I: Mount Gall

Mount Gall was living up to its name.

Tom was tired. Wet. Cold. They’d been climbing for six hours, and he now regretted taking an interest in his mother’s profession, the only reason for his presence there. The mountain seemed to know it, taking every opportunity to highlight his shortcomings. From the frigid, weather-worn face of its interminable wall of ice, his idea to one day join the ranks of the Riven now felt naïve and ill-considered.

Three days ago, when they’d begun, he’d questioned the need for climbing. They could have reached the peak in a fraction of the time using his mother’s megantium hoverboard. But Iliana Gaélia had principles, and one of them was that megantium should not be relied on too heavily, especially for what the body could do on its own.

She’d also mentioned something about “acclimating to air pressure changes” so they wouldn’t “impair cognitive and motor functions,” but he was skeptical of this reasoning because she regularly exposed him to possible brain damage without such qualms. Climbing was probably an opportunity to give him an inkling of the far greater levels of pain and difficulty ahead of him, should he choose to capitalize on his “vast potential” as she wished.

So, they climbed side by side, sometimes punching their axes and boot spikes into the ice in time with each other. Iliana had to climb a little faster than Tom because at fourteen, he was already taller than some full-grown men, and there wasn’t a chance she’d let her son overtake her, even if he could. He wasn’t sure if he could.

There was currently no wind—a blessing—but the monotony of the experience was grating. Snowflakes fell without meandering, wrapping the general vicinity in layers upon layers of chilly, prickly gauze that swallowed up sound and light. The lack of wind suggested they were sheltered by some natural rampart of the mountain, but having no visibility beyond their immediate surroundings, they couldn’t tell for sure. Tom kept rubbing his ears as though that might dislodge the strange, muffled quiet that was their companion. He even saw Iliana squint about her from time to time, searching for something to look at that wasn’t endless grey-white. He had to picture Mount Gall in his head, its sheer, splintering purple cliffs jutting into the sky like angry broken teeth, and see himself climbing somewhere on the top third of it, just to remember he was really there. Otherwise, he could easily believe the ground was a short distance below him, beyond the veil of snow. It felt as though they had accidentally climbed into another world, one silent and still in all the ways Erda thrummed with life.

“What are the chances he’s actually hiding up here?” Tom said, giving a forceful kick to embed his toe spikes into the ice. He liked the noise it made; it broke up the quiet.

Iliana glanced at him and raised an eyebrow, the sole expression he could observe, her eyes being the only part of her body that wasn’t currently swaddled against the weather. She responded in her native tongue, a widely-used dialect of Arrejo that she was teaching him. “How many peaks of the world are somewhat habitable, but also prohibitive for Megantites to access?”

“I don’t know, and that’s not something I would keep in my head,” he replied, mastering his outward frustration to an acceptable level. “If I ever needed to know, I would just look it up.” Why did everything have to be a “teaching moment”?

If Iliana was unaware of her son’s touchy mood today, she certainly knew now, and let it be. “I have reason to believe he has been keeping to the high altitudes for some time. Therefore, the probability would be one in the number you can look up if you decide you need to know.”

He couldn’t tell if the annoyance he detected was typical Arrejan haughtiness or a developing apathy towards their objective. He opened his mouth to reply, and she cut him off. “In Arrejo, Tom.”

He summoned the words and spoke with perfect pronunciation and fluidity. He had long understood that Iliana’s demanding nature could only be kept in check by doing exactly as she wanted as quickly as possible. “How could he even get up here?”

“We are up here.”

Tom frowned. “Yeah, but Norvin Cass doesn’t have megantium—he’s Rorien. This would be suicide for a non-Megantite!”

“We are not using megantium.”

“We are for heat,” he argued. Every so often his mother would envelop his body in a fine, translucent mist of megantium, metallic purple-grey in colour, then dip in to its nearly inexhaustible energy stores to heat the air surrounding him. It was like stepping into an oven, and steam would rise off his clothes and hair. He relished the brief return to normal body temperature and tried not to dwell on the fact that she could cook a man that way. She’d done it once, too. He wondered if he’d ever have the guts to do something like that, if it came down to it.

Iliana scowled with her eyes. “We could have dressed for the weather. I thought you would appreciate the reduction in weight and bulk-“

“- I do appreciate it!” The last thing he needed was for his mother to decide he didn’t need the occasional warm-up.

Her sidelong glance told him she was considering it. Ever since he’d expressed a desire to join the Riven, she’d taken great pleasure in exposing him to hardships. New levels of pain, exhaustion, and fear. She claimed it would prepare him for the job, but he suspected she was testing his mettle. After a while, he’d begrudgingly admitted to himself it was probably a good idea: there was no better way to prepare for the admission trials than to practice with an actual Riven. “Norvin could really do this on his own?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.

