"Tavi," Fade nodded. "Come back."

The boy blew out a breath. Whatever spark of awareness had been in the man's eyes was gone now. "All right," he said, and walked over to Doroga. He shrugged into the pack, drawing the straps down to their smallest size, so that it would fit closely to his back.

Doroga was handling his rope. Tavi watched as the Marat worked a loop into the end of it with the skill of a sailor and drew it tight. The Marat stood, leaving the loop just touching the ground, and in a moment of understanding, Tavi stepped forward and slipped his foot into the loop, taking up the rope itself to hold it tight.

Doroga nodded his approval. To Tavi's right, Kitai had knotted the rope himself and stood at the edge of the precipice, his expression impatient. Tavi walked awkwardly to the precipice's edge and stared over it to a drop of several hundred feet down a nearly sheer surface. His head spun a bit, and his belly suddenly shook and felt light.

"Are you afraid, Aleran?" Kitai asked, and let out a low little laugh.

Tavi shot the other boy a sharp glance and then turned to Doroga, who had secured the far end of the rope to a stake driven into the earth and looped it about a second such stake, so that he could let the rope out gradually. "Let's go," Tavi said, and with that, took a step back over the precipice and swung himself down into space.

Doroga held the line steady, and after a very short moment of terror, Tavi bumped against the wall and steadied himself, holding on. Doroga began to lower the rope, but Tavi called up, "Faster! Let it out faster!"

There was a brief pause, and then the rope began to play out quickly, lowering Tavi down the face of the cliff at a rather alarming rate.

From above, there was a yelp, and Kitai swung out into space. The boy plummeted down for several yards, and Tavi got the impression that when the rope finally did tighten and catch him that Hashat had only just managed to do so. Kitai shot Tavi a bright-eyed, angry glance and called something up the cliff in another tongue. A moment later, he, too, began to descend the cliff more quickly.

Tavi used one foot and one hand to keep himself from dragging on the stone and found that it was more effort than he would have expected. He was shortly panting, but a swift glance up at Kitai told him that he had

thought correctly. Doroga's huge muscles had an easier time letting out the rope at a faster, controlled rate than the more slender Hashat's did, and Tavi had gained considerable distance on the other boy as they descended.

As he came down, closer to the lambent green glow of the crouch, he shot a glance up at Kitai and smiled, fiercely.

Kitai let out a sharp whistle, and the line abruptly stopped playing out.

Tavi stared up at him in confusion. Until the other boy drew his knife, reached across to the rope that held Tavi thirty feet over the floor of the bizarre forest below and, with an answering smile, used the dark, glassy knife to begin swiftly slicing through Tavi's rope.

Chapter 33

Tavi took one look at the thirty odd feet between him and the ground below, then reached a hand up, fumbling at Fade's pack. He jerked the flap open and grabbed the first thing his fingers could reach, though all the squirming made him twist and spin on the rope. He squinted up as best he could and then flung it at the Marat above him.

Kitai let out a yelp and jerked back in a dodge. A hunk of cheese smacked into the stone beside the Marat's head, clung for a moment, then dropped and fell toward the wax-covered ground below.

Kitai blinked at the cheese and then at Tavi, his face twisting into a scowl. Doroga hadn't stopped lowering the rope, and so the cut the Marat had begun had already descended out of his reach. Kitai steadied himself against the cliff face, then reached out with his knife and began slicing at the rope again. "Foolish, Aleran. Kinder if you fell, broke a leg, and had to turn back rather than be devoured by the Keepers."

Tavi scrambled in the pack and found cloth wrapped around several biscuits. He grabbed the first and hurled it at Kitai. "So I could be eaten by your people instead?"

Kitai scowled, not deterred this time. A biscuit bounced off his outstretched arm. "We would at least not eat you alive."

"Stop that'" Tavi shouted He threw another biscuit, to no effect A thick strand of the braided rope parted with a whining snap, and Tavi's heart lurched as the rope spun and swung from side to side He glanced below him Another twenty feet to ground He'd never be able to fall that far without hurting himself, possibly too badly to continue

Another strand parted, and Tavi swayed wildly back and forth, his heart hammering high in his throat

Arms and legs shaking with excitement, Tavi took one last glance down (fifteen feet, or a little more?) He slipped his foot out of the loop at the bottom of the grey rope, and as quickly as he could, he slipped down the rope, gripping with his hands, and letting his legs swing below him He reached the loop and with a gulp grasped onto it, letting his legs swing out far beneath him

The rope parted with a snap Tavi plummeted

Between Doroga lowering the rope from above and the few feet he had gained by letting himself farther down the rope, the fall might have been little more than ten feet Not much higher than the roof of the stables, and he had jumped from there several times-always into mounds of hay, true, but he had made the jump without fear He tried to remember to keep his legs loose, to fall, roll if he possibly could

The fall seemed to take forever, and when Tavi landed it was a shock to his ankles, knees, thighs, hips, back, all in rapid succession as he tumbled to the earth He landed on one side, arms flailing wildly out and slapping down with him, and his breath exploded out from him in a rush He lay for a moment without moving, dimly aware that he was on the ground, still clutching the loop in the end of the rope in his fist

He regained his breath in a few moments, becoming aware of a couple of incongruous facts as he did First, there was no snow, down here in the chasm Of course, he had seen no snow from above, but the significance of it hadn't quite registered on him until he reached the ground It was warm Humid Nearly stifling He sat up, slowly, pushing himself up with his hands

The ground beneath him, or rather, the greenly luminous wax beneath his fingers felt pleasantly warm, and he let them rest against it for a moment, letting his chilled fingers recover from the cold wind that had frozen them on the way down from the top of the cliff His ankles stung as though being prickled by thousands of tiny needles, but the sensation faded after a moment, leaving them feeling merely uncomfortable and sore

Tavi gathered himself to his feet, the pack shifting about uncomfortably on his back, and squinted at his surroundings.

What was beautiful from high above was, once among it, disorienting and a little disturbing. The waxy growth, the croach, grew right up to the stone walls of the chasm and stopped there, but for one place he could see, where it had crept up the walls, evidently to engulf a lone and scraggly tree trying to grow from a crack in the stone. The luminous glow made shadows fall weirdly, with one engulfed tree casting several ghostly weak shadows on the glowing floor of the forest. Beneath the croach, the shadowy outlines of the trees themselves reminded Tavi uncomfortably of bones beneath flesh.

Tavi heard a scrabble on the wall and turned in time to see Kitai drop the last dozen feet to the floor of the forest, landing soundlessly, absorbing the shock of landing on both feet and on his arms, crouching for a moment on all fours, pale hair and opalescent eyes wild and greenish in the quiet light of the croach. His gaze darted left and right, wary, and his head tilted to one side, listening, focused on the lambent forest before him.