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THE CHILDREN SAT DOWN to rest and soak it all in. As exhausted as they were, as much as their arms and legs hurt, they felt an exhilarating sense of triumph. So, the End Chasm had been Gaya’s Fury after all. By all the beliefs and knowledge of civilization, they should be dead by now. They had climbed over the edge of the world, down into the chasm of fire and mist, and had come up the other side victorious. They now stood as discoverers, explorers, champions, in this new unexplored land. Dangers might await them, but they were ready to face them with excitement rather than dread.
They took time to build a fire and cook an actual meal for themselves. They had barely eaten since first climbing over the edge of the End Chasm, and their stomachs screamed for food as much as their bodies demanded rest. They put a pot of water on to boil and dumped in some grits and beef jerky.
“Where to from here?” Airdella asked Walter as she stirred the pot. “We were going north until we reached the End Chasm, but where is this waterfall in relation to where we are now?”
Walter pulled out his map. “From the looks of it, still north basically. We can go north and then cut east.”
“How will we know if we’ve gone too far north?”
“Well, there is this mountain cliff which we should be able to see. That’s where the waterfall is. But I think it’s best we just camp here for the night. We are all exhausted. I don’t know if I can move anymore, having sat back down.”
Amy and Airdella agreed. Sleep sounded so good. They devoured dinner, satisfying the sharp pangs of hunger after two days of strenuous activity. And then they quickly fell asleep without remembering to do the dishes or even pitch their tent.
––––––––
The morning sun filtering down through the trees woke them. They were all damp with dew after sleeping without a tent, but the sunshine warmed their chilly bodies and put smiles on their faces. Breakfast was their first order of business. They were still sore but felt better as they forced themselves to stretch and move around. Sick as they were of grits, they were once again ravenously hungry and scarfed their food down.
After eating, they stood and stretched, shaking off exhaustion, stiffness, and twinges of pain. The forests of the north awaited them, and they started deeper into it. It was pleasant at first. The trees were relatively thin, and some sunlight was welcome after the depths of Gaya’s Fury. There was no strain on their arms and wrists, no constant fear of falling to their deaths, no clogging of the air with toxic fumes. But the further in they went, the thicker the trees became. There was almost no breeze, so they quickly got all hot and sticky.
They were all grateful to come across their first creek here on this side of the chasm and lay down to drink their fill before getting out their waterskins. There was a lot of thirst to quench and make up for, and they took their time doing it.
Once the forest began to thin out again, it was much smoother. And then there were hills. Hills that were very steep and covered with pine needles. While going up, they were constantly slipping on pine needles and had to crawl on their hands and knees, holding onto tree trunks and rocks to keep themselves from sliding back down. Upon reaching the top, they then had to work their way carefully down the other side, holding onto tree branches to keep themselves from falling all the way down the hill.
Eventually, they found it was easier if they allowed themselves to slide down the hills instead of trying to walk. But as the speed of Walter’s slide increased, he lost control, bumping into some pain-inducing rocks and tumbling the rest of the way down the hill. He lay there with all the wind knocked out of him, aware of all the new bruises that were beginning to form, and the girls were afraid he had broken every bone in his body.
“Walter!” Airdella called down as she and Amy scrambled down after him. “Don’t move! We’re coming. Are you alright?”
“Nope,” he moaned, gingerly elbowing himself into a sitting position. “You try tumbling down a hill sometime with rocks and tree roots digging into your kidneys. Hey!” he shouted, holding up the leather string that he held. “The stone is gone!”
He had taken to attaching his north-pointing stone onto the end of a leather string so that he could hold it by the string, and it would point him in the direction he needed to go. Somewhere in the course of tumbling and falling, it had flown off the string.
“Where’d it go?” Airdella asked.
They looked around for a moment until their eyes were drawn to a very large boulder not far away. The boulder had a circular pattern of white dust on it, and the remains of the star stone lay scattered in front of it.
“Oh, that’s bad,” Walter grimaced.
“Do you think?” Airdella snorted. “Which direction was it pointing us in last?”
Walter pointed out the direction over the next hill, and they continued on again. Once over the last of the hills, it was easier going. But Airdella was the first to realize that something was wrong.
“That tree looks familiar.” She panted, pushing past a prickly bush.
“Which one?” Walter asked. “They all look familiar.”
“We’re going in circles! If someone hadn’t shattered the stone...”
“Oh, ouch,” Walter groaned. “Thanks for making me feel worse.”
Airdella sighed and sank down onto the ground. She wasn’t trying to start a fight. She was just tired and frustrated. “How do we find our way now?”
“The trees,” Walter answered, hit with inspiration. “We pick a tree and line it up with another one, then line more up with those trees.”
“It might work if we can find north,” Airdella frowned. “But it’s hard to tell where the sun is. Who feels like climbing a tree?”
