Eight
T he imposing cliffs loom so high, their greyness blots out the sun.
Nothing touches this land, save rocks and shadows.
No vegetation. No life. No color. Just harsh stone and jagged edges.
Yet this task is one I don’t fear. The threads binding our hearts led me here, and for the first time, I stare at the danger with confidence.
I can climb and climb well. How many nights did we spend skirting the walls of the temple?
How many hours did he train my fingers to hold the small ledges and crevices?
He prepared me for this quest, gave me the tools to face a peril most never lay eyes upon, and I silently thank him for his training.
My love didn’t send me into the darkness unprepared.
“What’s up there?” I ask the empty air. “What’s on the other side?”
“No one knows,” The Stranger answers in my mind. “No one’s ever crossed the Verdens Kant. It is the end of the realm. The edge of our world.”
“Not even the gods?” I ask. The Verdens Kant is a stretch of uninhabitable mountains and cliffs that mark the boundary of every map known to man.
No one has ever climbed these ridges and survived to discover what lies beyond, but because his pull dragged me here, Valka at least ascended part of the way to hide his bones.
Perhaps the realm of the gods hides behind this natural fortress.
Perhaps I’ll find Hreinasta’s true form waiting for me.
Oh, to see her true self face to face and let her witness what became of her favorite vessel.
I’m scarred and starving. Sunburned and frost kissed.
I’m not the beauty I was when she claimed me.
I am a savage. His savage, and if my fall from grace returns him to me, I’ll accept every blemish and disfigured scar this brutal life offers.
May the Pure One look at what I’ve become with shame.
Shame that it was her selfishness that brought me so marred to her feet.
I would allow her shock to settle before I strangled her, though.
Blasphemous as it may be, I know it in my soul.
If I ever lay eyes upon the true form of Hreinasta, I’ll test just how long the primordial goddess can survive with my fingers around her throat.
“Who’s to say what the gods do and do not know,” The Stranger answers. “Their minds and knowledge are not for us to question.”
I snort at his comment, but his tone is playful as if he only half believes his words. “Is this truly the end of the world?”
“Climb and find out, my child.”
I strain my neck to see where the monotone peaks disappear into the colorless clouds.
To scale this height will take days. Days where my entire survival will rely on what I can carry on my back.
The Verdens Kant is a barren citadel of stone.
No life grows along its harsh ridges. No fresh-water pools in its crevices.
My only hope of water is the rain, but if the heavens open up and weep, I won’t count that as a blessing.
Rain will make the rocks slick and my fingers unsteady.
To quench my thirst means to sacrifice my security, so I must pack enough supplies to last the climb.
If I bring too much, it’ll weigh me down, the razor-sharp peaks offering me no comfortable rest, but if I carry too little, my shriveled bones will join his atop the greyness.
My confidence suddenly vanishes. These heights care little for my skill.
Their intensity will break me the same as all who came before me, hoping to defy the realm’s borders.
“You’ll stay with me?” I ask as I step to the rising cliffs.
“I’m always with you, my child.” His answer is instant.
I’ve lost track of how long it has been since I fled Szent in disgrace.
I think it’s been over a cycle. Maybe longer?
And during these painful days, The Stranger’s been my only companion, my only constant.
If not for his voice, I would have descended into silent madness.
This cloaked and hooded man I’ve barely seen tethers my voice to this earth.
The more of his bones I find, the closer I get to discovering if the Stranger is capable of his promise, and it’s a true testament to my brokenness that I dread our time together ending even if he’s lying. I don’t want him to leave me.
“Always?” I ask because I’m tired. I’m scared. I’m weak.
“You know the answer to that already,” he says, and I pause, my fingers inches away from the sharp stone. “Do not delay, my child. The Verdens Kant is adversary enough. Don’t allow foolish thoughts you know are lies to add to your trials.”
“Can I do this?” I ask as I begin the endless climb no mortal has survived.
“Can you?”
“I have to.”
“Then you will.”
* * *
I climb until my limbs are numb, and then I climb more.
My fingers bleed. My biceps shake. My feet blister, yet I’m barely a fraction of the way up this cliff.
I pause often to breathe and listen, hoping his pull will guide me to his bones.
The pack’s weight cuts mercilessly into my shoulders, my skin red from the straps, but every time I’m tempted to lighten it by drinking, by slipping the dried fruit and nuts into my mouth, I look at how distant the heavens are.
