The Glass Mountain
by A. Gural
THE CALL
Your shift is almost over, but the line at your register is longer than ever. You drop the items from the conveyor belt— a pomegranate, apples, porridge, nutmeg— into a canvas bag for the young woman in front of you.
“16.50,” you tell her.
She puts her card in the machine and smiles, her winged eyeliner disappearing in the creases at the corner of her eyes. It’s clear she’s said something, but pretty much everything’s a loud thrum in your ears right now.
“Pardon?”
“I said, I heard it’s going to be a bloodbath this weekend. Are you going? Everybody’s going.”
Everybody’s going.
You stand there, lost for a second. “Busy.” You smile back and hand her the bag.
* * *
“I don’t think I love you,” he’d said.
“Pardon?”
You hadn’t expected it, because you’d been making plans to go to the Mountain. With him. You’d booked a room at the inn, and reserved a small table at the Gather. Anyone who was anyone ate at the Gather, and you wanted this weekend to be special. The cost of the tickets for the event had set you back weeks.
“…Why?” you’d asked, your voice barely a whisper. You shouldn’t have, though. It wouldn’t have mattered.
It’s not you. We just don’t fit.
It wasn’t till later, when you were walking to work that you remembered an off-hand remark of his about the low status of your job. Or the way he’d often mention her, and his weird smile when he’d say her name.
Seeing things in hindsight is a bitch of a thing.
* * *
You run to the back alley behind the grocery and throw up. When you return, wiping the vomit on the back of your sleeve, you pass the bulletin board and see it. And it hits your chest like a hammer all over again.
GLASS MOUNTAIN
Wanna go? Don’t have a car? We have space!
20 zlot per person.
You could still go, something inside your mind tells you, till you harshly dismiss it. But it won’t stop. Go. Go to the Mountain. Everybody’s going.
You clock out, but as you switch out your apron for your jacket, another thought hits you out of the blue: your grandmother’s old trunk up in the attic. It’s where she’d kept her armour, wrapped in worn, moth-eaten silk. The pauldrons, the greaves, the bracers, they’d need polishing, sure, and the gorget was rusted last time you looked, but nothing a good oiling couldn’t sort out. Your Vans will have to do, however, till you can afford new shit kickers. Paying full rent by yourself yesterday cleaned you out.
As for a sword…
Fuck it
You go grab the ad off the bulletin board and reach in your pocket for your phone…
***
ALLIES
You arrive just as the sun breaks against the horizon, and though you think you’re prepared, the otherworldly grandeur still manages to take your breath away. It’s everything they said it was: a true mountain made of glass. The sun’s rays hit its peak, bending back the light, evaporating the rolling mist that blankets the valley.
“Oh. My. God,” you whisper.
Your traveling companions emerge from the rusted car, leaving their doors ajar too.
“Jesus. How are we gonna…?” Piotr lets out a low whistle as he stares up and up. His girlfriend, Daria, appears way more amused.
“We’re gonna die!” She giggles, still high from whatever the pungent shit is she’s been smoking in the car. To be honest, it’s given you a headache.
* * *
You’d called the number posted on the store’s bulletin board, almost hoping no one would answer. Sure, no problemo. There’s loads of room in our car, Piotr assured you. It wasn’t till they’d shown up in the tiniest Fiat known to man that you reminded yourself you get what you pay for. 20 zlot indeed. Idiot, you’d told yourself.
* * *
Three and a half hours of Piotr waxing garrulous on how the Golden Liberty are absolute bastards, and two pee breaks later, and voila: you’re here. Not alone, but not with him. You let the sting sit in your chest for all of ten seconds, and then you mentally slap yourself. Stop it.
The szlachta had formed the Golden Liberty, cutting the king’s power off at the knees, and in retaliation the King and his Volkhv created the mountain of glass. He then put his daughter at the top of the mountain, and proclaimed that whoever could reach her would win immeasurable wealth and his kingdom when he died. Give the people what they want, you guess. Bastard dad move, though. And so there is the Climb.
No one’s made the Climb.
The odds aren’t great; they’re zero, but it doesn’t stop people from chasing this dream. Every month people come from further and far to attempt it. Priests hold token ceremonies, blessing the climbers, the blessings useless. So smaller, more plentiful skirmishes, with smaller rewards are offered too. You have no illusions about the climb. You’re not doing it; you’re here for the mêlées.
