Michael Sullivan - Percepliquis

As he started down the slope, Royce began to slide. He tried to get a grip, but his hands and claws found only snow. He picked up speed like a sled and Hadrian worked at taking up the slack in the rope. Then Royce crashed through the thickets and disappeared from view. Mauvin joined Hadrian on the rope, which was now as taut as a bowstring.

“Get the end,” Hadrian ordered. “Tie it to that tree.”

Magnus moved to grab the line.

“No, not you!” Hadrian shouted, and the dwarf scowled. Hadrian looked to the next-closest person. “Wyatt, could you tie the end off?”

The sailor grabbed the end of the rope and dragged it around the base of the little birch.

“How ya doing, Royce?” Hadrian called.

“Dangling,” Royce replied. “Pretty slick up there. Give me some slack.”

They stood in a circle, each keeping a safe distance, all of them standing on their toes, trying to see down. Overhead, the winter clouds made it hard to tell the time. There was no sun, just a vague gray light that filled the sky, leaving everything murky and drained of color. Hadrian guessed they had only four hours of light left.

Mauvin and Hadrian let out the rope until it hung from the tree, although Hadrian continued to hold on to it just the same. He could not see Royce and stared instead at the thin rope. It too was mostly lost, buried in the snow, leaving only a telltale mark.

“Can you reach the bottom?”

“How much rope do we have?” Royce’s voice returned like an echo from the bottom of a well.

Hadrian looked at Arista.

“Ten coils of fifty feet each,” she replied. “All told, there should be five hundred feet’s worth,” she shouted, tilting her head up a bit as if throwing her voice into the hole.

“Not half good enough,” Royce replied.

“That’s a deep hole,” Hadrian said.

The rope shifted and twisted at the edge.

“What’re you doing, buddy?”

“Trying something.”

“Something stupid?”

“Maybe.” He sounded winded.

The rope stopped moving and went slack.

“Royce?” Hadrian called.

No answer.

“Royce?”

“Relax,” came his reply. “This might work. I’m on a ledge, big enough for all of us, I think. Icy, but doable. We can tie on here too. Looks like we’ll have to work our way a leg at a time. Might as well start sending down the gear.”

They brought up the wagon and began lowering supplies, each package disappearing through the opening in the brush.

“I’ll go first,” Alric announced when the wagon was empty.

Hadrian and Mauvin tied the safety rope around his waist and legs. Once tethered, the king took hold of the guide rope and, sitting down on the snow, scooted forward. Mauvin and Hadrian were careful this time to let out the rope slowly, and soon Alric reached the thickets and peered through.

“Oh dear Maribor!” Alric exclaimed. “You have me, right?” he shouted back at them.

“You’re not going anywhere until you want to,” Mauvin replied.

“Oh lord,” he repeated several times.

Royce was offering suggestions, but too faintly for Hadrian to hear exactly what they were.

“Okay, okay, here I go,” Alric said. He turned himself over and, lying flat on his stomach, started backing into the hole, clutching tightly to the guide rope. “Slowly now,” he warned as Mauvin and Hadrian let out the tether, and inch by inch he slipped over the edge and out of view.

“Oh sweet Maribor!” they heard him exclaim.

“You okay?” Hadrian called.

“Are you crazy? Of course I’m not! This is insane.”

“Lower him,” Royce shouted.

They let out the line until Hadrian felt a tug that he guessed was Royce pulling Alric to the ledge. The rope went slack, Royce shouted the all clear, and they reeled up the empty harness. Feeling it best to send him early so they still had enough people to man the rope, they sent Elden next. He went over the side quietly, although his eyes told a story similar to Alric’s.

“Degan, you’re next,” Hadrian informed him.

“You are joking,” Gaunt replied. “You don’t expect me to go down there?”

“Kinda why you’re here.”

“That’s insane. What if the rope breaks? What if we can’t reach the bottom? What if we can’t get back up? I’m not doing this. It’s-it’s ridiculous!”

Hadrian just stared at him, holding the harness.

“I won’t.”

“You have to,” Arista told him. “I don’t know why, but I know the Heir of Novron must accompany us for this trip to be successful. Without you there’s no need for any of us to go.”

“Then fine, none of us go!”

“If we don’t, the elves will kill everyone.”

He looked at her and then at the others with a desperate, pleading face. “How do you know this? I mean, how do you know I have to come?”

“Esrahaddon told me.”

“That loon?”

“He was a wizard.”

“He’s dead. If he was so all-knowing, how come he’s dead? Huh?”

“Waiting down here,” Alric shouted up.

“You have to go,” Arista told him.

“And if I refuse?”

“You won’t be emperor.”

“What good is being emperor if I’m dead?”

No one spoke; they all just looked at him.

Degan slumped his shoulders and grimaced. “How do you put this damn thing on?”

“Put your feet through the loops and buckle it around your waist,” Hadrian explained.

After Gaunt and Arista were down, Wyatt took over Hadrian’s position on the rope, freeing him to speak with Renwick. “You have supplies to last a week, perhaps more if you conserve,” he told him and the other boys as they gathered around. “Take care of the horses and stay off the hilltop. Make camp in that hollow. For your own safety, I’d avoid a fire in the daylight. The smoke will be visible at a distance. It would be best not to attract any uninvited guests.”

“We can handle ourselves,” Brand declared.

“I’m sure you can, but still it would be best not to wander, and try to keep unnoticed.”

“I want to go with you,” Renwick said.

“Me too,” Mince added.

Hadrian smiled. “You’re all very brave.”

“Not me,” Elbright said. “A man would have to be a royal fool to go into something like that.”

“So you’re the sensible one,” Hadrian told him. “Still, we need all of you to do your job here. Keep the camp, and take care of the horses for us. If we aren’t back in a week, I suspect we won’t be coming back and it will probably be too late if we do. If you see fire in the north or west, that will likely mean the elves have overrun Aquesta or Ratibor. Your best bet would be to go south. Perhaps try to catch a ship to the Westerlins. Although I have no idea what you’ll find there.”

“You’ll be back,” Renwick said confidently.

Hadrian gave the boy a hug, then turned to look at the monk, who was, as usual, with the horses. “Com’on, Myron, it’s nearly your turn.”

Myron nodded, petting his animal one last time, whispering to it. Hadrian put an arm around him as they walked toward the ridge, where Wyatt and Mauvin were in the process of lowering Magnus.

“What did you say to Royce last night?” Hadrian asked the monk.

“I just spoke with him briefly about loss and coping with it.”

“Something you read?”

“Sadly, no.”

Hadrian waited for more, but the monk was silent. “Well, whatever it was, it worked. He’s-I don’t know-alive again. Not singing songs and dancing, of course. If he did that, I suppose I’d worry. But you know, kinda normal, in a Royce sort of way.”

“He’s not,” Myron replied. “And he’ll never be the way he was again. There’s always a scar.”