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Chapter TWENTY-SIX
On the Heights, Asrif was in trouble. He'd reached a ledge just beneath the eyrie, but the back of his harness had caught on a rock, and he couldn't unsnag it. "He could cut himself free," said Detlan, craning his neck.
"Then what does he do for a harness?" said Bale.
Torak said, "If he's really caught, then--"
"--then he can't get down," snapped Bale. "Yes, we've already thought of that."
"What I mean," said Torak, "is I could go up and help him."
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Just when he was beginning to wonder if he would ever get there, he heaved himself onto a ledge that brought him level with Asrif.
The Seal boy was a little over an arm's length away, on his hands and knees with his back to Torak, his shoulder strap hopelessly snagged on a jagged tongue of rock. No wonder he hadn't been able to free himself.
Asrif glanced awkwardly over his shoulder. "Good to see you, Forest boy," he said, trying for a grin that didn't work. His face was red, although whether from exhaustion or humiliation, Torak couldn't tell. "I think I can unhook you," said Torak. He began edging sideways along a narrow crack that led from his ledge to Asrif's.
"Watch out for the eagles," warned Asrif.
Torak risked a glance up--and nearly fell off the cliff in shock. Directly above him, the eyrie blotted out the sky. A huge tangle of lichen-crusted branches, it was easily as big as a Raven's shelter. From deep inside he heard a faint chink chink
of nestlings. But of their parents he could see no sign.
"Where are they?" he murmured.
"Circling higher up," said Asrif. "I think they know I'm stuck. It won't be the same for you."
Torak swallowed, and glanced back to the ledge he'd just left. His rope was securely looped over the final peg, a short way above it. If he missed his footing, 255
that should stop him falling too far. If, of course, the rope didn't break, or his harness didn't snap, or the peg didn't crack . . .
If, if, if, he told himself impatiently. Get on with it.
He moved farther along the crack. But even straining as far as he could, he couldn't reach Asrif's harness.
He tried to get closer--but his rope held him back. He tugged at it--the signal for Bale to feed him more slack--but nothing happened. "He can't give you any more," said Asrif. "There's none left."
Torak glanced down--a dizzying drop to the upturned faces far below--and saw Bale shaking his head.
He thought for a moment. Then he wriggled out of his harness, and let it swing free from the final peg. Now there would be nothing to hold him if he fell. "What are you
doing"
whispered Asrif in horror.
"Try to keep the birds off me," said Torak as he edged closer.
Again he reached out for Asrif's harness--and this time his fingers brushed it.
A shadow slid across the rock--and he ducked as a herring gull flew at him with a strident
kyow.
Asrif shouted and threw a stone. He missed, and the gull flew away, spattering them both. Foul white slime clogged Torak's hair and leaked down his face, narrowly missing 256
one eye. He spat out the worst and tried again.
This time he grabbed Asrif's shoulder strap. His fingers were slippery with bird slime, and he couldn't pull the harness off the snag. "Move back a bit," he gasped, "let it slacken." Asrif shuffled back.
With a jerk that nearly took him with it, Torak yanked the harness free of the rock.
Asrif was still on hands and knees, openmouthed with shock. He turned and met Torak's eyes. "Thanks," he muttered.
Torak gave a curt nod. "The root. Did you get the root?"
Asrif shook his head.
"What?"
"I couldn't reach." His face puckered with shame. "I chose the wrong pegs, climbed myself to a dead end. Should've taken your route instead."
Torak risked another glance up, and saw that a short way to his right, a deep, slanting crack zigzagged up toward the nether part of the eyrie. At its top, in the very shadow of the eyrie, nestled a clump of glossy, dark-purple leaves. Selik root. He thought about going back to the ledge he'd just come from, and putting on his harness. But there was no more slack in the rope; it wouldn't allow him to 257
reach the eyrie. He would have to do without.
"I should be able to make it," he said, with more confidence than he felt.
