Part Thirty One: Mountain Pass

	Eventually the forest began to thin as Caleb made his way up river, the topography of the land becoming far more coarse and rocky as he went. The pale light of the early morning sun was just now beginning to peak its way over the mountaintops to the east, large stone structures that now loomed like the pillars of some strange temple before him. Caleb could tell that it was to be hallowed ground that he was soon going to tread, and knew both in his mind and in his heart that the tales he had been told about the place were true. There was something about these elevations that caused a reverence that came from far more than just their own plain majestic grandeur, and even a hardened old gunslinger like Caleb could not help but feel humbled by it.

	Before coming here he had been told of some dark secret, some underlying truth that the mountain range was simply unable to fully contain. Villagers spoke in hushed voices about a group of explorers that headed here a year ago never to be heard from again. Some believed that they had been consumed by the beasts that were said to inhabit these perilous pinnacles, while others claimed that they had been lost through a doorway into another realm, a passage which could only be discovered if one had the patience and courage enough to seek it out amongst the cold harsh cliff faces and falling rocks. Either end was one which Caleb was not too terribly keen on repeating, and he kept a wary eye around him as he reached the mountain range's edge.

	He gazed up and saw how the various flows carried the runoff down from the top of the peaks to be collected at the base of the river, supplying it with almost all the water it needed to become a mighty stream further afield. Seeing as there was no readily accessible way for him to make his way past the pinnacles through here, Caleb began his long march in search of a pass along the edge of the range, keeping his eyes sharp for the appearance of anything strange along the way. Eventually he came across a curious opening between two of the peaks which looked to be so convenient as to almost seem contrived. His suspicions deepened when he noticed what looked to be little carved stone steps etched into the side of one of the summits.

	Seeing nothing else for it he began to climb, feeling very much as if he were ascending the steps of some great place of worship once more. It was far from the first time he had gone through such an ordeal for her. On her request he had braved the steps of Tchernobog's hall, standing at the foot of his great temple in order to have judgment passed on him. At her insistence he had persisted in his service, rising to the rank of the Cabal's elite general before being cast down. He had rose from the grave and found his way to the Altar of Stone just so he could cremate her with dignity. In order to avenge her death he had gallantly made his way back to the same hall steps in order to destroy that which had failed them, that which had failed her. And even after going through all of that pain and torment here he was again, rising to face the unknown in the vague hope that it could bring her back to him.

	"We have been summoned" Ophelia had informed him on that cold and fateful night when all the world seemed to come crashing down on them. She had roused him from their common bed early in the morning, a place where they had just spent the night together locked in a mutual embrace. Arriving bleary eyed and faint of heart, there on those same harsh steps they had met up with Gabriel and Ishmael, two more servants about to be damned for sins not their own. For once neither of the two had an answer available for them, flippant or sage, and all four approached Tchernobog's throne with the same dark question in their mind.

	"What is thy bidding, my master?" Caleb himself inquired, giving voice to the thought that rested in all four of their souls. The man whose voice represented the dark god on this fateful night stretched up, his eye's glowing white, grunting and choking.

	"You have failed me!" the god's powerful voice cried out. "I disavow you all!" Anguish and disbelief filled the Chosen's hearts. The Cultist which had been selected to speak for his dark master then showed itself to have been nothing more than a convenient sock puppet, being forced to give out one last sadistic smile before promptly falling to the ground, its flesh quickly decomposing and dropping from from its bones.
	
	"What's happening?" Ophelia wailed, just as Cheogh, the stone king of the gargoyles, appeared to take her off into the darkness. Caleb desperately leapt for her, but found himself enveloped by problems of his own. He found himself twirling into nothingness as what was left of his other two comrades was either enveloped by spider webs or incinerated with flames.

	"I have taken your love" Tchernobog's booming voice reminded him. "Now I will take your life. Consider my power in a hollow grave." Despite all of the god's insistence, it was not Him but her that rested so heavily on his mind, and now even after the god's defeat it was still her the remained almost his sole purpose. Shaken from his reminiscences, Caleb turned and saw that the ground had now become nothing more than a distant memory of its own behind him.

	"This time I am going to catch you Ophelia" he swore to himself, continuing up the daunting mountain peak. "This time I am going to bring you back to me for good."

Hamish Paul Wilson
October 5, 2014