Magic of Ben Macdui - Ch.3 - Close Enough (Patreon)

"Am I seeing things?" I asked quietly as I stared at the bizarre sight off to our left. "Or do you see that too?"

Yuki responded, "Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's real."

"How?" I frowned. "What even is that? It looks like a bus. Or maybe a train carriage? But what's it doing halfway up a mountain?"

We were staring at a broken and twisted metallic shape sticking up on end from some of the huge boulders and crushed rocks that had once been Cairn Gorm. The man-made wreckage seemed completely out of place amid the rest of the fractured landscape.

We were about three-quarters of the way to our destination, having travelled a good three kilometres from our camp. And we'd climbed at least two hundred and fifty, maybe three hundred meters in altitude. Lock Morlich was still clearly visible some distance behind and noticeably below us, and looking back I couldn't help but feel impressed at how far we'd come. Especially considering the conditions, hiking and climbing barefoot at night.

After another second or two of silence, my headmate finally responded. "Oh! That's exactly what it is! They have a funicular here. Or at least, they used to. The Cairngorm Mountain Railway, it took people up to the top of the mountain."

Her voice got a little quieter as she added, "They had a restaurant and bar up there, along with a viewing platform and a gift shop and all that touristy stuff."

"I sure hope nobody was in there tonight," I sighed. "I hope all that stuff was closed."

After a second or two Yuki assured me, "It was. Summer tourist season's over, and winter skiing is at least a couple months away. So it was all shut down."

I nodded slowly, "Good."

Then I turned my attention away from the mangled rail car and instead looked further uphill. We were still following that stream, and it seemed to be coming from a little ways east of the impossible new spire.

"We're nearly there," I commented. "It's getting steeper though. What do you think? Another half a kilometre away? But it looks like we've got sixty or seventy meters more elevation to climb too."

"We can do it. We've made good time so far just following this stream. I bet it won't even take us a half hour to get to the base of that new mountain," Yuki replied.

That made me grimace, "I don't know about that. And I'm not sure how close I want to get? It might not be safe."

"What?!" she protested. "You can't give up now Aster! We've already come this far, but we haven't answered any of those questions yet!"

I rolled my eyes as I finally started moving again, "I didn't say anything about quitting. All I'm saying is it might not be safe to get too close to the impossible glowing mountain that appeared out of nowhere. We'll see how it looks as we get nearer."

That seemed to appease her, and for the next twenty or thirty minutes the two of us were mostly focused on the hike. We finally came to a halt when we reached a nearly vertical wall of rock in our path. It was a good three or four meters high and there didn't seem to be any safe way for us to climb it. The stream was coming down through a gap that wasn't so steep, but either side of that seemed all but impassable.

"It's going to take us a while to figure out a way around this," I frowned. "Frustrating because it feels like once we get ontop of it we ought to have a better view of where that new mountain's sticking out of the landscape."

After a few seconds of looking around I added, "That's assuming there is a way around. I'm not seeing anything."

Off to the left the vertical wall seemed to end with the shattered remains of Cairn Gorm, and we'd already decided that was too dangerous and unstable to approach. And looking to the right the small sheer cliff went as far as I could see. Maybe all the way around the new mountain.

"How do you feel about getting our hands and feet wet again?" Yuki asked. "We've been following the stream, right? That gap it's coming through looks climbable."

I made a face as I asked, "Are you serious? You want me to climb up a waterfall? Without proper climbing gear, barefoot, in the autumn, in the highlands, and at night? Remember how we were talking about hypothermia not too long ago?"

My headmate shrugged, "Do you have any better ideas? C'mon Aster, we're almost there! Just four or five more meters is all it takes! Then maybe we'll have our answers. Whatever's up there, we'll be the first ones to see it!"

"Or we'll break our neck trying," I grumbled. "Or maybe we'll catch hypothermia after all. Or pneumonia. Then we can tell the nurses how we were the first ones here, while they're looking after us in hospital."

