The sun was beating down on the gathering fragments of what had once been Valter Kerring’s Cricus of Delights at the foot of the great arch of Shadedstreams. It lit the great windows and gilded domes of mansions and palaces far above, so far they seemed to twinkle like stars and Ellis wondered how on earth they would reach them, when the arch itself seemed so impossibly vast and steep.
The Former Baron was leading him around the base, chatting away as he did so, sounding excited even for him.
"Yes, this truly is a most ingenious method of ascent, quite remarkable, and I have to confess that I would never have thought of it myself, no, not even I! I am entirely indebted to the hard work and genius of another and on this occasion I do not mind who hears it. I shall shout it from the rooftops - once we reach them - and declare to the whole world their greatness."
"Who?"
"Oh, no, no, no. You aren't going to get me to spill the beans just like this. A revelation of this magnitude requires time, patience, ample build up, the right ambience, the right moment. I can't just go blurting out Rockspark's name as if it were of no consequence, it would entirely ruin the-"
"Rockspark?" Ellis came to a halt as he said, his jaw dropping for just a second before he remembered himself and closed his mouth. "Rockspark is here? How did he get in touch with you? How did you know? What has he been doing for the past two months?"
"Alright, alright," the Former Baron replied testily, clearly vexed at his own blunder, "if we have to have the moment spoiled, at least do me the courtesy of asking one question at a time. Better still, ask the man...er, Lithoderm, directly!"
And there he was, looking very much as he always did, solid as a rock, yet lithe and wiry, his spiked tail twitching with anticipation.
"It is good to see you again Ellis," the Spiketail shaman said in his gravelly voice, "I hope I had not given you the impression that I had abandoned you."
"Not at all," Ellis lied, then, blushing, "well, maybe a little bit. It's been a rough couple of months."
"For all of us. Perhaps, if there is time later one, I might tell you some of what I've done since I left Searingsands, but not now."
"But how come you're here? How did you know we'd need your help and... how did you get in touch with the Former Baron?"
"It took me a very long time to reach this district, taking only the most indirect and dangerous routes and even then most of those were being watched and were impassable. When finally I made it I had to lay low, rather than return to you as I had planned so that we might continue North. That was when I started to see the problems that plague this district and the cause of this cold war which has been blocking our progress and so I sent a message of sorts about two weeks ago, just as Franck was preparing this trip."
"How did you send a message?"
"It is a way known only to the Shamans of the tribes of Ashvault, but Franck picked it up quickly enough, once he saw how I'd achieved it. There are few more adept at manipulating hypostatick energies than he is. We communicated much on your journey here and I was able to prepare our ascent."
"So," Ellis said, eyeing the great arch looming nearby, "how are we getting to the top? It looks like sheer rock, no handholds and I'm not a really good climber..." He thought back to a birthday party he'd been to when he was about twelve. They'd gone to an outdoor activities centre and there had been a particularly tall-looking climbing wall. He had made it to the top, if only barely, but then had become stuck when the prospect of abseiling down had been presented to him. It hadn't looked good. Everyone had laughed and it had taken him weeks to recover even a scrap of his image. Just the thought of climbing again was enough to bring him out in a cold sweat.
"For that," Rockspark replied, staring at Ellis with a look of disturbing perception, "I have enlisted the help of some friends," he gestured over to a nearby bush and Ellis squinted at it, trying to work out who he was talking about, "or perhaps you might call them pets?" Ellis continued to stare, seeing nothing, until Rockspark whistled, the branches of the bush began to wave about wildly and then half a dozen monkey-like creatures the size of horses burst out of the foliage and ran towards them. They had huge eyes and big mouths which lent them a rather goofy expression and they each possessed a long, wiry tail ending in a vicious-looking hooks. Ellis took an involuntary step backwards as they approached, but the big, apparently friendly creatures came to a clumsy halt just a few feet away and then looked towards Rockspark like a pack of dogs to their master.
