Chapter 48: The Trap

 

Face down in a sea of sand, it got under my nails, pressing into my mouth, nose.  Pushing up, I spit it out, blowing hard.  Sneezing.  Getting the sand out of me, then brushing it off my face.  It was hot, the sun brighter than bright, raking me with its intensity.

The memory of his wonderful mead dissipating.  I had . . . I don’t know.  What was the last thing he said to me?   Or the first?  What did he say to me?

My hands had discernable shape, breathing and heartbeat linear.  I scooped up a handful of sand and watched the grains fall as a stream to the ground, none restarting or going sideways.  Oh, thank the heavenly father!

Or fathers.  Whichever.

I stretched out, happy to have a knowable body once again and in one place, but also feeling a loss.  That place was once normal for me.  I’d known it, could communicate within effectively.  Or spaces like it, though unbound, unlike it.  I once lived in three dimensions of time.  No more, it seemed.  Or not now.

And now I was apparently in a trap.  Yet so was he.  One he couldn’t escape, where I could.  Because he was a multidimensional being and I had somehow given that up.  More correctly, I was now in the solution component of the trap.  It was navigable, solvable.  Or, and this possibility was much worse, I was now in the redundancy component, the part that captured escapees, the trap overflow.  I hoped that wasn’t the case as I’d left some pretty fine mead to come here.

Alright.  So, I’d been his brother and a deity and I’d taken this form to save him.  That much, I understood now.  And we had a father that we couldn’t name out of fear.  That the other beings in there with him would somehow use against him, against us.  All names.  Or our father was simply that terrible.

How many sons and daughters could make such a claim?

Which god was so fearful you wouldn’t name it?  The Creator or the Devil?  If we were both His children, then the Creator.

Well, I certainly wasn’t Jesus.  So that ruled out the Abrahamic deity.  Zeus?  He never struck me as terrifying.  More like a crazed sex addict who ruined everyone’s life.  Probably not the Old Man of the Americas.  He, of all deity myths, seemed rather nice.

Glint of steel in the sunlight coming down toward me, I instinctively rolled away.  The long blade crashed into the sand, scattering grains about and steel rang out shortly after, never to repeat and not ringing out before.  It was a relief, the order of things.

I stood, my attacker fell.  I pulled the sword out of his hands and tossed it away, then knelt by him.  Black skin, dark eyes, white teeth, he smiled and embraced me, for we knew each other and in his hug I could feel the webs of deception.

“Wait . . . Raven?  Is this your body?”

“What are you talking about?”

“In this land, you can only be yourself.”

“I know no other body.  Who are you?”

“I am pleased with this outcome.  Here,” he put his hand out.

Standing first, I took his hand, helped him up.  He seemed old and frail.  Sunburnt, too.  “Are you ok?”

“I have been here for too long.  It drains me.  And I am thirsty.”

“Why did you attack me?”

“I’d thought you were one of the others.”

“Others?”

“You must have met them if you are now here.  They are in that cage for good reason.”

“Ah.  And-”

“How did I get here?”

“Yes.  That’s what I was going to ask.”

“Why, the same way you did I imagine.”

“Ok, alright.  Cryptic answers, lovely.  Look, I was told we must exit this place alone.  Two cannot cross the barriers.”

“Yet here I am.”  He laughed.  “You were given incorrect information.  And unwise information.  Those in there, who cannot escape, can be duplicitous.”

“Unwise and untrustworthy?”

“You will see.”

“Unless you’re including yourself among those, that seems unlikely, since I’m out here now.”

He laughed.  “Shall we exit the trap?”

“I would like to, yes.  How do we go about exiting?”

He slid his arm into mine, then pointed far off in the distance with his other.  A darkness, perhaps a mountain, rose somewhere before the horizon, from below it to a point just above.  “We have but to walk from here to there.”

***

“Tell me, then, if you are escaping this place, you must be a deity.”

“That is one way to look at it.  The humans certainly think so.  Your brother thinks so.”

“What do you know of him?  Is it even safe to speak of him here?  His name, I mean.”

“What was it like for you in there?  I’m curious.”

I sighed.  “Are you going to answer any of my questions?”  One step after the other, over the sand, crunching as we went, the sword well behind us now.  It was dry, the wind was blowing.  Specks of green appeared ahead and I wondered if we’d find water.  Where there are plants, there’s water.

“I’m not used to answering questions, but I have reasons for asking you mine.”

“You mean my reasons don’t matter as much as yours.”

“Indulge an old man.  I might die before the day is done and you have many, many years ahead of you yet.”

I shook my head and let him lean more heavily on me, tapping his forearm with my hand.  “It was strange.”

“You’re used to talking with mortals.  Don’t.”

“I’m used to being a mortal!”

He didn’t say anything.

“Ok, alright.  Disorienting.  There were two or three dimensions of time in there and all my conversations happened concurrently or out of order or-”

“They weren’t out of order.  They were perfectly in order for someone who can traverse multiple time dimensions.  Like we can, beings like us.  Deities, as the mortals call us.”

“Well, why do you call them mortals?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“They die?”

“Necessarily.  If you move along a string of time, that string is finite.”

“Well, I mean, cubes are finite, too.  They’re just orders of magnitude larger in volume.”

“What happened to time when you left that place?”

I squinted, trying to ignore how much I disliked this guy’s question game.  Little bushes, the green up ahead.  Damn.  If they were sage, we wouldn’t be locating any water.  Chewing their leaves wouldn’t help matters either.  I breathed through my nose, trying not to let the moisture drain out of my breath as my skin became more and more scorched.

