She shrugged, shaking her head. “No clue. I don’t even know exactly what’s at the top; I’ve never been up there in my life. Never had reason to. I’ll keep watch while you’re up there, though. Good luck.”
Grimacing, I helped River onto my back. Then I drifted upward, my eyes fixed at the top.
“Do you really think this’ll be the last thing the oracle will ask us to do?” River’s voice was higher pitched than normal.
“No clue.” Anything was possible with Hortencia. Literally, anything.
We fell into silence as I continued to fly upward, until River broke out into a violent coughing fit. I paused in the air, craning my neck to look back at her. “You okay, baby?”
She was coughing too much to even answer my question.
“Hey,” I said, tensing. I guided her off my back and into my arms. I held her in front of me, leaning her backside against the rocks as I examined her. Her coughing was only becoming worse. “It’s this smoke,” I breathed. We’d just broached the borders of the dark cloud.
Casting aside all thoughts of the oracle’s precise instructions, I immediately hurtled back down the mountain. The lower we sank, the more River’s coughing died down. Finally, she was able to talk normally. “Yeah,” she said, clutching her throat. “It must have been the smoke.”
Being half human, River was clearly more susceptible than me, who hadn’t been bothered by it.
“Right.” I clenched my jaw, eyes darting upward to the mountain’s peak, and then down to the ground where Aisha was hovering. “I’m returning you to the ground.”
Fear filled her eyes. “But, Ben, Hortencia said—”
“I know what Hortencia said.” Cutting short a debate, I flew her back down to the ground and planted her on the sand.
“Huh?” Aisha’s nose wrinkled in confusion. “What are you doing back down here already?”
“I have to continue by myself,” I said, sliding out the letter from River’s pocket. “It’s far too toxic up there for River.”
“But the oracle—” Aisha began.
“And if the oracle kicks up a fuss,” I went on, “well… so be it.”
Ben
Traveling back up the mountain, I flew fully into the cloud of smog. It became so thick that I could barely see two feet in front of me. I climbed higher and higher through the toxic gas, and it started to make even me feel heady.
Finally, I reached the top. The peak was actually not as sharp as it looked from the ground. Its very tip was a wide plateau and in the center bubbled a crater, spewing forth smoke and sparks of fuming lava. I moved around the crater, trying to scope the place out through all the thick fog, and as I’d almost come full circle, I found myself rooted to the spot. There, standing in a corner just ten feet away, was an old woman. An old woman with fleshy pits instead of eyes. She wore a long black robe.
“Hortencia,” I breathed. “You’re… you’re here.” A part of me wondered if this was some kind of illusion brought about by the fumes.
Lowering her hood, she hobbled close to me. She looked so ancient, even more now that I saw her in the flesh. So feeble that she might crack a bone just by walking.
Her shriveled lips curved in a smile that revealed her yellowed teeth. “Good,” she croaked. “You passed my second test.”
I gaped at her. “What?” But I didn’t even follow your rules.
Chuckling, she planted a hand around my right forearm and led me away from the middle of the volcano toward a clearer patch of plateau, where the wind was stronger and the air was slightly clearer.
“Some rules, boy, are meant to be broken. That is where the skill lies, of any true leader; deciding which rules should be broken and which should be kept intact.”
I still stared at her, wondering where she was going with all of this.
“Why don’t you take another peek at your letter,” she suggested patronizingly.
I unfolded it to see that the text had changed.
“Place love before law, and you shall live a fruitful, though not flawless, life.”
Okay… I guessed my refusing to bring River up here was approved by the oracle. This sure came as a surprise to me. Hortencia hadn’t exactly given me the impression that she was the romantic type, and had always struck me as quite callous when it came to finer sentiments like love or awareness of the feelings of others. I narrowed my eyes on her. Is this really the same Hortencia?