"Uncle!" Craning his neck, Dani fought terror. "Help me!"
Uncle Thulu—lean Uncle Thulu—peered over the edge of the cliff, and his eyes were stretched wide with fear in his weather-burnt face. "Can you pull yourself up, lad?"
He tried, but something was wrong with the muscles of his arms, his shoulders. There was no strength there. It might, Dani thought, have had to do with the popping sound they'd made when he caught himself. "No."
"Wait." Uncle Thulu's face was grim. "I'm coming."
Since there was nothing else for it, Dani waited, dangling from his fingertips and biting his lip at the pain of it. Overhead, Uncle Thulu scrabbled, finding the braided rope of rabbit-hide he'd made, looking for an anchor rock to secure it.
"Hang on, lad!" Thulu called over his shoulder, letting himself down inch by careful inch, a length of rope wrapped around his waist, his bare feet braced against the mountainside. "I'm coming."
The rope was too short.
Dani's arms trembled.
At home, the rope would be made of thukka-vine. There was an abundance of it. It was one of the earliest skills the Yarru-yami learned; how to braid rope out of thukka. Here, there was only hide, only the scant leavings of one's scant kills, poorly tanned in oak-water. And if Uncle Thulu had not tried to make him shoes, Dani thought, the rope would be longer.
"Here!" Plucking his digging-stick from his waistband, Thulu extended it, blunt end first. "Grab hold, lad. I'll pull you up."
Dani exhaled, hard, clinging to the ledge with the fingers of both star-marked hands. Against his breastbone, the clay flask containing the Water of Life shivered. A fragile vessel, it would shatter on the rocks below, as surely as his body would. What then, if the Water of Life was set loose in Neheris' rivers, where her Children dwelled? It was the Fjeltroll who would profit by it. "Take the flask, Uncle!" he called. "It's more important than I am. Use your stick, pluck it from about my neck!"
"No." Thulu's face was stubborn. "You are the Bearer, and I will not leave you."
Gritting his teeth, Dani glanced down; down and down and down. Far below, a ribbon of white water roared over jagged rocks. It seemed it sang his name, and a wave of dizziness overcame him, draining his remaining strength. "I can't do it," he whispered, closing his eyes. "Uncle, take the flask. As I am the Bearer, I order it."
Without looking, he heard the agonized curse as his uncle reversed the stick. He felt the pointed end of his uncle's digging-stick probe beneath the cord about his neck, catch and lift. For an instant, there was a sense of lightness and freedom, so overwhelming that he nearly laughed aloud.
And then; a gasp, a sharp crack as the tip of the digging-stick broke under the impossible weight of the Water of Life. The flask thudded gently against his chest, returning home to the Bearer's being, nestling against his flesh.
"Dani." Thulu's voice brought him back, at once calm and urgent. "It has to be you. Grab hold of the stick."
Fear returned as he opened his eyes. Once again, it was the blunt end of the stick extended. The braided leather rope, stretched taut, creaked and groaned. "The rope's not strong enough to hold us both, Uncle."
"It is." Uncle Thulu's face was contorted with effort, his own arms beginning to tremble under the strain. "Damn you, lad, I wove it myself. It has to be! Grab hold, I tell you; grab hold!"
"Uru-Alat," Dani whispered, "preserve us!"
The end of the peeled baari-wood stick was within inches of his right hand. It took all his courage to loose his grip upon the steady ledge, transferring it to the slippery wood. What merit was there in the mark of the Bearer? Dani's palm was slick with terror, slipping on the wood. The vertiginous drop called his name. He struggled to resist its call as Uncle Thulu's digging-stick slid through his grasp, scraping heedlessly past the Bearer's starry markings.
Slid; and halted.
Against all odds, Dani found a grip; there, near the end, where the slick wood was gnarled. It wasn't much, but it was enough. Clinging to the rope with one arm, Uncle Thulu hauled hard with the other, grunting and panting with the effort. The leather rope thinned and stretched, thwarting their efforts… but it held and did not break. The muscles of his arm quivered as, inch by torturous inch, Thulu of the Yarru-yami pulled his nephew from the abyss. When his head reached a level with the overhang, Dani clawed at the rock with his free hand, ignoring the pain in his shoulders and levering himself upward until he got a foot beneath him, toes digging hard against the granite, and drew himself up onto the ledge to stand on wavering legs.
"Oh, lad." Uncle Thulu embraced him with one arm, weeping. "Oh, lad!"