Descending the mountain

 Garret clung to the rockface, the tips of his fingers white with the effort and long-since numb.  His feet were half-on, half-off a narrow ledge and his toes were starting to ache with the strain of holding himself in place.  He was trying to edge along the ledge to the next patch of cliff-face where he could actually stand but Samara had stopped in front of him and he was biting his tongue to prevent himself from demanding what the problem was now.

The crumbling of the path ahead of them had turned out to be a much bigger problem that he’d expected; when they’d turned around to backtrack a little and find another way down they’d discovered that the steep slope they’d been descending was unclimbable.  The loose scree that they’d carefully nudged aside with their feet coming down was impossible to avoid when going up, and it just slid from under them and dumped them unceremoniously on their arses, unpleasantly close to the drop.  Or plummet, considering it was definitely far enough to the steppe below to be fatal.  Samara had cursed a blue streak, letting go some of the rage she had for the path crumbling in the first place and conveniently not letting Garret ask any more questions about whether the whole situation could have been avoided if she had been more trusting.  Then she’d glared around her as though the cliff and the sky and the mountain were somehow conspirators against her and sat heavily down and sighed as though she was carrying the weight of the whole world on her shoulders.

“Am thinking: is time to climb,” said Efimov looking over the edge. Garret, who didn’t have vertigo or a particular fear of heights did not join him; the view was spectacular but made him feel uneasy.  There just wasn’t quite enough space on their path to stand back and feel secure in his opinion.

“There’s no chance we could fly instead?”

Efimov looked over at him and grinned, a light dancing in his eyes that made Garret more uneasy than looking at the drop to the ground.  “Ah flight,” he said.  “Difficult magic, that.  Taught at Bogbones and Atul schools, however.”

“They teach all magics,” said Samara but it sounded automatic and less defensive than she’d been so far.

“They teach this one,” said Efimov.  “Problem is, the way they teach it is about leverage.  Flight is achieved by pushing on something else, typically the ground.”

Garret’s forehead, which could charitably be compared a freshly ploughed field, furrowed further as he thought about this.  “Isn’t that right though?” he asked. “I mean, a bird flaps its wings and pushes the air against the ground to stay aloft, right?”

Efimov shook his head.  “No, bird pushes air against air when it flaps.  Ground is a long way away and there is a lot of air between it and bird.  Also, air moves when pushed.  Flying is not like rowing boat.  Flapping is not for support, flapping is for direction.  Bird curves wings, adjusts direction.  Bird flaps to turn, but relies on being light enough not to fall too fast.”

Garret puzzled over this.  “Ok,” he said at last.  “I don’t think I understand that, but magic does it differently anyway?”

“Exact,” said Efimov.  “And here is problem.  Magic flying here — ground is too far away.  So we have only falling until ground is close enough, and then magic probably not strong enough to slow fall and start flying before ground catches us.”

“We die, but more slowly,” said Samara.  She was staring into the blue sky and Garret wondered for a moment if he’d ever seen her look so hopeless.  “We’re stranded on the side of this stupid mountain and we’re going to die here.”

“Time for climbing,” said Efimov.

“We can’t climb, you idiot!  There’s no way up.  The scree will kill us just as much as jumping off the mountainside will!”

“Not climbing up,” said Efimov.  Garret plucked up his courage to look over the edge of the mountain and wished he hadn’t.  The side of the mountain was yellowish-grey rock and while there were lots of bumps and crags and cracks Garret didn’t like the idea of clinging to them for dear life while trying to inch his way towards the ground.  Somewhere overhead a bird chose that moment to scream and the cry echoed around them eerily.

“You want to climb down?!  Have you gone mad?”

Efimov gestured at the path.  “Path continues below us,” he said.  “Only need to climb down to rest of path.”

Garret thought Samara was going to start shouting but she stood up instead, and took three quick steps to the edge.  Then she knelt and peered over, then stretched out, lying down and let her head hang over the edge.

“You’re right,” she said, sounding surprised.  “The path switches back and carries on below us.  We could climb down to that.”

“We?” asked Garret and wasn’t at all surprised when the other two ignored him.  “I might be a bit heavy for that,” he said into the silence.  “My pack, that is,” he said when he still got no response.

“You will have to carry only what is necessary to you,” said Efimov.  “But I think we have a plan now.”

“We?” asked Garret again. A chill feeling of dread started in the pit of his stomach and spread outwards.

Samara led the way as though it had been her idea all along until they’d reached the first point where they could rejoin the path.  Garret, gritting his teeth and sweating so much that water seemed to run off his head in a rivulet, had struggled down with his pack intact.  When his feet finally settled on the path and his heart stopped pounding in his chest like it was going to burst the pain in his fingers and toes started up.  As he massaged his hands and got his breathing back under control, Efimov looked over the edge again and said,

“I think we could climb a bit further.  Would save time.”

“Lead on,” said Samara.  Garret bit his tongue and wondered at the unfairness of the world that his companions seemed determined to take the hardest approach to everything.

“I might prefer the path,” he said, even as Efimov slipped over the edge of the path and started to climb down.  “I don’t have any spiders in my ancestry, you know.”

“It’s getting dark,” said Samara, glancing up at the sky.  It was a deeper blue than it had been earlier and Garret now noted, with dismay, that there were hints of red and orange, sunset colours, amongst the sparse clouds.  “Sure you want to be up here on your own when that happens?”

“Extortion,” muttered Garret under his breath and resigned himself to following Samara.

Now, with the path once again in sight, she had stopped in front of him and he was wondering how long he had before his fingers just stopped working and he fell off the mountain.

“There’s a problem,” she said and Garret had to restrain himself to keep from shouting that there better bloody had be.  “Efimov had stopped.”

“Great,” said Garret, unable to help himself.  His jaw ached from gritting his teeth.

“What?”  Samara turned her head to look at him and then she sneered. “Oh, was that sarcasm?”

“What else?” said Garret.  He reminded himself that while he was only to fall off this cursed mountain the way things were going, he didn’t have to anger Samara into pushing him off.  “I don’t think I can go back.”

“I don’t think any of us can,” she said.  “But… oh, Efimov’s done it!”  She sounded impressed, which was very unlike her.  “That was quite a jump he made,” she continued.  Then she looked at Garret again.  “You might have a problem with that pack though.”

Garret had regretted keeping his pack eight times so far and would have taken it off and picked it up from the bottom of the mountain if he’d thought it was at all possible without it pulling him down with it.  He was certain that as tired as he now was, it wasn’t going to be easier.

“Right,” he said.  “Got this far though, so you never know.”

“Sure,” said Samara.  She edged forwards at last.  “See you if you make it!”