The Old Man and the Mountain
On the tips of your ears you feel the fresh bite of cold and inside them the winds whistle muffles all other sound.
Ahead and below you see a distant and solitary figure, lit by the moon’s silvery glow, walking on a long dusty road. In the distance, mountains loom like white capped waves never crashing.
The man walks with an uneven gate, his broad back is to you and he is hunched against the cold. His clothes are grey tatters, thin with wear.
Like a feather caught by the wind, you draw closer as you smoothly waft and tumble about.
Suddenly the man turns, his face is sharp and shadowed. His eyes are dark pools set in white snow, and they peer into the very winds that carried you hence.
His eyes narrow, he suddenly sighs exasperatedly. “I swear, if you’re what I think you are… you better shut it right now and go away!” He bellows angrily. “What business have you hovering over me watching my every move, acting as though I can’t see your face lit up and hovering over me like the moon.”
After a few long moments the man shakes his head and then grumbles. “Just like they say… all they do is stare, more star-struck than the night sky.” He mutters as he glances at you once more. “Oh, bother! Never had one of us talk to you before? Sitting there in your cozy chair, letting imaginary cold sting your ears just so you can stalk me. I… I’ll have you know I am a man who enjoys his pri-vi-cy!”
The man holds your stare for a moment longer, and then with a conciliatory bellow, throws his hands in the air and turns around. “OH COME ALONG THEN, If you must. I don’t blame you I am rather entertaining after all.” The man abruptly stops and with a wry gleam in his eye turns your way again.
“You see these tatters, I’ve, quite literately, been endowed with?” He glances past his shoulder and nods at the unbroken range of snowy cliffs. “And those craggy mountains. Well, for reasons I can’t say, the plot… on my map takes me right into them. Might you speak to someone, and oh I don’t know, have a pass or valley show up. You see, my rags, and those crags… please just a pass through the mountains (4), so I don’t have to climb over them. (6)”
A Most Horrible and Descriptive Death
Suddenly the rope that holds him so tautly, begins to quiver as if from some chill. Each fiber trembles beneath his fingers as they are cut by some dull blade from beyond the fog.
The old man presses his lids together once tightly. Then he opens them, focused on the crisp image of the cliffs wind beaten stone, smooth as a river bottom. Then, all at once, the crisp close view blurs by, the wind seems to blow straight from the ground. Just beneath his sternum he feels the pressure of a budding fear tickling him. He notices with the mild surprise of shock that he doesn’t feel like he’s falling. He turns his face to the wind, the swirling fog is all he can see. He finds the whole experience to be extraordinarily peaceful.
The fog breaks, the ground is just there hurtling toward him and…
The Truth
“The truth you say… well… if you insist. And don’t say I didn’t warn you! The truth is, that, this mountain… you… the rope… myself even… all of it and everything is just a figment of an imagination that exist, somewhere up there. And that imagination, that collection of haphazard choices and musings has birthed this world and its characters using c-h-a-r-a-c-t-e-r-s like bricks and blank spaces like mortar. That is the truth of why I am on this mountain.” All but the misty swirl was silent. The man waited a moment to let the truth of it all sink in. “I know, it’s hard to take in dear… finding out that you are nothing more tha…”
“Bullocks! You really are cracked… you’ve told that true enough at least.”
The man sighed as he peers over his shoulder and up at you with a shrug. “I can’t argue with that. I am crazy, and that is why I am on this mountain. Does that satisfy you at least.”
“I aught to just let go… ”
“NO, WAIT, don’t DROP ME! I am quite sure that I would die a most horrible and descriptive death!” The rope suddenly slips slightly. The man squeaks with more appeals. “WAIT… it, it, IT’S BAD FOR BUSINESS!”
The rope suddenly stops taught. “What do you mean?”
“A mangled dead bag of a body at the base of your mountain lifting operation here, surely would not prompt would-be climbers to trust your rope!”
The woman sighs exasperatedly as the rope starts to pull the old man up once more.
The old man glances eyes of relief at you as he climbs. A few moments more and through the fog he sees the great rope twisting around a pulley. His thin sandaled feet crest the edge of the cliff, he teeters forward and finds himself upright once more, standing next to a great winch. “Helloo?” He calls as he turns about.
Behind him, you see a heavily cloaked figure of a woman creeping with a knotted spruce club raised over her head. She lunges making the scuffing sound of a quick step and brings the knotted thing crashing down with all her frail might.
