Back to the Mountain

I knew this mountain well.

Snow clung to the wisps of my beard as I crawled from the wreckage of our balloon, choking on burning smoke and freezing air in equal measure. I was back in my youth, stranded on the side of a desolate mountainside, and bleeding from several terrible injuries, but these facts no longer concerned me. I’d been having this same dream very nearly every night for years.

Time was, this had been a riveting nightmare of the worst day in my life. Now, it was one of the few ways in which I could see my father again.

I followed the all-too-familiar trail of debris, soot, and blood and found him lying there, as always, impaled on a pair of iron rods.

“Da!” I shouted, sprinting as best I could through the snow towards him. He twitched at the sound, and his eyes opened slowly.

“Flint?” he wheezed. “Flint, are you there? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, da, I’ll live,” I said, trying to sound comforting. “It’s gonna be fine.”

His gaze slowly drifted down to the metal protruding from his chest. “No, lad… No I don’t think it will be.” He tried to chuckle at his own joke, but broke off in pain. “Aaaah, your mother was right.”

“She usually is,” I offered.

He let out another gasping attempt at a laugh. “I was a fool not to listen to her, and now I’ve dragged you into this. I’m… so sorry, Flint.”

And then we sat in silence for a time. Around this point I would normally begin to influence the dream on my own terms. I might forgive him, only to have him die peacefully in my arms. I might rant and rave at his lack of caution and the irresponsibility that had landed us here, reveling in the catharsis of the moment. I might even continue to be silent, allowing us both to fade away in the cold. I would do all manner of things. Anything I could think of. Anything except for what I had done.

“Flint?”

My heart felt like it skipped a beat. That… wasn’t normal. I’d waited in silence for what felt like hours in the past, and he’d never broken it first before.

“Flint!”

He was shouting. Louder than I’d ever heard him manage. I tried to answer back, but my voice caught in my throat. What was happening? How had I lost control so suddenly?

“FLINT!”

*THUD*

I sat up with a start, slamming the back side of my head into the shelf above my desk, sending books careening down onto the desk, the floor, and my sore head.

“Ah, you’re awake! Wonderful.”

Sheepishly rubbing my sore dome, I spun around to face my visitor.

William O’Cloch was many things. A brilliant historian, a kindly old gentleman, and a voracious reader. He also happened to be both my boss and my landlord. One thing he was not, however, was a good liar. In the ten seconds or so it took me to recover from the pain and shame of my abrupt awakening, I could already tell he was trying his hardest not to tell me something. And apparently my own face was just about as easy to read, as he immediately broke eye contact and began pacing around my small office, fidgeting with whatever he could get his hands on.

“So, Flinty my boy,” the old gnome said, “I came down here to see how things were going with the Òran relics exhibit! Having any trouble sorting the artifacts?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean the artifacts we finished setting up yesterday evening? No, I can’t say they’ve been much trouble at all, today.”

He visibly flinched, focusing ever harder on trying to smooth down the edges of a map I had pinned to the wall. “Oh. Oh, yes, of course. Excellent work, getting that completed ahead of schedule!”

“Thank you, sir. You said as much then, as well, when you helped us put the finishing touches on the Pit diorama.” I huffed and began collecting my books from the floor. “Mister O’Cloch, whatever it is you’re putting off telling me, I assure you I can handle it.”

At last he turned to face me again, his face caught somewhere between relief and embarrassment. “Of course you can, my boy, it’s just that… Well, you see… I happen to owe some men a rather considerable sum of money…”

Well that was a damn fine way to start things off. But sarcasm aside, his admission did manage to catch me off-guard. Old William, a debtor to shady collectors? “‘Some men’, you say… so I take it you mean this isn’t an above-board loan?”

“I thought it was at the time!” he muttered defensively. “But with you bringing back so many wonderful new items from your little expeditions, we needed to excavate a new wing here and there. We’re quite successful as museums go, or so I’m told, but such things aren’t cheap!” He tugged at his beard and began pacing. “There were permits to get from the Triumvirate, skilled miners and architects to hire, not to mention your own fees!”

Now it was my turn to get defensive. “My rates are perfectly reasonable for the work that I do! You said so yourself when you first brought me on.”

