ere. He tried to grip the sides of the crevice with his feet and pull
himself closer to the cliff face.

"I am taking a piss, buon'amico!" Riccardo called up to the guard. "Do
you mind?"

"That place is not for pissing," the guard called back.

"Would you rather I sprinkled your tower?"

There was no answer this time, and Riccardo began whistling loudly to
cover any further noises Lorenzo might make. Lorenzo hoped the guard
would not come down to investigate. What if he did, and Riccardo felt he
must let go of the rope?

Riccardo must have had the same thought, because he began paying out the
rope more rapidly, and Lorenzo's feet flew over the crackling rock. He
was like a man running furiously backward. It would be comical, he
thought, were he not in danger of breaking his neck.

This was a time when he wished he had clung to a religion of some sort
rather than abandoning the faith of his fathers and replacing it with
nothing. It would be so comforting to pray to an all-powerful being who
might be kind enough to protect him. Just _hoping_ not to get hurt
seemed stupid and futile.

He felt the cliff wall beginning to slant outward a bit under his feet.
The whistling from the shed had stopped. He looked up and saw that he
was halfway down the side of the cliff. The backs of his legs ached from
the strain of supporting his weight, and his shoulders and arms hurt
too. He began to worry, not so much about whether he would fall as what
he might land in when he reached the bottom.

And the smell of rot and filth all around him might choke him before he
ever got down. He saw directly below him a pit of blackness surrounded
by trees that were only a little less dark. The muck might be over his
head; he might just sink into it.

As he reached the level of the trees he drew his knees up and then
straightened them hard, giving himself a push away from the cliff. He
was still being lowered, so that when he swung back to the cliff he was
much farther down. This time his boots hit a coating of soft stuff on
the rock, and the smell was unbearable.

_I'd rather break my neck than smother in shit._

He kicked again with his legs, and when he hit the end of the outward
swing, the rope feeling as if it would cut him in two, he grabbed for a
tree branch, barely visible in the darkness. It hit him in the stomach
and knocked all the wind out of him, but he clung to it desperately.

Bent double over the tree limb, he looked down