The old man whorls around, his eyes wide. He sees the blurred visage of something moving very fast toward his face and makes some quick dodgery lest he be pummeled brutally.
Mountain Pass
It was now early morning. The old man had walked through the night. A sun glow fit for a song reaches just over the horizon and glistens over the melting snow drifts. The man staggers with fatigue. Mouth spread wide and tall, he yawns. “I can’t go another step. I’ll faint with fatigue and crack my skull I will.” He slumps against a pineling letting its branches coddle him as his lids slip over his eyes. “I can’t imagine the sort of trouble climbing these wretched reaches would’ve been.” He mutters, drunk with fatigue. “Thank you for not choosing thaT.” Soon, a sleepy smile spreads and a soft snore wheezes past his teeth. The old man is- fast- asleep.
The warm suns glow stretches and strains over the crags and finds the longing branches of the pineling. A prickly pine branch suddenly shutters slightly. Indeed, the branches begin to stretch out as though waking from slumber. It pauses. The little branches begin to search about like little feelers. It prods its little needle fingers and finds a mound of warm flesh leaning against it. The branches freeze.
The wind stirs slightly. The old man wiggles his nose at some irritation and with a huff he scratches and rubs his hand over his face.
The pineling’s branches twitch away from the man and pause once more. Then, a single spiny branch ventures forth. Delicate as a feather falling, the branch descends and stops a mere breadth before the fleshly mound. An intermittent blustery gust blows from the fleshly mound. The needles quiver with delight in the wake of the little gusts. A single needle from the single branch ventures further still and touches the fleshly mound.
The old man giggles bashfully as he snoozes merrily. “How forward of you my little hen.” He hums sonorously with more giggling. His giggly delight stops suddenly. His left eye pops widely open. Then his right. His eyes crossed before him focus upon the branch. They follow it down and down its length to its very end that is presently poking about his lips.
A girlish high-pitched scream echo’s off the valley walls. The fleshly mound suddenly grows two fleshly branches, thrashing about and racking its own fleshly needles about the pineling’s branches. The pineling commits all of it’s formerly timid branches to thwapping the fleshly mound with all the force and fervor of a storm.
The old man jumps up, intimately tangled amongst the possessed tree’s stringers. Gnashing, tumbling, breaking, rumbling, he fights. “Truce, spruce, TRUCE!” He yells breaking his way free of the enraged tree. Hands defensively before him, he pants staring wide-eyed at the tree. “You tricksy tree, you satanic spruce!” Then he whips around facing the sky. “YOU DID THIS! Leave it to a meddling over imaginative imbecile to scare an innocent old man witless. I’m going through this valley, without any more antics. YOU HEAR!” A sinister smile cracks upon his lips. Then softly, “One more antic like trees coming to life and I’ll ruin your story. I’ll be boring!” Looking very triumphant and pleased with himself the old man proceeds to take stock of his surroundings. “Now,” he mutters to himself, “Lets see.”
Ahead just a ways there is a small rickety sign pointing down two paths, naturally. One wooden arrow is blank, pointing down a path that stretches out before him like the ease of restful waking. It stays the course of the valley’s bottom with little winding or change in elevation. A rather pleasant trek it seems to be.
The other arrow however points up a path that winds upward and plunges itself into the gloom of the forest at the root of the mountain. Weathered, but still just legible, it reads: The Emberweald Forest.
A Lie
“Oh alright fine. I’m climbing this mountain because I want to get to the other side. Truly, it is that simple. I want to be here.”
“Why didn’t you just go through the valley?” She, whoever she is, called down.
The old man cranes his neck in your direction giving you a very perturbed look. “Because, I just so love climbing you see. Something about the bitter cold, biting numbness, and continual discomfort is something I quite fancy .” He says whilst maintaining his glare up your nose hairs.
The woman sighs exasperatedly as the rope starts pulling the old man up once more. “It’d be more work to see you back down.”
“Quite right.” He says peering upward.
Through the thinning fog he sees the great rope twisting around a pulley. His thin sandaled feet crest the edge of the cliff, he teeters forward and finds himself upright once more, standing next to a great winch. “Helloo?” He calls as he turns about.
Behind him, you see a heavily cloaked figure of a woman creeping with a knotted spruce club raised over her head. She lunges making the scuffing sound of a quick step and brings the knotted thing crashing down with all her frail might.
The old man whorls around, his eyes wide. He sees the blurred visage of something moving very fast toward his face and makes some quick dodgery lest he be pummeled brutally.
