In the darkness at the base of the pit he saw Releana tying the end of the rope around his father's waist. At her signal, J'role raised his father a few feet. He weighed little and came easily. Below, his father dangled right and then left, hanging from the rope at his waist.
Releana lay down on her back beneath Bevarden. Spreading her arms wide and exhaling forcefully she let out a powerful rush of air. The vine in J'role's hand went suddenly slack as his father rose upward, propelled swiftly by the column of air from Releana's spell.
J'role quickly pulled the vine up, hand over hand, racing to jerk back on the slack.
The next thing J 'role knew Bevarden had slammed into the branches that covered the pit, shooting right past the roots before they had time to grab him. It had worked!
Now all J'role had to do was get his father out of the pit.
The vine was taut, with Bevarden's weight supported by J'role's stiff grip. Soft moans of fear escaped his father's lips as he twirled right and then left, suspended over the dark chasm. The long roots snaked and reached for his father from the wall, but they could not reach him.
J'role let his fingers slide over the vine as he moved back to a tree a few feet behind him.
There he tied the vine so that it held his father in place above the pit. Returning to the pit he clapped his hands softly to get his father's attention. In response Bevarden only whimpered.
Realizing he would get no help from his father, J'role set his mind to coming up with a new plan. A desire to simply run off and leave the useless man hanging began to bubble up in his thoughts, but he forced it away
He realized he could control his father's position by carefully maneuvering the ends of each of the branches supporting him. By sliding two ends toward each other, J'role could move the point where the branches met toward the edge of the pit. As the intersection moved toward the edge, so would the vine, and so would his father.
He set to work, moving each branch closer to the other an inch at a time, fearful that if he moved them too quickly one might roll out of place and send: his father plunging back into the pit. Slowly but surely the intersection of the branches came toward him, and his father's body approached.
Soon Bevarden hung only a foot away, the branches bending low under the uneven distribution of weight. J'role reached out and touched his father's head. Bevarden looked up, saw J'role, and smiled a child's grin. "Son," he said surprising J'role. He'd thought his father couldn't recognize him anymore.
The thin, worn man reached out toward J'role, and his hands felt like well-worn leather.
Too soft. They had the touch of death about them.
J'role helped Bevarden up, led him to a spot a few feet away and sat him down. Bevarden stared at his son, perhaps with pride, but J'role could not be sure. He was no longer able to read his father's face.
Returning to the pit, he lowered the vine to Releana, who waited with arms upraised. She tied the vine to her waist, and then J'role gave it a pull, lifting her a few feet off the ground. Facing down toward the dirt, she spread her arms wide as she had done before, and again exhaled forcefully. Once more, a terrible rush of air expelled from her mouth.
The air crashed into the ground beneath her, spraying wet dirt upward. Then the massive blast of air rebounded straight into Releana, sending her up the pit.
Her ascent was not as vertically straight as Bevarden's had been, and she careened into the pit's wall. Roots lashed out at her and J'role heard her choke back a scream as the vine tugged wildly in his hand. No matter. The force of the air blast kept her moving up the pit, and he continuously hauled in the vine's slack, tossing it behind him as Releana's body raced toward him.
Suddenly the motion stopped and he heard her cry out in pain. Peering over the edge he saw her only a few yards down, hands clinging tightly to the vine. Several roots had wrapped themselves around her legs and waist. On her face was a mixture of pain and fear.
J'role swung around the edge of the pit to get better leverage from the branches. He could no longer see Releana, but he heard her soft whimpers of agony. He pulled as hard as he could but the roots would not give her up.
Again the thoughts came to him. Leave her. What did she mean to him? He had already saved his father. Wasn't that enough?
He almost gave in to the impulse to drop the vine and run off as quickly as possible, when he felt someone come up and grab him from behind. In his surprise J'role jumped and nearly let go of the vine. But then he recognized his father's hands. The hands wrapped themselves around the vine, and close to his ear his father whispered, "I'll…"
The voice trailed off, the thought incomplete. Then Bevarden began to pull, arms wrapped tightly around his son. Together they tugged as hard as they could.
— A shriek came from the pit as the vine suddenly slackened, and J'role realized they had freed Releana from the roots. J'role and Bevarden hauled up on the vine as quickly as they could until Releana's hands came up over the edge of the pit. She climbed up over the edge, her legs bleeding with raw wounds
J'role breathed a sigh of relief.
And then he heard the barking of the dogs.
17
His mother stepped toward him, dagger in hand. "No, no. Nothing to fear, "she said "It's all going to be all right now. Everything will be all right."
He turned to get away, to hide in his room, but she grabbed his wrist fiercely and snapped him back toward her. "I'm sorry," she said "I'm so frightened." She held him close for a moment, then pulled back, the smile leaving her face. "Why did you do these things to me?"
J'role wanted to know why too, desperately wishing he knew how to stop hurting her. But he didn't have the answer.
Turning quickly, J'role saw two pairs of gleaming red eyes rushing toward him, moving low to the ground. One dog barked as it leaped through the air, trailing a mist of glowing red breath. Its night-black fur made it nearly invisible against the shadows; all he could see were the spectral eyes and mist floating from its mouth.
Releana looked up, spread her arms, puffed up her cheeks and exhaled, just as she had done in the pit. A rush of wind poured from her mouth and slammed into the dogs, sending the one in mid-leap back over on itself and then tumbling to the ground. The other dog continued its rush forward, going straight for Bevarden, who screamed like a child waking from a nightmare.
J'role's thief magic said, "Run!" Instead he threw himself at the dog attacking his father, tackling it, throwing his arms around its back. The two of them rolled off Bevarden and into the bushes.
J'role had never felt muscles as strong as those that now rolled and bucked against his arms and chest. The dog turned its head left and right, straining back as far as it could, snapping and growling at J'role. The teeth finally caught his forearm, and the animal bit deep. Though J'role wanted to scream in pain, he clamped down on the urge, afraid of releasing the voice of the creature inside him. The pain made him lose his grips and the dog scrambled free.
It rose onto its hind legs and whirled around, its breath summer-hot on J'role's face. It barked once, then lunged forward. The moment stretched out; the burning eyes seeming to come at J'role's face forever, then he rolled out of the way and the dog bit down on empty air. Now closer, it reared back its head for another bite, when suddenly the flesh along its neck was pierced by a spray of long needles. Blood spattered J'role, some of it falling into his open mouth. The dog let out a cry and its eyes rolled back into it head.
"Over there!" someone in the distance called.
"They're coming," said Releana.
J’role tried to spit the blood out of his mouth, but the taste clung to his tongue. He looked around quickly. The two dogs lay on the ground, both pierced by dozens of long, thick splinters of dirt formed by Releana's magic. His father also lay on the ground, curled up like a child, whimpering softly.