He nearly succeeded. She was sobbing “please” over and over again, struggling to help him, struggling not to pull both of them off. The nearly intolerable strain of compensating the balance eased off. She clutched his shoulder, then his neck. She settled herself astride, then screamed.
Startled by the raw terror in her voice, Noel looked ahead and saw the chasm yawning ahead. It plunged hundreds of feet down, a precipitous barrier effectively separating the base of Mt. Taygetus from its foothill Mistra.
Frozen, he stared at the looming disaster for an eternity. Elena’s scream went on and on forever. He wanted to scream with her, but he hadn’t the breath. The mule’s head came up as though it too saw the gorge ahead. It slowed, but not quickly enough, not soon enough. The awful certainty that they could not stop in time slammed through Noel with the force of a sledgehammer. He hauled back on the rope with all his might, but the mule wasn’t responding. The idiot animal actually tossed its head in protest.
“Stop!” shrieked Elena. “For the sake of God, stop!”
“I can’t!” shouted Noel.
The edge rushed closer. Suddenly there was not enough time left for anything. It was coming, coming too fast, coming like a metro shuttle.
Elena shoved hard. For an instant he thought she was trying to knock him from the saddle. Then she went sailing off. He heard the thud and her cry of pain as she hit the ground. She rolled over and over and caught herself from going off the edge.
The mule’s forefeet planted themselves, and the animal’s rear sat down to create a drag coefficient. Impetus still carried them, in a choking cloud of dust, and Noel heard the animal scream in fear of its own.
“Jump!” called Elena. “Jump before it’s too late!”
His feet were tangled in the stirrups. His grip on the rope had locked on so tightly he seemed unable to loosen his rigid fingers. He struggled, panic taking over. In the last possible second, he got free and hurled himself off to the left.
The mule’s feet went over the edge, and he heard the animal scream again. The mule did an impossible twist and scramble, but it could not stop itself from going over. Noel missed the ground and fell into the chasm as well.
A yell forced itself into his throat and lodged there. He envisioned his body twisting and plunging for hundreds of feet. It was too far; it gave him too long to think, and to remember, and to regret. He didn’t want to die, not here, not like this. Ending up mushed at the bottom of a ravine in the wrong century and the wrong country, his LOC crushed with him, all that he had learned gone to waste, all that he could still achieve unaccomplished… dear God, he didn’t want to die.
A tree growing twisted and wind-carved on the side of the ravine caught his fall. Noel hit it hard and went crashing through the branches with a snapping, crackling velocity that slowed him down but didn’t stop him. The tree, however, did deflect his body.
A few seconds later he hit the steep slope with a crunching thud that shattered the breath in his lungs and numbed him totally. He tumbled, picking up velocity again, but at this level there were too many fallen logs, spindly wind-blasted trees, and rocks choking the sides. He came to a stop at long last, halfway down, and lay there so dazed and disoriented he could not at first comprehend what had happened. His vision was a gray blur of shape, without color. His hearing was only a roar. He still experienced the sensation of falling, although another part of his brain knew that he had stopped.
He could not seem to draw breath, and he could not move.
Paralyzed, he thought and felt despair.
“Theodore!” The sound came crashing and echoing down to him from far away. “Lord Theodore!”
Noel’s eyes flickered open. He heard, but he could not make himself care. Wrong number, he thought.
The mule lay perhaps ten or fifteen feet away from him. The impossible angle of its head told him its neck was broken. Sunlight glistened on the blood that had flowed from one nostril. It had been a strong, good-looking animal, and he’d killed it.
Killed me too, he thought and wished it were over.
“Lord Theodore!” called the voice. Sir Geoffrey’s voice.
“Lord Theodore!” called Elena.
Noel shut his eyes. They could not get to him down here. He did not care.
CHAPTER 6
He must have lost consciousness, for when he next awakened the sun no longer shone on his face. The air was cooler too. He could not remember why he was lying on this sloped, rocky ground. A distant memory told him there had been a purpose, but he’d lost it. There had been something to do, something urgent, something important. He had to remember.
A hand touched his face.
Noel blinked and sat upright, gasping and frantic. “Must get back,” he said aloud. “Must hurry and get back. Something’s wrong.”
“The only thing wrong,” said Elena, “is that you nearly killed yourself. How could you be so stupid?”
He did not know what she was talking about. He kept silent. After a moment his hand reached out to touch her cheek. “Pretty.”
Her face flamed with color, and she slapped his fingers away. “Try that again, and you’ll lose your hand,” she said.
He smiled at her and sank bonelessly back to the ground.
“Theodore,” she said, gripping his shoulder and leaning over him. Her face and voice were anxious. “I can find no broken bones, although you cried out when I felt your ribs. It is a miracle you are not dead after such a fall. Where are you hurt? Tell me. Theodore?”
“Not Theodore,” he said in irritation. “Where’s Trojan? Find him. Tell him something’s wrong.”
She bent even lower over him until her hair was a veil beside his face. It was tangled and snarled, but it smelled of the wind.
“You are Theodore,” she said in a low voice. “Remember that, even if your wits have been rattled. Sir Geoffrey is within hearing, so guard what you say.”
“I can’t get home,” said Noel worriedly. He wanted her to understand. “I need to get home. Call Trojan and tell him to help me.”
She frowned. “You make no sense. You babble as though you have fever, but your skin is cool.”
“Want home,” he said, and then even talking was too hard. He shut his eyes until the sound of someone else approaching roused him.
“How is he?” said Sir Geoffrey.
“Not good,” said Elena. “His wits are gone. He makes no sense when he talks.”
“Small wonder of that,” said Sir Geoffrey. “Your brother shouldn’t have used a slingshot on so valuable a head. He must have been addled to even try such an escape. How many bones broken?”
“None.”
“Impossible.”
Elena shrugged angrily and gestured. “Examine him for yourself.”
“I shall. Stand over there.”
“Why should I?”
He pointed angrily. “Just stand over there!”
She flounced away. Noel gazed up into Sir Geoffrey’s face. The knight’s dark eyes were troubled. He had lost his habitual mocking expression. His mouth set itself in a thin line.
As his hands moved with surprising gentleness along Noel’s limbs, he said, “Can you hear me, Lord Theodore?”
“I’m not-ow!”
“Sorry.” Sir Geoffrey’s hand came off his rib cage. “What were you saying?”
