Sustenance during the ascent was crude, but at least they were able to find the necessities of life. Water trickled in many places through the column, and every interval or two they found a clear pool deep enough that they could fill up the two waterskins they had brought along. By using only tiny pinches of flamestone, they were able to maintain a dim presence of coolglow-not bright like the beacons’ light, but sufficient illumination for them to perceive each other and the route before them.
Food was more problematic. They were able to harvest bits of fungus and lichen here and there, but they were beyond reach of any fishing. Furthermore, the bats dwelling throughout the First Circle-a favored delicacy of Seer dwarves-seemed disinclined to visit the region of the lofty pillar.
And even when they could fill the gnawing emptiness of their bellies, and when a negotiable chimney rose above to promise another hundred feet of ascent, Karkald wondered if his strength was equal to the task. Every muscle in his body ached constantly. His fingers and toes, even his back and shoulders, were raw with blisters where he had repeatedly scraped his skin against unforgiving rock. His knees and buttocks were bruised from several short falls. Fortunately, none of these tumbles had broken any bones, but each added another measure of soreness to the pain that was his constant companion.
There were times when he felt that he could barely lift his arms… and still he forced himself upward, carrying not just himself but his tools and supplies, and then he fashioned a belay so that Darann could follow in relative safety. More than once they were forced to turn from a sheer rising face, a seamless cliff that was beyond Karkald’s skill. Yet perhaps the Goddess was favoring them, for each time this happened they were able to find an alternate route, a place where he could jam his pick or his fingers into some tiny crack and, once more, haul himself upward.
Until this shelf of overhang, a slab of rock jutting two feet into space, threatened to bring the long ascent to an end. Twice he had tried to climb past, but his arms hadn’t been long enough. Leaning outward to reach the next handhold, he’d lost his grip and fallen-until the rope snapped taut and a gasping, grunting Darann arrested his plunge even as she was pulled hard against the pick that anchored her. Yet there was no alternative except to try the difficult move again.
This time he’d made it just a bit higher in the crack beneath the overhang. Anchoring himself by a fist jammed in that gap, he leaned outward and reached. Karkald clenched his teeth, stretching his long arms to their maximum span. The fingers of his left hand curled around the bottom of the overhang, and he, just barely, touched the lip of a handhold. He winced, anticipating the slip, the plunge, the sharp arrest as the rope would tighten around him. But he had no choice.
He let go with his right hand and started to topple outward. Clenching his left hand, he clung perilously by his fingertips as his body swung sickeningly outward. But this time he was able to get the fingers of his other hand onto the ledge. He hear Darann gasp as he hung suspended, thousands of feet over the lightless water.
Then, with a concentration of effort that ruled out every other thought, he slowly began to lift himself up. By the time his chin had reached the level of the handhold, he had spotted another niche, a foot higher up, with a deeper, much more solid edge. He lunged, teetered again at the brink of falling, and then his hand clutched a solid ledge. He swung his feet up, thankful as Darann continued to pay out just enough rope to allow him to climb. With his boot lodged in a precarious toehold, he pressed higher, and in a few more minutes reached a reasonably wide ledge.
Now it was his turn to belay, as Darann swung free below. He held the line tightly, with a coil wrapped around his waist as she slowly, painstakingly, climbed the narrow line. Only after a long, frightening hour did she join him on his lofty perch. But here, at last, they had reached a broad ledge that angled gently upward across the face of the column. They could actually walk, and at the end of an interval as fatigue dragged them down, they slept on a flat shelf big enough for them to curl up side by side.
When they awakened they continued up, pleased to find that the ledge followed around the curve of the column’s face, but still maintained its steady, ascending angle.
“How much farther to the top?” Darann asked, leaning back to stare into the lightless vault overhead.
“I have to figure we’re getting close,” Karkald replied. “Do you think it’s safe to try for an echo?”
“Why not?” his wife answered with a shrug. “The only thing we could attract are bats-and I’d welcome a chance for a nibble of meat. Unless-” Daran suddenly shuddered. “You don’t think there’d be any wyslets around here, do you?”
“No-they like narrow caves, rat holes to sneak around in,” Karkald declared with certainty. He tilted back and cupped his hands to his mouth to funnel the sound of his voice as much as possible. Uttering a short “Hey!” he was gratified when, two seconds later, the echo came back loud and clear.
“Five hundred feet, maybe a little more,” he said encouragingly. “And if this ledge continues…” He didn’t finish the statement, not wanting to jinx their chances.
He also left unspoken the question on both of their minds: Would they find a cave when they reached the summit? Or would they be faced with an impermeable expanse of rock, a barrier that would end their quest as effectively, if not as quickly, as death on the points of Delver weapons? The query remained in the back of his mind as they continued upward, now moving with long strides, following the natural footpath in a climbing spiral around the face of the massive pillar.
And then that question became irrelevant as they came around a curve to see the sloping ledge abruptly narrow to a thin lip. Adding a little flamestone to the coolglow in his palm, Karkald saw that a few feet beyond, the shelf of rock vanished altogether. He touched off more flamestone, and saw that the cliff overhead veered into a steep overhang, a leaning shelf continuing outward and up to merge with the horizontal slab that formed the upper reach of the Underworld. Even as he listlessly looked for cracks or imperfections in the surface, he knew that he was beaten. There was no way he could support himself from the flaring face, much less find a route to continue the climb.
He slumped to the ground, feeling the weight of his defeat on his shoulders. A soft rustle and the radiance of her warmth told him that Darann had settled beside him. Fatigue and despair overwhelmed, choked him. For a long time they slept there, blissfully unaware of the cruel end to their road.
When Karkald awakened, the full measure of hopelessness immediately resurfaced, but that was followed a second later by the realization that his wife was not at his side.
“Darann!” he whispered, suddenly, irrationally panicked.
“Here,” she replied. “I think I’ve found something!”
Blinking his eyes clear, he saw the spark of fire a dozen paces down the ledge, realized that she was examining the face of the pillar. Quickly he trotted down to her side, and she dropped a little more flamestone into her palm.
“Look!”
She cupped the brightness, shading the light from Karkald’s eyes, using her fingers to reflect it onto the dark stone. He discerned a crack there, a vertical line that was considerably longer than his own height. Yet it was no more than a finger’s thickness in width.
He snorted in exasperation and she glared at him sternly. “Look again-inside the crack.”
This time he leaned closer and saw what she meant. The gap scored a thin shell of rock. Barely a few inches beyond, it widened into a much larger space. How large was impossible to tell, for within the gap the thin rays of light dissipated into a swath of darkness. Still, it looked like there was space for a dwarf, and he couldn’t see a far end to the cave.