Once Tony was out of sight, Jordyn resumed studying the wide gully. "It doesn't look all that dangerous," she mused. "And it's at least shallow enough that we can see the bottom." She looked back at Kayce. "Could you at least rappel down if you had some rope?"
Kayce rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, I could... probably..."
Jordyn's eyes glinted as her eyes wandered from one side to the other. "And then the other side... do you think you could get back up again?"
Kayce squatted at the edge of the crack and studied the opposite face. "Not too easily. It doesn't look like there are a whole lot of footholds, and I'd need some way to support the rope on the other side, the way one of you could do on this side, for my way down." His gaze stopped and he smiled. "But I've got a better idea." He rubbed his hands together. "Who's got a rope?"
"I do," said the frizzy-haired geology student.
Derrick watched Jordyn go for her pack. "You're telling me you have a rope still?"
I watched her pull a full cord of nylon braided rope out of her pack. "I grabbed one of these for each of us, and we didn't use all of them for the tent that got smashed by the tree," she said.
Kayce held a length between his hands and tested its strength. "Oh yeah, this'll do," he said.
Kayce tied the rope around his waist and thighs, harness-style, yanking on the knots to ensure that they would hold his weight. Jordyn stood at the edge of the cliff as his spotter, while Derrick and I positioned ourselves back further, as his anchor.
Kayce stood at the very edge of the cliff, with his back to the precipitous drop.
"Ready?" Derrick asked.
Kayce nodded. "Ready." He took his first step over the edge.
Derrick and I braced ourselves however we could, taking most of Kayce's weight on the rope. All he had to do was keep his footing to brace himself against the rock wall. Bugs flew against our faces, and I had to force myself to be content to just whip my head back and forth to keep them off.
Even then, the movement would cause the rope to sway, and Derrick would remind me through clenched teeth, "Pris! Don't move!"
Sweat dripped down my face and neck from my scalp. How long would it take Kayce to scale fifteen feet?
"He's halfway!" Jordyn announced.
Halfway; brilliant. I fought the urge to thrash my head again, as the rope slipped slowly through my fingers. In that moment, I felt a line of pressure points brush along my face--but no shape caught my eye. It wasn't droplets, but the sensation of fingers I felt, combing my matted, frizzy hair back from my face. A moment later, a chilly breeze swept across the cliff, passing right between me and Derrick, blowing my hair back from my face and cooling me fast enough to produce goosebumps along my arms. Instead of confusing me, it made me smile. The sprites are still at it! I thought. I felt my muscles ease somewhat, as the tension on the rope no longer strained them. It seemed about half the time later that the rope went very slack, and Jordyn cried. "He made it! He's at the bottom!"
The radio warbled, and Tony's voice crackled over the speaker. "Hey guys, I'm not seeing much over here. A lot of it is blocked by trees. I've made it across, but you guys would probably have a rough go of it."
I let Derrick deal with the rope, now that we weren't holding Kayce up, and grabbed the other radio to respond, "No big deal, Tony. Kayce is making a way across for us. Just find your way back to our position as best you can, and we'll wait for you on the other side."
"Copy that."
After Tony's response came Kayce's update.
"All right, people," he called up to us. "Here's how it's going to work: Keep that end of your rope anchored on that side. This rope is going to be our bridge across."
Derrick grabbed the radio from me. "Kayce, how is this going to work, exactly?"
"Just watch me, bro!"
We watched, as Kayce fiddled with his end of the rope. A few minutes later, he chucked it up in the air. The rope had a rock tied to the end of it. The rock sailed about ten feet up, and then came back down again. Kayce chased after it, and tossed it again. It took him three more tries, and on the fourth, it sailed beautifully upwards, caught a low-hanging branch from a tree near the edge of the opposite cliff, and dropped back down again. Kayce tied a second rock to the rope, creating even more of an anchor, and shimmied his way up to the tree branch. Once he arrived, he balanced on the tree, swung himself over to the cliff, and then pulled the rope free. Now we had a single rope spanning the wide crevasse.
"All right!" Kayce called to us over the radio. "Now you guys can use the straps of your backpacks to shimmy across with your hands and knees. Derrick, make sure the other end of the rope is secure enough that it's going to last long enough for you to come across last, in case any emergencies happen while the girls are crossing, but make sure it's a tree branch, so we can haul it off and still take the rope with us."
