A New Night

The Final Climb

I could not say that I felt the cold like Romalla and perhaps the Hunters felt. In fact, my machinery felt crisper and more efficient than ever. With the morning winds whipping around us and the wetness of the snow falling from gray skies, I worried about hypothermia or frostbite. Scraa had finally begun to shiver a bit. Dro had not, but I would not have been surprised if he had long ago suppressed any compulsion to shiver to avoid the appearance of weakness or something like that. I needed to figure out how I was going to climb the wire and promptly.

My own worry about the heights had settled a bit. This was despite that the clouds had enveloped and added to the blinding effect of the snow. Then I realized—I was in the clouds ... in the clouds. No, my anxiety was not gone at all anymore.

“I can barely feel my claws,” Scraa said, with more of a frustrated tone than a whiny one. His claws were, in fact, covered with snow and ice.

I glanced up at the Sky City. The frosty wire that connected the peak to the platform above was one of twenty that went around the circular platform above us. The wire above me was the only one that was at an angle that was climbable. The others went almost straight down to their various anchor points in the Wall.

“I have never seen beyond the Wall,” Dro said. To my surprise, he was staring not at the Sky City he had spent so long trying to climb. No, he was staring at the sea and the islands that were speckled across it. “I could have never guessed that beyond it would lie infinite. More jungles like our own, I thought, with Hunters who followed the old ways of our people. I did not guess that we would be alone. The world is so a small … and yet … so vast a place.”

I gave a slight nod, though this gesture felt inadequate. But I wanted to share in this moment of wonder—and share what I seemed to know about it, even though I didn’t know how I did or if anything I knew still applied to this world. “If this is the world I once knew, it is enormous. But … if you could hop from island to island … I think there would be other people out there. And if you had a boat to float on the water, you could spend years to go all the way around and end up right back here.”

Dro considered this for a moment and then said, “When I have finished taking the knowledge I need from the Alpha Predators, I will crumble these accursed walls and do just that.”

I shook my head, not out of doubt of his ability to fulfill his goal, but because I knew what lived out beyond the sea. “Trust me, it’s probably good that the Wall is there.”

“They keep the Golems from destroying or taking your people,” Romalla said between her cold shivers.

Dro looked between us, not seeming convinced. “We will see after we test the mettle of the Alpha Predators,” He licked his lips. I couldn’t tell if it was a power-hungry expression or if he was just getting some hydration from the snow that powdered his face.

On shaky legs, I stood up on the final ledge of the Mountain. I was close enough to touch the wire (or—more accurately—the thick layers of ice around it). I climbed closer and reached my trembling arms around the wire. This was just barely possible. So how did I get the others across?

As if to answer my question, Romalla lit up and said, “Excellent! You can use your godlike strength to carry all of us across.” This had certainly not been my plan, but already, She, Dro, and Scraa were all nodding at one another in agreement and then looking at me expectantly. This brought another horrific shiver.

“You … want me to climb this icy wire up into the sky, over jagged mountain peaks below, carrying all of you to the Sky City? This, I remind you all, is before we even know if we can actually climb the Sky City itself once we get to the bottom of it. And getting there is assuming we do not fall to our deaths.” Despite it being impossible, I felt nearly breathless when I finished my little diatribe.

They all stared at me for a moment—as if I were the most irrational person on the planet.

Scraa raised a paw. “Bassello, I think I was wrong earlier. I think we would probably bounce, and it would be great fun. Maybe we would bounce so high that we went all the way to the Alpha Predators. So … you should not be scared.” He then looked at Romalla, clearly seeking some kind of approval.

Romalla nodded with a big, fake smile—which gradually fell away when I glared at her, unimpressed. Then, to my surprise, she began to scratch between her toes with her claws. After a moment, she said, “Bassello … wouldn’t it only make sense that you would have a way to climb the Sky City if you were able to climb the Wall? It seems possible that the ability to ascend these ruins of the gods could be why you exchanged your divinity for a stone body.”

This … did actually make sense to me. My body had clearly been engineered for climbing concrete. Though this hadn’t been particularly effective on the Mountain, the Wall had been easy. What if … this was my purpose? What if I had been meant to wake up and return to where I belonged?

I said, “fine,” and only kept my voice from cracking by my willpower. I turned and then paused for a moment. I gathered what remained of my drive to press forward and then wrapped my arms around the ice. As long as my arms were, my fingertips barely managed to touch. I then said, “Alright … grab on.” However, nothing happened.

I turned to see Dro and Scraa paying uncomfortable glassed to one another and at me. It seemed that physical closeness was another abnormal thing among Hunters. When they saw my amusement, however, they finally climbed on my back. Without a thought, Romalla snuggled between them.

