Osric's Ascent

His knees buckled under the weight of the black bag. He wanted desperately to throw it off into the cloudy abyss on his left side, but he knew he couldn’t. Not if he wanted his wife to survive.

They had taken her from their village in the dark of night. And no one even knew. He tried desperately to remember the hijacking. A sound, a smell. The angry touch of some assailant. But the tiny dart that had been found in his neck had muddled his brain. Any attempt to recall anything prior to falling asleep or after being revived by the local medic caused him to slip into a delirium where he dreamt of swimming in an ocean of warm milk.

He shook his head wildly to bring himself out of the dream. And only just in time to steady himself against the sheer cliff to his right. He kicked a rock. He didn’t hear it land.

A note printed in rather archaic speech had been pinned to their front door. It ordered him to climb the cursed mountain overlooking the village. A mountain from which none returned. He took the note to the village elders upon a plateau at the base of the mountain. They in their purple robes accepted him into their midst and bade him sit whilst they engaged in contemplation. A long time they sat discussing the evil that had befallen their unfortunate comrade. At long last, the wisest of them stood and rang a small bell hanging from a corner of the hall; a decision had been made. The elder announced, ‘Your wife is beyond saving. She has entered the halls of her mothers and fathers. Go, take another wife and be fruitful in the shadow of the mountain.’ With that, they departed; the door closed soundly behind them.

‘But what of the child she bears?’ he spoke to the silent hall.

He needed to climb before the darkness entirely engulfed him. It was then that he felt the first drop. And another. And another. Large, wet drops of cold rain started to fall more rapidly. He needed to find an enclosure, a cave, something. He readjusted the black bag and walked as fast as he was able, praying all the while to his ancestors that he might find a place to rest. It was then that he saw on the side of this forsaken mountain a fire illuminating a not altogether human shape.