The rest of the evening was spent recovering. The poultices used a healing magic that took the pain and closed the wounds from the jaguar-cat, though it left Notaku feeling utterly exhausted. He slept with a guard of eight fae with bows, as he clutched the gem that so many people sought. Earthkin curled up to sleep next to Notaku the entire day, and only rose when Notaku did.
In the evening, Notaku bathed and ate breakfast, and readied himself for the last leg of the journey. As promised, the cub was given supplies enough for two weeks in the form of dried fruits and greens, as well as one of the healing poultices. He was given a waterbag made of the hardiest of leaves, that would not run out of water. Notaku was also pleasantly surprised when a fae whose name he did not know handed him his sling; they had retrieved it from where he dropped it the previous night.
In what seemed to be no time at all, Notaku stood at the edge of where the most of the fae lived. His bag was on his back, his knife and sling at his waist. Big Brother stood next to him, nudging him playfully, clearly ready to continue the journey. The blue gem sat in his ammunition pouch, which was secured to his waist and tied tightly shut.
Brookvoice, Windsong, and Earthkin had come to see him off, along with a small group that would see him to the Jungle's borders. Notaku was finding himself reluctant to go. In just a short time, he had come to care very much for these fae. "I...dunno how to thank you."
"It is not needed," said Windsong.
Brookvoice grinned. "Besides, you will come back and visit with us, right?"
Notaku smiled, and nodded. "I will." He looked down at Earthkin, who had come over to him to say goodbye. He hugged the tiny fae child for several moments, before standing up again and looking up to Big Brother. "Well...I guess we should go."
"Good luck," said Brookvoice.
"Thanks." Waving, Notaku turned around and headed outwards, towards the outer edge of the Jungle. He would leave by the north border, as this was the border that was closest to Derelict Peak, where the last task lay.
It was three days' journey to the edge, and it was there that he said goodbye to the archers who had accompanied him there. He thanked them, then looked up to Big Brother. Understanding, the horse crouched, allowing Notaku to climb onto his back. And with a last wave to the fae, Notaku galloped off toward the mountain.
As the fae retreated to their patrols, and Notaku headed north, a ragged human figure peered out from behind an cluster of rocks. He had no horse, and barely enough water to sustain himself with, and his eyes were slightly mad. His eyes on the marks Big Brother's hooves had made on the sand, the human began to follow.
---
It was nice, having greens and fruits for his meals. On a diet of solely meat, Notaku had been nonetheless suffering from malnutrition without the greens his body needed. But the fruit from the jungle, even dried, was nutritious and refreshing, and gave Notaku energy enough for his quest. And Derelict Peak was only a few days away by horseback.
During that trip, Notaku realized that Big Brother truly belonged with him. He had intended to let the animal go once they reached the Valley again, after all if one loved something, they should always set it free... and if it came back it was theirs. Notaku still intended to set Big Brother free, but had no doubts that he would return.
Often Notaku would be wakened when it was time to get going by Big Brother's snout, nudging him right on the ribs, where it was ticklish. It was nice to wake to laughter instead of alarm, and he swore that horse knew full well he was ticklish.
With the horse to ride, the trip to Derelict Peak was an easy one...though Notaku could see the trip up Derelict Peak would not have a fun one. Notaku was going to have to leave the fae-made waterbag for Big Brother to drink, for the horse would not be able to handle the evil-looking climb. Notaku would have to take one of his waterbags, for the trip looking like it might just take a few days.
At the foot of the mountain, Notaku did some quick calculations, and figured that he had traveled roughly five weeks. The moon was at a slim crescent, and the new moon approached. And it was then that the mountain would wreak its havoc.
Notaku jumped down off of Big Brother, and arranged the fae waterbag in a crevice, much like a water pump. He filled his two waterskins, and patted Big Brother on the leg. "Wait here...okay?" he said to the horse. "I'll be back...I should be back in a few days." He sighed, looking morosely at the towering peak, and at the jagged rocks and torturous paths that led to the top. He had a lot of climbing in store for him, and not a lot of safe places to stop and rest. And even as he stood at the base, Notaku could feel the ground beneath shaking, and if he crouched down to touch the earth, it felt hot. Hotter than it should.
"Well...I guess I had better go. And in a week, this should all be over with, and I can ride home in a week with Big Brother.