An industry’s sprung up near the mountain; a service village with inns, smithies, apothecaries, brewers, carters, knock off t-shirt sellers, it’s a damn festival, with a large market square decorated for the festivities. Adjacent to the market square are the tourney fields, quiet at the moment with only a few scattered crows pecking at the detritus, but soon enough they’ll be popping.
“Should we sign up for the fights, or find lodging first?” Daria scans the buildings. “I’m kinda tired.”
“Let’s get some coffee. Then the lists. Mmm. Chrust!” The smell of fresh dough sprinkled with sugar beckons, and Piotr heads off towards the food stalls.
You’d rather feel anything than this goddamn rejection bullshit. Before you’d left, you couldn’t believe your luck when you found an old style sabre tucked away behind the men’s winter coats at the local Thrift, the grip missing some of its leather but the blade well balanced. Please don’t let me down too, you tell it as you follow Piotr into the crowds.
***
TRANSFORMATION
You’re kinda buzzed as you sway to the heavy sound of industrial techno fused with the haunting, mournful drone of a hurdy gurdy. It reverberates throughout your entire being. Soul music, you think dryly. The pounding in your ear drums, the crush of the ravers, it’s all… well; you’re a bit woozy again. You make your way past villagers, weekenders, sightseers in flip-flops, starlets in club kid boots, and fighters in bright linen gambesons, all dancing wildly to the music. There’s even a few leather-clad Goth elves, their near translucent skin shimmering in the half dark. Emerald and amaranthine lasers sweep across the crowd, lighting up the side of the mountain so that it looks like a dollar-store snow globe.
You fucking love it.
“Woooohoooo!” Daria throws a hand around your waist, her other hand sloppily holding onto her tankard, the wine spilling down her tunic. “You’re the best! You know that, right? Our new best friend!” She laughs, bleary eyed.
Drinks are on you because you did rather well on the battlefield today; far better than you expected. Far better than anyone expected, you remind yourself bitterly.
It seems two tankards is your limit, however, because your head is swimming. You find a table and sit as several influencers walk by, staring. You’re sure you’ve seen the blonde one on the cover of some magazine or other. There’s always magazines staring at you when you’re on duty at the checkout at work. You know you look like shit from fighting, not put together like they are, and your face turns beet red as you glance down at your mug.
Daria pats your back. “Don’t you worry, you’re sexy too. Piotr, tell her she’s sexy. What? You’re sexy.”
Piotr, looking silly with a glow choker and binky round his neck, joins you both at the table, accompanied by a fricken behemoth of a man named Otto, a sellsword you all met at the tourney.
“I’ll tell you what’s sexy,” Piotr starts.
“Oh, here it is.” Daria sighs.
“Those moves you pulled at the mêlée. That was freaking amazing! Who taught you to fight like that?”
All eyes are on you.
“My grandmother,” you say. Piotr snorts.
Otto cuffs him on the shoulder. “Don’t you mock her Baba!”
“I wasn’t!” Piotr winces, rubbing at where Otto hit him. “I was blown away, actually. I have absolute respect for our elders. Babas fucking rock, except mine; she hit me with a wooden spoon all the time…” Everyone laughs.
An odd wind picks up, and a strange woman moves through the crowd carrying a golden cup before her in both hands. Barefoot, a crown of flowers in her copper hair, her golden dress is made of the finest chain mail yet flows like silk.
“Ahh!” Otto pronounces. “The Dreamseller!”
As the Dreamseller makes her way amongst the attendees, several give her coins, and she in turn graces each of them with a sip from her cup. They immediately fall into fits of giggling, or whirling away to dance, or breaking out into song. One fellow strips down completely and runs out of the Gather bare-assed.
“Some can’t handle it.” Otto nods, signalling to the Dreamseller. She approaches, smiling, but you shiver when she stares at you with her golden cat’s eyes. Up close it looks as if her copper curls are covered in a mist of gold dust. Otto pays her to sip from the cup, and then starts spinning with his arms out, his face turned up to the sky.
“Quick! Catch the snowflakes on your tongue!” He laughs.
But there’s no snow.
A couple dance provocatively not too far off, clearly in the effects of the Dreamseller’s cup, and you feel another stab as you’re reminded you’re not here dancing with anyone; you’ve been left behind. Suddenly, you’re not feeling as festive as the others, and when the Dreamseller offers you a turn, you shake your head, unable to meet her gaze.
