Kellen stared up at the vertical wall of stone. His stomach lurched as he squinted, trying to make out the ledge far above where Ira said the coils of rope sat. Of Ubira, Allison, or the rest of the group, there was no sign. Yet, according to Ira, they could have gone no other way.

The winged coyote drifted down from somewhere above, followed close behind by Vex, both Mana Beasts flapping their wings to slow their descent. In the dark, Kellen could barely make out Ira’s form and couldn’t see Vex at all. The little bat-fox was there just the same, sensing his presence as they drew closer. A moment later, Vex appeared just feet overhead. He popped into his fox form and dropped into Kellen’s outstretched arms.

“There are large baskets and heavy rope they used to pull people up,” Ira said. “But they are all too heavy for us to use. There is a large stone tied to the other end of the rope as a counterweight. The only way up will be for Vex and me to push it off the ledge. You’ll have to climb up the rope.”

Kellen hoped the dark hid his apprehension. This sounded like gym class from hell. Part of him didn’t want to know the answer, but he asked anyway. “How far up is the ledge?”

Ira tilted his head to the side as if trying to understand the question. Kellen found whenever he asked about measurements such as distances or time, it didn’t translate well.

“I would say it is… perhaps twenty times your height to the top,” the coyote said. “It will be a long climb.”

When he said the last part, he looked at Kellen. A glance at Shani and Obishi’s arms made it clear they would have no trouble climbing the height. Ira apparently remembered Kellen’s first lame attempt to climb one of the Tall Spears. He was clearly holding back from saying anything. Kellen had the same thoughts. He’d stripped away a little of the fluff and added some muscle in his weeks in Oras, but this was an undertaking of an entirely different caliber.

“You can make the climb if you spread out the use of your mana refresh,” Ira said. “I think.”

So much for the vote of confidence from Ira. Kellen stopped himself from looking up. The ledge Ira mentioned wasn’t even visible in the darkness.

“You’ll be fine,” Vex said from Kellen’s arms. “I never worry about falling because if I do, I just bounce!”

“I don’t bounce,” Kellen said. “What gave you the idea that I would bounce if I fell?”

Vex moved his body in a shrug. “I thought everyone bounced.”

“You should go last,” Shani said. “That way, if you fall, you will not knock myself or the Earth Badger boy off the rope.”

Make that minus two votes of confidence. Now Kellen just needed Obishi and Vex to tell him he probably wouldn’t make it and that would be the entire group.

“Once we get to the top, we can haul the rope up to help you,” Obishi said. It wasn’t exactly an insult, and Kellen knew he would need all the help he could get, anyway. The morsel of pride he’d ever clung to had been smashed to bits weeks ago.

“We should keep going,” Shani said.

Kellen agreed. Not because he had any desire to scale up a cliff. Yet he realized the longer they sat there and talked about it, the harder it would be to convince himself he could make it to the top. They back away from the base of the rock and Ira flew back up to the ledge. A few moments later, a rock about the size of a beach ball crashed into the ground, sending up a shower of stone chips. Kellen shielded his face and felt a couple glance off his arms and torso.

“All set,” Ira’s voice rang out from somewhere above.

Shani grabbed and the rope and started hauling herself up using mostly her arms. Obishi made an irritated noise and shouted after her. “You’re doing it wrong! Let me show you how we do it.”

Dropping down, Shani glared at Obishi as his shout of disapproval echoed throughout the mountain bowl. She thrust the end of the rope to him.

Kellen thought Obishi might be blushing, but in the faint light it was too hard to tell. He muttered something, then took the rope from Shani. Instead of scaling up with his arms, he gripped it as high as he could reach and then leaned back to about a forty-five degree angle. With a little hop, he pulled his legs out from under him and braced them on the side of the wall. In position, he started up, pushing off the wall with his feet as he pulled with his hands. In no time, he rose over their hands and into the gloom. Kellen told himself there was no way he was going to try that trick.

Once Obishi had a decent head start, Shani started up after him. To Kellen’s surprise, she copied the boy’s stance and started climbing without so much as a “good luck” or “try not to smash yourself into a pancake on the rocks” to Kellen before she went.

“Try not to smash yourself into a pancake on the rocks,” Vex said in a cheery voice. “There, does that help? Nothing like the fear of death to motivate you, huh?”

Kellen made a mental note to better explain sarcasm to Vex if he survived the trip to the top.

He grasped the rope, which was just thick enough that he couldn’t wrap his hands around it. In the days before milking machines, Kellen’s hands would have been two iron vice grips of strength as a dairyman’s son. As it was, milking a cow by hand was a rare occasion. He hadn’t done it in years, and never enough to build the powerful grasp his forebears undoubtedly had. He abandoned the idea of walking up the wall like Obishi as soon as he leaned back and braced his feet against the wall. It felt like hanging in empty space and made his head spin.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right there with you to coach you all the way to the top,” Vex said.

Kellen gave him a pointed look. “Don’t say anything until I make it to the top.”

“You got it!” Vex said, doing a little loop in the air in his bat form.

Kellen adjusted his grip on the rope again, holding as high up as he could reach. He jumped and hauled himself up, boot scrabbling to find holds in the rock wall. The action recalled a time in his younger years at the local rec center when he’d climbed halfway up the rock wall only to find his arms weren’t long enough to reach higher and he couldn’t go down without falling. He’d clung to the side of the wall until the rec center employee belaying him pulled on the rope and yanked him off the wall to hang midair before lowering him to the ground.

