The Elder's Path (7 page)

"Hey, there," the man called out again, "What are you doing out here dressed like that? You're g
oing to catch your death of cold." He shrugged off one of his many furs and draped it around her shoulders. To her surprise, she let him. She did not realize how much she had been shivering until he put the warm fur around her. As he did so, the creeping feeling of relief burgeoned full-fledged, and she sighed gratefully for the reprieve. A smile cracked wide in his scraggly beard, and he lifted up his goggles. His face was worn, but the lines around his eyes suggested numerous and hearty smiles. "Much better when you're wearing proper covering, no?" He winked at her and Lyn nodded in return.

He looked around them and held up his hand. Licking his finger, he put it to the wind and grumbled to himself. "Storm is dying down now, wind is shifting. Should be ab
le to set up for the night and wait it out. You're welcome to join me if you like. Not often I run across other mountaineers this close to the storm belt." He smiled at her again and started off. Lyn followed him, strangely unworried about potential recourse. Perhaps it was just the cold. Or maybe the loneliness of the mountain had gotten to her more than she knew. Either way, it was nice to have company.

Chapter 5

24
th
day, 9
th
lunar cycle, 700
th
age of Arc

"The mountains are beautiful in their own right, but cold. Very cold. And isolated. The mist that shrouded them from view without do the same to the rest of the world within. The mountains here are contained in a dome of grey, almost like a completely separate world. While I liked the novel idea of snow before, neither Alir nor myself are accustomed to this brisk weather and the preparation it takes to travel at all in it. On a lighter note, I now have a much warmer cloak to wear, thanks to a mountain man I met just last night. I was so cold and lost that I didn't even think twice about following him or accepting his hospitality. I would never have considered myself a 'wild' person by any means, but I've always felt relatively anti-social and self-sufficient. To immediately trust my safety to someone else, someone I don't even know, has this mountain broken me? Am I to be some meager girl who needs saving and is always waiting for someone to happen by to take care of me? I know it's unfair to say things like that, and I know my strength and reliability. I suppose it just scared me how quickly things are changing, chief among them my own self."

Morning
came much too quickly, it seemed. Lyn and her new friend, whose name she had discovered was Thom, had spent the night in a surprisingly effective lean-to Thom had constructed. They had a small fire and furs for warmth, and Thom was kind enough to share his supplies. Lyn had to confess to being curious why Thom was wandering about the mountain, and how he happened to stumble across her. As it turned out, Thom was a member of a group of men who called themselves the Stone Watchers. Their duty, as illustrated by Thom, was to trek the mountains and watch for stragglers such as herself and any other phenomenon outside the norm. The mountains, Thom had said, were indeed a world apart, and they were the oldest known place in Arc. Before the formation of Arc in the age of magic and war, these very same mountains had been home to a great city supposedly formed by wizards. They enchanted the very sky to shroud the mountains from view so as to hide their home and magic, which is why the mist clung so close to the range. Eyes twinkling, Thom had told her that every once in a long while, the people of the mountain heard whispers in the wind in ancient tongues, and saw shadows and wraiths in the snow. Lyn had peered at him skeptically and he chuckled low in his belly.

"Fine, fine, don't believe me," he said, "but you wait, young Lyn, and you'll hear the whispers too."

Despite her disbelief, Lyn found herself wondering at the possibility. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have some experience of the old world to bring back to her people? After all, of the remaining folk in Arc, the Druids were the most closely connected with the old world and the magic therein. Their own great Sage Tree was of the old world, and had been the one to grant them their purpose for as long as her people could remember. To be able to bring such nostalgic knowledge back to the tree would do well by it, Lyn thought. Caught as she was in her thoughts, as was her wont, Lyn did not notice Thom watching her. Mistaking her introspection for nerves, he patted her on the head with a huge gloved hand and assured her that the mountains were safe enough from curses and wraiths.