If only it had ended up that way.
At first, the climb was simply an uphill walk, tiring but not horrid. Sometimes Notaku would have climb up a rock outcropping, or use his hands to keep from sliding down a particularly steep slope, but for the most part it was a simple uphill trek. By dawn, the exhausted cub had made it up a third of the jagged mountain, but it was after this that the real ordeal would begin.
At least there was a lot more shelter among the crags than on the featureless desert! Notaku took some water, curled up underneath an overhang, and slept in the shade.
He woke while the sun was still in the sky, to an ominous rumbling. A shudder went through his body as he realized just how much power it took to break apart the very earth, and make the entire land shake beneath his feet. Surely not even the gem he held in his pouch could stop such an upheaval! But then it was all he had.
The next night, with his lantern held tightly in his hand, he began climbing the crags and cliffs that led to the top of the mountain. He would look down every once in a while to see Big Brother either grazing on the scruffy ground cover, or looking up at him with avid interest. He supposed that to a horse, this must look awfully strange, if not downright hilarious. A small Gummi Bear youth, climbing up a bunch of craggy rocks. As he thought of this from a beast's point of view, Notaku laughed and shook his head. He was sure that most things sentient creatures did had the beasts thinking they were mad.
Notaku's good humor began to wan as the night wore on. The rock was getting more difficult to climb, and the boy's muscles were tired. It was becoming difficult to find places that were large enough to sit down and have some fruit, much less sleep for the night, and it wasn't until the eastern horizon was gray that he found a little depression in the rocky ground he could sleep in. He ate some fruit, and drank of his water. He again was being careful of it, not wanting to use it all before he got to the top. It looked like he might be a day or so later than he had anticipated.
He slept only the minimum needed to refresh his energy, and kept his climbing as constant as he could. He did not know how much time he had, and wanted to get the gem in its place as soon as he could. The ground rumbled almost constantly now, and the rock was hot even in the cooler nights.
Notaku's muscles ached horribly by the end of the second day, and it looked like he had at least one day's worth of climbing to go. He spent a good amount of time before falling asleep, thinking of very bad things about the human that stole the gem to begin with.
In the middle of the next night, a particularly violent rumble shook the rock Notaku clung to, breaking his tenuous grip on it. He yelled as his hand slipped, and he clambered frantically for purchase on the sheer stone. But another rumble dislodged him completely and his cry of fear echoed in the darkness as he fell.
He twisted desperately around to catch onto something, anything, but there was nothing to hold onto. He managed to slow his fall a couple of times by grabbing at jutting rocks, but he could not hold onto them for long. He landed hard on a small area of flat rock, coughing as he gasped in breath. He crawled a little more firmly onto the platform, shaking, taking several minutes to calm his breathing down.
He did not think that anything was badly injured, though there were several places that throbbed from the fall. The cub went through a methodical check of all of his body parts, making sure they still all worked, and none were bent in ways they should not be. His left side was swelling and hurt a great deal, and he suspected that some ribs might be broken or cracked, but there was nothing he could do about it.
His lantern, which he had tied to his waist, was shattered, and when he went to get the other one from his bag, the one he had taken from the cave, he realized it had also broken. And so neither was usable any more. He snarled in frustration as he picked all of the glass out of his bag, and untied the lantern from his waist. He removed all the glass from the metal of the lanterns, dumped out the oil into the metal canister he had been storing it in, and put them back in his bag. He would be continuing the rest of his climb in darkness, for the crescent moon was now so thin that it might as well not be there at all, for light.
And his climb had been set back at least half a day. Nearly in tears with discouragement, Notaku began to ascend once more.
He did not fall again, though it was a close thing several times. He had come to anticipate the shaking of the ground and the rumbling of whatever was beneath the earth. And finally, three hours before dawn, he stood on the top of Derelict Peak. It was flat up here, as if it were the top of a very large drinking cup with extraordinarily thick sides. At least fifty feet of flat rock had to be crossed before Notaku would reach the great hole in the middle of the mountain. He approached, looking down in sheer fascination, wondering how a mountain could be hollow. Even a volcano. But then the fae had said this was a place of magic, so he supposed that was part of the reason.
