Peak

Toruk, still holding Veronica’s hand, stood up and followed her, but then he stopped.

“What is it?” asked Veronica, studying him curiously.

“I don’t know,” replied Toruk, suddenly realizing that his hands were shaking.

“Oh, you’re just nervous, Toruk,” said Veronica, squeezing his trembling hands. “It’s normal. Everybody’s nervous before they meet the Voice.”

“But what if, what if….?”

“What, Toruk? What if what?”

“What if he changes his mind? What if he doesn’t want to use me?”

“Toruk,” said Veronica looking at him intently, “when the Voice Upon the Mountain calls, it is always intentional. He does not make mistakes at all.”

“But-”

“Enough stalling now. Come on!” said Veronica, leading Toruk off the train.

When they alighted, they stepped onto a flat wide precipice which was the entrance to the Mountain Peak. So this is it, thought Toruk, the Peak. To him, it seemed like a grand entranceway, a large paved black road towards what appeared to be a large city in the distance. The Peak extended for several miles and was filled with people, or what appeared to be people, happily chatting among themselves as they moved onward.

He briefly looked back at the train, but it had seemingly vanished.

“It’s gone,” said Veronica, following his gaze. “The train transformed back into Tavatu’s pollen beads and will fly down to the flowers until they need to make something else.”

“So there’s no return train?” asked Toruk.

“The train to the Peak will always be the same, especially for you humans. But once you’ve met with the Voice Upon the Mountain, you cannot return as you came. You’ll go back down the Mountain by a different way, Toruk.”

“What way?”

“Never mind that. Come on,” said Veronica, urging Toruk to follow her and the rest of the crowd down the paved road.

As Toruk began walking, he could not help but to gasp at the magnificent things he saw, strange birds wrapped in otherworldly colors streaking the sky, chirping cheerfully as they flitted from one tree to another, perching upon what appeared to be moving tree branches that did not sway with any wind but seemingly moved on their own, bending, twisting, turning. He saw vegetation lining all sides of the road, boasting of beautiful sun-kissed flowers, full bushes, and green plants. They were fat with fruits, berries, and nuts, clusters of which Toruk could not readily decipher.

He saw the living snow jump and dance as he passed by, his boots shuffling on an unusually soft pavement clearly made of black Mountain rock glinting in the morning sun. He even saw some of the Mountain animals he had previously seen when the train was ascending, a lone deer sniffing the luscious green grass before pausing to look at him, a pack of raccoons gathered in the grassy area surrounding the paved road, their large curious eyes watching Toruk and the others walk past, a mother bear and what appeared to be her cubs frolicking around her as she watched, standing on her hind legs while leaning against a bush.

“Do they live here?” asked Toruk, pointing to the bears.

“The animals live on the Mountain and in the Valley below,” explained Veronica. “They come and go as they please. Don’t worry, they’re harmless.”

Toruk merely nodded in affirmation, overjoyed by the delicious fresh air, the animals, the road, the flowers. I made it! he repeated in his mind as he continued on. I made it to the Peak! But he had yet to realize that he had only reached the beginning of Matla Mountain Peak. There were a few miles to go before he came to the heart of the Peak where the Voice sat upon his throne.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the paved black road had been created by the Voice Upon the Mountain as an enchanted entranceway, a mini journey of the heart and mind, one that would prepare the soul for standing in the Voice’s presence. The Voice had taken mounds of black Mountain rock in his hands and crushed them with his powerful fingers. Then he had called upon the Chena to pour some of his pure water upon the powdered rock, turning it into a black gooey poultice which the Voice immediately spread out on the Peak’s entrance. It hardened to a smooth, walkable surface leading straight into the heart of the Peak, the City Upon the Mountain.

The Voice had ordered the road to feel soft beneath the feet of humans, to promise to never exacerbate strain or soreness within the humans’ feet or legs. He commanded the road to let the rock embedded within it to sparkle and shine with brilliance whether day or night, thereby always providing light by which his people could follow to the City. He charged the road with replenishing power, the ability to renew itself should a portion of it wear away beneath continual trudging feet.

And unlike the duplicitous Satqin Forest, the road bowed in agreement with the Voice and dutifully kept its promise, never once breaking its vow. Though black, the road continually glowed as it was designed. It cushioned the soles of all who walked upon it, including Galus appearing in the image of humans. It repaired itself throughout the years, regularly pitching freshly powdered rock over its worn paths, smoothing the rough places, and filling holes that may have appeared.

After the Voice had created the road leading to the City Upon the Mountain, he surrounded it with fertile grass which remained green no matter the season. He filled the grass with untold nutrition and commanded it to forever feed all of the animals that lived on and around his Mountain. He ordered the grass to grow rich and spread far, to push through its soil every plant delectable and delicious to roving animals, to create soft spots for his animals to rest and sleep upon, to drink the water and dew from the rainy skies and never allow itself to wither or die.

Like the road, the grass bowed in obedience and lived up to its promises, generously tending to and feeding Matla animals and replenishing itself through the dew and water periodically raining from the skies.

