Chapter 245: Book 2 Chapter 152 - The Third Test

Winds whipped the Mountain as Zoe and Anton climbed higher. The steps continued inexplicably carved into the rock like a pattern in crystal. She ran and Anton followed and she knew they were higher than any mountain on earth. How long had it been since the last test? Since the beginning? It felt like weeks of running through the mist as though it were a dream, but now the mists cleared.

Icy winds cut the obscuring weather away and the peak became visible like a blade of twisted black rock stabbing at the heavens. Clouds expanded out below them in an endless sky of seething pale white.

Their coverage was absolute. No sight of the ground below, no valley, not even the slope of the Mountain they climbed. Only the stairs ahead of them and the waiting peak.

Anton’s eyes zipped out ahead of her and raced up the peak.

“Nothing stopping me,” he said with relief. “I’m glad we’re out of that mist.”

“You think there’s any ground underneath all that grey cover?”

Anton glanced out at the mist as they climbed.

“I wouldn’t bet money on it.”

“Neither would I.”

“What do you think the next test will be?”

“You’re sure there’ll be another one? What am I saying, of course, there’ll be another one.”

“Rule of threes,” Anton grinned. “So far your faith has solved the problems presented to you.”

“Makes sense for the Mountain of Faith.”

“Yeah, it does, so…” Anton’s voice faded. “Do you feel any more enlightened as to what faith is?”

“What do you mean?”

Steps passed underneath them. The wind blew through the crags and whistled like the swing of a burning sword.

“When you spoke about Rue and his Mounatins, it was as though he were unfolding, revealing not just a multiplied power, but also a depth of understanding.”

“He got more powerful,” Zoe said with a curt nod.

She still felt the wounds in her wrists and ankles. Moth’s Mirrored flesh rippled as she pressed against the stumps. A caress, a gesture of caring, but at once a further reminder of loss. Had she grown closer to Moth in their time together? Or did the distance between self and reflection still exist?

Anton said something, but the wind snatched his words from her distracted mind. Only after Moth probed her did she return to the moment.

“What did you say?”

“Hah,” a floating silver eyeball carried his sardonic laugh past her face. “You’ll never change, huh? Always losing yourself to introspection. Even after you’ve taken in all of that essence and turned your heart into a black hole, it's still nothing but hard and rigid metal.”

“I'll throw you off this mountain.”

“Nothing I said was an insult.”

“You sure about that?”

“Boss, this Mountain isn't a physical space. My eyes are moving but I can feel that they're not traveling through dimensions as I understand them.”

Maybe that was why it felt like running through a dream. With her stats, she should be able to clear any mountain effortlessly, but here she was jogging up the side and struggling…

“You think the distance is measured in Faith?”

“I think it's measured in understanding. The tests are bottlenecks, but I think the real test is whether we understand enough to make it to the top of the Mountain.”

“What if we don't understand?”

“Then the stairs continue forever and we don't make it to the top.”

“Hmmmm.”

Zoe gazed up toward the peak and couldn't be sure if it was any closer, or if it was further away

###

Bella’s blade swung through the air and struck shadows harder than steel. Sparks flew up from the Mubilashi’s tendril as mouths opened along the length and snickered.

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[Not long now]

[Not long now]

[Not long now]

“Shut up”!

Bella pivoted as a midnight spear thrust past her head. Her blade came up, runes howling, and severed the insubstantial ichor. Some moments the flesh of the Mubilashi was no stronger than a whisper, other times it was the very concept of impenetrability. Limbs like chainsaws, like the gloved hands of children, like octopus tentacles with eyes for suckers, all lashed and split and grabbed at her as she moved through the field at the base of the supposed Mountain.

Where once grew flowers, now lay a muddy tract. Her blade swept black slashes into the air that the Mubilashi avoided, and the howling caustic winds dried the ground torn up by attacks from both sides. She coudln’t remember the last time she saw a flower still standing.

The crack housing the Mubilashi grew again with a sound like a wine glass hitting concrete.

A black spear thrust from the ground beside her. She jerked away. Too slow. Lightning flashed across her skin an instant before the barbs struck her skin. She appeared beside Sidmark in a flash of ozone.

“Thanks,” Bella said.

The Scottish woman breathed raggedly as she wiped blood from her nose.

“I don’t have many more of those left in me,” she said as the blood trickled once more.