The Verdens Kant is endless. Perhaps this is the edge of the world because the cliffs extend eternally into the sky.
The mountains have no peeks, therefore the fools who dig their fingertips into the crevices die of old age, unable to reach a top that isn’t there.
So far, the weather has blessed me. The sun shines, but not too hot.
The wind blows, but not too harsh. There’s no rain, no threat of storms on the horizon, but night’s fast approaching.
I don’t understand how the sun is already falling from the sky.
This morning feels like only minutes ago.
My journey into the heavens just began, so how can darkness be upon me?
The day slipped carelessly by, the stress on my muscles causing me to lose time, and that worries me.
Perhaps that’s why no one survives the Verdens Kant.
Perhaps the struggle passes so swiftly, the climbers find themselves trapped on the cliffs for cycles on end.
We’re destined to experience days as moments, cycles as hours.
How old will I be when my feet finally kiss the earth again?
Will I be grey and wrinkled? Will I be nothing but falling bones for the wind to scatter?
“Night is fast approaching.” The Stranger’s voice slips inside my mind, and I grunt as a sharp rock slices my already bleeding thumb.
“I have eyes.”
“Then use them to find your rest. You cannot climb in the dark.”
“There’s nothing here but edges and spikes,” I growl. “Unless you wish me to skewer my flesh to sleep, then I must keep climbing.”
“You don’t have time for arguing, my child,” he reprimands. “Cynicism does not become you in this predicament.”
“Then find me somewhere safe.”
“I cannot help you. You know that.”
“Then don’t tell me of the danger I’m in. I’m well aware.” He goes silent, and I instantly regret my callous words. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid. I’m always afraid.”
“I know, my child.” His voice sounds broken. “Do you think I enjoy watching you suffer? I’ve grown attached to you in these dark days. You’re perhaps the only thing my calloused heart can care about.”
“Then why can’t you help me?”
“Because…”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Because that’s the way it must be. You’ll understand in the end.”
“If I survive that long.”
“Sellah.” It’s the first time The Stranger has called me by my name, and instead of echoing in my mind, his voice sounds in my right ear. The surprise jerks my head to where I half expect him to be clinging to the cliff, but the rocks are empty.
I tilt my forehead, wiping the sweat on my sleeve when I see it.
A ledge. It juts out from the mountain, its surface large enough to hold my sleeping form.
It’s a decent distance from where I hang, and it’ll be a race to reach it before the sunset bathes the realm in darkness, but it’s there all the same.
To my right. Where The Stranger’s voice sounded loud and clear.
I smile at his unhelping aid and angle for it. I move as fast as my bleeding fingers allow, but I can’t compete with the sun. She falls and falls and falls, and my limbs shake. I have to reach the ledge before the light fails me. The crevices are too small to find without her guidance.
“Tell me I’ll make it.” I groan, needing to fixate on something other than my seizing muscles.
“Hurry, child.”
“Tell me I’ll make it,” I repeat.
“Only you can know that.”
“Is this why you never show yourself? Because you frustrate me and are worried that I’d slap you for your constant annoyance.”
“I would like to see you try.”
“I would too.” I laugh. The Stranger is taller than my towering Kaid, and though I’ve never seen him without his black cloak, I have no doubt he’s well-muscled. My starving skeleton would be no match for his power.
“But see how your irritation erases your other thoughts?”
He’s right. The more my body experiences aggravation, the less it notices the unbearable desire to let go and fall. “Tell me I’ll make it.”
“You have to,” he says. “I do not wish to carry your splattered limbs from this place.”
“Then order the sun to stop moving.” It’s setting too fast. I’ll never reach it.
“My child, if I held the sun’s fate in my hands, I would.”
I believe him. Deep down, I trust The Stranger would do anything I asked if he could.
I suspect something keeps him from helping me, from protecting me, but the way his voice always caresses the words ‘my child’ makes me feel like that’s what I am to him.
A daughter. It’s sad to admit, but this man I rarely see with the eerie white eyes and the ability to speak into my mind is more my father than the one who birthed me.
“You’re almost there,” he encourages, and he’s right. The ledge is so close I can almost feel its security, but those feelings are hopeless dreams now.
The sun has set. I’m blind and trapped on the sheer side of the Verdens Kant with nothing but my fingers in a crease to hold me above the world.