It was evening by the time we reached a somewhat decent middle ground. It'd take another day to fully climb the mountain and it was probably going to take a while to cross via the rope bridges Alustur kept telling me about. If one of those bridges were broken or torn, then what? Alustur didn't bother explaining that part.
"You sure this is safe?" I said. A bit of an open space. Wider than the rest of the road.
Ashen rock as far as the eyes could see. With signs of some greenery in between. Pretty mountainside. Pretty from a distance. From in person, it reeked of death. A wild boggy stench hung in the air. It only came when I least expected it, like a mild warning. Yet vanished the moment I took a bigger sniff, as though taunting me.
"Safe enough. Still, it would be wise for at least two of us to keep watch at all times."
"Agreed," Kayla said. "I don't mind keeping the second watch."
"Then I'll also keep the second watch," Arnet said.
"Me and Sol will keep the first watch then," Alustur said.
I had no say in it apparently. Then again, I preferred to sleep till morning so this was fine.
We settled down, made a small fire, and boiled some soup.
"It's getting rather chilly," I said. There was some dew in the air. It wasn't enough to fully engulf our vision but we wouldn't know someone sneaking up on us, until they were fairly close.
"Would get colder. Expect snow by the morning."
I loved snow. No, I loved the idea of snow. The cold though… I hated it now. I absolutely hated cold. Probably more than Shia.
"Hopefully it'll be fine," I tried to stay hopeful.
The warm soup was warm enough.
Both Kayla and Arnet were sleeping peacefully.
It was quiet up here. Some crackling kept me sane otherwise I'd have been thinking about weird things again.
"Why didn't you want to take this route?" I said.
"I already told you."
"But you're capable of handling all that by yourself. So why?"
"I just wanted you to be safe."
Sure. I believed him. Yet, I had a nagging feeling that he wasn't telling me something.
…
Not much happened even after midnight. No lights or footsteps or weird sounds.
Nothing.
No people or fiends. Just a couple of flakes and chilly winds.
Kayla yawned. "Wake up," she woke her brother up too. "You two can rest now."
"I was thinking of letting you sleep a bit longer but thanks," I said, getting in her warm bed.
Ah… finally some damn warmth!
I caught Arnet giving me a mean look and just when I was about to switch over to his bed, he personally insisted I sleep on his sister's one instead. I guess he hated the idea of Alustur sleeping in his sister's bed more than me. Heh.
"Wake us up if you need to," I said.
"Of course," Kayla said. "Probably won't need to." She shrugged.
I believed her.
***
The next morning it was a sea of white with some red patches. No wonder I kept shivering.
But how the hell did I not wake up while they were butchering stuff?
"What the hell even are these?" I wondered.
"Scouts," Kayla said.
"Of what?"
All I saw was a jumbled ball of fleshy mass carefully hidden amidst the snow but the red seeped everywhere.
"You don't need to know." She smiled.
Again, I believed her and kept my thoughts to myself. It was better not to worry about stuff like that.
I was wrong on two fronts.
First, we didn't have to travel all the way to the mountaintop. Instead, we just had to go high enough that the terrain wasn't absurdly windy enough or terrible enough to screw with bridges. And second, the bridges weren't rope bridges.
They were made of plants?
"They regrow," Alustur said.
The vines and weird flowers… reminded me of stuff that I just wanted to forget already. Heck, I nearly burnt it all down!
It took a lot of concentration to not burn them all!
"Why're these things here anyway?" I said.
"I don't know," Alustur confessed. "I've always seen them here. For at least twenty years. They were just like this when my master passed here too."
"You had a master?" Frankly in my mind I was thinking Alustur just popped out like that with a beard and all that yeah, weird.
"Of course. She was one of the kindest women I knew."
"Knew?"
"Dead."
"My condolences."
"No need to worry. She passed away almost a decade ago. Anyway, be careful. I'm sure you can tell but the plants are sentient and will try to eat you in one way or the other. I would suggest we cross fast and help each other to stay sane."
