As the almighty Yophine sank beneath the rooftops of the only home I had ever known, we passed from the foothills and climbed on into the mountains. The air became chill, and as I walked between the two old monks it finally dawned on me what I was doing, what I was leaving behind.

It was strange, but back inside my home I had only thought of the pouch of gold the monk had brought for my mother. But as we climbed ever higher up the pass, I realised the true price that had been paid; I would never again see my friends; I would never again run through the fields with my brother; I would never again feel my dear mother’s arms as she hugged me goodnight.

As though remembering a forgotten dream, I recalled my mother screaming my name as I was led from the house. Realisation dawned as cold as the mountain fingers now raking my skin. I had been deceived! Somehow, the love I had for my family had been the very thing used to turn me from it!

My stomach lurched as I looked between the impassive faces of my new masters. I was frightened and confused that I could have been tricked so easily; but I was also furious. My hands tightened into white fists and as darkness finally descended upon the mountain, I began to make my plans for escape.

As the hours wore on, a deep disquiet gradually stole through my anger. As old and frail as the men appeared, they passed over the sharp rocks and rubble like youthful dancers. Not once did I see them stumble, nor once slacken their pace. As hard as it was for me to believe, I realised they meant to walk throughout the night without pause. The higher we climbed the further out of reach my home became; if I was to escape them, I was running out of time.

I was close to tears when at last my pleas for rest were heeded. We had reached a shelf of rock high above the valley when the monk with the crooked teeth spun to confront me, scowling through the darkness like a fiend.

‘If you cannot, or will not, continue, you will be carried,’ the man crowed as he walked towards me, his claw-like fingers poised as though to gather up a sack of grain.

I took a step backwards and was about to flee when the other monk raised his hand, halting his companion in his tracks. The crooked smile that had formed upon his lips vanished, and he backed away without another word.

The monk who had introduced himself to my mother as Mendra-Kloven knelt before me and smiled. He told me that his name had once been Kelvin and that I could call him by that name if I so wished.

I did not reply, but instead pointed forlornly back the way we had come, hoping against hope that he would take pity on me. But, with a shake of his head he gave me his answer. My tears came then, flowing freely from my stinging eyes. I felt hollow and exhausted, all of my hope extinguished.

I flinched when Kelvin’s hand alighted upon my shoulder and grudgingly I raised my head. His face was almost as ghastly as his companion’s, but there was at least a measure of sympathy in his sightless eyes. He told me that I would not always feel this way, and that in time I would learn to forget the sorrows that so plagued me.

Despite the grave finality to his words, I begged of him that we at least rest the night within the bounds of my own people. I felt the other monk’s impatience to leave, but Kelvin finally relented. He set a fire to stave off the gathering cold and gave me a pouch of cured fish to eat before I slept.

As lonely and afraid as I was, it wasn’t long before I fell soundly asleep, dreaming still of my escape.

***

When my father was alive, we would often go hunting in the mountains for wild Feld; a cunning creature that only ventured out of hiding in the earliest hours of morning. The most difficult part of the hunt was remaining awake long enough to catch the beast emerging from its lair. My father used to chuckle when he saw my fruitless attempts to remain awake.

‘You need not fight your sleep, boy,’ he said to me one night. ‘Without sleep your fingers will become lazy upon the bow. I shall show you a way of having your sleep without fear of missing the hunt.’

And so it was that before I had closed my eyes upon my new masters, I had drunk an entire skin of water. When I went to sleep, I was confident that my bladder would wake me long before the almighty Yophine rose above the eastern ridge.

My sleep was as deep as the dead, and had it not been for my father’s trick I would never have awoken before day. Even so, it took everything I had to rouse myself in the early hours of that morning. I remember thinking it strange, for I had never struggled to wake when roused in such a fashion; it was almost as though an invisible hand had been holding me down.

Dragging myself up from the ground, I found the two old monks sitting silently at the cliff edge. Their eyes were closed, their bodies as rigid as stone. I knew that they should not be able to sleep sitting like that in the cold, but when I withdrew my blanket and got to my feet, neither stirred a muscle. They were far from the smouldering flames of the fire and wore only their thin robes; perhaps the foolish old men had frozen to death during the night? Hoping this would be the truth of the matter, I quietly took my leave and stole away into the night.

When I was certain I could no longer be heard, I quickly relieved my straining bladder from the side of the cliff and broke into a breathless run back down the mountainside.

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I thought myself very clever in those moments. Despite the strange powers these men possessed to speak inside my mind and to see with eyes that were blind, I was certain at least that neither could run as fast as me. I knew the lower mountain passes as well as any other and would make with all haste to some caves used by our hunters during the winter months. There I would hide for a day or two before emerging like the cunning Feld itself and return to my home!

My heart swelled when I imagined how surprised and happy Mother would be to see me again. I could almost feel the warmth of her arms around me, could almost smell the fragrant scent of her hair. I would keep my promise to her after all…

I had reached the end of a precarious track when I came to a juddering halt, sending loose stones skittering from the cliff. The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention, my labouring heart skipping a beat. There in the shadows, was the dark silhouette of a man sitting across my path.

