Standing on the little precipice about 50 feet from the ground, Toruk briefly looked out at the horizon, watching the pink-orange haze hinting of an impending sunrise. Then he turned back to the Mountain. Wrapping the harness around him as best he could, Toruk grabbed the rope which was looped through the stake he had planted in the Mountain rock about a foot above him. But he did not know what he was doing. He had never climbed a Mountain before and certainly had never used tools to do it.
His movements were sloppy at best, dangerous at worst. Little did he know that he lacked the proper state-of-the-art climbing tools to ensure his safety. Toruk lacked an appropriate pulley, a second rope, the right shoes and gloves, and of course, training. When he gripped the rope and attempted to pull himself up, he leaned over lopsided nearly slamming into the Mountainside.
“Ow!” Toruk cried out as he rubbed his bruised shoulder and side.
He looked down at the dazzling snowy Valley below, realizing how far 50 feet was from the ground. Then, he pushed against the Mountain with his feet, thinking the momentum would make it easier for him to propel upward. Instead, he began swinging like a pendulum within his harness, barely able to hold onto the rope, scraping himself against the Mountainside, incurring more injuries.
Icy cold air caught within his lungs, sending him into a fit of coughs. His eyes blurred with sudden tears. His head pounded with fear. What do I do now? he thought. Toruk could not stop swinging against the Mountain. Any movement he made with his feet or hands to stabilize himself resulted in the exact opposite goal, for he swung even more wildly, banging his arms and legs against the rugged rock.
Then Toruk became entangled in the rope. He had unwittingly managed to somehow loop his legs around the rope, causing his feet to dangle in the entangled mess, his arms flailing as he tried to unsuccessfully reach out to touch the Mountain. Toruk craned his neck to survey the rope wound around his legs in hopes of determining how to disentangle himself from it.
First, he tugged at a piece of rope wrapped around him twice, once around his right thigh, the other loop around his right shin. With his right hand, he reached for the rope and tugged at the loops, wiggling his right leg at the same time, thinking he could shake his leg out, but it did not work. Instead, the loop around his right thigh mercilessly tightened, causing him to gasp in pain.
“Come on. Come on!” Toruk mumbled as he worked to no avail.
Exasperated, he turned to reach for the loops around his left leg. This time, it was three loops that were wound around his left knee. Though they seemed loose enough to wiggle out of, it seemed every movement Toruk made tightened the loop around his right thigh. He tugged at the three loops, pulling, shifting, moving his left leg all the while gritting his teeth in pain. He managed to grip one loop with his left hand and slide it off his knee, down his leg towards his ankle. Then Toruk shook his left ankle, successfully pulling his leg out of that one loop.
“Good,” he said to himself, thinking he could withstand the pain from the tight loops around his right thigh for a few more minutes as he attempted to wrest the remaining two loops from his left leg.
He reached for one of the loops around his left knee, gripped it, then wiggled his left leg in the same fashion as he had done before. At first the loop did not budge, but then it began to slump down towards his left calf. Toruk was very lopsided now, practically hanging upside down against the eastern face of Matla Mountain. Nevertheless, he strained to take advantage of the loosening, wiggling his left leg again until he was able to pull the leg out of the second loop.
By now the pain around his right thigh was unbearable, for the rope was wound so tight, it had sliced through a portion of Toruk’s pants, exposing his skin to the winter elements. Circulation in his right leg was quickly waning. He could barely move his right leg or wiggle his right toes in his boot. He shifted in the harness, hoping to alleviate some of the pain, but it only seemed to worsen it.
“Ow!” Toruk cried out, rubbing his right leg, trying to slide his right hand under the tightly looped rope to push it down his leg.
The rope was of a thick nylon that was uncomfortably unforgiving to his right thigh. After many attempts, a few of Toruk’s right fingers were able to finally slide under the tight rope and grip it. Then he tried with all his might to push the rope down his right leg. In doing so, he realized that the rope’s tightness was due to a knot that had somehow developed just below his harness.
So Toruk turned to it, reaching his right hand down below the harness, feeling for the knot and once finding it, tugging at it to loosen it. He worked frantically, desperately, winter smoke puffing from his mouth, his chest heaving in anxiety, his thoughts repeatedly turning to the prospect of falling to his death in Matla Valley.
“Come on!” Toruk mumbled under his breath.
His fingers ran up, in and around the little knot, pulling at every angle. He tried to see what he was doing but was forced to work blindly, for the knot was too far below the harness, out of his view.
Toruk was barely swinging now. He had somehow managed to stake himself against the Mountain with his left foot which was still wrapped in a loop of the wayward rope. He held the rope with his left hand while his right worked to undo the knot. He picked at the knot with his fingers and nails, but it would not loosen. He shifted his weight in the harness to lean more to the left. Then he switched hands, his right hand now holding the rope and his left hand working on the knot. He was hanging sideways now, his head dangerously close to the rugged Mountainside.
