Chapter Four
One eye cracked open, then the other. Her body still shook, but the tremors were less severe and the breeze across her face felt almost warm. The stump had made landfall and she stared at the cliff face before her.
Limast’s coast was forbidding. Its uninterrupted palisade precluded harbors and was bordered in places by narrow strips of pebbles or sand, hardly big enough to call beaches. Otherwise, it presented a vertical wall of gray rock against the sea. Roanna groaned as she straightened in the saddle the branches created and began scanning the cliffs for a way to ascend.
By her estimate, it was already late morning, but due to the rock wall’s proximity, neither sun had yet risen sufficiently high to reveal any of its features. If locating a way to the top were not problem enough, the tide had begun rising. If she failed to determine an ascent route soon, the strand would soon submerge and she would find herself afloat and adrift yet again.
All at once, light flooded her eyes as Jadon peeked above the ridge top. It took a moment for her vision to return and Jadon’s dancing phantom to fade. When at last she could see, the wall’s crevices became apparent, and she noticed a diagonal shelf rising up and away from the sea, ascending to her left. She thought it seemed sufficiently wide that, if she proceeded with caution, she might manage the climb. Roanna leapt to the sand, glad to feel land beneath her feet. With no time to savor even this fleeting joy, she ran to the cliff.
The first several yards proved easy enough. Although the ledge’s width forced her to sidestep, it was somewhat more than the length of her feet and handholds were abundant. She was making good time, smiling at the ease of it, when halfway up she ran into trouble. The way narrowed unexpectedly, forcing her onto the balls of her feet and offering fewer protrusions for her hands to hang onto. At one point, as she glanced to determine where to step next, she caught a glimpse of the sea. Startled by how high she had climbed, she lost balance and screamed as she began to teeter backwards. Yet, even as she cried out, a part of her mind spied a fissure. She reached for it. Wedging the edge of her right hand inside, she curled her fingers to tighten the fit and gasped when it held. She was still teetering precariously when she spotted another handhold just above her left shoulder. Flailing with her free hand, she grabbed it and pulled herself upright as sand and pebbles clattered down the rock face.
It would not do to panic. She could die if she did. Trying to remain calm, she took several deep breaths. Her heart was still pounding, but she knew she might survive if she did not let fear overwhelm her. She exhaled. Then, as she looked above and around to assess problems or opportunities, she noticed another incline, this time leading diagonally up and to the right. A short distance farther, it ended where a rock chimney cut through. The vertical fissure was something she thought she might scale if only she could reach it.
Another handhold appeared a short distance beyond, so, hanging on with just her left hand and releasing her right, she took hold and began inching up the grade. Continuing upward, finding new ways to secure herself, several more minutes found her standing by the cleft.
This breach in the wall ended far below where it narrowed to a slit, midway between her current route and the one that preceded. Above, it cut a jagged gash all the way to the summit. At the level she was standing, it was barely wider than her shoulders, widening only slightly as it ascended.
Roanna studied it a while, trying to determine if the way it presented was safe. If any of its interior surface were to come loose while she was climbing, she would have nowhere to go but down. She saw no unfavorable outcomes, but no favorable ones either. Like many of life’s pathways, there would be so many choices—where to place a hand or where to place a foot—she could not foresee all possible outcomes. She could hope foresight would save her from disaster, as it had moments before, but myriad possibilities often leave so many outcomes obscure and this was one time her talent seemed useless. She wondered for a moment if Pandy had seen this far ahead, or only to her landfall. It was a pointless question, she knew, serving only to postpone the inevitable. There was no turning back, since the way down is always more difficult and dangerous than the way up, so she had to attempt it. Brushing her hair from her face, she began.
As she inched her way upward—sometimes wedging herself with her back against one side of the fissure and her hands and feet against the other, at others with her hands and feet braced against opposite walls—she had to laugh. Pandy would have been in her element here, yet once again, it was Roanna who was climbing. She was nearly at the summit when, just as before, boarding the ship, she found her strength failing. Her arms and legs trembled, and she remembered she had not eaten for almost two days.
“You can’t stop now,” she chided. “You have to find Pandy.”
She closed her eyes, took a breath, and braced herself for the final effort. She opened them and froze. A few feet above, a rope ladder dangled in the breeze.
It can’t be real, she thought, certain it had not been there moments earlier.
She squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them, but the ladder remained. Half in dread, she tilted her head skyward. In the chimney’s opening, silhouetted against the sky, two heads and two pairs of hands beckoned.