A sleepless night for Windston was a snore fest for the other two, who seemed very much to enjoy the vacated hut previously owned by the now-dead Wandman.

  The Wandman… Windston felt his energy coursing through his energy body like waves crashing within a bottle too small.

  “I have to… expand,” he said, staring up at the moons and the red star. It was still red, just the same as always, whether he looked out physically or energetically or both.

  That green Wandman slept now. His energy whooshed around him in a wide radius as if to warn anything around from tripping it, which would surely wake him and his wrath.

  “He's... miles from us, now. He's on the other side of the mountain. He's been winding. I wonder why?” He sighed, watched his breath flow out and dissipate.

  He stared up at the mountain top. It was so high up. “I wonder,” he said, and made energy move all around and about his body rapidly. “I wonder if I could…” He focused the ball and divided it into two. He placed one on each foot and wrapped it around the heels. Now, he made them rotate around his ankles until they solidified. Then, he lifted them with his mind. It made his pants move up and bunch beneath the knees, but then it broke apart and faded away like smoke.

  “Darn,” he said. “Too weak.” He let his head sag, lay down and did it again, this time after pooling more energy and squishing it together so that it was very dense. It vibrated wherever he put it over his energy body and burned him where he made it solid. “Too much,” he said. “There's gotta be a happy medium. Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong.”

  He fell asleep not long after, alone outside, on the squishy fungus. He woke up a few hours later and slept inside the rest of the night.

  Morning came. Bombo woke up first and started the fire hotter again for more soup. They ate, packed up, and were off.

  The first order of business was to get a good survey of the mountain, Bombo had said.

  “I looked on my way here, and this did look like the best path. But there are other paths, maybe.”

  “The Wandman went this way,” Windston said. “Same as the other Wandman.”

  Bombo let out a quick sigh. “Maybe this is best, then. But I'm afraid of that because look how steep.”

  “Yeah,” Windston said, looking up. The Wandman wasn't where he had been, but was on the western side of the mountain, and his glow was tiny, a dot, and not because of distance, though he was far up. “It definitely sucks,” he said, “but I think this is the way.”

  “If you think so,” Bombo said, “we try. If we get stuck, we come down. What do we do? Look for where this blue seed wants to be planted, yes?”

  “Yeah,” Frem said just as Windston was saying, “It's a key.”

  “So, that's what we do. We plant this seed on the mountain. And then we go. We go to plant another seed or find the giant man, Boulder – I don't know which.”

  “Deal,” Frem said, his hands clasped as he rubbed them together, smiling. “We'll plant the seeds and then find Boulder. Fine.”

  “Keys,” Windston said. “They're keys.”

  “Sure they are,” Frem said, smiling at them. “They're keys to some bigass dragons, that's what they are. Eggs. Seeds. Whatever.”

  “Whatever,” Windston agreed, putting on his backpack.

  When they were all loaded, they headed slowly up the slope and then began their climb.

  Bombo was a lion-man again, and Frem circled about rather than climbed. It was easy enough for them, though probably easiest for Bombo, despite how much Frem liked to fly; it was very windy out there, and he was blown this way and that more often than not, especially when he was trying to make a point, which pissed him off.

  Windston… although he was super strong, and it was easy enough to wedge his hands into rock if he couldn't find a place to grip, he found that he couldn't move at any great speed. He was limited to what was the equivalent speed to a crawl, and not a very fast one. It was so bad that the others would go up and wait for him, sometimes for several minutes, while he looked this way and that for a good place for not only his hands, but his feet, which were not spiked.

  Some time had passed before they finally found a ledge big enough for the three of them to sit on. Bombo made his proposition, which went like this.

  “All you must do is hold on. That is all. I will do the climbing. This is easy for me. I will not fall.”

  Windston glanced over at Frem, who looked very much like he was trying hard not to laugh. And then he did laugh as Bombo smiled and said, “What?”

  “It's a little embarrassing,” Windston said. “I think I'd rather you just throw me up there.”

  “Throw you?” Bombo said. “I cannot throw you this far, not without your pack breaking and everything falling.”

  That was true. “Maybe you take my pack.”

  “Two packs?” he asked.

  “It's better than me and two packs,” Windston said.

  Bombo shrugged. “Maybe I do this. But I have to wear one on my back with the other on my tummy. This makes climbing much, much harder.”

