The ascent became a melding of miserable repetition, he would grab, pull, hack, then use the root as a support as he searched for footholds on the flaky slope.

His mind meanwhile walked a random path among fantasies of what he would find at the top.

A pre-Constantinian hermitage, perhaps… or even a monastery, untouched for fifteen hundred years because nobody ever happened upon it in all of that time.

Or maybe this was one huge tell—a solid ruin from some ancient fortification. It did defend itself well. Not by steepness or remoteness or height but by sheer unpleasantness… a nastiness that deterred even goats.

By the frogs of lower heaven, why not go all the way! This is, perhaps, a covered-up installation of visitors from outer space, who buried one of their starships here when they ran out of tapioca to power it!

Pavlos’s foot slipped and the root he clutched barely held as he scrambled, face buried in the gritty dirt. With a mighty strain, he lifted himself within range of another foothold. It held.

Probably, he thought somewhat dizzily, I will find a helicopter landing pad, guard dogs, and an oil tycoon who will have me arrested for trespassing.

Pavlos hardly noticed when the slope began to flatten.

In fact, he felt a momentary panic when his hand reached out for another root and grabbed, instead, only air and then grass.

The cedars formed a pocket forest at the center of the plateau. The grass surrounding the grove was a subject for speculation. It was thicker and more lustrous than one might expect in this terrain, yet it did not appear to be tended, either. Pavlos saw no sign of a helicopter landing pad.

Not on this side, at least. Who could tell what he would see once the spots cleared from in front of his eyes?