(TLO) Chapter 43: A Dog In This Fight (Patreon)

All four of them met the mountain another day into their journey. Around its base the mist was nigh nonexistent.

It stood like all mountains do; solid and unmoving. It was littered in greenery the likes of which put most of what Seth had seen to shame. It was beleaguered with leaves as well as flowers. Hibiscuses and snapdragons blossomed from every groove and crevice. Plants climbed along its sides so that it gave it the visage of an African woman blessed in the beauty of her braids, the blossoming flowers daring adornments to each one.

There was a cave at a certain height almost halfway up. They could not see it from where they stood, but they knew it was there as they’d known most of the things that had brought them here.

At the mountain’s peak the mist gathered. It could’ve merely been the clouds of the ever absent sky, but they doubted it. They had not seen the sky once in the days they’d been walking. They refused to see it now. So they watched the mist gather at the mountain peak, veiling it like a shawl so that its peak was kept from them like the secrets of soul magic.

Together they stood to watch it. This was one thing they held in common in this moment: an appreciation for the beauty before them, an appreciation for the misty mountain.

But they could not remain watching for long, so it was no surprise when Seth moved and they followed. As beautiful as it was, it remained a mountain they would have to scale with dread smiling down at them with a demon’s promise.

Then they climbed.

The task was no ordeal. It did not challenge them; neither did it interest them. Climbing came easy but not natural. Each step held at its horizon the promise of slipping. At the edge of every hold was the temptation of the stone held breaking. Their bodies were not strained, but their minds labored, fear and caution were their effervescent companions.

Besides the dread, the climb was uneventful. It was not long before they reached a cavernous entry on the side of the mountain that seemed naturally made, but they could not be certain it was. It seemed not all knowledge was theirs. Then again, knowledge seemed to befriend them only up to the mountain. Here, it fled like snow under the glare of the sun.

As they each pulled themselves up and into the cave, Seth spoke first, arranging a disheveled head of hair. “What do you think is in here?”

“We,” a replica corrected him.

“We?”

“Yes, ‘we’,” the replica clarified, walking deeper into the cave and taking a subtle lead. “We are one.” He spared Seth a solemn look as he past him. “Not separate.”

He reached for the side of the cave and pulled out a torch its rough wall he was beginning to believe was naturally made. It was unlit so he turned to the rest of them.

“Fire?” he asked.

“And no one cares how we know it was there,” Seth said, not expecting a response. “Or how he is now the only one with a torch.”

One replica shrugged.

Another merely stared at him, puzzled.

The third was a bit more helpful. “Is it oiled?” he asked the one holding the torch.

The replica with the torch rubbed its head with thumb and forefinger and nodded. “Like a greased up whor—”

Seth silenced him with a firm frown. “Just find two stones and strike them,” he said in exasperation. “No need for crude words.”

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps not. It didn’t matter. The mystery of the original would solve itself soon. They were close enough to the end already, and a lot of things happened when people were close enough to the end.

The replica reached down and picked up a single piece of rock without having to search. It was almost as if his hand had been guided, or the rock had been guided—it didn’t matter. With it, he placed the head of the torch against the wall and struck beside it. Nothing happened in the beginning, but a few more strikes saw the birth of sparks.

It was a pitch of luck that the walls were dry.

Seth and his companions watched as the replica continued to strike. And at a number uncounted, the torch was set ablaze, burning a strong blue.

“Should we be worried?” Seth asked, staring at the oddly colored flame.

“Worried?” the replica looked at him. “I’m more shocked at the fact that that worked. I swear physics would be confused right now.”

The replica waved the oddly colored flame around. Certain its strange color still provided them enough light to see with, he motioned for his companions to follow.

“And physics cannot be confused,” Seth told the replica as they moved. “It’s not alive.”

The replica behind him snorted at his words. “It’s called personification. Didn’t we learn anything back home?”

We. Seth picked on the word like a bird of prey. He noted how naturally the replica had used it; how easily. He had tracked this one since before the mountain. He’d paid attention to every word, every action. He’d watched and listened and waited. He needed certainty if he was going to do what needed to be done, because there would be no going back.

Now, cast in the glow of the blue flame, he was certain.

The Seth behind him was a replica. And that was all he needed to know to act. All else would—hopefully—fall into place. Which meant he had deduced two replicas which left him with two more.

Seth stepped forward abruptly and snatched the torch from the replica in front of him. He turned as quickly as his body allowed him and struck the replica behind him with the torch. Blue fire whipped through the dry air to explode against his target’s face, engulfing it in flame. As the replica stumbled from the blow, he caught sight of the replica behind his quarry and saw the smirk adorn his lips.

He frowned at this. The replica would come for him. But it was expected. What was to happen was best done here. Any deeper in and they would rouse whatever was inside this mountain that they feared so much. At least he knew one thing now: he had discovered the three replicas.

Seth rushed the other replica almost immediately and tackled him to the ground, refusing to give himself time to recoup. The torch fell from his hand in the scuttle that ensued. It hit the ground but its light did not go out.

He struggled with himself, grappling and twisting like a fish in a net. All of Domitia’s teachings were absent in the action, gone in the desperate need to survive; to win. One whole year of learning to fight was drummed down to a childish struggle. For a brief moment Seth wondered how saddened the priest would be should he learn of this.

“I applaud your cunning,” Seth whispered as he gained the advantage over the replica in the struggle. “But there can be only one.”

“We are one,” the replica spat, as he fought off his opponent, struggling to get out from under him. “Always have been.”

