Tag: novel

Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

God-Speaker paced between the rooms of his newly expanded home. He tried to focus, to appreciate the small details of each room and the sheer amount of clever engineering and human labor that went into the construction. Instead, he kept forgetting his inspection, catching himself standing in one room or another, eyes glazed. His mind was a buzzing hive of thoughts, distractions heaped upon distractions.

A hallway connected the rooms of his apartments in a long line. During the day, light was piped in from above. Now, as evening deepened, the faintly flickering natural gas lamps illuminated the rooms from hidden recesses. The walls were cut directly from the stone, smoothed and polished to reveal the natural strata and variations of the mountain. In some places, they were carved into delicate arabesques and geometric motifs. The floors were tessellated stone tile in every color that occurred within the mountain, stylized depictions of the local wildlife, perfectly interlocked.

At either end of the hallway was a balcony. One faced outward from the mountain, offering an unparalleled view of the surrounding landscape. The other looked inward, down on the perpetually growing city within the mountain itself. God-Speaker made his way to this inner balcony and looked down on the main street from the peak of the man-made cavern. His vantage point was only ten feet above the low rooftops, but it was still a marvel that this had all been solid stone only a few lifetimes ago.

He felt the rumbling in the distance as much as he heard it. The excavators would be working sixteen hour days until the latest expansion was done.

God-Speaker stretched, trying to straighten his stiff spine. His body was rapidly losing the suppleness of youth, and once again he felt the aches and pains of age creeping in. It was a familiar pattern, but no less irritating for it. In a few more years it would be time to finalize the replacement.

The sound of the entry doors unlocking came from down the hall. It was a the sound of stone mechanisms sliding and thunking into place, not loud, but designed to be audible from any room. Even with a key, nobody could enter without him knowing.

He left the balcony and walked to the entryway. A stone face was carved into the wall next to the doors. Its jaw hid a mechanism that could bar the doors from within. The doors were already open, and he could see beyond, to the winding staircase that led up from the caverns below.

Sky-Watcher stood in the doorway. She wore her long black hair in a loose braid that fell to her shoulder. Her eyes were such a dark brown that there was no discernible separation between the iris and pupil. Those eyes were wells of mysterious darkness in her otherwise expressive face.

“Are you going to let me in, or must I stand here while you admire me?” she asked.

He moved aside to let her in, but he continued to admire her. Her olive skin was freckled with deep brown moles. Her nose had a slight crookedness, where it had been broken when she was a child. But as she passed him, he saw an unfamiliar gauntness, her cheekbones more prominent than usual.

“Have you been eating well?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I sometimes have some trouble keeping the food down,” she said.

“Have the herbs helped at all?”

“They lessen the nausea a little. But you said yourself that they do not treat the problem itself.”

“No,” he said. “They do not. I have spent days consulting the voices of the mountain, and there is no natural remedy. There are things we could make, but…it would take machines. Skills and practice. Time we do not have. We won’t be able to do these things for many years.”

She sighed. “As you have said.”

“There is only one way,” he replied. “You need to hear the voices. You need to do what I do. Did you try again this morning? Did you feel anything more?”

She shook her head. “I hear what I have always heard. Faint murmurs, and nothing more.”

His brow creased. “You can’t be complacent. They are there, if only you can hear them.”

She shrugged again, irritatingly indifferent. “It is not my place to hear the voices, my love. It is your place. You speak to the spirits, and I watch the stars.”

“The oracles hear the voices too,” he said. “You can do this.”

“The oracles cannot do what you do,” she replied.

“It is different,” he said, “but not so different. My connection to the voices is clearer. I can know what they know and see what they have seen. I can cast my mind out in the current moment. I can touch other minds. The oracles cannot reach out to other minds. They can only find themselves. They send their minds back along the thread of time and find themselves. They can send back important messages. As long as I can send messages through the oracles, no disaster can befall us. We can send a warning back to ourselves.”

“But you’ve never sent a warning,” Sky-Watcher said.

“I will send one about your condition,” God-Speaker said. “Or rather, my future self already sent the message.”

She shook her head. “I still don’t understand. You say you sent the message because I died. But if we find a cure for me, that won’t happen. Things will be different. The message will be different.”

“I can still send the same message,” he replied.

“But things will be different. It won’t happen the way it happened before.”

He shrugged. “Even the voices don’t completely understand how it works. We cannot send messages forward, the way we can send them back. It may be that there are many threads of time.”

“Then there may be another God-Speaker out there who is alone.”

“Perhaps. But he has given me the opportunity to save you.”

“If I could do what you do.”

“I know you can,” he said. “I will help you.”

“Very well,” she said. “I have energy enough for one more try tonight. But you must promise me that afterward we will lay beneath the stars.”

“Of course.”

She turned and took his hand, leading him out to the staircase as the stone doors slid closed behind them. The path was long and winding, but the stairs themselves were shallow and punctuated by wide landings. Eventually they came to another, smaller door. After they passed through, this one closed seamlessly into the smooth wall behind them, almost perfectly hidden, and they came out into the mazes of hallways that ran among the living spaces on the outskirts of the larger caverns.

They walked briefly down the central avenue, passing stores and workshops. A few of his people passed and nodded respectfully or pressed a fist to their chests in salute. Then God-Speaker and Sky-Watcher entered another branching series of hallways, this time on the opposite side of the cavern. A concealed door at the back of this hallway opened onto a small room with a low, narrow exit into darkness.

There were no gas lights, no cleverly engineered mirrors to channel sunlight into the depths. This was a hidden path, and he wanted it dark. It was a sacred place, and the walk through the void seemed somehow appropriate. It was the way he had first come to this place.

There was no real danger. The floor of the path had long ago been smoothed, and the cracks and crevices filled in. With hands on both walls, one only needed to walk forward. The glow ahead was so faint at first that it was impossible to tell if it was even there. With each twist and turn, it intensified.

