Cold: Chapter Seven
In which a successful stealth roll, and some clever thinking, might just get you past these giants.
Chapter 7
As I ascended the mountain proper, I became aware of my own sounds and how they echoed off the rock face. I removed my boots, tied them together, and slung them over my shoulder, thus eliminating a slight clacking noise as I walked. I grimaced as my thin socks became the only thing between my feet and the cold stone path, but my silent footfalls reassured me that going shoeless was the right move.
Thankfully, the horrific rags that my ghoul friend had given me provided some much-needed warmth to the rest of my body.
I realized at that moment that I’d never actually asked the ghoul’s name. That was rude.
Ahead of me, the path wound around a corner, sheer rock on one side and a precipitous drop on the other. I marveled at how quickly I’d climbed up this far, wondering about the nature of time and distance in this place – had I really come this far, or had I moved in some way beyond the three dimensions I usually inhabited?
Whatever the case, I now found myself much closer to the sound of crashing boulders and booming voices in a language I didn’t understand. The thunder buffeted me, hurting my ears, and I felt gravel pelt me from above. I moved like a stalking cat up the path, looking for the hidden crevice that my ghoul friend had directed me to that would lead me to a mountainside warren of other ghouls that should be friendly and allow me passage past the giants.
I poked my head around the switchback in the path, and I quickly ducked back and pressed myself against the stone mountain face, slowing my breathing. On the other side, a true giant, dozens of feet tall, massive, muscles for days, wielding a huge club, clearly patrolling.
Shit. Now what?
I looked for any other path, any sign of the crevice to the ghoul warren, but nothing obvious presented itself. I took a minute to compose myself and slow my breathing and my heart rate, looking out at the stunning vista in front of me.
I could see a mountain range that rivaled the Alps. White craggy peaks ascended like teeth and then plunged into snow-packed valleys. A mammoth mountain far off in the distance, shrouded in thick but wispy clouds, soared upwards beyond my ability to see it.
But the sky – I couldn’t get over the sky. From this height, with the air clear around me, I saw a huge, cratered moon looming down at me, glowing, looking like I could reach up and touch it, like I could jump up to it if I got a running start. If I squinted hard enough, I could swear I saw cities up there, or creatures, or something alive, and were those black sailing ships traveling downward from the moon’s surface?
I got the distinct impression that outer space had a different definition in this place, if it even existed at all.
I returned my attention to the task at hand. I could still hear the giant on the other side of the switchback, each of his footfalls rattling the ground and loosing small rocks.
I looked behind me, trying to remember if I passed any alternate paths on my way up, but my memory failed me, the journey blurring, dreamlike, and the more I tried to remember how I’d gotten here, the more it slipped away from me.
I missed my cybernetic eye and my adrenal implant. Both would really come in handy here.
It occurred to me that if this was a dream, at least in the sense that where I was didn’t represent reality in a scientific, concrete sense, then maybe, just maybe, I could manipulate my surroundings to my benefit.
I could be like Neo and change the rules of the game.
I’d never been able to do lucid dreaming before, but I seemed to be doing it now.
Could I fly?
I thought about flying, remembered something I’d read once about “throwing yourself at the ground and missing,” and smiled a little. Obviously that wasn’t it.
I closed my eyes and pictured my feet lifting off the ground. I imagined how it would feel to float, to disregard gravity, to gain altitude, the feeling of air rushing past my arms and legs and face and body. I convinced myself I could fly, that it would be as natural as breathing.
I opened my eyes, pictured that lift, and jumped in place.
I jumped a few inches and then dropped, wincing as my foot landed on a few loose rocks.
Ok, not that.
What if I changed the scale of the threat ahead of me?
I peeked around the corner. The giant stood with his back to me, scratching at a spot on his shoulder with his huge club.
Right now, he looked to be about 50 feet tall and about 30 feet away from me.
I grinned as I remembered another old comedy sketch in which people squinted at each other from a distance with their bodies framed between thumb and forefinger, and then “crushed their heads.” What if I could use that same principle to make the giant not only look smaller, but actually change his physical size?
I framed the giant between my thumb and forefinger, squinting. From that perspective, seeing the giant without any visual context to define his actual height, the giant did look a lot smaller. I forced myself to believe the giant stood about five feet tall and was a lot farther than 30 feet away from me.
A strange noise, like rocks shifting and echoing at right angles to reality, and a confused series of yelps. I watched the giant whip around and flail at his surroundings, wielding his club and trying to identify a threat he couldn’t see. Removing my “head-crushing” fingers, I saw, to my amazement, that my gambit had worked.
The giant, or what had been a giant, now stood much farther away, on a path that had rearranged itself to be much longer, on a mountain that had changed shape to accommodate the new path, all without triggering a landslide or earthquake. The giant looked around, scratching his head in confusion, glancing down at himself and then around at the mountain and the path.
I readied my staff and rounded the switchback, still walking like a ninja toward the giant. Once I got within a dozen feet of him, the giant whipped around and snarled at me with a mouth full of black and broken teeth.
“Stand aside and let me through, and we’ll have no problem,” I said, brandishing my staff.
The giant approached me, looking small and a little bit ridiculous with his loincloth and club. He swung his club at my neck. I parried the club with the staff, moved in, and landed a claw punch, middle knuckle extended, into his throat. He gasped and spluttered, stumbling backward, dropping his club and grabbing his throat with both hands, coughing and trying to regain his breath.
“Yield and live,” I said.
The giant glared at me, black eyes unreadable but certainly not friendly. He spat blood onto the ground, regained his breath, and went to retrieve his club. I moved in and blocked his advance, pointing the staff at him.
“Yield and live,” I repeated.
The giant roared at me, a sound that I’m sure would have been intimidating at the giant’s normal size. He tried to grab my staff, but not fast enough. I thrust, hard and fast, and felt the staff bite into his side, just below his ribcage. I pushed in, twisting the point of the staff, as the giant howled in agony and flailed at me.
I yanked the point out of the giant’s side, and gouts of blood poured from the wound. The giant gasped, stumbled, and fell. I watched as the light left his eyes, and the giant went limp.
Our battle had not been quiet, so I worried about the giant’s buddies coming around to see what all the fuss was about. And I wasn’t at all sure I could repeat that insane perspective trick with any of the rest of the giants.
I had no idea why my flying idea hadn’t worked but the perspective change had worked. Maybe it had something to do with changing the fundamental nature of a thing versus…but then…who the hell knew?
Thankfully, before I had to worry too much about that, I saw, in the mountain face, a crevice. The very crevice that my ghoul friend had described.
I approached the crevice and peered inside. Darkness and the same kind of fetid, rotten smell I’d come to associate with ghouls. I heard a meeping and gibbering, many voices, echoing off the cold walls within.
How did I know that my ghoul friend had alerted the ghouls here that I was friend, not foe? What would happen if the ghouls here didn’t see me that way?
Did I trust the ghoul enough to take his route, or did I want to try my luck going my own way?
Love the Hitchhikers reference 😁