We followed Arngeir out of the cavernous hall and into a barren courtyard. Snow still fell thickly around us as we marched our way across the slushy, frozen ground. I was grateful the old monk walked with a slow, steady pace as I could feel exhaustion pulling at the corners of my consciousness. The trial--test, whatever it was--drained me completely, and as I walked, I was a hollow, cracked vessel: empty and full of no promise.
Despite my blasé response to Derkeethus' concerns over the suggested nature of our souls, I was worried to a degree, but not for the same reasons. If my soul was possessed, for I saw it as nothing more than that, by a dragon's lust for power, what, then, did that mean in relation to the madness ebbing and flowing about my mind. Did the possession result in this madness, or was this madness a result of some part of myself responding and feeding off of the possession? What part of myself was that?
Somehow I knew I was on the precipice of understanding something massive, something that would reveal the underlying pattern behind it all. I could feel myself teetering on the edge, my toes gripping the last fragile limbs of the tree before I walked off into nothing. There is no beginning to a circle, I reminded myself as we passed a roaring fire marking the way to a stone gate.
"This is the way to the Throat of the World," whispered Arngeir at last. We stood silently facing the enormous stone archway, listening to the snow hiss softly around us. Inside the arch was a contained tempest of wind and freezing air that swirled in an eerie silence.
"Perfect, why didn't you lead us here in the first place?" muttered Derkeethus, stepping towards the gate.
With a movement faster than my eyes could see, the old monk gripped the back of the Argonian's cloak, stopping him mid-step. "You cannot pass this alive. Should you attempt to enter the tempest, you will die."
"Then how do we go through?" Derk growled.
"You cannot. You cannot pass if you do not follow the Way of the Voice," Arngeir replied tightly.
"There must be a way around. Is there another path?" I asked, surveying the gate carefully.
"No. If you wish to live, turn away. Go back, or stay with us," he said, gazing at us in morose disappointment. "Daal. Uv dir." The words rumbled like soft thunder as Arngeir walked slowly into the tempest, a thick rime forming on his clothing though he otherwise remained untouched.
"No! Wait! Please! We have to get to the top! We have to repair the White Phial!" I shouted, plunging into the storm. My breath froze solid in my lungs as I reached blindly for the monk, my fingers numbing rapidly even as I groped through the air. "No," I choked.
Even as my body was freezing, I felt my friend yanking me away from the edge of the storm, dragging me down the steps. Weakly I protested, my hands still searching for the robes of the grey man so I could clout him or beg him. As I was ushered down the steps, I watched the monk disappear into the silently wailing gale.
Derkeethus pushed, pulled, and dragged me over to the roaring fire, ripping my gloves off and forcing my hands so close to the blaze I thought they might cook.
"For all your general wisdom, you are a complete idiot," he grumbled, managing to both glare at me and grin at the same time.
"And I suppose attempting to march right on through a strange gate that looked dangerous was pure genius?" I asked, smiling at the Argonian lopsidedly. Unfortunately, the chattering of my teeth disrupted any effort to sound truly sarcastic.
"I was ignorant of the danger," Derk replied in mock scorn.
After several minutes, my body felt warmer and my hands less frozen. Taking a slow, deep breath, I found I could breathe relatively easily, though I coughed wetly when I exhaled. "I'll be fine," I said in response to Derk's concerned glance. Searching in my pack I retrieved a small vial filled with a thick syrup churned from powdered hawk's beak, a ground perch, and egg yolk. It tasted unpleasant, but not vile as it slowly slid down my throat. The resulting warmth that spread through my limbs was enough to put me at ease, so I pulled my gloves back on and surveyed the area.
The courtyard was largely fenced in on the edge of the mountainside and no gap in the wall could be seen on the left side of the gate. Even the gate itself was build flush with the mountain, as if a chunk of the mountain itself had been carved into the gate. Our best hope lay on the right side of the arch, where Hrothgar's rocky surface served as a protective barrier for the courtyard.