Yuki sounded thoughtful as she commented, "You know, I wonder what the NHS would think of us now? Do you suppose they'd overlook the vulpine parts and just treat us as a normal girl? Or would they get all uptight about the ears and tail?"

I couldn't help smiling at that while my tail wagged happily behind me. "Forget about being a normal girl, I'm a kitsune! We both are!"

"Just the one tail though," she teased. "Anyways c'mon, why don't we have a closer look at where the stream's coming through that gap? I bet we can get through it!"

"Why don't you ask your raven friend if she thinks it's safe?" I snarked back as I moved closer to the stream.

"That's actually a great idea," she agreed. Then she shouted in our head, "Cara! Are you about? Can you have a look for us, what's up ontop this little cliff? Is it safe for us to get up there?"

By that point I wasn't surprised to hear the big black bird respond with a loud caw from somewhere above us. And sure enough a moment later she landed ontop of the small cliff over our head, where she paced back and forth to the right of the small waterfall.

After a couple seconds she added, "Caw caw!"

As crazy as it seemed, I couldn't shake the feeling that she was telling us it looked safe. 

My headmate seemed to agree with that interpretation as she announced, "So let's go! Don't worry about getting a little wet, we still have our towel right? And more clean clothes if we need them."

"Fine," I sighed as I carefully moved closer to the water.

I tentatively stepped into the stream, then frowned. "Huh. It's nowhere near as cold as I was expecting."

"Actually," I added as I started moving closer to the little waterfall, "It almost feels sort of warm."

Yuki grinned, "That's perfect! And to think, you were worried about hypothermia."

My ears were folded back and my tail stuck straight out behind me as I tried to keep it from getting wet again, then I leaned forward and reached into the waterfall to find some handholds. 

"Forget hypothermia," I commented as we started carefully climbing up through the falling water. "Now I'm worried about radiation."

That seemed to surprise the little arctic kitsune. She asked, "What? Why are you thinking about that?"

I shrugged, "Giant glowing rock making the water warmer than it ought to be?"

She seemed to think that over for a minute or so before dismissing it, "Nah. Radiation might do those things, but it definitely doesn't provide instant transitions. It won't make folks instantly grow a big floofy tail or fuzzy ears either. If it did you'd get a lot more trans people and furries working at nuclear power plants or something. This is magic. It has to be."

By that point I was too focused on climbing up the waterfall to respond. And as far as I was concerned I was doing a really good job of it too. I managed to keep my tail and my clothes dry, more or less. My hands and feet were soaked, and more than once I got a face-full of spray as the water splashed unexpectedly, but after only about ten minutes we'd made it all the way to the top. 

I found myself standing in a pool of water that came up over my knees. Which meant my pants were definitely soaked again. For that matter so was my jacket, and I couldn't help think maybe climbing up the waterfall wasn't such a great idea after all. 

On the other hand I managed to keep my tail dry during the climb, and now that I was at the top I kept it standing straight up behind me to make sure my floof didn't get soaked again.

"At least the water isn't freezing cold," I commented quietly. "It actually feels kind of nice? Warmer than the air anyways."

"Then again even the air's not that cold tonight," I added as I looked around.

The pond was about twenty meters across and at least forty meters long. It sat in a depression that was part of a small plateau that seemed to be about mid-way between the impossible mountain to the west and the remains of Cairn Gorm to the east. 

There was more crushed and shattered rock ahead of us to the south, and from the way the terrain looked in the dim light I had a feeling the deluge came from further in that direction. The stream we'd been following definitely wasn't enough to have caused it, that was for sure. 

And on that topic, I could finally see where the stream was actually coming from. The pond we were standing in was fed from water running down from the foot of that impossible mountain. It didn't make sense, but from what I could see the base of it was surrounded by a small natural moat. It was too far to say for sure but I'd guess it was bubbling up from underground, overflowed the area immediately around the bottom of the glowing mountain, then ran downhill and pooled on this little plateau. And from here it flowed north over that little cliff then down the foothills until it probably emptied into Loch Morlich.

