to the light, he could see the glass was dark green and turquoise. It terrified him.
Abe touched beside the others. Instantly he sensed that the snow they were
standing upon was a false floor. It could go at any moment. The illusion of security was
better than none at all, though, so he gingerly settled his boots onto the surface. At
least they were out of the wind and driving snow down here.
After a while the climbers were settled enough so that Abe could take a look at Gus.
He untied the ropes that bound the yellow tentage around her. With Daniel holding
the light, he opened pieces of her clothing, one at a time to preserve her warmth.
Gus had broken her left femur, possibly snapping the ball off her hip joint. Abe
couldn't be sure of that without an X ray. The blood had come from a compound
fracture of both her tibia and fibula.
'Her foot was turned backward,' Daniel explained. 'I twisted it around.' Then he
added, 'I just hope I twisted it the proper direction.' It was a worthy hope. If Daniel
had rotated her foot the wrong way, this leg would have been set 360 degrees out of
alignment. It would have been the same as tying a tourniquet around her leg.
Despite Daniel's makeshift splinting with an ice axe and a tent pole, the broken leg
was grotesque. He had controlled the bleeding, it seemed, but that wasn't good
enough. The fractures – probably the splints, too – had cut off the blood supply to her
foot. It was swollen and black with frostbite. If she lived, Gus was going to lose the
foot, at least. Abe didn't see how she could possibly live through the night. It was
amazing that clots and blood loss and shock and exposure hadn't finished her off
already.
There was little Abe could do to improve on Daniel's handiwork. The splints and
bandaging were as good as they could be. He tried without luck to get a pulse at the
ankle of Gus's shattered leg. His fingers were too cold to feel much, but he knew that
wasn't the real problem. The leg was dying. Abe was helpless. Without his trauma kit
and oxygen, Abe couldn't even begin to work on her.
'Are there any other injuries?' Abe asked.
Daniel mumbled, 'What?', less punch-drunk than distracted. Abe had never seen
him like this. The fire in his eyes had burned to common ash. Daniel looked downright
mortal for a change, as if pain and defeat and exhaustion were things that could
happen to him, too.
'Just hold the light,' Abe told him.
Gus's teeth showed yellow in a ghastly grimace under the lamplight. Kelly lay
hibernating in a ball in the snow. Daniel said, 'It's done now.'
'I know,' Abe said. It was so done, there was no sense even remarking on it. In Abe's
mind, the climb no longer even existed.
'Gus talked,' Daniel said. 'On the way down, she talked.'
'That's good,' Abe said.
'No.' Daniel touched her forehead. 'It's not so good.'
Daniel had checked out. He was delirious. Abe found himself resenting that. He had
counted on Daniel, they all had. They had hitchhiked on his composure and talents
and depended on him to be sane and wily and dominant. Abe felt betrayed by this
new frailty. He had counted on Daniel to defend them from this awful catastrophe
with plans and reassurance and energy. But this shipwrecked creature kneeling in
Abe's light was too lost to find his own way, much less lead others through to safety.
'Tomorrow will be hard,' Abe said. 'You should rest.' They had several thousand feet
to drop, plus the glacier to cross. The snowfall would have wiped out their marker
flags at the crevasses, and the earthquake might have opened new ones. They would
have to rig a sled and drag Gus, and Kelly would have to be led by the hand.
'Gus said this happened because of her,' Daniel went on. 'But I don't know. What do
you think?'
Abe knew better than to talk to delirium. Hadn't they both heard that kind of final
confession before? Abe went ahead and talked, though. If he could find just a spark of
lucidness in Daniel, maybe he could fan it to sanity. Otherwise Abe was going to have
three invalids to shepherd in the morning, and that was more than he could bear.
'Of course it's not Gus's fault,' Abe said. 'There was an earthquake.'
'I told her that. An act of God. She said, no, we should blame her.'
'She's out of her head.'
'In a way she's right, you know.'
'That's crazy. You're giving Gus credit for an earthquake?'
'No.' Daniel swung his eyes up in the yellow light. 'For our presence.'
'And you listened to that?'
'We weren't supposed to go up this last time, remember?' Daniel said.
'Each of us chose,' Abe pointed out. 'It was my choice.'
'But it wasn't your choice,' Daniel said.
'No one forced me.'
'No. But someone allowed you.'
'I'm tired, Daniel. Say it straight.'
'Li said we couldn't climb. Then he said we could. I wasn't there. But you were.'
'Ah, that.' Abe had pushed it from his mind.
'It's my fault, really.' Daniel lost him once again. Abe waited. 'She gave me the
mountain. That makes it my fault.'
Abe shook his head. Daniel had cracked after all. 'Daniel,' he said, 'that's nuts.
Nobody gave you the mountain.'
'Not the mountain,' Daniel conceded, 'but the way, you know?'
'Daniel, I'm tired.'
Daniel leaned toward Abe and the light gouged his face with shadows. 'Abe,' he said.
'She told me. It wasn't Jorgens, Abe.'
Abe closed his eyes. He felt stabbed. If not Jorgens, then... He turned his head one
way, then the other, but there was no way not to hear.
'It was Gus. She told me. She traded the kid.'
'No,' Abe said. But he knew it was true. It should have been Jorgens. But it had been
Gus. She had sacrificed a child to this mountain. Worse, she had done it for love.
'She thought we could finish the mountain and still have time to descend and save
him,' Daniel said.
Abe stared at the mangled, suffering woman. He was dumbfounded. How could she
have thought such a thing?
'She was wrong,' Daniel said.
Abe was quick with it. 'Yes,' he said.
'I've lived with this for two days and nights now.' Daniel was mournful. What an
awful truth to carry, Abe thought, and through such destruction. And here Gus lay
near death and the monk was gone and all for nothing. At least they had not climbed
the mountain. That would have been obscene.
'Do one thing for me,' Daniel said. 'It's the only thing I'll ever ask from you.'
'What is it?'
'Don't hate her.'
There hadn't been time for Abe to think of that yet. But now that Daniel had
mentioned it, of course he would hate her. If they made it through this – if Gus didn't