Over the Mountain
“You know,” He says as he cranes his neck peering up the seamless and expansive face of stone. Its full expanse is hidden by a swirl of mist some, twenty lengths of a man, high. “I… I really don’t like you very much for making me climb this mountain.” He turns and looks at your lit up face. “Never considered whether the characters in your story likes its reader or not, have you? Your type never does. Always selfishly focused on deciding if you like the characters.” He stops talking as he grimaces up at you. “The least you could do is trim your nose hairs.” He shakes his head and begins to walk along the cliffs edge as he searches for a spot where his fingers might find purchase.
Searching long and far does not avail him. The cliff is wind huen and altogether smooth. “Why couldn’t we just have a valley?” He mutters as he slumps his back to the stone. He looks up at you with a dark glare and opens his mouth, indeed moments from launching a rant for your ears behalf.
“YOUCH!” A knot of rope thwacks him atop his head. The last knot after a long series of knots going up and up and disappearing entirely into the depths of mist. Rubbing his head, he jumps off his haunches and peers to the source of the chance rope. “Sinister snaggle stitches!” He curses as he rubs his head. “That smart’s you know!” He yells into the swirl of mist. To which no reply is made save for the lonely swirl of damp air.
He takes hold of the rope and tugs. “Feels secure enough, leastways, at this end.” He says doubtfully. Suddenly the rope tugs back prompting a squawk of surprise from the old man. He lets go and the rope lowers once more.
The man glances back at you. “This phantom benefactor intends to pull me up it seems.” He takes hold of the rope, two hands tight this time. Once more the rope tugs back, lifting the man off his feat. “HA” He proclaims with delight as he, ahold of the rope, begins to walk the cliff up.
Before long the man is in the grey clouds about the mountain. The ground has long since, though slowly, vanished and dimmed into the mist that now envelopes him from all directions save for around his feat. Though, even about his feat he must wade through the mist.
A voice suddenly pitches from above. “Ahoy, traveler?” It was the high tenor of a woman.
The man blinks hastily in surprised at the sudden closeness of a voice when so long, despite his appeals, none such voice had greeted him.
“Yes, AHOY, blessed soul!”
“What payment have you, traveler, for my services.” The voice was high and strained.
A sudden worry crossed his face. “I’ve thanks in plenty. All else, should I pay it to you, I’d be as good as dead.”
“Surely you must have something?”
“Not but rags!” He calls up.
“A service then?”
“No special skills that would be useful to you besides which a child might provide.”
“Why is a man so hapless as you venturing up such treacherous mountains?”
The old man glances at you over his shoulder with a more than slightly perturbed look in his eye. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He says.
“You’d be surprised what strange truths I’ve heard and rightly believed. It best not be a lie your life depends on it.”
The Emberweald Wood
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the Emberweald Forest is just beyond…
TO THE EMBERWEALD…
Quick Dodgery
The old man let his legs loosen and back he fell narrowly dodging a wood bludgeon. “Blimey bandit bugger!” He hissed until his eye fell upon his assailant. “Why, you’re just a wee girl?”
Had he time to study her, he would have described her as a fiery little thing, red hair flickering like flames in the wind with big round icebergs for eyes and frosted roses for cheeks.
But he didn’t have time for all that so “crazed little demon” is all the description his mind managed as he rolled left to avoid the second blow and left again to dodge another. “Stop, make her stop!” He yelled. “I implore your good sense lass! I mean no harm.” The next blow swiped past his face and several of the knots caught in his beard yanking it near off his face. “Yeeeeeooow!” He bellowed as his fingers scrabbled for the knotted spruce bludgeon and wrenched it free from the girl demon’s claws. He swiped his legs ’round knocking the little girl to her haunches. Then, slower than he was proud to admit, he scrambled to his feet and yelled. “Freeeze! You LITTLE VARMIT!” The spruce bludgeon still bouncing taught in his beard. “Yah yah ee ew yowch.” He hissed as he ripped it out of his beard.
She froze, eyes wider still, and mouth clenched shut, but for some reason she didn’t run.
The old man pointed the bludgeon at her like a waggling finger scolding. But that was all he did for a spell as he panted quite out of breathe. “Now… you just… one moment… while I… that’s it… thank you.”
Her wide frightened eyes slowly condensed into a rather mocking unimpressed glare. She shifted slightly.
“Tat tat tat! None of that you little witch! Now where are your parents?”
She stared at him and raised her brows defiantly.