It was hot within, hotter than the blazing summer days of the desert. But there was a regular path that led down inside, winding down like a spiral staircase, and it did not take Notaku long to walk down it. The hole did not do down the entire length of the mountain, but it was a long walk down, and Notaku was very tired when he hit the bottom. Taking in a breath of the air, wincing as it very nearly scorched his throat, he opened his pack and took out the human's journal. He flipped to the page that described where he had taken the gem from, and looked it over. He looked up, comparing what he saw to what was described on the pages, and determined which way he should be heading.
The area he stood in was frightening. It was a large area of hot stone, but there were also cracks and recesses where rock so hot it was liquid flowed and bubbled. The air was so hot that Notaku could barely breathe it into his lungs, and the ground shook consistently here in the heart of the volcano. He could not wait to get out.
Notaku spied a small cavern to the left that looked like the place he had to go to, and took one step in that direction. But he did not get any farther than that. Out of nowhere, something large hit him from above, causing him to sprawl on the hot earth, wondering furiously what had hit him. It wasn't hard, like rock.
But then a moment later, something hit him in the face; something that felt suspiciously like a fist, and all of a sudden Notaku was fighting someone. He opened his eyes to the blurry face of a human, whom at first he did not recognize. But at the human's cry of "I'll kill you!" he realized it was Brooker! This shocked him long enough that Brooker was able to punch him again in the face, making Notaku yell in pain.
He fought fiercely then, kicking up into the human's body, and scrambling out from under hi,. He ducked as Brooker charged, fumbling desperately for his sling, trying to get a stone in it so he could use it. Brooker roared almost like a beast himself and charged at Notaku again, ducking the stone that was hurled his way.
Brooker tackled the boy once more, and they began to fight on the ground, Notaku trying to get free, and Brooker seemingly just trying to hurt Notaku as much as he could. Notaku's cries of battle and yells of pain mixed with Brooker's furious, often unintelligible howls. As he struggled, Notaku felt his foot kick something and howled in dismay when he realized it was the journal, and that he had just knocked it into the molten lava. "Noo!" he cried, lunging from underneath Brooker, trying to catch the journal. But he could not reach, and he could already see it had caught fire and sunk.
The fight escalated then to something fierce. Notaku was furious at having lost the journal, and he kicked and punched with all his strength. Brooker was twice his size, in both height and mass, but Notaku was a Barbic. And he was angry. He once again was able to knock Brooker off of him and scramble to his feet, backing off several steps.
Brooker stood also, but he seemed to need to catch his breath as much as Notaku did, for he only stood still for a moment, glaring at Notaku hatefully. His hair hung in his face, filthy and from what Notaku could smell; bloodstained. He looked as if he had gone without food and water for a bit, and his skin was red from overexposure to the sun. He looked very much like a man who had traveled almost nonstop for several days, possibly after having taken an injury. "Do you know what happened when I tried to follow you into the jungles?" he asked.
Notaku blinked, but then he suddenly understood Brooker's ragged appearance, at least somewhat. "The fae attacked you."
Brooker's eyes narrowed, but he nodded, spitting a bloody wad of phlegm onto the rock. "They did. I took at least five arrows before I could run from the forest... The only thing that saved my life was Fletcher, who shot two of them, gave me a chance to run away. Too bad he caught an arrow in the eye and died..." Notaku's eyes widened. He hoped that the fae who had been injured were okay. "And then my horse fell from thirst..." Brooker's lip curled in a snarl, and he a blurred weapon from a holder on his back. "I may die, but you'll die first!" Snarling, the human lunged. Notaku hurled a stone.
This one grazed the man on the head, but did not knock him down. He jerked sideways, but continued his furious charge. It was then that the boy saw what weapon he held; it was a morningstar. Not a mace like Taylor had held on their first meeting, but a heavy, spiked ball on the end of a chain. Notaku screamed in alarm and ducked down flat on the ground as the mace sailed lethally over his head. He heard Brooker spin and come back for another try.
His hands unsteady from urgency, Notaku loaded another stone in his sling and whipped it at Brooker's face. This one went completely wild, for Brooker was far closer than Notaku had realized. The boy ducked once more, this time losing his balance and falling to the ground, and had to scramble to get back on his feet.
