mon would probably be grinning in his dreams for a
long time to come. But at the same time he could not repress a surge of
irrational confidence. He gestured upward jauntily, shook himself, and
loped forward into the throat of the chimney.

Hardly more than an hour later they were all standing on a ledge
overlooking the gorge, with the waterfall creaming over the brink next
to them, only a few yards away. From here, it was evident that the gorge
itself was only the bottom of a far greater cleft, a split in the
pink-and-grey cliffs as sharp as though it had been riven in the rock by
a bolt of sheet lightning. Beyond the basalt pillars from which the fall
issued, however, the stream foamed over a long ladder of rock shelves
which seemed to lead straight up into the sky.

"That way?" Mathild said.

"Yes, and as fast as possible," Alaskon said, shading his eyes. "It must
be late. I don't think the light will last much longer."

"We'll have to go single file," Honath added. "And we'd better keep hold
of each other's hands. One slip on those wet steps and--it's a long way
down again."

Mathild shuddered and took Honath's hand convulsively. To his
astonishment, the next instant she was tugging him toward the basalt
pillars.

The irregular patch of deepening violet sky grew slowly as they climbed.
They paused often, clinging to the jagged escarpments until their breath
came back, and snatching icy water in cupped palms from the stream that
fell down the ladder beside them. There was no way to tell how far up
into the dusk the way had taken them, but Honath suspected that they
were already somewhat above the level of their own vine-web world. The
air smelled colder and sharper than it ever had above the jungle.

The final cut in the cliffs through which the stream fell was another
chimney. It was steeper and more smooth-walled than the one which had
taken them out of the gorge under the waterfall, but narrow enough to be
climbed by bracing one's back against one side, and one's hands and feet
against the other. The column of air inside the chimney was filled with
spray, but in Hell that was too minor a discomfort to bother about.

At long last Honath heaved himself over the edge of the chimney onto
flat rock, drenched and exhausted, but filled with an elation he could
not suppress and did not want to. They were above the attic jungle; they
had beaten Hell itself. He looked around to make sure that Mathild was
safe, and