Derrick examined the trees nearby till he found one that fit the bill. "Got it!" He responded on the radio.
Jordyn gripped my arm hard enough to hurt. She gawked at the narrow rope between us and certain injury. "Are you kidding me?" She shrieked. "We're seriously going across on that thing?"
I couldn't take my eyes off it either, although I probably wasn't having palpitations as bad as hers. "Yep," I responded. "It already held Kayce, so we know its strong enough."
Jordyn shook her head quickly. "I don't do well with heights!" She whined.
Derrick beckoned to her, holding the end of the rope. "Okay, Jordyn, here's how it's going to go. We're going to sling our backpacks onto the rope, in order: you first, then Priscilla, then me." He helped us work the rope through the straps on our backpacks before tying the end of the rope to a branch. Then he led Jordyn to the edge of the cliff. "Okay, so now what you're going to do is grab onto the rope behind the backpack, like so, and then hook your legs over the rope in front of it, like a sloth."
She shook her head quickly. "I don't know if I can do this!"
"Jordyn," I stepped up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. Derrick and I are on this side, and Kayce is on the other. We'll make sure nothing happens to the rope."
"And the weight of your backpack right over you will act as an extra bit of security," Derrick added. "If you feel yourself slipping, just use the straps to adjust your grip."
"You've got this, Jordyn," I added, knowing full well I would not believe the same words coming from Derrick when my turn came around.
It took Jordyn several tries to get the movement right, but once she fell into a rhythm, her progress across inched along rather well. When she finally reached the other side and Kayce helped her peel her aching limbs off the rope, both Derrick and I released a breath we never realized we'd been holding.
Then it was my turn. It felt like a very bad idea to trust my entire weight to just a narrow rope no thicker than my thumb, but I had to admit, Derrick's description of the backpack functioning as a ballast really made a lot of sense. I was about halfway across (maybe... I wasn't looking!) when my hands started getting very sweaty, and I had to hook my arms through my backpack straps to anchor them to the rope, but soon, I saw the tree line of the opposite side coming into view, and then Kayce's hands supporting my back and Jordyn's voice cheering, "You did it! You made it across!"
Derrick came last, shimmying faster than either of us girls. Once we were all gathered on the far side of the ravine, Jordyn asked, "So how are we going to get the rope off?"
Kayce grinned. "We're going to pull it, tug-of-war style."
The four of us lined up along the rope's end, anchored our stances, and then on Kayce's signal, we pulled for all we were worth. Four of us at once hauling on that rope was hard, after all that climbing, but at last we all heard the rewarding SNAP of the branch, and the sudden slack sent us all staggering backward--but the rope was free. We hauled it up, Derrick untied his intricate system of knots, and Jordyn coiled it to return it to her pack.
I sighed. "Now all that's left to do is wait for Tony to get here with the GPS unit so we can figure out which way we should go next."
I expected nods of assent all around, but Kayce suddenly whipped his head to the side, like a dog that has spotted something interesting. He took a few strides off the path and over to a rocky mound buried in the dirt next to us. A few swipes of the dirt, and suddenly we could all see the thing that had caught his eye: a swirling symbol etched into the face of the rock: the mark of Auraea, and the first time we'd seen it since finding all the Trikymios symbols in the dig site. Below it was a series of three dots arranged in a triangle, pointing to the northwest.
"Or," he said, "we can simply follow the directions that are already laid out for us!"
Jordyn surged forward. "Oh cool!" she gasped. "Which god is that one, again? Oh wait!" she turned around with her eyes alight. "I remember seeing this before, at school--somebody had a pendant or something."
I tensed, and my self-consciousness manifested in a hyper-awareness of the locket burning against the skin just below my collarbone.
Kayce blinked twice at the suggestion. "Oh yeah, I saw it too, this one chick would wear it all the time..." He hopped back down to the path with the rest of us.
To this day I'll never know what gave it away--a stray glow, a glint from an errant sunbeam that probably would have never hit at just the right angle if it hadn't been for a cheeky gust of wind blowing over me--but just at that moment, Derrick raised a hand and pointed to me. "Hey! That chick was you, wasn't it, Pris? What's that necklace you're wearing right now?"
My hand automatically jerked halfway to the locket. My throat got tight and I felt my heart thudding at triple speed. What wouldn't I give for Tony to show up right now and get the attention off of me!
"I don't know... It wasn't anything special..."
