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land millennia ago in the youngness of the world, an earthquake that had
ripped a gash like a wound in the firmament: the Saeren Gorge. Through that
deep ravine the river thundered, dividing Brennin, which had been raised up in
the earth's fury, from Cathal, lying low and fertile to the south. And great
Saeren did not slow or wander in its course, nor could a dry summer in the
north slake its force. The river foamed and boiled two hundred feet below
them, glinting in the moonlight, awesome and appalling. And between them and
the water lay a descent in darkness down a cliff too sheer for belief.
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"If you fall," Diarmuid had said, unsmiling, "try not to scream. You may give
the others away."
And now Kevin could see the far side of the gorge, and along the southern
cliff, well below their elevation, were the bonfires and garrisons of Cathal,
the outposts guarding their royalty and their gardens from the north.
Kevin swore shakily. "I do not believe this. What are they afraid of? No one
can cross this thing."
"It's a long dive," Coll agreed from his right side. "But he says it was
crossed hundreds of years ago, just once, and that's why we're trying now."
"Just for the hell of it, eh?" Kevin breathed, still incredulous. "What's the
matter? Are you bored with backgammon?"
"With what?"
"Nevermind."
And indeed, there was little chance to talk after that, for Diarmuid, farther
along to their right, spoke softly, and Erron, lean and supple, moved quickly
over to a large twisted tree Kevin hadn't noticed and knotted a rope carefully
about the trunk. That done, he dropped the line over the edge, paying it out
between his hands. When the last coil spun down into darkness, he wet each of
his palms deliberately and cocked an eye at Diarmuid. The Prince nodded once.
Erron gripped the rope tightly, stepped forward, and disappeared over the edge
of the cliff.
Hypnotically, they all watched the taut line of the rope. Coll went over to
the tree to check the knot.
Kevin became aware, as the long moments passed, that his hands were wet with
perspiration. He wiped them surreptitiously on his breeches. Then, on the far
side of the rope, he saw Paul Schafer
looking at him. It was dark, and he couldn't see Paul's face clearly, but
something in the expression, a remoteness, a strangeness, triggered a sudden
cold apprehension in Kevin's chest, and brought flooding remorselessly back
the memory he could never quite escape of the night Rachel Kincaid had died.
He remembered Rachel himself, remembered her with a kind of love of his own,
for it had been hard not to love the dark-haired girl with the shy,
Pre-Raphaelite grace, for whom two things in the world meant fire: the sounds
of a cello under her bow, and the presence of Paul Schafer. Kevin had seen,
and caught his breath to see, the look in her dark eyes when Paul would enter
a room, and he had watched, too, the hesitant unfolding of trust and need in
his proud friend. Until it all went smash, and he had stood, helpless tears in
his own eyes, in the emergency ward of St. Michael's
Hospital with Paul when the death word came. When Paul Schafer, his face a dry
mask, had spoken the only words he would ever speak on Rachel's death: "It
should have been me," he had said, and walked alone out of a too-bright room.
But now, in the darkness of another world, a different voice was speaking to
him. "He's down. You next, friend Kevin," said Diarmuid. And there was indeed
the dancing of the rope that meant Erron was signaling from the bottom.
Moving before he could think, Kevin went up to the rope, wet his hands as
Erron had done, gripped carefully, and slid over and down alone.
Using his booted feet for leverage and control, he descended hand over hand
into the growing thunder of noise that was the Saeren Gorge. The cliff was
rough, and there was a danger that the line might fray on one of the rock
edges-but there was little to be done about that, or about the burning in his
hands as the rope slid abrasively through his grip. He looked down only once
and was dizzied by the speed of the water far below. Turning his face to the
cliff, Kevin breathed deeply for a moment, willing himself to be calm; then he
continued, hand and foot, rope and toehold, down to where the river waited. It
became a process almost mechanical, reaching for crevices with his foot,
pushing off as the rope slid through his palms. He blocked out pain and
fatigue, the returning ache of abused muscles, he forgot, even, where he was.
The world was a rope and a face of rock. It seemed to have always been.
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So oblivious was he that when Erron touched his ankle, Kevin's heart leaped in
a spasm of terror.
Erron helped him step down onto the thin strip of earth, barely ten feet from
where the water roared past, drenching them with spray. The noise was
overwhelming; it made conversation almost impossible.
Erron jerked three times on the slack line, and after a moment it began to
sway and bob beside them with the weight of a body above. Paul, Kevin thought
wearily, that'll be Paul. And then another thought invaded him and registered
hard over exhaustion: he doesn't care if he falls. The realization hit with
the force of apprehended truth. Kevin looked upwards and began frantically
scanning the cliff face, but the moon was lighting the southern side only, and
Schafer's descent was invisible.
Only the lazy, almost mocking movement of the rope end beside them testified
that someone was above.
And only now, absurdly too late, did Kevin think of Paul's weakened condition.
He remembered rushing him to hospital only two weeks before, after the
basketball game Schafer shouldn't have played, and at the memory, his heart
angled in his breast. Unable to bear the strain of looking upwards, he turned
instead to the bobbing rope beside him. So long as that slow dance continued,
Paul was all right. The movement of the rope meant life, a continuation.
Fiercely Kevin concentrated on the line swaying slowly in front of the dark
rock face. He didn't pray, but he thought of his father, which was almost the
same thing.
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