She want to get off this mountain, which turn into mountains. Or reach Mantha, though she have no purpose there, which is why she don’t think often of reaching it. She is lost and alone and hungry, and all three will soon work to kill her. The divine sisters made it seem like this is just one narrow road always winding up, but she already walk through two small valleys, the second showing her some mercy with a stream to fill her wineskin. And what look like the peak of the mountain become one of many peaks, with nothing to tell her which is Mantha. Trees start to get scarce and rocks loose and firm stand in her way more and more. It only take her a day for fear to lose itself to wonder. Uncanny, even her own mind think so, that she start to lose interest in finding or being found. And this thing inside her coming to an understanding of her. Or maybe she is coming to an understanding of it. That don’t mean it not still too wild. She will think of walking on air and curse herself because she still feeling pressure underfoot. But then she will look down and see herself a horse’s height above the ground. Not a wind blowing but something pushing—perhaps she should call it the push. She will stare at the ground and not think, something beyond think, and the push will hit her in the chest and fling her up in sky. She will shout as she fall, but not hit the ground, just float right above it. She will touch rock and wonder if the push can come from inside a thing and the rock will explode. She will come to a trail blocked by fallen rock and see a new one where travelers had to make do, and without thinking, the rocks will scatter from themselves.
Climbing at night. A voice in her head that sound like her say, Now you do it, now you cut all wisdom loose. All sort of beasts roam the land at night looking for flesh and blood, even on the mountains. Sogolon cut loose something else—fear or care, she not sure. That is how she come to the place unaware. Dirt is dirt, stone is stone, rock is rock, all the same under night, so where she make bed don’t make no difference. Sogolon wake up before the sun to her fur, her face, and the ground covered in white dust, cold to the touch. She pinch a little and put in her mouth. White water dust. She scoop up handful after handful and devour it. It is only when the sun start to peek out that she see rocks all around her, standing up and fallen down with too much craft to them to be just rocks. In the night a younger girl inside her thought they look like a fallen giant’s hand. But masonry they be, all in ruins, all over the ground. Not like castle ruins, for those she know, but pillars, some four or five times as high as she, some shorter, most leaning as if either sinking in or rising from the dirt. All ravaged by weather, some covered in moss. Three stand tallest, as if whoever build this place knew that those three would withstand as testimony to whoever lived here. Columns, three huddled together. The shortest is the widest, but it lean to the right, the top ravaged away to just a mound. The middle one, the tallest, higher than a house with four floors, with a worn-down swirl going around it, once a staircase, she reckon. The third the thinnest, but with a wide head that narrow at the top. Not till noonlike do she see the big round eye and long jaw of a snake. But they all carved up with drawings, lines that look like runes or science, words and glyphs whose meaning hover around her head but don’t become clear. She almost come to read them, only for the meaning to open up, then close back down. On the first she find House of Lords, on the second, House of Kings, and on the third, just House. She run her fingers over the shapes, feeling them for meaning, wondering if this is a temple, palace, fort, or something else of glorious use. Also on this mound, four trees, dotting the hill careless-like, with bitter fruits that she still eat, and leaves that taste better. This is where she put down the little she have and rest.
What to do with a blessing and curse? Run wild and laugh like a mad old woman and send her cackle on wind only for wind or not wind to send it back to her? To run up to a cliff and leap and fall as wind or not wind rush so hard that she feel it through every strand of hair, only to land a finger’s length from the ground and stir up a cloud of dust. To hop off one rock and land flat on another, and screaming from the pain of her busted ass, and cursing the push for saving her from death, but little else. No matter. Sogolon is running on sky, and sleeping in the cool under earth, and wondering as she sit at the bottom of a stream, dry, the push forming a cocoon around her, if this is from her mother. The only gift her father ever show is to contort himself to piss in his own mouth. Madness, which her brothers blame her for. No matter, she would forget their names. But here she is, on a new night, trying to remember just one brother’s name, only to grasp that she never knew it. The fire crackle and it sound like laughter. Then another sound, like the crack of a branch or tree bark. Sogolon look around her at the three giant fingers, then quiet her mind to listen. The fire crack and crackle. Nothing.
Sogolon wake up deep in the night to the fire still crackling. She think to kick dust on it so that the crackling won’t wake her up, but don’t want to move. Sleep claim her quick, but a crackle wake her up again. She throw off the fur and kick dust on the fire until it is only smolder. The yawn come big and loud, but as she stoop, a crack cut through the silence. Not the fire behind her. She turn around to look between the two skinny trees, and between the two trees look right back at her. Piss-yellow eyes blink to black. She jump up to run but the big black thing knock her down hard in the dirt, paw pinning her right hand, other paw squashing her throat, belly crushing hers. The thing roar and shake its head, its long tusk teeth scraping Sogolon’s chest. He roar again. Sogolon scream. He open his mouth wide and spit hit her face and chest, and breath burn her nose. The dark hiding too much. Sogolon see ears pointed up like a bat, skin, fur. She smell sweat, river funk, mud, rotting flesh every time he roar. Shuffling in the dark. More. Eyes so yellow they glow, wicked. Sogolon shudder. Eyes so yellow, and nose huffing vapor, and a mouth big as the moon. Another roar to the left and coming in closer. The one pinning her roar back. She can’t feel her right hand, which is slapping the beast with no notice. The other ones closing in, he need to claim his kill. He throw his mouth wide open, his eyes on her neck. Sogolon press against his belly.
* * *
—
The other beasts gone, taking their shrieking all the way where they come from. There is no sleeping now, not with all of this side of the mountain covered in exploded beast. On her chest, warming her legs, slicking her face, leaving the taste of iron in her mouth. Sogolon lie there looking at the sky as night flee. The next morning she cook the biggest strips of beast she can find.
Two dawns later, with her ear to the ground, another rumble wake her up. Riders. She grab all that is hers, but the land is too open. They are almost upon her when she hide between three pillars, throwing herself in shadow.