We walked in silence, the sand ever crunching beneath our feet.

“Ok, I don’t know.  What happened to time?  The dimensions of time.”

“You do know.”

“Yes, alright!  They collapsed.  It was like, I guess, going through, this is crazy, but going through a singularity.”

“Ah.  And now?”

“Well, our conversation is moving forward.  I’m breathing.  My heart is beating.  I’d say time is a line now and we are moving on it.”

He looked at me and I looked at him, his old, grizzled face with a short, patchy, salt and pepper beard, “Not quite.”

We crunched on.  He had a slight drag to his walk, not fully lifting his right foot and pulling the sand along.  The sun beat down on us and I wished, at that moment, for a hat.  I was glad for my olive skin and thick hair.

The only way I could think to test how many time dimensions was to call forth my energy.  But I didn’t want to kill this guy.  Although, if he were a deity, maybe he’d be ok.

“Hold up a sec.”

“A good place to rest, we’re coming up on the first trial.”

“Trial?”

“The first, yes.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve never made it this far.”

“How long were you waiting for someone to come, waiting by that, I don’t know, door?”

“Door.  No.  Beginning is a better descriptor.”

“Yes, yes, how long?”

“Take your moment and tell me where the time dimensions have gone.  Then, you’ll know.”

“I’m beginning to dislike you.  A little.  Honestly, a lot.  A lot, maybe.”

“Thank you, Raven.  We have ever been good friends.”

I pulled out of his arm, which was oddly difficult and took a bit of effort, unentangling myself from him, and asked, “Why do you keep calling me that?”

“It’s your name.  It’s the name I know you by.  The name I prefer to call you.”

I sighed.  “Ok, alright.  So, you knew me from before?”

“Is there a before for beings like us?”

“Ok,” I shook my finger at him, “dislike is seriously turning to loathing, let me tell you.”  I turned away from the annoyance I was escorting, took a few steps, and closed my eyes.  Called the beast within.  It churned, wanting out.  Like a hurricane before landfall, waiting and raging and readying itself.

But it was fully controlled.  Instead of bursting out, it moved back on itself.  Like the sun just after an intense solar flare cycle.  Or just before, depending on how you thought about it.

Turning back to the old man, “It’s recursive.  We’re in cuboidal time-space, but the extra two dimensions are folded in on themselves.”

“Ah-ha!” he smiled and raised a hand, “Not so stupid after all.”

“Why, though?”

“Well, you were never that stupid to begin with.  Sure, a little slow-”

“That’s not what I’m asking!”

“Four trials await us.  Your answers lie ahead, not behind.”

“Ok, sure.  Fine.  Do you know anything about them?”

“Only that we must pass through them.  And not die.”

“Not dying is like . . . expected of pretty much every struggle.  So,” I shrugged, feeling all superior, “that’s not super helpful.”

“Let us discover this together.”

I let him slide his arm again into mine, but I felt almost like prey, like he’d captured me somehow.  The wind picked up as we pushed on, the echoes of our crunching footsteps losing to its vibrance and anger.

We walked and walked, the dark blur far in front of us.  If it was a mountain, it was days ahead and this was a fool’s errand.  The sun against us, hot and hotter still, wind blowing into our faces, the two of them stealing our moisture, our life, as we pushed on.

I had to squint to keep moving.  Brush the sand off my face and nose when it threatened to choke me.  And I dare not open my mouth for fear that no water lay ahead.  Yet the sand smashed into us with growing force, biting into my bare legs, arms, around my neck, filling up my hair.  I angled my head down, put my elbow in front of my face, dragging the old man along.

He was having a rougher go of it.  Already dehydrated, his lips were peeling, arms almost blistering and the sand hit us harder, relentless.

I was ready for this trial to be over.  Math, give me a math quiz or ask me about whiskey.  Damn this place!

Forced to look down to avoid sand blasting into our eyes, we stumbled across the first sage bush.  Tough and wiry, it cut into my flesh, “Owe!” escaped my lips.  Wind-blown sand stuck to the bloody cuts, caking onto my leg.

He looked over, slid his hand around my back.

I slid mine around his waist.  We pushed on.

At the next sage bush, I stepped high over it, planting my step firmly on the ground behind it and pain lanced through my foot, causing me to fall over, pulling on the old man, but he let me slip out and remained standing.  I checked my foot and found a cactus bulb, spines all over it, stuck through the sandal, into my sole.  Pulling it out, the barbs viciously tore my flesh, other spines stuck into my palm, and my scream was stolen by the winds.

Each spike curled almost like a fishhook, the wind whipping against me unevenly, sand flying into my eyes, as if the wind was trying to push me down.  It was tremendously difficult to get the barbs out and not stab myself again.

He reached for me, yanking on my elbow, causing the spines to pull skin away from my palm.

“Wait a moment!”

My voice drowned out by the raging wind, he couldn’t hear me and grabbed my arm, causing more spines to lance into my palm.  I elbowed his hand away, carefully pulled on the tines without stabbing my other hand and yanked them out.  The thing took a piece of flesh with it, blood welled up in the cut.

“Damnit!” I shouted uselessly.

He pointed ahead, lips moving, turned in that direction and reached for me again.

The wind picked up, hitting him from behind and he lurched forward, tripping over me and falling straight into a bunch of cacti.