Then finally the Voice Upon the Mountain, using the Chena’s pure waters and the Yuli Wind’s torrential power, had created a series of low-lying clouds scattered throughout the entranceway, hovering just above the paved black road. The Voice imbued within the clouds a cleansing mechanism, one that gently cleansed the soul of a person walking through it. The Voice had ordered the clouds to remove from all hearts approaching the center of the Peak any error, hardness, or even the smallest traces of hate, for to be in the Voice’s presence was to be cleansed of all folly. He made the clouds to be eternal, to exist without the need for additional water or weather, to forever remain in their low place, allowing all persons to walk through its semi-opaque white formations.

And like the road and the surrounding grass, the clouds obeyed, floating just where the Voice had place them, never moving from their positions, never turning askew, never thinning out or thickening but maintaining the perfect consistency of water and air the Voice had initially formulated.

As Toruk walked, he suddenly noticed what he thought was morning fog hovering over the Peak. The clouds were so low that he walked through some of them, gingerly at first. Toruk felt as if he were walking through a fantastic cool mist gently spraying his face with fresh, cool droplets, instantly bringing a relaxed smile to his face.

“It’s good to walk through these cleansing clouds, Toruk,” said Veronica, smiling, watching his expression as they moved in and out of the clouds. “It’s very good for your soul.”

But Toruk did not notice the change within. He passed through the semi-transparent white clouds with glee like a child at play. He was unaware of the small plumes of anger that had been lingering in his heart for some time on account of his parents’ demise. The anger had first developed when his mother died of the Shadow’s poison and then it grew shortly after his father suffered the same fate. Toruk had been ignorant of the internal grumbling such anger had spurred. Deep within his sub-consciousness, he had been shouting incessantly Why?! Why did they have to die?!, allowing his natural, innocent grief to morph into little whiffs of dangerous, malicious anger. But just as Toruk was unaware of the presence of his own anger, he was likewise unaware when the cleansing clouds swiftly washed it away.

A sliver of despair had also been quietly floating in his heart, born from the initial fear of suffering with his blindness without his parents around. The despair, though slight, had taken root in his heart, slowly souring it, threatening to darken over time, causing Toruk to unwittingly sigh heavy and long at times when contemplating living the rest of his life in visual darkness with no hope of relief. Just as Toruk was ignorant of his anger, he was just as oblivious to the despair plaguing his heart. Yet, once he walked through another cool, cleansing cloud along the Peak’s entrance road, such despair was unceremoniously washed away, never to resurface again.

Even tiny globs of hardness had silently attached to a piece of Toruk’s heart during his arduous night through Satqin. Though he had been thoroughly cleansed of all hardness of heart through the powers of the living snow and the Yuli Wind when he was on the Chena River, some hardness had quietly reattached to his heart when he was hanging on the side of the Mountain, engulfed with dangerous, debilitating doubt, about to fall. It was the type of hardness that, if it had proliferated and spread, would have eventually rendered Toruk’s heart incapable of loving, becoming just as hard as the heart of the destructive Shadow. Again, Toruk, blind to all that was happening, incurred a full cleansing of such hardness when he walked through yet another cleansing cloud.

As the Voice had instructed, when the clouds washed hearts, they took with them all dark memories, all hints of guilt, all sadness, and all repercussions or potential consequences of harboring such folly for too long. The clouds cleansed the hearts so thoroughly that it left the person with a detectable lightness, a gaiety of sorts, a jubilant, happy heart filled with child-like wonder, with great, child-like hope and with infectious child-like curiosity. Such was the countenance the Voice Upon the Mountain preferred to receive his people, truly free in every way.

“What are those?” Toruk asked happily, after walking through all the series of clouds the Voice had set. He was pointing to the City’s skyline which was becoming visible in the near distance.

“That’s where we’re going, Toruk,” answered Veronica. “That’s the City Upon the Mountain.”

“The City Upon the Mountain? Is that where the Voice is?”

“Yes. His throne is in the middle of the City. That’s where you’re headed.”

“What’s the City like?”

“Oh, it’s the best of all cities. Imagine the best place you could ever be. That’s what the City Upon the Mountain is like.”

“Does it have homes and soft beds?” asked Toruk, his eyes twinkling with joy.

“Silly, Toruk!” said Veronica, chuckling. “It has everything.”

“Food?”

“For Galus to look at and for you humans to eat, ta (yes).”

“Schools?”

“Well, not the kind you’re thinking of.”

“What do you mean?”

“The schools here are based on the Voice’s teaching. These schools teach you how to hope in the face of despair, how to encourage others when you yourself feel discouraged, how to love when you are surrounded by hate.”

“Does it teach you how to fight the Shadow?”

Veronica laughed. “Yes, Toruk. In fact, there are a series of classes on how to fight the Shadow. That beast is very cunning, you know.”

“What about sports or hiking or entertainment?” asked Toruk, unable to stop giggling like a schoolboy. “What else goes on up there? Is it any fun?”

“Toruk,” replied Veronica, smiling warmly, “in the City Upon the Mountain, there is a different type of fun, a different joy that the rest of the world does not know nor could truly understand. Here, to live and work for the Voice is our fun, to open our minds to learn new truths and grasp new skills is great fun, and to please the Voice and feel his glorious, radiant light beaming with satisfaction upon our faces, oh Toruk, that is the greatest of all fun.”

