Quickly, with his free hand he undid his plumbing belt, which had been handed down from father to son for generations. His father had given it to him only last year when he had grown too ill to work. But Ark had no choice. He spotted his target, a broken bit of scaffolding sticking up from a withered old trunk, and threw the belt down toward it. He was a good shot. Even before it landed, Ark began climbing back up the doubled rope. He was as deft as a spider, soon reaching the underbelly of the scaffolding.

Beneath all the branch lines and highways, higgledy-twiggledy structures of wooden scaffolding supported the infrastructure of Arborium. There were mail tubes and gas pipes, and mini aqueducts that carried the supplies of water pumped up by the tree roots from deep beneath the soil. Ark had to keep moving fast through this tangle. He scrambled up until he found a perch directly under the branch line. He undid the rope from his wrist and pulled hard. It slithered back around the safety post and was swiftly coiled.

Just as the rope slipped finally into his hands, footsteps reverberated along the planks above him and cries of alarm were lost in the leaves. The steps finally came to a halt. There was a scraping sound, followed by a curse. So close.

Ark hugged his knees, trying to shrink into himself, and made his breathing shallow. Could they have spotted the thin strand of rope in the deepening dusk? If they had, it was over. He waited for a face to be thrust right over the edge, to stare straight underneath at him or for the thud of a close-range crossbow bolt.

“Nothing would survive that fall,” muttered a voice that could only be a few feet away.

“Not quite ‘nothin’.’ What’s that?” Another voice, even closer.

“Where?”

“Down there! Plumbing tools?”

Silence.

Ark counted to three. Would it be better to be caught or to actually jump?

“Ha!” A short, hard laugh. “Gives a new meaning to belt up, that does, doesn’t it!”

“Almost makes you feel sorry for ’im!” There was more grim laughter, followed by coughing and then the rumble of a gob of spit being dredged from creaking lungs. “Pah! Good riddance!”

That was that! The plan had actually worked. The half-witted guards had seen what he wanted them to see. Now, according to the fading sounds of mockery up above, he was dead, off to the River Sticks to join the other sorry souls who had killed themselves.