Braving the Elements

1: Making a Pass

"If you are to brave the pass of the fire mountain, then take this. Strange things can happen to one who ventures into those peaks." The crooked, old crone offered Rajke a gnarled root. "Ere the mountain's bosom cleves before you, eat the bitter root. It cannot protect you from all the dangers of beast and brute, but it will shield you from the worst of the elements that will rebuff you."

Rajke took the root slowly, furrowing his brow. "Why are you talking like that?"

The old woman shrugged. "I thought it appropriately

mystical

." She wiggled her knob-knuckled fingers at Rajke playfully and rounded her lips in a silent

ooooo.

"I can't properly call myself a witch if I don't talk in riddles."

Rajke slipped the root into a small pouch, which he hung at his neck. "Sure thing, Auntie."

The self-styled witch was called Cardenza, and she was not, in fact, Rajke's aunt. However, most people in the town referred to her as such, and Rajke saw no need to break custom. He half suspected that they did it just because they didn't want to explain to the weary wayfarer that she was named after a river in halfling country and was not, in fact, named after a piece of furniture by parents who did not know how to spell very well.

"So, I eat it before I enter the pass, and what? I won't get cold?"

"It will shield you from anything native to the elemental planes, nephew." She grinned at the rugged adventurer. "I should think a wayfarer as well traveled as would know that the wall between the worlds is thin at a place like that."

"Wasn't criticizing, just making sure I knew what to expect."

Cardenza laughed and said, "Oh, no. I don't care who you are or how much you've seen. When you go off the edge of the map, you can never know what to expect."

***

Rajke wasn't sure what to make of this odd little town at the edge of the colonies. All the people acted strange when he told them he needed to traverse the pass. He expected they would think he was a brash young wayfarer. Instead, they treated him like a lepper or a pariah. The village was young, only established in the last few years. But it was built on the ruins of an ancient settlement.

"The folk who once lived here gave offerings to whatever dwells in that there range," said the cobbler who had reshod his leather boots. "The scholars found carvings and whatnot. They would send their young men and women into the mountains."

"What became of them?" asked Rajke.

The cobbler shrugged. "Can't say. But I venture to guess that when demons devour your entire civilization in a firey wrath because you didn't send them enough virgins... well, I don't suppose anyone paused to make a carving about it."

Demons?

Thought Rajke,

unlikely. There are more demons in the capitol than there were way out here.

Rajke had even met a few of them.

Rajke figured there were likely elementals there. A place where the earth met the sky, and snow fell on rivers of fire could be nothing else but a nexus of elemental energy. But superstition had a way of making monsters out of mole rats.

It was still a four-day walk to the foot of the volcano, and who could say how long hiking the pass could take?

Everything in Rajke's experience told him there was danger ahead - he should just take the long way around or take one of the higher passes. But he was a wayfarer, after all. As they say, "If curiosity killed the cat, then wayfarers grilled that cat and ate it with mustard, just to see what it tasted like."

***

The four days passed quickly. Rajke was accustomed to long, lonely journeys. He could sing or recount stories. He even had the nifty talent of clearing his mind, allowing time to flow past him, hardly noticed. Before he knew it, he was scaling the foothills, and through the pass he went.

The mountainous earth was rough and steep. Soon, he was more climbing than hiking. But he moved swiftly, his powerful muscles carrying his large, lean body over the stony crags. He controlled his breathing and rested often as he climbed higher and higher, taking care not to overdo it. It didn't matter how fit his body was if his brain ceased functioning due to the rapid thinning of air.

Rajke knew he had to stay on his guard - there were wild beasts in these mountains, not to mention the potential elementals or fiercer creatures. Gods forbid he stumble upon a giant or a dragon.

But Rajke couldn't help but gaze in wonder at his surroundings. He looked back often to take in the fast hill country he had traversed and the treacherous incline he had scaled. The not-quite-dormant volcano sometimes rumbled beneath his feet, making him feel small in that pleasant way that nature usually does.

