The King of Ephyra

[Dear reader: this story contains references to adultery, sexual abuse, and suicide.]

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It seemed easy enough. My task was to carry the stone to the top of the mountain; a path of recompense, I was told. It looked a long hike, sure. From where I was standing, I couldn’t even see the summit. Clouds of gloom circled the peak, and I could see that the upper slopes were covered in snow. The stone was a mere pound, and it felt smooth in my palm. I was already fiddling with it, rubbing it back and forth between my fingers. Something about it felt comforting. It was the first thing given to me upon my arrival, and I was afraid it would be my last worldly possession. In fact, I had no worldly possessions. It was, in truth, otherworldly.

The first steps up were hardly what could be considered trying. I fared well across a stretch of plain, passing through many miles of reeds and fragrant meadows. The fields teemed with a hearty dose of summer heat that made me envy, foolishly, the flurried trees above. When I arrived at the foothills, a wooden gate, rundown and tattered, beckoned me forward. I broke my first sweat as I crossed the threshold, and the stone, in my palm since the start, suddenly fell from my hand. It hit the ground with a grunt befitting a small boulder, yet its form remained unchanged; black, oval, and no bigger than a fig. I knelt to retrieve it, but as I wrapped my hand around its curves I found that it had gotten heavier. I was able to lift it with little trouble, but it no longer sat in my palm with ease. It fought my grasp, so I placed it in my pocket.

“Some rules, I think I should add.” That chilly, gravel of a voice came from behind. He walked around me as if he had been there the whole time, gazing up at the massive mountain above. His hands were clasped behind his back, trodding around with the leisure of a man perusing a garden. “Every time you drop it, it’ll get heavier. So, try and find a safe place for it.” As he spoke, the stone pressed harder on my thigh, my pocket drooping a few hairs lower. His eyes watched me with amusement. “Also, that gate? You’ll encounter eight more just like it.” I looked back at the decrepit fixture, remembering it. “I’m sure you can guess what happens when you reach the second,” he continued. I rubbed my pocket, then fixed my eyes on the summit. It felt miles away, hanging overhead. Maybe it was. “Alright, then. Best get a move on.” With a bow, he extended his arm up the path. I detested his false hospitality, happy to walk in any direction that got me farther from those empty eyes. The path ahead was steep and gray, the meadow pasture far behind me.

A day had passed since my encounter with Death when I finally laid eyes on the second gate. I had spotted its stained spokes in the sunlight, poking up from the treeline. Since the foothills, the path up had maintained a steady slope of rocky steps and decent views. Occasionally, the clouds of the summit would part, allowing the sun to light my path and the land below. I often stopped to look out across the fields. The slivers of sunlight would scan the plains like ocean water, and for an instant I would forget where I was. In these instances, in my naivety, I convinced myself my task wouldn’t be so troublesome. I was wrong.

The second gate was much like the first. Its pillars slanted such that it looked ready to topple over, but its paint was less weathered than its predecessor. With the briefly forgotten knowledge that the stone would fatten upon my entrance, I crossed the threshold with an immediate kneeling to the ground. The stone had doubled its weight, as far as I could surmise. My pocket was stretching farther, and I knew it wouldn't hold forever. Before crossing the third gate, I’d have to devise a new means of carrying the stone.

A rustle ahead caught my attention. I half expected to see Death once again, ready to taunt me. Instead, Merope, my wife, was sitting upon a stump just beside the trailhead. She was staring at me with a Mona Lisa smile; I couldn’t figure if she was sad, angry, or pleased to see me. I approached her eagerly, hugging her and kissing her cheeks. My eyes were swelled with tears, but hers were motionless. She wasn’t blinking. “Merope,” I whispered. “What has happened? How are you here?” I clasped her cheeks tenderly, but at my touch she slapped my hands away shoving me off balance. She stood so she could continue to push me. Her eyes had anger in them now.

“You cursed us! Damned us! You defiled our vows! You defied nature and ruined our love!” Her hands were hot like coals, and her face turned into a twisted mixture of skin and lips and noses. I was terrified, and closed my eyes tightly. “How am I here? I’m here because of you.” I sat with my arms outstretched for protection, but as I opened my eyes I realized I was alone. Merope had vanished, and I was cowering from nothing but cold air. My heart calmed, but only until I realized that the stone had fallen from my pocket in my cowering. It had touched the ground, and, as Death had affirmed, it now weighed more. My repeated folly, at merely the second gate, was demoralizing. I still had seven more gates to cross.

Time on the mountain was a trial in itself. As I continued to climb, it became less clear how long I had been there. The sun never seemed to set, nor did it fully rise. Minutes felt like hours. Hours felt like days. Sometimes it was the opposite. The physical nature of the path also enjoyed toying with my mind. I’d take ten steps without moving an inch, or I’d appear to be moving without voluntarily doing so. Trees swayed in an unnatural manner, as if not swaying at all, but sliding left to right, and growing and shrinking up and down. It was between gates four and five that I contemplated jumping.

