Rocks

 

Flor had never been up this high before either. He, Ayleah, and Atkins had bonded somewhat as the youngest members of the party, though among them Atkins had more experience in the mountains. She never held it over them, but she knew more about the clefts and crags of these rocky woods than most people of comparable age. She was also a capable scout, but had decided on this excursion to stick with the job of navigator. Raik was more than happy to tag along with his hover-bike and be their lookout.

Taking advantage of the break and good spirits at the top of the cliff, Atkins went over some charts with Jaen and Sutton, while Bellinda and the others checked over the vehicles again.

Ayleah and Flor wandered to the edge of the road and looked through the thin fence of spruce. They were now on a real outcrop of the mountain, and the land dropped precipitously beyond the line of trees. Blue sky showed through the lower branches. It was cooler up here too, with a raw wind penetrating the thin tree cover. It whipped and whistled around the steep rocky slopes. They both felt a thrill to think of how far they must be above the river valleys. All those verdant green lands were somewhere below; out there in that blue. From a low rounded boulder they could see only the edge of the slope. Some tips of trees fell away into a vast open expanse. Any other sight was still shrouded by the tangled lower branches of the evergreens.

The road here was narrow, with barely enough room for vehicles to pull off to the side. The group figured they should keep going while they were still making good time to the summit.

Flor hung back momentarily when Ayleah returned to the vans. There was something about her. Something he couldn't put words to, but it was there. She seemed special in some way, almost like when one enters a clearing in the woods and wonders why no one seems to know about it. The clearing is such a perfect spot for whatever leisure led you to the woods, but there is no sign labeling it as a feature, or marking of it on a map. It was not attraction he felt for this girl, but rather a worried curiosity. There could be something about her that was affecting their journey. Flor, being a technically-minded sort, looked for the influences of things and the mechanics of their activity. He saw Ayleah as a potential for chaos; uncontrollability in the system. That in itself was fine, but his worry was that there was something else, dark and sinister, behind her mechanics. He kept his eye on Ayleah when they got back in the vans. She seemed engrossed in her journal, writing a new entry. The more Flor studied her, the more she seemed like just a normal young woman with a sense of curiosity and adventure, no more.

The vehicles thumped softly up the road away from the dark chasm of the switchback ledge, but the mountain did not relent. Though none of the remaining ledges seemed quite as dangerous, the drivers were nevertheless given challenge enough. They ascended the sides of massive boulders and long tumbled fields of smaller ones flanked by incredibly steep woodland slopes. The dwellings were fewer now, true hermit shelters built into mossy cliffsides. A narrow band of sky above their path grew wider and wider as the trees became stunted and twisted from the constant winds. The rocks began to dominate more than anything else though, vast surfaces cleaned of dirt and moss by weather. They were light gray and banded through with bits of silver or whole stripes that would sparkle in the sun. Sometimes the group would pass near a whole side of a cliff gleaming as the sunlight pierced through clear pristine quartz. All along the giant rocks were dotted and colonized with hardy lichens, giving greenish hues to the rugged granite. Where repulsars or wheels had crushed the surface, the path sparkled with mica and crystal. It was hard, even for the older members of the party, to take the beauty of the high mountains for granted.

They were climbing one of the massive banded rocks, one where the vans had little choice of route but straight up the steep rough surface. As they slowly ascended, the gap of sky above them won its battle with the trees, the stunted spruce retreating to crevices in between the cliffs. It would have allowed the fullness of sun onto the wide granite surface, if there had been sun in the sky. Though it was a clear enough day, they had climbed now right into a dry cool fog. Clouds often lingered about the mountain peaks, Ayleah remembered now, wondering again at where she was.

Just above their way and to the left stood a round boulder at least sixty foot high from its base. It was natural and rough, but looked almost round enough to have been carved, and was comprised of pure white marble. Sutton turned to Jaen in the front of the first van. “Almost there.” he said with a grin.