His arms and legs trembled with strain as he sought handholds and hoisted himself up the crack. He was hot and tired, and the stink of bird slime was making him sick.
Beneath his foot, the crack gave. Just in time he climbed farther up--and watched part of the rim disintegrate, the fragments rolling and bouncing before shattering on the boulders, dangerously close to Detlan and Bale.
It occurred to him that he should have shouted a warning, but it was too late now. Besides, shouting would displease the cliff, which seemed to be waxing impatient with these interlopers on its flank. He edged farther up the crack toward the selik root.
"Look out!" whispered Asrif below him.
A menacing
klek klek
echoed off the cliff--then a shadow sped toward him--and he looked around to see an eagle coming straight at him, its vicious talons reaching for his face. He needed both hands to cling on, he couldn't even shield his head, could only flatten himself against the rock. He caught a fleeting glimpse of fierce golden eyes and a sharp black tongue--heard
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one eye. He spat out the worst and tried again.
This time he grabbed Asrif's shoulder strap. His fingers were slippery with bird slime, and he couldn't pull the harness off the snag. "Move back a bit," he gasped, "let it slacken." Asrif shuffled back.
With a jerk that nearly took him with it, Torak yanked the harness free of the rock.
Asrif was still on hands and knees, openmouthed with shock. He turned and met Torak's eyes. "Thanks," he muttered.
Torak gave a curt nod. "The root. Did you get the root?"
Asrif shook his head.
"What?"
"I couldn't reach." His face puckered with shame. "I chose the wrong pegs, climbed myself to a dead end. Should've taken your route instead."
Torak risked another glance up, and saw that a short way to his right, a deep, slanting crack zigzagged up toward the nether part of the eyrie. At its top, in the very shadow of the eyrie, nestled a clump of glossy, dark-purple leaves. Selik root. He thought about going back to the ledge he'd just come from, and putting on his harness. But there was no more slack in the rope; it wouldn't allow him to 259
reach the eyrie. He would have to do without.
"I should be able to make it," he said, with more confidence than he felt.
His arms and legs trembled with strain as he sought handholds and hoisted himself up the crack. He was hot and tired, and the stink of bird slime was making him sick.
Beneath his foot, the crack gave. Just in time he climbed farther up--and watched part of the rim disintegrate, the fragments rolling and bouncing before shattering on the boulders, dangerously close to Detlan and Bale.
It occurred to him that he should have shouted a warning, but it was too late now. Besides, shouting would displease the cliff, which seemed to be waxing impatient with these interlopers on its flank. He edged farther up the crack toward the selik root.
"Look out!" whispered Asrif below him.
A menacing
klek klek
echoed off the cliff--then a shadow sped toward him--and he looked around to see an eagle coming straight at him, its vicious talons reaching for his face. He needed both hands to cling on, he couldn't even shield his head, could only flatten himself against the rock. He caught a fleeting glimpse of fierce golden eyes and a sharp black tongue--heard
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the hiss of wings wider than a skinboat. . . .
A stone struck the eagle on the breast, and it wheeled away with a screech.
Torak couldn't see where the eagle had gone. Maybe it had been frightened off, but he didn't think so. More likely it was circling for another attack.
Above him, the cleft widened and became much easier to climb. When he reached the top, he found to his relief that it was deep enough to allow him to go down on his right knee, and by pressing himself against the sun-hot rock, reach down with his left and unsheath his knife. The sky darkened. More wing beats--more hammerlike alarm calls--this time from
two
eagles: the mated pair fighting to protect their nestlings.
"I'm not after your young!" cried Torak, forgetting to lower his voice as he brandished his knife.
Not surprisingly, the eagles didn't listen. As he reached for a clump of the selik root and dug at it with his knife, he expected at any moment to be wrenched off the cliff. Several well-aimed strikes from Asrif warded them back, but the eagles kept coming. The cliffs rang with their calls.
"Hurry
up!"
called Asrif.
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Torak thought that too obvious to need a reply.