After two days of climbing, he summited a precipice which gave way to a gentler slope. He could move on his feet here without the need for handholds.

Within 50 feet of him, hot volcanic rock was still forming from a lava flow. Nearby, a patch of pure white snow covered and lush green grass. Ahead stood two peaks, one much shorter and with visible steam rising from where snow and liquid rock met.

Rajke put his hand on the pouch that carried the bitter root.

She said I should eat it before I entered the pass,

Rajke thought,

but where does the pass actually begin? It's not like Secassa drew nice, neat little lines on the world she created - here is the foot, and here is the pass, and here is the peak.

"Don't eat the root."

Rajke whipped around, looking for whoever had spoken. It had been faint, not quite a whisper, and it seemed distant like it had been carried on the wind. He circled all around but saw no one who could have called to him.

Had he climbed too fast after all? Was his brain struggling for air and making up voices that didn't exist?

"Please? I don't like it when people eat the root."

As confused as Rajke was, he knew one thing for certain. Now was a very good time to eat the root. His fingers dove into the pouch and clutched the knobby thing, but as he drew it out, a gust of wind stronger than an ocean wave blew him right off his feet.

He whirled in the air to catch himself before the ground could knock the air out of his lungs, but he lost hold of the witch's herb.

He looked around him, scanning for danger as well as the magical protection. He spotted it - it had landed ten feet away on a steep, scree-littered incline.

Rajke scrambled to reach the root, but the loose rocks beneath his feet cascaded down the mountain face and over the edge of a cliff. Rajke didn't know how far the drop was, but he wasn't looking to find out the hard way. He slowed, choosing his footing carefully, shifting his weight smoothly to prevent a wild cascade of gravel and foolish adventurers.

He was six feet away.

Four.

"Petra," came a voice. Not the ethereal voice on the wind. This time, it was smooth and assured, almost commanding.

"On it," came a reply, this voice husky and sharp.

The ground shook. "No, no, no, no. No!" cried Rajke as the scree shifted, and the root, along with it, started to flow down the mountainside like water.

In one great lunge, Rajke threw himself at the vanishing nub of witchcraft. Stretching desperately and doing his best to ignore all the little scrapes and scratches from the sharp bits of rock now flowing all around him, he seized the root and threw himself flat against the mountain face. His hands and feet dug into the scree, searching for any purchase.

One foot found there was suddenly nothing beneath it to dig into. The other soon followed. Rajke's stomach lurched as his body went over the edge. The fear, the terror, the thrill of falling surged through him, and at last, his hand found purchase - a root, of all things, twisted and dry but firm. His fingers wrapped tightly around a woody lifeline in one hand and the witch's gift in the other. Hanging from one hand, Rajke searched with the other for the pouch that had hung about his neck but could not find it.

He looked down.

He shouldn't have.

He did his best to grasp the large root with his already occupied hand, but it did him little good. He heaved and swung, just managing to reach the top of the cliff wall with his mostly free hand.

"A root? How poetic," came the voice on the wind.

And the reply, a whisper like leaves shuddering on a great tree, "Thank you. You know how I love symmetry."

"Please," called Rajke, all out of options. "I don't know who or what you are. I don't know what you want. But it sounds like you don't want me dead. At least not yet."

Rajke heard footsteps at the top of the landslide, just above where the root had first fallen. The voices came more clearly now, more naturally. They were women's voices - the soft, smooth one first.

"You are correct - we don't want you dead. But eat that root, and we won't want you one way or the other."

The soft one added, "Please, don't eat the root. I don't want you hurt, but I can't pull you up from there. Not by myself. Petra could do it, but I don't think she will if you eat it."

The third voice was the strong one. She said nothing but simply grunted. Without the ability to read her facial cues, Rajke could only assume it was a grunt of agreement.

