The mountain hadn't seemed so terrible, from the plains. Even when the cold had begun to bite through his kimono, turning every little graze from the granite outcroppings into a frozen pain, he had thought it was possible. The goat-men had represented very little challenge to his skill; the climbing itself had not been that difficult, despite the iced-over stone and the rigid nature of his sandals. But now, shivering helplessly in the depths of a blizzard, completely alone except for the fading footprints of the mountain monks, Jack felt the first shadows of a doubt.
It didn't help that he could hardly see through the whirling snow, nor that the dim pain in his chest he'd attributed to the growing altitude had developed into red-hot iron bands restricting his breathing; he was beginning to feel dizzy with the pain. Blinking the tousled hair out of his eyes, Jack sighed and started, once more, to climb.
The mountain monks had said that truth lay atop Mount Fatoum. That had been good enough for Jack, several thousand feet below. Truth as a philosophical abstract seemed less important as he climbed higher and higher, gasping in the rarefied air; he'd settle for warmth and food, and possibly some bandages. Aku seemed nothing more than a horrible dream, a thing of the warm plains below; there was nothing of the dark wizard in these frozen steeps, unless you counted the complete lack of mercy the weather and the mountain itself was showing him. Perhaps they'd been right to say that no one could ever scale Fatoum; perhaps it had been presumptuous of him, dishonourable even, to assume that he could be the first to succeed.
He reached a ledge, gasping, his chest burning with the too-thin air, and slumped to his knees. The summit was still miles away, lost in the stormclouds, and he was already feeling the shaking weakness of total physical exhaustion. It was ridiculous. It was only a mountain. He'd come close to defeat before, but only at the hands of Aku's robot minions, and only when the odds were almost insurmountable.
Jack shuddered, so cold he'd stopped feeling the cold at all; he was dizzy with the altitude and the pain in his chest, and the mountain itself seemed to sway in and out of focus, as if he was falling away from reality once more. Shaking away the sensation, he struggled to his feet once more and began to climb. All around him the storm was worsening. He thought vaguely that perhaps the mountain-spirits were angry with him for daring to challenge Fatoum; it would explain the abominable snowmen and the rock-monsters that had been showing up with alarming regularity as he reached ever higher.
It would do no good to wonder, he told himself firmly, and set his body to climb once more.
From a distance the samurai was indistinguishable from the snowfields he was struggling through; the only thing that stood out in the whirling white was the blowing shock of his hair, blacker than anything that the mountain normally saw. He was a tiny mote of white in a world of white. It was difficult to remember that this was indeed the hero who had come so close to defeating Aku so many, many times; the man whose deeds were legend down on the plains, who had freed the slaves of the Dome of Doom and taught the tribes of the forest apes to protect their villages. He looked like a man at the end of his endurance.
The watchers who had followed Jack up from the foothills of Mount Fatoum kept their distance, waiting for the samurai to fall. They had seen many heroes attempt the climb, of course, and to give Jack credit, he had made it further than anyone else they could remember. It was clear he had very little left to give, and the watchers found themselves waiting curiously to see just how far he could make it before his body gave up altogether.
The samurai had long ago lost his sandals in the depths of the snow; he could hardly feel his fingers or toes as they struggled for grip on the ice-covered rock. The tatters of his robe blew around him like shreds of the stormclouds he was climbing through. His vision had faded to a dim unfocused view of the far-off summit, unchanging, unreachable; the pain in his chest made it impossible to breathe except in little gasps. Black, frozen blood stiffened his robe in a hundred places; his mouth and nose were caked with ice. There was nothing left except Fatoum. Aku was gone; his long-ago parents were gone; the cherry-blossom drifts of his home were nothing more than shreds of memory.
He reached up one more time, clutching at the mountain, and again, and then there was simply nothing left; his fingers closed on the ice, slid open again, as his body went limp at last. There wasn't far to fall before he landed on a snow-covered ledge, and he was already unconscious when the watchers materialized out of the snow all around him, staring down at the limp form of their mountain's challenger.
********
Jack woke slowly, blinking away dim visions of whirling snow and helpless exhaustion, and found himself staring at a low roof of stretched hide in the light of an oil lamp. He blinked, wondering what sort of hallucination the cold had brought on, and as the pain of his wounds came back in a sudden sick rush, realized he was no longer dreaming. He sat up suddenly in shock, gasping, and then wished he hadn't; the pain in his chest was worse, and it was difficult to breathe.
Something rustled nearby. Jack glanced over, noticing that the shelter, or tent, was supported by poles that looked a great deal like gigantic ribs. The tentflap was drawn aside, and a muffled figure came in, shaking blown snow off its garments. Jack watched with some trepidation as the newcomer unwound layer after layer of fur from its face, laying aside the wrappings, and turned to him.
She was very dark, windburned the colour of milky coffee; her hair was as dark as his own, and her eyes slanted at the corners in a familiar way. Moving as silently as the mountain-monks had done, she came over beside his bed and sat down, gently pushing his shoulders back down to the pillows. "Rest," she said, in a dialect Jack was vaguely familiar with. "You have much recovering to do."
"Where am I?" he rasped, his throat rough with pain. "All I remember is the mountain."
"You are in the camp of the Akhari," said the woman. "We are the people of the mountain. This is our domain; all who pass through it are watched by our scouts. We found you near the summit two days ago." She reached out and smoothed Jack's tumbled hair away from his face. "You've been very ill."
He closed his eyes, the dizziness coming back in a wave. "I have failed," he muttered, coughing. "Your mountain has defeated me."
The woman's voice held a smile. "Fatoum defeats all her challengers. Only the Akhari, we who are born here, have ever reached the summit. Do not be ashamed. Your efforts brought you farther than any other stranger in our memory."
Jack looked at her steadily. "What of the mountain monks?"
"They turned back long before you. Our scouts saw them reaching the plains last night."
"Even with their training?" he asked. "They had none of the difficulty I remember."
"Nor did they have your determination," said the woman. "What is your name, stranger?"
"Jack," said Jack, and coughed again, more painfully. She nodded, wiping sweat away from his face.
"I am Aoi," she said. Reaching down to a low table by the fur-covered bed, she handed him a cup carved out of a goat-man's horn. "Drink this, and rest. Your fever has only just broken."
Jack took the cup, too weary to argue, and drank off the contents; it was hot and faintly peppery, and eased a little of the pain in his chest. She took the horn-cup back and rose, swathing herself once more in her furs. He was already too deep to notice when she came back to the bedside and stood looking down at him for a long moment before leaving the tent again.