Finally, they came to the cylindrical chamber. The light was still weak, but somehow hit the back of his eyes with an uncomfortable intensity. It left streaks of blue in his vision when he blinked. The room seemed to rise endlessly above them, where the light faded into darkness before it could find a ceiling.

God-Speaker stepped into the chamber and turned as Sky-Watcher entered. She raised a hand to guard her eyes from the harsh light, but she tripped at the small lip at the threshold. God-Speaker jumped forward to catch her.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, but God-Speaker felt the way she sagged in his arms, the effort of standing up on her own feet again. Instead, he gently lowered her and himself to their knees.

“You are not fine. You’re getting worse.”

She sighed. “You said yourself that I would.”

“All the more reason to do this,” he said.

“Tell me again what I must do,” she said. “Lead me with your voice.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

Is there a difference between thinking and speaking? I’m not sure. Sometimes I only think, and the words come out into the air. Meadows can hear the thoughts. He answers them. Asks more questions. There are always more questions, even if a lot of the time they’re the same questions.

He’s lying. He doesn’t know anything. He’s just hoping that if he pushes me enough I’ll say something that will prove he was right all along.

Is he lying? He knew things about my job, about my family. Things I didn’t tell him.

Did I think them? He can hear the thoughts.

I’m sitting at the table, and then I’m sitting in my cell. They make me get up and run around the halls. Endless, empty gray hallways. But then I’m jogging in my cell.

I eat something, but I don’t know what it is.

Have you ever killed someone?

“Yes.”

Tell me.

“We used to go to the beach on these family trips. It was a long car ride. He wouldn’t shut up. I was so sick of him by the time we got there.”

Who?

“My brother.”

Does he have a name?

“Yes.”

Well?

“I think I was mad, too, because I wasn’t a very good swimmer. I took swim lessons, but I still wasn’t very good. He was a natural. He could swim circles around me, literally. It’s hard, the first time you realize your younger brother is better at something than you are.”

You were jealous.

“Maybe. I was too young to really examine how I felt.”

What happened?

“I think I just wanted to get away for a while. But it was stupid. I went out into the water, like he wouldn’t be able to get me, out there.

“When he came out, he was worried about me, and that made it even worse. I was tired and bad at treading water, but I didn’t want to admit it. I was too far out. By the time I realized that, I couldn’t make it back by myself. I was so damn ashamed that I needed his help.”

You wanted to get him back for that?

“No. I was only ashamed at first, and then something clicked in my head, the kind of thing that our parents were always telling us when we fought, about how we should rely on each other. I thought if we could just get back, things would be different. We could help each other instead of just fighting all the time.”

What happened?

“We didn’t make it back. He was too small to carry me. He shouldn’t have had to.”

I asked you if you’ve ever killed someone.

“It was my fault. I was just a kid. I didn’t know things like that could happen in real life.”

Are you kidding me? Do you think this is a joke?

“No. Do you?”

The stainless steel table was in the snow now. They must have moved it.

It was cold, but it felt good to be outside again. The harsh wind was cut by the bright sunshine. Christopher felt the warmth of it on his face. It was hot, actually. Hot, and running down his cheeks. He touched it gingerly.

Blood. Sticky on his hands. Blood running down his face from his ears.

He opened his eyes. He was sitting in the corner of the cell. The banging sound pounded him like a physical force. He held up his hands. They were clean.

---

They’re arguing again, downstairs in the kitchen. The voices rise and fall, one male, one female. Why do they think he can’t hear them?

Of course, he’s withdrawn. What do you expect when he goes through something like this?

It’s a formative point in his life. He just needs time. Jesus, we all do.

What if he needs more than just time?

Like what?

He opens his eyes and sees his own fists pounding against the bars. They fall to his sides and he sinks down. The stone floor is so cold.

There’s an engine deep in his chest that is slowing down. It’s been running his whole life, and he never noticed it until now.

Maybe it’s okay to just stop, to let go. Maybe dying would be a relief. No more pressure, no more fighting.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad, what happened. It’s just something that happens. It’s peaceful.

Christopher lay down on the floor of the cell. This time, he didn’t black out. He felt a velvety darkness enveloping him. It was a warm blanket. Whatever happened, everything would be okay.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

Time frayed at the edges. Sometimes Christopher thought it was day or night, but there was no evidence one way or the other. His body was desperate for some semblance of normalcy. It felt like night when the air was so cold that frost started to form on the metal bed. It felt like day when the lights were so bright that he had to press his hands over his eyes and hope that he wouldn’t go blind.

He entered a new state of exhaustion. He didn’t sleep, he simply lost time. His brain shut down. The banging noise didn’t matter, the light didn’t matter. His body simply did it. It could have been seconds or hours that he was unconscious. He had no way to know.

A soldier brought him a plastic tray of food that he ate without tasting. Reconstituted mashed potatoes? A rubbery piece of meat that might be chicken? It was hard to remember. He ate it all with his bare hands. A half-size plastic bottle of water, swallowed in a single gulp, and still not enough to quench his thirst.

“You came here with two brothers, the deserters. How did you meet them?”

It was a tricky question. The exiles in that old, ruined building were afraid of Razor Mountain. Christopher remembered that. He held no ill will for most of them, although the brothers hadn’t done him any favors.

“I was just trying to find any other people out here,” Christopher said. “I had a map, from the bunker. It showed other buildings. So I tried to hike to them. But I ended up lost and low on supplies.”

Meadows touched the back of his pen to his chin. “And they took you in?”

“They decided to use me as a bargaining chip,” Christopher said. “At least Garrett did, and Harold went along with it.”

“You didn’t want to come here?” Meadows asked.

“You can see how well it’s working out for me,” Christopher said. A staccato squawk of a laugh came, unbidden, out of his mouth.