"They don't dump aphrodisiacs on you, right?" I said.
"They do."
"Well then, you'd have to carry me because I might be extra sensitive to that stuff given what I went through on the island."
"What's he talking about?" Kayla wondered.
"Long story," Alustur said.
"And we have a looong day ahead," Kayla said.
So, we walked on the vines or rather they did. Alustur carried me and I recounted some of the stuff I'd seen back at the island.
Alustur wasn't necessarily wrong but this plant wasn't strong enough to illicit any response in me. If anything, it was mildly soothing.
No, no, that's how they get you!
"How'd you even get to that place?" Kayla wondered.
"Through the ocean currents. It was a serpent current or something."
"Wait, wait, the white serpent current? That should have torn you apart!"
"Oh, it did. But I had like four-five elixirs and well… weird. I don't really remember. Just remember hearing a nice voice and going out."
"The spirit of the ocean protected you," Kayla said.
"Or, he got lucky that his elixirs broke and survived," Arnet said.
We'd crossed the bridge.
It was time to scale another mountain.
The roads here were natural and steep and fairly thin. However, it wasn't impossible and as long as we were careful, two people could probably travel shoulder to shoulder here. We still walked in a line though, with me being in the middle.
"Then I finally got off. My friend, the goblin… I think he died back then."
"Well, doesn't sound very nice… but at least you survived."
"Yeah," I managed.
We'd settled down in the middle of the path; another wide area with space to camp. If it was afternoon or evening, we'd have camped here.
"Still, I'm surprised Sirens helped you. They're quite the assholes."
"Yeah," I said, showing her off my blue gem. "But they are also friends."
"I'm actually a bit surprised at you too. What are you?"
"Isn't the usual question- who are you?"
"Yeah I know but really, what are you?"
"Rude."
"You're intelligent. You're calm. You're a literal genius. You're fairly articulate, despite being a child."
"You're just saying the same thing differently."
"And you're… so likeable. Almost like…" Kayla didn't finish.
"Let's go," Alustur said.
"Almost like what?" Yet I pressed on.
"Like a high-"
"Let's GO!" Alustur insisted.
So, we started walking and although I wanted to know, as long as Alustur was around, they probably weren't going to tell me. Meaning I had to figure out a way to separate Kayla from the group and make her spill the beans.
The problem was, how?
When was the last time I heard something like that? High… "Oh do you mean the ability of high-level fiends to mimic human children?" I outspoke.
Mostly to reassure them that it wasn't the case. Both Kayla and Arnet got on the defensive.
Alustur too.
"Come on guys, you're not serious, right?" I said, almost disheartened.
Did they really think I was a fucking monster?
"Get down Sol!"
Huh?
Took a second but I ducked and Alustur sliced hard.
Shing~!
Something blitzed in the air, flailing and splattering its blood and guts everywhere.
Something cylindrical?
Streamlined.
A snake. Or at least I thought it was a snake but rather it was a massive lizard. A massive fucking lizard, probably bigger than Rexen. Heck, Rexen would have looked cute compared to the fucking thing. The scales were pointier and it looked scarier. Dead, but scarier. I wanted to get a better look but it tumbled down the mountain.
"How did you not sense that?" Alustur said.
"I… wasn't paying attention."
"You need more training," he said.
"Yes…" I admitted.
"You're not a fiend, Sol. I'd confirmed that long ago. Don't ever think about it again," Alustur said.
"Right."
Still, the man did have to confirm huh?
I suppose… I didn't have the same amount of trust I thought I did. Regardless, he was right. This wasn't something I had to take seriously. This wasn't the time to be fucking around either. One wrong move and I would have been the one chomped, not the fucking lizard.
What the heck was Rexy doing though? I looked and the darn thing was still in Lala land.
Sigh.
No, I can't blame the child.
This was on me.