“Come on!” he begged. “Please!”
The knot did not loosen. It was tightly wound upon itself and had settled within its grooves beneath Toruk’s weight. He realized that the only way to free his right leg from the tight rope was to adjust the rope wound through the stake above him, but he feared such an act would be a death-defying one, bringing him closer to a fatal fall.
Toruk shifted himself back upright as best he could, cringing at the pain in his right thigh. What do I do now? he thought, frustrated, looking around, looking up at the night sky slowly blending into an early dawn. Not a cloud was in the sky, just the big silver moon and the stars twinkling like diamonds. What do I do?! Toruk wondered. How do I reach the Peak?
He looked up at the iron stake. It had an open handle in which his rope was wound through. It was wedged within a slit in the rock which Toruk suddenly realized was wide and deep enough for his hand to slide in and grip. The young Lijian figured he could hold on to the Mountain rock with his left hand and with his right, grab the stake and adjust the rope in hopes of freeing his now numbed right leg. He calculated that though it would be dangerous, he would need only minutes, seconds even, to remove his right leg from the tight loops. Then he would be free to continue climbing.
So he set to it. With his left hand, Toruk reached for an open area in that slit, rocking himself closer to the Mountainside. It took several attempts, but finally his left hand was able to slide into that slit and grip the rock. Toruk tested it by briefly letting go of the rope and leaning his body on his left side, intentionally adding weight beneath his left hand. His left hand held its grip within the slit, boosting his confidence that perhaps his plan would work. Toruk then reached for the stake with his right hand and began adjusting the rope wound through its outer hook.
He thought it would take no time to do so but had not factored in the wintry elements. Though he had felt comfortable down below in the Valley, he found the Mountainside to be astonishingly frigid. Frost had already settled on his eyebrows, eyelashes and hair. His fingers were stiff with cold, for he had to constantly blow into them to keep them somewhat warm and useful.
But he could not do that now with one hand hanging on the Mountain and the other adjusting the rope wound through the stake. Swiftly, Toruk’s fingers stiffened, becoming numb. He soon could not feel his left hand gripping the Mountain nor his right hand pulling at the rope wound through the stake. He saw the fingertips of his right hand turning blue.
“Come on!” he yelled to himself, angered that his attempt to adjust the rope was not working.
In fact, his actions were causing the rope wound around his right thigh to tighten all the more.
“Please!” he said, briefly shaking his right hand to stimulate blood circulation.
Toruk tried again and again, pulling and pushing at the rope through the stake, thinking that it would give him more slack, more room to loosen the rope around his right thigh. When he pulled on the rope wound through the stake, though it pulled him higher, it also tightened the knot beneath the harness, likewise tightening the rope around his right thigh, increasing the pain.
When he pushed the rope through the stake, the harness suddenly malfunctioned, causing him to lose his balance. His numbed left hand then dislodged from its grip in the slit, sending him swinging sideways once again.
“Ma! (No!)” cried Toruk in utter frustration.
He tried to put his left foot out to plant it against the Mountainside to stop the swinging, but his foot had also numbed. Though he could move it, he had lost all sensation and thus lost the ability to anchor himself with his left foot. He reached out with his hands, trying to grip a piece of Mountain rock, but he was swinging too fast, too awkward, and his fingers were too numb to feel a grip.
Toruk’s right leg screamed with pain, the rope digging into his thigh’s flesh, cutting it, blood trickling down his pants.
“Ow!” he bellowed, his voice echoing, his tears falling and freezing on his face.
He was beside himself with emotion, with terror, with frustration. Toruk was entangled in the rope and unable to wrest himself of it. All that was seemingly saving him from falling was the stake he had wedged in the Mountainside. It seemed firmly planted despite the rope pulling and pushing through the stake’s hook as Toruk swung. He thought he would not be able to withstand the pain in his right thigh for long. He feared if he didn’t fall, he would certainly pass out.
How am I supposed to get up this Mountain? How do I reach the Peak? Toruk wondered. He thought about what had happened to Uncle Quinn when he tried to climb Matla Mountain as a young man. Is the Mountain rejecting me, too? Toruk thought as he hung lopsided in the harness, entangled, suspended by the stake, swinging from side to side, unable to plant his feet or hands on the Mountainside though he repeatedly tried.
He thought about what Uncle Quinn had said, about the Mountain rock moving, sliding into small, open grooves to create a flat, smooth surface and thus expelling any intruders attempting to climb it. Toruk wondered if the same was happening to him, but he shook away such doubt when he looked up at the stake still planted firmly in the Mountainside as if it had always been there, as if it were part of the natural landscape.
There has to be a way out of this, thought Toruk as the pain in his right thigh radiated throughout his body. He once again attempted to shift himself upright in his harness, but it caused him to swing even more wildly, banging his right leg into the Mountain.
