Free The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) by Paul Kearney

rate of his descent, jam the staff in the sodden ground before him. The way was so steep that the path had to double back on itself every so often, creating a pale zigzag down the side of the ridge. Streams took the more direct route down, bisecting his way frequently. His wet feet ceased to feel uncomfortable, but the pain bothered him. He had visions of bolts coming loose, screws floating away inside muscles, metal scraping bone.
    The sleet turned to rain again as he descended. Chill, stinging rain propelled by a wind off the sea. The breakers were roaring into the bay and smashing in a white fury on the headland beyond. His eyes followed the beach as he stumbled down, and he thought he saw the dark dot of the bothy on the far end of the bay.
    Then he slipped on a green boulder and fell heavily, rolling a little down the slope and landing with his face an inch away from black peat water. He lay there a moment as the water calmed and the beginning of his reflection was created; then struggled on to his hands and knees, sinking in the ooze to his wrists. Soaked to the bone and black with mud, he levered himself to his feet and staggered on, mouthing curses, head bent against the wind.
     
     
    ‘L OOK HOW BLUE the sea is today,’ he said, stopping on the top of the ridge and easing his thumbs between the pack straps and his shoulders.
    She looked at him, hair whipped by the wind to a dark, flickering mane. ‘It’s all blue and green here in the summer, and calm as milk down in the glen. Lots of midges, though.’ She took off her pack and dropped it to the ground. ‘Let’s stop a wee minute and have a breather.’
    He joined her.
    The wind swept across the hills in erratic waves of air, flattening grass and making its underside glisten in the sunlight. The clouds were white and billowing, tumbled across the hard, pale blue sky. The day was clean and fresh; they could see with crystal clarity the stony peaks of the Cuillins parade in the long ridges to the edge of sight.
    They lay in the crackling bracken, Jenny’s hair spread out like a fan. She pushed it back from her face and leaned on one elbow beside him. Overhead a curlew arced, calling shrilly, and the shadow clouds covered them more frequently. Perhaps a mizzle of rain was forming out over the sea, and readying itself for the assault on the mountainous coast.
    Jenny stirred. ‘People are like the seasons, you know,’ she said absently. Riven frowned at her. She lay now on her stomach with her chin cradled in her hands. Her eyes flashed with laughter at the puzzlement on his face. ‘It’s true,’ she said, ‘they are. Some are winter, some summer, others spring and autumn.’ He laughed at her, and she tugged his hair.
    ‘What does that make me?’ he asked.
    ‘An idiot,’ she cried.
    He grabbed her and held her captive, but she struggled. ‘Idiot!’ she yelled again, triumphantly, and twisted in his grasp, but could not break free. Finally she lay quiet in his arms. The wind blew her hair out behind her, sweeping across the hillside and tossing the gulls overhead about like leaves. They grinned at each other, their faces inches apart.
    ‘You,’ Riven said breathlessly, ‘are spring, with the wind and the showers, and the shifting clouds...’ He kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘And autumn,’ he murmured, ‘with the richness of harvest.’
    Their lips met again as the wind hissed around them, and the clouds massed steadily, obscuring the sun.
     
     
    I T WAS DARK, and he was stumbling through knee-deep mud that marked the end of the descent. The mountains were vast dark shapes against a slightly lighter sky. The wind had battered away most of the cloud, and the rain had lessened. Soon it would be moonrise. He splashed on through the rushes that carpeted this part of the valley floor, the pain in his legs becoming a bright light in his head.
    Hard part over, me old son. Now just a plod across the bay. The rain finally ceased, but a fine spray