“Yes, yes, and they’re only a small portion of what I’ve been spending, but it all added up so very quickly.” O’Cloch sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “In the end, the banks stopped lending and I was forced to turn elsewhere.”

“I believe that’s our cue.”

My office door opened once again and three figures pushed their way into my dingy office. A short, reptilian creature with two curling tusks and a thick, club-like tail entered first, flanked behind by two muscle-bound brutes so top-heavy they were forced to walk on their knuckles as much as their feet. All three figured were dressed in dark suits tailored to their strange forms. An air of menace came with them.

“Demons?” I cried, my eyes darting between them and O’Cloch, exasperated at the depths to which this man I trusted had sunk.

“I will ignore your casual bigotry for the time being, common as it seems to be in this place,” the reptilian demon chuckled quietly. “After all, we’ve come here on business, and it wouldn’t pay to be… unprofessional.”

I snorted. The man was so smarmy, I’d have been disgusted no matter his species. “Whatever you and my employer have worked out is between the two of you. We have no business together.”

“Ah, well, that’s where you’re wrong, Mr. O’Hammond,” the demon said. “As you stated, the debt is firmly in your employer’s hands. However, he has very little of interest to offer us. The sole exception being you.”

“And what exactly makes me so interesting?” I asked, suddenly acutely aware that I was cornered, with all three demons standing between myself and the door.

The reptilian demon took a few steps toward my desk and leaned towards me. For an uncomfortable moment, his eyes lingered on my heavily-wrapped left arm before finally moving up to meet my gaze. “Unlike your employer, mine does his research before dealing with prospective business partners. It didn’t require much digging to discover a rather fascinating collection of stories pertaining to your history, Flint O’Hammond.”

I could feel beads of sweat beginning to run down my face. This creature knew my past? How? And more importantly, what did expect to be able to do with that information? I had a lot more power at my disposal than most people realized, true enough, but it wasn’t as if I could wield it particularly well. Plus, they seemed to have the hired muscle angle well in hand. Maybe they wanted-

“You’ve been atop the Hold’s Bane.”

I blinked.

“Hold’s Bane?” I repeated in confusion. So this wasn’t about my Mark? I was flabbergasted. Here I was, a living conduit of god-like power, and this demon was more interested in the fact that I’d survived crash-landing on a hostile mountainside? What possible reason could that give them to seek me out?

Oh.

Oh, no.

Oh gods no, this was infinitely worse.

A sly grin crossed the demon’s face as he saw the realization dawn on mine. Satisfied, he spun away from me and began to pace around the room, idly taking in my various belongings and a few unsorted artifacts.

“That mountain has devoured countless would-be settlers and explorers over the years,” he said. “They say that no one who’s passed its treeline or breached its surface has ever returned to tell the tale.”

“Aye, they do say that,” I responded. “No need to give us a lecture about the folklore of our own country, demon.”

“So you say, dwarf, and yet you don’t seem to grasp the gravity of the fact that you survived.” His voice lowered to a rasping growl. “After all of the people it has chewed up over the ages, did you not once ponder why it chose to spit you back out?”

I had my theories, not that I intended to share them with this self-important lackey and his goon squad. Nor did I have any intention of going anywhere near that mountain again. I’d made my peace with what it had done to my father and I - or at least, that’s what I told myself - and I had no interest in ever setting foot on that accursed stone ever again. My hands clenched involuntarily at the very thought of it, digging my nails into the wood of my chair armrests.

“I think I see what you’re getting at,” I said slowly, putting an inordinate amount of effort into keeping my voice calm, “and I’ll make this easy for you: No.”

“No?” The demon turned, immediately losing interest in the dusty old relic in his hands.

“Whatever information you think I might have, I can assure you I don’t. Whatever aid you think I might offer to anyone taking a crack at Hold’s Bane, I can’t and I won’t.” I stood from my chair. “If need be, I can always waive or refund my finder’s fees to help Mr. O’Cloch pay off whatever you loaned him, but that’s all you’re going to get from me.”

For a while, all I got in response from the demon was a cold, calculating stare. Whether he was trying to intimidate me or just trying to determine if I was serious, I couldn’t be sure… but it seemed successful enough either way. Soon enough, he began laughing.

