Lulah was already shrugging the coil of rope from her shoulder, knotting one end and threading the other through the hoops on her belt. “We need to do things the right way,” she said.

While Lulah tied them together, Ramus looked first east, then west, wondering whether he would see the shifting silhouettes of Nomi and her group. But it was a foolish thought. The Divide dwarfed Noreela itself, and anyone or anything crawling upon it would be lost.

Lulah went first, and to begin with, the going was relatively easy. Ramus shut out the sense of space by concentrating on his hands and feet. Though he had never feared heights, he did fear loss of control, and the farther they went the more he knew the cliff had them. He was trapped in every moment, and the only way to defy the cliff would be to fall.

The Sleeping God guides me in, he thought. The standing stones had led them to the chimney—an easy climb, food, water, shelter—and now even this exposed face provided them with adequate ledges and cracks to climb with relative ease. If he thought of the God and the cliff together, they had both stolen control. Perhaps illness was numbing his fear.

Around midday, Lulah halted above him and let Ramus draw level. She was panting and sweating. She nodded at the cliff just to Ramus's left and he saw the rusted remains of a set of old pitons.

“We're not the first,” she said.

“I never thought we were.” But Ramus looked away from Lulah so that she could not see his face. It was foolish, but he no longer felt quite so special.

“I wonder how far they made it?” Lulah said.

“Maybe we'll see.”

And later, they did. The body first, way above them, difficult to make out but definitely apart from the cliff. As they drew closer, they could see the shape swaying in the breeze, and closer still they could make out what it was. A climber, hanging from a frayed length of rope that looked as though it could give out at any moment. His or her hair flipped in the breeze, straining to loose itself from the tight leathery scalp. They drew level, a dozen steps across the cliff from the dead climber, and paused.

“Must have been climbing alone,” Lulah said. “Anyone else would have cut them free and let them fall.”

“What a way to die,” Ramus said. The body was bent backward almost in half, dried out by the sun and wind. Flakes of skin drifted from it with every gust. The clothing was nondescript and the person carried no weapons, so it was difficult to make out who it was, or where they may have come from.

“I promise if you fall, I'll cut you loose,” Lulah said.