Standing, it battered me right and left, suddenly forward, past him, toward more and larger cacti.  Bending my knees, lowering my hips, I dropped my weight down to remain standing, then slowly pivoted, fighting the wind, and offered my hand to him.  Helped him to his feet.

He slid his arm behind my waist again and I did the same.  We clutched onto each other, stepping forward, the wind battering us, trying to push us down, throwing us at the spiny plants.  There was nothing for us but to hold onto each other as support.  He didn’t even try to dislodge the vicious spikes in his chest.

I stepped forward, the wind threw me sideways into a bunch of spikes from a tall bulbous cactus.  The bulbs broke off and, as he stepped forward and I had to go with him, remained pinned into my arm.  The wind roared, whipping us forwards, backwards, all around.  No time to deal with my bleeding, barbed arm, I could only hold onto him, and him me, as we struggled forward.

I had to give up stepping.  Easier to keep balance by sliding along and so we shuffled through the sand, pushed over and over into the unforgiving cacti that broke off their plants, tearing at our arms and legs, impaling our feet.

My eyelids were sandpaper to my eyes, grinding against them.  Opening, painful.  Closing, painful.  Squinting worked best, tears welling up and running down.  My dress stuck, sticky, wet and pinned against my stomach and legs and back by the damn bulbs.

We were leaving a blood-soaked trail in the sand.

We managed for what seemed like hours, days maybe, of torture.  Finally, finally, the sand became more solid, cacti less and less, more and more sage and scrub.  It scraped and cut at my legs but it was almost a relief after being stabbed over and over, and we pushed along.

In a sudden release of pressure, the wind stopped its violent assault.  I wanted to fall to the ground, rest, but for the spines in my flesh, all over my body.

We trudged on and on before he said, “Here, let us rest and catch our bearings.  We passed through the first barrier.”

I unwrapped myself from him, full of needles and cuts and bracing myself for more, perhaps worse, to come.  “Damn.”  My voice was hoarse, and I coughed and spit out sand.  Cacti pieces still stuck in me, with each movement spines pulled in my muscles, against my skin.  “These trials really suck.”

“They are awful.”

I wiped out the sand from under my eyes, blinking and blinking, but my eyelids were scraped, and I gave up, then blew it out of my nostrils, cleaned my ears.

He was a mess.  Streaks of sand-caked blood ran down his legs, his skin was shredded.  Spiny balls of cactus, the size of a fist, held tight to his knees, a couple on his thighs, calves.  He began gingerly pulling them out, tossing them away.

Not that I was any better off.  They were hooked into my legs, my thighs, stomach.  I wanted to tear them away in a rage, but that’d only leave me worse off.  Would that I’d entered this place, this odd dimensional trap, wearing a suit of plate mail.

Slowly and carefully was the only way to remove these.  Holding onto one spine at a time, trying not to get the others on the little balls stuck in my palms, I pulled them out at an angle, so the hook would tear as little flesh out as possible.

But the hungry bastards took their toll.

When I finally removed the last vicious cactus from my calf, I rested.  Took in my surroundings.  We’d stopped just in front of a wooden bridge.  It rose over a little gully of a dried-up riverbed.  I was growing thirsty, but there was no water.

He was sitting on the bridge, waiting for me.  I hobbled over, my feet still feeling as if they had spines inside them, sat next to him.  The sand and wind had taken my sandals, but there was no going back for them.

“I think we should wait until the sun sets to continue.  Or find water.”

He shook his head, “Neither of those happen here.”

“I hate this place more than I dislike you.”

“That’s comforting.”

I sighed.  “Alright, why not?  To teach us what thirst is?”

“To wear us down and kill us.”

“We probably shouldn’t stand around dying then.”

“You’re right about that.”

“What’s next?”

“I guess we shall see.”

We soon crossed the useless, annoying dry riverbed using the bridge for no other reason than that it was here, and our path soon turned into a rough trail.  It certainly seemed like others had walked here before, since it was hardpack, but there were no tracks.  Off to the side, the horrible sage gradually turned to rough, scraggly grass and rocks.  I shuddered to think about gale force winds picking up those rocks here.

I raised my hand and tried to burn the sage, but nothing happened.  Yeah, this place.

“The folded time dimensions take away rather than provide your energy.”

“Is that’s what happening?”  I wondered if that’s how the temple worked.  It was a similar feeling, touching but not quite releasing the magic.

He nodded.

As we walked over the hardpack and errant sand, my thirst grew, tongue chafed and raw from all the sand, swelling inside my mouth, I remembered a trick taught to me by a scout leader way back when I was young.  If I was ever young and the memory wasn’t merely a mirage.  But it didn’t matter, I knew what to do and stopped and searched the ground for small, worn stones.  Picked up two.  Just as I was going to pop them into my mouth, he grabbed onto my arm.  Startled, I looked at him.

“No, no,” he shook his head, opening my hand gently with his and turning it over.  The stones fell to the ground.  “It’s unwise to use anything from these lands.  Remember, this place, this universe, is designed to test you to failure.”

“You know, whoever built this is a terrible person.”

He cracked a smile, “That’s very true.”

“What, you know him?  Her?”

“You should save your breath, for the humidity.”

“Or you built it and you’re being a coy bastard.”

“We passed the first test and already your past returns.”

“My past?  Who are you to me?”

“A friend.  Come, the next trial will likely be worse than the last.”

I found myself not wanting to talk to him.  Though, I had to.  Did he have the answers I wanted?  Did I actually want any answers?  I wasn’t sure it mattered who built this place.  Here I was, in it.  And trying to get out.

