Travel to Sockland

Chapter 36

The three of them stood still in the deep, thick silence. Arnie looked back at where they had come from, the noisy, voice-filled land beyond the wooden sign. There was nothing to see. It looked empty and lifeless and there was no indication of where the voices came from.

"That's where your voice goes when you lose it?" Isabelle said.

"It seems to be." he replied, unsure.

"Show us the map again Arnold." Flimgog said. Arnie pulled the map and they all looked at it. The mountains corresponded with the map perfectly and Arnie noticed that the range stretched across the map from one side to the other.

"It is clear we need to cross these mountains and enter this area." Flimgog pointed at the grey point beyond the mountain range. "Magnus said we would find the Queen from there. I cannot see any reason to delay. Shall we simply try to cross here?"

Arnie and Isabelle both nodded. Arnie couldn't think of anything else they could do. "We'll go up a ways and then travel around to the left." Arnie said. "I'm not sure how easy it's going to be, but we don't have a lot of choice. There definitely isn't a way to go around the mountains."

Flimgog nodded and Isabelle spoke. "Aye, let's try it."

"Let me go first." Flimgog said. "I can test the ground and you can easily catch me if the need arises."

He didn't wait for an answer but instead started walking up the cone shaped mountain. Arnie and Isabelle followed behind. The ground provided remarkably good grip in its coarse red state. It was steep though and it didn't take long for Arnie's legs to feel tired.

As they climbed Arnie found it getting a little easier although there was no visible reason why it should be getting easier. In fact, he thought it should be getting harder as they went up. Nonetheless they continued up. Arnie looked back from where they came and was astonished by how high they had come. He looked out at the landscape they were leaving behind. It looked unchanged as far as his eyes could see. He looked up the mountain but the top was still invisible.

"Flimgog how far up do we need to go?" Arnie called.

"I don't know, the ground feels unchanging so far." Flimgog called back. Arnie saw him look at the neighbouring mountain. "We are probably high enough to start going around the mountain now. We seem to be far enough away from the next one."

At ground level, all of the mountains were side by side and touching. As they went higher, due to the cone shape, they were further apart thus making it possible to go around.

"Ok, let's do it!" Arnie said. He was feeling a lot lighter now and a lot more relaxed.

Flimgog stopped going upwards and instead began edging around the side of the mountain. Because the incline was steep, Arnie felt reassured by the gripping quality of the ground but still found himself with visions of tumbling down the mountain. He pushed the thought from his mind and slowed down even more. He looked at Isabelle and saw that she seemed at ease.

He continued inching round the mountain and took comfort in the fact that Flimgog didn't seem to have encountered any problems, the ground seemed to be holding up so far.

How long they moved round for he wasn't sure, he had sort of drifted into dazed, repetative movements, edging round small step by small step. He almost walked into Flimgog who had stopped up ahead.

"What's happening?" Isabelle asked from behind as she noticed they had stopped.

"There is some kind of hole in the mountainside here." Flimgog said. Arnie saw what he was talking about. It was a hole in the side of the mountain about the size of a swimming pool water slide. It was dark, but there did seem to be some kind of metal shoot within the hole. "Seems to be a slide of some kind." Flimgog continued.