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Bitter, biting cold. It is the only thing Chamber is capable of feeling in his exhausted state. His extremities are long since numb; he knows the lack of sensation should be worrying, but he is too tired to dwell on it. At least it no longer feels like someone is driving a dagger into his fingers every time he grips the cliff face to climb further up.
There was a trail here once, and his feet shuffle to find its remains under the constantly falling snow. A steep and treacherous path that winds up the mountain, disused for decades, maybe centuries.
It has been four days into this climb—seven if he counts the disastrous detour he took after losing the trail, with the consequence of having to retrace his steps by memory in the midst of a howling storm. Rest has been fragmented, taken in the forms of fitful stretches of unconsciousness in whatever alcoves he has stumbled upon.
His fingertips hook on a depression in the rock. Stopping, he brushes away the icicles and tries to blink the snow out of his eyes, without success. His heart sinks as he peers into the opening he’s discovered; it’s little more than an alcove, barely wide enough to fit into.
“Merde,” he mumbles. The sunlight, never strong in the swirling snow, has already faded to little more than a glimmer. Total darkness is not far off. He could brave the night in this space, but there would be no room for a fire, and with his back fully exposed to the elements it wouldn’t be much better than sleeping out in the storm.
Absently, he kicks at the snow, the little flurries dislodged by his movements falling down into the abyss below. Four days—he should be close enough to his destination now, if the myths hold true. And yet there is no sign of what he has ventured from half a continent away to find.
He casts one last look at the pitiful shelter, then purses his lips. Rebalancing his pack on his shoulders, he takes a cautious step onto the trail in front of him. It is a risk to go on with the sun so low; he knows as well as anyone that humans should never stay outdoors past sunset, when nothing lights the sky and monsters roam the earth. But he is sure of his navigation skills, and as certain as one can be when it comes to matters of legend. His destination should not be far.
It is an arduous half-hour march up the mountain, and he drags himself up the clockwise spiral through a mix of urgency and will. The wind is picking up again, a tortured sound echoing through the desolate peaks. This was never a place for people, he thinks, and that is when he sees the light.
It is a mere flicker at first, and he doubts whether he really sees it, but then it flares bright against the rapidly darkening sky. Cobalt blue fire, set into the east face of the mountain, a few hundred paces from where he stands.
He lets out a wordless cry, his efforts redoubled as he cuts across the snow-encrusted landscape. Through the thickly falling snow, the entrance of a cave emerges. Excitement gives him the burst of energy to haul himself up the last few steps, and then he is blinking, bewildered, eyes adjusting to the sudden light.
It is a large cave, the mouth wide enough to fit six men standing side by side. The space yawns further open inside—it is as big as the great drinking halls of some of the noble houses Chamber has visited, and better lit. An eerie blue glow suffuses everything, gleaming off the jagged granite walls.
Despite his exhaustion, the unearthly glow reminds him of the legends surrounding this mountain. He takes a few cautious steps forward, bracing one hand on the hilt of his knife.
The far end of the cave descends into darkness, the dancing blue flames springing up along the sides of the cave and just as suddenly dying down with a faint rattle.
He is about halfway into the cave when the lights wink out.
For a moment, time is suspended—pitch black silence surrounds him, and his own heartbeat is the only sound he can hear. His mind is racing. With no senses to warn him of an incoming threat, he is painfully aware of how vulnerable he is. He glances from side to side, but it’s futile in the complete darkness.
His grip tightens on his knife, though now he is questioning his decision of weaponry. After all, what is a knife against a myth? What damage can he do to a god? The markings on his body tingle, all the hairs on his body standing on end.
Blue light flares at the end of the cave. Chamber recognises it as the same glow that drew him to the cave. Two flaming eyes and a fanged mouth that stretches wide, revealing the glowing rift within.
The shadowy form unfurls, eyes smoking with otherworldly fire. It stalks towards him with loping legs, and Chamber cannot tear his eyes away from the mesmerising movement of the flames. It stops a few steps away from him, and belatedly Chamber remembers his knife.
“Men used to bring me offerings.”
