A reunion, A climb, The aurora
On land
The voice resonating in his ears instantly brought Maanta back to a place and time he had assumed lost.
“Ooooahooo!” called Archa’s sweet voice, flowing across the breeze from the close-by shore.
Thud!
Maanta’s second ear of corn careened to the wood floor as he stood upright. Half running, half attempting to swim, he tried to make his way out of the doorway and to the ocean beyond.
But this only ended with another thud, this time caused by Maanta as his body dropped quickly to the hard floor below, his arms squirming beneath him as though they were the limbs of a squished spider. The boy grunted in anguish.
“What is he trying to do now?” Japeth stared, befuddled, not knowing that Maanta was from the ocean and had never walked before.
“I don’t know,” Noah replied, before placing his arms beneath Maanta’s now still arms and lifting him upright. “What has stirred you, Maanta? What do you need of us?”
Tears streamed down Maanta’s face to be soaked up by the garments he had been dressed in. He tried to achieve a stable setting with his feet on the ground, but his legs only quivered beneath him.
“Ooooahooo!” Archa’s song beat again in the air.
“That voice.” Maanta turned to meet Noah’s eyes. “That voice is the voice of a dolphin friend of mine from the waters below. She’s calling for me. It’s hard to explain, but we understand each other. If I can’t rejoin her beneath the waves, I must let her know what has happened here.” Maanta flinched, twisting his ankle in his attempt to stand. “Can you help me to her side?”
“We’ll carry you down to see what this is all about,” Noah said as Japeth shot him a bizarre glance. “Japeth, pick the boy up and follow me to the water’s edge.”
Japeth braced Maanta and thrust him into his arms. “You sure are an odd one, boy.”
Noah had already reached the sand outside, but paused for a second to call back an explanation to his son. “Maanta is a merperson from beneath the waves. You’d best quit insulting him. If you tried to breathe and swim deep in the ocean’s depths, I’m sure you’d have difficulties too.”
As he carried Maanta across the shimmering, soft beach, Japeth pondered his father’s words. He also pondered whether his father could be losing his wits.
Maanta paid no mind to what Japeth had said to him or what Noah had returned with. In truth, the boy hadn’t heard a word. He was excited because of the knowledge that soon he would be by Archa’s side again.
Archa’s smooth head bobbed in the ocean as she sang again and again to Maanta. She’s so beautiful, Maanta thought. He hadn’t seen her in so long that this vision of her was more enhanced than any he had had of her before. In ribbons from above, the sunlight gleamed across her smooth head. Rippling waters glistened to the farthest reaches of the ocean beyond.
“Put me in the water,” Maanta told Japeth, as the ocean rose and retreated again upon the man’s toes.
Japeth gave Noah a questioning look and Noah responded. “Do as he says.”
Japeth waded out and as the waters reached a foot deep the tall muscular man gently set the boy into the ocean. As Maanta swam out to the dolphin both Japeth and Noah realized that the ocean must be his natural habitat, for he glided to the animal’s side with fishlike strength.
“He moves like an eel,” Japeth noted, his voice high-pitched with surprise.
Archa nudged Maanta with her nose as he approached, sending him tumbling in place. He laughed and jumped back toward her.
“I missed you, girl!” Maanta hugged her neck and gently kissed her on the forehead. “How did you find me?”
“Arch, Arch!” She bobbed her head and sang to him. “Arch, Arch!” And with a swoop of her head and spraying of water she tossed something from her mouth against his forehead.
Maanta grasped the slim brown tubular thing as it began sinking. “A kelp scroll?” he uttered in disbelief. “You carried this in your mouth all the way from the ocean’s depths?” The scroll was the length of Maanta’s palm and its slimy coating caused it to almost slip from Maanta’s grasp as he undid the seaweed ties holding it shut. As the seaweed plopped and sank past Maanta’s beating feet below, the slimy kelp scroll unwound quickly and flopped open in the sunlight.
Maanta’s eyes flashed to the bottom of the script. “Amaranth,” he breathed. Of course it was Amaranth. There was no other who knew better how to use a corundum-scribing tool. The boy’s eyes quickly swept to the script’s beginning as he laid it out upon Archa’s glistening back to better read. The handwriting almost shivered on the scroll, as if the writer had unsteady hands, but Maanta knew this to be untrue of Amaranth.