"Aster can you get the map out please?" Yuki suddenly asked. "I don't remember what was to the south there, but it looks like that's where our flood came from."

I nodded as I started heading south away from the cliff and waterfall, "Yeah give me a minute. Let's get out of this water first ok? And away from the edge of the cliff. I don't want to risk any accidents."

She shook her head, "Go right. Uphill, towards the new mountain. We'll get a better view from there."

"Fine," I responded as I turned to the right. It meant walking along almost all forty meters of the pond's length, rather than across its width which was narrower. But the water felt nice enough that I didn't actually mind.

The end of the pond was also the end of the little plateau, and beyond that the ground rose quickly towards the foot of the new mountain. I stopped a couple paces from the edge of the pond, then finally shrugged the pack off our back and set it down on the rocky ground. I fished out our map, along with our flashlight. Unfortunately the light didn't seem to be working, despite several attempts to turn it on.

"Forget it," Yuki said. "There's enough light coming off that mountain, and the clouds too."

She was right, so I tucked the flashlight away again as I commented "It's supposed to be waterproof, but maybe it got banged up during the earthquake."

We ended up sitting down on our backpack as we turned the map around to get our bearings. It took us a minute or so to translate the new landscape to the document we'd printed out before beginning our vacation.

"So that's where Cairn Gorm was," I said as I gestured. "Ben Macdui's over there to the south. There's Loch Morlich to the north, and the Lairig Ghru pass is over that way. And that rise north-west of us must be Castle Hill."

Then I put my finger on the map and stated, "I'd say that puts us right here? Which means the new mountain basically came up ontop of Cairn Lochan, like we figured."

"Yeah," Yuki agreed. Then she gestured, "And there to the south? That's where the deluge came from, right? Look at that."

She pointed at the map, then at what we could see of the landscape in that direction. "Loch Avon is gone. I'd say when Cain Gorm collapsed the loch drained north. That'd easily be enough water to wash away the whole forest we were camping in."

I stood up and looked in the direction my headmate indicated, then slowly turned left and right from there. I finally pointed out, "Looks to me like the loch drained in two directions? Half came our way, towards Loch Morlich. I think the other half went east of Cairn Gorm, down into the River Nethy."

We were both silent for a few moments as all that sank in. Yuki finally said, "Ok. It's not every day you get woken up by an earthquake, a brand new glowing mountain, and half a lake coming down on your head."

"Once is enough," I said as I rolled my eyes. Then I looked towards the impossible mountain again and asked, "You still want us to get closer to that?"

She responded immediately, "Yeah! Let's keep going!"

I nodded as I put the map away then got our gear settled on my back again, before I was ready to continue the hike. 

"I guess we'll keep following this stream," I commented as I started heading further uphill. "I'm not sure how close I want to get to that mountain though? To be honest it kind of feels like we're already too close?"

My headmate pouted, "I'd honestly like to get right to the base? Close enough we could touch it."

I shook my head, but before I could say anything our raven friend cawed loudly. She was standing on some rocks a meter or two to my left, and she had her head tilted slightly as she stared at us. And I was positive she was telling both Yuki and I that it wasn't safe to get any closer.

"Maybe the bird's right?" I said as I stopped again.

Yuki protested, "It's less than two hundred meters, and it's not even that steep now! It'll only take us a few minutes."

At that point Cara hopped off the rocks and set herself down on the ground directly between us and the impossible mountain. 

Then the raven looked up at us and stated, "You asked me to tell you if it was safe or not, white-fox. And I'm telling you right now it's not safe up there. You don't want to get any closer than this."

"Aww!" my headmate pouted.

Meanwhile I just rubbed my forehead and sighed, "That bird is really actually talking to us, isn't she?"

*** This chapter is brought to you courtesy of Aster & Yuki who commissioned it! ***