“Wrap your tails around me as well, in case there is any slipping. Now, just shift to my back...” I lifted my legs and wrapped them sloth-style around the wire as well.

This was it.

First, I tried to shuffle and shimmy upward. But this accomplished little, given the angle, the ice, and all the weight. Then, I unwrapped my toes, planted the points into the icy underside of the wire, and began to walk us forward. Doing this, I was able to push us forward and up like a reverse zipline. Unlike the previous strategy, the ice actually made this strategy easier. It was … working?

I still constantly feared slipping ... or the ice ending abruptly, and my arms being cut off by the metal wire—followed by a fall.

“I am pleased that I missed you with that boulder as you were climbing,” Dro said, sounding somehow both exhilarated and still uncomfortable as we jettisoned up the icy wire. “Using the pieces of your body for this task would have been more difficult than I had imagined.”

I tried to roll my eyes and then replied, “I’m glad I made you not regret avoiding murdering me.”

We continued on. Snow continued to fall upon us—now joined by the ice shaved off the top of the wire by my metal arms. What was more, I could only see the wire and the sky. There was nothing up and nothing down to trigger my fear into full-blown panic attacks. Emboldened, I began to push us even faster for several minutes. Though I was likely losing my mind, this seemed … kind of fun.

After a bit, Dro finally said, “You are approaching; we need to slow down.”

But his warning had come too late. I heard a crack and then felt the ice break. My stomach felt like it was in my throat. I caught myself on the bare wire, heard two screams, and then felt claws scratch my metallic body.

It took me a moment to figure out why there was suddenly no ice. The air had become suddenly warm—much warmer, in fact. It was close to what the temperature had been at the foot of the mountain. I looked up and saw gray stone about a foot away from my face. This … made me dizzy. It seemed that the ice giving out had saved me from ramming my head directly into concrete.

“Excellent, we have made it,” Romalla said, acting like the situation was over much too quickly. She sank her claws into the concrete surface and then transferred her weight onto it. “My priest’s intuition was right. It’s the same as the Gods’ Wall!”

Scraa reached out to grab on. Unfortunately, his thicker claws—connected to a significantly heavier body—could not do the same. It seemed my piggyback climbing was not over yet.

Trembling, I transferred from the wire onto the vertical concrete. My metal claws extended—making this a mercifully easy task.

“Why is it warm here?” Scraa asked.

“It is because we have reached the Spirit Realm!” Romalla said, eagerly climbing further ahead than I felt comfortable with. “I am so glad to know that it is so warm here. I was beginning to worry for the dead ... that they might be trapped in an icy realm.”

“Romalla,” I said, struggling between her hopes, the height, and my worry about how far ahead she now was. “There’s a good chance that the Sky City isn’t-”

“Bassello, I had a vision before I got here,” Romalla called from far ahead. “I haven’t been able to talk about it, but Krogallo talked to me as I slept. I think he said that ... that my father is here.”

“Romalla-” I began to say, but she was not stopping. In fact, she had started to hum a song that I’d never heard her sing before while moving fast toward the top. Something was happening, and I felt a chill.

“We can dissuade her from her foolishness when we get to the top,” Dro said, interrupting my panic. “Let’s get up before this brittle, old stone crumbles and sends us to our deaths. I mean, before it sends us for a frightening drop that makes us sprout wings and fly your heavy frame up the Wall.”

“I get it,” I said and tried to swallow; the concrete was rather brittle-looking.

I began to climb and distracted myself with what Dro had said. He thought what Romalla expected was foolish, but what did he and the other Hunters anticipate? Dro and the Queen wanted to learn the secrets of the Alpha Predators to reform their people how they each saw fit. Scraa didn’t particularly seem to care; I thought he had just kind of been caught up in Romalla’s escape … and made it his own as well.

Then there was Gar, who hoped to impress the Queen. In some ways, his hope was the most realistic. Maybe he would find a mall, buy some nice-smelling conditioner, and wear a cool jacket.

What about me? What unrealistic thing did I expect to find up here? I wanted help for the Night People. I also hoped for answers about what had happened to me and why I was a robot. I wanted to find people like me. To not feel like a freak or the only one of my kind on this whole planet. Maybe I even hoped for some kind of intensive therapy to deal with the trauma of my nightmares … and the confusing feelings about who I was as a human.

To all of us, I supposed that the Sky City was more than just a mystery. It was our hope—that which we sought to confirm all our ideas about meaning in the universe. I wondered to what degree the others also doubted. Even so, I think we all had to know.

We continued our climb and eventually reached the ledge. Upon doing so, I dragged all of us until we were far from the drop. Only when both Hunters had let go of their own volition, did I dare look up.