Chapter 11: Judgement of Aerth

Miko:

I awake, and even the world does not greet me. Brighter objects reach through my eyelids, but they do not open even at my command. I reach out with my voice, and not even a sound escapes my throat; my sounds trapped underneath my lips. They refuse to part, even at the behest of my screams. Signaling Maleki was like calling the void and hoping for a reply. I did not know the time, nor could I ask for it. The crackling of the fire was not there, so it must be daytime, or we were in a different place. Even when I oversleep, I do not break past the first hour, so hopefully, we are still at the campsite. I know the surroundings near my bag, as it was in my peripheral as I read yesterday. Thankless Nomen cycled my pages for me, and in between my asking, I got a good enough look at where Maleki’s bag previously was. My arms and legs were numb at first, but they moved like anyone else’s, so I crawled like a child, grasping out in front of me in the direction I believed Maleki to be. I could feel the sun on my skin, so it was daytime. Pushing past the ashen campfire, my surroundings were confirmed, and I should only be a few steps from my brother at this point. The softness of his pallet and the depth of his breaths were the final confirmations that I was near Maleki. I was stunned I had woken before him, although I couldn’t imagine how tired he was after yesterday’s assault at the mountain.

The first thing I grabbed was his shoulder, squeezing and shaking him awake. After a few seconds, he jumped forward in a jolt, which immediately released some of my nerves. I could hear his voice but could not respond. If this is my future, and I cannot even speak to my brother, who else will I have? To be robbed of my sight, how much of a stretch is it that I will be without hearing soon? I nodded or shook my head in response before he woke Nomen and cleaned up the campsite.

There was still something bugging me about last night. I couldn’t sleep, so I focused on my breathing as my mother taught me. I overheard Maleki and Nomen talking last night. My illness or curse, whatever you want to call it, is some sort of catastrophic level of bad luck that converged on me. Great! I don’t even have majik; why must I pay for my parent’s debts?

I’m worried about Maleki, though; he isn’t acting normal. I’m usually included in everything he does, and even when his thoughts are trapped in his head, they still feel readable. Now is different; everything feels clouded in his head. Especially now since I am blind. I can’t read his emotions through his face. Then he oversleeps, which is probably nothing, but how long can he keep this up? He plans to climb, pulling me as dead weight the whole way. Who in their right mind would even attempt something like that? That’s like climbing in a full suit of armour.

Maleki:

Thankfully, I didn’t crumble under the weight as I moved my hands onto the first holds. The stones were rigid but solid underneath my palms, allowing me to hang with all our weight until I was ready to leap forward to the next foothold. Miko’s weight was bearable, but I severely underestimated how difficult it would be to maneuver and readjust with him on my back. My fingers were adjusted to my own weight, but I just added a little more than half my own. Stretching my spine to make the beginning positions possible was much more of an issue now since most of his weight was situated right on my back. I needed to be able to move upwards, so a lot of my muscles would need to be activated quicker so that they don’t tire out as fast. With this in mind, I pushed straight from my heels to the bottom ridge under my toes and grabbed the next hold above me. I couldn’t make as big of movements, so improvising would be necessary moving forward. Doing a one-handed grip would only give me a few seconds before I slipped, so two hands at all times would be required, and even that assumes that my feet are comfortable. Either way, I must do this, so thinking about it won’t help. The longer I am up here, the more tired I will become, which risks the whole trip, and if I fall - all my weight is landing on Miko.

I was able to get the first fifteen feet or so fairly easily before my fingers ached and needed a pause. The rock was cracked inward for about four feet, so I grabbed into it and rested my shoulders, and let the blood drain back into my arms. My palms and fingers bore the weight during this, which recharged me long enough to continue. Miko shifted around a few times to stay balanced, but his grip stayed tight throughout the initial ascent. He wouldn’t get any time to rest up here, and eventually, he would burn out his arms if he didn’t rest them. “You alright? If you want to rest your arms, you can hold on with just your legs here. It only gets worse from here on out.” He let his arms go, and his legs tightened to prevent him from slipping out of the makeshift strap. After about thirty seconds, he pulled his weight back up and locked his arms back into place.