“You said you wanted to get back home,” Meadows said.

Christopher nodded. “And if anyone out here can make that happen, I guess it’s you. But they seemed afraid of Razor Mountain.”

“They are deserters,” Meadows said. “They have to face the consequences of their actions.”

“Garrett decided he wanted back in,” Christopher said, “and he seemed to think that bringing me as a peace offering would make it all okay.”

“Did he really?”

Christopher thought about it.

“Maybe not. Harold said that he didn’t think it would work. I think Garrett was just desperate and clinging to whatever hope he could find.”

“What about the others?” Meadows asked. “The brothers weren’t alone.”

Christopher took a deep breath. He realized that his eyes were wide. His face betrayed him. His body was a thing not entirely under his control any more.

“You’re protecting them,” Meadows said. “Is that really the strategy you want to take here? Providing cover for traitors?”

“They gave me shelter and food. I’d be dead if they hadn’t.”

“That doesn’t absolve them of their crimes. It’s not your responsibility to defend them.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Christopher said. “I don’t know where they are. It was someplace abandoned. Underground. I’m sure Garrett and Harold could tell you more.”

“That’s not relevant. I’m here to find out what you know,” Meadows said.

---

When he first woke, on the plane, he had thought for a moment that he was in a dark cave. Why would he think that? Now he was actually in a cave, or at least underground. It felt like a normal building, except that there were no windows. No sun, no moon, no sky or stars. No time passing. No buzzing of airplane engines in the dark that wasn’t a cave.

How did you get here?

“I told you. It was a business trip. A sales trip. I was selling software.”

Did you actually sell anything?

“It’s a new job. I’m new. I’m not very good at it, yet. At least they were nice about it.”

So no. Who are you working for?

“Peak Electric Solutions.”

Who are you working for?

“Look, I told you.”

Who are you working for?

“What’s the fucking point of this? What do you expect me to say? You want me to just make something up?”

I want you to tell the truth. By the way, you have a little blood there, on your forehead.

“I think I hit my head on the table.”

What’s the most blood you’ve ever seen?

“I…why?”

Answer the question.

“I guess, I used to get nosebleeds, pretty bad ones, in the winter when the air is too dry. Sometimes it would just go for five or ten minutes. The wastebasket would just be full of bloody tissues.”

That’s it?

“I think so.”

Have you ever killed someone?

---

Coming back from a sleep-deprivation blackout wasn’t like waking up. It was like one of those movies where someone overdoses and they inject adrenaline directly into the person’s heart. It was being off, and then being on again.

He sat at the table, both jittery and exhausted. The soldier must have come. Must have taken him from the cell and brought him to sit at the table. He didn’t remember it, but it must have happened.

Meadows sat down in the chair opposite him. Had Meadows come in through the door? When?

“How are you doing today, Chris?”

“Is it day?”

“I’m hoping we can have a productive conversation.”

“Me too.”

“Hey, that’s great. For that to happen, I’m going to need you to tell me the truth.”

“I keep telling you the truth,” Christopher said. “Except maybe about the deserters, at first, because I feel like I owe them. But then I ended up telling you what little I know about them, anyway. At least, I think I told you.”

“You’re not filling me with confidence here,” Meadows said.

“I’m having a real hard time deciding what is actually happening,” Christopher said.

Meadows sighed and set his clipboard down on the table, snapping the pen under the metal clip.

“I can assure you that this is definitely happening,” he said. “I’m trying to help you here, but you’re not making it easy.”

“Look,” Christopher said. “Look. I’m telling you the truth. What answers are you looking for? If you tell me what you actually want, maybe, somehow, I can help.”

“Chris, I’m not going to give you a free pass here. I’m not going to give you a map of where you can lie and where you can’t. I know more about you than you realize. I know you’re lying, and until you tell me the truth, this will only get worse for you.”

Christopher felt his eyes overflowing with tears. He pressed his palms against them until he saw stars.

“I don’t know what you want. I can’t do this anymore.”

Meadows was standing next to the door. Had he stood up?

“I’m sorry to hear that, Chris. If that’s the case, then we’re going to have other questions to discuss. For example, do we put you in permanent storage, or do we line up the firing squad?”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The sergeant sat across from Christopher and studied his clipboard silently, flipping between several different pages. Then he looked over the top, into Christopher’s eyes.         

“We have the same name, you know.”

Christopher blinked.

“Excuse me?”

The sergeant lowered the clipboard and used his pen to tap on the name badge. It said “C. MEADOWS” in white engraving on the brown badge.

“Sergeant Chris Meadows,” he said.

Christopher took a deep, slow breath. After being imprisoned and tortured, he had not expected his captors to subject him to tedious small talk.

“I go by Christopher,” he replied at last.

Meadows raised the clipboard again.

“I’ve been chatting with the two deserters who came in with you. I think we both know that they have no idea what’s going on, but I still got some useful information about you out of them. And, of course, I have other means at my disposal for finding things out. I know an awful lot about you Chris, and by the time we’re done here, I will know everything. You can make it simple, or you can make it complicated, but we’ll get there eventually. The only difference will be how unpleasant it is going to be for the both of us. Your level of cooperation will have an impact on what eventually happens to you.”

Meadows waited expectantly.

“Okay,” Christopher said.

“Let’s do a little thought experiment. Take a good look around this room. This could be where you spend the rest of your life. Now, that might not be very long, but it could also be a very, very long time.”

Christopher shook his head. “You don’t need to threaten me. I’ll tell you everything I know. Strap me into the lie detector. Do whatever you need to do.”

Meadows smirked, and it was not a pleasant expression.

“We don’t need your permission, Chris. And I don’t need to threaten you. I work in facts. These are the facts about what is at stake here. If you’re smart, you’ll tell me the facts that I ask of you. I will evaluate what you say against my other sources, and I will determine if you are telling the truth. If you lie or omit things, those will be marks against you. Do you understand?”