I felt like a fly with one foot stuck on the web.  All I have to do is place my other foot down and tug.  Whoops, now that one’s stuck, too.  Poor flies.

We pressed on, passing the occasional scrub bush.  My feet stung, ankles swollen, legs still sore from all those puncture wounds, but I’d stopped bleeding, the blood and sand caked on my legs, breaking off as I walked.  I stumbled as I stepped on a particularly sharp rock, and he caught me, keeping me on my feet.

He pointed.  “We’re getting closer.”

No longer off in the horizon, the dark patch had become a tall hill, maybe a mountain.  Heat rising from the ground wavered and distorted it, and I couldn’t make out any details.  But there it was.  Waiting.

The sand had given way to dirt.  And it was blowing around, caking on my lips.  The bits of sand still in my clothing scratched.

“I hope it has a shower.  Your mountain resort over there.”

He laughed.

I wondered if I really needed to stay with him.  Though there was no one else here and nowhere else to go but forward.  Unless I could live off those cacti behind.  Squeezing whatever water I could get out of them was sounding pretty good right now.

That’s when the biting flies found us.  They rose off the ground, a horde so big the air vibrated with their wings.  I didn’t just hear their buzzing but felt it deep in my chest.

“Quickly now!”  He took my hand and, pointing ahead, started running.  For an elderly man, he hobbled along at a good pace.

I ran with him, still holding each other for support, the cripple we’d become from the desert.  “You think we can outrun these?”

“No.”

The flies slammed into our bodies, landing on our bare skin and biting.  I swatted at them with my left hand, but a cloud engulfed me, biting at my ears, landing on my face.  Letting go of his arm, I batted at them uselessly.  They attacked the cuts on my bare legs, under my dress and I screamed and they flew into my mouth.  I choked, coughing out a bunch of flies, and falling to my knees, throwing my hands all around me to ward them off.  But it wasn’t enough – they were crawling into my ears, invading my nose – I breathed in through my mouth to blow out my nose and they flew inside.  I spit and sputtered, rolling and rolling along the ground hoping to shake them, sharp stones digging into my skin.

Forcing my eyes open just a bit, I saw him running away, torn clothes fluttering behind.  Flies got under my eyelids, wriggling and scraping.  I grabbed at the dirt and stones and threw it all around me, at my face, shook my head, rapidly blinking, I couldn’t get away from them.  I balled up, hands in my ears, eyes shut, but they just kept coming, stinging and biting my naked skin, on my back, stomach, the soft parts of my arms and legs, crawling all over me, biting at my hands to get at my face.

Panicking, desperate, needing to get away, I leapt to my feet and ran.  I flailed my arms around wildly, then rubbed my eyes and ears, blinking and blinking and spitting to get rid of the nasty flies, and followed where my guide had gone.  Rocks jammed into my feet, cutting into my soles but I did not stop.  Running was the only measure keeping them off me.  I swatted any I could reach easily, on my arms, neck, chest, face, and found energy reserves I didn’t know I had, racing and racing, the buzzing horde chasing their food, their prey.

He’d gotten to the hill, rushed up a path.  I quickly followed.  We lost ground racing uphill, the cloud following along easily, swarming onto and biting our exposed skin.  I was horrified and desperate, let anger and disgust wash over me and pulled off my dress.  I yelled at them and whipped it into the air over and over, against boulders, against my skin, I slapped my body as they landed to feast.  He soon joined me and we were mad, nearly naked, wildly flailing our clothes around us, our only weapons, squishing and smashing these awful insects.

Eventually, unimaginably, and after what seemed like hours, a storm broke, rain poured down, and the horde thinned out.  I couldn’t imagine a greater happiness than sheets of rain pelting us, washing away all the filth that covered my body, the blood, sand, dirt, and matted flies.  I opened my mouth, desperately thirsty and spit, sputtering in surprise and disgust.  The rain was harshly acidic and salty.

He shook his head.

“Yeah.”  The best I could do.  My throat was parched and foul and my voice gone.

I used the rotten rain to wipe away the filth off my skin, scrap bits of bodies out from under my eyelids, pulled them out from my ears, hair.  That done, with some reluctance, I put my gunky, foul and soaking dress back on.  If my companion cared about seeing a nearly naked teenage girl, he didn’t show it.  Probably the masses and masses of insect guts smeared all over my body wasn’t much of a turn on.

My skin was flaking from being sunburnt, itchy and swelling from insect bites, now red and burning in this rain.  My feet had bleeding cuts all over them, the sharp rocks reopening the puncture wounds of the cacti.  It felt like I’d been flayed alive, skin full of vicious wounds and insults.  I slumped against a boulder.

He leaned against a large rock on the path, “We shouldn’t rest long.  The top awaits.”

I hacked out something gross, then said, “I’m going to guess your name.  Lord of the flies.”

“Ha!  In a sense, yes.”

“That was trial two, I imagine.”

“And we are still within it.”

“I haven’t remembered anything about my past life or discovered hidden powers.”

“Do you really wish to remember?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You are who you are.  Love who you love, care about the things you know.  If you get your memories back, this person you are will merely be a tiny piece of a much larger life.”

“Who was I before?”

“We begin where our memories begin.  We are the entirety of ourselves in these and the people we know.”

“I mean, sure.  If I really am a deity and have thousands of years of existence come back to me, maybe I’d see things differently.”