Maanta,
I scribe you from a cavern deep beneath Meridia where the warriors of Sangfoul force our race to mine lava. A bleak existence and starvation consume us here.
The guards speak of Sift and the others preparing for an attack to rescue us. They laugh because it is true that no force of even trained Meridians would have a prayer of overtaking them.
I have found hope in this bleak existence, though. A cool brace of currents embraced my body as I chiseled open a vein of lava two days ago. I followed that stream of cool breath through the boiling depths until it led me to an open crevice in the cavern wall. A soft cooing noise resonated there. Perhaps by fate, perhaps by chance, it was Archa on the other side. In her, hope was rediscovered.
She has told me how Orion’s Birth jettisoned you to the shores above, how you are being cared for by the people there. You are unconscious, she says, but has seen you consuming air as they bathe you.
Rumors have swept Meridia for centuries, that if we gave our selves to the world of air above, we would adapt to breathe the substance again. So we arrive at hope.
Few know this, but beneath Meridia’s lava caverns lies a vast empty cavern of crystal and air.
Our chance for freedom lies in releasing this cavern of air. Both the enslaved Meridians and warriors of Sangfoul would scatter in hysteria and give not a thought to a thing but their own flesh.
However, I cannot free this gargantuan egg of air myself. It lies too deep beneath me and I am heavily guarded. I need your hands to release it. The cavern of crystal and air connects to a tunnel, which I believe to stretch to the vast realm of land dwellers above. You must discover this cavern and discern a way to release the air into Meridia.
You will not drown as water displaces air amongst the crystalline encasement. Have you never wondered how Archa could breathe both water and air? Dolphins are not deep-sea creatures, and yet she has been with you for years.
This is because when you were but a youth, I tested a theory on Archa.
I once discovered small creatures, which consume water but spew out air when they take what they need from the water itself. They are sticky and malleable and remain wherever one places them. I placed them within Archa’s breathing hole and found they produce enough air for her to breathe deep beneath the depths.
I have wrapped a few in this kelp scroll for your use in aquatic breathing.
When Archa believes you are close to consciousness, I will send this to you. Until then, I wait.
Amaranth
The corundum scribing didn’t end there. Instead, on the very bottom of the scroll, a few words sprawled chaotically, as if scribbled in afterthought.
leagues of time the wavings took as binding of the mind loose shook and now in death or sanity in leaving take, upon arrival not left shall thus I make
“What in the world does he mean by his final words?” Maanta spoke lowly to himself. “It’s as if before finally giving the scroll to Archa, he added a final message. But it’s unintelligible. His sanity must have slipped between the two writings.”
Maanta hadn’t seen it at first, but the final words had been written on a folded over piece of scroll from the backside of the page. The folded over piece clung crisply to the front side, so as to
blend in. Now the folded over piece pulsed, an eerie rhythmic heartbeat.
“What?” Maanta gasped, lifting the scroll away from Archa’s smooth back and holding it up to the sunlight to better analyze.
“Is everything alright?” Noah called from the beach.
“I’m alright. Thanks.” With the scroll held between him and the sun Maanta could make out pulsing veins between the folded over flap. His pale fingertips peeled it loose to discover two slim pale-blue jelly creatures stuck in the crease. “These must be the air-creating creatures Amaranth said he would send.” The sight of the creatures sent shivers up his body, giving him goose bumps.
They reminded him of symbiosis. He had no desire to be interdependent on another species. “And who knows what service they would attempt to use my body for.” Maanta shuddered. “But Archa seems well and they are in her. I’ll wait until I am in the crystal cavern to use them.” It was a risk he would have to take to rescue his people.
While bringing the kelp scroll down from the sunlight, he tore the piece where the transparent creatures clung off of the main script. In a tight ball he wrapped them, their own bodies serving as the sticky surface to keep the ball sealed shut.
Pulse pulse. Pulse pulse. The creatures beat in his palm as Maanta tucked them into his pant pocket, now soaked from the ocean. Air bubbled up from where they were and collected on the water about him. It’s bizarre to feel them pulse against my leg, he thought. I’ll have to find a place to store them in Noah’s house so I won’t have to feel their pulse constantly. I wonder what that will feel like in my mouth. The thought was unsettling. After rolling up the remaining scroll, he stuffed it in his other pocket.
“Archa,” he spoke to the dolphin now. “Thank you for carrying me this message from beneath the depths. I have longed to know what has become of you since our separation and yearned to find a way back beneath the depths again. You have brought me both things.
