Darkness Falls

The path was less steep here, and the scree and weathered rock had given way to a mulch of leaf litter. It was a relief, although probably as treacherous to the unwary. The air was thick with mist, silently soaking anything the sweat hadn't yet got to. The rocks had been slippy and unreassuring to walk on. The surface in places weathered into a mass of loose fragments, leaving you clutching on all fours.

Farther up here, the vegetation had taken over again, with all the shades of dewy green. Strangely withered looking trees growing out of fractures in the black rock faces, from out between the thick cladding of moss that clung to the bottom of them. The collection of plants, with their strange shapes and curious leaves. Beside the familiar stands of Fallopia, their white flowers atop the stems, the leaves shot holed and half eaten. The vegetation was dense along the path, giving way only to more outcrops of black rock. Their tops vanishing into the mist.

There was a ruined temple at the end of this path. One stone column toppled down the steps to the entrance. The lintel broken thereabouts. The roof partially missing from the fire that had taken hold, the front portion collapsed. Leaving only stone uprights to loft blackened timber trusses with vines hanging from them. Behind the mess and puddles on the flagstoned floor, the giant bronze statue was still there. Surrounded by invasive plants, and covered in moss and algae. As if nature had rallied in its defence, but all too late.

It was still up there, shrouded in mist, waiting to be reclaimed.

But before you reached there, you'd arrive at a plateaux. An almost hidden valley on the side of the mountain where the path had doglegged between two outcrops. On the one side, water spilled haphazardly from out of a fissure in the rock face, the green algae spreading beneath it. Between the soaking plants, and by some fate that had overlooked it all that time ago, you'd see a shrine.

The wind chimes were silent in the misty calm, but the air smelled strongly of incense. Just silence and tranquillity. The lintel showed the Kanji, but underneath it was a painted wooden tourist sign that translated it badly.

"Shrine to the Goddess."

Outside, resting on what looked like four wooden railway sleepers was a large shallow bowl. It's outside had the light green patina of bronze, the inside scorched amidst a mound of snowy grey ash. The mist had cleared a little, hereabouts. This was what he'd come back here for. Searching his pocket for a strange golden coin, still disbelieving that a square hole in the centre was even plausible, let alone functional. On finding one, he threw it towards the centre of the bowl. Being too eager, he missed. It glanced off the edge and the bowl rang with a dull clang.

On the threshold, two eyes silently watched. Watched the fumbling for a second coin. Watched until some basal instinct caused him to look up in order to see.

At the top of the steps, a short man, shaven headed and clad in yellow robes. A long string of beads about his neck. As their eyes met, he reverently drew his hands together and bowed from the waist.

This man hadn't made a sound, and when he'd looked away toward the second coin he'd found, and looked back... In that instant, the top of the steps were empty again. The mist creeping in front of them. Staring for a second, skewy eyed, he threw the coin into the bowl. Such was the force, the swing of his arm, it threw up a curtain of ash where it struck...

In that instant, the flames leapt up from the embers beneath. It raised a smile. This was what he had come to see.