[Not long now]

Bella gripped her blade, but they were on the other side of the field to the crack in the sky. A maze of black slashes in the fabric of space lay between them and the Mubilashi, and the monstrosities were reluctant to approach the directionless portals. No matter how Bella tried, those portals her sword opened up led to nowhere, as though that particular magic couldn’t work in this strange pocket world.

Her eyes grew blue as she relinquished the runeblade’s control for a moment.

Pain wracked her body and she gritted her teeth.

“At least we’re alive,” she said.

“For how much longer?”

[Not long now]

“Shut up!” Bella shouted. “Shut the hell up!”

A midnight shape shot toward her from the crack in the sky. Shaped like a hawk, with too many eyes, and abyssal depths in the molten wings. Bella snarled as her sword swirled through the air. The wind wrapped around her blade and ruptured the shape before it could get any closer. Splattes fell to the ground and hissed like drowning cats as they chewed at the soil. Bella sighed as she rested on the blade.

[Level up! You are now Level 40]

[Please select an element to incorporate:]

* Earth: +4 Vitality

* Midnight: +3 Willpower, + 1 Insight

* Air: +2 Dexterity, +2 Insight

“Another level,” she said with a sigh.

“I’m close as well.”

“Guess that means we’re strong enough to keep fighting.”

Skidmark stretched out her back. Even after all she’d seen, Bella found the cracks coming from that woman’s vertebrae to be horrific. The thought made her chuckle, and then laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Skidmark asked.

“The way you crack your back is so gross.”

Skidmark smirked and cracked her neck loud enough that Bella winced.

“So disgusting,” Bella said as she wiped away a tear. “When do you think Zoe will make it to the top?”

“Not for us to know, aye?”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

[Not long now]

“Oh, stick a cork in it.”

Bella strode forward with her blade loose and ready.

She chose the element Midnight, and the dark slashes in the air wobbled as they broke apart into gossamer strings and slid toward her through the air. They entered her with a shuddering embrace. She stood under the stars of a new moon sky. A lover trailed hair across her skin. Ice melted somewhere in her heart and she gripped the blade as her blue eyes faded with the presence of the runes.

An aura solidified around her. Even those little trickling stat points in Willpower made her feel more real. Is this what Zoe felt? She wondered… and swore to ask her friend when next they met. No matter these horrors clawing at her from the void, she would survive, and she would keep Skidmark alive.

She was stronger now, so she would hold out until Zoe made it back. The Mubilashi dribbled from the crack like heavy smoke, and Bella parried the onslaught of ravenous tendrils. She would trust in her friend. She would have faith.

###

Zoe climbed and Anton followed and the stairs looped in a way that suggested no time and no distance ever occurred. She didn’t look down at her feet as she took the steps two at a time, there was no point. Her dreams would contain steps for the rest of her life, however long that ended up being. At this point, muscle memory climbed for her.

Her Mirrored feet clipped on the stone like glass, and Anton’s softer steps followed her. The only other sound was the cold and whistling wind. She ignored all this and the brilliant saphie sky as she pondered Anton’s question.

What was Faith?

The question itself felt at once too big and too small. Too big and broad to have an answer that would satisfy without being glib. Too small because how could a word pin down such a nebulous concept? Her own planet’s history contained countless wonders and horrors that could all be tracked down to Faith. Every action in her life, when viewed from that lens, came down to Faith: in herself, in her mother, in her society, in her boyfriend, in her friends, in the system.

She understood this.

We need to rely on others, but more than that, we need to believe we can rely on others. That is the foundation of cooperation and cooperation is the foundation of a system. For, at its core, all systems are a collaboration of disparate parts. They are a dance of fragments coming together, or falling apart, but doing so together.

These answers all felt insufficient, and when she glanced up at the Mountain she saw that it was no closer. She wondered if the steps just went around in a circle. What was the point of the Mountain being a mountain if it wasn’t something that could be climbed?

She stopped.

An idea came to her. Stupid. Reckless.

But she had Faith.

“Anton?”

“Yes, Boss?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Silly question to ask right now.”

“Humor me.”

“I trust you with my life.”

She smiled.

“Back at you. Take my hand.”

He gripped her hand without hesitation.

“What happens now?” he asked sarcastically. “We jump off the edge?”

“Yes.”

“You’re serious.”

“This will work.”

“I hope so.”

Zoe chuckled as she gazed out at the sea of white clouds under the bright blue sky.

“I don’t need to hope.”

Her powerful legs uncoiled and catapulted her into the sky. Anton clung to her hand as they hurled out into the air and down into the clouds as they started to fall. With hope, with faith, they fell toward the top of the Mountain.