The Mirror’s Depths

Alyssa had been winding her way through the forest for about a day and a half, making sure to note the landmarks from her map in her journal as she passed them. Then she came to the stream the local villagers maintained. They didn’t maintain it for irrigation, hygiene, or drinking purposes. They went so far as to forbid its use for those purposes. By “maintain” they meant after every moderately heavy rain they would send a team of fifteen to twenty strong people to make sure there wasn’t so much as a stick or clump of leaves across its width for the entirety of what was marked as their half. The community on the other side of the mountain did the same for what was considered their half. Equally stoney about it, no conversations were ever had between the two even this far from the peak. Not even during these community cleanings did any of the locals dare to cross the flowing water, instead they used poles and nets to remove the debris. They then put it in handcarts to be taken downhill so none of it wound up back in the water during the next rain.

“This is it,” Alyssa thought to herself as she took a deep breath through her nose, “no turning back now.” She adjusted the pack on her back as she surveyed the two banks, looking for the best spot to cross it knowing that she would be jailed if she felled a tree to ford the water. After eyeing the stream to both her left and her right she decided the best way to the other side was to carefully use a hooked pole that one of the villagers had left behind to send her supplies over first and then wade through the widest and shallowest place she saw. She also tied her boots together and sent those ahead of her as well. She could dry her bare feet faster than a fire could dry the leather and her wool socks.

Alyssa gasped at the cold of the water as she lowered herself off of the bank. It was summer but the shock was enough to send shivers up her spine and cover her broad shouldered body in goosebumps. She lived on a student’s meager diet so she was more susceptible to the cold. As she slowly shuffled through the water she was conscious of how the mud squished between her toes. When she tried to take less painstaking steps she would invariably put her foot down on loose rocks and slide. The act of catching herself would cause the iciness to splash higher onto her thighs, sending new waves of shudders through her body and making her goosebumps lift ever higher. Her nipples grew so hard that they were raising her heavy traveling vest, making her temporarily very aware of how the fabric of her cotton shirt was rubbing against them. By the time she hoisted herself onto the far bank her feet, skin, and breasts ached from the cold, even though the summer sun continued to beat down relentlessly.

Initially she had thought that if she didn’t get her shoes and socks wet she would be able to continue on without making camp after only half a day’s walk, but she was too cold. The midday sun hadn’t been unbearably hot to her before, but it was doing little to help her warm up now. People in the village said they were worried about her in the dead of summer, suggesting that maybe it would be better to try in the fall so she could at least make it to her place of sacrifice. The very thought of that stream in any cooler weather made her shudder harder. Alyssa made up her mind to at least put a little distance between herself and this apparent ice flow, just in case the wind changed during the night she didn’t want the breeze to cut through her summer tent. She picked up her things and climbed onto an outcropping of rock to bask in the sun until her feet dried. She hoped it would warm her skin as well.

Alyssa knew what she was doing, at least that’s what she told everyone that learned of her goal. When their faces flushed, their mouths gaped, or they made signs of prayer with their fingers, she would tell them she knew the risks but this journey was the only thing left to complete her studies. She would assuage their fears enough to stop them from thinking she was completely mad by launching into dizzying lists peppered with grandiose language.

Alyssa had read every scroll, carved tablet, and broken bit of pottery about her destination ever discovered. She had listened to every tale of disappearances she could get out of locals on both sides of the mountain. Intentionally pointing out that some of those stories had been passed down for more than three generations of the long lived elves. She knew that no one would follow her, and if she too, went missing they wouldn’t search the mountain. They would merely count her as another victim, a willing sacrifice even. She always finished with the same words, “Despite all this knowledge, there are still too many things that even I don’t know, and the only way to gain more information is to find the source of the mountain’s curse.”

Reciting this knowledge to everyone that had tried to object to her journey had really made Alyssa believe that she was the foremost expert in the field. She was able to mitigate the fears of her parents and the merchants that she used to purchase her equipment. She had to give the speech to every teacher at the Kingdom of Sideralis’ Tower of Knowledge, all the way up to Headmistress Xandra Silvrean, proving that she was best suited for this field expedition. Any time she was alone and not busy however, the stories of scores of people going missing tried to creep back into her heart. At these times Alyssa’s only recourse was to shake herself and find something to do.

After about an hour she had her boots back on and was ready to continue following her map, though she was a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to make it as far that day. Judging by the sun she might have five hours before it sank behind the cursed peak, leaving her only three before she would have to make camp for the night. No matter how eager she was to make academic discoveries, even she knew that mountain forests are too dangerous to wander through in the dark, especially during a moonless night where no path had ever been laid.

Because of the years that she spent pouring over every available scrap of information, Alyssa was able to draw up a serviceable map. The common maps seem to end due to the supposed power on the mountain side. Her approach to this, what she planned to be the first of many trips, was to head directly to the area no one returned from and see if the answer was obvious. Her studies did leave her with the feeling that the supernatural signs were important, especially given that the parties that didn’t see them were typically unscathed. The few descriptions of these signs that she was able to gather were rather vague and contradictory, which had vexed her fellow students. These dark magical traces gave her hope that she would also encounter them.

Alyssa decided not to push on too much and made camp when she found an old campsite that still had a standing fire ring and a couple of cut logs. She would still need more, but if a little of the work was already done for her it was all she needed to convince herself to stop for the night after the stream proved more treacherous than she had planned. She hadn’t been able to shake the cold entirely yet, and would become too aware of her shirt and vest rubbing against her if she thought about how impossibly cold the stream had been. After gathering more firewood than normal and pitching her tent for the night, she stoked the fire into as large a bonfire as the circle of stones would permit. She took off her vest after a few minutes to allow the heat to more easily soak into her, hoping it could drive away the last remnants of ice that clung to her bones.

“I wonder if that counts as a sign, or if that’s one of the reasons that the locals started believing in the power of the mountain?” She muttered to herself as she worked on her personal log for the day. She would have to transcribe her journal into an official logbook using proper academic formatting later, but it was common to write casually in private notebooks during travels. It helps the living figure out what happened to you later, too. A dark part of her thought as the final traces of cold disappeared under the dying fire’s light. Alyssa put a couple of large dense wood logs into the ring and climbed into the tent, content to sleep until morning whether they lasted all night or not.

That was a preview of The Mirror’s Depths. To read the rest purchase the book.

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