Ascension by Nicholas Binge

Author:Nicholas Binge [Binge, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

* * *

Bettan had stopped ahead, putting up his hand. When we caught up to him, he looked me up and down in disgust.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “You look like a corpse that died and never stopped sweating.”

I sighed, mostly because he was right. I could barely stand up straight without my bones screaming at me. “Why have we stopped?”

He pointed up. A cliff loomed ahead of us: a sheer face of ice and rock that jutted upward. Up close, the immensity of it sat in my throat and sank down to my belly.

How were we supposed to get past that?

“I’m gonna call it the Bettan Face,” he announced, grinning to himself. “When others come to climb this thing, they’re gonna know I was here. That this was my expedition.”

While there were jagged edges, its actual rise was mostly flat. Bettan predicted it to be 170 to 180 meters high. Less than half the Empire State Building, he quipped jokingly. Easy. But as I looked at it now, it seemed utterly insurmountable.

Gathering us at the base, Bettan took center stage. He had rope around his shoulders and a series of metal hooks and rods.

“I’m going to free-climb first. There are still some metal holds from the last expedition, but many will have come off from ice and stormy weather. I will have to replace some and reattach the rope. We’re going to make a pulley system so you lazy fuckers don’t need to actually do anything. I attach it at the top and throw this end down. We weight it with rocks to counterbalance you as gravity lifts you. The rope gets tied round you and you get pulled up. Just wait here, don’t do anything stupid, and keep quiet. Be ready to go in about forty-five minutes.”

Before anyone had a chance to argue, he was off. He hit the base of the cliff and, almost without breaking stride, continued up it, affixed to the face like a spider. Before long, he was turning into a glimpse of black against the white—like the shadow of a bird—scrambling slowly toward the sky.

We stood and watched him for a while, and then we began to scatter. The Warden went furthest afield, searching the ground for tracks or signs of the monsters that might have taken Jet. Palmer took up residence right at the base of the cliff, holding her pistol tightly against her. Polya was picking up samples of ice and putting them in test tubes.

For a moment, I didn’t know where Neil had gone. He has a tendency to vanish—something about the way he moves, as if he walks with the quietest feet. Sometimes I forget he’s even here until he sneaks up behind me, as if he’s appeared out of thin air. After a minute, I saw him a little way off, staring out into the sky.

I looked around for Thomas, seeking out the warm comfort that came from talking to him. He was leaning behind a rock, panting.

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