always worth more than petty squabbling.
"I haven't thanked you…" I began, carefully.
Kat contemptuously threw that splinter over his shoulder then showed me his back.
"The only reason you're here is to protect me," I continued. "You got the dirty end of the stick for sure. Your motives… are your business, I respect that, and I'll try not to let you down in future."
That came out better than I expected, and judging by Kat's subtle nod, he approved.
"It is not me you have to impress," he then said, eyeing the build up of cloud overhead.
"Can you tell me more about him?” I asked. “Bludgeon, the king?"
The samurai studied the empty road we had run the previous night. There was no pursuing wizard or bogs there yet.
"Bludgeon is illusive," he whispered "is a master of all things."
"You've met him?"
"Never. I doubt his existence."
"But… you know he lives up there, right? How?"
"Fox," he exhaled, irritated. "If Bludgeon is there then you will not have met a man like it. He will ask more than you could possibly give. Disappoint him, and you disappoint the scientist, the angel… and yourself."
Kat then moved toward the twisting route up the mountain and I followed, considering those I'd so far let down on my mission to the 9th Fortress, Madam L in particular. I tried to put her last expression out of my mind, but that frozen face was there every time I closed my eyes.
"I've no climbing experience," I said, arriving at the side of him. "I used to walk up Ishpatina Ridge on weekends back home, but that's about it, and even then I'd hardly call it a mountain."
"Instinct," replied Kat, rubbing a chill from his palms. "The weather will not help our climb — if we survive it."
Those darkening clouds aptly grumbled, promising difficult times ahead.
***
As expected, the route grew steadily steeper; oxygen thinner and snow thicker. I was connected to Kat via the rope knotting around our waists, leaving a gap of around six feet between us. Eyes constantly facing my feet, there wasn't much of a view, only a crooked black slate and the blustery conditions we arduously fought with.
Ahead, the samurai battled on until our rope became taut, coercing me like a wet dog on a leash. Onward! Onward! Onward! There would be no stopping here or anywhere.
We carried on in this infuriating manner for the longest time; Kat pushing and me pulling on — push and pull — push and pull! Already I detested this rope and that man's insatiable demands on it. I detested it more than the plummeting temperature, the numbing of my extremities and everything else I've ever hated in my entire fucking life.
Land became temporarily level, but the view was now a disorientating white-out. Blinding snowflakes blanketed the way above and below; there was no escaping this slow death.
Kat scratched the ice from his stubble and the frost from his hair. I expected orders to rest during the blizzard, but it never came. Instead, he paused before me, bending to his knees.
"What are…you doing?" I asked, stuffing hands into my armpits.
The side of Kat's face was like a block of solid ice, and removing his sword with a click from its sheath, he lowered himself further.
"Kat?" I said, bemused. "Is everything all — "
Suddenly, with an angry grunt and flash of steel, Kat sliced his katana at the blustery air.
THUNK!
Something substantial, like a chunk of flying butcher meat knocked me flat on my back and near unconscious. Stunned, I lay still for the first minute, hearing the growls of Kat mixed in with the snarling of some starving animal.
Tentatively raising my head, I witnessed a raging bag of white hair and black spots beyond my toes. Clearing my eyes, I gasped — it was a mountain lion of some kind, larger than a Volvo, and wrestling and cutting into something underneath it. I heard the snap of its teeth and the grind of its jowls; then all of a sudden, a gruesome crackle came from inside its ribcage, followed by the animal's guttural howling at the falling snow. Terrified, I shuffled back as the beast flopped lifeless.
Exhausted, Kat pushed his way out from underneath the beast, deep teeth marks embedding his forehead, and a ghoulish river of blood leaking from it. Emotionless, Kat pressed a handful of snow to his wound and smeared aside any blood blocking his vision.
“Shit man!” I yelled. “You're a mess!"
“I will heal.”
“What is it?” I asked, standing to jab my foot into that bulbous bag of hair and teeth.
"Snow leopard," he said, removing his katana from its ribs. "I've killed larger…"
Finally, as the last of the breath exhaled from the animal's lungs, we took our rest against the warm, dead thing.