“Then I can’t wait to meet the Voice Upon the Mountain!” declared Toruk, practically skipping along the road.

They were just hundreds of feet away from the City now, its beauty and magnificence becoming more visible. The City’s skyline was filled with a variety of sized buildings, beautiful, immaculate, exquisite in structure, reflecting radiant colors and awesome architectural designs, flanked by tall, lush trees, their branches moving, twisting and turning as if alive despite the absence of breezes. Toruk saw that the City was not completely flat but rolled with hills winding up and around with what seemed like residential houses scattered about.

Then Toruk gasped at what appeared to be a palace hundreds of feet tall, thousands of feet wide, ornate in its design, colored white, gold, and silver sitting atop one of the hills. The palace seemed as a big as a school, covering hundreds of acres of ground, with round porticoes throughout and many fountains and pools, some large, some small, all spewing crystal-clear water that splashed into circular bowls. The palace seemed to gleam beneath the glory of the morning sun, shining brilliant with its royal colors, welcoming all with its open design style, its elaborate roof covered with a blanket of living snow that jumped and danced in the light.

One part of the palace was especially lit as if the sun was directing a single brilliant ray upon it. It seemed to Toruk that light was not only shining upon it but radiating out of its very windows and open spaces. He saw the colorful birds streaking the skies just above that portion. He saw some surrounding trees moving and even bending as if bowing towards that portion of the palace.

“Take me to the Voice!” said Toruk, gazing at the dazzling palace, suddenly feeling the urge to run ahead.

“Wait!” said Veronica, immediately reaching out her hand to hold him back. “We must enter the City with dignity and grace. I can tell you have been thoroughly cleansed, but you must behave in a proper manner, as one who has been not only called by the Voice but endowed with the somber ability to carry out his great tasks.”

“But there’s something there,” he said, pointing to the palace in the distance.

Veronica smiled. “Yes, there is something there. There is something everywhere in the City Upon the Mountain, Toruk. You will experience it all.”

“Is that where the Voice’s throne is, Veronica? Is that it, over there in that palace?”

Veronica looked at the palace, squinting playfully. “Yes, Toruk. That is the Voice’s palace. And it is open to all. There are many rooms in his palace, and, in fact, you will be staying in one of them.”

“I will?” said Toruk, again feeling the urge to run ahead, to run all the way to the palace.

“Yes, but you must slow down, Toruk,” urged Veronica. “The Voice Upon the Mountain is not rash nor a fast-moving being. Neither is he slow. He is steady, stable. And he prefers all his subjects to match his countenance.”

As Toruk slowed his pace, he noticed many of the Galus who had rode on the train with him veering off the paved black road and disappearing somewhere in the outskirts of the City.

“Where are they going?” he asked, gesturing to the scores of Galus leaving the road.

Veronica dismissed it with a flick of her hand. “Don’t worry about them,” she said. “Us Galus have different ways that are not human ways, Toruk. Where they are going is for their own special renewal. But you must focus on your task at hand.”

“What kind of renewal?”

“Galus do not sleep, eat, or rest. But when we complete a task and return to the Peak, we must renew our hearts and minds. We undergo a cleansing and healing of sorts, just to make sure we are always ready for the Voice’s next task.”

“Did Nuru ever do those renewals when he was here?”

“Oh Toruk, we do not speak of that name here on the Peak!” said Veronica, stopping and looking at him sternly, wagging her finger. “We speak of the Shadow because that is what he is now. That is what he chose to be. But his other name, we do not utter here. No one does. Down below, yes, we speak of the Shadow’s origin for the purposes of instruction and understanding. But here on the Peak, we do not. We consider his original Galu name a curse.”

“Oh.”

“Now,” said Veronica in a calmer tone, “do you remember your task? Do you remember why you are here? Do you remember why you underwent the Voice’s tests as you traveled through Satqin, the Chena River, and through Matla Valley last night? Do you remember all that the Voice told you when he called you, when he guided you through the harsh, winter night? Do you remember, Toruk? Do you remember your task, worthy one?”

“Yes. My task is to meet the Voice,” replied Toruk.

“And,” added Veronica as they continued walking, gradually approaching the City’s boundaries, “to retrieve the Waterstone, take it back to Ceto, and disburse it to the people just as the Voice will instruct you.”

“Right,” mumbled Toruk, his attention suddenly shifting back to the palace as it became clearer in view.

“Toruk,” said Veronica, stopping again and turning to him, her voice low and sharp, “look at me.”

Toruk turned to look at Veronica again.

“You must not become enthralled with this City,” she said, looking at him intently. “Your heart must remain detached because very soon you will leave all of this magnificence and travel back to Ceto with its miserable troubles.”

“Yes,” said Toruk, nodding. “I understand.”

“Good!” said Veronica with a happy clap. “Now,” she said, guiding him off the end of the paved black road and onto a smooth brown and brick red cobblestone road leading toward the City center, “come, follow me.”