He laughed.  “Raven, you suit your name well.”

“Cayce.  My name is Cayce.”

“Yes.  Yes, it is.  A pleasure to meet you, young lady.”

“Alright, yeah, you too.  Do you have a name?”

“As all beings do.”

He was annoying me to no end, but I played along.  “Are you going to tell me?”

“It’ll come to you in time.”

“Right, sure.  I’ll just call you ‘Person’ since you are one.”

“You’ve always been very kind, despite what others think.  Perhaps even kinder, in your new body.  Empathy hidden under your acerbic tongue.  It suits you.  Shall we continue along our path?”

“I’d rather hit a pub, but I guess we must reach the top of this lovely mountain.”

“You have an unusual way of describing misery and suffering.  That’s what is waiting for us on this path.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious.”

***

Moving was painful.  Each step required bending swollen knees, pulling bitten, bumpy and raw skin tight with each footstep, feet cracked and bleeding.  This place made me miss Bechalle’s tender mercies.

He was in equally bad shape, bloody skin from cuts all over, bumpy where the flies bit him, swelling where he pulled the cacti spines out.  Yet he flashed me a smile of white teeth before turning and limping upward along the path.

I dragged myself along behind him.

The rain picked up, coming down hard, creating little rivulets along the path.  It alternated between hardpack dirt and red stone.  Probably leaching iron with all the acid in this damned rain.  Every drop that hit my head and arms stung.  The wet dress made my skin raw, pressing against me.  I was tempted to toss it but then I wouldn’t have even its minimal protection.

Watching the water pool up and flow down the path, I desperately wished it were drinkable.  But no amount of staring in longing would turn that poison into normal water.  We came to a steep switchback, and he laboriously pulled himself up from red rock to red rock.  The stones were sharp, which made holding onto them easier.  Yet they scraped and cut.

“Here!  Pass me your hand, I’ll pull you up.”

“I think it’d be better if I crawled up like you did.”

“Suit yourself.”

I grabbed a large rock above me, stepped up onto another, moved up.  Then the stone cut into my foot and I slipped, hanging onto the rocks.  “Fudge!”

“Leave your pride behind and take my hand.”

“Oh, you be quiet.”

“Raven . . . Cayce, it takes two.”  He passed me his hand.

I refused it.  “You got up without my help!”

“Yes, but I would never have made it this far without your companionship.”

I pulled myself up, taking care not to stand on the pointy, sharp bits.  “Goddamn this place!”

“Here,” he said, taking hold of my arm and slumping backward, which awkwardly pulled me toward him.

With my other hand, I clung to a rocky ledge, then swung my foot around and rolled into him.  Made the mistake of looking up and the foul rain smashed into my eyes.  “Aag!”  Closed them, turned away, rubbing.  “Seriously, that didn’t help.”

“You got up, didn’t you?”

“And I didn’t get you here!  We walked, I didn’t carry you.”

“Your words did.”

“Seriously, Jesus has nothing on you.”

“What a kind thing to say.”

I just glared at him, holding back whatever vicious words came to mind, instead saying, “I completely hate this place.”  The rain burned with each drop against my skin.

“So, you’ve said.”  He stood up, bent down to offer me his hand and, annoyingly, I took it and stood.  He turned and headed up the path.

I thought of Vonnegut and gave two middle fingers to the sky – take that, Creator! – then headed off after him.  My foot stepped into a little stream and burned.  By now, the pain was becoming just another form of numbness, and I didn’t so much as flinch as take another step.

Up, up the mountain we trudged.  Too slowly with the rain pelting us and burning our skin, but there wasn’t anything to be done.  If magic worked here, I’d flare up.  If I could, I’d race up to the top.  If I had an attack helicopter, or a flamethrower, I’d take it back to the flies for a little payback.

My calves and thighs burned.  Soon they were shaking, and it took everything I had to continue.  The old man had to be worse, but he pressed on.

“Maybe a short rest?”

“To weaken us further?”

“We could hold our clothes over our head.”

“You just want to see the naked body of an old man.”

“Uhm . . . not really, not my first thought.”

“Come.”

I followed.  Squeezed my eyes to get some tears into them, thought they were still sandpaper and blinking gave no relief.  Thought about sneaking a pebble or two into my mouth, but the ground was just too far, way down by my feet, and I couldn’t bend down that much and actually stand up again.  I reached out, took a handful of his shirt, closed my eyes, and hoped he didn’t walk off the cliff.  Best I could do for rest.

When he stopped I bumped into him.  Opened my eyes, found myself staring at my feet and standing on green grass.  Grass!

“The top.”

“Oh thank the heavenly father!”

“It was not he who brought you here.”

“Yeah, ok, sure.”  I patted my thighs, “thanks, legs.  And you, too, thank you.”

“Of course.  And likewise.”  Another perfect teeth smile.

Across the field were high stone walls that seemed to replace the mountain, soaring up above the clouds.  The path led to an archway and beyond that, a short hallway leading to a set of high double doors.  One of them was ajar.

He pointed at them.  “We must enter.”

I couldn’t muster a quip and put the rest of my energy into walking to that door.  We’d be out of the rain in there.  What horrors, I wondered, waited for us inside?

The rain’s intensity picked up, not wanting to let us go, and walking through that door was like shutting off the volume.  I moved far enough in to be out of the splatter, then sagged against the wall, closing my eyes.  Deep, putrid-rain-free breaths to fill my happy lungs.  The air was clean, refreshing, inviting.  But my soaked clothes yet stung against my flesh.

