On a steep path on mount Gatheon, Karla looked ahead in the hopes of ascertaining the nature of their next trial. She had lost her helmet during the last one and was wearing a bandana in its place, stained pink with the blood, sweat, and tears of the past month. The ascent had been a grueling forge that had tempered them all into hard, tasty steel.
They came up to a small hut on stilts next to a stone outcropping. Karla raised a fist. Everyone else stopped behind her.
“I smell undead,” she said.
And undead meant trouble.
“We’re undead though,” Erik said. He had a wicked scar on his cheek, as long as his pinky. He was refusing to drink bowl water so it would stay, because he thought it was cool. Karla thought so too.
“It smells of death,” she corrected. “Get ready, we don’t want a repeat of the Gonk. Otis, do we have enough bomb-shells?”
Otis hissed.
“Good. Now, stay low, and if something goes wrong, hide behind Brod.”
They rounded the outcropping on the cliff side. The smell turned cloying, so thick that Karla felt she was wading through it. Up ahead, a group of dregs were standing in a field of flowers. Metal gleamed in their hands. At the foot of the hut, a man-shaped silhouette rose and bellowed with a voice of authority.
“Halt! The way is barred shut. If you wish to pass, you must first pass my challenge-”
“Attaaack!” Karla wasted no time and jumped one of the dregs, cleaving it in two.
It was a slaughter. A green arrow flew, embedding into the chest of one before growing spines out in every direction. Erik bashed one to the ground, then finished it off with a stab between the ribs. The fight was over in seconds, only stopped by a harrowing cry.
“W-what are you doing! My dregs! Why are you killing them?” Karla looked up as the silhouette stepped out of the shade. He looked just like a normal guy, with boring brown eyes and hair and an old, worn toga. “This is a peaceful trial. Peace! Do you barbarians even know how to spell it?”
“Wait, this place that smells of death isn’t an arena?” she asked.
“No! Those are the flowers.” He gestured all around to the meticulously kept flower beds. “Rot-petals. Beautiful, but so poor smelling that I lost that sense eons ago.”
“Your dregs were armed,” she countered.
“With scissors and trowels! You were supposed to compete with who can harvest the most intact buds with my servants you are currently standing on!”
Karla looked around. She sheepishly stepped off a dreg’s neck.
“Sorry. I’m Karla.”
“And I am Richard, royal gardener of legend, immortal, and now a few helping hands poorer. But to you, I am just a challenge, a means to determine if you’re worthy.”
“I am worthy. I am pretty sure. The haze says so.”
His eyebrow rose as she showed him the relevant notification.
You have completed seven (7) minor trials
You are moderately worthy
“It seems you went the proper way then. Good, that prevents me from calling down a smiting.” He sighed, pushing one of the corpses over with the tip of his foot. “I suppose I should have put up a sign. But alas!” He turned to Karla and the rest of the party. “My challenge stands. Bring me more intact corpse-bloom buds than your competition. Due to the circumstances, if you can place even one upon my terrace, it will suffice.”
The group looked as one to the immaculate flower beds.
“Just one then? I’ll do it, then.” Erik picked up a pair of bloody scissors and went to cut a flower. “I was planning to become a landscape gardener back on earth. I know exactly how to pluck a–”
The moment the flower was severed, a puff of pollen wafted out. Erik immediately slumped to the ground with a metallic clutter.
Richard was all smiles. “Of course, if you cut them poorly, their poisonous pollen propagates, and you will perish. Rot Petals have such a unique way of acquiring fertilizer.”
They all stared in quiet shock at Eriks body.
“Well, luckily we’re undead.” Nathan poked him, and Erik woke right back up with a stutter and a gasp.
Richard tutted. “That will not save you. As per the rules, all who fail must now serve me.”
“What?” Karla cried. “That was not in the rules.”
“Yeah,” Erik yelled, “I don’t give a crap about your orders. I know one guaranteed way to get past you.”
Richard smiled. “Sit.”
Erik fell on his ass, hard.
“As you can see, by law of the mountain I have total control over your companion. Please do try to complete the challenge earnestly. And before you complain, you are the reason why I am lacking in hands to do my bidding in the first place.”
Karla grumbled. Some challenges were fun games, while others were straightforward sword fights. Ever since finding signs that her mother had been on the mountain, she had relished in the challenge. But every so often, there was someone like Richard who just spoiled all the fun. And to be honest, she was getting a bit tired by the strain of the constant pressure to rise above.
“Brod, can you have a go?”
