Authors: Maria Violante
"Alsvior," she said, the register of her voice nearing awe, "it's a giant statue of a snake."
She imagined the sculptor that could work on such a scale.
Was it God?
Who else could have carved the long, sinewy body that coiled around the rock, all of the way to the top?
She traced the statue with her eyes, from the tip of the tail to the square head that rested on the mountain peak.
Every scale was beautifully, painstakingly rendered, from the rattle to the great stone eyes.
Her gaze froze on the eyes, somehow bound.
Suddenly, she was
running,
flying towards it with the eagerness of a hunter giving chase.
Before Alsvior could react, she leapt.
"No!"
She was midair before she heard him yell.
Seconds later, there came a deep rumbling, a cavernous rattle that seemed to emanate from under the ground.
Avalanche
, she thought, and she pivoted in midair.
She landed neatly, facing Alsvior, and quickly streaked toward him.
Something in the round cast of his eyes made her stop, her heart beating wildly.
She looked over her shoulder, following his gaze, and her mouth fell open.
The great stone eyes that had drawn her before, they were no longer the dull grey of the mountain.
Instead, they glinted like glass, a flame of intelligence visible in their black depths.
She backed up,
Bluot
drawn, but when she stood shoulder to shoulder with Alsvior, he shook his head.
"Put that away," he said.
"Your gun does not work on those without blood or a soul.
A bullet fired would mean death for one of us."
Reluctantly, she holstered it and turned her attention back to the mountain.
Like eyelids, two great gray sheets of stone slid down and covered the eyes, before shooting back up again.
"Alsvior," she exclaimed, "it …
blinked
!"
With a great crack, the angular head of the snake
tore
away from the mountain, showering them with a hailstorm of dust and rubble.
It opened its mouth and hissed, the sibilant warning echoing off of the trees and sending shivers down her spine.
The muscles of its neck bulged, and the movement rolled smoothly down its body, freeing it from its rocky bonds.
De la Roca watched all of it, dumbstruck, but she was still surprised by what happened next.
The snake's coils squeezed and turned around the mountain like giant gears.
It opened its jaws, revealing rows of fearsome teeth, and then the mandibles snapped shut with a deafening boom.
She clapped her hands over her ears as it raised its tail to reveal the rattle, a monstrous stack of rings larger and longer than the two of them laid end-to-end.
And then, it shook its tail, and the air roared with the sound of a thousand boulders crashing into an abyss.
"This might be harder than I thought."
#
Surprised by the cool tone of her voice, Alsvior glanced over and noted that her mouth was drawn in a grim line.
Does she know fear?
Perhaps she has a soul after all.
He shook his head slightly, as if waking himself.
"In case you are wondering," he said, his voice hollow, "this fortress has only one door.
It's on the inside, and it leads … somewhere that we do not want to go."
"So how do we get in?"
"We have to make it to the top."
FIFTEEN
T
he enormous snake stared at them relentlessly, occasionally winding its coils around its mountain perch and squeezing until another avalanche rained down upon them.
"Are you with me, Alsvior?"
He raised his dark eyes to hers, and for a moment, she caught a glint of -
what was it?
Weariness?
Regret?
Before she could identify it, it was gone, and his eyes were once again bland and hollow.
"Of course.
When have I not been?"
His voice was quiet, a question more to himself than to her, and she wished that he was still Alsvior, her trusted steed.
Alsvior the Horse had been reckless, fearless, and proud - a gifted fighter and her greatest companion.
Alsvior the Man was sullen, quiet, and tiring.
She looked up at the mountain's peak, estimating its distance from her spot on the ground.
The snake met her gaze, and the slow crashing of its rattle quickened into a frenzied roar.
Come
, it challenged.
Her hands again slid to her sides, before she remembered that the guns would be of no use;
the creature had no soul and a stone hide.
Now or never.
Without looking behind to see if Alsvior followed, she repeated her run to the mountain's base, the joy of the hunt building again in her heart as she picked up speed.
Once, she had thought that the killing lust was brought on by
Bluot
.
She knew now that it was also hers, that the act of murder suited her and marked her as surely and as exquisitely as the barrel of a gun marked its bullet.
As she ran, she analyzed the surface of the mountain and calculated the best path.
Much of it was composed of sheer rock formations thirty, forty feet high, impassible even for a demon like herself.
Then, her keen eyes spotted two lines that sloped more gently, winding curves that reflected less light, suggesting a softer texture.
Perfect,
she thought.
Streambeds.
The snake watched her approach, rattle - shaking.
As soon as her feet connected with the base of the mountain, it writhed wildly, as if possessed.
Avalanches of stone and rubble pelted her from the mountainside, and the ground shook with the waves of an ocean.