Each leg of my journey was cumulative in length. My trip to the second gate had taken a day, but it had been four days, potentially, since I had crossed the fourth threshold. The stone, now wrapped in a sling across my chest, made my neck crane down. My eyes almost never left the ground, but the dirt, too, began to swirl like the trees. If I could’ve only found an olive tree, or a quiet stream to quench my thirst I could maybe regain my strength. But there had been no sign of fruit, or animals of any kind. It refused to rain, nor did any decent breeze or reprieve occur along the trail.

I began to convince myself that my malnutrition was the reason for my visions. Back at the third gate, I was greeted again by my wife, Merope, but she was accompanied by my father, Aeolus. Merope took again to berating me of my past misdeeds, adding a list of names I had unfaithfully fraternized with. Her insults continued upon the fourth gate. My father had taken a different approach, speaking in whispers and reminding me of my childhood. As a boy, I was confined, with the rest of my family, to our small island. Aeolus, along with my mother, misused me on many occasions. His advances were made even more grotesque upon the fourth and fifth gates.

My time between the gates was my only reprieve from the taunting spirits, but it was also increasingly laborious as the stone grew heavier. What was the purpose of this task? What would I find at the top of the mountain? The more I climbed, the less the end seemed to matter. I grew obsessive, loving the stone like a child. I protected it, shielded it against the spirits, caressing it in times of madness. I hadn’t dropped it since my first encounter with Merope, and I wouldn’t dare let it happen again. Although I knew nothing of the true rationale behind this climb, I relied on the stone as a source of impetus.

As expected, the stone’s weight surged as I crossed the sixth threshold. My sling, reinforced two times already, would soon need more cloth. I had taken the shirt off my back to craft the sling, and I would soon be naked. Waiting for me at the clearing was Merope, Aeolus, and Glaucus, my son. Back at the fifth gate, Glaucus had added his own method of torture…to describe the feeling of seeing my son take his own life, repeatedly, is impossible.

These reminders of my life, my mistakes, my abuses, were infuriating. As I crossed the first few gates, I cried and cowered. But now, to look into their eyes, filled me with hatred. I screamed in their ungrateful faces. I considered pushing them off the mountain, or bashing their heads in with the stone. In life, I had conquered Death! I had kept my family living long after they would have perished, and for this, they despised me. The more I fought with them the more I realized the stone was only a vessel for Death’s tricks. There was nothing for me at the summit. 

By the time I reached the eighth gate, the group of spirits had grown to six. Merope, Aeolus, Glaucus, my sister Calyce, my brother Cretheus, and Death himself. The added reprimands from Calyce and Cretheus somehow hurt the most. In the wake of our parents' abuse, I had abandoned them both, leaving them to suffer greater violations as I found sanctuary across the sea. Death found it all quite amusing. He smiled eagerly, and for the last time he beckoned me forward. This was the final leg.

Unlike what had come before, I had to crawl and climb the trail until the top. The stone was too heavy now to stand upright, and the trail itself was nonexistent. Jutting rocks and steep cliffs were the only path up. To make things worse, I was now completely unclothed with only the sling around my shoulder. It was so heavy I had to hold my arms underneath it whenever I could. It fought me with every handhold and step up. In one instant, the stone might pull me down off the cliffside, and send me careening down into the fields that lay miles below. I had dropped the stone at the eighth gate, and again just before the climb. I could feel my collarbones creek under the pressure of the sling, and time and nature warped again, making my mind spin.

My left hand reached the top first, followed by my right. I dangled on the edge, struggling to lift my body without letting the stone touch the ground. If it were to weigh me down any more, I would surely fall. Yet after nine heaves I tumbled onto the summit and across the ninth threshold. The stone fell with a crack, breaking the boulder beneath it. I tore off my sling and laid naked on the peak beside the stone. The air should’ve been freezing, but it was warm. In fact, weeds and grass were pushing through the rocks, and daisies had bloomed at the center of the peak.

Within the bundle of daisies was an altar for the black stone. I rolled over to unfurl the sling, knowing the rock would be heavier than I could bear. I feared my crooked back may break in my last attempt to deliver the stone, but as I picked it up, it was as light as the day it was given to me. I could place it in my palm and rub it in my fingers. I could toss it up and down and put it in my teeth. I kissed it in a fit of joy as I looked across the land. I had done it. I had bested the spirits and Death’s trials, just as I had done in life. I cracked a smile. I even laughed. I took the stone and placed it triumphantly in its slot on the altar. The sun shone on my bare skin, and I weeped as its light overtook me.

“Here,” he said. He took my hand and placed something hard in it. It was a rock, smooth and midnight black. No bigger than a fig. “It must be taken to the top of the mountain.” I looked at the stone, then up at the summit. Dark clouds circled the peak, and the stone fit near perfectly in my palm. It comforted me.

“Seems easy enough,” I said, and I started walking.