My eyes slowly traced the shapes and surfaces of the rocks, and I saw nothing but hunched, crushed shapes mixing with each other. Then, I imagined the rocks in the shapes of low trees, and seeing the hand holds became easier as the veins in the rocks naturally morphed into the shapes of branches.
"I see a way up," I said. "Come on."
Even Derkeethus spotted the beginning of the path I had seen as it climbed up the side of an escarpment in the form of a large snowdrift. Our feet crunched eagerly through the packed snow, undaunted by the occasional air pocket that collapsed underfoot at the slightest provocation. The drift wound slowly up the rocks, weaving between boulders and filling folds until we stood several stories above High Hrothgar. Below us the flat roofs of the fortress panned out in a pattern of rectangles and squares, looking for all the world like a stony bridge spread across a gulf.
Higher we scrambled, and it wasn't long before the snowdrift fizzled out and we were climbing the rocks in earnest. Jorin, not possessing any thumbs to speak of, was placed in my pack, and it took me some time to adjust to the new weight on my back. Still low enough for the rocks to bear many deep hand- and footholds, we ascended steadily, feeling the snowflakes brushing across our faces as we looked up or the hard wind drying our eyes as we looked down.
After some time, I glanced upward to see an overhang stretching out just beyond my reach. The only place to grab was the ledge itself. I would have to let go with both hands and make a jump for the edge. Looking down, I swallowed tightly. We were suspended many feet above the soft snowdrift now, and to fall would risk grave injury preceding a slow death.
"What's the matter?" Derkeethus asked, looking up at me.
I took a deep breath and imagined I was merely leaping towards another branch in a tree. That below me was the brown and green lattice of the lower branches and above me was the soft green light of the canopy. "Nothing," I replied. Praying indistinctly, I coiled the muscles in my legs and jumped. My hands scrabbled along the ledge for a moment before finding purchase, and with a great heave, I hauled myself up onto the shelf. Turning and laying on my belly, I pulled Derkeethus with me. He head appeared in a rueful grin as he scrambled up and stood nearby.
For a while we stood and looked out at the world before us. There really wasn't much to see as the clouds became thick and white, obscuring the land from our view. We could, however, see the gate and its swirling, restrained storm as a small shape amid the blinding white.
Derk crouched to the edge of the shelf and glared down at the tempest. With a crude grin he hawked and spat into the winds and ice. "So much for your gate, Grey-Chanter." Turning back to me, he smiled wryly, "Do you think I hit his head?"
"No," I said, chewing on a little of our rations, "The wind is too strong. But maybe it flew into his face." We both laughed in spite of the looming presence of the mountain, and though I felt a little guilty for belittling the old monk, he had been less than helpful and ended up raising more questions than he had answered.
I looked for a while at my friend, wondering at the concept of us being connected some strange way. Regardless of the soul nonsense, there was no doubt that Derk's ability to rend the air with his voice was tied to the possessive power within me. Where did that leave us, then, I wondered. I hoped we could somehow untangle this connection, as the idea of being someone's conduit was highly disturbing. It was no good knowing that if Derk felt terribly threatened, I could be torn to psychic shreds in his attempt to save himself, or me. Not that I couldn't do a decent job of that myself at this point. Between the chaos, and possession, in my mind and the Argonian's ability to draw on that power, I felt that my sense of self was getting crushed into oblivion--into an increasingly smaller shape.
Frowning, I turned to the rocks behind me. "I need a holiday," I sighed as I reached for the next handhold. "We can't be far from the top," I said louder.
We climbed for a several more hours, rising by mere inches at a time. Here the places to grab became smaller, smoother as the rocks gradually melded together into the sheer faces of the mountain. Derkeethus eventually surged ahead using his pickaxes, carefully cracking and removing chunks of rocks so I could follow his trail up the mountainside.
By the time we at last climbed to a wide path near the very peak, I could feel the day growing old around us, though snow continued to fall. Wearily, we plunged up the gentle slope until a flat expanse greeted us through the swirl of white.
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Loved your tags, by the way!