Chosen of the One: Chapter 5, Part 1

30 December 2025

Today, in our next installment of our epic, Chosen of the One, Blakstar begins his ascent of the Mountain of Vision, his final test before becoming a full initiate into the kortexi order. . . . (2 December 2013) We again remind our readers to right-click on the Glossary link, open in a new tab or window, thus enabling the reader to learn what each of these new terms mean.

Chapter 5, Part 1

For the kortexi, all sin is unforgivable, unless by the One, Himself, but such has never happened, and probably never will. . . .

from the Kodex Kortexem by Sir Karble III

Blakstar groaned and rolled onto his back, but the action only increased the pain throbbing in his head and the aching over his entire body. He managed to open his eyes but could see little, his vision blurry, clouded by tears. He lay for a time blinking at the sky, until the blurred lines sharpened, and he saw a dark line of twisted trees, a jagged demarcation between the shadowed trees and the Mountain of Vision drenched in the golden light of the setting sun. He saw a face outlined on the mountain and rubbed his eyes, thinking that the tears must still be clouding his vision, or, since he found himself in the place he had been in the strange dream, still caught in his dreams. When he looked again, the face still looked back at him from the stone, through deep blue eyes that seemed to open into the infinite depths of space; the blue eyes reminded him of the eyes of the girl who he had seen in his dream, the girl who was meant to be his future wife. The mouth smiled and opened, as if the figure were beginning to speak. Blakstar felt, rather than heard, the soft yet piercing voice within his mind.

“Sir Blakstar,” the voice called, “I have been waiting since the beginning of time for your arrival. Even now, I wait at the mountain’s summit. Climb quickly, that I may place your feet upon the path of your destiny.”

“But Lord,” Blakstar spoke aloud, rolling painfully to his knees and trying vainly to cover himself with the tattered remains of his clothing, “I cannot remember how I got here, or what happened to me, how I got these wounds . . . my clothes . . . I fear . . . ,” he sobbed, unable to continue as he noticed his tunic and hose had been torn open from his neck down to his knees. He saw the red line inscribed on his naked chest and loins; he felt an unfamiliar ache in his groin, almost a sharp pain, and there was something wet and shiny on his front. Clouds moved in from the northwest, blocking the sun’s last light, but the face in the stone glowed with its own light. “I feel filthy,” he went on after controlling his emotions, “and defiled, but I don’t know why . . . I was trapped for a time in my own dreams, but someone came and . . . ,” he trailed off into silence.

“Do not be concerned over what might have happened. Climb the mountain and be cleansed of my son’s forced violation.”

Blakstar lifted his head and saw tears filling the eyes and falling down the cheeks of the face in the stone of the mountain. The face faded, and Blakstar felt warm drops splashing his face and arms. He stood, face turned toward the clouds, as the drops fell faster, quickly becoming a downpour. The warm rain washed the blood from his wrists–cuts he did not notice until the rain washed the blood away–from the lines inscribed on his chest, and belly, and the stains from his whole body. The raindrops eased the pain of his wounds, the ache of his head, and touched his spirit with peace. When his burdens no longer troubled him, the rain stopped. He turned toward the mountain, and as he turned he noticed aches in his legs and buttocks, sore muscles he did not know he even had.

“Thank you, Lord,” he whispered, his voice cracking, “I will come.”

Blakstar gathered up the broken strips of leather lying beneath the bent and broken tree and used them to tie his breeches, hose, and tunic closed. Not up to his mother’s high standard for repairs, he thought, but good enough to keep them on. He looked around the clearing, wondering what had become of Wingfoot and saw his steed tied to a tree at the clearing’s edge. He moved toward the horse and the clouds parted, the last golden rays lighting the mountain. In the fading light, he saw that Wingfoot had been stripped of all his gear; breath exploded from his lips and trailed off into a sigh. He did not relish the idea of trying to return to Karble without tack or harness, and what little money he carried was in his missing saddle bags. Wingfoot nuzzled Blakstar, sensing his master’s mood. Blakstar absently scratched the horse under his muzzle, his mind on the strange dream and the elfin face of the girl with golden hair, before untying the rope and leading him toward the mountain hovering overhead. Other strange images flashed across his mind, including the golden-haired wetha in a black robe along with flashes of a pura and a pair of ponkolam that he somehow knew were related; he also saw the image of a girl named Marta, daughter of friends of his parents, and something about her image caused his cheeks to color. He jerked his thoughts back to the present.

Blakstar passed through the twisted, burned trees, which gave way to living pine, cedar, and fir, growing green and normal. Within ten minutes he reached the foot of the mountain, and he circled west toward the sea. A breeze blew into his face, bringing the smell of salt and fish; gulls cried overhead, and the sound of their voices mingled with the sound of surf rolling onto a beach. At the place where forest, mountain, and beach met–a corner of the mountain jutting into the sea–a hut had been built and supplied by local farmers, marking the starting point for a kortexi’s ascent of the mountain. Blakstar led Wingfoot into the corral next to the hut, filling the manger from supplies stored under the hut’s overhanging roof. Wingfoot drank deeply from the trough before sniffing the hay and grain and giving his master a whinny of approval. Blakstar scratched him behind his ears as he contentedly munched on the grain; Blakstar secured the gate, looking up at the mountain looming overhead. The Mountain of Vision looked like a large, rectangular block of granite set on one of its smaller ends by some giant hand. It four faces were sheer, and it could only be climbed by the teka path created for the kortexem. His masters had told him not to be intimidated by the mountain’s size, as the ascent took much less time than one might suppose. The teka path passed through the elemental realms before ending on the flat summit. The journey’s length, he had been taught, depended on how quickly the kortexi learned the lesson of each element, and his masters taught him that faith and trust were more important in these tests than physical strength, stamina, and skill. He entered the hut and began to eat a cold supper from the dried food he found stored within.

