The Sound of Silence(16)

Like a giant pagoda, the mountain stood tall and upright, piercing into thick clouds that had its mysterious summit secretly hidden.
But as soon as the shepherd arrived at its foot, he was utterly overwhelmed by its posture: a huge spiral staircase, spiraling up into the kingdom of clouds; rocky, firm, and sturdy as a tough and prepared boxer; more resembling Zeus’s lightning rather than Achilles’s spear. Any single adjective seemed too weak and humble in front of it.
The shepherd tried to swim against the current of people walking to him. They were disc miners, employed to dig out discs buried in the Mountain. On every step toward the summit disc ores can be found just under feet, and without much effort they would be dug out and transferred to disc shops, where sellers polished out its brightness, and had its latent melody play. Mt. Discs was so enormous that even its first level had not been cleared out.

The shepherd boarded onto the first level, and trod on the soft soil and mosses. These emerald mosses scattered everywhere, on the stony central axis, on the extensive platform, on the convex part of a rock, and under shoe soles. They were elves and daughters of the Mountain, lively and vigorous.