“Oh no no no, Mr. O’Hammond, I’m afraid that’s not how this works.” Carefully, he placed the relic back where it belonged and folded his hands behind his back. “You see, your dear Mr. O’Cloch here owes us rather significant sums at this point. The time has come for us to collect, and the terms of our collection were very clear. Either we secure your services here and now, with your full and willing cooperation, or…” the demon paused, chuckling. “Well, why don’t you tell him yourself?”

O’Cloch jumped at being addressed. He appeared to be trying to blend seamlessly with a coat rack in the corner, but with that plan foiled, he seemed utterly at a loss. He stammered and mumbled nonsensical, haphazard sounds, avoiding any and all eye contact with me the whole time.

“Now now, don’t be shy,” the demon teased. “You owe your associate an explanation, don’t you think? And gods know the last thing you need right now is even more debt.”

“I… You… That is…” the poor man swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “If I fire you, throw you out, and besmirch your good name, the debt goes away.”

Aaah, so that was their game. To get me out on the streets, desperate enough for work to accept their offer regardless. Simple, straightforward, cruel. It sounded about right for demons.

“Then I suppose you’d best do that,” I said, shrugging. “I’ve not much in the way of savings, but it’s not as if I’m not used to travel. Maybe Anchorhal has uses for-”

I was interrupted by an aggravated groan from the demon. “I have been instructed to inform you that, should you accept termination on the part of your employer, you will be unceremoniously stricken unconscious the moment you leave the premises and be forced to join our cause against your will.”

“Oh…” I said, too befuddled to add much else for a moment.

“I imagine it makes rather little sense to you that I’ve told you this,” he continued. “I agree. Under normal circumstances, it would have been my first choice of action, but my employer has an annoying but very strict policy about… ugh… ‘fair warning’. As it is, we’ve skipped a step in our script. You see…” he slowly crossed the room, idly drawing his claws across the space between my various maps, charts, and paintings. “Your employer was meant to insinuate that we would threaten his life if you were to decline our offer. To play off of your sense of empathy and heroism. It’s often a foolproof tactic for people like yourself. Unfortunately, this moron,” with a terrible shriek of claws on polished stone and a puff of powdered rock, the demon raked his hand across the wall, balled it into a fist, and caught O’Cloch in the gut in a single, fluid motion, “can’t seem to play his part.”

The old gnome wheezed in pain and surprise, trying his hardest to mutter an apology and explain himself even as he slumped into a heap on the floor.

“Perhaps we underestimated just how cowardly he is, if he can’t even suggest that he might be in danger.”

Ouch. That punch had looked like it had hurt… but if the demon hadn’t landed it, I wouldn’t have been far behind. That snivelling bookworm had just gone along with this? It wasn’t as if I expected him to stand up to mobsters like these, but all it would have taken was some honesty. If he’d walked straight in and explained the situation, I’d have understood. Sure, I’d have been mad as shit that he’d turned to loan sharks and roped me into this mess, but at least I could have had some respect for him.

But he couldn’t even do that. He’d tried to play it off, and failed miserably. Then he’d tried to hide from it all, and failed miserably. Nul’s depths, he’d just needed to say the words ‘or they’ll kill me’, and still he’d failed miserably. He’d been too afraid of them to come straight out with it, and too afraid of me to lie properly.

In the midst of his blubbering and excuses, our eyes met. “I… I-I just... I’m sorry, Flint.”

I sighed and looked away. “Me too, William.”

The demon looked at me with a snarl as he shook the impact from his hand. “You’re still coming with us, whether you want to or-”

I held up a finger, cutting him off. “You need to stop trying so damn hard,” I grumbled. “Wait outside with your lapdogs. I’ll get my coat and gather a few things.”

The demon’s frown only deepened, and his eyes flicked around the room, no doubt searching for escape paths I might use the moment he was out of sight, but this was a basement office in the side of a mountain. There was nothing of the sort.

“Fine,” he said at last, wiping the dust from his coat as he waved his companions into the hall. As he was about to leave, he stuck his head back into the room for one last parting shot. “For what it’s worth - for all that you had none to speak of… You made the right choice.”

As the door clicked behind him and I was left alone with O’Cloch’s shotgun apologies, all I could think about was the mountain. I’d never wanted to return there again, but here it was, managing to drag me back regardless.

Damned mountain… I knew it far too well.