Walter sighed, not even needing to turn around as his Amy-sense told him she was no longer behind him. “Amy! Where are you? This is no time to –” He glanced up as a piece of bark hit his shoulder. Amy was already in a tree above their heads. “– wander off,” he finished.
Amy looked around her over the top of the forest, enjoying for a moment the sun on her face and the view around her. Glancing toward the sun, she used its position to judge which direction was north. They lined up three trees pointing them in the direction of north, and upon reaching the second one, lined up a fourth. Every time they reached the next tree, they added another one ahead of them to the line.
They went on until they came to a small bluff above their heads. To their right, the bluff continued eastward. Ahead of them, it bent and curved north. What surprised them was that they were now standing on an actual gravel road of crushed pink granite. The road followed the curve of the bluff, continuing east through the woods on their right and following the curve of the bluff on a downward slope on their left.
“This road goes almost straight north,” Walter said. “We could follow it and save a lot of time.”
“And have a rest from all the aches and pains, and pains and aches, and aches –” Airdella’s moan turned into a startled shriek.
She was not the only one who jumped upon seeing the coyote in their path. It stood stock still, staring at them with wide yellow brown eyes and perked up ears. As their hammering hearts slowed down again, the children breathed a little easier, watching to see what it would do. Lowering its head and putting one foot forward, it sniffed long and hard at them.
They had listened to coyotes for weeks outside their tent but had never actually encountered one before. They could not help but wonder if any of the little advice Sir Dorrian had given them about what to do when encountering a coyote would be of any use here. Who knew if animals on this side of the Fury would behave the same as the ones back in Arualia?
“What do we do?” Airdella asked Walter out of the corner of her mouth, trying not to move.
Amy could not help thinking how it basically looked like a giant puppy and all she wanted to do was scoop it up into her arms. But as soon as she had emitted a sound that expressed her admiration of its cuteness, the coyote jumped backwards and snorted.
The children all jumped as well, startled as the coyote gave a reproachful sound that was somewhere between a bark and a howl. Keeping its head low, it took another step back, and then trotted past them, slinking as close to the bluff as it could. Swerving at a scraggly cedar tree growing out of the bottom of the bluff, it leaped straight into the tree’s branches, disappearing from view.
The children all released the breaths they had not realized they were holding inside until now and moved to follow the road to their left. Rustling behind them made them turn back towards the cedar tree. The coyote had returned, sticking its head out of the bush, and yipping at them impatiently as if to say, “Come on and hurry up!”
“Tell me it’s not waving its paw,” Walter muttered.
“Reminds me of Airdella when she’s being impatient,” Amy could not help saying.
Airdella was too confused to register the comment and take offense. “It’s motioning to us,” she began to say but quickly changed to a shout of, “Amaryllis! What do you think you’re doing?”
Amy was already at the cedar tree, pushing branches aside to try to get a glimpse of the coyote that had disappeared again. “There’s another gap in here! It looks like it leads to the top of the bluff.”
“And you’re seriously considering following a coyote into it?”
Amy looked back at her and then at Walter.
“How bad an idea could it be?” Walter shrugged.
“Coyotes in stories are often known for being tricksters,” Amy said, unsure of what to do. “But they are also very smart and can be quite helpful.”
“An excellent reason not to follow it,” Airdella pointed out.
“He can’t help what he is. Besides, how do we know the road is any less dangerous?”
“She does have a point,” Walter agreed. “We don’t know where the road would lead us any more than we know what to expect from a coyote.”
“It could be a trap.”
“Both could be a trap. And if a pack of coyotes really wanted to attack us, they would probably do so out in the open where we have no cover and can be surrounded. A narrow crevasse is not an ideal place for a coyote to arrange an attack when they can only get at us one at a time.”
“So, you’re saying we should follow it?”
“Primarily because Amy’s already gone,” Walter sighed. “Amy, don’t go stepping in a hole and twisting your ankle!”
Walter and Airdella hurried after her, climbing through the cedar’s branches to discover a narrow, hidden cleft in the bluff. Ever so carefully, Amy was making her way over a fallen log. The coyote was perched on top of another one a few yards away and yipping excitedly before scrambling further up the gap.
Airdella and Walter looked at each other. Walter sighed and began to climb after Amy. Airdella threw her hands into the air in surrender and followed. So now, having broken the stone that told them what direction to go, they were going to follow a coyote instead. Fantastic.
As they worked their way along the ravine, Walter saw that it was taking them north, just as the road would have, but that they would wind up above the bluff instead of following the base of it. The coyote led them up through the crevasse, always scampering just a few yards ahead when it thought they had come close enough to it.
Finally, they climbed out the top into the forest above the bluff. They followed the coyote for a ways, but then the trees grew thinner, and the woods came to an end. No longer blocked by the trees, a cold breeze from the north blew hard against them, and they shivered as they gazed out over a sunny meadow.
The meadow stretched for about a hundred yards before dropping off on the edge of a steep gorge. The gorge stretched from east to west, and they could make out rocky jagged cliffs on the other side.