She climbed, the sandy bank of the streambed giving way under her feet.
She risked a glance over her shoulder; Alsvior was following at five paces behind, his mouth tight and his eyes resolute.
In all of their fights, they were extensions of each other - but what were they now?
She wondered if his body shivered with the joy of the hunt, if his mind was approaching the cold focus of a killer.
She reached for him, pushed at him with her thoughts, but of course, there was no response.
Will that ever be the same?
She felt the mist starting to come over her eyes and embraced it readily.
It was life.
It was death.
It was an escape.
She dodged the rubble without incident, until she heard a dense
thwack
from right behind her.
She glanced back, and Alsvior was ruefully rubbing his cheek with his right hand, a rock the size of an orange in his left.
She grinned comically, and for the briefest moment, she saw the first twinges of a smile around the corners of his mouth, but they vanished before she could say anything.
She was a quarter of the way up the mountain now, her pace flagging occasionally as she leapt over boulders or trees.
Once, confronted by a sheer drop, she had to double back and climb a section of uneven ground before she could find the streambed again.
Even so, the going was easy enough.
Her instincts had kept her alive through more dangerous centuries.
I was meant to do this,
she thought.
Are you sure about that?
The joy that surged through her suddenly curdled in her stomach.
She could feel her awareness building, as it had in the lamprey's factory, seconds before she had avoided being shot off of her once-horse.
Her skin prickled.
She sped along, the environment fading away as her motions became automatic.
She was only vaguely aware of Alsvior behind her, but his presence irked her.
What is it?
The answer hit her like an arrow.
It's too easy.
It was true; she was upset by their good luck.
Alsvior had known where to go and how to get there.
They had made record time, half-teleporting across an alleged Hell to this mountain.
And, most importantly, they had not seen a single living being that would have been able to report their presence.
To who?
The Consortium?
Alsvior has already lied about so much - do you trust him about this?
She felt guilty for the thought.
He had been her only companion - perhaps even a friend - and he had never betrayed her.
Unless, his transformation has turned him into something else entirely.
What is this business of a betrayal?
For what was he being punished?
She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she almost didn't hear Alsvior's shout.
"De la Roca, Jump!"
SIXTEEN
B
y now, the man in the boat was close enough that Laufeyson could make out the frayed fibers of his robe.
The tapestry-like cloth appeared hand-woven, and the folds of his cowl hung so loosely around his face and hands that Laufeyson still had not had a chance to lay eyes on the man's skin.
He knew he should be more curious, but his mind was pleasantly numbed by the sensation of waiting.
It defined his whole existence.
Soon, the man was close enough that Laufeyson could have reached out and touched his face.
He was waiting for some sort of acknowledgement, but boatman with the trailing sleeves said nothing.
Laufeyson watched as he lifted his arms out of the water and placed his hands on either side of his head.
The dangling sleeves were graceful, like a geisha's.
In one swift move, he pulled the cowl back, but where his head should have been, there was nothing.
The robe collapsed into the floor of the boat, and Laufeyson knew - the boat had been empty all along.
It was meant for him.
For a moment, he briefly debated turning back.
He couldn't remember what waited for him there, although he knew it was unpleasant.
It had something to do with angels and with …
… with the girl.
De la Roca? … Only that wasn't her name … was it?
He couldn't remember, so instead, he shambled into the boat, the golden light of the Eye flying enthusiastic circles around his head.
He picked up the oar and dipped it into the water.
#
The streambed had narrowed to the width of a few men, with steep walls that ran up either side.
A massive boulder, possibly dislodged by the snake's exertions, sat in the middle, completely blocking the view of what lay ahead.
"We could go back and find another way around," said Alsvior.
"The serpent is calmer now; there might be a better way."
Before he could continue, she leaped, dizzy with the power that her muscles unleashed.
From ten feet in the air, she heard a rumble and altered her trajectory, twisting her body upwards to slow her forward motion.
Before she landed, she caught a flash of yellow in her periphery, and an acrid scent filled her nostrils.
She hit the boulder, her knees bending to absorb the shock, her hands awkwardly scraping the rock between her feet.
Her nose was further assaulted with the odd tang of something vile, and she scoped out the path ahead from her new vantage point.
Past the boulder, the streambed was no longer visible - instead, the depression was filled to the brim with a bubbling, stinking mess of golden liquid.
It was clear to both her eyes and nose that whatever it was, it would be to her advantage to leave it alone.
Before she had the chance to investigate further, she heard a whistle, and the surface of the boulder darkened with a shadow.
She flung herself back and gyrated midair, a pole-vaulter clearing the hurdle.
She saw Alsvior shoot out in front of her, his head rotating to follow her descent, his pace slowing and body turning as he realized she had backtracked.