Chamber fights the urge to clap his hands over his ears; the voice grates like sandpaper, vibrating into his very skull. There is a slight delay between the movements of the mouth slit and the words, like he is deep underwater. The effect is nauseating.
He keeps his voice steady. “Are you a god, then?”
The figure pauses. Its silhouette billows and shifts as it considers its answer. “Yes.”
Chamber’s heart leaps in his throat. “But you were not always a god, yes? My name is Chamber. I talked with the elders of the mountain villages. You are the one they call Yoru. They still remember you, the man who climbed the mountain and ceased to be a man when he reached the peak. But nobody knows where you came from.”
“The North,” Yoru says, and for a moment Chamber swears he feels a biting breeze on his face, like he's standing in front of a vast expanse of ice and snow.
“We are as far north as people live,” Chamber points out. “Most maps do not even include this mountain.”
“Maps,” Yoru says, derisive. “Five generations ago, the men of the nearest village chose not to climb this mountain, and their children grew up thinking there’s nothing beyond. Your maps fade with your memories.”
Chamber is silent for a moment, processing this. Distantly, he registers the wind howling outside the cave. It was a hard journey up this mountain, snow falling heavily enough to unsteady his footstep and to bury him in minutes if he fell. How would anyone survive even further north?
“We have our ways,” Yoru says, and Chamber blinks. This is his territory, he realises belatedly. The air is rich with his presence, a slight pressure on his mind. Everything here, even his thoughts, are Yoru’s domain.
Yoru nods, his entire shadowy form jerking along with the movement. “No one has disturbed me in centuries. Tell me why you came here.”
“This is the best vantage point to watch over the villages from.”
Yoru cocks his head. “When it’s not storming.”
Chamber taps the vertical markings that bisect his eye. “I’ve made some adjustments. There is still work to be done, though. When I am a god, I will be able to see when a human is threatened and immediately appear there. So far, it only works at close distances.”
Something in Yoru’s expression shifts—Chamber doesn’t know him well enough to tell whether it’s for the better or for the worse. “You’ve changed yourself. To help others?”
“To help everyone,” Chamber stresses. “But it is not enough. That is why I came here, because the legends said there was an old god here that used to be a man. That is the knowledge I seek.”
“But you are not a god,” Yoru says. “They are not your people. If you fight their battles for them, they will never learn. What if they take you for granted? They will return to their fires, saying a god has saved them. That you will save all of them, so there is no need for fear or caution. Their children will grow up without learning to defend themselves. Is that the choice you want to give them?”
“And if I let them die, that is no choice at all,” retorts Chamber, warming to the topic.
It’s hard to tell, but he thinks Yoru’s face is contorted in a snarl. “Who are you to decide what choices they make? And what have they ever done for you?”
“They are people I could save. Needless deaths, at the hands of monsters that lack the courage to strike in the light. Lives I could save, if I only had the power to do so—”
Yoru interrupts him, his tone flat. “You think you should be given the power over a stranger’s life when you don’t even know what kind of person they are. You’re so noble that you would save them without ever thinking you would be wrong to do so. What if you save a murderer, and he goes on to kill more? That would be a ‘needless death’ that you caused.”
Chamber can’t hold back the huff of derision that escapes him at the tirade. “You are so quick to see the worst in humanity. How can you be blind to the fact that there are people that someone needs to save? Not all people are murderers. On the whole, people are worth saving.”
Yoru is silent for a moment. “I thought the same when I was in your place,” he says finally.
The rare hint of his past draws Chamber up short. “In my place?”
Yoru sighs, but makes no other reply. The shadowy form ripples once more, folding up into itself, retreating to the inside of the cave.
Despite Chamber’s repeated queries, he doesn’t speak again for the rest of the night.
Dawn has barely broken when Chamber leaves.
The conditions are less than ideal: the storm is still raging, his body still aches from the arduous climb up, and the thick clouds mean that he will be navigating his way down more from touch than from sight.
Distantly, he knows he should take his time to rest and recuperate before venturing back. The journey is dangerous, and he is not in the right mindset for it. The descent is no less demanding than the ascent, and the part of himself that is still thinking logically knows more people injure themselves climbing down than up.