Christopher took a deep breath. He felt like his lungs weren’t providing him enough air. The weight of his body was hard to hold up.

“I understand.”

“That’s fantastic,” Meadows said. “Let’s start with Alaska. How did you come to be here in our fine state?”

Christopher told him about the flight from the small town of Homer, about waking up alone, and the frantic minutes leading up to his terrifying jump. His instinct was to leave out the parts that made no sense, but he didn’t dare. Instead, he told the story exactly as he remembered it, without embellishment or commentary.

Meadows stared across the table intently, occasionally looking down to jot something on his paper, but never showing emotion or commenting. He let Christopher tell the story up until the point where he crawled out of the lake, found the hatch, and somehow guessed the code.

Christopher paused and took a deep breath. The lack of feedback from Meadows was almost worse than immediate skepticism.

“That seems like a good place to stop for the moment,” Meadows said, “as it does answer my initial question. Now think back through your story and tell me if there’s anything you left out.”

“Just the facts?”

“Just the facts.”

Christopher thought.

“When I tried to open the door, I wasn’t thinking very straight. I assumed I was going to die, but I thought I might as well try to guess the code. I was going to enter my birthday, but I fat-fingered it.”

“What’s your birthday?”

“November 11, 1983.”

Meadows shook his head a fraction of an inch.

“The code, I mean.”

“111183.”

“And what did you enter, instead?”

“122199. I wasn’t actually sure what I entered at the time, but I figured it out after a little trial and error later on.”

“Interesting,” Meadows said. “Those numbers are quite different.”

“I was freezing to death,” Christopher said. “My hands were shaking.”

Meadows eyed Christopher.

“You certainly look rough around the edges, but you have all your fingers and toes, don’t you? And your entire nose. I think you weren’t quite so bad off.”

“Well, it felt like it at the time,” Christopher mumbled, trying not to sound petulant.

“Let’s back up,” Meadows said. “Where did you come from, before you came to Alaska? Where do you live?”

“I have an apartment in Minneapolis,” Christopher said. “Or at least, I did.”

“Oh, what happened to it?”

Christopher shrugged.

“I don’t know. I just assumed I’ve been declared dead by now. It’s been weeks.”

“Ah,” Meadows replied, no sympathy in his voice. “You lived alone then?”

“Yeah.”

“And where did you grow up?”

“Same general area. Suburbs.”

“Family?”

“My parents and my brother.”

“Older, or younger than you?”

“…younger.”

For the first time, Meadows face betrayed some hint of emotion, the faintest narrowing of the eyes.

“You hesitated.”

“My brother was three years younger. He was adopted, if that matters.”

Meadows shrugged.

“Does it?”

Christopher wasn’t sure what to say. He shook his head.

Meadows wrote for several seconds.

“You said your job brought you here.”

“Yes. It was supposed to be a sales trip. I just moved into a new position at work. Sales for northern North America.

Mostly Canada, Alaska, and a few of the north-most states.”’

“And where were you going, specifically?”

“Golden Valley Electric Association.”

“Anyone in particular who was expecting you?”

Christopher pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t remember.”

“What about where you came from?”

“I…I stayed at the motel in Homer. I visited Homer Electric. I met a few people. I only really remember first names. There was Phil, Lisa…Sandy, I think.”

Meadows nodded, writing. Then he clicked his pen and stood.

“I think that’s enough to start with,” he said. “Someone will be along shortly to bring you back to your cell.”

Christopher blinked. “That’s it?”

“For now.”

“Look, I’m willing to tell you whatever you need to know.”

Meadows held up a hand.

“Be patient, Chris. We’ll get there, in time.”

“Can I please just sleep?”

“We’ll talk again soon,” Meadows said. He turned sharply on his heel and walked to the door. He didn’t even glance back as the door closed behind him.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The noise came and went over and over. Christopher counted five times, then began to wonder if he had miscounted. It never seemed to be more than an hour between sessions, and he didn’t trust his sense of time at all while the noise was happening. It felt like it went on for hours. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he got in between sessions, but he knew it wasn’t remotely close to enough. He had crossed into the hazy place beyond mere sleep deprivation and exhaustion, a liminal world of almost-sleep where the world around him felt less than entirely real.

As soon as the noise stopped for the fifth time, the door to the room swung open, and a soldier entered. It came as a shock, it was so sudden and out of keeping with the rhythm of Christopher’s imprisonment thus far.

The soldier walked stiffly to Christopher’s cell, eyes staring straight ahead. The man’s demeanor called to his mind the British palace guards who assiduously ignored the tourists. When the man arrived at the cell door, he pulled out a ring of keys. He unlocked and opened the door, and his eyes actually focused on Christopher for the first time.

“Stand up!” he shouted in perfect drill sergeant cadence.

Christopher rolled over and sat up shakily on the metal bed before hauling himself to his feet. Apparently the soldier was not satisfied with how quickly Christopher was moving, because the man swept forward and turned Christopher around to slam him against the wall before he realized what was happening. He twisted Christopher’s arms behind his back and snapped handcuffs onto his wrists. Then he turned Christopher around and marched him out of the cell, over to the stainless steel table in the middle of the room.

The man pressed Christopher down into the chair, then unlocked one of the cuffs to snap onto one of the brackets welded to the table.

The endless hours of noise torture had left Christopher dazed, and the sudden manhandling had caught him completely by surprise. He felt like he ought to fight back, but he suspected that these people wouldn’t be afraid to really hurt him. Besides, he was hardly in a state where fighting back would do any good.

At the very least, it seemed like he ought to say something.

“When do I get my phone call?”

The soldier didn’t so much as blink. His job apparently finished, Christopher did not merit being seen or heard. The man walked to the door as stiffly as he had entered.