***
The sky was like a storm at sea, a fury pelting snow and rain the like I'd never seen before. Sleet flowed down the ascending stone like a garden water feature, making slush of the road and every step treacherous. We slipped continuously as the upward scale increased, until eventually; we climbed on our hands and knees, grasping fingernails into wobbly rocks to advance us, footholds and handholds of equal importance.
Kat kept up the gruelling pace — impossible for me to live with. Still I dug deep, finding enough to keep going, if not keep up. Onward — onward — onward! Push and pull — push and pull!
"How much longer?!" I screamed at his back, my sound suppressed by the almighty gale. "How much… longer?"
Degrees grew steeper still, and I realised why rest here was so perilous. Mere feet to our left, a rolling boulder the size of a two-story house passed us by. A sure and silent killer, and if we had been in its path we would've been pulverized underneath it. Hence getting up this slope as fast as possible was our maxim — there would be no lack of attention, and no more rest.
The breath of God attempted to blow us down this mountain, and with our rope constantly strained taut now, Kat was almost dragging me up the side of it; his tugs squeezing the knot unbearably around my gut. It was only when my clothes were drenched through, when my face, my ears, my neck and my hands were pelted raw by pills of ice, did I snap. Give up. At the end of my tether. The end of this fucking rope.
"No more!" I screamed and screamed. "That's it! I am done! Done!"
Kat pressed on regardless, and with my body at a standstill, the abrupt yank at my waist pulled me forward to smash my face on a rock. Knocked out of his resolute world, Kat looked back, but expressed no concern for me. He simply pulled on our rope, cursed my limp body and demanded that I follow orders — to be more careful — to be on my feet.
I strained a look at him through the lashing rain, blood dribbling down my cheek. "I can't! It's too much! No more!"
Kat’s eyebrows crossed like attracting magnets. He threw down his rope then marched, puffy cheeked and livid toward me. Temporarily shielding me from the hail, he grappled me by the skin of the neck.
"Up!"
Maddeningly, I beat my arms against his clenched hand.
"Don't! Fucking! Touch me! Don't ever lay a hand on me again you cock sucker! I'm going back! I'm going back right fucking now! If you don't come with me, I'll go alone! I don't need you! I don't care!"
The wind howled like that dying snow leopard, and Kat's palm rubbed over the katana hilt like a magic lamp.
"Say another word," he suddenly bawled; "and I will cut your head off!"
Lightning smashed the mountain slope and a boom of thunder shook the sky. I was not angry any-more, but flabbergasted. In the soulless stare of the samurai warrior, I saw that my defender, my sword and shield was a hundred percent serious: he would cut my head off. Maybe he wanted to.
"Just — another — word!" he repeated, teasing the hilt and himself, waiting and wanting…
I did not speak. Not a mutter. Instead, I rose to my feet, and tasting a combination of water and blood on my lips, I stared into the soaking hard face of Kat, our private storm lasting a full sixty seconds.
"I can't believe they sent you to help me!" I cried. "Why you?! Who the fuck are you?!"
"I have seen Hell!" he roared back. "Lived it for two hundred years! Two hundred! If you cannot go on now — you may as well lose your head! You may as well!"
I slunk beaten, while Kat readied himself for his kill. I did not have the strength or belief for this mission, but urgently needed to find it. I searched inside for inspiration — it had to be there, deep in the dusty attic of my heart — and it was. Kathy, my wonderfully bright star was expecting her Father, and I've kept her waiting long enough.
"Get up, Danny!" begged Missy, her young voice so clear in my head. "Get up that mountain right this minute! Don't make me come down there!"
I placed pressure on my cheek with a sleeve, and with resolve, determination and the will to survive, I passed Kat and carried on up the slope; until it was his turn to feel that wretched tug of rope.
***
Morning.
We recuperated on a ledge some miles up the mountain. Jaded and sore all over, I could hardly imagine the distance left to the summit; a feat far beyond my forty-one year old body. Fortunately, there was no more climbing left to be done — we had reached our destination.
I got a slight lift now, a proud sense of achievement when I glanced over our ledge. We were hundreds of feet from the ground. Curvy cloud formed a sheet of whisked cream over the landscape, hiding everything but the pointed tops of other mountains.
"Heaven," I said, dabbing the new scab at my cheek. "Must be what Heaven looks like, eh?"
"I wouldn't know."
