Venalse and Doryid found them late the next day. Both were tired but unharmed, and they did have a bag of miscellaneous coins, a dagger and a round metal object. This last gave out the sounds of battle if thrown, and the wife had tried at the last to scare them away with it. It had not worked – she was dead. The party spread the haul out on a blanket and looked at it. Grymwer cast a spell and confirmed that the dagger was an Item as was, to no-one’s surprise, the decoy bomb.
“Each carry a share of the money, I suppose,” said Aitonala. “Where did these come from?” She pointed at the two badges Chrys had found. She picked them up and looked closely as Chrys explained. Her face grew sombre over the short tale.
“They are the badges of the Guardians, a sister order of ours. We mostly protect women, they hunt those who harm them. They will want to know of these deaths.” With that she tucked the badges away.
There was no discussion on whether to go on or not, just discussion of what they knew about the route and the best way to tackle another underman clan. Venalse calculated that if they headed due east, towards Mt Zroón, they would strike the North Trail again not far from the ford Ekke had described. They set off next morning, shouldering packs to hike up the valley towards the eastern ridge. As they went Chrys chatted with Aitonala about the experience of being spirit-possessed.
“Strange. Uncomfortable. You are a passenger in your own head, able to see and hear and feel, but not to act. It’s as if your thoughts were paintings, held up for someone else to view. I could sense the flow of the spirit’s thoughts, like listening to chatter from another room. It spent a lot of time just feeling whatever was happening in its Place – the creatures in the ground, the insects under the bark, the sap in the trees. It would nudge things a bit, into shapes that pleased it more, but I could not make sense of why, just feel the pleasure. Sometimes it was pleased when a tree-squid ate some nestlings, or bark-beetles burrowed into a tree.” She shrugged. “It didn’t like your mentions of sea or fire, though. They made it shudder. I’m not sure about how serious it was about seeing the world. It was curious, but so attached to, so much a part of, its Place.”
“I only did part of one term on spirits, and that was early on. I did remember that wood-spirits are opposed to fire and sea, and usually lose interest in possession after a short while. Some of the others are much harder to dislodge.”
“Well, any time some place looks anything like it might have a spirit, I’m dabbing the repellent on anywhere one might get in.”
It took two more days of walking to reach the North Trail at a point not far from where it descended into a deep gorge to the ford. Chrys contemplated the thin thread of river far below and thought that grand scenery was over-rated, the more so when one was on foot. She thought of the climb on the other side and sighed. Kosohona glanced over, interpreted her expression accurately and grinned.
The next day was, as Kosohona told her it would be, murder on the knees. Endless downhill, following a path that switch-backed across the face of a slope that was not quite a cliff. At least, thought Chrys, if you fell you would roll rather than bounce. You would, though, roll quite a long way. Hitting rocks along the way. Why, she thought for the hundredth time, am I not on a horse?
At last they came to the final stretch, a descent down a broad gully to a shingle bank above the ford. Chrys straightened up and looked around. Here, at the bottom of the gorge, the light was shadowed and diffuse, coloured by the red rock walls that rose high from the water. From somewhere close upstream came the sound of water falling vigorously over rocks but here the river flowed calmly enough. A small island rose above the current halfway across, covered with thin brush. Her eye travelled across to the opposite shore, where she noted with a sigh the trail climbing as steeply as it had descended.
“What do you make of this notice?” Venalse called. She turned around, to find the others examining a small cliff just above the shingle. She picked her way over to see that a portion had been smoothed and lines of text incised. There in – her eye ran down – Haghakin, Sakai, Dzai, something unknown – were the words “The eels like meat”.
“Well, the underman did say it was the eel ford. Most eels like meat; that’s how you catch them.”
“I don’t think this is a fishing manual,” observed Doryid. “Anyway, do we have any meat? We ate the last of the sausage three days ago.”
“I still have some jerky,” Grymwer said, and rummaged in his pack for the packet.
Chrys pulled out the Camp Cooker. “I saw some holes just off to the side up there,” and she trotted back up the trail. There were the holes, a neat row along a ledge in a side gully. She set the Cooker to dice, medium done, added a pinch of spice and set it to the nearest hole. What, she wondered, made that high-pitched noise? Not a rabbit. Perhaps something like a weasel?
A small shocked face appeared at the next hole. “You killed grannie,” it accused. Its eye fell on the diced meat emerging from the Cooker. “And you cooked grannie!”