These have to be the elementals. The root is supposed to protect me from them, but I don't think it will save me from the greatest elemental of all when I fall from this cliff right onto it.

"Fine," called Rajke. "I won't eat the root. I don't even know what it is or what it does. It was given to me by the witch Cardenza in the village, at the foot of the mountains."

"We know," said the smooth voice.

"Who do you think taught her about it?" said the hushed voice.

"Okay, clearly, you have me at a disadvantage. Maybe I can hold on for a minute longer, but if you don't want me dead, what do you want me to do?"

No words came from over the cliff, but there was a gentle rumbling and the sound of stone on stone. Rajke had just enough time to think,

No, no, no! Not again!

Before he felt something solid beneath his feet.

Startled and slightly confused, Rajke pulled himself up higher on the hanging root, fleeing from whatever was coming after him.

"Don't worry," said the soft voice. "That's Petra. She's helping you. Look down."

Rajke didn't like the idea but obliged. There were solid stone footholds along the cliff face, like stepping stones, leading up to the top of the cliff wall.

Those weren't there before, were they

?

Rajke tested one of the footholds with a toe. It seemed to hold. He gradually let more of his weight down onto the rock, first on one foot and then the other.

"Thank you," called Rajke. Quickly, before the spirits could change their minds, Rajke scaled the natural steps and, upon summiting the cliff, dropped to hands and knees, choosing to crawl rather than walk to a spot of stable terrain, whereupon he collapsed prostrate and showered the ground with his love and affection.

His reverent communion with Mother Gaia was broken when he heard several pairs of footsteps approach and halt some five feet from his head.

Slowly, cautiously, Rajke raised his head to see his tormentors and saviors.

Five women, or at least they appeared somewhat woman-ish, stood before him. Each was ravishingly beautiful, but each in their own unique way. This was not the beauty of ladies at court, each trying to look as similar to the others as she could manage. One was tall, lean, and graceful, with skin like alabaster. Another was dark, with large obsidian eyes, full-lipped, with a light but powerful frame. The next was darker still, with skin like black marble and a towering, statuesque body to match. Next, a fierce-looking woman with hair like fire, eyes like emeralds, and lithe curves like a jungle cat. The last was full-bodied, with heavy, round breasts and hips that tapered from her long, callipygian legs up to her narrow waist.

They each wore gossamer clothes that somehow managed to be both billowing and flatteringly tight, and each wore a single piece of jewelry, a bracelet, an earring, an anklet, a circlet, and a ring, made a shiny yellow metal a bit rougher and more earthy than gold. Rajke immediately identified the metal as electrum, a natural mixture of gold and silver.

Rajke had heard that electrum had properties that made it worthwhile for magical research - scholars would throw heavy purses at wayfarers who brought them even modest amounts of the stuff. Rajke wasn't sure what to make of it just then, but he filed the knowledge away for another time.

After picking his jaw up off the ground, Rajke pulled himself up to his full height to greet the women, whom he was pretty sure were not really women. Rajke was a rather tall man - he had seldom met anyone taller. Two of these splendid creatures were taller than him, and another was not much shorter. All were regal in their manner, but again, each in a unique way that seemed to wholly suit them somehow.

"I must confess," said Rajke, "I didn't believe nymphs were real. I just assumed they were stories unscrupulous wayfarers told in taverns to get drinks from the lonely old yokels who don't know any better."

The five elementals looked back and forth at one another as if silently agreeing that Rajke's words made no sense. After a moment, the eyes of four of the nymphs settled on the first. The tall, slender one with white skin, platinum hair, and eyes so piercingly blue they almost seemed to shimmer like ice in the sunlight. She looked at each of them in turn before, at last, turning to Rajke.

"Um..." she said. Hers was the soft voice like clouds on the wind. Her eyes darted shyly away, and the clear white skin of her face turned the lightest shade of pink before she looked back at Rajke and sweetly said, "My name is Aura, and I would very much like to suck your dick."