This much-needed break gave us the recharge to keep moving upward. Grabbing above me, I climbed one step at a time and placed my feet and hands in the juts of the rocks that elevate up the stone section. My steps were slow and methodical, with each new move forcing my body to carefully contort in a usual manner so as to support both my and Miko’s weight. I was able to climb this slowly until we got to the vertical crack in the rock, and the first position made me rethink the entire plan altogether. We had made it this far on improvised climbing and what little strength I had stored up, but we had now reached a critical spot in the climb. This crack was hard enough to climb with only my body; the only saving grace was that I knew the hand holds and pinches. I scanned to my left and right for a new path that we could make, but it was essentially flat and would offer no real leverage compared to my current predicament. We could downclimb and try to find a different route, but even as I scanned the thirty feet below us, nothing could be seen that didn’t end up as flat walls. It might be more dangerous for me to climb down with Miko’s weight at this height since I don’t have the flexibility to see below me and hold us both up. That left me moving forward as the only available option. Deep breaths.

With my feet horizontal to the fragment of rock in front of me, I leaned forward and collected my weight so that I could dust up my hands. I placed my ankle into the grove and stepped up with the other foot to use the misaligned part of the crack as a foothold. I reached my arm into the crevice and pulled my weight forward, repeating this process several times over until my arm was no longer able to. My fingers, palms, and forearms ached, and my spine felt like it was going to crumble, so If I didn’t find a new position to rest fast, it could mean trouble. This is too much weight to move with, but I was too high up to second guess my actions. I can do that when I either get to the top or hit the bottom.

The outsides of the crevice had occasional blunt teeth that were separated just enough to fit my feet, but that would require me to pull my legs up higher than I could comfortably move. If I could get this spot, it would give me a chance to relocate and recharge, but it was still a long way to move in terms of my relative safety. Waiting any longer would only harm me, so I told Miko to hold on, and I jumped up and grabbed the inside of the rock while stabbing my feet into the blunt teeth in a quick jolt manner. I made it. I could relax for just a breath of fresh thin mountain air, hopefully enough to let me realign. My knuckles felt stone-like in my right hand, my fingers felt warm in the other, and my toes were cold in my thin leather shoes. It cushioned my sole against the jagged rocks on this cliffside, but one or two of my toes felt broken from the impact. The warmness in my left hand drifted away until I noticed two drops of blood slide from my forearm and into my shoulder. The rocky chalk-like substance I had rubbed into my hand fused with blood from a cut I had gained in that maneuver. I had gained the hold, but at a cost. My hands were now caked in a thin layer of crusted blood that sealed the chalk to the bottom of my palm. The longer this dries, the more restricted my hands and fingers will become.

“We have to keep moving, Miko. Rest now for a moment, and then we do the remaining climb.”

He did as before and rested while I leaned into the crack in the mountainside to accommodate his weight shifting, which also allowed me to give my spine and triceps a break. My whole body was sore, and my fingers felt like how Grandpa’s looked. After the break, I kept moving upward at a decent pace. Where I left my bag was only another twenty feet, which gave me a decent boost in energy and confidence. The hardest part was over with. Having only climbed fifty steps or so, Nomen was still visible from this height, but I could only catch a shadowy peripheral glimpse of him sitting down with the angles my neck was capable of at this moment.

Five feet or so crossed by before I noticed a loose spot ahead of us where a smooth stone hung over. In theory, it would be a great place to step, but I didn’t make it in the last route. However, we would have to be creative for this last bit of climbing since I’m carrying a bag of bricks with me. I stepped up with my right foot a foot or two above and leveraged my sole and ankle against the rock so that I could step out to the left another two feet to the smooth section of the stone. I grabbed the handholds that I planned for, but my previously cut fingers and palm slipped through the grip due to the caked-up material that bonded to my hand. My ankle rolled on the smooth surface of the rock in an attempt to hold all the slack of my mistake. Above me, my hand fumbled around to find the hold again; I then tried to swing my legs to the right, side to side, to get my right ankle back up to a higher point, but Miko’s weight weighed me down at the waist, ultimately restricting my movement. In the sheer effort of the fall and holding myself up with one hand, I accidentally clanked heads with Miko, and the pressure built up in my head behind my eyes. I finally caught an inch of a ledge on my right side, and I was now at a forty-five-degree angle between the ridge of the two makeshift ‘juts’ in the cliffside if you even call them that, since they were practically as flat as everything else around me. I shimmied up the side of the rock for another five feet until my head pounded.