“You always share the most interesting memories at the strangest times,” Vex said. “That’s the last thing I’d want to think about right now if I was you.”

Gritting his teeth, Kellen banished the unpleasant recollection. He focused on one step after the other, and when his arms started to burn less than ten feet off the ground, he found the calm to push mana through his body. Flooded with fresh strength and perhaps a dash of confidence, Kellen rose higher and higher up the wall. He kept his head craned back and soon thought he could make out Shani and Obishi, looking down at him over the ledge.

Kellen told himself it hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected. His arms burned and his legs ached, but he could make it. Then his foot slipped as a chunk of rock broke away beneath his boot. Kellen’s legs lurched out from under him and he hung by his arms only, dangling in empty air. There seemed to be just enough light from the stars and the rising moon to paint out just how far he stood to fall.

He swore under his breath, spikes of adrenaline needling him like a human-sized pin cushion.

“I think you could use some encouragement,” Vex said. “You’re almost there! One foot after the other! It’s about the journey, not the destination!”

Sweat beaded on his forehead and willing his fingers to release the rope so he could pull himself up was an act of ultimate discipline. He uncurled one at a time, as if each weighed the situation independently and openly rebelled against the act. Obishi sent down quiet words of encouragement. Kellen felt like he was underwater and couldn’t understand anything the boy said.

His legs kicked at the empty air, trying to find purchase on the rock wall again. Kellen glanced off it but instead of gaining a foothold, the kick pushed him out away from the wall. Swinging in open air, a wave of dizziness came over him. He shivered, a cold sweat prickling all over him. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Pull him up!” Vex yelled up to the others. “Pull him up!”

Kellen felt the rope rise an inch at a time. He didn’t dare open his eyes to look in case the vertigo overtook him again. Soon, hands grasped his wrists and hauled him over the ledge. He lay face up, panting like a dog in July. When he cracked his eyes open, everyone was watching him.

“You did it!” Vex said, a wide smile showing his little fangs.

Obishi nodded. “Well done.”

Ira’s mouth was open in a familiar canine grin. “Wait until I tell Nokom what the boy who couldn’t climb a body length up the Tall Spear just did.”

Shani said nothing and Kellen shared her feeling that he didn’t deserve any of the praise. He blushed, both from the patronizing attention and the shame that he’d frozen and had to be hauled up. The embarrassment drove away the lingering dizziness and he hopped to his feet.

“I’m ready if you guys are,” he said, hoping to change the subject.

Up on the ledge, Kellen saw a tunnel, just wide enough for a person to walk with their arms outstretched. He and Shani had similar heights and when they approached, Kellen found the tunnel just high enough that they wouldn’t hit their heads, though he couldn’t raise his arms all the way before it found the ceiling.

“Where does this lead?” Shani asked Ira, stopping at the entrance.

“I do not know,” the coyote replied. “My nose smells fresh air ahead and I can sense a breeze, so I think it goes through the mountain, not into it. It would take some time for me to fly over the top of the mountain and find the other side and I risk encountering the black bird again.”

Shani nodded in understanding. “I will lead the way.”

“Wait,” Kellen said, struck by sudden inspiration. Aside from his personal concerns of walking into a dark, unknown tunnel, it was a good idea to know what lie ahead. He stepped past Shani to the beginning of the tunnel and raise a hand, palm upward. Concentrating, he channeled his sun mana and shaped it into a ball. Once he felt the shape would hold, he hauled it back and threw it down the tunnel. The ball of golden light hit the ground, bounced, and continued for another few yards until it winked out with no hint of the tunnel’s end.

“That was clever,” Ira said and his weary voice sounded surprised. “Did you mean to combine the shield and projectile working together?”

“Sort of,” Kellen admitted. “Since my shields are stronger, I thought I could make a miniature one that would go farther than a bolt before it went out.” The idea of a bouncy ball had popped into his head in the middle of forming the ball. Kellen felt a surge of pleasure that it had worked, too. He’d never tried anything like it before.

“Can you make another one to guide us?” Ira asked.

“No problem!” Vex interrupted. He fluttered forward, a ball of light growing in his open mouth. It made it to the size of a tennis ball, Vex straining not to drop it. “Ill dish erk?”

Kellen felt a tiny prick of annoyance at Vex for stealing some of his thunder. He had to admit, the Mana Beast’s light was brighter than his, however.

“That will do,” Ira said. “I will go first with Vex. Shani, you follow us, then Kellen and the Earth Badger boy.”

“I have a name,” Obishi muttered as they set off.

They walked through the tunnel without a word, the occasional scuff of feet echoing in the glow of Vex’s light. The tunnel went perfectly straight, and if it sloped up or down, it was so gradual Kellen didn’t notice. He studied the walls, expecting to see chisel marks. They looked smooth, so smooth he suspected they weren’t natural, but that someone with earth mana abilities had shaped the passage. The cold rock pressed in and Kellen’s breath misted in front of his face. It was much colder than outside.

About a hundred yards into the tunnel, Vex’s light winked out. Kellen asked what was wrong, then saw the faint outline of pale moonlight marking the end of the passage ahead. At the same time, a strange, prickling sensation covered the back of his head. Ahead, Ira stopped.

“Do you feel that?” he asked, the hair on the coyote’s neck rising.

“Yes,” Kellen said in a low voice. Although they were surrounded by walls of rock, he felt exposed. To what, he couldn’t say.

“What is it?” Vex asked.

The coyote raised his head and sniffed. He said nothing for several moments, nose extended, ears turned forward. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Be careful ahead. Expect anything.”