The Summit

“At the summit at last,” said Campbell, frost collecting at his beard. A gloved hand the size of a bear’s claw wiped some of it loose.

Austin rolled his shoulder. The bag hung heavy on his back. He’d carried over thirty pounds of crap up one of the world’s highest mountains, in the hope that he would get the answers he’d spent fifteen years searching for. His back ached, he was freezing, but still, he remained focused.

“Mom, please,” Austin said. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I need to talk to you.”

He’d spent over a decade of his life just getting the credentials necessary to bring him here. He had a PhD from Cambridge in Archeology, a Master’s in Anthropology, entire volumes of peer-reviewed research, awards for scientific achievement. He’d also had spent thousands of dollars in student loans, dozens of hours just applying to scholarships and financial assistance programs.

Then there were the years spent chasing down leads, weathering nonstop doubt from dead-ends, critics in his field, those close to him. There were the relationships that failed, the weeks in bed from tropical diseases, the close-calls with pirates and militants in countries with unstable political climates, in which lay ruins both ancient and untouched for hundreds, if not thousands of years…yet it had all been a cheap price, given where it had eventually brought him. Not just physically – he was on the cusp of attaining what he had, for a long time, never thought his life would have: meaning.

Soon, he would inherit a destiny greater than that which any normal person could attain themselves. He needed only reach the place to which he had been beckoned in order to receive it.

“This looks like a good place to set up camp,” Campbell said, his Highland Scotch-English brogue dulled by the roar of the wind. He and the other team were bringing up the rear.

“I want to keep going,” Austin said, loud enough the entire party could hear him. “We’re almost there.”

Audible groans resounded from at least two of the team. They were locals from a village near the base of the mountain. To them, this job was the American equivalent to working at a department store, or a Starbuck’s – it was a job that everyone in their community, at some point, could and would do.

Austin didn’t blame them for protesting. He’d been pushing them hard since the journey began. They were likely exhausted, cold, and frustrated. They couldn’t understand what they were on the cusp of reaching. Not even if he’d explained to them, showed them all the reports, essays and translated works. If he had sat them down for a week-long class and paid them to do it, he couldn’t make them understand. Nobody could possibly understand. Besides, if he tried to explain, they’d think he was insane.

“If you don’t want to follow me,” Austin said, “you can set up camp here. We’re close. Very close. In fact I think I’d actually prefer to go it alone from here.”

Austin wasn’t looking at them. He was facing yet further up the mountain, looking straight at something he couldn’t see, but knew it was there. He didn’t realize he was in a trance until Campbell’s bear-like grasp shook him out of it.

“Doctor,” he said, turning Austin’s body towards him, “take a knee. I mean it. If you don’t settle in for the night I’m gonna tie you up and make you.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” Austin said. “I made it clear from the inception of this expedition – I have my reasons, but I don’t expect anyone here to go further than a reasonable person could expect. That’s why I paid you all in advance.”

Austin looked behind Campbell’s hulking, red-bearded form – some of the locals in his team had tent stakes in their hands, others alpenstocks, ready to follow him.

Austin shook his head. “Trust me, I won’t be going far. We’re close. I’ve got my flare gun and emergency gear if things go bad. I can’t stop now, not when I’m so close to the tomb. So, as your employer, I’m going to have to insist that you be the one to take a knee and keep some food heated up for me. I’ll be back within an hour or so.”

“I really don’t like this.” Campbell’s piercing blue eyes were looking into his. Austin could tell exactly what he was thinking; the altitude was affecting his mental state, he was getting delirious. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this, Doctor – “

“Phil, not now.”

“Auss – ”

“Not a word.”

“Or what? You really gonna fire me?” Campbell said.

Austin sighed. Campbell had called his bluff. Of course he wouldn’t fire him. He’d been a dependable companion, an invaluable asset, and a friend throughout his post-graduate journey, all the way to this moment.