“I must return to the others on land who are waiting, but stay close in the days to come so we can share our companionship. When I discover the way to the crystalline air egg beneath Meridia, I’ll tell you. We can meet there beneath the depths.”
She nudged him gently with her nose, before swimming swiftly around him in a circle.
“Aaaahoooo!” Maanta sang in Archa’s language. Then he kissed her gently on her forehead. “I love you, my friend. It’s good to have you by my side again.”
“Oooooahhhooooo!” Archa bobbed and replied before dipping and swooping off into the depths below, in search of fish to devour now that her journey was complete.
The sun above shone down on Maanta in glimmering streams that flickered on the ocean. The sunlight warmed his body, causing a sense of calm to soothe his thoughts. How bizarre it was to think that, when he first arrived here, his flesh had burned at the air’s touch, and his body had cried out in anguish in the heat. Now he cherished the air and sunlight as it caressed his body.
With a pivot and swoop in the water, Maanta swam back to shore with fluid ease. Noah and Japeth watched him all the while, in awe of his bobbing and swirling motion.
“That must be what we look like to him on land,” Noah spoke to Japeth while his eyes remained fixed on the boy. “Who was the scroll from?” he called out to Maanta as the boy neared them.
After a bursting leap and splash, Maanta skimmed the water’s surface until he reached the beach and crawled to the sandy shore. “It was a message from Amaranth. He sends news of my people and has requested something of me. Once we are inside, I’d like to discuss it with Japeth and yourself, and ask about your knowledge on something.”
“I have a better idea.” Noah clasped Maanta’s outstretched hand in his own and helped the boy stand shakily on the moist sand beneath his toes. “Within the hour the sun will begin to set. Let us light a blaze in the kindling of my fire pit and discuss the scroll by a warm beach fire as we listen to the tide roll in.”
…
That night, as the setting sun cast a pumpkin-orange hue across the sky, the three reread the scroll in the light of flickering tongues of flame. The fire danced in the ocean breeze, and an owl’s hoot echoed in the distance.
Finally, Maanta lifted his head away from its words and looked deep into Noah’s eyes. “The tunnel Amaranth speaks of, do you know where I might find it? I have no idea how I would begin to look for such a thing, especially because I don’t know how to properly get around out of water yet.”
“Hmm,” Noah thought. “Nothing comes to mind. Japeth, what are your thoughts?”
Japeth pulled a small chunk of meat he had been roasting in the fire off of a stick, and popped it in his mouth. “I’m just starting to understand who you are and the world you come from, Maanta.” He took a sip from a clay bowl filled with coconut juice. “But the tunnel Amaranth spoke of that connects us reminded me of something.
“Hundreds of years ago, when I went out to explore this land with Shem, we came upon a cavern in Ar’arat’s base whose mouth rose four of my height above us. A cool breeze surrounded us as we explored its insides. The sound you hear when you press a seashell to your ear resonated in the air. It delves deep into the mountainside and curls downward slowly. We explored the cavern’s depths for days until discovering a drop-off in the tunnel we could not pass or descend.
“When we reached this spot, Shem dropped a torch down into the hollow drop. The flame swirled as it fell until it was nothing but the faintest of dots, like a tiny star in the vast sea of the sky. Eventually it disappeared, and never did we hear the sound of it hitting bottom. If there is a tunnel which leads below the ocean’s depths then surely that place holds what you look for.”
Maanta took the clay bowl of coconut juice from Japeth’s fingertips and took a long swallow, embracing the succulent sweetness of the juice as it cooled his throat. “This cavern sounds like the place I need to explore before anywhere else. With any luck it will lead me to the crystalline egg of air.”
The sun’s setting glow was now a low hue of crimson-orange, as pitch darkness consumed it along the horizon. Maanta looked down at his legs as ignited ash flicked from the fire before him. “And yet I cannot stand without someone by my side hoisting me up. How will I ever manage a cavern where men of land could not reach its depths?”
Noah looked up through the sky, his beard illuminated by the glow of firelight. “No matter what my sons have not been able to do, the Lord will find a way for you to reach the deepest depths of the cavern of which Japeth speaks.” Noah lowered his eyes once more to look through the fire at Maanta’s legs. “And you will walk, my boy. You will run. You will jog. You will skip. We will teach you and show you the way to do those and many other things. You now have trouble maneuvering on dry land, but after witnessing your grace and speed in the water just beyond our shore, I know you will quickly master the ways of moving on land. We will have you walking by tomorrow’s twilight.”
