The cobalt-blue glow died against the damp bricks of the lime kiln chimney two hundred feet below. But the image remained burned into the eye of Len Vey’s right eye. A tiny, sharp circle of sapphire light that proved a living man was waiting on the ballast.
“The line is good,” Len whispered, his voice steadying the group as he turned back to the litter. “Bram is on the siding with the cart. But we have thirty feet of rope, a twenty-foot sheer drop, and three adults with only three sound arms between us. This isn’t a postal drill, Urel. If a knot slips on this frozen stone, your wife hits the shale. We don’t have the bandages or the splints to dress a shattered pelvis.”
Ivara was already at work on the central stone pier of the terrace stone railing. The pier was an eighteen-inch square of dressed dark rock, anchored into the terrace foundation by two-inch wrought-iron dowels that had survived sixty winters without shifting. She took the running end of Len’s hemp rope, looped it twice around the stonework pillar. Then she began threading the bitter end through the standing part with her single right hand and her teeth.
