Kthaahthikha

X - 2100

The next day I awoke fresh and sprightly, despite a slight stiffness from the unyielding nature of the ground and a number of nsect bites upon my face. I breakfasted on some bread and cheese and set-out again with my bedclothes packed away.

The clouds had begun to gather as I slept, and it looked as though it would be a day of variable weather. I slipped on my jacket as the first droplets came down and made my way through the forest. The game trail, as much as the young man had promised it, was failing to make itself evident, and I began to wonder if they had, unable to dissuade me, simply lied instead.

I was seriously considering this, and wondering if perhaps I should turn back, when I came across a small track leading up between the crests of two hills. This seemed to tally with the description given me by the young man, and so it was that I followed the path, and found it leading slowly up into the mountains.

The way, at first easy, gre gradually rougher. I managed by walking along the actual track, which led by the sensible inclination of animals through the easily sections of terrain. The mountains, that had formerly arched before me, now began to gather slowly around. I looked up and saw on either side the steadily climbing slopes, and I wondered if somewhere amidst that condensation of of peaks there lurked that city to which I hoped, in time, to come.

I never once entirely dismissed the possibility of it. I kept on all through that day, clambering up the slopes, pushing my way through the coniferous forest that swarmed about the bases of the peaks. The trail led onwards, up along the edges of the slopes, and wound its way through a lengthy, mist enshrouded pass.

By now the rain fell freely, and I was shivering enfolded in my oilskin and a shallow hood. The slopes, at first shallow, had become steep, and the trail was leading up along the side of one of the mountains at an incline that a man of my age began to find somewhat taxing. I began to wonder about where I should camp, as night began to come on, for the slopes were growing barer up her save for the bramble and scrub, and were steep enough that I had to wonder if I might slip and fall. Eventually, however, the pathway widened-out, and I lay wrapped in my blankets on the mud with my knapsack as a pillow. There was no fire, and my dinner was cold and unsatisfying.

The morning broke overcast once again, but I was rewarded now with a view of the world covered-over in mist. Sitting upon the slope, shivering with the damp, I felt wedged between a ceiling and floor of clouds. Out along the way I had come I could see open spaces, and in the very distance the lower forests and plains were even visible, but around me now was nothing save for rising masses of grass of trees, as though I were in some cyclopean vaulted chamber that reached into the very heart of the range.

The trail, now, led me downwards and along a connecting ridge to another mountain. From here I descended into the realms of mist and shadow, and stumbled my way along the slopes, precarious and worried that at any moment I might tumble and fall. It would be a fine ay to end, dead at the bottom of a ravine, my name forever marred as one who had eloped to the orient with a few pounds and vanished to never be seen again.

The mist was chill and damp, and from time to time it was worse than a downpour to walk through. Once I put out a foot and found my leg hanging in the yawning void of some gorge, and it was then that I took care and walked with slow, cautious steps.

After some untold time, the path began to rise again. I emerged from the mist to find myself amongst a dense, closely-rising series of mounts, with the cloud-cover still impenetrable overhead. It began to rain again, a faint drizzle, and I headed onwards and upwards through the glens.

That night my sleep was slightly better, for the rains ceased and I managed to find some dry tinder amidst the bushes about a copse of pines. The fire was short-lived but delightful, and it served well-enough to warm my hands and toast a bit of bread and sausage. I slept under the trees, and delighted in the comparative dryness of it.

The next day, around mid-morning, a most horrendous thunderstorm broke.

Lightning lashed the peaks, and rain swept down the slopes, threatening to wash away the level stretches of ground. The sky was now as black a cinders, and the fogs were torn away by the rain to exposes the vast drops into valleys that, though pleasant-seeming, were terrifying when viewed precariously from several miles above. I forced on, and hoped that I might find something son. I had enough food for several days more, and so could continue on a day or tow before I would be forced to turn back. I wound my way ever onwards into the thickening layers of the mountains and ridges, feeling like an ant walking through the petals of a rose.

The wind, cutting through those plunging chasms, howled with a ferocity that hurt my ears. It cut through me like ice as I stumbled along the path, my collar up-turned and hands plunged deep within my pockets. I was eternally grateful for my hood, without which my ears should have been tortured beyond bearing, though it did little real good over-all.

As I came around a bend in the slope on that storm-wracked afternoon, I saw before me a mountain that seemed to stand distinct from all the rest. All about me the peaks shot, higher than the clouds, yet this one rested with its tip just below the enfolding vapours, a flattened top that marked it as unusual - perhaps a volcano long extinct. As I lay eyes upon it I felt certain that it was this peak towards which I was striving, and too see it visible before me amidst all those others was a sight that brought, even in such dismal straights as those, a spark of warmth to my weary heart.

It is unfortunate that, having stated it to be so seemingly close, I cannot say that I reached it upon that same day. Rather, I ws forced to sleep once more exposed to the rain, draped about in my blankets and shivering, desperate for warmth. I felt myself being drawn inwardly to that strange, flat-topped mountain, and I could not help but dispel the feeling for all that I was worth.

It was on that night, as I sat unable to sleep, that I saw a phantom or some such thing make its way along the ridge.

Although I was insomniac, I could not continue for fear of losing my footing, and so I sat waiting patiently for either dawn or sleep. Out in the darkness, rent by the occasional brilliant thunderbolt, I fancied I could see the vague masses of the peaks, against the night sky.

In truth, the atmosphere was impenetrable. I amused myself with wondering where all the animals were, those that had worn this trail upon which I sat. I had occasionally seen traces of spoor along the way, but no sign of any actual living creatures. The only moving thing I had espied had been, on the second day, falcon, gliding on the winds.

But now as I sat I thought I heard a strange note mingled with the rains and thunder. It touched my ear as from afar, and turning I saw in the distance a low spark, some object that moved steadily across the queer mountain's ip, as though it were a watchman on a parapet. I regarded it curiously, wondering if, perhaps, it were some foreshadowing of the things to come. The weather had not entirely blunted my capacity for wonder, and so I looked at that point of light and, as it grew, my awe grew in direct relation.

Through the rains I heard once more those ghostly notes, the quiver of the violin and delicate shimmering of the harp. And mixed with them I heard such instruments as never were crafted by living mortals, and my heart began to grow heavy at the uncompromising beauty of it all.

That point of light grew, or so I thought, but as I watched closely I saw that it fell forth from the mountain and drifted, slowly, languidly along the chasm. It seemed buffeted by the wind, yet it moved with some conscious intelligence, and came slowly up the chasm to pass below that point where I sat. I looked out across the acute slope and watched as that billowing, enshrouded form drifted by beneath me, some thing of pure light cast in the shape of a woman, with hair of a purple almost black that shone still with divine radiance.