…
As Maanta lay nestled on a bed of covered straw that night, his body quickly conformed to the world of nightly slumber. Starlight shone through the window close by and came to rest upon his closed eyelids. Worries about how he would learn to maneuver the world of land and air encompassed his dreams, as well as something else he had fallen into slumber while thinking of.
“Anna…” he called out as he slept, more than once into the darkness.
…
By the next day’s end, Noah and Japeth had taught Maanta to walk with little shakiness in his legs. By the week’s end he was jogging in short spurts, often from the shoreline to the beach house and back.
The following week they taught him to hike up steep cliffs and had him running through fields of flowing, grassy terrain.
Maanta amazed himself with the quickness in which he picked up skills. He had thought they would take him years to master, but with every step he took or movement he made, he noticed his muscles perfecting minute responses his body needed to make to accomplish them. His strength was also
revitalized by the many new foods he feasted on. The tastes of mango, tomatoes, oranges, spiced chicken, omelets, spices, onions and peppers sparked and rippled upon his palate. He realized it was possible that because his body was so rejuvenated, he adapted so quickly.
By month’s end, Japeth and Shem would take him to the very foot of Ar’arat Mountain. Its bulky, ridged-stone terrain jutted and curved as it spired through the sky above.
Japeth spoke to Maanta as all three men stood beside the great limb of Ar’arat in a breeze, which whipped around its stony hulk. “If you are to scale the endless pit of the cavern which leads beneath the ocean depths, then surely you must first possess the skill to climb up and down Ar’arat’s peak.” The three tied an extensive braided rope between them and strapped shoes with spikes to their feet. Japeth handed three metallic picks to Maanta, instructing him to place them in a cowhide belt Noah had crafted for him.
As they hiked up the slope of Ar’arat’s lesser grade, Maanta concentrated on the high-sloped stone peak before him. He had climbed high stone walls that Japeth had constructed near the shore, but Ar’arat seemed to stretch into the heavens overhead, and vast spans of stone appeared smooth and un-creviced above him. The breaths he took in about him tasted like tulips on his tongue.
“May God bless us,” the dark-haired, staunch Shem said seriously before beginning his ascent up the rising stone before him. His fingers grasped each crevice with masterful ease. Tiny pebbles and dust fled down the mountainside as he ascended.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Japeth spoke as he urged Maanta to go next. “If we climb like this, then if you lose your grasp on the stone, Shem’s strength will hold you up as the rope pulls on his back. And with me beneath you, I can watch you and instruct you where to place your holds.”
The stone was cold on Maanta’s fingers as he found his grip. His muscles strained and burned as he pulled his torso to meet his hands and then found new holds to wedge his hands on above. His leg muscles strained as they supported him and lifted his body from behind. Maanta was grateful for his shoe spikes. They at least helped diminish what he knew would have been a much more difficult ascent without them.
He thought it would grow more difficult, but he climbed Ar’arat’s face with more ease as time went by. The act of finding new holds and releasing old ones fell into a rhythm, with the occasional comment from Japeth to help. His muscles still burned, but were becoming numb to the sensation. The wind sang in the breeze as he climbed, and the heat his body created as he worked his muscles warmed him. Sunlight laid its blanket upon his back.
A third of the way up the mountain, Maanta noticed Shem disappearing into an outcropping of stone above. “Shem!” he called up the ridged stonewall. “Are you alright?”
Shem’s stern, dark-haired face reappeared over the ledge, grinning down at Maanta and Japeth. “Here is a flat ledge of Ar’arat for us to rest before continuing our climb. Surely you both are exhausted!”
“I don’t know about Maanta, but my muscles could use the rest,” Japeth wasted no time in replying before giving a gentle yank on the rope attached to Maanta from below. “Come on, boy! I’ve packed some delicious tidbits for us to eat once we get there!”
“Do that again and I may just fall on top of you!” Maanta called down. A brisk wind whisked along his backside as he pulled himself up on the ledge. It was at least ten feet deep and sheltered from the gusts of air by walls of stone on both sides of its in-cut floor. Maanta turned around to look at the land far below as Japeth finished his climb. They weren’t yet halfway up the mountainside and already the trees below looked like the tops of broccoli afloat in a green and brown soup. Fog drifted like a serpent in outcroppings of trees below.