Iliana took a deep breath and resumed speaking in the common tongue, albeit with her soft accent. Apparently, his Arrejo was satisfactory. “It is possible, with ropes and proper gear. But even so, we must assume Norvin is not an ordinary Rorien. He cannot be Megantite, as he was never in possession of a megantium grain when he was young enough to bind to it. But he has managed to evade the Megantic Order, their Imperators and Hamsas, and numerous Riven over the past seven years, which should not be possible for a Rorien man. So, either someone is helping him, or he has ways of escaping us that we have never before encountered.”

Tom paused for a moment to assess the wall; the ice above him was too thin. His mother had already seen it and was traversing below him, but thanks to the broad-shouldered build he had inherited from his father, he had an absurd reach and was able to sink his axe into a safe hold and shift over in one move. His mind went back to their conversation. “What if he’s using the Megalith? Is it powerful enough to bind to him, even though he’s too old? Or maybe he could use it without binding to it, because it’s different from a regular grain?”

Beside him again, Iliana replied. “Some have conjectured such things. If he has the Megalith, with that power he could rule even the Heptarchy. But, though there have been traces of him these seven years, he has never once attempted to exert control. This suggests he either does not have it, or he cannot use it.”

“I think he has it,” Tom grunted, heaving himself up.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because why else would he murder his whole family, if not to get it?” Tom shrugged. “And why would the whole world be trying to find him if he didn’t have it? Why would they send you after him? It seems like a waste if they weren’t sure.”

“You are making assumptions, Tom.”

“Safe assumptions. There’s wealth and the wisdom of the Heptarchy behind what I said. It’s reasonable to trust that.” He spoke with confidence, partly to annoy his mother, even though her comment had planted a seed of doubt.

“Is it reasonable to trust what you have not seen with your own eyes?”

Tom paused and looked at her. He had only enough time to perceive that one eyebrow was slightly raised, her head cocked just to the right, before she was off and climbing again. “If I have to experience everything myself to believe it, I could never trust… anything,” he said.

“Yes.”

Tom huffed through his nose. As he considered this confounding (and highly irritating) bit of motherly wisdom, the thwock of their climbing gear in the ice took on a rhythmic quality. It was an interesting juxtaposition, as though the world were saying, never mind that, the world is orderly and you can trust it. Soon, however, it became constrictive, like they were mechanized instruments caught up in a song, unable to deviate from the music. The space around him felt tight and closed in, so much so that he had a growing sense of claustrophobia.

Tom shook his head. He had been climbing too long, and was beginning to imagine things. He was three quarters of the way up one of the largest mountains in the Song Dynasty, with air surrounding him on every side but one. A person couldn’t be less confined than he was at the moment. He deliberately broke the rhythm, pausing with his axe in the air before striking it again into the ice. “What do you believe, then?” He challenged, trying to take his mind off of his nagging, irrational thoughts.

“Æthelric Sonnengyn was the Wielder of the Megalith. I know this because I saw him wield it with my own eyes. Someone killed him, and many members of his family. I saw the bodies… what was left of them. The Megalith was missing from the estate, this I know. It could not have remained hidden from we who searched for it that day. Norvin Cass—the servant of Æthelric, the brother of his son’s wife, the uncle of his infant grandchildren—was not accounted for and capable of committing murder and taking the Megalith. That is what I believe, because I was there and confirmed it. Shield,” she finished in a calm voice, and they both tucked their heads under their outstretched arm as chunks of crumbling ice shards fell from above, dislodged by her axe.

Tom thought about this, and realized what his mother was saying. “Were there any survivors?” he asked.

“Carmela Sonnengyn, Æthelric’s daughter, was not there at the time. She was witnessed by more than one of the Heptarchs and their retinue at a party while it happened, and she has not visibly benefitted from the incident. Indeed, the Sonnengyn family was effectively ruined afterwards. She lost almost everything.”

“Was anyone else not accounted for?”

“I saw the body of Skylar Cass, Norvin’s sister. And Avery, his mother. I saw Æthelric. I saw the cradles of the infants, one of which was soaked in enough blood to be fatal. We never found either child, but there was evidence of… Æthelric kept white tigers on the property. They had been fed.” She paused. “We found the severed arm of Evander, but nothing more.” Iliana reported to him with the even tone of an investigator, but he could not help but notice the slight catch in her voice when she spoke of Æthelric’s grandkids.

“How old were the kids?”

“A year or so. Twins.”

Tom swallowed. “The same as Mackenzie.”

“The same as Mackenzie,” his mother agreed.

Tight. The air felt tight. “So, Evander’s missing, too. Why haven’t they blamed him?”

“It is generally accepted that Evander was Æthelric’s choice to inherit the Megalith, out of all his ninety-six living descendants. It is also accepted that he would never have harmed his family, and that Æthelric finally appeared to be nearing death after over five hundred years of life. It is a fact that there has been no sign of Evander these seven years, whereas of Norvin, there have been many.”

Tom shook his head in wonder. Five hundred years old. That was something he wouldn’t have trusted if anyone but his mother had told him.

“Could someone else have done it? An enemy of the family, or someone who coveted the Megalith?”