“What does she taste like?” inquired another voice from within the burrow.
“Better than sis, is my guess,” said another voice. This was followed by some thumping and yelling.
The face emerged enough to point an arm. “You,” it pronounced, “have killed and cooked our beloved grandmother! Worse, you would eat her! Deny her a grave! Is our granny to be no more than a pile of poop somewhere? Our beloved grannie! Prepare to be cursed!”
“Yes, yes,” came a chorus from the burrows. “Curse her! Curse her with one bear ear and one pig ear, a fish face and a stoat’s leg.” “Left leg, of course,” added a voice. “Right leg should be a lizard’s.”
“Nah,” another voice contradicted. “Got to be the other way round. Else she’d turn sun-wise, which is good luck.”
“Well, if you're goin’ to curse her with bad luck, then that would be separate. Like, one curse for the killin’ and another for the cookin’ and another for the eatin’, an that’s all.”
The second voice disagreed, and the argument receded into the dark.
“Oh, but I didn’t know”, Chrys exclaimed. She just stopped herself from saying that she had thought grannie was a weasel. “I really didn’t know. It was a dreadful accident, and of course I am prepared to offer compensation. Reasonable compensation,” she added, mindful of Aitonala’s sojourn with the wood-spirit. “I know money cannot possibly compensate for the loss of a grandmother, but perhaps some sum of silver would atone in small part?”
“Silver?” Small faces popped up in the other holes along the bank. “If there’s silver goin’, then I should get two bits, ‘cause I loved Grannie most!” claimed one.
“No you didn’t. Who put the turtle in her bed? And plaited her hair into her quilt? She would have wanted me to have two bits, ‘cause I was her favourite nephew.”
“No you weren’t, ‘cause she hated men. I remember when she said all men were only good for one thing, and Brill wasn’t even good for that.”
“Enough!” shouted the first speaker. “I’m head here, so I say what we gets.” It turned to Chrys. “Just how much silver are we talkin’ about here? I wouldn’t take less than..” it turned, counted faces at burrows, frowned, added some more on fingers, frowned again, muttered names, lost count, started again, demanded quiet, scratched lines in the dirt, frowned some more, looked around blankly.
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Chrys made a guess based on the lines and fingers. “Would twelve silver pieces be a suitable sum?”
“Twelve, twelve..that would be how many lots?”
“One for each finger and two more.”
There was muttering among the audience. “That’s two lots.” “Lots and lots.” “Shame Pils’ granny died last winter. The big person could cook her and we’d get lots and lots and lots.” “Maybe we could dig her up.” “Nah, fox already did that.”
The small face took on a calculating look. “Grannie’s worth more. Not less than two lots and two.”
“Certainly.” Chrys dug into her pouch and counted out fourteen silver pieces, to awed whispers. “And with these, my profound apologies and regrets. Urr, what shall I do with..” she gestured at the small pile of meat cubes. This was ignored as a vicious squabble broke out around the silver. Pieces were snatched, disappeared underground, tussled over. After a short while, Chrys gathered up the Cooker and plate and returned to the party. When Rakt asked what all the noise was about she shrugged. “I killed a grandmother, but they were happy to accept a small payment in compensation.”
* * * *
Pieces of grandmother on a line failed to lure eels, so Rakt stripped to his drawers and waded into the river. Cautiously, watchful - so far as the murky water allowed - for ravenous eels, with a rope around his waist. It was Aitonala who noticed the eels, not in the water but emerging from holes in the cliffs opposite to swim through the air. They were as long as a person, a translucent green, sinuous, and they sang. As they sang the water rose. For a time Rakt struggled on, keeping on his feet as best as he could, but the water kept rising. Finally he gave up, grasped the rope and allowed the party to haul him in.
While Rakt stood there dripping the party watched the eels glide back to their holes and the waters slowly subside.
“Well, that tells us why the ford has the name,” said Doryid. “What now?”
“We throw granny to the eels, of course,” answered Chrys.
A short trial by Rakt proved that meat did appease the eels. Packs and weapons were tied into bundles that could be carried on shoulders or heads, clothes added and all crossed together, Rakt throwing pieces of meat in high arcs as they went. The eels came forth, darted for the meat and fell silent as they were fed. On the far shore, Chrys, Aitonala, Venalse and Rakt sat around drying off with the ease of those used to communal bathing, Chrys sharing her exchange with the hole-dwellers. Nobody knew what creatures they were and, in the end, there was a joint “well, this is the Wild”. Grymwer, Kosohona and Doryid vanished behind rocks to change their wet underclothes and dress, not emerging until all were ready. Then it was time to move on.