  “I'll just climb myself,” Windston said, staring up the mountain. “It can't take all that long.”

  “It can,” Bombo said, and Frem nodded with him, his eyes wide and his eyebrows up. He was turning blue again, like he had been in Zephyr. It was probably because the mountain rock was a very dark blue, and the ice was so pale.

  “I don't know what to do, then,” Windston said. “I wish I had some climbing spikes. I heard somebody talking about them by the Twins.” He paused, sighed. “Didn't even think about it then.”

  “We don't know then for sure that we climb this mountain. We think maybe we go to it, not maybe up it.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I knew,” Frem said.

  “I feel like I did too,” Windston agreed.

  “Well, maybe I do too without the secrets. But hey, we must do this. Let us move more and think as we go. This way we still make progress.”

  They did. They climbed more up the steep mountain until the slope went more inward, which made things easier. But then it went back flat again.

  Hours passed before they found another place to rest. This time, they found space in a small cave. They slept, or two of them did. Frem went out and flew up ahead, to see if there was any possible shortcut or easier way up.

  There wasn't. This mountain was mean; it wouldn't get easier until what Windston guessed was near where the first Wandman had rested the night before based on how Frem had described it.

  They found that place by the next morning. There, they slept, all three of them. They cooked there too and ate something rather than soup – venison steaks, onions and potatoes.

  That night, before he slept, Windston had played around with more of his energy. He still hadn't figured out how to lift himself, but he had lifted a tiny little rock for a second before he lost focus. He also went out of body, but only for about thirty seconds, after which he could not do it again.

  There was a path, it turned out, just past where the Wandman had slept. It was a very narrow pass between rocks, and they had to cut a way through for Bombo with Windston's sword.

  On the other side, there was an even narrower path that wound around the edge of the mountain, sloping only slightly up. Frem said that they could possibly climb from ridge to ridge, and that the path winded halfway up the mountain – he had gone pretty far up, but not all the way.

  But Bombo was sick of climbing, and admitted changing into a lion-man took a toll on him. Windston could relate; his energy work was wearing him out now, in a way that wasn't physical, and he thought maybe he ought to give it a rest tonight as it was eating into his sleeping with strange dreams that left him feeling anything but rested by morning.

  So, around the mountain they strode, sometimes flush against it, their backs to it, their faces out above their packs, which they strapped belly-out then. Sometimes, they went the opposite way, when it was so narrow only the toes could cling. Regardless of how they did things now, they did them high above the clouds, where the air was thick, but the return was low; it felt like sometimes even a decent breath didn't do much good, and most were shallow.

  Frem stopped flying higher now. He was afraid and admitted it. He had never been so high and it was different up there, “Freaky,” as he put it.

  “I just don't like that I can't see the ground.”

  “You think we do?” Bombo asked.

  “Yeah, but I'm only up in the air. You guys are standing on rock, leaning against it.”

  “So are you,” Windston said.

  “Now I am, genius. I'm talking about when I’m flying.”

  “I know,” Windston said, and it was at that moment that they all jumped in start, for there was a shrill scream from just up above, so loud it hurt their ears.

  Windston looked upward and saw the bigger blue energy from before. It was small like the Wandman's green energy, and it was fading, turning purple, and then pink.

  “We're going to die,” Frem said.

  “No,” Bombo disagreed. “Though I don't like that sound much.”

  “There's a man up there,” Windston said.

  “Man? Sounded like a banshee,” said Frem.

  Windston shook his head. “I saw him. We all did. The Wandman showed us. And Clement showed us before that.”

  “I thought that was all symbolic,” Frem said. Bombo was nodding.

  “No,” Windston said. “There is a madman up there. I've seen him. I can even see him now, or his essence.”

  “His essence,” Frem mocked. “Stop getting weird.”

  Windston ignored him. “He's utterly insane. I can feel it from here. And then there's the Wandman. He's near him, but under him, and he hasn't moved all day. I wonder why.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” Bombo asked, his eyes narrowed.

  Windston shrugged. “I don't really know. I just see… colors. I see colors around people, and these colors, when I focus on them, make me think things. They're never wrong things; they're always right. But it's weird, because I don't know why it happens, or what it means.”

  “Me neither,” said Frem. “But let's hope you're wrong. I don't like madmen. And if this Wandman is too scared to confront him, we maybe should be too.” He paused, smiled. “Buttcracker or not.”