Japeth, on the ledge now, fished in his leather pack with his massive hands. “Here, bite into this.” He handed numerous blue spheres to Maanta and his brother.
Without hesitation, Maanta popped one into his mouth and bit into the fruit. It burst into his cheeks as taste-bud sparking juice slid down his throat. Maanta ate the rest of the blueberries in one giant mouthful. “They’re delicious,” he said as he finished chewing. Maanta felt famished now, though he hadn’t known it until he had begun to eat. I hope there’s more where those came from, he thought. His legs burned from the strenuous climb.
Next, Japeth pulled a small loaf of wheat bread from his sack, oats speckling its crust. After breaking it in thirds, he handed the portions to the others, and the party sat against the stone walls chewing on the soft bread.
As Japeth’s hands retracted from the pack for the third time, long slim brown things braced between his fingertips. “Take two.” He handed some to Maanta who looked at them inquisitively. “It’s dried and salted deer meat that has been preserved so it won’t go bad as we carry it. It’s tough. Chew it slowly.”
Maanta bit into a piece, pulling half of it apart from the rest of the stick. He ground the dried meat loose in his teeth as a salty rich flavor nipped at his taste buds, then devoured the remaining morsel.
Before long, Shem stood. “We should press on in order to reach the next stopping place before nightfall.” He extended his thick arm into the breeze beyond the ledge’s wall. “The wind has slowed. We shall have no trouble continuing our climb.” Shem removed his climbing picks from his utility belt and began climbing the rising stone above as Maanta and Japeth stood and prepared to do the same.
My muscles are so sore, Maanta thought. I wonder why I hadn’t noticed them aching while we climbed before.
Japeth placed something in Maanta’s palm as the boy pulled out his picks before following Shem. “You seemed to like these a lot.”
Maanta opened his hand to find three small blueberries rolling around. “Thanks.” He popped them one by one past his lips. “I wish I could share the delicious treats of my world with you.” Then Maanta’s arms strained as he began scaling Ar’arat once more.
Japeth followed close behind. “After freeing your people from Meridia’s molten mines, you’ll have to return to us to share the treats of your world and visit, then.”
“That is a day I look forward to greatly.” Maanta held himself up on the mountainside and carefully stored the picks once more on his belt. He preferred feeling the stone on his fingertips. He felt closer to the mountain that way, like he had more of a say in how Ar’arat treated him.
The day’s remaining climb smoothly passed as light transformed into a collage of darkness and spattered stars. Two-thirds up Ar’arat, they slumbered on a large outstretched cliff. A full moon gleamed bright in the distance. I wish there were walls of stone to block the winds here, Maanta thought, half asleep, as goose bumps rippled across his body.
Close as they were to the peak, chilled air swirled about them, and they huddled for warmth, shivering in their sleep.
Maanta awoke to the condensation of a cloud about them misting on his forehead. Droplets of moisture beaded, trickling down his cheeks. Wiping his face and looking off the cliff as he stood, Maanta glanced toward the earth below. He could see nothing through the cloud about him. All was coated in rolling fog, which swayed trickling streamers of sunlight in its breath.
They dined on bread, bananas and dried deer as the fog and clouds scurried away from the morning sun. Land appeared in flecks and speckles through the dissipating clouds as they prepared to climb once more.
“Be careful as you grasp the stone this morning,” Shem spoke to Maanta, before ascending toward the mountain’s peak. “The morning’s moisture has begun to dry but much of the stone will still be wet. As we get higher up, we might encounter frost. Take your time and watch where I place my picks and hands. It may be best to follow in the grooves I take.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Maanta tied the braided rope tight to himself. “I’ll be sure to watch.”
Japeth made a mocking facial expression as he looked to Shem. “What, no words of wisdom for me, brother?”
Shem turned toward the steep rock wall, placing his
picks in rather large open grooves. “I don’t fear for you! If you fall off the mountain, the hot air you’re full of will merely cause you to float toward the sky.”
Maanta got a chuckle out of their bantering.
Japeth smirked, then shot back. “If that’s true then you’d drop like a stone if you fell.”
As the party ascended up Ar’arat’s high peak the dew on the mountain evaporated into the sky as steam. Holds became less slippery, although the air took on increasingly chilly temperatures with the higher altitude.
As midday approached, Maanta passed through the froth of a puffy frigid cloud. Frost crept on the mountainous stone it clung to, causing Maanta’s fingers to slip in places. The blood in his fingertips was going numb.
