They were now almost a hundred feet above the forest. The wind was blowing strong, and there was rain in the air. Kaelin prayed that it would hold off.
As the fissure finally closed they came to a ledge of rock some five feet deep. Chara sank down, her back to the face. Kaelin drew himself alongside her. ‘Any tremble in your arms yet?’ he asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘Let me know when there is. Jaim says that is when the muscles are about to give out. We’ll need to rest then.’
Kaelin eased his way along the ledge. It ran for almost sixty feet. The rock face was smooth almost all the way. Kaelin, who had been climbing rocks with Jaim since he was a child, knew he could find holds. Chara would not. Stepping back as far towards the edge as he could Kaelin scanned the cliff. There was another ledge some thirty feet higher, but no obvious route to it. Returning to where Chara was resting he stepped over her outstretched legs and examined the rock above the chimney. Centuries of rain had washed over the stone, smoothing it. But there were holds that Chara might manage. The problem was that an overhang obscured his view of the upper face. What if they were to climb past that, only to find no way forward? Would they be able to descend again?
Passing Chara again he walked the ledge, seeking a better way. He did not find one. Time to go,’ he told her.
It took more than half an hour to reach the overhang. For most of that time Chara clung to the face, unable to reach the only handhold available. Kaelin tried to help her, but his own footholds were so small that he could not risk trying to push her. Eventually Chara took a chance and hurled herself up, her left hand scrabbling at the rock. Kaelin’s heart was in his mouth. Had she fallen there would have been no way to stop her. They would both have been swept from the face. But she did not fall.
They reached the overhang, traversed along a ledge, then faced an easier climb to a wide shelf of rock. Wispy mist floated by them, and the air was cold and damp.
‘You are walking in the clouds now,’ Kaelin told her. ‘How does it feel?’
For the first time since the rescue Chara smiled. ‘It feels good. How high are we now?’
‘Four hundred feet. Perhaps a little more. We need to push on. The light will be fading soon.’
For another hour they climbed steadily. In places they were able to walk and scramble up slopes created from fallen rock. At last they reached the crest of the mountain, a huge cleft between two peaks. To the west they could see the gentle slopes of Rigante valley. Chara turned back and stared down the way they had come. The light was fading, and the drop seemed even more dizzying. Suddenly giddy, she sat down. ‘I cannot believe I climbed that,’ she said.
‘But you did, Chara,’ said Kaelin. ‘You conquered your fear and you conquered the mountain. And you are free.’
Wearily she pushed herself to her feet. ‘I am free thanks to you, Ravenheart,’ she said. ‘I am sorry I have treated you so badly.’
‘You have nothing to apologize for. I mean that with all my heart. Now let us get to the great house. We did not come all this way to die of cold on a mountainside.’
The wind was shrieking around them as they began their descent. There were no sheer faces here, only a series of downward slopes. Chara lifted her bundled cloak clear of her shoulders, shook it loose and wrapped it around herself. They trudged on, through the dusk and into the night, coming at last to within sight of the main Rigante settlement. Chara was close to exhaustion. They were seen by scouts from the high pass to their right. Two men came running down to intercept them. One was Rayster.
‘By the Sacrifice, where the hell did you come from?’
‘From the clouds,’ said Chara.
The preliminary hearing into the case of The Church versus Maev Ring was held in the Holy Court, a marble building set in the grounds directly behind the cathedral. It was a beautiful copy of the ancient temple in Stone, where Persis Albitane was said to have delivered his first sermon. For more than a hundred years the Holy Court had been the main church in Eldacre, until the construction of the colossal cathedral.