Not the view sort, Kat didn't stop to enjoy it. No, the samurai was a problem solver, and facing him was one needing to be solved. He crouched, rubbing at his mouth and surveying the dilemma. Cut into this mountain was a curious rectangle entranceway, with a gloomy corridor inside it. The surrounding mountain stone was a rugged sandy brown, but the corridor was of marble white, perfectly smooth with foreign symbols painted on the walls. I felt like an explorer now, discovering an ancient tomb, this grand hallway surely leading to the king himself.
"Come on Kat!" I complained. "It's been an hour already!"
He swat a hand at my voice like a mosquito in his ear, so I bent to collect a handful of stones. One by one, I threw them off the cliff edge, making many dimples into the multicoloured cloud below.
Inside the marble corridor — positioned in the centre of the floor — was a circular seal of gold. A substantial image, it depicted a half man, half horse: A Centaur riding the back of a fire-breathing dragon. Beyond that seal was something even stranger — a rippling wall of gas, as if a bubbling cloak draped over a door we could not see. It was difficult to make out or understand the symbols on the walls from this position; and judging by Kat's puzzled frown, he couldn't decipher them either.
After attentive deliberation, the samurai creaked to his feet with his own hand full of earth. His activity spurred me to join his side, and silently, I watched Kat select one stone from his hand, then skip it into the hallway. His tiny rock trickled over the seal and through the wall of sitting vapour, and there we heard it skip no more.
My companion frowned again, and then threw another stone with similar results — the sound immediately snuffed upon entering the paranormal smoke.
"What does it mean?" I asked, intrigued.
"A trap," he said. "We go back. There is nothing we can do."
I laughed. This simple surrender made no sense in my mind. None at all. We could never set back down the mountain, not after last night's efforts, and definitely not with a wizard on our tail. No — This was the way, I was certain of it.
"Listen Kat, if Sir Isaac Newton, of all people, wanted me here, then this is no trap! Ask yourself — why have a trap all the way up here? That climb is all the security you need!"
"There are assassins," he replied, tired. "And no hill would keep an assassin from reaching his target."
"Okay. It is a trap. To catch assassins? We're not assassins though, are we? Trust me for once. There's nothing to fear."
With no ready reply from Kat, and my mind made up, I strode to the murky entrance.
"I've got a good feeling," I said, shaking the fear from the ends of my fingertips. "Nothing will happen. Nothing…will happen."
My guide still unconvinced, I raised a foot, but before any trace of sole touched the marble, Kat harshly jerked me backward.
"What?" I complained.
The cantankerous samurai was not watching me, but the morning sky over our shoulder. Perhaps he was the view sort after all.
He raised his hand and my eye followed it to a chirping bird, resembling a robin and no larger. I sighed with relief, pleased to see something small for a change. The pair of us then watched as this innocent, singing thing came at us, over our heads and into the mysterious hallway. It swooped past the seal, but before disappearing into standing vapours, the two walls of marble smashed together like stone symbols, crushing the bird into powdery dust and blasting us off our feet.
Like a pair of exhaling lungs, the walls retracted to their original positions as rapidly as they had collided, and we lay dumbstruck on our backs.
"How is your good feeling now?" Kat asked me, flipping impressively to his feet.
I stood the old-fashioned way, beating the dirt from my clothes. Strangely, instinct told me to disregard the incident — This was the way!
"There's an angel urging me in," I said, sure of myself. "And in is where I'm going!"
Again, I lined both feet and ten toes before the marble, and an intrigued Kat watched me take the first steps inside. The crunch of my foot seemed to vibrate the whole corridor, and the confidence suddenly corroded inside me. I held my stance for over a minute in one position; trying not to breathe, not to let these walls smell my fear or feel my weight. Moving inch by meticulous inch, I heard every beat of my racing heart. The air frolicked with particles, irritating the eyes and sitting like an itch at the end of my nose; but still I moved forward, pausing now as I reached the circular seal of gold.
"Why do you stop?" Kat whispered, his vigilant question echoing into the corridor. "Tell me why Fox?"
I was too absorbed in the seal to answer. It was a work of art, a masterpiece like those by the old masters. I almost couldn't bear to tread my dirty boots over it.