The climb up from the gorge was indeed steep. For Chrys, it was made more uncomfortable by frequent stretches where the path hung over a sheer drop. The path was not narrow, but she walked with her right shoulder brushing the cliff. She followed the pack in front of her, stoically putting one foot in front of another, and almost bumped her nose when the file came to a halt. She peered around a shoulder, but could not make out what was happening ahead. She waited and in a minute or two the word came back that the stop was due to a conversation with some dwarves. In another minute the walk resumed. There, around the curve, two short bearded figures were lifting a piece of masonry, adding to a wall that edged the path. They nodded curtly as she passed, intent on bedding the stone square in its mortar. It was not until they paused for a breather some way further up that Venalse was able to add details.
“They just said they were doing maintenance. I asked about other travellers, and they said they’d not seen anyone in a week.”
“Maintenance? Out here?” asked Doryid sceptically. “Just the two of them. I know dwarves are tough, but that does not ring right.”
“They had done some work in that fissure above the trail,” put in Rakt. “I could just see some stonework. I didn’t see any way up, though.”
“So they had a secret dwarf-door,” shrugged Venalse. “No point in speculating, so let’s keep moving.”
* * * *
They first sighted the magic mountain nearly a day before they reached it. It was Rakt who pointed out a steady dim red glow to the west, too late and too north to be the last sun. It stayed the same watch after watch, until finally drowned out by the rising sun. Mid way through the next day, a turn in the path brought into view a sharp peak, still some way off, whose side showed that same dim red. Through the afternoon it appeared and disappeared as the path twisted until a last turn around a hill brought the mountainside into clear, close view. Lines of red glyphs scrolled endlessly down a sheer face left by some past collapse, each line distinct even from a half-hour’s walk away. They stood and watched for a time, then walked on to where they stood under the cliff, heads tilted back.
“What does it say?” asked Venalse.
“The writing is Dzai, the script we write spells in. It’s not a spell, though. Someone has given the mountain voice,” Chrys told him. “I’ll read it as it scrolls down:
DOOM
DOOM
DOOMED
DOOMED BY DAY AND NIGHT
TORTURED BY WATER
TORTURED BY FIRE
TORN BY BEASTS
TORN BY BIRDS
TORN BY ROOT AND BRANCH
THE VERY INSECTS TRAMPLE ALL
PIERCED
CUT
RASPED
WITHOUT CEASE
WITHOUT REST
CRIES SHALL NOT BE HEARD
THERE WILL BE NO SOLACE
WOE
DOOM
DOOM
GROUND ASUNDER
DRAWN INTO THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH
BURNT IN THE FIERY DEPTHS
BORN AGAIN
AGONY WITHOUT END
DOOM
DOOM
DOOM
ALL SHALL SHARE MY FATE
NONE SHALL ESCAPE
DOOM
DOOM
DOOM
and now it’s started again, with some variations.”
“That is one depressed mountain,” said Rakt. They watched the slow march of words down the rock for some time, then walked on. After a while, Doryid mused “What if all mountains feel like that, and hills too? They must really hate dwarves.”
That night the talk returned to the mountain. “Who,” Kosohona asked “might have made it?’
“Might not be a ‘who’,” Grymwer argued. “Could be that some quirk or curdle in the ether came out as a mountain expressing its aches and pains. A peevish mountain, because I don’t see why some mountains can’t be happy. Qiam Shan, perhaps, where the dragons dance.”
“Could also be an earth-spirit,” added Chrys. “From what I recall, they are moody, malicious, usually gloomy. It might be one giving vent, or trapped, or tormenting the mountain and broadcasting its cries. Although earth-spirit antics are mostly tinged with sex, often of the kinky sort.”
“Or it might be,” put in Doryid “that a magician did it. From what you said back in Dtlag, most of the ones out here are powerful and more than half crazy.”
Chrys watched as they tossed the subject back and forth. She had come to know them well. Cheerful, insouciant Rakt, sometimes grumpy but clever Grymwer, practical Kosohona, dependable Venalse, imaginative Doryid, creative Aitonala. They had all survived, so far, just over twenty days in the Wild. She wondered how they would cope if one or more died, then shook her head at her own negativity. Clearly, the mountain’s mood was infectious.