Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

Christopher spun slowly one way, then the other, his ice hatchets swinging on their cords. Only a worn leather line, slender as a finger, held him above two miles of air.

Nancy said, "No… no… no."

"The cold," Richard said from his place. "The fucking cold brittles the steel____________________"

Christopher – Baj saw the Shrike's eyes were closed – swayed back and forth with the wind, the rope knotted tight around his waist so the brown fur of his parky was gathered in.

Then the tribesman opened his eyes, gestured "up" with a thumb, and as the other Shrikes heaved and hauled together from precarious perches, rose in surges up… up… and up, took another hook from his bandoleer, hammered it in, then gripped and hung from it to gain slack to pass his line through.

Swinging back, then forward from that second set of ice-hooks, he reached out and up, caught a hold with his hatchet's pick… then hammered in a third pair, ran the lines through them.

"Brave man," Nancy said. "Brave man…"

Laboring, Christopher-Shrike swung to place his fourth pair of hooks. And having traveled that distance along his slender two strands – the free line running through its hooks in parallel with his belay – he swung on above emptiness, to extend his highway.

… It seemed to Baj to take a great while for Christopher to reach the edge of the overhang. Once there, out so far, the Shrike hung suspended in air, mirrored beneath its blue ceiling, with both running ropes now knotted to him. He lay there a time to rest.

"Frozen Jesus…" Nancy lisping the Jesus. "Not worth it."

"I don't think," Richard said, "that it will hold me."

"It will hold you," Patience said. "We won't lose you now."

As they watched – even Errol, above them, attentive – Christopher-Shrike, having rested enough, and with both ice hatchets in his hands, crouched precarious at the overhang's edge, a booted foot supported in a rope-loop taut with strain… Then, very quickly, he reached up, drove a hatchet-point into the ice – and hanging from it, lines now sagging – hauled himself up, kicked in boot-spikes, and climbed, swinging his hatchets left and right, onto the overhang's face and out of sight, the ropes feeding after him.

Patience said, "Marvelous…" The perfect old word – and the more powerful since Patience Walked-in-air (though no longer high as she had) and was familiar with heights.

… Then there was only waiting, and the slow periodic paying out of braided lines through six pairs of hooks as Christopher climbed the Wall's crest, unseen.

The sun had slid lower to the west, when both lines drew taut… and there was the faintest shrill whistle, that might have been an eagle's but for its ascending note.

Dolphus-Shrike leaned far out to reach the lines, hauled hard to test them – then swung aside against the Wall, and gestured Paul-Shrike and one of the Nameless to climb out and on them.

Those two unmittened, and swung out hand over hand, swaying from one rope to the other as monkey-animals were said to do in the forests of South Map-America. Hand over hand – and those hands nearly frozen, chapped and cut from cold and climbing.

"I will not be able to do that." Richard shook his head.

Dolphus heard him, and laughed. "We'll haul you over and up like a killed walrus, Captain. You'll wallow, but you'll go."

Another Shrike clambered up to Errol, tapped the boy's nose for attention, then handed him down to the others. Dolphus-Shrike lifted Errol up to the lines – saw him take his grip on each – then let him loose.

Nancy called "Don't," but no attention was paid. And none needed, since Errol – apparently enjoying himself – swung along the lines as if the ground lay only just beneath his feet… swung out and along the slender ropes to the overhang's edge, then climbed up them as they ran out of sight.

"The rest of you," Dolphus said, "- will be bundles, with short rope-ties hooked to each line. It will be a pleasure trip."

… And so it was. Baj and the others became packages, relieved of responsibility. Short lengths of rope were knotted around them, then hooked right and left to the twin lines running out under the ice ceiling, so they had only to draw themselves across, hand over hand, lying on their backs – the blue ice, two feet above their faces, reflecting weariness as they hauled themselves along, supporting the hanging weight of their packs and weapons.

They each trundled across, with a Shrike waiting to transfer their short-rope hooks around the ceiling hooks as they reached them. – Richard first, while a tribesman watched the rig for strain, then Patience, then Nancy… and Baj last. It was their easiest time on the Wall.

And remained easy at the overhang's lip. There – still a bundle – each was met by a Shrike on one of two thicker lines lowered from above, ropes hanging down the cresting shelf's great face, a hundred-foot vertical… the ice, wind-polished, blazing white in the sun.

Knotted to the free rope, given no chance to climb, they were drawn up to signaling whistles – up in swift surges, scraping… spinning off the ice, warding it as best they could.

… Baj, having seen Nancy disappear above him, was circled with a heavy line knotted tight enough about his waist to hurt him, then patted on the shoulder by a smiling Paul-Shrike. Paul whistled painfully shrilly, and let Baj go to swing up into the air as hard hauling took his breath away, pained his back as if the line were sawing him in half.

Rising, he struck the ice face several times… tried to get his feet up to guard, but spun away.

There was a rounded foam of soft snow above him as he rose… the sky above its edge an extraordinary deep blue. The borderline between the snow and that blue seemed another color entirely than either of them, abrupt and perfect.

He was yanked up into the snow – its resistance spilling, clouding around him as he was pulled through it, then dragged a way over gritty surface… and left to lie there on his belly.

Lie … It was the first time in twelve days that Baj had been able to lie down. The first time his body's weight had stretched out easy on a level, wonderfully pressed down by his pack and what had been the clumsy, maddening impediments of sheathed rapier, dagger, bow, and quiver. The sensation was so wonderful… so new and old at once, that he closed his eyes to enjoy it. He heard conversation, people saying something much less important than lying still on a surface that wouldn't let him fall to his death.

"Baj…"

"What is it, sweetheart?" Still lying with his eyes closed, feeling muscles easing after days of desperate labor, and the cramps of fear.

"Baj, look."

He opened his eyes… and sat up to see they had climbed the Wall.

He and the others – all but Errol – sat or lay in the snow like exhausted children. Most of the climber Shrikes sat also, while their tribesmen – having camped spaced along the crest, waiting – ministered to them, giving them body-warmed water-skins to drink from, laughing and joking with them about what had been, apparently, a near-record slow ascent.

The last of the climbers, Dolphus, came over the rim, stumbled in the snow, but kept his feet. "So far," he said, "- so good." Wonderfully apt, certainly from a copybook.

Baj, reluctant to leave the level even to stand, crawled to Nancy, took hold and hugged her to him, feeling that small strong body deep in plush fur, kissed her and was love-nipped on a chapped lower lip. He squeezed her hard, grappled her to him as if tears of honey might be pressed from golden eyes… His prayer for her, or his avoidance of prayer, had been answered, and she lived.

"Well," Richard said, and coughed, "- we're alive. And thank Frozen-Jesus for it."