Secret Places and Hidden Things

Chapter Thirteen

Michael was standing at the edge of the void. The darkness spread around him like a distortion on a lens, the blue daylight of the sky behind him fading slowly into a starry night above, and then nothing—velvet black on the distant horizon. After Marelle had left, he'd spent some time walking, watching as the edges formed from nothing, trying to catch a glimpse of the process. There was a sound, or perhaps a vibration, coming from the darkness that was almost painful. He watched as a butterfly drifted out over the edge and wandered away. There must be something out there, he thought, but it probably wouldn't support him. He didn't want to push the edge forward anymore, he wanted to move beyond it, go out into it and immerse himself in the potential of it.

The sky and the ground were rounded and the cliff curved off into a distant horizon, but it went on forever in that general direction—there was no sense of space beyond it. The light was very strong against the darkness, throwing sharp shadows against the grass and flowers.

He sat down and dangled a foot over the edge of the cliff, dipping his toe into the void. There was something there. He could feel it. He moved his legs under him, kneeling, and reached out as far as he could. Something brushed against his hand—almost a non-feeling—like spider silk. He grabbed for it and missed. His second attempt was more successful. It was a thin, invisible thread. It had a bit of give, but as he pulled he could feel something heavy at the other end. He leaned back, putting his weight into it, and it moved ever so slightly.

He stood up and brushed his hair across his brow, leaning back and bracing his feet against stray rocks. It took some time, but he got into a rhythm, stepping backwards away from the edge. Soon, the weight of the object continued the forward momentum.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the uniform darkness before him began to lighten. Something massive was appearing in the distance, fading in like it was coming from deep underwater. A low rumble started and he ran back to the edge of the cliff, following the thread hand over hand and keeping the line taught. Another burst of effort and the shape started to appear more clearly off in the distance—a great, floating, rocky mass, covered in some kind of moss. The rumbling remained quiet, but it became richer and deeper as time passed, and the smell of newly turned earth filled the air.

Michael stopped pulling and let the object float towards him on its own. He sat on the edge of the cliff, dangling his bare feet over the edge, and coiling the thread beside him as he reeled it in.

It became apparent, as the object came closer, that the moss was in fact tall trees, and the object itself was truly mountainous, like a small planet floating out of the night sky. It was dark from far away, but the light on it increased over time, and soon it was brightly lit, deep shadows carving out the lines of each cliff. It took it a long time to arrive where Michael was sitting, but he was patient. He sat, swinging his legs and eating apples. New details became apparent with every minute that passed. The trees were so large he could have carved whole buildings out of them from the inside without doing any damage. They were mostly pines, shooting up into the void straight and true, but a few of them were deciduous, wrestling their branches out above the mass of conifers.

Finally, after what must have been hours, the massive structure arrived, coming to a smooth, soundless stop a few yards from the edge. Michael stood up, wiping his hands on his pants and dropped the last apple core onto the pile beside him. He looked at the rocks carefully, trying to decide the best way to make it across. After a bit of deliberation, he threw an apple at the structure, and a flurry of branches came shooting across the void like a bridge. He clambered up and tiptoed across like a gymnast.

When he came to the rock face he began to climb and discovered a cave entrance. There was a long tunnel that took some time to navigate, but after a period of walking in the dark it opened onto a massive cavern. It was so large, he felt as if he'd stepped into an open desert. The vault of the ceiling was invisible in the dark, but the light on the ground was strong, just as it had been at the edge of the void. He walked in this for a time, first losing sight of the tunnel he'd come from, then losing sight of the walls entirely. Suddenly, there was a rope in front of him, dropped from thin air. It parted and frayed like so many dancing snakes to reveal a winding staircase. He stepped onto the bottom stair, and it began to spiral upward.

As he ascended he heard a slow, rhythmic drumbeat, and out of the darkness a massive stony object emerged. It was red, like agate, shot through with opalescent quartz. It shimmered with subtle rainbows, and with each drumbeat it moved ever so slightly, a spiderweb of vines hanging off of it and stretching out into the darkness.

Eventually, a hole appeared in the black sky above him and the vines contracted like a net. After passing through, he was out in the forest, the netting rotating slowly as it carried him. On one side, the plains sprawled off into the distance, on the other, the black of the void. The cliff he had waited at went downward below him until it faded from view.

The netting—pulled upward by what, he couldn't say—carried him along like a massive hand and set him gently on the branch of a tree. He watched it slingshot back the way it came, curling in on itself like a slack line. He stood there taking stock of his surroundings. He wasn't on the tallest point of the island, but he had a good view of the entire forest. Somewhere near the tallest peak the rocks were moving—turning on their base—and from a set of two deep caves, identical sheets of stone slid away to reveal a set of eyes.

The mountain was alive.