A short while later you resign yourself to wearing the mantle of chaperone as you sit with Daria, doing your very best to ease her upset, her mascara streaking as she sobs uncontrollably. She’s having a hard trip.
“I don’t think Piotr really loves me.” She sniffs.
You want to tell her he looks devoted, but your own heartache has made you jaded. You just hug her harder.
“I came here ‘cause I knew it would make him happy. I hate fighting. But his true love has flaxen hair.”
Don’t they all, you grimace. At least it certainly feels that way to you right now.
Daria points accusingly up at the mountain. “Did you know, he has posters of the princess up on his wall? He even once told me he had a huge crush on her. I laughed. I’m so stupid! I hope she’s freezing her ass off up there. Princess my ass!” she yells at the sky.
You give her your water because it’s clear she’s the weepy kind of drunk, and you really hope it’s not going to be a long night; the Climb is early in the morning, and you all wanted to watch. She shivers, and you wrap your coat around her.
“You’re an eldest, aren’t you?” she says, patting your arm.
“What?”
“You’re an eldest child, a caretaker. Youngests have horseshoes up their ass, but middles don’t get shit. Piotr’s a middle. I’m a middle, too. You… you’re an eldest. I can tell.”
You’re an only, but you don’t correct her.
“I bet most people here for the Climb are middles. How else do we make our mark? Piotr thinks he’ll make his mark here. It’s dangerous, but… how could I say no?”
The drum beats alter, and the mountain’s now the colour of blue ice.
“I think when I grow up, I’m going to be a therapist for middles.”
“You are a grown up,” you remind her.
“Shut up.” She grins, shoving you playfully.
***
WARLINE
Up close, the mountain is beyond imposing; it’s terrifying. Your first experience watching the actual Climb, and you’re not quite sure what to expect. You’ve heard the stories, all quite gruesome, and you wonder yet again what kind of person would choose this course. You’re not that kind of idiot. Bright pennants snap in the wind, displaying the crests of all the noble houses of the kingdom; the loyal ones, anyway. Hussars ride past with their cuirasses brightly gleaming, the horses, their manes plaited with blue and gold twine, high stepping as they passage and foaming at their polished bits. It gives you goosebumps to watch it.
The stands are full, but there are no bad seats as the risers ascend up alongside the mountain, so you all have a perfect view of the warm-up arena as well as the main ring. You don’t mind being squished between Otto and Daria on the hard wooden bench as there’s an unusual chill in the air, and you gratefully sip your steaming coffee.
Huge snowflakes drift down, soft and slushy. “Otto. You’re psychic!” says Piotr, but the big man gives him a blank look. “It’s snowing. You’d said it would snow. I thought you were nuts.”
“That’s going to screw people over.” Daria frowns, and you nod in agreement.
The crowd watches in reverential silence as expert mountain climbers, MMA fighters, the hussars, mercenaries, foreign knights, and even some tech bros all kneel, arms open wide, awaiting the touch on the forehead from the priests as they wield bunches of holly and rowan in benediction.
Drums beat in unison, echoing across the stadium and announcing the start, and one by one the candidates each make their attempt. The mountain climbers throw their ropes high, but partway up it grows steeper, and their spikes and their cleats barely make a chip in the glass. They plunge back down, their skin sloughing off from the friction as they tumult to the arena floor, where they then lay broken and still. The crows fight one another to reach them, but the priests wave them off, at least for now. Then the tech bros with their crypto-bought gadgets, all fail too, plummeting faster than their safety gear can deploy. Mangled, their bodies at odd angles, you observe darkly, what’s the world with a few less ethereum chasers? Unkind, you know. But if you step back for more than a minute, the horror takes your breath away. Best to stay numb.
The knights gallop past on their chargers, hoping momentum, and the evil-long studs on the shoes of their horses will aid them. Otto snickers at the colourful plumage on their helms, shaking his head. The snow adds to the slipping, and attempt after attempt, hope after hope fades as they all crash back down. It’s absolutely horrific, but the crowd roars in appreciation. You realize they don’t care if the candidates win or lose.
Later, as the sun sets and the crows swoop from body to body, you stand alone by the ring-side staring at what’s left of the candidates strewn across the field, all piled in heaps at the base of the mountain. The carnage is madness. What a waste. Otto joins you, leaning over the fence.
