He stood up with this last statement and I looked up at him. By now I’m sure that my eyes were as big as saucers and I must have lost all my features of wisdom because I felt as if I had become a child again. When I didn’t rise he struck me and told me to stop acting like a fool. Snapping from my daze, I said my goodbyes to the strange hermit and looked up toward the peak of the mountain. In the darkness of night it was difficult to make out the peak, and I was unsure for a moment if it even had one. The mountain seemed to rise higher and higher, stretching beyond the sky and straight into the heavens. For a moment I could feel seeds of doubt sprouting within my bowels, but I remembered the words of the hermit and shook the feelings away. There was only one way, and that way was up. I put one foot forward and made my up the slope.
Though there was no moon out, the night seemed to be very brightly lit by the amount of stars that were scattered all over the sky. It was bright enough to penetrate the trees and light a path in front of me and even if I couldn’t see very far ahead of me, as I walked forward things seemed to illuminate, like I had light coming from my body. The traveling was very easy through these woods and I felt very light even with the talk of “trial” from the hermit. As I proceeded I began to have the feeling that I was being watched, so I stopped to look around. Around me, in the woods away from the path, all I could see was blackness. It seemed that the starlight did not penetrate through the treetops away from the path. I called out to see if anyone was there, but I received no response and the feeling persisted. Resigning myself to being watched by what was surely just a forest animal, I continued onward. After I had gone another few feet there was the sound of movement that was in sync with my footsteps.
At first I couldn’t tell which direction is was coming from, but eventually I could tell that it was behind me. The steps didn’t seem to be human and whatever was walking was very heavy. Now a slow fear was creeping through me because not only was I being stalked by something unknown, it was apparently quite large. My pace quickened in hopes that it would lose interest, but as I walked faster so did it. Finally, I broke into a run, never looking back because now the words of the hermit came back to me. I tried to allow his words to flow through me and find the strength to absolve my fear. Within me I could feel my doubt fading and the fear subsiding, trusting in the hermit’s words somehow brought comfort to me and I stopped running. Right where I was I stopped and so the following steps stopped too. “I do not fear you,” I yelled out and surprised myself with the booming of my voice, which sounded much more like a lion’s roar than a man’s voice, “you will not hinder me any more. There is something building in me that I cannot explain, a passion, and with it I can tackle any obstacle. You are a mere trifle in my path and my power surpasses you. You who trail behind me, but can never catch me. You who would be the hunter to dominate me can never force me to succumb to you because your weapon is fear, and fear is only a weakness. My will to succeed, my Strength, is linked with my passion and together they are unstoppable. Now, go! Pursue some weaker foe with whom you may hope to subdue, but I will not be your prey.”
When I had finished these last words and began my ascent again, there were no trailing footsteps anymore, and though I could still feel eyes watching me, they no longer held any weight on me. The path became suddenly steep and as I climbed up the trees disappeared from around me. From here on I would be climbing up toward the peak of the mountain, but to my left and right I could see wide paths leading around the mountain. For a moment I hesitated because these paths were very appealing because they surely provided and easy route around the mountain; however, I put no lightness on the words of the hermit. In order to meet the challenge I had to go over the mountain, no matter how difficult it seemed looking up from the bottom.
The climb was simple at first because I was able to walk up the steep path, but as I ascended higher I was forced to begin climbing. Large boulders provided a good route for climbing and I found myself making my way up still fairly easily. Eventually I reached a point where I could not go any farther forward and up. In front of me stood a sheer cliff that went straight up at least 20 meters. When I walked around to see if I could find another route up there was nothing except drop offs on either side. As I looked more closely at the cliff there were indentations that looked deep enough for me to use them as holds for climbing. I had only been rock climbing once or twice, but I did fairly well; however, this was a completely different situation. Here I had no safety ropes, there was no trained expert at the bottom guiding me up, and there was no guarantee of being able to find holds all the way up the cliff face. Just when I began to feel fear and doubt making their way back into my mind, I shook myself and grabbed a hold of the wall before they could grip me once again.
My hands and feet gripped firmly to the wall and I was able to make my way up without much difficulty at first. There were ample places for me to grab during the first leg of the climb, but as I went higher they became farther apart. When I reached about fifteen meters up I reached a point where I stretched across the wall as far as I could and it still wasn’t far enough to reach the next hold. Pushing myself as hard as I could towards the hold my toes gave way and my foot slipped out of its hold. A sudden panic came over me in that moment, but I managed to think quickly before the panic had the opportunity to conquer my judgment. With my foot free I swung my weight out towards the hold before I began to fall and I managed to jam my fingers in far enough to grip it. My fingers gripped hard as I swung back and forth like a pendulum hanging from the wall. Using my feet I stopped myself from swinging and tried to find a place to put them into the wall to take the weigh from my hand.
It was then that I realized how little strain I felt in my arm, though I should have been dramatically fatigued from the climb so far and this situation, somehow I didn’t feel the least bit tired. There was no hold near the one my hand was in except one that was about a half meter above it. Before I would never have been able to pull myself up with one hand, but Strength was within me now and making this jump was surely no match for my Strength. Seemingly with no effort I pulled myself up and grabbed the hold with more speed than I had anticipated, so I almost overshot it. As I grasped it with one hand, I reached up with the other searching for another place to grasp, and when I had found one my momentum only increased until I felt like I was barely gripping the wall at all. The last five meters seemed like I was flying up the cliff face instead of climbing, and before I knew it I was at the top. Though I had not yet reached the summit, the rest of the climb seemed less intimidating now and the end was in sight. Suddenly the top of the mountain didn’t seem to be beyond the sky, or maybe I had gone into the heavens without realizing it. Up here the stars not only looked brighter, but much larger to and I could only wonder how things would look from the summit.