A limestone shelf was in front of me, taking up the last five feet. I knocked the shelf with my balled-up fist and listened to its sound, much like testing the branches on a tree by estimating their tension and thickness. It was randomly hollow in certain spots and solid in others. This newly opened shelf was probably broken by a much higher rock hitting this cliff sometime recently. Nonetheless, I climbed forward by bludgeoning the bridge of my toes against the flat, jagged lime shelf instead of using the soles of my feet out of fear of burdening them and slipping again. I stepped out to the left onto a growth of rock that stuck out and then found a pile of the shelf above my right foot to step onto. My hands braced another part of the shelf above me, but I needed to bring my elbows flat above my shoulders for the next move to leverage our weight and climb to the flat section where my bag was. I brought my right foot onto the shelf and bore my weight down onto it to prepare for the next lurch upwards, where I would flatten my elbow onto the limestone shelf at my eye level, push off of it, and then grab the final edge of the cliff. However, as soon as I pushed with all my weight down on it, the shelf I was standing on cracked like a lightning bolt, bringing with it a large piece of the part I had just climbed below. The crack rippled through the rock until it was unlatched from the side and started to tumble down towards Nomen. I didn’t have time to think about that, and simultaneously started the jump and slammed my elbow and forearm against the white yellowy stone. My forearm scraped and cut against the sharpened by time ridges of the lime, and my chin slammed against the flat section I was held against. Thankfully, Miko couldn’t scream or talk as I did all this; it would fill me with more anxiety than I already have. I just pretended to be a courier with a cumbersome set of valuables and that there wasn’t a human being strapped to my back weighing me down, falling distance above a cliff. Warmer air emptied off the edge of where I was climbing to, which gave me a newfound strength to finish what I had started.

Through the wear and tear, I mustered enough strength in my triceps and shoulders to pull us both up until my waist was parallel with the edge of our new slope. Flattening my chest against the smoother stone and breathing like a dying animal, I crawled forward until my legs were no longer hanging. Miko could feel the rock and knew we were no longer hanging for dear life, and then released the makeshift harness until he, too, rolled off tiredly. Whatever was left in my body was used to crawl back toward the edge so that I could check on Nomen.

The throbbing headache from knocking my head and chin against the rock compounded in my eyes, and I could barely make out the shape of his body. It took a few seconds, but he was there with Miko’s bag next to him. “You alright?” I barely managed to speak out in a scratchy half-yell.

“Yes, however, that stone looks to have damaged your wagon.”

I sighed. He was right…The stone crushed the wagon into leftover wood pieces, taking the rest further down the mountainside. I didn’t have the strength to climb down and up again as I had predicted; we would have to make do. “What will you do, Nomen? I’m not sure the route is claimable now.”

“I will find a new route further down. Please retire yourselves until I arrive as you assuredly require it after such a feat. Worry not about the bag. I will bring it with me.”

“Good luck, Nomen,” I yelled, although he could not have heard his name as my voice gave out before the word could be made.

My breaths shortened, but we couldn’t rest here. I didn’t have everything to make camp, so we both hobbled to a piece of the mountain covered from the cold air and slumped up against my bag-turned-pillow. I looked at the damage I took from the climb, and through the scratches and scuffs that covered the outside of my limbs, it was inside me that hurt that worst. I looked down at my palms, one covered in chalky blood and the other painted white, with the top layer of my skin peeling in certain sections where I gripped tightly. My fingers were stuck in a permanent half-open half, half-closed position. I moved off my bag so that my spine and neck could be flat against the rock and felt relieved for just a moment before the soaring spiking pain returned in my bones and joints.

The sun was up while I was asleep, but this time I awoke again without my own volition. Nomen had made the ascent somewhere further down and caught up with us after a couple of hours based on the darkness of the night sky.

“We must stay vigilant and keep advancing.”

He didn’t look depleted for someone who just climbed, but I guess the only comparison is me, who just climbed at an extreme disadvantage. Maybe this is normal, especially for a kid our age who has done this before. “You brought his bag?” I asked. Nomen unlatched another section of his pack, and Miko’s bag fell onto the ground. “Thank you so much. We owe you.”

“Be more careful and plan for failure. This is the only time I will assist you moving forward. I am to remain impartial to your journey and am simply a guide to the general path. There is no pride in your success or failure, but please be more considerate of all your belongings and their vicinity to falling objects.”

“Of course, thank you! Apologies, Nomen.” Damn, I had forgotten about the wagon. I gripped my face with my palm to hide my suffering. Miko would now have to be moving on my back when he can’t walk. Assuming his sickness returns to the usual cycle, otherwise, I’m carrying him the whole way.

“Do we need to leave now?”

“We cannot rest here. Rocks slide from up on high and will crush us like your now departed wagon should we stay.”

