"It is wonderful!" he told us, ears flapping. "You will love
it!"
He joined a knot of Ghords who stood laughing and chattering at a safe distance from the edge. They must all have gone before him, because their headcloths were disheveled and windblown.
"Come, come," the larger Silkwyrm, Shan-Tun, said, gesturing to us. "You must take your turn, so the others can go again."
"This is what you want to do?" I asked Matt, a trifle disbelievingly. "Jump off a cliff?"
"Yes," she said. "Head first. I have been looking forward to this for ages!"
"Why not go first?" Shan-Tun asked me.
I looked down over the edge of the precipice. It was a long way to the valley's bottom. A riverbed cut through the yellow-gray wasteland, but it must have been centuries since any water flowed through it. "How does this work?" I asked.
The smaller worm, Bon-Jee, worked his mouth pincers. "We spin fresh silk for every leap," he said. "We wind it around you. You leap. You bounce. It is refreshing. Hold still, sir, while I measure you." He extended three pairs of arms and wrapped them around my chest, shoulders, and between my legs. It tickled, but I did my best not to flinch.
"That will be one silver piece each," said Shan-Tun. "Do you wish to pay for the lady, too?"
"Uh, yes," I said, taking the money out of my belt pouch. They expected me to attempt suicide, constrained only by threads narrower than a strand of my hair, and they wanted me to pay for it? In advance? But Matt was watching me. I smiled as I paid.
I was less than confident as I watched them spin. They pulled the lengths of white out of their backsides. It didn't look sturdy enough, even after they braided it into a triple thickness of cord. It could snap like the thread it was, catapulting me into the void. Had I told anyone where I was going? Would it hurt when I landed, or would falling on my head kill me instantly?
Then, I gave myself a mental slap in the forehead.
What was I afraid of? Was I a magician for nothing? I could soar off the precipice and float downward at my leisure, perfectly safe and secure. I'd impress Matt with my courage and nonchalance. Maybe I'd even turn a somersault as I bounced upward. Maybe two.
I looked around for force lines. A nice, moderate power source followed the line of the ridge we were standing on. Plenty of magik. I absorbed an adequate supply. I stood at the edge of the cliff hanging on only by my toes and held my arms out straight in front of me. I'd leap head first, then do a series of somersaults on my way up.
"Look at me!" I called to Matt.
I bent my knees and prepared to jump.
"Oh, no, sir!" Shan-Tun exclaimed, grabbing me around the chest. "No magik!"
"What?" I asked.
"You must not do magik," said Bon-Jee. "Why not?"
"Did you not see our sign?" asked Shan-Tun. He pointed to a sign pounded into the windy plain that I had missed on our way over. I peered at the line of pictograms painted in red, each more alarming-looking than the next. "No glyphing, no flying, no magik. It weakens our silk. You don't want to land on your head, do you?"
"No! I mean, not even a little magik?" I asked. Suddenly my perch on the very lip of the cliff seemed too unsteady. I took a step closer in. Matt called out to me.
"What is wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," I said.
"You must release all magikal power," Shan-Tun said. "Trust us. We have not lost any of our jumpers."
"Not in weeks," agreed Bon-Jee. The two of them laughed, their mandibles quivering.
That didn't make me feel any better. But I had no choice.
I had to do the jump relying only on the Silkwyrms' silk, or chicken out and maybe have Matt scorn me. I desperately needed her approval. She was the only source I had left for getting through to Diksen. This was for Aahz.
"Well... all right," I said, though my heart had moved up to my throat. I hesitated.
"We can let someone else go until you are ready," Bon-Jee said.
"No! I mean, I'll go. Just give me a moment."
For the first time since I had started learning magik, I deliberately emptied my internal reserve of all the power I had. It left me with an uncomfortable hollow sensation inside. I looked down. The dry river bed seemed twice as far away as it had been before.
The Silkwyrms' mandibles separated in what I translated as a broad grin.
"That's right, good sir. Now, go ahead and jump!"
I held my breath and took a step backward.
I remembered when I was little that some of my family put me on a blanket they held among them and tossed me high into the air. I laughed and yelled and begged for more.
This was nothing like that. As I went over the edge, my hair flew upward, and my clothes flapped against my body, as if they wanted to free themselves from someone crazy enough to jump off a cliff. All the nerve endings in my body tingled against my skin. They'd be the first to know when I struck the ground. I was falling too fast to draw breath. It wasn't like being dragged underground by the slowsands.
There was plenty of air up here—too much, in fact. I screwed my eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable impact.
Suddenly, giants grabbed me by the chest and dragged me upward, back into the air I had just fallen through. My eyes were forced open. The blue sky seemed to loom closer and closer. I heard a sharp, thin, agonized noise. Someone was screaming.
It was me.
I was flung up over the cliff's edge. Matt stood with the Silkwyrms, watching me fly up, up, up, until I hit the acme of my arc. Then I started dropping again.
It was no more fun the second time.
Or the third.
Or the fourth.
By the time I had bounced for the fifth time, I could feel my breakfast, and probably last night's dinner,
fighting to get out of my stomach. I was no longer screaming, since that required breath, and I had none to spare. My heart banged against the inside of my throat, and my eyes were popping out of my head. This time as I passed the edge of the cliff, the Silkwyrms grabbed me and helped me back onto solid ground.
I could have kissed it. As soon as Shan-Tun and Bon-Jee disconnected me from their threads, I staggered down into the center of the hilltop and just stood, shaking.
Matt cheerfully took her place in between the Silkwyrms. They attached the ropes to her and helped her back to the edge. She gave me a jaunty wave and leaped out into the empty air.
The happy cries of excitement she emitted while catapulting up and down left me feeling resentful and more than a little foolish. When she returned at last to the starting point, I put on a pleasant smile and went to meet her.
Chapter 30
"The end always justifies the means."
I had arranged for a fine lunch in a restaurant that Chumley had recommended in the capital city. The waiter, a Ghord in a tall, conical hat, seated us with many bows and compliments. He took Matt's flowers away and returned them in a pottery vase with a ribbon around it, then left us to read the menu.
"This wasn't the first time you've done that jump, was it?" I asked, as soon as he was out of earshot.
"Well, no," Matt admitted, with a sly grin. "But I thought you would enjoy it more if you believed it was the first time for both of us."
"You knew I couldn't use magik out there, didn't you?"
"Oh, yes." The grin broadened out into a smile. "It was very amusing, watching the terror on your face. Shan-Tun let you bounce an extra time just for fun." She touched my cheek, then bent her head to examine the menu. "Now, what shall we try?"
The thought made my stomach roil. "I don't think I'll ever be able to eat again," I said.
"Nonsense," Matt said. "The food smells marvelous. Just take a deep breath."