You land with a splash, up to your knees in brown water. This appears to be some kind of side alcove in the gorge, with the main river flowing  past the opening just twenty feet away. Walls of black rock rise vertically all around you, with the spot from which you fell just five feet above you. But the rock is hopelessly slippery; there is no chance you will be able to climb back up out of this little chamber.


The only way out is toward the river, but you are doubtful that will really be much of an exit. You are standing in a backwater, relatively safe even if you are trapped. But out there is a raging torrent, where you put your odds of survival pretty close to zero — especially if you are weighed down by your backpack and the Stone of Vul-Kar.


Unfortunately you see no other way out, so you decide to venture a little closer to at least see what the main part of the gorge looks like. You hug the wall of this dark alcove, having no idea what it is you're walking on beneath that dark water. Twice you stumble over some unseen rock, and slowly the water inches its way up toward your waist. You unclip the waist belt of your pack, knowing that if you get swept away by the main current you'll need to sacrifice it to save yourself.


You come to a corner of the rock wall, the water now up to your thighs. What you see is encouraging and unexpected: a shelf of rock on your right that sits almost a foot above the current level of the river. The wall of the gorge is just as vertical and slick here, but at least it is a patch of bare ground upon which you can climb out of the water and reassess your situation.


Obviously, your boots are now hopelessly soaked, and will remain that way until you can figure out a way to dry them thoroughly. Even after you hoist yourself up onto the rock shelf, your feet feel like they are trapped in a pair of goldfish bowls. You examine your legs but you see no signs of leeches, so you feel like this is a win-some-lose-some situation.


So there you are, out of the river but still stuck in the gorge, with no easy exits in sight. How you pine for the old days, when all that might be expected of you was to travel to the Arctic Circle and dig some wooly mammoth tusks or something out of the thawing tundra. The mosquitoes were often unbearable, and the payoffs were typically less handsome, but at least in Alaska there were no cannibal villages or goons from Oakland running around in grass skirts trying to kill you with a spear. Sometimes the simple ways are the best.


Your reverie is broken when something long and skinny touches your shoulder. You jump to the opposite end of the shelf. Of course your first thought is that this is a snake, but to your knowledge no snakes have discovered this tropical "Eden" yet. This object, it turns out, is a vine.


"Grab hold, silly!"


Looking up, you see Ligru directly above you. He is standing on the rim of the gorge, dangling the vine down to your level. Not long ago he was coming at you with his Woban spear, but now he wants to be your savior? Yes, you want out of this gorge, but not necessarily at any cost.


"Why?" you shout back. "So you can rob me once you get me out of here?"


He cocks his head as if he can't fully understand you above the river's roar, but then he says in response, "We need to talk! Grab the vine! I don't want to hurt you!"


You remember your earlier assessment that Ligru was not really a threat at all, but a gentle giant who was incapable of doing half the stuff his professor friend said he could do. All this time you've been running from the guy, and you even tried to shoot him, but perhaps in reality he has been the ally you've needed all along.


Or maybe this whole act is a deception designed to get you and the Stone of Vul-Kar out of the gorge to fulfill his master's bidding. 


__________________________________________________

You decline.

"You know I can't trust you!" you shout back up to Ligru.


"Have it your way, then," he says, and the next thing you know he is using the vine to descend into the gorge.


This is not going to end well. The shelf on which you're standing is scarcely a hundred square feet in size, leaving you nowhere to go except the river should Ligru decide to try and force the stone from you. With nothing but a portfolio of decreasingly attractive options, you decide that the only way to buy yourself some time might be to drop your pack into the river. With any luck, you'll figure out a way later to fish it out someplace downstream. Therefore you stand at the edge of the rock shelf as Ligru comes down the vine, your back to the water.


When he drops the final two feet onto the rock, he turns to regard you. "You need to trust me. I'm not who you think I am."


"I'm not falling for it!" you say. "I'm not giving you the Stone of Vul-Kar!"


"I know that Professor Pop is not a moral man," Ligru says. "Therefore we need to work together if we want to get out of this situation!"


There is friendship in his words, but you sense a hidden violence in the way he is slowly advancing toward you, arms extended toward you almost like a Hollywood movie monster of old.


"I'm warning you!" you say. "Come any closer, and I'll drop this pack in the water!"


Ligru says nothing, but he continues his advance. One more step, and he'll be within arm's reach.


When he starts to take that step, you lower your shoulders and shrug. The pack slips off and falls in the water; the river is so loud you do not hear the splash.


Your foe looks horrified at what you have just done. By one simple action, you have changed the nature of the game from a struggle for control to what is sure to become a desperate race to locate and retrieve your pack before it gets buried in sediment or swept out to sea. But there is one thing you forgot to calculate: Ligru has a golden opportunity here to eliminate his major source of competition in that race.


His rage seems to impede his ability to string together words into a coherent sentence. "I… have had enough… of you!" he shouts, and to punctuate his statement he shoves you backward into the raging river.


The current immediately grabs you and drags you below the surface, where you begin to bounce off the submerged boulders like a pinball. Your body is never seen again.


As for your pack? Well, that's a another story….


THE END