“Ah, I will move Miko and the bags then.” I threw both bags over my shoulders and looped in Grandpa’s scythe he gave me, then picked up Miko into my arms while he was fast asleep. We walked until my arms gave out. No longer physically able to move forward with this weight, I sat on my knees, resting Miko down on the ground.

“This will do for now. We move at nightfall through this part of the mountain. It is safer.”

I needed the sleep and didn’t complain, but I was still worried about Miko’s condition. After this, we have to keep moving, no matter the terrain or conditions.

The sun was an hour away from rising after Nomen’s declaration to make camp. That meant I could sleep for about six hours before the sun completely set again. I wish there was more sun in the day so we could travel faster. It’s inconvenient, especially with farm life, since you only have so long to do your chores and work in the field. I wonder what it’s like on the other planets that you can see past the moon out near the sun. Is it colder there or warmer? How long are the days or the seasons? I’ve only seen two seasons since I was born near the end of winter. We are nearing the end of summer now, so I wonder what autumn will be like. Mum described it with rich browns and vibrant reds that resembled her hair. She always said that green was meant for spring and that my eyes, being as green as they are, were a sign of the growth that comes with the new season. I don’t remember winter, but I do miss the elegant greens before they ended around my seventh birthday. I hope one day I can enjoy them again, but I will be twenty-six before the first blossoms of spring sneak through the end of the cold winds.

Awaking naturally, my eyes peeked open to a beautiful look at the moon Titan sitting above the astral ring. No craters or visible spots could shape visible outlines from this distance, and instead, it was a vibrant bluish-green with hints of white spouted in between. Waking up to this view invigorated me even further and added to the fact that I felt much better after resting. Now it was time to wake up Miko and roll the dice to see what kind of situation we would be in.

“Brother, wake up.” I ruffled him by the shoulders as usual. His eyes flicked open as if he had not been asleep but was instead refusing to acknowledge that he was awake in hopes he could sleep longer.

He sighed, “No hearing and no arms. I’ll walk.”

This confirms that he is getting worse; I’m presuming his senses will alternatively cycle out as well. Stay strong, Miko. We strapped on his bag while I thought about what could lie ahead. Nomen wasn’t wrong about needing to be prepared. Distractions had faded my usual capabilities of mental preparation, but that won’t happen again.

Miko, Nomen, and I pushed onward through the mountain. Our path forward was between two cliffs that contained fallen rocks that would block one side of the path so that we would have to scoot to the side occasionally. Small stones that shone colorfully with the moons’ shine peaked out over the top of the sides of the ravine-like eyes watching us. My scythe was used to poke out in front of us until our eyes adjusted after about fifteen minutes of fumbling around and bumping into things. We walked for hours on end till even the ravine curved above us, and only rays of light would shoot through the cracks so that our surroundings were visible. My eyes barely caught it in the darkness, but a shape pushed slowly through a beam of light ahead of us. It could be an animal or my eyes betraying me, but I couldn’t take the chance. I brought my scythe horizontally to shoulder height, which Miko ran into as his walking pace caught up to mine. “How many hours have we been walking?” I asked aloud.

Miko didn’t respond, which confused me until I remembered he couldn’t hear me.

Nomen answered assuredly, “Five hours and thirty-nine minutes.”

“You said it was safer during the day, but it’s dawn now. Anything you’re not telling me.”

“There is nothing to be said for certain; these hills hold many beasts, but they sleep as we do.”

“Anything dangerous?” I prodded with an annoyed tone.

“All of them.”

I smiled through the pain. “Yes, of course they are.”

Nomen looked over to me, a smile cracking back at me. “Remember, there is power in expectations.”

“I’ll have to remember that when I’m being devoured by whatever calls this ravine home.” There’s no turning back at this point, so we will have to move forward. I can’t see very well ahead of me, but as the sun peers overhead in place of the moon, the light will brighten our path through the cracks and seams of our rocky ceiling. We pushed forward with a clanking sound traveling to our ears as a distant echo. Our walk was uneventful for what seemed like an hour of slowly pushing ahead, foot by foot, each of us on our toes, ready to act. This only slowed our pace and kept our minds racing since we were anticipating an action that had yet to appear. A gentle hum could be heard ahead of us that turned into a crackle as we kept moving closer to it. An orange flicker of light filled the end of the ravine, and from here looked like a dead end. As we inched closer to it, our heads on swivels, the flickering light, and crackling noise were peering from openings that led deeper into the hull of the mountain. It would seem we were only in the outer layer of the mountain right now, walking in the ruptures of its colliding scaly skin. If we wanted to progress further into this journey, the internal caves of this mountain would be our next home.