Garinor decided to scale down the ravine and see if he could find an exit there. Trying to cross the chasm seemed too perilous.
He started off by asking the man for the rope, but the man insisted that it was only to be used to cross the ravine, so Garinor was left no other choice. He crept toward the ledge and knelt down, peering around for a route. As his eyes swept to the left, he saw a narrow pathway leading down along the rocky wall. With a sigh of relief, he moved closer to it, then extended his body down until his feet touched the ledge.
It was much narrower while he was on it than it had looked. Its width was just more than half the length of Garinor’s foot. He held his breath and stood very straight as he shuffled along the wall, trying to keep his hands against the rock, seeking purchase.
He skirted along the wall, unsure about where he was heading. Every time he turned his head to see his destination, he felt his whole body pull away from the wall; the threat of plummeting to the river below did not sit well with him. He inched his way along, desperate to reach the bottom before his nerves shook him to pieces.
Little by little, Garinor made his way, but then there was a break in the ledge. He risked a glance and saw that part of the rock had broken away. He needed to stretch out to the other side in order to continue the journey. He kept his eyes trained upward as he bent both of his knees in preparation. Extending his left leg out and balancing with his arms, he managed to cross the gap and reach the other side. But his balance wavered. The pressure was getting too much for him.
It didn’t help when he reached another gap in the ledge, but this one led to a drop to another ledge that then inched toward the right, zigzagging down into the ravine. But the drop was more than his own height and he couldn’t possibly survive it.
Garinor considered retracing his steps up the cliff face, but as he did so a strong wind kicked up and battered him from that direction, coercing him to continue onward. He tried to bend down and grip the ledge with his fingertips, after which he would lower himself as close as possible to the ledge beneath him. But the buffeting wind offset his balance and it was a struggle to merely hold on.
He considered waiting until the wind died down before moving again, but he realized with a certain clarity that the wind was there to keep him going forward and it wouldn’t cease while he waited. Every moment he lingered there, the wind grew stronger and more urgent. Soon it would blow him off the rocky wall.
Garinor bent his knees and dragged his back down the wall. When his backside touched the ledge, he snapped his legs out from under him and tried to keep hold of the ledge with his fingers. But he was too nervous and his hands were sweaty. He couldn’t maintain a stable hold and instead of landing on the ledge below him, he bounced off it and fell headlong into the rocky bottom.
He closed his eyes against the vision of the land rising up to meet him. He felt the water impact him but he also felt the crushing of his bones as he splattered onto the rocks. The last sensation that swept through his body was a wild floating as the river carried him away into darkness.