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The strangest things come to mind when your life is in immediate danger of being violently and irrevocably snuffed out. I couldn’t help think, even as I heard the hoot of a Grob hunter, that I still had some money on account in the port town of Camber. I bet it was warmer there than here.

Another call came from my left as I tried to control my breathing. I had been loping along for almost a half an hour hoping to have put the Grobs off my trail - or at least made myself too much trouble to bother following. You see, your average Grob hunter is about two yards tall and weighs in at about three times that of a normal man. As you would expect from nomadic tribes, that isn’t all fat. But most are unwilling to leave their females and young for too long, as other bands sometimes prey on the camps.

Using a fortuitously fallen log, I ran up its length and gained the top of a rise. Crouching as I neared the rest, I took a precious moment to scan my pursuers. Six shapes moved along the lower ravine I had traversed not ten minutes earlier, their motley-colored cloaks and blue-green skin tone blending them in with the terrain. When the light failed all together - in less time than I would have liked - I would be very hard pressed indeed to spot them. Hence my hope of having them lose interest. Oh well.

I turned as quietly as possible and started off again. If I could just make the river, I would be fine. I might freeze to death on the other side, but at least I would be spared the brutal and ignominious death on the near bank. Grobs weren’t known for their picky eating habits. The thoughts of Grob younglings gnawing on my bones flooded my system with adrenaline. I wondered if Jolier had made it even this far, and in thinking about it, I laughed. Laughed! Jolier was right, this was a run for the money - only this was for the family jewels and not a bounty. With a smile plastered under wide eyes, I ran.

Jolier had been right, indeed. As I ran I chuckled again. I have written you off already! Jolier had hired me out of Thimber, where I was in need of some cash and a convenient excuse to get out of town. If anyone ever asks, I will simply have to advise against married women. A hoot echoed up the draw behind me. Damn those noses! An answering call was closer than I liked and made the hairs on my neck stretch out. Jolier had been at the right place and the right time. Well, for me anyway. It kept me alive a little longer. Lyra had been with him, of course. I say of course because they never seemed to be apart. Ever. They did everything together. Everything. So I hired on at the standard wage, plus a bonus for my particular expertise. If I had only known.

Running down a game path, which I know is normally a big mistake, I gained some on the pursuit. Luckily the breeze was picking up, if I could cover my scent and keep down wind, I might make it. I used the rocks to run up the hillside, not trusting to leave the track, even in the failing light. I guess I can’t blame them for being angry.

Jolier hadn’t mentioned that the first part of his plan involved crossing the normally avoided migratory paths of the Grob tribes. They were all going up the mountains again after wintering in the deep forests around Colchabar. Well, we crossed the normal paths the first time, not without some harrowing moments. We got to the Temple of the Faces and acquired the item Lyra had identified as the one Jolier needed. Jolier had been in the Lower Portico all the while, guarding the priestesses. I managed to gather a few interesting things before we had to depart. Temple guards drawn off by a diversion (and hopping mad besides) tend to motivate one to beat feet. Even then we weren’t inside for more than eight to ten minutes.

My chest hurt. I was not in as good a shape as I used to be, I guess. My musings would have to be put aside for a bit. I achieved the ridge that held a commanding view of the Drun River. One of its swift loops lay coiled around the base of the hill I stood on. I shook my head as I threaded down through massive boulders. What the hell went wrong? The Temple Guards had thoroughly lost us by the time I led us out of the Valley of the Faces. How we attracted the Grob hunters, I couldn’t fathom. Now, it’s not very widely known, but Grobs sometimes achieve human intelligence. Why I had to run into the one-in-a-hundred pack that had one such, is a matter of purely philosophical debate. Perhaps they were out of food, or had been run roughshod by other humans. Either way, there had been no talking them out of letting us go - the one had barely mastered basic Lathian words, the others not at all. Lyra had been decorating the end of a cruelly barbed spear when Jolier and I broke from our captors. The smile playing on my lips vanished as I recalled the rush of hot blood that poured from the wound. I don’t know if her talents allowed her to heal herself, but I certainly hoped they would allow her to hasten the end of her own life. I had been too busy saving my own to really offer any help. I wonder if Jolier went back for her. I could see that. Perhaps he was made of sterner stuff than I.

I grabbed the Kerpf tree’s branch as I slid down the slope. It must have rained recently because no dust rose as I passed. I used the branch to swing under and keep my feet - and most importantly - and to keep moving. The slope got rocky, both at each side and under foot. I stopped, on sheer instinct. Two feet away, there was nothing but cooling air. A faint breeze washed up from the river below, I could smell it - very different from lake smell - I took a look over the side.

