High Place — Part Five
By Graham J. Darling
Denman’s hand still lay on the table, holding the dark shrivelled stick he’d been nibbling all day. Suddenly Schlumpf lunged and snatched, then bent close to the light. “This is not meat”, he said.
“It’s better than flesh. It’s pure flame.”
“Herr Denman! You agreed to our rules—no intoxicants this trip, not even tobacco or alcohol.”
“Rules are for mortals. It’s taken longer than any of the others, but I can feel it now, like never before, the old life making way for the new…”
“Doctor Levine, look here!” cried Takahashi. I seized the lantern and swung it to Denman’s corner.
He was now naked from the waist up and fumbling at his trousers; flushed scarlet all over, chest heaving… I put my hand on his shoulder, felt the skin hot and dry, the muscles underneath rigid, trembling… A flash of lightning further lit his rictus grin, along with all our astonished faces.
Thunder crashed. He struggled to rise. The rest drew back, as laymen will.
“Listen, Denman,” I said. “The plant lies to you. It wants you dead. This is how these things defend themselves, by tricking whatever eats them into hugging a bear or walking off a cliff.”
“Idiot!” he cackled. “A fungus is not a plant. It isn’t made of cellulose, but chitin: like crabs, like beetles, like the itsy-bitsy spider climbing up my spine, turning me into it, granting me its powers, its powers to crrawwwl-l-l-l…” He surged to his feet. “Why settle for halfway up? O virgin peak, unclaimed by any other god, I come! Puncak Jaya—MOUNT VICTORY!”
I am not a small man, and he not a large one, but he swept me aside like a child and plunged through the doorway into turbulent night. We tumbled after him with snatched-up flashlights, and Krushniski came out with her NVD goggles, but it was already too late: the downpour flung back our fractured beams as blinding glitter, and to our shouted commands and pleas the wind returned only a fading wail that might have been, “Excelsior…!”
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Graham J. Darling of Outer Ottawa Canada designs molecules such as the universe has never seen and demonstrates medieval science and technology to school kids and passers-by. His singular hybrids of disruptive Science Fiction, mythopoeic Fantasy and unearthly Horror have escaped through Sword & Mythos (eds. Silvia Moreno-Garcia & Paula R. Stiles), After Dinner Conversation and Strange Tales of Space and Time (ed. Stephen Rhoades); snarfed second prize in the annual National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F) Short Story Contest; and will soon hatch in Sui Generis (UK)——residents are advised to lock their doors and windows, then tune in for survival tips to https://fiction.grahamjdarling.com/
Copyright © 2026 Graham J. Darling