Helbender Mountain

Kurri was nineteen, with a bright future ahead, when he dropped out of medical school to pursue a career in terrorism. He gave no warning and left no trace, except the medical supplies now missing from a university storeroom. Kurri had barely been outside the city, and never seen a mountain outside of a painting. He left with one traveling companion--Zal Koronova, someone who barely stayed in one place for half a year as long as they could remember. Two weeks’ travel--train, boat, drake, and wagon--brought them less than an hour’s ride from the exact center of nowhere.

Every rock and root in the road pounds into them through the cart’s old wheels as they wind up the southern face of Helbender Mountain. With every bump Kurri imagines this box of rotting wood and rusted iron giving way, sending him rolling down the rocky path. He holds on for his life. Zal leans against the front rail, calm as a leaf drifting down a river in a storm. They look out behind them, one hand on their pistol buried beneath the hay. “Relax,” they tell Kurri again and again. He hasn't done that in two weeks.

Zal lights up another roll of dried katal leaves and hazeweed. Kurri hated the smoke at first, but by now it’s familiar, almost comforting, compared to the ever changing world around him--city, plains, river, lake, train car, mountains barren and lush--the scent of smoke is all that’s been consistent. What he can’t get used to is the overwhelming stench of the cart itself, the hay soaked with the noxious aroma of fresh katal leaves.

But the stench nauseates him less than the cart’s motion at this point. He drops to lay down on the bed of hay. So many stars shine through the web of jagged tree branches above, with no city lights in the way. The moons rise over the mountaintops, near conjunction, soon to drift apart again in their endless cosmic dance.

In a thick path of woods, white moths swarm around their oil lantern and cast colossal shadows on the green walls around them. Zal excitedly leans over the rail, losing their balance. Kurri springs up and catches them by the rough hemp cloth of their shirt. Zal falls back into the cart, staring at their clasped hands.

“You ever seen a halfmoon moth?” they say.

He shakes his head.

“Here, look!” They put their hands in front of him and slowly open them. A pale green light shines through the cracks. It’s resting on their palm, gently moving its luminous wings. While its top side glows, its underside is dark grey. “Ain't it cute?”

“Wow.” Kurri fixates on the delicate creature cleaning its long, feathery antennae with its front legs.

“You know, they look like this for defense. Their main predator is the drakefrog, it has poor eyesight and can’t tell the moth’s dark bottom side from the night sky. Then there’s the holler bat that preys on lots of bugs, but the star beetles that climb up the trees at night have this same natural glow, and they’re highly poisonous to the bats, so they think the moths are too and leave them alone. It kind of lives between worlds, in constant danger, but it carves out its little place in the world.” The moth takes flight from their hands and returns to the lamp.

“It’s beautiful,” Kurri says.

“It all is. And we’re a part of it, you know? So I fight to protect it.” They lean back against the front rail. “So how about you, flatlander. Why are you coming to fight with us?” Zal said.

Kurri looks away, nervously clasping the necklace he wears.

“It’s alright if you’re feeling nonverbal. But when you meet Razha, she always asks that, she can be so ceremonial. Thought you should have a chance to think about your answer.”

Kurri nods. He knows the answer. Putting it to words is another thing.

Now in a thick fog, they can hardly see beyond the head of the reptile pulling them along. Her blue forked tongue flicks out, finding the familiar scents of the way home. Soon the clatter of wagon wheels is drowned out by the songs of the cicadas and the owls. Zal tries to mimic their haunting call.

Kurri thought the propaganda about anarchists must be false, but Zal is everything they said an anarchist would be. They’re older than him by a few years. They speak louder than him, they walk faster. He feels so small next to them, even though they're only a little taller. Everything about them is just a little more. He has no idea where they came from and he’s afraid to ask. Their short black hair defies taming. Their face--its roundness and its sharpness--defies all notions of man or woman. Their dark brown eyes are uncomfortable--like they’ve seen things Kurri can’t comprehend--he looks away when they make contact with his.

It doesn’t seem like they ever changed clothes, only continually patched new fabric onto the ones they had as they wore out--and they don’t patch them well, only well enough. Is any part of the original article left? Maybe that is how they change clothes, evolving over time like a Hel-remnant. From those layers they pull out all manner of things--matches, lockpicks, a spyglass, a compass, a gun, a knife--and put them back to disappear again. Those overly patched rags in grey and black and the occasional misplaced faded color just seem to be part of their body to him. The katal and hazeweed smoke are just part of their scent, a pheromone they produce.

Their light brown skin wears a number of tattoos--symbols, words, animals, plants, interesting shapes--about half self-made and half by dear friends across a lifetime, a history of the body inscribed upon itself. Nothing about Zal can be separated from Zal, it all blends together into a cacophony of Zal. They stand out no matter where they go, but somehow have a talent for not being seen. They don’t blend in--the world blends into them.

But Kurri looks more out of place the further he gets from home. His skin is out of place in Kogaku to begin with, but even around the colonizers in the mountains his pale skin stands out, untouched by the sun. And his clothing stands out most of all--industrially woven fabric, soft and lightweight. It’s inadequate at this altitude on a spring night. He shivers and keeps his hands pulled into his sleeves, except to brush the blonde hair out of his face. It’s starting to grow over his eyes. Maybe he just won’t cut it anymore, and it can shield his pale green eyes from the horrors he’s stepped into.

The cart stops. Kurri sits up. All he can see through the fog is a rusty gate of wrought iron bars. The lantern’s glow projects an aura on the fog around it. It looks like the gate to another world.

It swings open. Two people appear from the shadows, dressed in all black. Lantern light gleams on the twin barrels of the taller one’s shotgun. He keeps it pointed at the ground. He speaks: “Hey, Krev! What kinda trash have you brought back for us today?”

“Found it on the roadside,” says the old man driving the cart. They laugh.

“Hey, why you gotta disparage the name of trash?” Zal says.

“Of course, trash is life,” the shadow person says. “Anyway, password?”

Zal pokes Kurri, letting him answer.

“Oh! Um, Tovaris lives.”

“That he does, comrade. Welcome home!” They step back into the shadows and disappear.

The cart pulls through the gate, past the worn wooden fence, up a gravel path, and past a crumbling stone wall. Beyond a dense row of overgrown shrubs, a small campfire shines in the fog. There sits a tall woman in a long black coat, a rifle resting across her lap. She waves to them. Zal’s face lights up as they wave back. They jump to their feet, nearly falling over in the shaking cart, and vault themself over the rail. As the cart drifts away, Kurri watches them run up to her, jumping over the fire pit and into her arms.