“Oh, beautiful,” Amy breathed. She turned to the coyote and thanked him. “Thank you for showing us the way.”
For an answer, the coyote gave one last high-pitched yip before bounding back into the forest and disappearing into the undergrowth.
“I wonder why it didn’t want us to take the road,” Airdella said.
“It must lead to a very bad place.”
“For that matter, how do we know this is better? We don’t know where the road would have taken us.”
Amy and Airdella turned to find Walter on his knees with the map spread out before him. “I’m guessing we are at this gorge,” he said, tapping his finger on the map. “We’ll need to cross it.”
“Easier said than done.” Airdella sighed. “I don’t suppose the map shows a crossing?”
“Nope.”
“So, how do we get across?”
“You tell me,” Walter answered.
“I guess we should start with taking a closer look.”
They crossed the meadow dotted with red and yellow and purple wildflowers and looked into the gorge. The distant roaring they had heard got louder, echoing up from below. Far down at the bottom of the gorge, a river raged white around the rocks in its path. The gorge was too steep, crumbly, and deep for them to climb down. Even if they had, the river was too dangerous to cross without a bridge. Especially considering one very important thing Airdella realized that they had forgotten.
“Rope,” she groaned. “We don’t have any rope anymore.”
They had been too tired after their descent into the End Chasm to think about salvaging any rope to bring with them.
“We should have saved the ropes attached to our safety harnesses.”
“They probably wouldn’t have been long enough anyways,” Walter said, as much to himself as to her. It was not anyone’s fault in particular, and there was no use beating themselves up over something they could not fix now.
After several moments of silence, Airdella gave another groan. “Where’s Amy?”
“She is wandering off again,” Walter replied. “I suppose we should make sure she doesn’t fall over the edge.”
Amy was wandering down the gorge to their right, carefully observing the cliffs on both sides. About the time that Walter and Airdella caught up to her, she had found the bridge. It was suspended on fraying ropes stretched across the gorge and missing several boards. As Amy leaned to look over the edge, Walter grabbed at her blouse and pulled her back.
“Please stay away from the edge,” he said firmly.
“How do we know if it’s safe to cross?” Airdella asked.
Walter observed the bridge for a few moments, feeling the thickness and sturdiness of the ropes and testing his weight on the first board. “I’ll go first, carefully,” he said. “If it breaks while I’m out there, I guess we’ll know it’s not safe to cross.”
“That’s very comforting.”
“Not like we have better options,” Walter said. “Here goes.” Without waiting for further argument, he began to cross, gingerly stepping from creaking board to creaking board. One near the middle broke, and he paused for a few moments, trying not to let the girls see how much he was shaking. After a few deep steadying breaths, he continued and finally stepped safely onto solid ground on the other side of the gorge.
“Amy’s turn!” he called.
Amy took a deep breath and put one foot forward onto the bridge. Her face paled and her breath caught at the groaning of the boards beneath her, but she carried on, putting one foot in front of another, until she heard something that made her blood curdle. “What w-w-was that?”
Walter and Airdella looked up as they too heard it. A piercing screech from high above them from a creature high in the sky, wings spread wide, circling down toward them.
“Amy!” Walter shouted. “Hurry up and cross!”
Stepping hurriedly forward, Amy felt the next board snap beneath her. She gave a shriek as she fell, grabbing at the rope that served as a railing on one side of the bridge, but this also gave way, and she plummeted head-first into the gorge.
For Airdella and Walter, time seemed to slow as they watched in disbelief, their sister falling to her death. They were frozen in a moment of horror over which they had no power to do anything. For Amy, time greatly sped up as the bottom of the gorge rushed to meet her. The wind tore at her hair, clothes, and body, while her stomach lurched at the drop. Then just as suddenly, she was jerked back upwards, grasped by large talons. All she saw was a blur of fur and feathers whipping about in the wind.
If Airdella and Walter had been able to take their eyes off their sister’s fall, they would have seen the great flying beast drop with the speed of lightning towards her. It caught Amy in the air and lifted her into the sky, rising swiftly. It all happened so fast that they hardly had time to register that it had happened at all before the beast angled west along the gorge.
“Amy!” Airdella screamed.
“Hold on!” Walter shouted, running after her in the direction that the griffin was rapidly disappearing into.
Not that Amy had to. The beast had her firmly in its grasp, and her arms were pinned to her sides. She was so terrified that she had gone stiff and rigid, incapable of moving or reacting to save herself. Airdella ran along the southern side of the gorge, and Walter ran along the northern side of the gorge. But once inside the trees, they quickly lost sight of Amy and the beast.
Airdella stopped when she realized she had lost sight of Walter as well. “Walter,” she called.
She listened hard for an answer, and it seemed to her that she heard hoofbeats, then shouts and a clash of metal. “Walter!” she called again, louder. But the only answer was now silence. She raced back along the gorge until she was out of the forest to see if Walter had gone back that way. He had not. She was alone.