He looks up at the mountain top, now blurred by swirling snow. “That bitch is up there laughing at us. I hope she enjoyed the show.”
* * *
It’s a good thing you’re winning at a lot of the skirmishes, because you’re pretty sure you’ve lost your job at the grocery. Messages show up on your phone (fucking store) but you’ve been leaving your boss’s texts on read. Otto’s won his fair share as well, but Piotr and Daria? Not so much, and it’s causing discord. You offer to front them some of your winnings, but Piotr refuses. That’s not why he’s come.
“The Gather is for glory,” he reminds you, despondent.
Daria apologizes, watching him as he stalks off back to the inn. “He thinks he’s a nothing, a middle. He’s convinced the Climb is the only way to redeem himself.”
“That makes zero sense,” you tell her. “He’s done nothing wrong.” Daria shrugs, dejected.
* * *
Piotr and Daria argue more and more frequently, and he’s taken to leaving her alone the last two nights. You try to sleep, but you can hear bitter words through the wall. If you think middles are so fucking low, what are you doing with me? I’m a middle! Daria shouts. You hear the door to their room slam, and then running down the stairs. Daria. Daria! Piotr calls. You close your eyes in sympathy. This part of coupledom you do not miss.
At breakfast, both you and Otto try to cheer Daria up, but she’s withdrawn, and you can feel she’s planning something.
You’re still taken aback when, at the next Climb, Daria isn’t seated beside you in the stands. It’s clear Piotr’s worried when he asks if either you or Otto have seen her. You haven’t. When the candidates enter the field, however, your heart jumps out of your chest.
Daria’s among them.
“Daria!” Piotr shouts, but she refuses to look up. You all rush to the in-gate, but the priests block you from entering. Piotr’s beside himself, frantic as they drag him back to the stands, shouting for her to get the hell out of the ring. You can’t watch the next part. You know it’s over when you hear Otto let out a sob.
***
THE RETURN
The music’s deafening, with a percussive beat you can feel in your chest, and the crowd all wild as ever, dancing almost to a frenzy as ravers wave glow sticks high above their heads. Another Climb, another Gather.
The mountain stands sentinel, impervious to all of it.
You’ve been trying to sober Piotr up, but he’s not having it, and Otto’s not helping. He sets three tankards down on the table, hard, the contents sloshing over the edge.
“To Daria!” he booms. They both drink.
Your phone chirps.
Heard about you kicking ass! I always knew you could do it. So proud. xoxo
The three dots flash, then—
Coffee?? Or…?
You stare at the text for a solid minute. Then you delete it. Fuck him.
You look over to your friends, both barely coping. You’re heartbroken, but Piotr’s destroyed. The Dreamseller moves through the crowd, people laughing as they reach out to her, but when Piotr sees her across the square he turns his head away, a catch in his breath. You stare at him, questioning.
“After the drink… after I drank, I saw Daria dead. But it was just a dream…” He looks bewildered, hitting his fist slowly to his temple, then he sits up straight and pounds the table.
“Enough! I’m gonna do the Climb!”
“Don’t do the climb.”
“I’m gonna do it. For Daria!”
“That’s not what she would have wanted,” you tell him, but he glares at you.
“How would you know what she wanted?” The bitterness in his voice is a poison.
Because she told you, you long to remind him. Didn’t you listen?
“You don’t make your mark by dying.”
“You don’t make your mark by sitting around, either.” He stares up at the mountain, and Otto slaps his back.
“I’m with you, my friend.”
Asinine! The loss of it all sets your heart to reeling, the loss and your own powerlessness. You can’t take anymore and march off across the festival floor, but as the noise, and the crush of the crowd, and the lights prisming off the mountainside disorient you, you spin and almost collide with the Dreamseller. She stares at you, her enigmatic smile settling deep under your skin. You do not feel judged, but you most definitely feel seen. Far too seen. Snow begins to fall gently, causing the crowd to laugh and cheer, their faces upturned as they reach to the sky.
And it strikes you: Piotr saw Daria dead. Otto saw snow.
You stare back at the Dreamseller, shellshocked.
And then you hand her a coin.
* * *
You’re flying. You rise, higher and higher, catching thermals as you ascend up the side of the mountain, with veins, all luminescent, branching a course deep, deep into the mountain’s heart.