"Go on…" pressed Kat, engrossed. "Almost."
I did go on. I stepped on the seal and there was an instant reaction to my intimately placed foot. A gust came from the layer of fumes ahead, blowing back my hair and removing all the sitting dust on my nose. I froze like a plank, feeling wet beads glisten down my chin and any other place sweat could drip. Thoroughly shaken, I exhaled a moment later; and with Kat's badgering in the background, I painstakingly progressed over the seal.
My head ballooned with confidence when I passed, and did not leave me when I ventured through the bubbling folds.
"Fox?" hissed Kat, seeing nothing of me. "Are you there?"
Suddenly, a torch burst into life, illuminating orange light all over the corridor. I stood at the far end of the hallway, facing Kat with the lamp burning on a wall behind.
"I didn't light it!" I said. "It wasn't me!"
Turning to face that torch, this mountain puzzle now revealed one of her secrets. At the end of my toes was an abyss; like a starless space. It was impossible to guess how deep, but there was a possible route down.
"I see steps Kat! Hundreds and hundreds of steps!"
Old but sturdy looking, these steps twirled downward into the mouth of that dark grave.
"Come on Kat! It's safe!"
The suspicious samurai grumbled, but moved in all the same. Like mine, his movement over the seal had no effect on the walls. I reached my hand out for him when, for no apparent reason, Kat stopped dead on the balls of his feet. "What's wrong?" I asked, confused.
Statuesque, Kat was listening. He could hear it and I could too — a familiar sound building, incoming — the chirp, chirp, chirping of another curious mountain bird. Eyes bulging, I pointed out the incoming bird behind Kat, lowering and buzzing wings into the hallway. My lips parted, but before my tongue could utter a warning, the marble walls trapped shut.
SMASH!
The energy of smashing rock blew out the lamp light and flung me backward down the spiralling steps. I plummeted, down and around in the dark forever, feeling my body become a peace of limp, battered meat until…
CRACK!
All was still. I had reached the bottom of this trench, and my world slowly stopped revolving.
Crumpled and half conscious; an excruciating ache burned all over and my vision was filled with a formless yellow light. When surrendering myself to unconsciousness, I experienced a sharp pain at my throat to keep me alert — a cold and prodding pressure. I had stabbed myself with my own dagger, I presumed, or broken my damn neck.
Placing a nervous hand to my throat, I found no dagger blade or protruding bone; there was however, the blunt tip of a spear. My eyes focused enough to see a towering man aiming the weapon at me. He had the craggy face of old age and a fuzzy brown beard with pieces of food caught inside it.
"Hells bells and buckets of blood!" he bellowed, like a mad man. "Who dares enter my home? Answer before I stick you good!"
Food fell from his beard and onto my face, and my prolonged silence provoked the man into poking me further with the spear. "Answer boy! Answer before you lose your heart and anything else that pleases me!"
"Newton…" I murmured. "He sent…"
"Blast!" stormed the stranger, slapping a clenched fist into his palm "That senile, bed pissing scientist! Who the hell does he think he is?"
His spear was removed from my neck leaving a sore indent. I tried to sit up but my mulched body flopped back to the stone.
"Dare you bleed on my floor?" the man cried, theatrically. "How absolutely, bloody dare you lose your fluids on my flooring!"
This person then bent for a better look at me, and I him. He was shabby and unkempt, a dirty bear of a man.
"Look at you," he tittered, "all broken up. Well? What's your bloody name then? Tell me! I'll try and look interested."
"Fo…Fox."
"Fox?" he said, face screwing up. "Vermin! I hate it!"
Groggily, I mumbled something back and the stout man sighed. "My name is Bludgeon… and I don't give a monkeys if you hate my name. Got it? Do — " He paused, catching a whiff of something he did not like.
"Is that… shit drying on your boots? Is this how you grace my kingdom? With shit caked over your legs? Is this how your kind show respect?”
I was lost for words, but the tall man, scratching the nits from his greasy beard, was not. "By the look of you it appears you're staying… for now at least. Just don't you touch any bloody thing… Come along!"
Vision growing misty, I could still make out the man trotting away on four legs — horse legs. He was the half man, half horse from the seal upstairs: Bludgeon — a Centaur — a King — the one I had come to see.