He cursed mildly in the Barbic dialect, wishing for the hundredth time that Taylor had not smashed his glasses! It made everything all blurry, and seriously impaired his depth perception. "You will pay for what you've done, you worthless, wretched brat," he growled as he approached. Sling loaded, Notaku took a couple of steps backwards. Brooker's mace swung idly from its hilt as the human walked. "At first I figured we would bring you back home in our servitude..." Notaku snarled at this idea. "But now I think I'll simply bury this ball in your brain. That would give me the greatest satisfaction."
"You'll find it's very hard to kill a Barbic," said Notaku. Strangely, he felt no panic, only a sort of tense calm, one that made him feel ready for just about anything. He loaded a stone into his sling and began to spin it.
Brooker laughed. "Maybe so, but you're not indestructible, brat. And you're not immortal. I've seen them dead. Barbics. They can bleed, and they can die."
Notaku did not answer, only flung his stone at the man's form. Brooker ducked, and Notaku growled, grabbing yet another stone from his pouch. He was running out, and that would be bad. He would have to rely on his knife soon, if he wasn't careful, and that was in his bag.
Brooker lunged suddenly with his mace, his long legs eating up the distance before Notaku could properly load his sling. The boy yelled, avoiding having his brains dashed to the ground, but sprawling backwards on the dirt from overbalance. He rolled frantically to the side as Brooker's mace-ball crashed down towards him, feeling the dirt fly as the ball imbedded itself in the hard ground. As Brooker paused to yank it from the earth, Notaku picked up a stone from the ground and threw it with all his strength at Brooker's head.
It hit, but a thrown stone could not possibly have the impact of one hurled from a sling, and Brooker did not go down. He staggered, a cut opening on the side of his face where the stone struck, but he was far from defeated.
The fight raged. Brooker swung with his mace, and Notaku's sling fired stone after stone. Notaku never took a direct hit with the mace, which would have killed him, but as he tired, he began catching grazes here and there, which were enough to send him sprawling. But Brooker was tiring, too. Though he possessed the strength of one who has gone mad, his body was tired and injured. And more of Notaku's shots were hitting as well.
Finally, he slung his last stone, hitting Brooker in the arm as he hauled it back with its weapon. The arm went numb, and the morningstar flew several yards into the bubbling hot pools of lava. Brooker snarled furiously, and then, as he looked back towards Notaku, smiled. Wary, Notaku kept an eye on the man, but Brooker did not charge him; instead he darted forward and kicked something that was on the ground.
A flash of blue caught Notaku's eye, and a cold dread gripped his chest as he realized; it was the gem. He yelled, lunging for it, but he could already see that he would not be in time, and the gem landed in the lava barely a foot from the stone.
His eye only on the flash of blue, thinking of nothing else Notaku threw himself to his front side at the edge of the rock and grabbed for it. He shrieked as his hand plunged into the molten stone, but he felt his hand close around the gem, and he yanked it out. He hurled the gem to the ground, where it lay unmarred and unbroken.
Notaku did not see Brooker's shocked expression, the disbelief in his eyes; the fur on his arm had caught fire, and he used his kilt to dash it out, crying aloud in pain. He frantically shook his hand, trying to rid it of the molten stone coating it, when the thought occurred; pick up the gem. He fell to his knees, clutching the stone with a hand that had been so badly burned he wasn't sure if he could use it again. But when he touched the gem, a blessed feeling of cool water flowed over it, washing away the stone, and taking the pain. He sobbed in sheer relief as he realized the stone was healing the damage the lava had done. He wondered briefly at this, but then remembered that the fae had said this place was magic, and the stone could counter that magic.
Only then did he look at Brooker, who was standing there, gaping at the cub. Notaku stood, staring back for a moment, before tearing his bag open and pulling out his knife. He was going to have to kill Brooker, he realized, and this knowledge gave him a hot, sick swoop of horror. He had already killed one man, and human or not, it wasn't within his nature. And that had been an accident. This would be deliberate, and Notaku knew it had to be done, because if it wasn't, Brooker would hunt him down. If there was a possible way...
Brooker laughed, although it was not entirely sane. The sound made the hackles on Notaku's neck bristle. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you wanted to kill me," Brooker whispered.
"I don't," said Notaku. "But I am going to."
Brooker laughed again, staggering toward Notaku, a smirk on his chapped, blistered lips. Notaku tensed, and stepped forward. He wasn't really sure how to kill someone. Or if he really could. But then Brooker was on him once more, and he no longer had time to speculate about what he could do.
