They took the same formation as before, and Nomi was sure her fingers and toes were so stiff and bruised that they would fail her. But she quickly found a rhythm, working with Ramin ahead of her and Beko behind, and the climb proceeded well. Physically it was the hardest thing Nomi had ever done, and she discovered depths of determination she never knew she had. But mentally, though it was a challenge climbing so steadily and painfully toward the unknown, excitement won out. By midday of that second day, they had started to work as a true team, and by the time light began to fade again, Nomi realized she had actually enjoyed the climb.

Some of what they saw underlined that this was a unique place. There were spiders that lived on the cliffs, legs growing up from the top of their torso and down from their abdomen. They moved quickly across the rocky surface, and they seemed unconcerned with these human invaders, watching with what could only be curiosity as the clumsy climbers went by. There were also a few insects that had adapted to vertical living, building small homes from spit and dust that clung solidly to the rock.

That evening there was no wide ledge. Though they had passed a crevasse in the cliff earlier that afternoon, it had been too early to stop. So Rhiana passed down the spare rope she carried over one shoulder, and one by one they fixed extra pitons into the rock and tied themselves in. Nomi still held herself up to begin with, finding it difficult to trust the rope cradle. But as weariness stiffened her limbs she eased down, and by the time darkness fell she was sitting fully in the rigged harness.

She had been able to look down and behind her that day; they were so high that there were no real details visible on the ground below. The sense of vast space behind her and the solidity of the end of Noreela before her was still staggering, but the scale had changed.

Looking down now was like staring into nothing.

“How far do you think to the clouds?” Beko asked. He was tied in ten steps below and to the side of her, giving her room to do whatever she might need to during the night.

“We've done well today,” Nomi said. “Maybe we'll reach there tomorrow?”

“We won't be able to see so far then,” he said.

“No.”

“We won't know how high to go. Don't even know for sure whether there's a top at all. Maybe we'll find climbers tied in like we are, dead from old age.”

This defeatist voice did not sound like Beko. “I'm sure it ends,” she said. “And so was Ramus.”

Later that night Noon called out from above and directed their attention to the east. Clear in the night, far along the cliff and lower than them, Nomi saw the diffused glow of a fire.