“I’d like to speak to my lawyer.” Christopher’s tongue was thick in his mouth, his words slightly slurred.

The door swung closed, clunking shut with finality.

Minutes went by, the room silent except for the sound of Christopher’s shoes on the smooth floor and the clanking of the handcuff chain on the metal table. He felt the effects of adrenaline fade, and exhaustion crept in again. He was tempted to lay his head down on the table and try to sleep, but it was clear by now that if he did that, they would just do something to jerk him awake.

He didn’t have to wait long however. The door opened again, and a man in a sharp-creased forest green dress uniform and red beret stepped into the room, holding a clipboard under his arm. He let the door close behind him, but he didn’t walk to the table immediately. Instead, he stood just beyond the threshold, studying Christopher, his face impassive.

The man walked forward slowly and sat down across from Christopher. He set his clipboard down on the table with an audible snap.

“I’m Sergeant Meadows,” the man said, “and I’m here to decide whether you deserve to rot in a cell for the rest of your life.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The sound was like a hammer on sheet metal. It resonated and echoed back on itself in the stone-walled room until it was an overwhelming roar of noise. First, it jerked Christopher from his half-slumber, spiking his heart-rate and triggering a frantic fight-or-flight response. In the steel-barred cell, he could do neither, and he found himself wide-eyed, hands over his ears, sitting on the metal bed with his back pressed against the wall.

As the banging continued, it enveloped him in sound so loud that he could feel it inside his organs. It felt like it was getting steadily louder, but it was possible that it only felt that way to Christopher as the overlapping waves of sound cascaded around the room and vibrated his bones.

He knew that sound was sometimes used as a weapon of torture, but he had never really considered how bad it could actually be. It made his teeth hurt. It was all around him, so there was nothing to focus against, nothing to push back against. He was unrestrained, but he felt trapped. As seconds and minutes ticked by, Christopher felt that he had to stand, had to find an outlet for the pent-up energy his body wanted to deploy against the pain.

He stood and moved to the bars of his cage, pulling on them impotently. They were firmly embedded in the floor and solidly constructed. He couldn’t budge them. They wouldn’t even rattle. Not that he’d be able to hear it.

He paced the too-small perimeter of the cell, his arms starting to ache from pressing his hands to his ears. He could feel the noise grinding him down. He had no idea if it had been going for minutes or hours. He wondered what kind of permanent hearing damage this would give him. He was beginning to think that he’d be willing to go deaf just to shut out the sound.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, but the reverberations continued around the room for a few seconds, and even after they were gone, the echoes continued in Christopher’s ears, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. With the overwhelming sound gone, he felt like there was now an aching void between his ears.

He dropped his hands from his head. They were shaking. He stood, leaning on the bars, concentrating on the feeling of the cold metal against his forehead. Time passed, but his sense of time was too fuzzy to know how long. He sat heavily on the metal bed. Without the noise attacking him, the cell actually felt bigger, less restrictive.

He looked up at the cameras mounted high up the walls.

“What do you want?” His own voice sounded distorted and far away.

There was no response. He hadn’t really expected one. He didn’t see any speakers or obvious P.A. system, no obvious source for the horrible banging sound either. They had to be watching him, but what would they be looking for? Signs of a mental break? Christopher felt so exhausted at this point that he didn’t think he had the energy for a full-on breakdown. A catatonic state sounded like it might be nice.

He lay down on the uncomfortable slab of metal, turning to face the wall. If they thought he was trying to sleep, would they start up the noise again? The thought of enduring any more of that was enough to raise his heart rate.

He wondered if they could measure his vital signs without having him hooked up to a machine. Could they monitor his heartbeat? His core temperature? Maybe he wouldn’t be able to fool anyone.

Eventually, he got his breathing to slow. Surprisingly, even on the cold metal bed, knowing that some unknown torturer was probably just waiting for the right moment to inflict some new suffering on him, he began to feel the weight of exhaustion. He didn’t know if it was better to resist sleep or give in, and perhaps get a little bit of his strength back.

His body decided for him. He didn’t know how long he slept, but he woke to the heart-stopping sound of the metallic banging blasting into the room once again.

Christopher rolled over, laying flat on his back, eyes closed, and began a list of every expletive he knew, shouted uselessly into the sonic chaos.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

God-Speaker found that his eyes were welling up. The voices were right. They were always right. He hated them.

“Don’t walk this path,” God-Speaker said. “Give me some other choice.”

“Step aside,” Strong Shield said, even as God-Speaker side-stepped his spear-thrust.

God-Speaker’s hands were empty. There was nothing on the table except papers.

“You are no match for me,” Strong Shield said, the head of his spear bobbing and thrusting. He approached carefully, ready to strike, making it impossible for God-Speaker to do anything but move backward, away from the doors.

God-Speaker blinked and a tear ran down his face.

“I trusted you. You think you can lead these people? Nobody should follow someone who would betray his own brother.”

Strong Shield only lunged again.

God-Speaker knew these steps, these thrusts. The voices knew much about fighting, but little about human bodies. God-Speaker had synthesized their knowledge into something practical: a fighting style he developed himself. He had taught their first warriors, long before Strong Shiels. His techniques had been refined and passed down. Strong Shield was adept, but his skill had limits.

God-Speaker threw up his arm. When Strong Shield thrust again, he sidestepped and brought the arm down, capturing the shaft under his armpit. He wrapped his arm around it as Strong Shield tried to pull it back, the barb cutting into the flesh beneath his shoulder blade. Wincing, God-Speaker brought his other hand to bear, shoving the spear down. Strong Shield was caught off-balance, brought to one knee with the butt of the spear touching the stone floor.

God-Speaker brought the other end down to his right knee. His other knee fell on the middle of the shaft. It bent, then broke under his weight.