The giant squinted at the remaining flowers. Slowly, he approached the largest one, one that stuck out from the thorns of the rest of the bush. Slowly, he pinched the stalk between two fingers. Clearly, the scissors were meant as a deception. She always forgot how the foremost heroic trait was not strength, but ingenuity, and he had inherited it in buckets.
He plucked the flower and immediately fell on his ass.
Richard laughed. “Even the legendary tenacity of the giants is not enough, it seems. Would anyone else care to try?”
Karla swallowed heavily. Two people were down, and they only had her, Nathan, and Otis left. If they didn’t succeed here, they’d have to spend eternity listening to this jerk. And then they couldn’t find Elia, or Rye.
How to solve this, how to…
Suddenly, she had an idea. She approached a plant – the smallest looking one – and jammed her hands into the earth. The smell was dizzying enough to give her a headache as she unburied the plant at the roots. But the plant did not dissolve and poof her with a bunch of toxic spores, because it was not cut poorly, or at all.
With a smug smile, she plopped the entire plant, roots and all, on the man’s terrace.
“There. We won.”
He nodded amiably. “Very good, for the first challenge.”
“First!?” This man was just adding on conditions again and again. The gall.
“Only two more and not only will I answer a question for each of you, but set your friends free. I am all knowing thanks to my connection to divinity. But if you run out of friends, well… Let’s not think about it like that, shall we? Come, follow me into my hut,” he gestured behind himself. “One at a time, please. Observers are not allowed in this next challenge. And don’t peek. The mountain always sees you cheating.”
He disappeared into his hut. Brod and Erik followed as if by an invisible command. Karla wanted to get them to stop, and clobber the guy entirely, but that was not how the mountain worked. Inside a challenge, the rules were the rules.
Karla followed inside. After all, what kind of leader would she be if she didn’t show a little bit of backbone?
***
The challenge was done. Karla lost, but her team had pulled through.
“Wow,” Erik said. “I’ve never seen someone die from arm wrestling. Good going Otis.”
Otis hissed at him.
Richard was on the ground, lying crestfallen in a heap of his own blood. His heart had exploded after he tried to cheat at one of his own games. It seemed the mountain punished even him if he broke the rules he had established before.
“Man, I can’t believe he plagiarized the riddles from The Hobbit.” Nathan shook his head. “But that was a close shave. If Otis hadn’t played dead in the middle of arm-wrestling, he wouldn’t have let down his guard. That was great cry-acting from you, Karla.”
I wasn’t acting though.
She left that unsaid. It was better for everyone if their leader appeared competent in a variety of fields that didn’t all involve killing and slaughtering.
“Though, we can’t ask him questions like this, can we?”
Nathan poured a bit of bowl water on Richard’s face, but it just phased right through him. The water was linked to the undead and only interacted with them. He was just a normal ex-immortal.
“He has good food.” Karla turned to see Brod stuffing his arms with buckets of fresh fruits and veggies. “Watermelon?”
She graciously accepted a great round green thing and was moments from biting into it when the man on the floor sputtered. His eyes were completely white, and he did not look like he should be able to move. Yet an invisible force wrenched his mouth open like a screaming visage.
“You have triumphed, ascender,” he croaked in an unfamiliar voice like gnashing rock. “Claim your reward.”
Right, the reward.
Immediately, Karla approached his side and pushed all others away. There were many questions she wanted to ask. Why hadn’t she found Elia all this time, why had her mother left? Why did the gods bother to fill the path to the peak with traps and trials, but then also make an elevator not halfway up?
They were five people. Five questions was all they’d get. They had already discussed what they wanted to ask.
“Where is my mother?” Karla asked.
“On the mountain, far above the waterfall…” he muttered.
She kicked herself for not being more precise. Her mother was beyond the waterfall gate then, the last challenge before the realm of the gods proper. They hadn’t even reached the halfway point, though the castle marking it had been coming in and out of view for the past three days. This was one of those genie-wish moments then. She gave a nod to Nathan, who stepped forward to ask his question.
“Among the following friends of ours, who are not dregs as well as not entirely dead: Elia, Rye, Hannah, Sam.”
“–Quibbles.”
“And Quibbles.”
The face of Richard contorted in jitters of pain, slowly enunciating each name in turn. “Rye. Hannah. Quibbles. Sam. Elia.”
Everyone was visibly relieved.
“Oh thank god, that was all of them.”
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Otis walked up next. She hissed at him.
“Yes.”
What did she ask? What mysteries does this little opossum hold?
“One more question, for one more ascender.”
“But we only asked three questions, Erik and Brod still have theirs!” Even in death, Richard the… unfriendly man was screwing them over.