‘Did you think it would be quite as easy as that, little man?’

The monk with the crooked teeth got to his feet in a movement so fast as to be a blur and lurched towards me. I called out in fear and turned to run, but my footing was poor. My feet slipped on the loose stones and I was pitched from the side of the cliff.

In that instant I believed my life to be over, until his bony hand shot from the darkness and grasped my arm. There was a loud crack like the snapping of a branch and I screamed in pain. I saw my feet dangling into the void, my broken arm held in the terrible grip of the monk leering above me.

I screamed anew, though whether it was from the pain or his fearsome scowl I could not say. But I remember what he said well enough.

‘You have a choice, little man. A simple choice between life and death,’ he said through his permanent grin. ‘You can come with us into the mountains and live like a god, or you can die down there upon the rocks like the worthless bag of bones you are.’

I was more scared than I had ever been in my short life, but I was my father’s son and would not show it. My reply was perhaps foolish under the circumstances, but my anger rose within me like a white flame.

‘Kill me then, you coward!’

The man’s smile widened and I could feel his horrible grip begin to lessen. I felt a crunch deep inside my arm and yelled my pain, but even as I slipped from his grasp, I was grateful that I would never have to see his awful face again.

‘Enough!’

Kelvin’s voice shattered the quiet, wiping the man’s crooked smile from his face.

I felt the reassuring solidity of rock settle back beneath my feet and looked up into the benevolent face of my rescuer. As Kelvin took me into his arms, the cold darkness that lay so heavily upon the mountain rushed in to consume me.

***

When I awoke, Yophine was already high in the east. The wind was strong and cold, tugging the thick animal skins now wrapped tightly around me.

I was being carried, that much I knew. As my body rocked gently from side to side, Kelvin’s yellow robes fluttered around me like molten gold. In a vague sort of way I realised a splint had been tied around my broken arm, binding it tightly to my chest. My arm still throbbed but the pain was now bearable at least.

Disorientated, I let my lazy eyes slip beyond the shifting folds of gold and tried to get some bearing upon my surroundings. It wasn’t long, however, before my childish screams came back to the fore.

In the intervening hours, the mountain had been transformed into a vertical wall of stone. The valley floor loomed far beneath us; the River Pin reduced to a glistening silver thread in a patchwork of fields. But far worse than the height itself was the terrifying ease with which the monks were climbing the sheer rock. They were like the spiders that climbed the walls of our home; a movement both demented and unnatural. This was my first true glimpse into the power the Kloven possessed and it shook me to the core.

Kelvin’s voice descended upon my terrified mind, and like a lullaby calming a fretful child, my fear began to diminish. Needless to say, I did as he instructed and endured the rest of the climb with my eyes tightly shut.

All the while, I dwelt upon the one inviolable truth communicated to me by the climb: as good as I was at scaling the trees of my hometown, I knew that I could never descend such a featureless wall as this.

Whatever happened now, there would be no escaping the cold prison to which I was bound.

***

The day was almost at an end when we finally reached the summit of the long climb. An icy wind bore down upon us as though to sweep us from the mountain, but the old men held fast like iron pegs hammered into rock. The animal skins kept the worst of the chill from me, but even so, I felt the absolute cold of Kelvin’s body beneath me and it made me shiver all the same.

At first, my eyes would not open, for my eyelids had been bound by frost. But when my fingers at last thawed them, I was met by a sight that was beyond my wildest imagination. Another wave of fear stole across me, and were it not for Kelvin’s soothing words I might have screamed anew, for we had climbed to the very edge of the world itself. The clouds were no longer above our heads, but languished far beneath our feet. The world as I knew it had been reduced to a vista of infinite sky and mountains without end.

For another two days I was carried across the tops of the mountains, following snow-covered ridges and precarious ledges no wider than the span of a hand. In all that time, the monks did not stop for rest, did not sleep, did not even partake of food; though Kelvin ensured I was fed and watered. I endured the remainder of the long journey as though suffering through a nightmare, for nothing I witnessed of these old men could possibly be true.

On the morning of the second day, Kelvin’s voice echoed inside my mind. Perhaps he realised how desperate I had become, or perhaps it was another measure of his kindness that he spoke to me at all, but finally he made a concession to the unbearable fate that had been imposed upon me. He told me that if I found my new home to my disliking, I could of my own volition return to my old life.

I thought that he was lying or playing some cruel trick, but somehow I knew that the mind-speak could not be used in such a fashion. I realised that he was telling the truth, as impossible as it was to believe.

‘In truth, we do not forbid any of our initiates their return once they have communed with Yophine,’ Kelvin added. ‘You may find it hard to believe now, but never in the Kloven’s existence has an initiate chosen to leave the brotherhood.

‘In the end, it will be you that chooses to remain.’

I thought Mendra-Kelvin mad to think that I would choose any other life than the one I had waiting for me upon the valley, but I kept my silence.

Secretly, I allowed my heart to swell with newfound hope. If Kelvin kept to his word, I knew that nothing would keep me from returning to the arms of my mother.