  Bombo glanced at the sword, shook his head. “Everybody with their pretty sword but Bombo.”

  “Yeah, well, we can't turn into literal monsters,” said Frem.

  “Maybe you already are one,” Bombo said, smiling.

  “Maybe.”

  They continued around on their course. There was one more flat before nightfall and they took advantage of it by camping there.

  By morning, the sky was clear and the sun shone bright. For the first time, they noticed a tower up above to the west. It was enormous, and yet merely a speck on the mountain. It was blue, crystal clear, made of ice. There was no door down below that they could see, and Frem confirmed this fear when he struck the nerve to fly up and look.

  But there was a wide gaping hole on the western side near the top, and there in it, pacing back and forth, was the madman.

  “He's freaking scary,” Frem said, chilled in fright.

  “What does he look like?” Windston asked.

  “He's not very big or anything, but there's something about him. He's young, maybe Agnessa's age or a little older. He’s pretty like her and his hair is like hers, although he has bangs in the front. He has these wild blue eyes, and he's wearing a weird outfit that looks like tight leather, but armor, pitch black, down to the gloves and boots, but no helmet. He's just pacing there, back and forth. Every now and then, he stops and reacts to something that isn't there. It's as if he's blind to the world and sees somewhere else. I watched him for about five minutes so maybe I'm full of crap. But that's what it looked like to me.”

  Windston nodded slowly. Bombo didn't nod but only stared at Frem. “Well, maybe we avoid this man,” the latter said.

  Frem shook his head. “My seed went crazy the closer I got to the tower. That's where it goes. No doubt about it.”

  “Damn,” Windston said. Secretly, he'd been hoping not to see that other Wandman again, and he especially wanted to avoid the madman.

  “Yupper,” Frem said, shrugging, shaking his head. “I never thought it'd be easy, but this…”

  “Sucks,” Windston said.

  “Yeah. Donkeys.”

  “Quiet,” Bombo said, his face twisted in disgust. “Come, now. So, we go to a tower. There are three of us, and one is Bombo, no? We go. We are fine.”

  But none of them thought it would be fine. Not a single one. Still, they climbed. They climbed now, off the path, up, up and up and to the west. They did this from morning till noon. By noon, they were close. Just after noon they stood at its foot.

  It was a jagged spike that stabbed straight up from out of the side of the mountain's western face. It was perfectly square at the bottom, its sides perfectly formed and flat. And it narrowed steadily to its peak, which was a needle-sharp point. It was cold and steam rose from it. And though it was ice, it wasn't made of water, but rather that gel stuff down below; frozen, that stuff is nearly unbreakable, even for the likes of Frem or beyond. Even now, the madman kicked it and punched it and blasted about in a frenzy that shook the mountain. Windston thought maybe this was a part of his madness, and that maybe he could feel them coming.

  “The inside is hollow,” Bombo said, pressing his face against it and cupping around his eyes to block the sun. “I see inside. There are things in there.”

  “Yeah,” Windston said. “One of them way up high is the Wandman. He's been… looking at us.”

  “That's creepy,” Frem said, waving up at him.

  There was movement waving back in response; it was the Wandman. He had been camping in the tower for an entire day, though it made no sense to Windston as to why. At most, it scared him senseless. At least, he almost forgot he was there.

  “Well, how do we get up?” Frem asked. The mountain was very steep on the western face, and the tower, which stood straight up out of it, was nearly flush with it so that there was no way to get any footing on that side, where there was the open door.

  “I think Bombo has to throw me, and then you have to carry me in,” Windston said.

  “What about me?” Bombo asked.

  “You stay here,” Windston said, facing him. “We'll be quick.”

  “But I don't come all this way just to stand here and wait.”

  “Unless you can climb up,” Windston said, shaking his head, for he knew there was no way he could.

  Bombo sulked a bit openly, but then he shrugged, and sighed, and nodded his head. “Maybe somebody throw me, though. That would be fair.”

  “I can't carry you a foot,” Frem said.

  “Maybe you kick me.”

  “I don't think that would work either.”

  Windston agreed.

  “Fine. I throw you up there, then.”

  Windston nodded, smiled, but both gestures were forced. Truth be told, it was freezing cold, hard to breathe, and he felt like forgetting the whole thing and heading down.

  But he didn't. He looked up at Bombo, nodded at Frem, turned around and waited to be tossed.