You see your reflection in the glass; a crow, your feathers an iridescent blue black, and when you caw the sound you make is terrifying. And you glory in it.
Up, up and up you fly, until you finally break through the swirling snow and the cloud cover, and arrive at the summit. A roughened platform, barren but for a large, graceless throne hewn from granite; cold, its edges sharp.
And seated on the throne is the Princess.
What was once the Princess.
Tattered pieces of her robe ruffle in the harsh, biting wind, and wisps of her hair, once beautiful and wheat-golden, whirl away from a skull now bleached by the sun and the elements. There is little left of her.
How long has she been here, alone
left behind
an icon for others to fawn over
a pawn in her father’s game
the design of some wizard’s architect.
None of it. None of it means a fucking thing. Loved, not loved. Renowned, unknown. It’s all garbage. Your heart aches for her, and for you, and for everyone left behind.
I didn’t know, I’m sorry, you caw mournfully. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry… and you fly away, back down the mountainside, even more lost than you were before.
* * *
Morning comes too soon.
The crowd is agitated, awaiting the inevitable. Drums beat as the procession marches towards the arena, the priests first, the guards following. Amongst the candidates are Otto and Piotr. Piotr stares grimly straight ahead, but Otto gives you a small lopsided grin in acknowledgment. It’s a brave but silent walk.
But then you join them, and the crowd roars with excitement. Your reputation at the lists has preceded you, and they all wonder Will she be the one?
“What are you doing?” Piotr whispers harshly. “Are you mad?”
“Can’t I have glory, too?” you bite back.
Otto clamps his hand on your shoulder and squeezes, and you cover his hand with your own. Together you march past the in-gate, with the mountain looming overhead, the rainbow shadows the sun casts through it stretching to the village and the valley beyond. You all arrive at the centre of the ring and kneel. So many hopefuls, and so much lost hope. You look up at the mountain’s summit. And then—
Without warning, as the priests are giving their blessings, you spring up and grab Otto’s warhammer before he can protest.
“I’m sorry,” you tell Piotr, and then, amidst the surprised cries of the crowd, you charge towards the mountain, holding the warhammer at an angle before you.
Only you don’t reach high to strike. You swing low, sharply, with all your might. Right where you saw the bright veins illuminated in your vision. Over and over, as hard as you can, shouting with every blow. You put all your soul into it, through your arms, into the weapon, hoping it finds its mark. The reverberations suddenly change their echo.
And a splinter appears.
It grows wider with each sharp crack at the glass, until your arms ache, until they’re numb and you can barely swing them. But you mustn’t stop. Otto runs to you, and taking the hammer from your hands, he strikes hard and fast, until the fissure grows wide, the sides shattering at your feet. The mountain begins to shudder, glass shards raining down everywhere, and the crowds up in the stands all cry out again, rushing from their seats and away from the field.
Piotr looks stricken, but Otto looks feral, nodding at you in approval. You grab their hands and run back towards the village, but the shattered sides of the mountain slide towards the village’s perimeter, so you keep running till you’re out of breath, and till you’re at the forest line. You don’t care that your lungs are bursting. You don’t care. It’s enough. It’s over.
You sit and watch the aftermath from a fair distance, your arms across your knees, you and your friends in silence. You watch the sun set over the valley, normal, no prisms.
“What am I to do now,” Piotr asks, bereft, his head in his hands.
“Anything you want,” you tell him.
“That’s easy enough for you to say. You’re someone now.”
You pull your phone from out of your pocket, staring at the messages. “I should never have let myself believe otherwise.” You scroll to fucking store and press call.
* * *
Altaire Gural is a screenwriter, a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada, and a professional acting coach for stage/film and TV, where her YA fantasy novel, Forgotten, has recently been optioned for television. She’s beyond thrilled to finally have written “The Glass Mountain” (decades in the procrastinating), a very loosely based adaptation of the Polish fairy tale of the same name.
“The Glass Mountain” appears in OTHER: the 2024 speculative fiction anthology
Cover art by Ilan O’Driscoll.
Ilan O’Driscoll is both a visual artist and a professional actress, and has won awards for her work at fine arts festivals, as well as for her performances on stage. Most recently she starred in the psychological horror feature Believer, and will next be seen in Fear Street: Prom Queen for Netflix. Instagram: @lilwheemo
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