The Hill

I am on a small hill, and on this hill are three arches. They sit in a triangle, each sharing an edge with its two siblings, each is taller than the last.

The smallest of the arches I can pass through and only need to duck my head a little and along the inside edge are carvings of harsh jagged symbols, some kind of Futhark runes faded and indecipherable. The paint around them stayed as if it had just been painted, depicting delicate daisies with petals varied in colour from blush pinks to dazzling white but always the same muted mustard centre.

“Neòinean,” comes the whisper.

Who? I look around, I’m still alone in the clearing. The hill itself continues to slope upward a little longer and water trickles by in small rills the start of something greater as the hill and rills roll downward.

My attention is back on the smallest arch I crouch down into the threshold at eye level with the Futhark and the daisies. With my whole hand, I touched the stone, I felt compelled. It is warm to the touch the sun was beating down all afternoon, everything still feels warm. It also felt smooth, freshly carved and polished as if it were brand new. Its feeling and appearance were disconnected; the black stone looked rough and almost flakey; you could easily have pulled layers away.

“Neòinean,” I whispered back to it and the air suddenly was still. A breeze that had just been moving around the lingering warmth of the sun was gone but its warmth remained. Quickly I felt sweat appear on my neck and face.

I stepped out and stretched back to full height, as if spreading myself would reduce the warmth, or perhaps now it would be heat. I couldn’t hear the trickling of the rills either. Clicking my fingers to test my hearing. Still hearing, just nothing to hear.

The daisies in the smallest arch were changing writhing along each other and joining into a daisy chain. After so many visits to so many ancient places with such a varied past this was the first that had been truly magic. The chain weaved itself around the Futhark and stopped. The daisies dropped from the arch and lay as a chain upon the ground and melted away into the air forming a mist in the archway.

I’m no fool. I’ve read enough stories about magical arches to know that I don’t know enough about this to step through.

I step away and try to leave the clearing, something is stopping me, a compulsion to return to the arch, something like I’ve never felt. I am starved and the arch is a great feast. I have crossed a great sand desert and the arch is cool clear water. I have run for many hours and the arch is the finish line. I can make it, it’s not far now. As I leave the edge of the clearing and near the arch again my mind clears and I regain control. No, I cannot step through that.

I begin my search for a way out, moving around the circumference of the clearing and searching for a weakness in the compulsion. After a few close calls with the threshold of the arch I stop, there appears to be no way out of the clearing. Perhaps if I wait, the arch will close and the world will move again.

I sit and I wait, the warmth is beginning to stifle me, and any water I had with me has long since been drunk.

How could sitting be so tiring? The sun was gone leaving only the half-dark of summer nights behind it. It should not still be as hot as it is.

It’s too hot.

Sweat is dripping from me and being soaked up by the dry earth of the clearing.

Well, perhaps it cannot be worse than this.

I’m going to do it, I’m going to step through that stupid arch with no help and no supplies of any kind.

I walk up and stand facing the arch, looking down into it I see the shimming mist and the vague shape of its sibling arches through the opaqueness. I duck my head and step in.

I don’t cope well with heat at the best of times and I always seek the relief of something different.