Strong Shield staggered, now holding only the broken butt of the spear and still off balance. God-Speaker held the sharp end under his arm, but he had been forced to throw his weight downward to snap it. Instead of fighting this momentum, he leaned into it, tucking his chin to his chest and rolling forward onto his left shoulder.

He somersaulted, intending to come up onto his feet. Before he could get all the way around, Strong Shield’s hand lashed out and grasped his arm at the elbow. Instead of trying to regain his footing, the man had lunged after him, turning the fight into a grappling match on the floor.

It had only been a few months since God-Speaker had taken on this new body. It was young and strong, but not as muscular as Strong Shield, and God-Speaker was still learning the feel of it. He felt just a little too slow, a little too weak. Strong Shield took hold of his wrists as they tumbled, both men fighting to come out on top.

Strong Shield feared the spear tip that God-Speaker had pried away from him. God-Speaker held it in his right hand. He let his left arm go limp while he struggled to press the right toward Strong Shield’s face.

Strong Shield’s face had shown fear for a moment. Now he smiled, confident in his control of the situation. He held God-Speaker’s right hand firmly, elbow locked as they rolled to a stop, the larger man on top.

“This is meant to be,” Strong Shield said, twisting God-Speaker’s wrist.

“I’m sorry,” God-Speaker said. “I should have seen this coming. I should have been able to stop it.”

Strong Shield cried out in wordless victory as the broken spear fell from God-Speaker’s twisted hand. He scrambled to grab the half-spear. God-Speaker twisted underneath him, but Strong Shield straddled him, grabbing God-Speaker’s right hand with his left.

His body half-turned, God-Speaker bent his left knee, bringing his foot up to his hip as Strong Shield raised the spear point for the killing blow.

God-Speaker’s free left hand slipped a thin flint blade from a hidden pocket on his boot. The blade came up at an angle across the man’s exposed abdomen, cutting a clean line through skin and muscle, only stopping when it struck the bottom of his sternum. The blade was as long as a finger, just enough to wedge under the ribs and press into the beating heart. God-Speaker felt the twist of his wrist, the snap of the razor-thin tip of the blade, buried in Strong Shield’s chest. Then he felt the wave of hot wetness as Strong Shield’s lifeblood poured over him. The head of the spear came down without any force. The arms were already limp. The black irises were dull and empty.

For a moment, God-Speaker could do nothing but sob silently. Then he shoved the body away. He was soaked in blood. The smell and the taste of it was overwhelming. For a moment, he thought he would vomit, but he suppressed it. He stood.

The blood drained off of him, onto the floor. There was a rhythm to it, dripping, like the beating of drums. His heart beat with it, a cold rage building. Underneath it all were the voices of the mountain.

God-Speaker let his breathing slow. His anger and sadness didn’t diminish, they only concentrated to a white-hot point in his chest. He walked to the closed doors, knowing that he left footprints in blood every step of the way.

He opened the doors, letting the cold autumn wind blow over him, and looked down the small flight of stone stairs. There was a wide, flat gathering space below, where his remaining war councilors waited and talked amongst themselves. They looked up at him in shock.

“What happened?” asked Aoyura.

“I was betrayed,” God-Speaker said. “Strong Shield believed that he could lead our people better than I. He thought he could kill me. He is dead by my hand.”

A few others who had been nearby began to gather, staring open-mouthed at God-Speaker’s blood-soaked body.

“I am Tutanarulax Qatqa. I am the one who speaks to the gods of the mountain. I am the one who does not die.”

The gathered people, the councilors, all of them averted their eyes and bowed their heads. Out of respect? Fear? In that moment, God-Speaker did not care.

“Come,” he said. “Bring water. We must cleanse this place of the blood of the traitor. Then I will tell you the future I see for our city in the mountain.”

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Strong Shield paced around the room, his hand first trailing across the maps on the table, then the carvings on one of the pillars. He was clearly agitated.

God-Speaker organized his thoughts before speaking.

“I always listen to your council, but it is council only. I will not act on advice that I know to be wrong. I gave you your name because I know you want to protect our people. You are a great warrior. What you propose will not protect them. You must look beyond one fight, beyond one enemy.”

“That is what I am doing.”

“You have never seen an empire,” God-Speaker said.

“You have?”

“The gods of the mountain show me many things. The idea of empire is new to us, but it is not new to them. Those we subjugate will hate us, and they will do anything in their power to destroy us.”

“What do you propose then? Let them attack us? That is not looking beyond the fight at hand.”

“No,” God-Speaker said. “You said yourself, we are strong and we have what we need. When we trade with outsiders, it is often better for them than for us. For many years we wanted to bring people in, to grow. Now, we are a city.”

God-Speaker gestured to the room. The cleverly slanted windows high above let in the afternoon light while keeping out the weather. Strips of golden light shone across the room, revealing sparkling motes of dust.

“Let us hollow out the mountain. We will continue to live here, but let nobody in. When we go out, we will go out in secret. Let the stories of a city in the mountains become legends. Leave a few burned remnants scattered across the valleys below. Let those put the lie to these stories that bring enemies here in search of treasure. We will make our doors and windows so cleverly that they will never suspect we look down on them from above. They will go home and tell the story of the legendary city which turned out to be nothing but spirits and burned rocks.”

As God-Speaker spoke, Strong Shield’s eyes narrowed.

“You would have us hide away from these weaklings who have no hope of defeating us? You would have us be remembered as a tribe that was utterly destroyed?”

“What do the stories of other tribes matter to you? We will be safe in the mountain. We will have what we need, and we will keep our knowledge and our wealth to ourselves.”

Strong Shield shook his head.

“You are pitiful.”

“Do you truly want to fight so badly?” God-Speaker said. “Can’t you see that it is better to not fight at all?”

“No,” Strong Shield said. “I want us to be led by someone who isn’t afraid of the outside world.”