It was over in moments. As Brooker lunged for Notaku, the boy dodged, crouching down and thrusting forward with the hand that held the knife. The blade buried itself in the soft skin of Brooker's stomach and the human staggered back, look of dumb surprise on his face. Notaku almost took pity on him at that expression, an expression that asked how he could have come to this. He staggered forward, as if to attack again, but he never got the chance. The rock beneath his feet crumbled, falling into the bubbling river of stone that nearly surrounded them. He fell, shrieking as in less than a second, half his body was submerged in molten stone. He tried holding on for maybe three seconds as Notaku watched in horror. Brooker's clothing had caught fire, and his skin was blackening from the intense heat before he let go and sank...
Suddenly shaking as if with fever, horrified with what he had just seen, Notaku burst into tears.
He was still weeping when he turned back to the cavern he had seen. He was finding that the gem he held was guiding him, telling his heart where to go. And that was okay, because he could not think right then. And he did not want to.
The mountain shook as Notaku stumbled through intricate caverns and corridors, heading for the room that was the home of the powerful gem that he carried. Wiping tears from his face, he finally stepped into a large cavern with unnatural looking blue walls. An iron bar rose from the earth, ending in a claw that looked like the one he remembered from the journal, and looked just big enough to house the gem he clutched into his hands.
The rumbling seemed very far away here, in this vast chamber. And even the fear and horror he felt was muted and calmed as he walked towards the center. He looked at the gem for a moment, running his hands over the smooth, water-on-rock surface of it. He took a bit breath, stood on his toes, and placed it into the holder.
At first he was alarmed, thinking that he had done something wrong. Everything went as silent as the grave, including the rumbling of the ground, and the bubbling of the lava outside. He blinked, looking around, before realizing that it was the gem. The gem had instantaneously stilled the entire, heaving mountain.
A small voice spoke in Notaku's head, then, a voice that was not his own. Run, that voice said. You will be guided safely out. But you must run. Now.
Notaku did not wait to be told twice. Summoning the last of his energy, he ran, somehow knowing which of the corridors to take, knowing which way he had come. He sprinted out into the main chamber, very aware of the peacefully flowing lava, of the utter stillness and silence. That silence had an ominous, waiting quality to it.
He grabbed his bag, which had been thrown aside during the fight, and began running up the path that led into the caverns. Up and up, around and around. Soon he could concentrate on nothing except making his feet run for five more minutes, and then five more, and five more...
The stars grew closer and closer as he approached the top. It was still night out, and somewhere in the back of his head Notaku thought, was I in here for so little a time? He wanted to rest once he made it outside, but had the feeling it would be a bad idea. And so he began climbing down as quickly as he could, and still be safe. Needless to say, getting down was ten times easier than climbing up had been, and he could see that it would take a day at the most.
Notaku had already been awake the entire night, but as dawn cracked on the horizon, he did not stop. He put all of his concentration, and the last of his energy into getting down and off the mountain, for he somehow knew in his heart that if he didn't get off in time, it would mean his death.
Somehow he made it down, and was startled when he felt Big Brother's soft muzzle on the top of his head. He looked up, uncomprehending, and realized he was down. Derelict Peak rose above him, as imposing as ever, and the hot sun beat down from a position that suggested it was midafternoon. He looked blearily around and spotted the waterskin that Brookvoice had given him, and worked it out of its crevice. He corked it and went back to his horse.
Anxious, Big Brother knelt to let Notaku get aboard.
He almost could not climb up, utterly fatigued by the climb down, but he did, and Big Brother stood up. "Go," Notaku said wearily, giving a weak little nudge. Obligingly, Big Brother began to trot away from Derelict Peak.
Notaku looked back only once when the ground began to shake, stopping Big Brother so that he could see what was happening. At first he panicked thinking that somehow he had made a mistake, and that the mountain would begin its destruction. But he soon saw this was not so. The top of Derelict Peak began to crumble, falling in on itself as if the entire volcano were collapsing. As it was, the top half did collapse, crumbling down into the middle. Notaku knew the caverns had crumbled, filled in with tons and tons of stone, and suddenly, Notaku knew why: protection. He highly doubted that anyone without the help of the gods could get in there now and take the gem again. Smiling, he turned back around and nudged Big Brother into motion.