“Harpagokerkos klitobates,” said the Former Baron with pride, “or the rarely seen Cliffjack, the considerably larger cousins of Harpagokerkos vulgaris, the common Gutterjack.”
Now that the Former Baron had mentioned it, Ellis did see a resemblance to those funny little creatures which ran across the rooftops of Shalereef, but these were much, much bigger, their hooked tails more barbaric in appearance and their bodies somehow disproportionate, as if all of their growth went into their monkey-like hands and the rest of their bodies just got whatever was left over.
“There is only a very small population of Cliffjacks here and they are quite shy of sentients because they have long been hunted,” Rockspark was saying, “but we Shamans have always been good at getting animals to act out our will. Once I found them it was no trouble at all to domesticate them to our needs. There are just enough of them to carry a few of us to the top of the arch. If you’ll follow me,” he began to walk past the Cliffjacks towards what looked like a pile of belts buckled together, “I have prepared some harnesses already.”
The harnesses were not encouraging, being very little more than Ellis’ original assessment. There was one for each of the Cliffjacks and then one each for their riders, Ellis, the Former Baron, Rockspark, Nadiyya and two of the porters to provide a bit of extra muscle. The rider harnesses were designed to lock into those on the ‘jacks, but Ellis wasn’t sure how strong they were at any point, let alone the crucial connections.
He was just expressing those concerns when Nadiyya and the two porters arrived. She gave him a look of disgust and said, “I still don’t know why you tag along,” then she turned to Rockspark and asked, “are we going to stand around here all day, or are we going to see my father?”
Ellis was seething as he put on his harness, mounted his Cliffjack and allowed himself to be locked in place. It wasn’t just that Nadiyya had never been nice to him, or that she still treated him like he was a circus freak, it was that her reasons for doing so, whilst in no way justifying her behaviour, were still perfectly true. He was by far the weakest member of their team. He was no good at Hypostatick Philosophy - didn’t even understand most of it, had no real combat experience – the thought of the guard he had killed during their invasion flashed horribly into his mind – and had no other special skills to bring to the part either. He was useless, little more than a passive spectator, or a passenger on a roller-coaster.
Why am I so useless, he wondered, what am I even here for?
And it was then, when he was sinking into a mental pit of self-loathing and despair, that Rockspark gave the signal and Ellis’ roller-coaster analogy suddenly seemed more fitting than ever.
The Cliffjacks leapt towards the wall of rock that was the arch, reaching it in two long bounds. Their big hands clasped the rockface, finding tiny handholds with every hair and their hooked tails swung over the heads of their riders to latch on further up, then they pushed out from the wall in one smooth, powerful movement, pulled in their tails and soared up the side of the arch to grab on again when they were at the zenith of their swings. They only needed to repeat the process a few times before they were already several hundred feet above the slums of the Shadedstreams.
Ellis had momentarily forgotten his troubles to be awed by the view, the vast expanse of city passing in every direction. He could see the hills of Searingsands to the south, the Khan’s palace a glittering spider halfway to the horizon. To the north he could just make out a massive pyramid below the sky and wondered if it was the same he had seen near Shalereef, or if there were many of them. The Cliffjack grabbed the rock, then began it’s next leap and Ellis let out a little whoop of joy as he felt the air all around him again.
It was only when they finally touched down in a small, empty courtyard garden at the edge of the arch and he felt the ground beneath his feet once more that the rush began to fade and the sheer, terrible danger of what he had just done hit him. His legs were shaking as he got off the Cliffjack and climbed out of his harness, but he was relieved to see he wasn’t the only one. Nadiyya looked uncharacteristically pale just a few feet away. Whether it was because of their ascent or because of the palace of the Khalif which they could see rising above all the other mansions at the opposite, highest end of the arch, he couldn’t tell, but it put his own problems into perspective either way.
I’ll just do my best, he thought, whatever that may be…
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