“Cayce, do you-”

“Shh!”

“Yes.”  I heard water dumping on the ground.  Opened my eyes.  He was squeezing out the foul liquid.  Seeing this, the burning got worse.  I tsked and stood up.

He looked over.

I stripped, not caring.  Winding the clothes in my hands, water fell on the floor, splashing unwelcome against my legs and feet.  “Man, whoever built this place, what a jerk.”

“You said it before.”

“I really mean it.”

“Do you like your new body?”

“What?”

“I asked, do-”

“I know what you asked!”

“Then why do you not answer?”

“’cause I’m like naked!  And you’re staring.”

“You aren’t like naked.  You are naked.”

I stared at him right back.

“Oh.”  He turned around to wring his clothing out against the wall.  “My apologies.”

“Sorry, it’s just, I don’t know.”

“You are shy.”

“Yeah, ok.  Kinda.  Look, it’s strange.  Being in this body.  It feels wrong, yet somehow me.”

“There you are.  That is you.”

“Yeah, yeah.  What about you?  Is that your body?”

“A form I often take.”

“And, who are you?”

“It’ll come to you soon.”

“I don’t think so.  I really don’t.  You’re an old man, but you’re not The Old Man.”

“He’s too wise to be trapped here.”

“And we aren’t.”

“No, we are not.”

“I’d kill for a hot bath right now.”

“Well, then, I hope there are no hot baths ready to take you up on that offer.”

“And new clothes!  New clothes would be nice.”

“On this, we agree.  Nevertheless, without these comforts, let us rest here a few moments.”

I put the damp slip back on, then the damp dress, moved away from the water we’d splashed all over the floor, slid down the wall and closed my eyes.

***

I might have dozed off.  Hard to say.  Didn’t dream, though.  It was still raining outside.  He was sitting across from me, leaning against the opposite wall, eyes still closed.

I didn’t exactly feel refreshed.  More like after you get bleach on your hands and then wash it off.  My entire body felt like that, raw and wanting moisturizer.  Except for the open wounds, insect bites and swelling.  Lidocaine would be nice.  Or, I don’t know, a trauma unit.

I stood up and stretched out my limbs.  Ouch.  I was glad for the young body.  This whole experience must be harder on him, whatever his name was.  Coy Bastard, that’s his name.

“Hey,” I put my hand on his shoulder, “are you ok?”

“I am but waiting for you.”

“Are you sure?  I can go check the place out and come back if you need more rest.”

“Let us go together.  It would be unwise to travel these halls alone.”

“What do you know of this place?”  I gestured around.  The hallway was dark, except for the light trickling in from the open doors, through the pouring rain.

“It is our fourth and final trial.  It will be no safer than the others.”

“Fourth?  That’s the number for death in many cultures.”

“Help me up, young girl.”

“Alright, venerable one.”  I handed him my arm.

“Ah, here at the end, at last you are polite.”

I placed my arm in his, walking as if we were good friends, but mainly to steady him.  And myself.  The corridor was made of stone, dark and dusty.  Probably getting into the wounds on my feet, but there was nothing I could do about it.  Definitely not returning to get those sandals.  Who knows, maybe the maid sanitized this place, and it was perfectly safe.

It was quiet and we made shuffling and dragging sounds walking along, but no echo.  The ceiling was high, the whole space felt enormous.  Ahead, it opened further to a large, circular room, ceiling now much, much higher, with a skylight letting muted light in, so distant I couldn’t see the nasty rain pelting it.

Entering this great space, it felt moist and humid and welcoming.  The splashing and tinkling of water, its musical bells of refreshment and cleanliness louder as we neared.  A circular fountain lay under the skylight.  Shiny white and blue marble walls enclosed a large pool, large enough to bathe in, a statue of a naked woman carrying a large golden goblet in her hands poured out a stream into it.

“Water!”  Squeezing the old man’s arm, I pushed us ahead at a faster pace, stumbling forward to ease my swollen tongue, quench my thirst, dive in, submerse myself.

He pulled against me, voice stern, “No!  Remember, take nothing from this place, lest this becomes your lasting prison.”

“What?  Just a sip, then.  Surely it won’t be missed!”

He roughly grabbed my arm, pulling me around to look at him, shaking his head.  “It will undo you.  You don’t want to remain in this place forever.”

Mouth parched, I took his arm off mine, stamped my feet, pointing at the water.  I was going to drink that water!  The sound of freshness, my swollen and dry tongue, I took a step back.  And another.

He advanced, arms just above his waist, eyes were pleading with me to stop.  “We have but one trial left.  Surely you can ignore this last temptation.”

I turned, running for the water.  Maybe I could get a mouthful before he dragged me away.  It’d be enough, it was all I needed.  One mouthful.

My own dress flung me back as he grabbed my collar, legs up in the air, and I fell backwards onto the stone floor.  He quickly took hold of my wrists, pulling my arms above my head and I kicked him in the hips, pushing toward his chest, trying to dislodge his hands, then he dropped down, wrapped his arms and legs around me, hugging tightly.

I tugged and pushed, but I couldn’t escape his grasp.  Kicked into the air uselessly.

“Raven!  You know better.  Calm down.”

Some rational part of my mind understood this was a trap.  Everything I’d encountered here had tried to kill and torture me.  But the delicious, delightful fountain, its streams of clear, cool water, waiting there.  Just for me.  My swollen tongue, dry and torn lips needed that water.