“Please,” Austin said, “trust me. I need this. I need it.”

Campbell looked uneasy for a moment, as if unsure what to say. “How am I gonna look if my client turns up dead?” Campbell was not a man of words. Austin knew he cared for him personally, not just as a professional cares for a client; they were friends. Campbell had never known how to express it. Not that Austin was much better…yet, there was an unspoken understanding between them.

Nothing would stop him, especially not now. Not even his friend.

“This time will be different. You have my word. Go and help with camp. I’m not going to ask you again.”

She’s drunk again, Austin realized. This is pointless.

Campbell stomped off, grumbling and cursing. Austin felt nothing. Soon, Campbell would understand. And even if he didn’t, Austin would be able to make him understand.

It seemed for a while he may have been mistaken after all; there was no path, nor any signs of one…although, if there had been it was likely snowed over.

He forced his body forward. The worst part wasn’t the walking, it was the lack of visibility; each step was like a battle, and all that he gained from victory was another step towards a blank, white void. He didn’t realize that the wind’s incessant fury was pushing him closer left than he’d intended until a loose cluster of snow broke free at his step. He managed to regain stability before stumbling. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that he was close enough to camp he could still see the tents. He wondered if his cries had reached the team. He wondered if they could have heard him.

He felt a bit like he was floating. He stopped for a moment – another step and he might have fainted. He thanked whatever god or gods were listening that he’d caught it in time. It was hard to tell, but the ground he stood on was slightly tilted. Had he passed out, he might have rolled clear off the mountain. He leaned on his alpenstocks for a moment. When you were winded, it was tempting to hyperventilate, though every breath filled his lungs with frozen air that stung like it was full of needles. The thin air at this height would only make his state worse if he breathed quickly. He aimed for deep, controlled breaths instead to keep a handle on his heart rate. When he felt strong enough, he took another step. Then another.

Finally, he found hope. He was on the right track after all.

Propped against the wall of a cave in the distance, he saw the mummified remains of a human being, clad in thermal clothing.

Red-faced and winded, Austin clambered towards it. There was nothing else but white-gray sky all around him, and plain snow besides. The air was crisp and thin and smelled like only a land of eternal winter can. His lungs struggled, but he persisted.

Due to the extreme cold, decomposition had been slight, but doubtless this person had been searching for the same thing that now brought Austin to this very spot.

He paused for a moment to wonder why the man had gotten so far, only to die on the doorstep of success. Was it hypothermia? Exposure? Starvation? Did he simply lose the will to keep going? Perhaps he had been guarding the entrance for someone, and that someone never came back?

Into the cave Austin went. He switched his head lamp on. The stream of light it gave him reflected off of thousands of tiny snowflakes. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, rippled like the esophagus of a huge creature…

He came to the resting place of the Thing, the same one that had spoken to him years and years ago, the thing that had extended to him hope when nothing else could.

In the depths of the cavern, he saw it: a tiny statue of his savior, resting in the middle of a great chamber. Austin had seen this room before, in cave drawings, ancient scrolls…none of them did it justice.

The chamber was, as far as he could tell, shaped naturally…yet part of it showed clear signs of artificial work. He couldn’t tell which parts were natural formations, and which had been shaped for some deliberate reason…aesthetics, perhaps, though no architecture on Earth looked so unsettling. It appeared as though pillars and supports had been carved directly into the natural curves and divots of the cave wall…yet when his eyes followed them, they seemed to twist in unnatural ways. The structure seemed to defy the very laws of physics. Chunks of rock and stalactites hung and swayed in ways that could not have remained structurally sound, given all the years’ worth of erosion that should have taken place, given clear signs of aging evident everywhere…yet there were no collapsed pieces, no piles of rubble suggesting a once-impressive fixture crumbled by the inevitable decay of time. It was impossible, all of it. Austin took a deep breath; he was beginning to feel light-headed again. Still, that would not be an issue in moments, if all went as he hoped it would.

