| Fire and Ice
The mountain was...abbreviated.
That was the only way to put it. It was clear by the rubble and boulders littering below that the granite mountain had once borne a peak- but instead it was nearly flat-topped, remnants of what it had borne forcing the forest downslope to thin.
Nearly flat-topped.
Directly across the middle of it was a pair of gouges, looking like someone had taken an ice-cream scoop to the stone. Beyond it, on the face of a still-larger mountain, two startlingly small craters marked another granite face, just a short distance over a scree-covered ledge. One able to fly or levitate could have checked- the craters matched the grooves in the other mountain's otherwise flattened top, aligned perfectly. It begged many questions.
What could do that to a mountain? And why had it only left such a meager impression on the next one in line? When had it happened? And why?
What had dug the shallow valley that circled half the planet-or would have, had it not broken on oceans and lakes? What had left the massive crater in the arctic zone?
Nobody really seemed to be able to answer.
Once, lost, someone had found something very odd. It looked like it had once been a battle-axe, but the head of it was sheared off twice, rendering the nearly bat-winged form of its two-edged head into something more like a spear.
Or perhaps an arrow.
They claimed it was embedded in ice.... ice that was warm to the touch. Angled upwards, and away.
But..... pointed at what? |