Unless, maybe it only counted whoever ascended the mountain for the first time? Brod had said that he had been to the mountain before.
Before Karla could ask, Erik stepped forward. He was their free-space question, one they hadn’t determined in case someone else screwed up their wording. Now that they had asked all they needed to, Karla waited to see what he would ask.
“How do we beat this game?”
Richard’s head jittered as if caught in a seizure. It looked like it was being wrenched from left to right by a dozen different powers. “Y-y-you must reach the t-top. H-having proven your worthiness, relinquish your shards. Re-return to the place of beginnings, return to the cerulean basin and me-me-mend the grail.”
Then with a sudden jerk, Richard’s body slumped to the ground.
Welp. Another ominous prophecy for the ominous prophecy pile.
“He was all knowing, right?” Karla asked Nathan.
“Emphasis on ‘was’,” he replied.
She stomped her foot. “Dangit, I should’ve asked for a way to get rid of the princess curse!”
***
They moved on after plundering Richard’s food storage, not encountering much. A trio of dregs that looked like mountaineers tried to attack them with ice picks, but they perished. They passed an abandoned lean-to, an empty cave, and a rope bridge that looked too treacherous to cross.
Karla’s mind was abuzz with questions.
“Hey Brod. Why did you try to climb the mountain the first time?”
“You are a curious little person,” he said with a chuckle. “My father was Herculon, greatest warrior of giants. He ascended, and the gods were impressed. They said: ‘All sons and daughters of Herculon must come to mountain and ascend’. All my brothers and sisters went, but no one came back.”
“I’m sorry.”
He waved her off. “I didn’t want to go. But then big sister said ‘look, I will climb the mountain now. Follow in my footsteps. You will be safe’. But I was not safe, because snake big. I ran away and the gods cursed me. Now, am looking for her, or her grave.”
They walked along in some silence.
“But in the end, you came back even though you knew of the snake, even though you were afraid. That takes courage. Maybe you were a coward, but you aren’t one anymore.”
Brod frowned, shaking his head. “If you give an excuse, I will jump off mountain first thing in morning.”
“Hah. I got you now. There’s no turning back here, we’re going all the way to the top!”
He peeked over the side of a thousand-meter drop. “Maybe I should jump now.”
They laughed and were about to move on when suddenly, Otis hissed in alarm.
“Otis says she smells danger,” Nathan said.
Erik was incredulous. “Wait, you can understand her? Since when?”
“Just earlier. Rolled a boon. I didn’t expect [Speak with beasts] to work on her. The fact that it does is honestly a little insulting.” He nodded at the path. “Something’s up ahead. Something dangerous.”
They all shared looks. Then they got into a battle formation. Karla was at the front, followed by Erik. Nathan and Otis were in the middle and Brod was shoring up the rear.
The first sign of something wrong were the corpses.
There were so many. Like a line of ants marching onwards they lay in clusters and straights leading all the way up the path ahead. Some were armed and clothed like normal dregs. Others looked like them, ascender hopefuls, fallen on the path to Nos Deindolen. One particular dreg seemed to be burning perpetually even in death. A sign of the legion.
“There are two things you should never fight, cherie,” her aunt had once told her. “The tar-knights because they twist your soul and body. And the legion because their fire can burn through everything. The fire you can put out with bowl water, the tar you’ll have to amputate.”
Karla swallowed, nervousness playing with her guts like strings. The cuts on some corpses nearly cleaved them in two, bone and all. It looked like a whirlwind of blades had gone through and wreaked havoc on every side.
“Looks like the danger already passed,” Erik said.
Nathan shot him a glare. “Shush, Erik, whatever did this might still be out there.”
“It’s right over there, actually.”
He pointed at a boulder roughly twenty meters ahead. The figure sitting on it would have been a terror, even without being completely drenched in blood. Its hair swam like a bundle of kelp suspended in water. A fiery gash was eating away at its ribs. It was sitting with its body turned away from them to the scene of the city sprawling out across the horizon.
If they wanted to spring an ambush, now was the time. And yet, it didn’t feel right to attack an already injured creature. Besides, they wouldn’t catch it by surprise. Karla could feel it watching her.
“Fuck, it’s a Medusa. Whatever you do, don’t look it in the eye. It’ll petrify you.” That seemed… excessive, but Nathan seemed sure of it. “Should we ignore it, or kill it?”
“Neither.” Karla didn’t get the impression that the creature was hostile.
“Wait here,” she whispered and slowly made her way towards it. When she was close but just out of striking distance, she cleared her voice. “E-excuse me? Are you alright? If you need medical assistance, I could maybe–”
The creature turned, and Karla looked away. As much as it felt right to ask, petrification was way down on her list of enjoyable experiences. But the Medusa wasn’t showing any open hostility so far.