“Never mind that… what is your name?” Still she was silent. “Alright, my name is Sean Fhear. Now, I’ve given you my name winch master, you give me yours… Nooo? Fine, I’ll call you winch witch then.”
Her lips scowled slightly. “Agnus… Agnus Peeble. My friend calls me Agny, and my enemies Agony.” She said mustering every bit of menace the high pitch of her voice could.
“Who’s your friend?” the old man’s eyes darted about their surroundings. After a small expanse of windswept stone, a forest of spruce and cedar and pine jutted out of the ground. He couldn’t quite place why, but he had an ominous feeling about those trees, creaking shiftily in the wind. “What’s the name of this place?” He asked, without taking his eyes off the trees.
“This place… this place has no name… it is nameless, because it is a secret place… but that place,” She gives the woods a fond lingering glance, “That is the Emberweald.” She says, her voice dripping with intrigue.
“Is that where your friend is?” The old man says with a gulp.
“No, I am right here. And my name is Tweeg by the way.”
The old man whorls around behind him. But no one is there. The voice was high and small, but very close. Slowly, eyes wide with fear, he turns again. But before he could place his eyes back on the girl… he feels his arm jolt and then he hears a solid thunk. And all goes black.
Fades
The old man has a strange sensation of floating. The reason he feels that way… is because he is floating. Floating is, quite surprisingly, a rather rocky and bumpy ride. You can see why. Because just beneath his floating form, is his body being dragged quite unceremoniously across the forest floor.
The old man opens his eyes and gives a start. He points down at himself. And then looks up at you with a sort of confused outrage upon his face. “Butbutbut, that’s… that’s ME, down there!” He shouts. Then he looks back down. “That wee girl is dragging me like a sack of potatoes… and my face… I look like… a turnip, a bruised and oozing turnip, I am.”
Suddenly he screams and turns toward you once more. Yelling curses and threats he strides toward you very angrily as though he plans to come out here and give you a piece of his fist. He marches in your direction, a sight that is rather amusing because despite all of his vigorous stomping and striding… he goes no where at all. A bit like someone trying to march toward the sky whilst floating in a lake upon their back.
“Bah!” He yells as he gives up and proceeds to watch himself being dragged along. The little demon girl, Agnus what’s it, is trouncing around merrily without a care talking giddily to… who he cannot tell. “Where is that little rotten friend of hers?” He says.
Suddenly a man steps out of the woods and says “What is the meaning of this?” His back is to you but he seems aged and weathered.
“Yes that’s right. What is the meaning of this indeed! I’ll tell you what the meaning of it all is…” Says the old floating man, though no one pays him head except himself. Meanwhile on the ground…
The girl whorls around flinging her fiery locks about her. “Where did you come from?” And when her eyes meet the stranger’s face they bulge with fear. “It’s you… but that’s impossible… you’re… you’re…”
“Yes, it is I! And who are you?” He asks. “Have we met… And who have you got there?”
“Well,” Agnus stutters, “It’s, you see, it’s you, you won’t believe me. And yes… but but no.”
The weathered man takes two creaky steps forward. “This man has been beaten near to death.”
“I’m not dead.” The old man shouts. “I’m merely having a momentary out of body experience. I’m sure I will soon wake up.”
In a sudden blur of motion, Agnus darts past the old man. The man turns to make chase but then thinks better of it. “Bah!” He throws his arms up turns back toward the bruised and beaten body.
“No… chase her! After her! She’s getting away! You IMBECI…” The floating old man suddenly goes silent as the man on the ground, turns slightly, and you see his face. “YOU HAVE MY FACE! IMPOSTER! IMPOSTER!”
Brutal Pummeling
The old man made to dodge, but an old man after all, he was too slow. The knotted spruce knocks him right atop his head making a dull thunk.
He falters and sways, one step back, half a step forward. All he sees is layered with a hazy tinge of black with white ink spots staining his view. There was a woman, with blurry fire blowing on her head. Another far away thunk sounds inside his ears igniting an explosion of little white stars shooting every which way. “That is quite beautiful.” He sluggishly thinks.
He hears a far away fairy voice yelling something. Some kind spritely creature, no doubt. He hears another dull thunk. And another. It must be playing some kind of strange drum, he thinks, more sluggishly still. With each new thunk a new array of colors explodes into existence. He feels a faint sensation of falling through twilight as the fairy voice and bright colors and cadence of drumming all fades into black.