The selik root had taken hold in a sunbaked "earth" of rotten wood and eagle pellets, and it didn't want to let go. Sweat poured down Torak's sides as he chipped away at the base of the plant with Fa's blue slate knife. The rim of the cleft on which he knelt was crumbly, and as he worked, more fragments broke off and bounced into nothingness. Desperately he grasped a clump of selik root by the stems, and rocked it loose.
"Hurry!"
cried Asrif. "I'm running out of stones!"
At last the plant came free. The root was small, no bigger than his forefinger: a pale, mottled green. For a moment Torak stared at it, unable to believe that so insignificant a thing could deliver the clans from the sickness. "I've got it," he called to Asrif. Tucking the root inside his jerkin and resheathing his knife, he started back down the cleft toward the ledge where his harness waited. Beneath his foot, the rim cracked--and gave. He flung himself back, clutching at rock.
"Look out!"
he yelled, as a sheet of rock almost as big as he was broke off and hurtled down the cliff--taking his harness with it.
Torak clung to the rock face, watching in disbelief as the harness tangled with the rock--narrowly missed Asrif--and floated almost lazily down, striking the 262
boulders with a distant thump a few paces from Detlan and Bale.
The noise of the seabirds fell away. All Torak could hear was his own breath, and the trickle of pebbles.
Above him the eagles spiraled higher. They knew that he would trouble their nestlings no more.
Below him, Asrif raised his head and met his eyes.
Both knew what this meant, but neither wanted to say it. Torak now had no way off the cliff--except to attempt the long climb down without a harness, which would almost certainly kill him. Asrif licked his lips. "Climb down to my ledge," he said.
Torak thought about that, and shook his head. "No room," he said.
"There might be. We could share my harness."
"It'd never take the two of us. We'd both be killed."
Asrif did not reply. He knew Torak was right.
"You take the root," Torak said abruptly.
Asrif opened his mouth to protest, but Torak talked over him. "It makes sense--you know it does. You can get down from there. You can take it to Tenris, he can make the cure. For everyone." He sounded very sure, but his heart was fluttering like a fledgling. Part of him could not believe what he was saying.
Leaning down as far as he could, he lowered his
V
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arm, then let fall the root. Asrif caught it and tucked it inside his jerkin. "What will you do?" he said.
Torak felt surprisingly clearheaded as he thought over his choices. Maybe that was the cliffwort; or maybe he simply hadn't taken in what was happening. The stretch of rocks where Bale and Detlan stood was directly beneath him. It was narrow, and behind it lay the Sea. If he jumped, he might hit that instead. "You could
try
climbing down," said Asrif, his face young and scared.
"With you below me?" said Torak. "And what about Detlan and Bale? If I fell, I might kill you all."
Asrif swallowed. "But what else--"
"Watch your head," said Torak, and launched himself off the cliff.
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Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Torak was falling through glowing green water-- through glowing green light--and he wasn't scared at all, just hugely relieved that he hadn't hit the rocks. After the heat of the cliffs, the water was so cold it was a kick in the chest, but he hardly felt it, because now he was falling into a Forest.
Golden, sun-dappled kelp shimmered and swayed to the rhythms of the Sea. Its roots were lost in darkness, and through its undulating fronds the silver capelin sped like swallows. And here through the kelp came the guardian,
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shooting toward him with one thrust of her flippers, then rolling over to gaze at him upside down. With her big round eyes and bubble-beaded whiskers, she was so friendly and inquisitive that he wanted to laugh out loud.
The swell carried him sideways into colder water-- and suddenly a sharp pain stabbed his gut. No time to wonder what was happening--no time to be afraid. Besides, the pain was fleeting, it had already gone. And now he wasn't cold anymore, he was wonderfully warm,
and weightless, and so at home in this beautiful, soft green world that he didn't ever want to leave.
And yet--he had to have air.