He shook me again, pulling me out of those thoughts, “We must continue.  Have you come to your senses?”

I relaxed.  “Yes, yes, sorry, the water is poisoned.  Or worse.”  I closed my eyes, trying to hold onto that one rational thought.

“Much worse.  Unless you like suffering.”

“Whoever built this place is truly a despicable person.”

“So you’ve said, but no person built this place.”

I sighed.  We stood.  I tried not to look at the pool, but its welcoming sounds yet calling to me, “I . . . I’m sorry.”

“This is why it takes two to beat this place.  Come, let us continue.”

As he placed his arm in mine, we hobbled toward a distant, dark hallway.  The pain of each step had reduced to a dull throb, and we were no longer leaving a trail of blood.  The swollen insect bites were itchy, but from so many places, they were easier to ignore than scratch.

Maybe, I thought to myself, if he collapses, I could return here and drink my fill.

We walked on and on, legs growing weaker, cramping, leaning on each other more and more.  He seemed determined to continue on at our best pace, and as we both started lagging, dragging our feet, we again put our hands around each other’s waists, like old friends or lovers, and we hobbled on. 

“Have you decided?”

“On?”

“Memories.  Will you take them with you as you leave this place?”

“I have a choice?”

“Oh yes.”

I thought of Morry then.  He was stabbed!  I needed to exit this place.  Why didn’t I think of him sooner?  I tried to pick up the pace, shuffling along, but I couldn’t go faster than my companion.

Would I care for the big man, Brin, Tread, were I to get thousands of years of memories?  The brother I’d met and knew and left behind, who pleaded for me to save him from this prison of the gods, for whom I’d planned this elaborate life and taken this body, apparently, would suddenly mean more to me than all I’d met in this life.  I’d have a father, but no mother, fellow deities I didn’t know or care for now, and how little the people of the world I’d found myself on would mean to me.

How could even a recent year compare to thousands?

He flagged then, breathing quickly, cuts reopening, and I had to steady him.  “It took much out of me, that cavern.”

“I don’t know what came over me.  The water!  I apologize that you had to expend strength to save me from it.”

He laughed then, and we stopped, and when he finished, said, “Two apologies in one day!  I never imagined such a thing.  Perhaps you should stay who you are.  Gentle and kind and young again.”

His grip losing strength, I hugged him tighter.  We trudged on, forward.

“How long have we known each other?”

“You seem to have met me only here while I’ve known you longer than this place has existed.”

I shook my head.  “You love non-answers.”

He smiled.

My lips, still parched and peeling, tongue taking up my mouth, I stayed quiet.  But then, he did save me from an eternity in this place, keeping me from the trap that was the fountain.  I gave him a smile in payment, the warmest I could muster.

I don’t know how long we went on like that for, but as we did, he leaned more and more on me, and I did what I could to keep him moving forward.  Resting, it seemed, wasn’t an option.  He stumbled and recovered, I pointed at the floor as if to sit and he shook his head then slowly raised his arm, pointing ahead, so tired and out of breath we were.

The further we got, the less smooth the walls were.  Little by little they became scraggly, broken, stones in our path where the walls had partly collapsed.  Sharp shards sometimes biting into our soles, reopening fresh wounds, causing us to pitch and stumble, slabs we had to avoid or skuttle over when they too large to go around, the light from the fountain hall behind but a bright point behind us, the hallway darker and darker as we progressed.

He stumbled, pulling on my arms, cramping my muscles, I couldn’t hold him, he fell to the floor.  I could barely see his eyelids shut as he took a quick rest to shore up his strength.

Now!  Now I could leave him, return to the water, quench my thirst!

Damn, my little voice said.  This place, this horrible place.

I slumped against the wall, not willing to sit for the effort it would take to stand.  “How close are we to escape?”

“You may have to leave me.”

“Don’t be foolish, old man.  You said it takes two.”

“Person.  You named me person not so long ago.”

“Alright, Old Person, we need to find a way through this rubble.  You have to come with me.  I don’t think I can . . . I can’t search ahead and come back to get you.”

“Just go.  This is a fitting place for me.”

I took a deep breath, pushed off from the wall, braced myself and grabbed his arm, “Come on.  Get up.”  He was heavy, it took enormous effort, left me panting and panting.  As he stood, he fell into my arms, me against him, and we remained there, breathing heavily, embracing simply to not fall back down.

At some point, I moved to his left, looped my arm around his waist again, still holding his left arm in mine, and dragged him along.  As we struggled forward, large stones and sharp rocks cluttered up more and more of the hallway until the rubble took over the floor, impeding our path.

“We can go no further.”

Morry needed me, I needed out.  “Yes, we can.  If you can’t walk, you’ll have to crawl.”

I couldn’t quite make out his face in the dark, but it wasn’t happy.

Holding onto his shirt, I passed him, walking on stones as best I could.  They cut into my soles and I bled on them, and the pain was raw, but familiar, unavoidable, and I pushed on.

The rubble quickly sloped up, I had to crawl, but shortly, I hit my head on the ceiling.  “Wait a moment.”  I touched all around, along the wall, the ceiling, rocks underneath, searching for a way out.  “I think the tunnel collapsed.”

“Then this is our end.”

“Was there another hallway?”  The thought of returning to the great hall was awful.  The fountain!  I’d have to fight myself again, maybe lose this time.  Maybe he’d want to drink and I wouldn’t have the strength to stop him.

“Not that I saw.”