“Everyone covets the Megalith. But it is said the Sonnengyn estate was impenetrable; no one could pass Evander’s Glungolems. In truth, many were appropriated during the Massacre and are still used by the Heptarchy, and I have not found a way past them, myself.”

“But there could be a way,” Tom pressed.

“There could be a way.”

His mother stopped, and as he looked about them, he saw why.

The snow was no longer falling above them, but continued to fall around them. There was something massive looming overhead. Tom leaned back to see it, and suddenly the world spun. He gripped his axes tighter and brought his gaze back to the wall, resting his forehead against the ice for a moment, fighting dizziness. He felt it, whatever was ahead of them, but his body couldn’t decide if it existed in space or time.

“Mom, something’s weird about this place.”

She gazed at him but did not reply, then drew something from her pocket and tossed it to him.

He left his axe lodged in the ice and caught it—a nut bar wrapped in paper.

“Eat,” she said, and began climbing again.

He tore off the paper with his teeth, took a bite, and held the bar in his mouth while he climbed. Within minutes, they approached a shelf overhang that extended several of his body lengths into the sky, with icicles the size of tree trunks jutting downwards from its edge. Tom sighed.

Iliana followed the ice, edging her way along it to clear the lip of the overhang. But Tom could see a crack underneath it that was just right for his hands and might even accommodate his boots. He holstered his axes, shoving his fists into the crack, and made his way across. He came to the edge of the overhang much quicker than Iliana, and after scrambling overtop to reach the vertical wall again, he paused to finish eating his bar, the snow again falling softly on his face.

“You’re quite confident on the wall,” she said as she caught up with him.

Tom swallowed the last of the bar and shrugged. “If I fall, you’ll catch me.” With megantium, there were a thousand ways she could do it. Her mind controlled the grain she had embedded within her heart, and half a thought would keep him from death.

Iliana’s grip tightened. “And what if I had to engage with an opponent at that moment?”

Oh. “I’d hook the wall wherever I could as I fell, and hang on until you found me again.”

She fixed him with the piercing pale green eyes they shared, though he was certain he’d never achieved that level of intensity with his gaze. “Yes, you would do whatever you could to survive after your foolishness endangered your life.” She started upwards again. “I will not always be there to catch you, Tom.”

“I’ll have my own megantium soon.” In less than six months, he’d have his grain, if he’d managed to earn it by then, and he could become Megantite. He’d do it right on his fifteenth birthday, the earliest he could bind to it, so as not to waste any time.

“No amount of power can protect you from your own foolishness. Not even the Wielder was safe.”

“You’ve made your point, Mum.”

Several minutes passed. Icy snowflakes prickled the back of his neck, somehow finding a way past the high cut of his cashmere tunic and hood. He paused to adjust the fabrics, but to no avail. When he had stopped a third time to fuss with his clothing, his mother sent him a questioning glance. “The snow’s getting in somehow,” he complained, prickly in attitude now, too.

His mother’s eyes narrowed. “You are tired. We’ll stop soon.” Her eyes were drawn upwards to the sky, which was darkening as they spoke and would soon be black.

“No. I’m not tired,” he insisted, and continued climbing, now with more vigour to prove her wrong. The prickly feeling slowly crept down his back and the tops of his arms, and he followed its progress minutely to distract from the monotony. A strange feeling, almost like another he’d felt once, years ago, when his father was still alive, and his half-sister, Mackenzie, too. He pondered this, and it hit him suddenly that he and his mother had fallen into that same unaccountable rhythm of movement and sound, that they were being pushed forward, that even though they had cleared the overhang, there was still something ahead of them.

He stilled. “Mum?”

“Yes?” She had stopped beside him.

“Was there ever any mention of Norvin using lux?”

Iliana showed as much emotion as she ever did, which is to say, she inhaled and her eyes grew harder. “Do not speak that word aloud,” she hissed. “No one can find out you know about that.” She almost always reverted back to Arrejo when provoked.

“Who will hear us out here?” he replied in the same language. “The goats don’t even come this high!”

“The Oculauris can be anywhere,” she continued.

“Maybe they should be on this stupid mountain looking for Norvin Cass, then,” he spat. “And you didn’t answer.”

“No. No mention, and no indication. Why?”

Tom looked above them into a whole lot of nothing. The upper half of his body felt like he’d just rolled in snow after bathing in a hot spring. The muffled silence pressed in on him, threatening to take his breath away. Something was wrong, and as his lips parted in preparation for the warning he was about to give his mother, Iliana’s eyes widened.

A foot, a bare foot, descended from the ether. It came so fast and with such force it could only have been avoided by the preternaturally gifted.

Luckily, Tom was preternaturally gifted. He released his grip on his axe handles at the same moment the foot made contact with his neck, trying to grab for the foot but allowing the force that would have broken his neck to, instead, push him off the mountain. As he fell backwards, both toe spikes slipping out of the wall (he hadn’t planted them particularly well), he had nothing to save himself with. There was lots of time to ponder how it was possible that he had been kicked off the highest face of Mount Gall in the middle of a snowstorm by a small, half-naked, child.