“Use your picks to climb, and the next time we stop I’ll give you gloves to warm your fingers,” Japeth hollered from below.
He must be feeling the chill in his fingertips, too, Maanta thought as he found a strong hold to take with his left hand and reached for his picks with his right. Using picks instead of his hands didn’t help the chill much, but gave tighter holds in the frost than his numb fingers did.
Above, the cloud opened up at last to pastel sunlight. Its puffiness broke about his nose and face as he pulled himself through its upper crest. Maanta took a moment to look out over the line of clouds reflecting the sunlight about him. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. To think, not a year ago I lived beneath the waves in Meridia and had not dreamt of ever knowing the realm above the waves.
He looked to his hands, where the finger-webs had once been. Ridged scars curved down his fingers’ sides now. Truly, he had come a long way. A brisk gust of frigid air whipped about him.
“Come on now, boy! We’re almost at the peak,” Japeth called from beneath him as he arrived at Maanta’s spiked feet.
Back from his realm of thoughts, Maanta pressed ahead, picking groove after groove as he ascended Ar’arat. And then wandering thoughts returned. I wonder what has happened to Anna, he thought, her soft, pale blue skin and beautiful pure eyes drifting as images in his mind. Does she remember me? I’ll never forget when I first laid eyes on her beauty. Even when she was mentally slipping away, I fell for her.
Shem had been calling for him while he was lost in his daydream, and Maanta thrust his pick once again.
It bounced off an icy slab, scraping into open air.
His body released from the mountainous rise, whirling out of the sunlight and past gusts of cloud below him.
Japeth shouted as Maanta’s body flailed past. “Hold tight, brother! Maanta lost his holds and is careening away.” The rope clenched tight around the brothers’ waists as Maanta halted, spinning in the air somewhere beneath Japeth.
“How’s he holding up?” Shem’s shouted down. “The rope is holding here! I hope we’ve tied good knots!”
“For now he’s fine!” Japeth hollered back. “My rope’s holding strong as he spins beneath me, beside a gap in the rock. We need to get him back on the mountain wall.” Japeth looked below him at a spinning, stunned and shaking Maanta. Fog and cloud whirled about him. “Are you alright, boy?”
Maanta frantically nodded his head up and down, nervous spasms rocking his body.
“You’re lucky Shem ties a good rope,” Japeth hollered down once more. “You have to get back to the mountain wall before the rope gives! I saw your picks hurl past as you fell! I have extras I’ll lower down to you! Once you have them swing yourself against the mountain wall and clasp once more to its stone!”
“Alright,” Maanta barely murmured back, still stunned from the fall. Moments later as he looked up through the clouds he could see two picks being lowered through the mists on a string Japeth was slowly sending his way. He unclasped them and braced them in his fists as the rope which connected him to Japeth and Shem slowed its spinning.
Maanta mustered his courage and forced himself to mentally deal with the reality he was experiencing. If I swing toward the mountain too fast, or stay off of its stone much longer, the rope will snap and I’ll careen down to Ar’arat’s foot, he thought. Then I won’t live to see my people freed. “I have the picks!” he hollored for Japeth and Shem. “I’m going to attempt to swing for the wall!”
Up above, Japeth looked to Shem. “Hold tight, brother! Maanta is swinging for the mountain!”
Maanta made slow movements toward and away from the wall, the world shaking back and forth beneath him. The rope creaked while tightening above.
“Aaaahhh,” Japeth grunted as he supported Maanta’s movements with his straining muscles.
Slowly, Ar’arat’s stone came closer and closer to Maanta’s picks. Maanta stretched to catch in a groove in the rock but the groove broke loose as momentum carried him away. With two more swings Maanta tried again, this time catching both his picks in grooves along the rising mountain wall. He thrust his spiked cleats into the mountainside with a wrenching of stomach muscle and was once more being held up by his own force. “Phew!” He breathed in relief. As he climbed, the rope slumped above him.
“He’s done it!” Japeth shouted to his brother.
“Thank goodness!” Shem bellowed down. “I didn’t know how much longer we could support both his and our weight!”
Japeth waited for Maanta to catch up to him once more before speaking. “Pay more attention to what you’re doing,” he spoke to Maanta as the boy passed along his side.