"Oh, shit," I whispered, stunned. The slope was neatly terminated and a long, straight granite wall fell to the dull surface of the Drun. With only a moment’s debate - and the close hoot of a Grob spurring me - I picked up the heaviest rock I could lift and heaved it into space, and then bellied over the edge and started to down-climb. I got about five feet before I heard the splash. Granite is pretty tricky, you see, you grab the wrong flake, you go down with a sizable chunk of rock coming with you. If you stick to the cracks, you are at the mercy of your grip and how willing you were to jamb your fingers into a bloody pulp. I opted for the crack. I found myself staring into its jet blackness with hypnotic intensity. I overcame the moment of shivering doubt and then cast for optimal holds. The crack was as thick (or thin, as it were) as my thumb, as went straight in on both sides. I jammed my appendages into the opening and felt for whatever I could find with my feet. Flexing my hands taut, my arms assumed the burden of my body weight. I found several lateral cracks coming into the main one I was hand-over-handing. The tips of my thin boots found the tops of several flakes and I descended twenty feet below the rim with minimal effort.

I ran into trouble when my longknife got twisted into one of the cracks. I got it untangled by a rather nerve-racking twitch of the hip. Thank Luck I had been relieved of my swords and the travel pack. I would miss the swords, but they were not family heirlooms. At least I still had my sling bag, unless it catches and pitches me into space. I wanted to laugh. I guess it was my way of releasing the stress. Gravel tapped me on the head as I made a long reach with my left toe. Once the foot took the weight, I froze. Long shadows filled the valley. The granite I clung to was cooling after catching the day’s warmth.

There were two Grobs up at the point where I had gone over. I could hear the deep snuffling as they tried to acquire the scent. I knew that every living thing within a bow shot had heard that rock hit the water. I cast a careful glance up. I had to clamp down on my grin, for fear my teeth might show in the deepening shadow. I was just out of line-of-sight; the wall was overhung just enough that the gravel was reaching me, but unless one of those smelly bastards leaned way over the edge, they wouldn’t see me. I took the opportunity to lower my right hand down and get a new grip. My right foot dropped below the left and I felt something I had not expected - a wide ledge. Well, perhaps wide would be a relative term. This one probably measured an inch across. It traveled twenty yards down the wall at an angle and, with some care, I could probably use it to get farther down.

I heard a grunt of frustration from above and a shower of dirt and gravel hurtled down onto my head and shoulders. The double-double hoot nearly caused me to relax with relief. Now was not the time. They were heading back. I froze in place and waited for sixty heartbeats before I heard one final grunt and a muttered approximation of a Lathian curse. I waited again and then, hearing nothing further, I began to down-climb again. I dropped another thirty feet under complete control, thanking Luck that I had bothered to listen to his madho and his teachings.

The phantom voice drifted into my mind as I sweated my way down the wall. You must see the rock as it is, oko, you must work with the rock on its terms. You may not dictate to the rock. In a battle of wills, you will lose, oko. I had always hated the term for apprentice/learner. I had a name, damnit! I had to smile ruefully as I remembered his madho’s response to that assertion. What do the trees care of your name, oko? Or the rocks, or the animals? What does life care of the vocal symbol you have chosen for yourself? Do you think that when it is time for you to make the Transfer that life will say, ’No, this one is too important because he has a name’? I think not, oko. We all must learn to deny the self; to seek balance within ourselves, to choose not to be the bark tossed upon rough sea.

I had failed miserably, of course. I was me! In the end I recall being asked to leave the Temple. The gathered madhi had stood at the small access door in the huge Oryl-wood gates. You will return to us, oko, said his madho. The mahdi have seen this. But until you are open to your inner-self and tranquil with what is - and not what could be - then you are a danger to the other oko. I will meditate upon your plight and perhaps learn better ways to teach so that other promising oko may not fail.

The path from the Temple to the village was the longest road I have ever walked in my life. And since then I had traveled across the continent twice. I tried to concentrate on the task at hand, but I could feel the tremors in both my back and my forearms growing. Like a set of harp strings resonating together. I might have been halfway down the wall when my grip failed the first time. I caught myself, nearly soiling my trousers in the process, and then clung like an insect to the rock.

Fate, and her sister Luck, are fickle bitches. No sooner had I stabilized than both hands slipped. For just a scrabbling second I thought I could pull it back, but I was gone. The split second after that, I bent my knees. This brought me slightly closer to the rock, but also speeded my momentum down the face. In the last splinter of time, I exploded outward, both thighs propelling me out in a wide (and I hoped graceful) arc. I managed to turn in the air and bring my feet around just before I hit. My last thoughts weren’t of my salvation or any of persons I had ever met. Such it is, such it will be. The animation in my mind’s eye was the warm corner of a common alehouse in Lafta, where I spent all my earned (or otherwise) coin. It was of the warm peace that would never again settle on my old bones.