“Ow!” hollered Toruk, squeezing his eyes shut, breathing deeply, waiting for the pain to wane.
The young Lijian felt confused, even angered that the Voice had called him to embark on such a dangerous, treacherous trek through Satqin Forest only for his journey, and perhaps life, to be cut short here on the Mountainside. He thought perhaps Rona was right, that he had been duped by his own grief over the loss of his parents and his eyesight. Toruk wondered if grief could be that powerful, clouding his thoughts to such a degree that he was suspended in altered reality, hearing voices that did not exist, following commands that were nothing but illusions of his own mind, feeling superficially secure in otherworldly presences that were simply fabrications of his imagination.
And then he thought of the legend of the Sacred Waterstone, of his father’s dogged belief that it existed somewhere in nature. Toruk questioned if in fact his father knew what he was doing or was likewise responding to his inner illusions, his grief and despair over his wife’s declining illness, convincing himself that such legendary tales were true and worth seeking out.
He thought of Uncle Quinn, the old Lijian filled with stories and purported wisdom. Toruk wondered why he had planted the legend of the Waterstone into his father’s head, spinning ancient Lijian tales of healing balms and sacred, enchanted lands existing in hidden places throughout the world. Uncle Quinn had been shunned by most Cetans and even some Lijians for his slovenly appearance and fantastical babbling. He had lived quietly after his love had died in his little sliver of a two-room apartment wedged into a wall between a park and Cetan cemetery. I should have known not to trust uncle completely, thought Toruk. Father should have known not to trust him so much. Toruk figured Uncle Quinn meant well but had probably convinced himself of his own musings, believing in ridiculous things like moving mountain rock.
Yet Toruk could not readily explain the Shadow, for the creature was indeed real and he had fought him with his own two hands. Or did I? questioned Toruk. He recalled that he was still blind at the time he fought the creature. In fact, he had yet to see what it looked like. For all I know, the Shadow’s just a big bear or something, he thought.
He figured the annoying, violent hawks were simply hungry birds behaving in rare but instinctual ways. He concluded that the voices he heard from the Shadow and the Yuli Wind were simply reflections of the imagination of a frightened, confused young man seeking to avenge the demise of his parents and the loss of his own sight. The Yuli Wind’s just a wind, he thought though deep in his spirit such reasoning did not ring true. Yet Toruk brushed it away thinking, if the Yuli Wind was really some kind of a spirit, where is it now?
He likewise doubted the supposed wickedness of Satqin Forest, telling himself that all nature developed and changed over time. Nothing stays the same, he thought as he dismissed the stories he heard in his childhood and from his father about Satqin’s turn from beauty to all things wicked.
Toruk even questioned the Voice Upon the Mountain, wondering if the stories were true, that there was someone who lived atop the Peak and had communicated with early Lijians through their dreams, thus spurring the ridiculous legend. How could the Voice be real? I’m here, hanging off Matla Mountain about to freeze or fall to my death. How could the Voice be real?!
Toruk concluded it was all fake, all illusions, even the Chena River and its purported purity. Though he could not explain the light within the River that guided him to the Valley, Toruk dismissed it as yet another illusion of his mind. I was just trying to find truth, he thought. Rona was right. I’ve gone through a lot. Should’ve stayed home with Tame. Should’ve just tried to work things out. Being blind wasn’t so bad. And then he wondered if he was right now in an altered reality. Maybe I’m still blind, sleeping in my bed. Maybe I’m in a coma somewhere. Maybe this is all just a strange dream.
Toruk’s thoughts rambled from one to the other, questioning, wondering, dismissing. Knowing that no one would ever venture into Matla Valley in the middle of a winter night, Toruk accepted that he would die here, hanging on the Mountain in a tangled rope, his frozen corpse picked off by morning buzzards and perhaps the fireflies, the frayed rope dangling for years to come only to be discovered by some future soul deemed worthy to enjoy Matla.
And then the unthinkable happened. Just as Toruk closed his eyes, trying to ignore the shooting pain in his right thigh, hanging nearly upside down in the tangled rope, the Mountain rock moved. He heard it first then shot open his eyes to witness it. Where the rock was rugged with pieces of its glinting black jutting out, it suddenly closed down upon itself like an awning to a store, the rugged pieces instantly becoming smooth.
Toruk watched in horror as it happened. The very side in which he had inserted the iron stake was also quickly becoming smooth. He saw Mountain dust and snow powder slide down the now smooth rock. To the young Lijian’s dismay, he saw the rock around the iron stake likewise move, effecting a remarkably smooth surface. And instead of the rock smoothing itself around the stake, thus cementing the stake’s place in the Mountainside, it rejected the iron stake instead, triggering it to wobble at first.
“No!” was all Toruk could say before the iron stake was completely pushed out of the Mountain rock, causing him to fall.