“Being alive has been terrible so far,” he said, straining against sobs that tightened his whole body. “Just make all this pay off somehow and I’ll do whatever you want.”

Approaching the statue, he removed a gloved hand. At this altitude, at these temperatures, normally he would fear frostbite, but the closer he came to the statue, the warmer he felt.

It was a grotesque thing, yet there was some inexplicable appeal to it…the feeling was difficult to describe. The being it resembled could not have been human, could not have been anything living. It conformed to no laws of symmetry or organic function compelling the evolution of anything on Earth; some features resembled quite narrow feathers, yet could just as easily have been scales. One appendage seemed to be a head, judging by its position on the body and evidence of eyes, yet openings that could be considered, reasonably, eyes or ears – other orifices, were located in quite strange parts of the body.

Austin remembered the text. From his belt, he drew a knife. He pressed the sharp side against the palm of his bare hand, and held it above the statue. With a swift motion, he slashed open his palm. The knife was cold, and instantly, his hand became colder as well. Warm life spilled from his hand and splattered across the statue’s surface. By the sharpness of its lines, the lack of residue or even frost on its surface, it looked as though it had been fresh-carved.

“…find me.”

As though from thousands of tons of dynamite, the top of the mountain exploded. Austin was knocked flat on his back, his vision overcome by snow and stone thrown up all around him. Yet he remained where he stood. The chill of the wind returned as the cavern crumbled away, giving way to open air and a full appreciation of his quarry.

Before him stood something monstrous, a Thing without a name. Impossible in its sheer scale, his nose became invaded immediately by its breath; it smelled like the long-dead bones of a thousand dead. Its slow, deep breaths were like the roar of a hurricane. Yet it was there – it existed. It was so impossibly huge, so unknowably strange, it made his head throb with pain to look at.

Austin’s head was at once full of whispers. Voices he had never heard before rang in his ears as though they were memories, yet his recognition of their origin was immediate. It spoke to him.

You have come.

He felt warm liquid become cold, dripping from his ear. He wiped it away. “I have fulfilled my promise, Great One,” Austin called out, his throat already hoarse with the cloying dryness of the air. “I dedicated my life to this moment. I reached the summit, achieved what no man in the memory of civilization has achieved. I…have found you! Your rest can cease, I’ve woken you!”

It was difficult to read…the body language of an ancient god is difficult to discern. He couldn’t tell if it heard him.

The whispers were silent as it shifted and writhed in its awesome form.

“You promised,” Austin said, “as you no doubt remember, you would give my life meaning. You promised you would give purpose to my suffering if only I would find you. You promised my life would mean something, that all my suffering would be a small price for the glory I would achieve. Those words were yours – I never forgot any of them. My entire life has been guided by that pact.

“So here I am, Great One…I humbly ask for that which was promised.”

It slithered, it writhed.

It has already been given.

“It…how?”

My glory has been witnessed by mortal eyes…no greater thing can a mortal aspire to than this.

Austin felt cold to his very core, but somehow, his veins felt colder still when the words slithered through his brain. “I…Great One, I don’t understand…”

It is not something anyone living can.

It is incredible, Austin realized in his last moments, how quickly something so large can move so fast…whatever it was, it was only when it was a mere hundred yards or so away, when he was able to appreciate its size – like an aircraft carrier – that it was moving practically at the speed of sound. He realized the latter point when the crack of the air splitting, of the Dark Thing’s body shattering the Sound Barrier, reached his ears. It was the last thing he ever heard.

Alone at the highest point of the mountain, a small statue sat in a cave. The statue was of nothing in particular, at least, nothing conceived of the human mind, exactly. There was no evidence that man had ever set foot in it, despite the beautiful, intricate carvings on the walls…no evidence but the small red-brown droplets staining its porous surface. The droplets disappeared as though sucked in by the thirsty stone of the statue. The air of the chamber was thin, and dry.