"It's the ravines you want to look o
ut for as you climb," he said, stroking his beard. "Many a man has been lost to their depths crossing the snowfall." He explained to her how the snow fell so heavily and quickly that it would cover the ground and mask any sign of the crevasses below. If she wasn't careful, a false step could sink her down any such crag and send her spiraling down.

"How will I possibly avoid such deception?" Lyn worriedly asked. Luckily for her, Thom was an experienced adventurer indeed and taught her things to watch for, i
ncluding tricks to testing the snow and ice. He provided her with a long smooth stick with which she could poke the ground before her to make sure there was ground beneath it before she stepped. He also gave her one of his smaller icepicks in anticipation of the slopes she would be making her way up.

"You are very low on the mountain now," Thom warned, "it will be much worse as you ascend. Watch the weather; you can tell when a blizzard is coming by the wind. If you feel a warm, calm wind coming, the storm
is only a few hours out. Soon as you get that calm, finish what you're doing and find shelter. Remember though, as you get higher the storms will be more intense and last longer."

Lyn sighed and looked up towards the peak. Thom chuckled again and said re
assuringly, "Don't worry. The mountains are hard, but there are folk up here who make their way, and they'll help you. Once you get past the storm belt, weather will let up and you'll find some of the people. You're better prepared now, you should be able to make it." He looked sidelong at her and paused. "I'd escort you up, normally, but I have a feeling this is something you are trying to accomplish on your own, no?"

Lyn smiled and looked to Alir, who called out in response. "Not quite alone, Thom."

They said their goodbyes and went their separate ways. Lyn, now more properly equipped for the mountain climate, felt much more at ease about spending time in it. The same could not necessarily be said for Alir, but he tolerated the trek in as good humor as could be expected. As they continued their journey, the weather began to let up.

"Well," Lyn said
conspiratorially to the great bird, "it would seem a storm is coming. Let's find shelter, shall we?"

That evening found them in a small cave, the best shelter
they had been afforded for the days they had been on the mountain. To their great benefit, their ascent had slowly lead them to a more livened area of the range, where wildlife and forestation were becoming gradually more prevalent. That meant food and firewood. Lyn built a small fire near the mouth of the cave to allow the smoke to leave, lending the small cave light and heat. Lyn laid down her coverings and snuggled down, watching the snow outside the cave. This storm was not nearly as violent as the previous, and the cave was set in enough of a recess that the wind did not cut through the opening. Lyn picked at her travel rations and read through the previous entries in her travel log.

"The world has ope
ned up so much, so quickly Alir," she said out loud. Her sudden speech startled Alir from his rest, and he blinked at her with a cocked head. "Just looking back on this short period of time...look at what we've experienced so far. And these have been mild, every day minutia for the people we've run in to. What about when something big happens?  Something out of the ordinary? I just have this, this feeling of something large looming just on the horizon. We've just barely made our way into the Northern Province, we still have so many more places to go."

Sile
nce slowly crept back in to their shelter, broken only by the low sound of the wind outside and the licking of the flames. Lyn pondered for a short time, flipping idly through her journal. Shortly, she decided she was upset. She shut her journal with a quick movement of her hand, drawing Alir's startled attention once more.

"The world is composed of such shades of grey. In the woods things wer
e so simple. So black and white and uncomplicated. But that's not how the rest of the world functions. The
real
world. I've been sequestered away my whole life in a place that is so departed from reality that it feels like a dream. And the worst part is, it's not just me. It's our entire people. I feel...cheated. I love our way of life but it's unrealistic. What have we been missing? The entire world has kept moving forward without us, and we slowly wither away and disappear. We haven't been preserving our ways by keeping apart from the world, we've been slowly dying, and worse, willfully so. I think I finally see, Alir. I think I finally understand why I was chosen, and exactly what I was chosen for. This is about the preservation of everything I've ever known, and reintegration in to the world. Because I think if I don't, no one ever will. I think I am the last hope of my people. And I think I'd better start taking this seriously."