The frustration at wasting his time has him cursing internally as he clambers down the mountain, angrily shaking snow from his hair. The lack of focus has him slipping on the icy steps, which only worsens his mood. His haphazard approach is a far cry from the calculated planning on his way up, where he was constantly adjusting his plan based on the actual conditions. He should be doing the same right now: mentally mapping possible rest stops and regularly checking how high the sun is in the sky to approximate the distance he can cover before darkness falls.
He doesn’t care. He needs to get away from that cave as fast as possible.
His skin crawls as he thinks about the night spent in the cave. Obviously it would have been suicidal to attempt a climb down at night; his enhanced visual acuity can only go so far, and more importantly he doesn’t know what kind of creatures this terrain is home to. So it was a fitful night’s rest shared with a being that might or might not be a god. And as he had no idea if Yoru sleeps at night, he was constantly aware of his presence, paranoid if the old god could even see into the turmoil of his dreams.
The weather is more forgiving today than the day before. That and the fact that he is striding down the mountain path at a pace more suited to a well-kept walkway means he covers almost two days’ ascent by the time darkness threatens to fall.
The fatigue hits him all at once, and he has to drag himself forward. There are villages at this altitude, though few and far between, and he is resolved to make it to the nearest one before dark. The promise of company and a good fire quickens his step, and he rounds the last corner in the winding path.
The little boy sees him first. Chamber thinks he’s around four, much too young to be out alone at dusk. His mouth opens wide as he catches sight of him, and he turns around to call for someone—
And then his mother rushes out from behind him, picking up a long stick and brandishing it at him. “Stay away!” The child reaches for the stick, and she bats his hand away and levers it towards Chamber, trembling.
“I’m just seeking shelter,” he tells her, showing her his open palms, but she cries out and waves her makeshift weapon at him.
“Monster! Your marks give you away. Hunt other humans, this boy is under my protection!”
There is a strange, sudden burn in his eyes. “I mean no harm to you or your child,” he says, but already he knows there is no victory possible here. This woman does not view him as a human that can be reasoned with.
There is no verbal response, only a fierce snarl.
With one last glance back at the child, still open-mouthed, he turns and traces his steps back up the mountain.
He barely makes it to a small cavern before darkness falls. Exhausted, he barely has time to lay out his bedding before he falls unconscious.
His dreams are troubled, full of cobalt fire.
The second climb is much, much harder than the first.
The storm is in full swing, punishing winds lashing at his face even through the heavy scarf he’s wrapped around himself. The mother’s words echo in his ears. Monster. Is that what he’s becoming?
He has little memory of how he made it to the cave, but Yoru is waiting for him when he drags himself inside. Dazed, his hands move on autopilot. A little while later, there is a crackling fire at the mouth of the cave, and he feels a little less dead the longer he stands in front of it.
Yoru hums behind him, the sound thrumming through the air like a chord plucked from the winter wind itself. “They hated me too when I no longer looked human. I was never a pretty face anyway. But you…”
Chamber can’t resist. “I’m a pretty face?”
An exasperated sigh, one that sounds almost human. “You want to be loved. Power means you won’t be. Even the love you find will be because of your power, not despite it. Everyone will want you for what you can do for them. Nobody will see you for who you are.”
The words are delivered with the same straight-edged honesty that always marks Yoru’s words, but the certainty with which he speaks gives Chamber pause. “It is worth it to protect them,” he says, trying to maintain whatever shreds of dignity he has left. He curls inwards, trying to preserve the heat of the fire.
“Protect them from what?”
It takes a moment for Chamber to parse the question. When he answers, it is with deliberate slowness, as if he is addressing a particularly difficult child. “There are monsters that dwell in the dark. They prey on the innocent and the weak. Passage through the night is impossible. People dwell in isolated villages, and few ever venture beyond the horizons of their birthplace.”
He draws himself up, his voice growing stronger. “The people live in fear. I will protect them from the monsters that threaten them.”
“‘Monster’ is your word,” Yoru says harshly. “You thought I was one. And still you would bring your blade to all the others you refer to by that word.”