When he finished his meal, he removed his tattered clothes and boots and donned the simple white robe and sandals that would be his garb for the ascent. On the wall of the hut that butted against the mountain was a small round depression, chest high. Blakstar took the small token he had been given from a secret pocket inside one of his boots and placed it in the wall’s small depression. The token, looking like a small piece of carved obsidian, glowed with golden light and was slowly absorbed into the wall. When the token disappeared, Blakstar saw a door outlined, which he heard and saw grind slowly open. He passed quickly through, the door beginning to close as soon as it was fully open; it shut with a hollow thud, leaving no sign of a door. Magluku glowed along a short, rough-hewn hallway, leading to a vertical crack in the mountain’s west face. He came to the crack’s innermost limit and saw that iron rungs had been driven into the wall, forming a ladder in the living rock. As he climbed the ladder, the sound of the surf and gulls grew. The ladder ascended nearly one-hundred feet, ending on a ledge that ran out to the mountain’s west face. He could see a few faint stars winking in the sky over the sea, and the hut looking very small directly below him. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, the last magluku well below the top of the ladder, he noticed a faint golden glow emanating from a rod of iron that floated horizontally in the air. The rod was about as long as he was tall, round, and an inch in diameter. This glowing rod brought to mind the words of his last master, who prepared him for the ascent of the mountain: When you place your right hand on the rod, your sight will change: you will enter a monochrome world, neither night nor day, in which the rod becomes a golden, glowing line. The line is your path up the mountain that will lead through the realms of the elements. Do not let go of the rod! It is your lifeline; it alone opens and maintains the path. Do not be alarmed by anything you see or pass through: the rod and line will protect from harm and allow you to pass safely through every obstacle. Once you begin to move do not stop or turn from the path: walk forward at an even pace, ignoring the forces that seem to assail you. The rod will protect you from harm. It is best in some places along the path to simply close your eyes and continue to walk forward. You will understand what I mean and what the rod represents when you walk this path.

Blakstar stood next to the rod and grasped it firmly in his right hand. The world changed. Darkness turned to grayness; the stars stopped twinkling and became white spots in the gray sky. The mountain turned black; the sea rolling onto the dark gray beach turned to a shade of gray lighter than the sand and darker than the sky. The only color in his world came from the rod: a golden line above and next to a path not before seen, shot from the rod out of the crack and curved to his left. He started to walk slowly forward, and the rod glided smoothly along the golden line. On leaving the crack in the mountain’s west face, the path and line turned to the left and began to climb the northwest face of the mountain. The path was clear for the first quarter mile, gaining elevation quickly through a series of switchbacks. Blakstar turned another corner and faced a bulge in the cliff that blocked his path. The golden line passed through the rock, becoming hazy inside the stone and regaining its brightness when it left the rock. His first impulse was to try and step around the rock, but as he moved to the side the rod left the line and grew suddenly heavy; his vision returned to normal darkness and the path under his feet faded. Remembering the words of his final lesson, he stepped back to the path pulling the rod back into the line of golden light. Monochrome vision returned; he saw the rod sliding into the rock. The rock faded, turning misty orange, as the rod followed the golden line, and the kortexi reached forward with his left hand to touch the rock’s surface. He was surprised to see his own hand begin to fade and turn a misty, golden-orange, more surprised when the same hand seemed to slide into the rock, even as the rock seemed to slide into his hand. As he moved slowly forward, his forearm faded and entered the rock, turning the same misty golden-orange as his hand, even as the rock entered his forearm. His left foot stepped forward and into the rock, fading as the rock faded, turned misty orange, and entered his foot, and for the moment he was inside the rock, his monochrome world became misty orange, returning to monochrome as he left the rock. He pressed forward, feeling the rock passing through his body as his body passed through the rock. He shivered as he left the rock, wondering how he could have walked through a stone. The path ahead turned into the face of the mountain, and the kortexi involuntarily slowed his pace, thinking of how unsettling the feeling had been of oozing through the rock as the rock oozed through him.

Do not slow down! a voice in his mind commanded, lest you have not the strength to go on!

By force of will alone, the kortexi strode forward, closing his eyes as the rock face faded to orange mistiness under the rod’s touch. He pushed the rod forward, knowing that if he did not push it to the side, it would follow the golden line. The rock oozed through him; the kortexi slid through the rock, but the darkness in his mind was pierced suddenly by flames, a ponkola face flowing into the face of Marta, a girl from his childhood, changing to the face of the girl in his dream blond hair bare skin lashed by white scars red blood his blood claws raking flames “b” rune inscribed in blood burning screaming pain Marta-ponkola head back face ecstatic hips shuddering flames clawing blood flames bloodpainflames screamingbloodflamesflames. . . .

Come back next time for more of Blakstar’s ascent of the kortexi Mountain of Vision. If you cannot wait until next week, you can download the entire book for free from Smashwords.