The old man is sprawled out on the ground. Standing over him, there is a small woman, or a tallish girl rather. She strokes her fiery red hair out of her face as she peers down at the old man disapprovingly. “Sorry about all that old man. I can’t very well risk a strangers company without beating him and interrogating him first though can I.”
“No, no you can’t.” Says a small scarce voice of whose source you cannot see.
With hands on her hips and a pitiful sigh she says. “Well, I suppose we better drag him into the Emberweald Wood for questioning before he comes to and wakes up.”
Pleasant Trek
“I warned you. I did, very emphatically.” The old man grumbles very loudly.
The path he walks is flat and smooth, no twists or bumps of any kind. Not even a chance root or jutted stone to trip an unwary walker. The sun is shinning, the brook is bubbling merrily, the trees are dancing, and the birds are chirping.
“THOSE TREES ARE DANCING!” The old man abruptly whorls around waggling his long spindly finger at you. “This IS NOT FUNNY. I WARNED YOU! I’ll be boring the rest of the whole story, I WULL. UNLESS,” His arms snaps taught out to his side and slightly behind as he points that spindly finger toward the trees. “THOSE SPRUCE’S STOP… d- dan… DANCING!” He splutters.
The trees, quite minding their own business, however keep dancing. Nothing too unnatural. Just little wiggles and doobops here and there. Quite harmless.
With a steamy guttural groan of frustration, the old man turns around at once and without another word or sound, stalks dully down the path. He walks. And walks. True to his word. He is being rather boring.
Finally the trees lessen, the mountains on either side turn to hills and before long the hills to mounds and the mounds to flat ground. The valley is long behind, and there are no trees to speak of. The ground is an endless expanse of compacted snow. And the old man treks on. Wordless and alone.
You let him walk on. He begins to diminish in the distance. You feel a pang of regret and remorse at his loneliness, or perhaps your own.
Ahead and below he is but a distant and solitary figure, lit by the moon’s silvery glow, walking on the long dusty road. Beyond him there are more mountains looming like white capped waves never crashing.
His walk is an uneven gate, his broad back is to you as he hunches against the cold. His clothes are grey tatters, thinning with wear. Then, you see his head turn to the side like. The half-hearted strain of his neck as though he wants to turn all the way round, but can’t bring himself to.
Like a feather caught by the wind, you draw closer as you smoothly waft and tumble about.
Suddenly the old man turns all the way round, his face is sharp and shadowed. His eyes are dark pools set in white snow, as they peer into the very winds that carried you hence. A small gleam touches his eye and through his wind swept beard you detect a wry smile.
His eyes narrow, and he suddenly sighs with showy exasperation. “What business have you hovering over me watching my every move, acting as though I can’t see your face lit up and hovering over me like the moon.”
After a few long moments the man shakes his head and then grummbles. “I… I’ll have you know I am a man who enjoys his pri-vi-cy!” The man holds your stare for a moment longer, and then with a conciliatory bellow, throws his hands in the air and turns around. “OH COME ALONG THEN, If you must. I don’t blame you I am rather entertaining after all.” The man abruptly stops and with a wry gleam in his eye turns your way again.
“You see these tatters, I’ve, quite literatly, been endowed with?” He glances past his shoulder and nods at the unbroken range of snowy cliffs. “And those craggy mountains. Well, for reasons I can’t say, the plot… on my map takes me right into them. Might you speak to someone, and oh I don’t know, have a pass or valley show up. You see, my rags, and those crags… please just a pass through the mountains, so I don’t have to climb over them.”
The Emberweald Forest
“Of course… why would I ever doubt your cruelty. If it’s gloomy and treacherous, then that is the way I shall go.” The old man trudges up the mountain slope at a rather prodigious pace. “NO, pleasant strolling for me… not by a whOH-OOF!” He trips over a gnarled root and falls into a bush. “OFF OFF, let GO!” He yells as he scrabbles back to his feet, whilst yelling at the bush with some strange notion it tripped him on purpose. Then he looks up at a pine leaning over him. “You stop that!” He yells as he points up at it.
The tree creaks as it slowly cambers to and fro in the wind. The man glares at all the trees suspiciously, watching them for any lively animated un-treelike movements. He turns quickly to check behind him. He bends to the side to gaze deeper in the gloom of the forest. A smoke like mist clings to the ground, stretching out furling fingers toward the upper reaches of the Ember pines. A few minutes go by before he is satisfied that the trees and bushes haven’t done anything unnatural.
He walks further into the Emberweald being very careful to stay on the trail and watching with owlish eyes.