Reluctantly he kicked toward the surface. Up he spiraled, shooting through the water in a stream of silver bubbles. But when he put out his head, the world above the waves was so jagged and harsh that he shut his nostrils tight and flipped over again, back into the beautiful green light. Down he dived, faster than he'd ever thought possible, back into the kelp.
Something was floating down there in the kelp. Curious, he swam closer to take a look.
It was a boy: limp, unconscious, the current rolling him to and fro as the kelp entwined him. Torak wondered if Asrif had fallen in, or maybe Detlan or Bale. But the long, waving hair was darker than that of the Seal boys--and as it parted, he 266
glimpsed a thin face with staring gray eyes; and on both cheekbones, the blue-black tattoos of the Wolf Clan.
With a surge of terror he realized that he was looking at himself.
His thoughts teemed like frightened fishes. What's happening? Am I dead? Is that why the guardian has come, to take me on the Death Journey? Then he came to his senses. Don't be stupid, Torak, this guardian's a seal, and you're Wolf Clan! Your guardian would be a
wolf!
But if I'm not dead, he thought as he stared in horrified fascination at the floating boy,
then what's happening?
He dived closer toward himself, then came to a sudden halt by spreading his front flippers to push back the water.
His flippers?
And they were
his
flippers, there was no doubt about it. He could open and close them like hands--and as he did so, he saw their short gray fur waving gently in the water.
He rolled over and swam upside down, and found to his astonishment that he could see far down into the dark, to where purple starfish made their prickly way across the bottom. He could hear the tiny, hard biting sounds of fish nibbling kelp; the brittle clink of crabs feeling their way over rocks.
267 But most of all, he could feel through his whiskers. His whiskers were so keen that they could pick up the rippling tracks of the smallest fish as it darted through the water. The Sea was webbed and crisscrossed with thousands of invisible fish trails. And he felt, too, the strong, slow tremors that the kelp sent back through the water; and the waves echoing off the rocks. He hung upside down, trying to make sense of this bewilderment of trails.
Then--faint
and far away, he heard singing.
Long, eerie shrieks; a furious hailstorm of clicks. A song of anger and loss, coming to him from the open Sea.
A shudder ran through him from the tips of his whiskers to the end of his stubby tail. And now he felt the huge disturbance in the water as the creature came closer at incredible speed. . . . His mind flooded with dreadful certainty.
The Hunter is coming.
Another sickening jolt--another sharp pain in his gut--and suddenly he was Torak. He was bitterly cold and desperate for air, and he couldn't see much at all-- he was too far down--but out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of silver flippers as the guardian fled for the shelter of the deep. The Hunter is coming!
With all his might, Torak kicked for the surface. His limbs were dream-heavy and he moved with infuriating
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slowness, but at last he broke free of the waves.
Gasping, coughing, he got a choppy view of limpet-crusted boulders--and saw with enormous relief that the current had carried him close to the claw of rock that jutted from the cliffs. Desperately he struck out for it. Maybe he could reach it before the Hunter . . . Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Asrif had managed to get down off the cliffs, and was jumping up and down, shouting frantically. Then, to Torak's horror, he saw Bale and Detlan setting out in their skinboats-- setting out to rescue him. Didn't they know that they were far more at risk than he? He at least had a chance of reaching the claw--but in their boats, they would be utterly exposed to the wrath of the Hunter.
"No!"
he yelled. "Get back!
Get out of the water!"
They couldn't hear. Or did they think he was calling for help?
Swimming as fast as he could, he yelled again. "Get out of the water! The Hunter's coming!
The Hunter's coming!"
This time Bale heard him--but instead of turning his skinboat about, he paddled faster toward Torak, shaking his head in puzzlement. And Torak saw with consternation that the Sea around him was treacherously calm, with not a black fin in sight. Bale didn't understand the warning-because he couldn't see the Hunter.
He didn't know it was coming.
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"Get back!" yelled Torak again. "The Hunter is coming!"
Now Bale understood--and plunged in his paddle and brought his skinboat about, shouting at Detlan to do the same. "Back! Back!"
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