They crowded closer around me.
"Prove it!" Jordyn chided me. "Show us!"
I pulled the locket out, and there it was before them: the pendant slowly turning, marked with Auraea's symbol on one side, and Trikymios on the other.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Some time earlier...
"I'll let you know if I find anything," Tony murmured, ambling down the winding trail that ran parallel to the long ravine.
He locked his eyes on the display screen of the GPS unit, following the blinking arrow symbol along the winding path. He almost didn't notice how long his eyes remained open without blinking, the burning itch around his eyelids... Tony's consciousness slipped into a trance, and another influence took over, bringing his body to a halt far out of sight or sound of the rest of his group.
His irises glowed a bright golden as he held the GPS device with both hands. The screen blinked, warped, and fritzed in a burst of pixels, and a series of golden tendrils seemed to seep out of his skin--out of the amulet on his wrist--and into the device. The radio at his side hummed to life, and at once, a voice called out from it: "Greetings, Mighty One."
Tony opened his mouth to respond, but the voice was not his.
"That's All-mighty to you, George. I need a status report."
"You are good to us, Almighty One," the man on the other end gushed. "These storms that have stirred up by your hand have borne much fruit, as people are driven toward our cause. The outreach has drawn many toward you, and the disaster relief has compelled attention from some very powerful members of communities all over the nation. Convincing them that you are a god who must be obeyed has never been easier!"
Tony's lips smiled wide. "It is good. My servants bend to my will, and even if I am not yet a god, having control over gods is the next best thing!"
"My lord," George expressed his question with hesitation in his voice. "How does your purpose fare there upon the island? Have the accommodations been to your liking? Do they serve you well upon the foundations laid by your enemies?"
The smile on Tony's face dimmed, and a slight sneer curved one corner of his mouth. "As well as could be expected, with these young humans to deal with. I nearly have them all dispersed and isolated--when I do, the Heir will have no choice but to do as I say--and then the divine essence will be MINE!"
"Hasten the day!" George cheered. "That is good news, I will surely tell the brethren. The vessel is serving you well, then, my lord? The heir does not suspect that she is playing into your hands?"
Even more scorn crept into the voice issuing from Tony's throat. "Of course not! She is too much devoted to this puny soul to realize the depths of my deception. No, she will be easy to control--if I can't get to her through her own thirst to confirm her identity, then at least I can use her misguided affections against her!" His eyes narrowed, mere thin golden slits upon his face. "Do you doubt my ability, George?"
"I mean no disrespect, sire, it's just thatshhhhhhhh--" A burst of static cut off his words, and Tony's head slowly bent forward. His eyelids briefly shut, and when he looked up again, his eyes were once again clear of the strange glow.
Tony blinked, almost forgetting where he was or why he was standing alone, with the radio in one hand and the GPS unit in the other. He looked ahead of himself. A huge tree had fallen across the crevasse, giving him a likely traverse--but how easy would it be to get four people across? Securing the devices in his backpack, Tony gripped the nearest exposed tree root and hauled his body upward. Reaching the top of the trunk, he had to pause and catch his breath. It amazed him, the rate of his recovery now that his own blood wasn't poisoning his organs anymore. Someone athletic like Kayce could probably make the climb, but he didn't see Priscilla or Jordyn--nervous, slender girls--having the upper-body strength to make it across. He found his footing on the thick log, testing each step as the bark snapped and popped under his feet. Midway, the wood seemed a little more firm--at least he had a flat spot where he could stand reasonably well, and pull out the radio for a quick call to his friends.
"Derrick?" he called. "Are you there?"
The device sat silent in his hands.
He tried again. "Kayce? Priscilla? Jordyn?"
Tony looked down at the knobs at the top of his radio. The channel knob had somehow switched over to a point between channels ten and eleven. No wonder he wasn't getting a signal from them! How had it flipped so far from where it was supposed to be.
Tony flipped back to channel four and sent a brief call signal to the other radio.
"Hey guys," he said, "I'm not seeing much over here. A lot of it is blocked by trees. I've made it across, but you guys would probably have a rough go of it."
Within thirty seconds, he heard Priscilla's voice respond, "No big deal, Tony. Kayce is making a way across for us. Just find your way back to our position as best you can, and we'll wait for you on the other side."
Tony nodded and replied, "Copy that." He slipped the radio back onto his belt and began working his way back toward the path.
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