The mountain mist thickened as Ahayue climbed. By midday, the world had narrowed to gray walls of vapor and slick black stone beneath his feet. The air thinned further with every step, his chest aching as if knives pressed into his ribs. Each breath rasped, ragged and shallow.
Yet what unsettled him most was not the cold, nor the hunger, nor the sharp bite of wind—it was the silence. Even in the jungle, silence had never been complete; there were always insects, rustling leaves, distant cries. But here the world seemed emptied of sound, except for the hollow scrape of his staff against stone and the wheeze of his own breath.
Still, at times, he thought he heard something else: a low hum, like rock vibrating deep below the surface. Once or twice, he swore he heard a voice in the mist calling his name.
Ahayue… Ahayue…
He shook his head, muttering, "Not this time. You will not twist me again," though his voice trembled. The memory of the shrine's shadow still burned in his mind.
The Plateau of Whispers
By dusk, he stumbled into a plateau. The mist swirled above it in a great bowl, forming eddies as if stirred by an unseen hand. In the center stood a cairn of stones stacked higher than a man, marked with spirals that glowed faintly in the dim light.
Ahayue froze. The glow pulsed, slow and steady, like the beat of a heart.
And then the mist moved.
It gathered at the cairn's base, thickening into a shape. Slowly, impossibly, the fog coiled upward and formed limbs, antlers, wings of stone. A face emerged, mask-like, with hollow sockets where eyes should be.
Ahayue staggered back, staff raised instinctively. His heart thundered, but the apparition did not strike. It simply stood, vast and silent, a figure woven of mountain and sky.
When it spoke, its voice was neither deep nor high, but layered—stone grinding, wind sighing, water rushing, all at once:
"Marked one. The mountains have waited."
The Trial of Vision
Ahayue's mouth went dry. "What are you?"
The spirit tilted its mask-face. "Guardian. Witness. Echo of what was, what is, what may yet come. You seek to climb further, but the way is not stone alone. You must pass through truth."
Before Ahayue could answer, the mist surged forward.
He gasped as it wrapped around him, cold as burial shrouds. The plateau vanished. The cairn vanished. The guardian became a shadow. And then—visions bloomed.
The First Vision: The Boy He Was
He stood again in his tribe's village, though it felt like memory given flesh. Children surrounded him, their laughter cruel, their words sharp as thorns.
"Crooked-back!" one shouted.
"Cursed one!" cried another.
"Why did the spirits leave you twisted?"
Ahayue felt the sting as though it were happening again, shame rising like bile. His hands clenched. He wanted to scream that it wasn't his fault, that he had done nothing to deserve his body's torment.
The spirit's voice rumbled unseen: "Do you hate them still?"
"Yes," Ahayue spat without thinking. But then his chest twisted. No—that wasn't the whole truth. "I hate… that I let them carve me hollow. I hate that I believed their words more than my own blood."
The children dissolved into mist, leaving only silence.
The Second Vision: The Man He Might Be
The scene shifted.
Now Ahayue stood tall, straight-backed, his body whole. His limbs strong, his chest broad. The people of his tribe bowed before him, their jeers turned into praise. He was chieftain, warrior, leader.
A thrill shot through him. For a heartbeat, he longed for it—to be free of pain, to stand proud and unbroken.
The spirit's voice whispered: "Is this what you seek? To be as they are, so you may be praised as they praise? Would you trade all else for a body unmarked?"
Ahayue reached out to touch his imagined self, but the figure's eyes were empty hollows. He froze.
"No…" His voice cracked. "No, that's not enough. What use is a strong back if I am still chained inside? I don't want only their praise. I want to know why I was made this way. I want to know what the mark means."
The figure shattered into fragments of light, scattering like sparks on the wind.
The Third Vision: The Shadow's Claim
Darkness swallowed the air.
The shadow-being loomed again, larger now, its limbs endless, its form shifting like storm clouds. Its laughter shook the ground.
"You are mine," it said, the same words as before, its voice rumbling like a thousand stones falling. "No shrine, no spirit, no mountain will undo me. I live in your marrow, and I will devour you when the end comes."
Ahayue trembled. His knees buckled, but he forced himself upright, gripping his staff like a lifeline.
The spirit's voice whispered through the mist, testing: "What say you, marked one? When shadow claims you, what will remain?"
Ahayue's voice shook, but he spoke: "If I cannot tear you out, then I will carry you as fire in my blood. You will not break me. Even if I burn, I will burn walking forward."
The shadow shrieked, lunging at him—but dissolved into mist before it could strike.
The Spirit's Judgment
The plateau returned. Ahayue collapsed onto his knees, chest heaving, sweat chilling his skin. The spirit still towered before him, silent, wings of stone unmoving.
At last, it spoke:
"Truth is bitter, but you did not flee it. You have seen what was, what might be, what clings to you still. You are not free, but you are not hollow."
Its antlers glowed faintly, and one fragment of light fell into Ahayue's hands. It was a shard of stone, smooth and warm, carved with a spiral that matched his amulet.
"Carry this," the spirit intoned. "Not as weapon, but as witness. When earth meets sky, you will be asked again."
Ahayue clutched the stone, its weight heavy despite its smallness.
The mist unraveled, thinning until the plateau lay bare again, empty but for the cairn. The spirit was gone.
Aftermath
Night fell, stars wheeling sharp and cold above. Ahayue lay curled against the cairn, the stone shard pressed to his chest beside his amulet. His body ached, his lungs still burned, but inside, a new steadiness rooted itself.
He was still cursed. He was still crooked, frail, half-starved. Yet he had faced truth—not only the cruelty of others, not only his own longing, but the shadow's claim. And he had not broken.
When dawn spilled gold over the peaks, Ahayue rose and whispered, "I walk forward."
And the mountains seemed to echo him, stone humming faintly beneath his feet as he continued upward, step by step, into the waiting mist.