“I have some bowl water, for your, uh, fire. Assuming that you’re undead of course?” She rummaged around for a bottle of bowl water when she suddenly felt two slick limbs close around her from behind.
She would have thrown her off, if not for the dangerous feeling of her sharp teeth being right there. Her breath felt cold against the small of her nape. Crap, why did she have to choose now of all times to let her guard down?
“Mhhh. You’re ssso warm.” Her voice had a sibilant hiss to it. Karla froze.
“E-Elia?”
“Hey princesss. I misssed you.”
“You’re a lizard – I mean, a medusa now?”
“Yup.” She felt her snuggle deeper into her nape. Something like fingers was digging into her hair.
“That’s so…” Weird, funny, curious. “Can I look?”
“Mhm.”
“And I won’t petrify?”
“Nope.”
Karla steeled herself. “Ok, but if you are some sort of telepathic shapeshifter that stole my lootbug’s face, I’ll be really mad.”
But when she turned around, there Elia was. She was green, had scales and dagger-eyes like running gold, but this was still recognizably her. Some parts of her looked sharper. Some were clearly more dangerous.
“You look… different.” But not bad? Maybe?
One of her snake… hair-things blinked at her. “You do too.”
“What? Oh, this!” She unwrapped her bandana, and let her hair poof out. “I only lost my helmet. And my shield. And… a whole lot more. But now I found you, so it was all worth it.”
“Wouldn’t have lost anything if it weren’t for my stupid bomb–”
“Ah!” Karla shushed her with a finger on her lips. “None of that. Come on now, let’s get you some bowl water and a bit of food.”
“I would like that. I would like that a lot.”
***
It was clear from the start that Elia was not as cheery and flippant as before she’d climbed the mountain. She must have done it at the same pace as they had, though since they took a detour in a valley Elia must have taken longer. She looked worn by a thousand trials, almost ephemeral. It looked as if saying the wrong words might make her stand up and fly away.
Karla simply knew her too well. She needed someone to support her, with gentle words and gentler pats. That was why Karla was currently in her lap, wrapped around her like a scarf. It was the right thing to do, since she was cold blooded and all. Yup, that’s all this was. No ulterior motives here.
This position also allowed her to explore every facet of Elia’s new weird (but not in a bad way) body.
She was still playing with her snake hair and feeding them snacks when her Lootbug finished a brief summary of her adventures down below. It was almost too brief; there were certainly parts missing, and the story bordered on the line of a fairytale even without that.
“So the queen of all bekki’s adopted you? And she threw hands with the two big G’s once?” Leave it to Erik to ask the uncomfortable questions right from the get-go.
Elia didn’t seem to mind; she was too lost in thought. “Mhm.”
“And I thought we had a crazy adventure.” Nathan looked into the distance before catching himself. “I mean, we did. The mountain is full of crazy contests and challenges. There was this one jojo-like character, and he had a Stand–“
“I’m glad you found Otis.” Elia looked remorseful as she muttered into Karla’s neck. “’M sorry I couldn’t get to you faster.”
Otis turned to her with her two bulging eyes. Instead of hissing, she just gave her a thumbs up. Karla snuggled closer to her. They were so close she could feel her heartbeat through her chest.
Odd. Normally, the law of princesses would have put up at least a little bit of resistance by this point.
A princess caught by a monster ought to submit and wait for rescue.
Oh. Yes, that was totally something the law of princesses would say. What next, did it say that if Elia wanted to, she would need to let gobble her… up…?
Karla froze.
Ought to submit? So, if I don’t initiate, does that mean…
“Oh. Um. Huh.” She felt around and noticed a distinct lack of princessly repulsion. An idea took hold in her head and with “Ok everyone, we’re setting up camp for the night. Otis, you’re on first watch. I’ll go help and… clean Elia.”
“But we don’t have any water–” Someone slapped Erik up his head, as was only right.
Karla smirked. She led Elia by her hand to a small wind-protected alcove and scrubbed her down as thoroughly as she could with a wet towel. If Elia suddenly noticed that they could do this now, she didn’t show it at all. But she did raise her voice once Karla began to spread out her things for the night.
“Really?” Elia asked. “Right in the open?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You seem oddly happy.”
“I am.”
“Mind sharing why?”
“The princess rules sees you as a monster. ‘A princess ought to submit to a monster‘. Finally, the wording works in my favor.” She giggled, perhaps a bit too unprincessly. “After all this time, I’m that little bit more free, Elia, finally free!”