The conversation had taken a turn God-Speaker had not expected. He realized now that the voices in the mountain were agitated. Their susurration was like a wind blowing in the depths. They saw the signs. They knew what could happen.

The sound was only audible to God-Speaker. There might be one or two others on the mountain who would feel a faint uneasiness. Strong Shield would think that God-Speaker’s sudden change in expression was a response to his words.

“You are like my brother,” God-Speaker said. “You know I want what’s best for our people.”

“Of course,” Strong Shield said. “But you can still be wrong. You are not a strong leader.”

God-Speaker clenched his jaw.

“I came to the mountain alone. I was here before you were born. I gathered the people to me. Everything we have built is because of me.”

“So you say.”

“Only I hear the voices of the gods.”

“Given enough time, perhaps another can learn to hear them.”

Strong Shield reached behind the pillar and pulled out his fine spear, tipped with a sharp barb of whale bone.

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The lord’s chamber was freshly hewn from the gray rock. It was new enough that the walls still showed the tool marks, and in places there were cracks and openings left behind by the caves they had widened for the construction. In time, these blemishes would be smoothed away and covered over. It was an astonishing task, the work of years and many hands, cleverly trained and carefully guided. It was a needless expenditure of effort, compared to work that could have been done on the smithy or the farms or a dozen other construction projects that would have more direct effect on their day-to-day lives. Its value lied in its beauty. Nowhere else in the world could such a place exist. It was a monument to the people of the mountain city and the knowledge they took from the gods.

The long room had large doors of heavy timber banded with bronze, marked with symbols of protection and warding. Four ornately carved and painted stone pillars told spiraling stories of the founding of the village and the many achievements of its people. The furnishings in the room were moved in and out depending on the occasion. Long tables could be brought in when it was made into a feasting hall. Ornate wooden thrones could be arranged for God-Speaker and his advisers when it was a court for the visiting emissaries of distant tribes. Today, it was a war room, furnished only with a large round table, strewn with durable parchment maps and scrawled notes on the rougher paper made from local reeds.

“Tutan, the scouts report a war party. Less than fifty people. They will come up along the deep river valley, to the place where it splits. They mean to attack the city.”

 God-Speaker’s name had changed with the language his people spoke, a creole of the varied dialects spoken by those who made the mountain their home. “Tutanarulax Qatqa” was the one who spoke to the mountain, but it had become more comfortable for him to go by Tutan, “one who speaks,” in all but the most formal situations.

“Who are these people?” God-Speaker asked. “What quarrel do they have with us?”

A woman across the table, Aoyura, lifted a piece of paper. “One of my people took meals with the traders who came just after the new moon. They said they had passed a group like this, a group girded for fighting, and the fighters bragged that they were going to take plunder from a great tribe of the mountains. The traders said they spoke little to the fighters, for fear of them and fear of arousing our anger.”

“But they made no mention of an attack to me,” God-Speaker said.

“No, I think they only hoped for good trade and were happy to stay out of it. Strangers offer no kindness to one another in these days.”

A tall, muscular man close to God-Speaker thumped an open hand onto the table. It was Kuoemanuna, who took the name that God-Speaker had given him meaning Strong Shield.

“We were gracious hosts! We gave them good food and warm beds, and a place at the storytelling fire. We gave them good trades, even for the things that are not very useful to us. The least they could do is warn us of this war party.”

“I did not say we were unkind to them,” Aoyura replied. “But the people from far away speak differently, act differently. They do not trust easily and they keep their kindness for their own.”

“Then we should treat them no differently,” Strong Shield said.

God-Speaker put a hand up to halt the line of conversation before it got any more argumentative.

“It has always been our way,” God-Speaker said. “It is what brought many different peoples to the mountain, and why they have stayed.”

“Yes, but are we not our own people now?” Strong Shield asked. “We must protect ourselves.”

God-Speaker loved Strong Shield like a brother, but he was often too eager to solve problems in the most direct and confrontational ways. Aoyura was the opposite. She was known for changing people’s minds, getting what she wanted by making other people think they wanted it too. She had taken charge of a group of talkative women who gathered information within the city and amongst the traders sent out to other tribes.

“Let us focus on the problem at hand,” God-Speaker said. “These people come to take from us. How shall we stop them?

“I think it is best to let them use up their energy and food climbing the mountains. They will have to cross the river at the mouth of the valley to the south. We prepare our defense there. Away from the city, and where the terrain is most favorable. When they arrive, we give them a choice: turn away, or face our sharp spears and swift arrows.”

Strong Shield shook his head. “We have better weapons and better tactics. They have no chance against us. We should meet them further south, where the valley is wide. Show them that even in the open, they cannot defeat us. If they fear us, they will not return.”

God-Speaker nodded. “Our people are strong, that is true. But I do not want to spend our peoples’ blood to simply make a point. If we prepare our strongest defense, that will be enough to show them how outmatched they are.”

“They will learn their lesson best on the point of a spear,” Strong Shield said. “Even if they are shamed and turn away, do you think that will be the end of it? We should at least capture them.”

“For this season, it will be the end of it,” God-Speaker said. “If they dare to return next season, they will find that we are still strong. And I will not keep prisoners on the mountain.”

Strong Shield sighed. “May I speak honestly?”

“Of course,” God-Speaker said. “Speak.”

“We have strength here, but it is wasted. Others hear stories about the city in the mountains, where the people never go hungry and have many amazing things. They grow envious of us. More and more of them will want to test themselves against us, and perhaps take these treasures as war prize back to their own people.

“And yet, the stories they tell of us only guess at what we can do. You know this. This city is a miracle, built on the knowledge of the gods. We should show them that they cannot take what belongs to us. Anyone who comes to us with spear raised should be destroyed. Then, we should send our own warriors to their people. We offer them death, as they would have given us, or the chance to become like us. New villages, just like ours, under the rule of our people. In return, we ask only that they never raise arms against us, and that they send some small fraction of their new bounty back to us.”

