Kyra was horrified to realize she was stuck on the precipice, and to see the creature’s jaws closing in on her as it pulled her close, using its magnificent strength to keep her from going over. She looked back and saw the falls behind her and ironically she wished for nothing more than to go over.

About to be eaten, desperate, Kyra thought quickly. She raised the two halves of her staff, still in her hand, and with one last desperate effort, she threw them at the beast. She watched them sail through the air, and she prayed her aim was true.

There came an awful shriek, and she watched with satisfaction as the short spears landed in the squid’s eyes.

The creature released its grip on her foot—and a moment later, Kyra felt herself gushing downriver, over the falls, plummeting through the air and mist and spray, and hurtling down to the rocks a hundred feet below.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Merk jabbed his staff into the moist forest floor, poking leaves beneath his feet, hiking as he had been for days back through Whitewood, and determined to stop at nothing this time until he reached the Tower of Ur. As he walked, he closed his eyes and, try as he did, he could not stop seeing that scene of grief flashing through his mind, the girl, her family, her weeping…. Her final words still rang in his ears. He hated himself for returning for her—and he hated himself for leaving.

Merk did not understand what was happening to him; all his life he had been unsusceptible to guilt, to rebuke, to anyone else’s problems. He had always been his own man, on his own island, his own mission. He had always made it a point to keep himself at arm’s length from the world, not to involve himself in anyone else’s troubles—unless they needed his special skills and there was hefty payment involved.

But now, for some reason, Merk could not stop thinking of this girl he barely knew, of her rebuke of his character, even though he had done the right thing. He didn’t know why it bothered him, but it did.

He, of course, could not return for her again. She had her chance. What bothered him was why he had turned back at all. He longer knew what was right: to live a life for himself, or to live a life of others? Had his encounter with her been a lesson? If so, what was the lesson learned?

What was wrong, Merk wondered, with just living a life for yourself? For your own selfish needs? For your own survival? Why did people have to get entangled in other people’s lives? Why should they care? Why couldn’t other people count on themselves for survival? And if they could not, then why should they have a right to survive?