“Then…” Seth forced through gnashed teeth. “I’ll lead and you all can follow.”

Seth raised something above his head with one hand and brought it down. The replica moved his head to the side as Seth struck, and pain slid down the length of his cheek. The replica did not need to check it to know he was bleeding. The sound of something digging in the dirt was muffled beside his ear but was loud enough to tell him his opponent now had a blade.

“Did you know,” Seth grinned, still on top of him, “that we can conjure up anything we want in this place. It’s an interesting power for an unsouled. Imagine what we’ll be able to do once we’re souled.”

The replica didn’t care for the ramblings. He was, after all, trying not to get killed.

With as much force as he could muster, he threw his legs upwards and wrapped them around Seth’s torso. In return, Seth trapped his legs beneath his armpits.

“Won’t work,” he told the replica. “I’m stronger.”

“You’re really not,” the replica returned, then he yanked his legs back.

Seth followed his legs and was tossed back by the force of them so that he hit the ground and was forced to roll to the side just to get his feet beneath him.

Off to the side the only standing Seth watched in puzzlement. He watched a replica with a head burning a bright blue lay unmoving. Off to his left he watched two replicas fight themselves. One wielded a short-sword with a blade of blue fire while the other came to his feet cautiously, eyes inching toward the lit torch.

Seth didn’t even know when everything had gone south. One moment he’d been holding the torch and the next chaos had erupted.

Everything confused him. But one thing was for certain, he picked up a piece of rock and approach the burning replica, a single thought slithering through his mind.

There can be only one…

“Leave him be!” the replica with the burning short-sword hissed.

The sound startled Seth and he froze. He did not release the stone in his hand from the shock, and his fingers tightened rather than loosen. He turned his attention to the replica, still eyeing the lit torch laying on the ground. The torch cast them all in a blue glow as if illuminated by some luminous strain of unknown origin.

He watched for a quiet moment as no one moved. Contemplation filled his mind. It was obvious that not all of them would come out of the mountain alive. In fact, it seemed mandatory that not all of them come out alive.

Seth cast the thought from his mind. The armed replica had held him back momentarily but not forever. Then he continued his approach with a determined mind. The unmoving replica with a burning head might very well be dead but he had to be sure while the other two were occupied. He was tired of their bickering and constant existence in his head. This was his chance to be rid of them and he was going to take it.

“He’s not dead, you dumb fool,” the armed replica barked, now on his feet. Then he dived for the lit torch.

His opponent responded almost immediately. It was as if he had been waiting for the very action. He struck out a burning blade brought to life from nowhere. He threw it at the lit torch with a flick of his wrist. It flew true, but the replica that had stopped Seth maneuvered his dive so that he was no longer going for the torch. He soared past it, bare inches above the ground. The flying blade nicked him in the leg as it passed but that was all. His grey clothe that was actually a cassock was singed at the hem, but he gave no visible reaction to it.

His dive came to an end and he hit the ground with a thud, a few steps closer to Seth.

Seth found himself contemplating his next action. Did he go after the burning Seth or strike out at this one? This one did not seem a threat, at least not a terrible one. But things could change. Only moments ago they had seemed in some form of peaceful agreement and now there was nothing but chaos.

Seth turned to the one closest to him as he rose to his feet. Rock still firm in his hold, he eased himself into a defensive pose, or perhaps it was an offensive one. The thing with some of Domitia’s teachings was that a posture could be anything. And with his stance for standing and walking taught to him by Jabari still vividly ingrained into his body, his posture could very well be anything. Transitioning from one form to the other was the easiest thing for him, so much so that Domitia occasionally praised him for it.

The replica raised a hand to stall him as he got up.

“I am not your enemy,” he said, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the the replica that had been his opponent. “Truthfully, none of us are. But there are things that must be done.”

That was true. At least part of it. But to believe they were truly not his enemies was to believe that the sky would one day fall and he would catch it. In the beginning they had not been his enemies. During their journey they had not been his enemies. Now, however, they would gut him like a trout without a second thought. And he was inclined to do the same.

After all, there could be only one.

He raised his hand high above his head, rock firmly in its grip, and struck.

The replica ducked the blow easily, came up beside him and cuffed him behind the ear. The blow sent Seth’s ear ringing. It staggered him slightly and he dropped the rock in his hand. He regained his footing a moment later, but the world seemed to sway in his vision. Whatever force the replica had struck him with was more than sufficient to put him down, he had trained long enough in the seminary to know this. So he wondered how he was still standing, wobbly though his legs were.

“Are you deaf?” the replica asked, curious, taking an easy step away from him. “Or is it paranoia that spurs you?”

Seth would’ve answered with something witty or perhaps paranoid if he could get his wits about him, because even as he understood the question, his eyes could not focus enough to track the source of it.

One thing had been made clear of this, though. The Seth who had struck him had sufficient enough power to kill him. And as much as it shamed him to know this, it did not cow him. He still had a dog in this fight, and he would see it won or dead.

“You… do not…” Seth stumbled over his words as he fought his vision with eyes tightly shut.

His next words did not leave his lips. They remained fairly at the tip of his tongue as the air around him filled itself with the sound of bodies meeting. It was a sound he was most familiar with. The sound of bodies clashing, fists meeting chin and stomach, body throws and painful grunts. It was the sound of Domitia’s lessons. It was the sound of the two other replicas ignoring him to face each other. Apparently, they didn’t consider him a threat.

When his vision steadied and he finally saw the fight, each replica held a knife with a blade that burned blue while he remained unarmed.

It did not take Seth long to know that whatever dog he had had in this fight was long since dead.