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Authors: Steven Montano, Barry Currey
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been crudely cut long ago so creatures could ascend the rock face.
The atmosphere was raw and bloody. He tasted oxidized metal and heat, likely the result of toxic fumes spilling down from above. He waited for his spirit to wrap around him and mask him from the poison, and when she didn’t it took him a moment to remember she was gone.
Everything grew darker. Broken r ays of light fell like shattered raindrops. The ledge he followed came to a sudden end, so Cross hoisted himself up onto another. Tiny shards of stone painfully pushed under his fingernails as he climbed. One of his pant legs tore open at the knee and exposed a bloody scrape.
Cross put his back against the wall and caught his breath. He worried about inhaling too much of the foul-smelling air.
If I make it out of here, the first thing I need to do is find a healer. Maybe Ash can fix me up.
The steady Rift winds felt strangely soothing . He hadn’t realized how long he’d been climbing without a break. His skin was cold and covered with rock grime.
The ledge was barely big enough for him to stand on. If something happened and it crumbled – the cracking sound the Rift constantly made did little to instill him with confidence – he had little hope of grabbing hold before he plummeted to his death.
Cross bowed his head and closed his eyes. He tried not to think about how much further he had to go.
Your choices are to keep going until you make it out of here, or to give up now.
He shuddered. His throat tightened at memories of Snow, who was buried down there in the Rift.
H e didn’t want to die. It wasn’t easy: sleep pulled at him, and the thought of closing his eyes and never opening them again was more appealing than he would ever dare admit.
Cross grit his teeth and smacked his palms against his face. The new ledge he’d climbed onto offered no more choices than the path below. There was no direction for him to go but up.
His eyes scanned the chasm. Icy wind scarred his skin as he searched for a handhold so he could keep ascending. He pondered the notion of backtracking until he found another path, some other ledge he should’ve used but hadn’t, some other trail through the web of salted stone and frozen rock.
What h e saw instead was an ancient and rusted ladder bolted into the canyon wall. The ladder was made from a combination of thick wire mesh and bendable rebar plate, and it ran for hundreds of feet straight up into drifts of red smoke. A piece of dark metal, its inscription long burned away by acid and time, was set in the rock at the base of the ladder, right at Cross’s eye-level…on the other side of the Rift, at least five-hundred feet away.
Shit .
He looked around, desperate. There had to be a way to get across. A handful of wires stretched across the chasm beneath him – thin cables that moored the Rift walls together, ancient and gnarly tethers that must have once been used to support pulleys used by Southern Claw excavation teams who’d searched the Carrion Rift for precious minerals or magic. Those expeditions had all ended in disaster…but the fact that he’d found signs of the cables meant he was closer to the top than he’d thought.
I ’m almost there. Almost free.
He didn ’t want to backtrack, but there didn’t seem to be any other choice. The thought of climbing back down filled him with dread. He knew the descent to the cables would only take him an hour or so, but going down meant staring straight into the void.
The wind sang. He ’d heard tales of early Rift explorers. At least a handful of men from every crew went plunging into the Rift, and not always because of an accident, but because their eyes and minds became lost. They heard the songs in the wind, dark siren calls that enticed them to leap down like sailors jumping into an empty sea.
Even if those stories weren ’t true, scores of explorers and workers had
The atmosphere was raw and bloody. He tasted oxidized metal and heat, likely the result of toxic fumes spilling down from above. He waited for his spirit to wrap around him and mask him from the poison, and when she didn’t it took him a moment to remember she was gone.
Everything grew darker. Broken r ays of light fell like shattered raindrops. The ledge he followed came to a sudden end, so Cross hoisted himself up onto another. Tiny shards of stone painfully pushed under his fingernails as he climbed. One of his pant legs tore open at the knee and exposed a bloody scrape.
Cross put his back against the wall and caught his breath. He worried about inhaling too much of the foul-smelling air.
If I make it out of here, the first thing I need to do is find a healer. Maybe Ash can fix me up.
The steady Rift winds felt strangely soothing . He hadn’t realized how long he’d been climbing without a break. His skin was cold and covered with rock grime.
The ledge was barely big enough for him to stand on. If something happened and it crumbled – the cracking sound the Rift constantly made did little to instill him with confidence – he had little hope of grabbing hold before he plummeted to his death.
Cross bowed his head and closed his eyes. He tried not to think about how much further he had to go.
Your choices are to keep going until you make it out of here, or to give up now.
He shuddered. His throat tightened at memories of Snow, who was buried down there in the Rift.
H e didn’t want to die. It wasn’t easy: sleep pulled at him, and the thought of closing his eyes and never opening them again was more appealing than he would ever dare admit.
Cross grit his teeth and smacked his palms against his face. The new ledge he’d climbed onto offered no more choices than the path below. There was no direction for him to go but up.
His eyes scanned the chasm. Icy wind scarred his skin as he searched for a handhold so he could keep ascending. He pondered the notion of backtracking until he found another path, some other ledge he should’ve used but hadn’t, some other trail through the web of salted stone and frozen rock.
What h e saw instead was an ancient and rusted ladder bolted into the canyon wall. The ladder was made from a combination of thick wire mesh and bendable rebar plate, and it ran for hundreds of feet straight up into drifts of red smoke. A piece of dark metal, its inscription long burned away by acid and time, was set in the rock at the base of the ladder, right at Cross’s eye-level…on the other side of the Rift, at least five-hundred feet away.
Shit .
He looked around, desperate. There had to be a way to get across. A handful of wires stretched across the chasm beneath him – thin cables that moored the Rift walls together, ancient and gnarly tethers that must have once been used to support pulleys used by Southern Claw excavation teams who’d searched the Carrion Rift for precious minerals or magic. Those expeditions had all ended in disaster…but the fact that he’d found signs of the cables meant he was closer to the top than he’d thought.
I ’m almost there. Almost free.
He didn ’t want to backtrack, but there didn’t seem to be any other choice. The thought of climbing back down filled him with dread. He knew the descent to the cables would only take him an hour or so, but going down meant staring straight into the void.
The wind sang. He ’d heard tales of early Rift explorers. At least a handful of men from every crew went plunging into the Rift, and not always because of an accident, but because their eyes and minds became lost. They heard the songs in the wind, dark siren calls that enticed them to leap down like sailors jumping into an empty sea.
Even if those stories weren ’t true, scores of explorers and workers had
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