The shadows that make up his form ripple and shift; Chamber gets the impression of an unfurling, hidden depths stirred to the surface. Unnerved, he shuffles back as the shadows advance, their uneven forms writhing across the cave wall.
When Yoru speaks again, it echoes from all directions. “It comes down to this. You fear what you don’t know.”
Chamber tries to swallow, but his mouth is dry. “I don’t fear you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“What if I want to?”
Yoru pauses. “Then come. I’m right here.”
He steps closer, and the mask shifts into something feral and snarling, dagger-like teeth lining a slavering mouth. The flickers he catches in the darkness are terrifying—scarred flesh, elongated limbs, skin stretched too thin over unnatural cartilage.
Chamber grits his teeth and wills himself forward. The mask shifts again, those nightmarish limbs twisting out of existence. One moment he is walking towards a beast, and the next the shape is completely different, bipedal.
When the light catches Yoru’s face again, his heart stops for a second. A human face, the first he's seen in all this time, but wrong. Marred with hatred, eyes wide in mania, mouth a grotesque grimace. He instinctively knows this isn't Yoru’s true face, but all his instincts scream at him to flee. The light shines on a knife in his hand, and just before it falls away again he swears the point of it jerks towards him—
Nausea, adrenaline, a roar in his ears—he stumbles forward like a drunkard, towards the darkness where he knows Yoru to be. Maps, he hears in Yoru’s sneer, and he understands now—some territories cannot be plotted, only traversed. Blindly, he reaches forward.
His hands find him before his eyes do, seeking purchase on his shapeless form. He can make no sense of what he feels. The shapes feel like they are shifting under his touch, remoulding every second into another form.
Suddenly, he finds himself face to face with a monster. Flames in the place of eyes, searing blue, so intense after the darkness that they burn themselves into Chamber’s corneas. The lower jaw of the creature juts out, fangs gleaming in the light of the cobalt flames, and Chamber’s heartbeat is hammering his chest.
“Tell me what you see,” the monster says, and he tries to steady his breath.
“A mask,” he tries, and he almost stops there, but damned if he's going to fail so close to the truth. “And under it…”
The flames dim a little, and he sees pupils, irises. Dark eyes. Human.
The man in front of him reaches up and unbuckles his mask, revealing a face that seems too young. “Tell me what you see,” he says, and there is no howling northern wind in the voice. Just fatigue, and a hint of wistfulness.
Chamber swallows thickly. “A young man. Around… thirty? Dark-haired, dark-eyed. A little shorter than me, slender, but muscular. And a scar here.” He reaches out and taps the gap in the man’s eyebrow. “This is your true face?”
Yoru startles a little at the touch. Chamber quickly withdraws his hand, and the silence stretches on until Yoru nods, slowly. “This is who I was. When I was Ryo.”
“Ryo,” repeats Chamber, with the deference of one receiving a great gift, and he leans forward and clasps his face in his hands.
Ryo’s sound of surprise is muffled as Chamber’s hands cup his face on either side. Chamber stills, and does what he has avoided since hauling himself up the lip of Ryo’s cave: he closes his eyes.
In the darkness, he can feel the minute trembling of the skin under his touch, Ryo’s body still unsure of what form it wants to take. He keeps his touch gentle. Slowly the feeling steadies, until the only movement is from each breath that clouds the air between them.
“You told me I was a god,” Ryo says, and his voice is different. Younger. “And then you called me a monster. I don’t know what I am anymore.”
Chamber’s heart aches. “You are Ryo. As for what that means, only you get to decide.”
Ryo’s fingers thumb over Chamber’s eyes, gently nudging them open. He sees himself reflected in Ryo’s pupils, uncertain.
“And you…” Ryo’s voice is rough, uncharacteristically hesitant. “Tell me who you are.”
Despite everything, he laughs a little. “Vincent,” he answers, and it’s like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. One he placed himself: the rigid expectation of becoming humanity’s saviour.
There are monsters that dwell in the dark. Some of them are human. Others, he knows, are not.
But each of them has their own story to tell. A name, a past, a hometown.
“I was blind all this time,” he whispers, and Ryo holds his gaze, unwavering.