The next
morning, Lyn made quite a show of starting her Druid duties in earnest. Alir, clearly bored, sat through her tirade of their responsibilities, how she had been shirking them before, about how unfair it was for even one more generation to go without the experience of the outside world, and a myriad of other ideas that were spouting from her as quickly as she could think them. Despite the youthful exuberance of the whole scenario, she was indeed in earnest and began immediately to lay out a plan of action.

"Alright, Alir," she began, pacing in front of their small cave, "We have a good shelter here, where the storms aren't so bad. We have fuel for fire and food for the taking. I think w
e should set up camp here and take some time to concentrate. We started to make some real progress with our bond, and I think it deserves exploration. Plus, I don't want to get rusty with my knife skills. Imagine how disappointed Zhiva would be."

Alir ruf
fled his feathers and turned his head to peer at her with one eye. Lyn stared him down and puffed out her chest.

"Listen here, I think this is a good idea, and we don't have to deal with the weather and wind unexposed. It's perfect, no distractions up her
e, and no interference. Who else can really say they took a solitary trip up to the great northern mountains to train and meditate, hmm? It's a great opportunity."

Alir jerked his head once more, and flapped his wings.

"And, look, plenty of game to hone your hunting skills, huh? We're doing this." Lyn decided the matter was settled and set about gathering wood for their fire. Her search led her to a small grove of hardy-looking bushes. Small seed pods were scattered around on the branches, and upon seeing them Lyn recalled Yusef pointing out some of the very same bushes around the base of the mountain. Yusef had taken some of the seed pods and cooked them over the fire later that night; after some time over the open flame, the pod had burst open and the warm seeds inside were shared between the two of them. Joyed at her find, Lyn retrieved some of the pods from the bush to take back to camp. This was a fortuitous find indeed, and further convinced Lyn that she had made a good decision to stay for the time being.

Having found not only wood but also food, Lyn considered her gathering for the day complete and
focused now on the task at hand which was strengthening her bond with Alir. While Alir had previously seemed willing enough to share his space with her, he seemed peeved that she was bothering him with it now. After an hour or two of frustration on both sides, Lyn resigned to the fact that no progress would be made that day. She suspected Alir was sulking at having to sit through her attempts, so to mend his mood she took him out to fly and hunt. By the time darkness found its way to them, Alir had sated his hunger and Lyn had procured more seed pods as well as a small fowl to cook. She quickly learned why avian cuisine was not a regular go to; plucking the feathers off was time consuming! By the time her dinner was finished, it was much too late to write in her journal and she went to bed immediately after eating.

Daybreak came with the tell-tale silence of an oncoming storm. Lyn continued to be
perturbed by the complete stillness, and found herself inadvertently holding her breath along with the silence. Unnerved as she was by the haunting quiet, she was unable to concentrate properly to accomplish anything with Alir, and decided instead upon more gathering and practice with her knife and bow. Alir, bereft of any wind to provide lift and unwilling to work harder than necessary for a fly, sat most of the day preening and generally idling about. When Lyn brought back a satchel full of berries and a rabbit to roast, Alir hopped over to inspect. Taking the hint, Lyn rolled her eyes and tossed her companion the dressings from the rabbit and spent a solid minute or two trying to convince him to try a berry. With no shortage of water, frozen though it was, Lyn had been able to set out bowls and cups to catch the falling snow and then melt it over the fire. Bored with her regular travel rations, she decided to make rabbit stew with some roots and nuts and herbs. As it stewed over the fire, Lyn went through the training regimen Zhiva had taught her. Zhiva hadn't been easy on the training regiment, and after she had completed it, Lyn stretched and smiled in satisfaction. Physical exertion had always made her feel better, and she had to admit the air up in the cold mountains was clean and crisp, making it feel excellent in her tired lungs. Just in time, the wind began to pick up, and Lyn decided to head back to shelter before the snow began to fall in earnest.