Her smile must have flipped some switch in Elia’s brain. One second she was watching her unpack, the next right in front, cupping her chin so she couldn’t escape. Her eyes were mesmerizing, like a rift in the world threatening to suck all the rest inside.
“Don’t move.”
***
The sky was overcast, bathing the mountain in a darkness as deep as one of the long bygone nights. Karla snuggled into her love’s arms. Even just brushing her skin sent an exciting tingle up her spine. They hadn’t started sleeping until after a long, long while.
Now, Karla was wide awake, and Elia too, probably.
It was hard to tell. She breathed more slowly and deeply by nature and that was among the many small things that had changed. Her eyes which seemed to linger on whatever was right in front of her now seemed to pierce right through, always focused on something in the far, far distance.
“Hey lootbug,” Karla said. “Thinking about anything?”
The body behind her stirred.
“You.”
“Awww, that’s sweet. And what else?”
She took some time to answer that one. “Whether or not I have the strength to do what needs to be done. I talk big, but in the end, I’m just one me.”
“We can do anything now that we’re together.” She wiggled in place. “Hey Elia? Don’t be mad at me, but I lost your rod.”
“It’s fine.”
“And my boon.”
That got Elia to stir. “[Chains of Tartazon]?”
“Yeah. I got a really bad one in return. [Hair control] doesn’t synergize at all with my physical build. But I can control all hair, not just mine. Who knows, maybe I could make your snakes longer… or shorter! Depending on your preference of course.”
They cuddled in silence for a while. But eventually, Elia felt the need to talk.
“You need to get off this mountain.”
Karla blinked. “Don’t be ridiculous. It took so long just to get here, but we’re finally halfway, almost.”
“Karla, I mean it. The mountain is a bad place. You can’t beat it.”
“What, why? We’ve been doing so well.” Karla turned around to face her. “Hey, if something’s wrong, you can tell me.”
“I can’t. I really can’t.” Karla stared at her, and stared. It turned out, Elia could talk, if pressed and pinched properly. “I-I need to go to the top.”
“Well, so do I, and here are a few good reasons why: If I leave, I won’t get to find my mother. And Rye’s group is still missing.”
“This isn’t an adventure anymore. I know danger won’t stop you, but the tar and the legion will, and none of us can fight them safely.” She sighed, deeply. “Listen, Karla, does your mother strike you as someone who wouldn’t come running back if whatever she was looking for wasn’t up there?”
“No, I–“
“If she is dead, would she have wanted you to follow after her, and suffer the same way she had?”
“Mum was a worrier. She always worried big.”
“I’m worried too, now. Me, worried.” She scoffed as if in disbelief. “You can stay safe down in the pact until it’s all over.”
“Then why? Why are you allowed to go and not me?” Karla said, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “Am I still not good enough? Am I still just a burden? Tell me, or I’ll–”
Elia silenced her with a kiss, long and comforting. When they parted, her tears had mostly dried up.
“I don’t want you to go through what I have to. I know what I’m asking isn’t nice. But I’ll make it better. Will you trust me?” Elia asked as she combed her hair.
“That’s not fair.” Karla sniffed. “That’s really not fair.”
“It isn’t.”
“Will you come back soon?”
“I’ll do what I must, and then what I can. And even then, I have to ask you for another favor.”
***
In the morning, Elia was gone. She had taken a backpack, and light gear to move swiftly. Karla felt as if she had taken her heart as well. What was left was an emptiness and a feeling of anger she refused to feed.
Elia was doing her best, for her, for everyone. It wouldn’t be right to prioritize her feelings. Elia was the only person she could truly trust. But why did it feel like she was already betrayed?
“I hope Quibbles will keep her safe,” she said, sipping bowl-juice flavored like hot cocoa, hoping it could mend her heart.
It was time to go. They had already spent too long in one place.
She looked over to the kittens. They all looked worn out, and just about ready to go back to a normal life. Why she couldn’t see it before still eluded her, but it was clear as day: They would never have made it to the top.
Then she looked to Brod, the quiet giant who kept looking at the peaks with a mixture of fear and contemplation. He locked eyes with her.
“I can go?”
Karla nodded. It would be for the best.
“Go. But be quick. She’ll outpace you if you aren’t, and humble-brag about her time in the maze.”
“Mhm.”
“She likes salad and cheeses, but she’ll eat anything you cook.”
“I know.”
“And make sure you don’t upstage her. She hates not being the best at something.”
“Will do.”
And then he left too. No matter what Elia said, she couldn’t kill a god all on her own.