On A Mountaintop

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

On a Mountaintop

By Plot Roach

The air churned above the mountain, threatening to kill Henry with lightening or make him slip off the wet rock walls and fall to his doom.

“I shall have no fear,” he said to himself. “For my fate awaits me at the top!” He had only himself to talk to as all of his comrades had died en route to his mountain destination.

His girlfriend, Rue, had died when a group of trolls surprised them in the maze in King Lore’s dungeon. His lifelong friend, Phillip, died when a poisoned needle jabbed him while he picked the lock on the chest that held Henry’s magic wand. And even his dog, Pompsikuss, gave his life to defend his master when a group of zombie clowns surprised them while they slept at the base of the mountain.

Henry shuddered at the thought of the clowns, remembering the firelight glinting off their red noses just before the squeaky shoes shuffled forward and the clowns groaned “Haaaaaa…. Haaaaa.” There had even been a clown mime who pantomimed eating him before it lunged at Henry.

“I‘m ready!” Henry said, pulling himself to the plateau at the top of the mountain, and puffing out his chest in a way he believed would make him look manly and heroic.

The figure that had been waiting for him thought that the motion made young Henry look like a small child caught bragging. “Climbing the mountain is not the point of this exercise,” the figure said. “It’s defeating your enemy and traveling back down it, that is the real goal.”

“And you are?” Asked Henry, eyeing the boy standing across from him.

“Harold, your twin brother,” the boy said. Henry looked the boy over and was surprised by what he found.

“Why you can’t be,” he said. “You look nothing like me.”

“Not every set of twins are identical.”

"The oracle said that I would meet my greatest nemesis upon this very mountaintop and that the victor of this battle would go on to rule the world. But… you are a mere boy,” he said, almost spitting the words out at Harold. “You must be my evil twin, since I am the good one,” he reasoned. “Yet you wear no dark robe or black clothes to denote your status. And there are no warts or scars to mar your face so that all might know that evil dwells within your soul.”

Harold said nothing to these accusations, he merely hefted his weapon and took aim.

“And that horrendous excuse for a wand,” he said, pointing to the long shaft of metal and wood that Harold held in his hands. “You have no chance at beating me in a duel. I was raised in the most illustrious wizarding school in the world. My power is absolute and my aim is flawless. Bow before me and I might spare your pathetic life so that you may serve as a reminder to those who would dare question my authority-”

A noise like thunder pealed across the sky. Young Henry fell from the side of the mountain as Harold shouldered his “wand” and prepared himself to take the back path down the mountain. The same path that had an escalator past the troll village and a Sherpa to take him through King Lore’s dungeon.

“I was raised to shoot first and ask questions later,” Harold said, looking down at his dead twin. “And it’s called a shotgun, you idiot.”