“Rest a bit.  I’ll ty to find us an opening.”  I crawled around the debris, doing my best to ignore sharp rocks digging into my knees through my tattered, filthy dress.  One hand on the ceiling, I used it to steady me as I moved around.

Against the right wall and near the ceiling, I could see it.  In the hallway beyond the rubble blockage.  Red light.  Moving my head back and forth, I could just make out a basketball sized stone blocking the light behind it.  I pulled and pulled, almost falling back when I got it free, it hit my knee painfully, rolling off.

I called out to the old man, “Where are you?”

“Against the opposite wall, it seems.”

“Good.  I’ve got to pull out some of these stones.”  Digging with renewed energy, I tossed them down and they crashed against other rocks.  “Yes!  There’s a tunnel here and red light on the other side.”

“A large enough tunnel?”

“I’ve got to widen it.”

Behind us, echoing through the hall, tiny little scraping and chittering noises, growing in number and, little by little, becoming louder.

“Something is coming.”

Not wanting to find out what, I dug all the faster, tossing stone after stone behind me, crawled inward until only my feet stuck out, throwing more stone behind me. 

The skittering grew closer, a million tiny legs across stone, scraping and hungry and racing toward us.

He shouted, “Hurry!  They are upon us!”

“You’d best get over here!”

Little pins walked onto my left leg, climbing upward, causing me to panic.  I kicked at it and pulled myself further into the tunnel.  The glow streamed through cracks in the rocks and I madly hit and pushed them forward.  Warm air rushed past me.  An open space beyond, and a steel door in its far wall.  Glowing hot red as if holding back an angry volcano, warming and lighting the room.

“I’m through!  Come on!”  Scrambling ahead, falling out of the hole, sliding down against rough rock, I got up and turned around, climbed back to the tunnel and found the old man pushing into it.  “Give me your hand!”

“They’re biting into me!”  He pulled himself closer and I grabbed his shirt, pulling and pulling him toward me.  A hideous and tall spider, angular and white in this light, legs thin and needle-like, jumped from his back to my arm.  It began crawling toward my face.

I quickly squashed it with my other hand, and then grabbed him under the arms and with all my strength, dragged him into the room and we fell backward and slid down the rubble.  Some of the gangly spiders crawling all over his body leapt onto my arms, and more came pouring out of the tunnel.

I pushed him off me, rolled away, then batted at the damned things.  One bent its legs, lowering its teeth into my arm and it was hot fire, like a screw drilling into my flesh.  I squished it, threw its body away, and then jumped up and down trying to fling the rest off.  More were coming, climbing toward us on all surfaces, the floor, rocky slope, walls, above our heads on the ceiling.

Sitting up, he was throwing the spiders off him, but they just kept rushing back.  I grabbed him, hefting him to his feet, pushed him toward the door.  “The exit!  We must go!”

“I never thought I’d see the day when spiders would attack me.”  The spiders stopped in their tracks, feet tapping, fangs twitching.

“What?”  I did a double take.

“Thank you for helping me escape this prison.  I’ve come to like you, Cayce, and would prefer to meet you again one day than mourn your loss.”  He moved closer to the door.  “If you regain your former self, and I think you know who Raven is now, the girl standing before me will be gone, subsumed under thousands of years.  And what a loss that would be.”

“Damnit, if I don’t get those memories back, the mages will kill me.”

“Your brother was right.  Only one can exit.”  He moved closer to the door.

“Wait!  What?  No, it takes two – you said it takes two!!”

Hand almost touching its hot surface, he turned and spared me one last look, “I owe you a debt.  And, Cayce?  Stop killing my spiders.”

My jaw dropped.  Anansi.  It was obvious in hindsight.  He moved into and through the door and it burst into intense heat and flame.  I covered my eyes.

The spiders tapping their legs on the ground, twitching, testing the way before them, advanced.

“That dirty, spiderfucking, goddamn bastard!”

I slammed my foot down on the first one that came near and screamed as its hairs entered my cuts and scrapes.  Another jumped onto my leg.  I grabbed it, smashing it into the wall.  Pounded my fist into another and it squished all over my leg.  I kicked at the next one, but behind it were three more, then six, twenty, thousands, an army coming for me.

Spiders got onto my legs.  Yelling, I tossed one aside.  Two others bit in – pain! – their venom injected.  It ate into my flesh, digesting it, and they came, hungry.  I stamped and crushed them and more crawled up my legs.

I violently flung myself sideways, toward the burning door.  Sweat poured down my face, body, the air shimmered, cooking.  Five more bites into my calves, three in my upper thighs, more crawling up, reaching my lower back.  I flailed, screamed, hit them, then missed one as it jumped on me.  One fell from the ceiling, biting into my shoulder.  I slapped it away.  Missed another and another.  Venom slowing my muscles down.  More teeth sunk into me, more venom bursting into me.

To hell with it.  I placed my hand on the bright red door, searing my flesh, pulled it quickly back, gasping.  Steam rising off my now useless hand.  Legs numbing, needles in my back, I was going to die.  Spiders sinking their fangs into my thighs, stomach, neck, more crawling up.

Took a deep breath, pushed my ruined palm against the molten metal.  It cooked and blackened and moved through and I stepped forward into death, burning alive, burning away this flesh, escaping this prison.

I knew who I was.  Raven in North America, Jackal in Africa, Fox of Mesopotamia.  And in Europe, Loki!

And by the All-Father, I was done being a trickster god.