Ike whirled. Wisp turned, less surprised.

Mont stood there, slightly up the mountain. He smiled at them and clasped his hands together. “Have you figured it out, yet?”

Ike looked at him, then turned. The landslide. Power that couldn’t be used subtly. “I have a guess. Are you the mountain?”

Mont smiled. He nodded, just slightly. For just a moment, he released his pressure. The full weight of the mountain came crashing down on Ike and Wisp. Ike staggered, almost falling to the ground. Wisp tensed. Her face turned white.

In the next second, he reined it back. His smile never changed.

It wasn’t that I was unable to feel his pressure. We were surrounded by his pressure this whole time. The pressure of the mountain itself, Ike realized.

“Then the boy… if he’s the same as you, is he your son…?” Ike wondered.

At that, both Mont and Wisp burst out laughing. Ike blushed, looking from one to the other. “What? What’s wrong?”

Mont straightened up first. He waved his hand. “We mountains are born from the Mother Earth. These bodies you see are nothing more than earth, shaped into palatable guises. Things like children and family are totally foreign to us.”

“Oh,” Ike muttered, a little embarrassed. Now that I’m thinking of it, that’s a very personal question to ask a higher being with highly different physiology than humans. I basically asked him how he reproduces—rude to ask anyone, let alone a higher being.

Mont turned sober once more. He faced the boy. “And that is precisely the problem. Two mountains cannot occupy the same space. Either I must crush the boy, or he must crush me. I have no desire to destroy a victim of human will, but if he remains here much longer, I will not have a choice. Already, he has fed from my mana veins… from my lifeblood. To me, he is nothing but a parasite, and one that threatens my life.”

“Understood. We’ll take him away,” Wisp promised.

“Then… did the mages divert your mana veins, or did he?” Ike asked.

“The mages, doubtlessly. If he had done it, I would have realized it right away and shook him off. Instead, they tricked me, and gave him my mana in a way that I completely lost track of the vein. It wasn’t impossible to guess where it was, but I couldn’t see inside the barrier. Nor could I exert little enough power to pass the barrier without collapsing the camp. Not knowing what they’d done to my vein, I didn’t want to risk making the problem worse.

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“I sicced the foxes on them, but that did little good. The two forces were of equal power, since the foxes couldn’t be deceived into drawing their true strength into the battle. I was just musing about what I could do when I encountered the two of you.”

He smiled at them, spreading his hands.

Are his hands really so tied? I saw him spit fire at that mage… Ike shook his head. No, that’s incorrect. I saw him swallow that mage’s fire and spit it back at them. He never exerted his own strength. I’m sure he could have done something, but he was in a much more precarious position than I initially thought.

“You need us to take this boy down the mountain. I understand that. Then what?” Ike asked.

Mont shrugged. “Find him a safe place to put down his foundation and grow. It might take him centuries, no, millennia to grow, but he should become a mighty mountain one day. Maybe even one as large and proud as myself.”

“What about the mountain he came from?” Wisp said.

“They took him from it once. I fear they would simply take him away again.” Mont paused. “Besides, look at how small he is. He probably didn’t have much more than a hill.”

The boy, who had been ignoring them up until this point, to the extent that Ike wasn’t sure he understood spoken language, whirled and charged at Mont. Ike snatched him up. The boy fought his hold, clawing and biting toward Mont, kicking his little feet to no avail.

Mont chuckled. After a moment, he looked up. When he turned back down, he nodded their way. “Go now. The mages’ master comes. I can obscure your trail, but if he finds you here, there is little I can do that won’t also end your lives.”

Ike nodded. He hefted the kid over his shoulder and set off at a run. Wisp hesitated. She looked at Mont for a long moment. When Ike was a fair distance away, she spoke.

“Do you remember when I came over the mountain the first time?”

Mont hummed. “Perhaps. I do not track every tiny bug that crawls across me.”

“There was something behind me. Something in chains.”

“Mmm.” Mont touched his chin. After a moment, his eyes sparked with light. “Yes. I do remember.”

“Do you know what happened to that?”

“Yes. It sensed my presence and retreated.”

“Then it’s somewhere on this side of the mountain.” Wisp stared down the slope. Her face bunched up in distaste.

“You can still turn back,” Mont offered gently. “I do not think the humans will pay much attention to a single rogue monster.”

She chuckled to herself. “No. I can’t.” She plunged down the slope, racing down the hill after Ike.

Ike, who’d quietly been listening to everything with his enhanced senses, snorted to himself. A dangerous enemy ahead, and the mages’ master behind. What a way to enter a new region.

“Let’s go plant this kid somewhere and find ourselves a nice place to set up on the other side of the mountain. Someplace quiet and distant, so no one bothers us,” Ike called back to Wisp.

“Plant him? What is he, a potato?” Wisp asked, jogging to his side.

He sped up as she reached him. “I don’t know. He’s like a mountain seedling or something. What do you do with those? ‘Plant’ sounds like a reasonable thing to do.”

“What do we do with you, kiddo?” Wisp asked, turning to the boy.

“Let me go, and fuck off!” the kid replied sharply.

Wisp blinked, startled.

Ike laughed aloud. He slapped the kid’s shoulder. “Damn! I thought you were silent, but you’ve got a tongue on you.”

“Do I ever. Listen here, kiddo, and let your grandpa tell you…”