He stared into God-Speaker’s eyes, his own black like the water at night, but holding a glint of fire.

God-Speaker shook his head.

“You speak of an empire,” he said. The word was strange in his mouth, a guttural, foreign word that came to him from the voices deep in the mountain. There was no word for it in his people’s language.

“We will have more resources,” Strong Shield said. “Our people will be safe. And others will receive the same miracles we have received.”

God-Speaker held up a hand.

“Everyone who is here chose to be here,” he said. “No miracle comes out of blood. Our people will not be safe. Everyone in these villages, from oldest man to youngest child, will hold their hatred of us in their hearts. Our food and drink will taste sour and rancid in their mouths. They will tell themselves stories of the way we spilled their blood.”

“They deserve it for attacking us,” Strong Shield said, brow contorted in anger.

“Maybe so,” God-Speaker said. “It will not change what is in their hearts.”

“Why won’t you listen to me?” Strong Shield shouted, slamming a fist on the table.

The booming resonance of it filled the chamber, leaving behind a heavy silence. The only sound was God-Speaker’s calm, even breathing.

“Let us speak alone,” God-Speaker said. “Everyone, please go outside.”

The others nodded, walking quickly to the door. None of them had any desire to get involved.

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Time was difficult to judge in the cell. There was no window to observe the cycles of the sun and moon. The bright lights set into the high ceiling were unrelentingly bright. Every cough, sniffle and movement echoed back at him from a room full of hard surfaces.

At first, he sat quietly, assuming that someone would eventually come to interrogate him. He tried not to think about what they might do to him, but was mostly unsuccessful. He thought about what he ought to say, how he might word his story so that they would believe him. There would be evidence of his stay in the bunker. The ruins of the crashed plane would still be scattered across some nearby mountainside. The airlines would have records of his ticket. His company could vouch for him. Unfortunately, day jobs and plausible excuses were probably the sort of thing a real spy would also have.

There was also a long list of unlikely events that he could not explain. Why had the plane gone down in the first place, and where had the other passengers gone? How had Christopher managed to survive the fall? How could he have guessed the code to the bunker while almost delirious and verging on hypothermia?

Could someone have set him up? Maybe he was a distraction to turn eyes away from something or someone else. Maybe he was a contestant on the world’s most sadistic game show. So far he hadn’t liked any of the prizes behind the doors.

He wondered if there was something he should have done differently. Even now, he couldn’t say it would have been any better to stay in the bunker indefinitely. If he had been found there, it was just as likely that it would be the Razor Mountain people doing the finding. Staying there, completely passive, might look slightly less suspicious. Or it might look odd. After all, who would simply accept their fate and decide to stay in a place like the bunker without making any effort to be rescued.

Instead, he had gone out questing, a sad little knight-errant in strange lands. He had let himself be guided by Amaranth. He had accepted imprisonment by her people. He had gone along with Harold and Garrett in their doomed scheme to curry favor with their superiors. Was there anywhere he could have gotten off that path once he had followed Amaranth through the frozen doors to the ruined underground office building? Could he have tried to escape? All along he had felt a deep unease, like he was a train headed for disaster, but unable to jump the tracks and turn away.

Christopher stood and paced in slow rectangles, walking the perimeter of his cell. He took deep breaths, trying to fight down the rising panic in his chest. He studied his surroundings. The slight dents in the stainless steel toilet. The metal shelf: a bench or a bed. The table in the center of the room, the brackets welded to the top hinting at darker purposes than facilitating friendly conversation.

When he had entered the mountain, the air had been warm compared to the outside. Now, a clammy chill gripped him. He rubbed his arms with his hands. His skin certainly felt cold.

He rubbed his eyes. Had the lights gotten brighter as well? The white walls and glaring stainless steel suddenly felt blinding. He sat on the “bed” and pressed his back to the wall, eyes closed. He breathed, feeling his heart thumping.

The room wasn’t actually silent. Though the small noises he made still seemed abnormally loud, there was some ubiquitous noise, an almost imperceptible whine. As soon as he noticed it, it grated on him. He felt a headache coming on.

As he breathed deep, he felt his panic subsiding. It was overcome by a wave of misery and self-pity. How long had it been since he had last been able to actually relax? How long since he had been free of the nagging knowledge that the universe had turned against him, that he had to fight to stay safe, or even alive?

It felt somehow childish to be so miserable. Hadn’t he led a perfectly mundane life before this? He had been comfortable. He was hardly the first person in the world to be subjected to such hardship. How many people lived through wars? How many refugees were left to fend for themselves and their families for months or years? How many lived their entire lives in abject poverty? It seemed only fair that he take his turn.

He felt petulant. He didn’t want to do this anymore. He wanted to throw a tantrum. He wanted to go home.

Even the bare comforts of the bunker would be luxurious compared to this place. The barely-discernible whine pierced his brain like a dentist’s drill.

Christopher held his breath. In all of his misery, there was one thought he hadn’t let himself think. There was another way out, an exit that he had been studiously looking away from. The ultimate exit. The idea filled his guts with lead. No, he wasn’t ready for that.

And yet, he felt the strange realization that the idea of death no longer terrified him quite as much as it once had. Out in the woods, when the snow had fallen and he knew he didn’t have the supplies to make the trip back to the bunker, he had been forced to look death in the face. Christopher knew death, at least a little. They were old friends, even if they hadn’t seen each other in quite some time.

He thought back to that moment in the woods when he made the choice to keep going. It was terrifying, but also oddly freeing. He wasn’t sure if it was fatalism or nihilism or something else, but it was a peaceful feeling. For the moment, he gave up his expectations for the future, his desperate belief that the universe owed him something.

He didn’t realize that he was slipping into sleep until he was jerked awake by a violent banging outside his cell.

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