“Don’t worry,” Maanta said as he climbed past, breathing heavily and heart racing. “One fall was enough to catch my attention.” Reaching Ar’arat’s peak and embracing brief relaxation was a moment that couldn’t arrive too soon.
As noon arrived to the misty chilled world above the clouds, Maanta’s stone picks met the peak of Ar’arat. Muscles tightened and strained in Maanta’s limbs as he lifted himself off the mountain wall and into the crater of Ar’arat’s peak. He lay there, eyes closed on the frost glinting stone, resting for the first time since his fall. The crater’s curved form embraced him as his muscles relaxed and his heart slowed its pulse.
“Can you believe it has been hundreds of years since our ark first perched here in the flood?” Shem asked his brother as Japeth pulled himself onto the mountain’s tip. “I can still remember the water glistening for eons before us as the ark rocked on the very stone where we now stand.”
Japeth placed his arm around Shem and lifted Maanta with his other arm to show the boy the vast sky about them. “We have gone so many places, Shem, and witnessed so many things. And yet, no matter what we achieved after the flood, it all leads back to here. A new world began on this peak. The things we experienced, which brought us here, showed us that we have strong enough wills that we may achieve whatever we desire.”
“I wish father could climb Ar’arat and share this with us,” Shem spoke while looking in awe out at the flowing airscape before them. The sun beat, a hallucinogenic yellow orb, across the sky.
“So do I,” Japeth turned to see the entire sky. “And yet, in his old age, father could never make this journey.”
Maanta looked out in awe. “Thank you for sharing this with me. I am honored to stand by your side.” He had no words to describe it, but as he looked up, rippling majestic ribbons of color wove and shimmered in the sky above. Such a beautiful sight had not caught his eyes before.
“Do not thank us.” Japeth looked up in awe. “Thank God. He has brought us here many a time. He has created this world. For us to not share it with you would be selfish.”
“What do you call these lights?” Maanta asked, pointing to the purples, oranges, reds, greens and blues rippling above.
“Aurora borealis.” Shem smiled, as he too gazed upon their beauty.
That day they ate lunch beneath the shimmering lights of sky: a feast of strawberries, blueberries, bananas and pomegranate companioned with wheat bread and sticks of salted meat. Maanta savored each taste on his palate. His close call with death and the beauty about him intensified the enti
rety of his senses.
Maanta finished his food before the others, and sat, staring off into the luminescent sky about him, his back to Japeth and Shem. His lips moved but made no sound as he gazed upon the ripples of light in the upper sky. He had been reciting a poem he had just written in his mind as he gazed upon the brilliant lights above. Without realizing it, he softly began to recite it aloud.
“Friendship
finds its future
in the love
which one thus binds
finds its everlasting aura
in the bathe
of together finds
in my forever quest
both passion and friendship are sealed
and when friends’ togetherness is opened
an aurora borealis
reveals.”
“You speak beautiful words, Maanta.” Shem grasped the boy’s shoulder with his hand. “Perhaps you would share them with Noah when we see him again. Though he cannot be here, you can share a piece of this place’s beauty with him.”
“I will gladly remember it for him.” Maanta took a long look out upon the ribbons of multicolored sky, the shimmering, beating sun and the swirls of frosty clouds, before closing his eyes and committing both them and his poem to memory.
The group would descend Ar’arat’s great slope within two days’ time, no more difficulties befalling them. As Maanta reached Ar’arat’s base he looked up at the vast spire above and realized he had completed his quest with much more than just physical accomplishment. There was his newfound strong friendship with Japeth and Shem to be thankful for, a new confidence that he could scale the cavern’s pits to the air and crystal cavern below Meridia, and the beauty of the aurora he had forever embraced in his mind.
“How amazing it would be to spend days on Ar’arat’s peak, taking in the aurora’s light ribbons and the sky about us.” Maanta stared up Ar’arat’s stone spire to where it disappeared in puffy clouds above. “But it would be too cold to stay there long and my people need me beneath the waters.”
Japeth punched him on the shoulder and began walking away from Ar’arat before handing Maanta the last handful of blueberries he had brought with them on the climb. “Then that settles it. We must make many trips to Ar’arat’s peak once you return from Meridia. Perhaps we could bring the girl you were thinking of when you fell, with us.”
Maanta jogged up to Japeth and Shem, who were walking side by side now. “How do you know I was thinking of a girl?”
Japeth grinned as Maanta popped a blueberry in his mouth. “There is always a girl.”
21