“Will your arrow reach, carrying that rope?” Jason asked.

“Certainly, long as I aim a little high,” the lean man replied.

“You a good shot?”

“None better.”

“Maybe you should just save them. I bet they’ll end up thanking you.”

“Doubtful,” the lean man sniffed. “They didn’t even want rescuers present. I’ll interfere only at their request.”

Jason turned to face the imperiled musicians. If he tried to swim the rope out to them, he would be swept away downstream before he got close. The tree did not overhang the river far enough to climb out to them. Time was running short.

“Try to save them,” Jason insisted. “This is wrong.”

“Not unless—,” the short man began.

“I hear them calling for help,” Jason lied.

“Go away,” demanded the lean man, his wide lips peeling back to reveal yellowed teeth. “The last thing we need is interference from some desperate, aspiring hero. If they really did cry for help, we wouldn’t hear it over your racket.”

“The sister of one of the musicians sent me,” Jason tried.

“I don’t care if the king of Meridon sent you,” the lean man said. “This is their decision.”

The raft would soon draw even with them. There was no time to think. Jason shoved the short man. Caught by surprise, he stumbled back over the steep bank and into the river.

“What’s wrong with you?” shouted the lean man, dropping both bow and arrow to dive into the torrent after his fellow rescuer. The one-armed man had already washed some distance downstream and could be seen flailing lopsidedly. Even immediately beside the bank the current ran strong.

Trusting the lean man to rescue his comrade, Jason wasted no time collecting the fallen bow and arrow. He nocked the arrow and pulled it to his cheek, straining against the heavy tension of the string, one eye squinted shut. He hadn’t handled a bow since earning an archery badge at a summer camp two years ago.

The raft heaved along, twenty yards out, now exactly perpendicular to his position on the bank. Many of the instruments and musicians appeared lashed in place. He tilted the bow upward, hoping he and the lean man understood “a little high” to mean the same thing.

He released the arrow, and it streaked across the distance to the raft, ending its flight embedded in the shoulder of the man playing the bongos. The percussion stopped as the man sank out of sight. The line on the bank continued to uncoil, paying out as the raft progressed rapidly forward.

Jason gasped. Had that really just happened? Shooting somebody had not been part of the plan. He eyed the uncoiling lifeline. Was it too long? It looked pretty thin. Would it hold?

The line pulled taut with a sudden jerk. The raft lurched in response, sending up a spray of water as it swung toward the riverbank. The crowd cried out in astonishment.

Thirty yards downriver the lean man hauled the short man out of the water. The lean man stood watching the raft arc toward the bank, hands on his hips. Something in one hand glinted in the bright moonlight.

Whether or not the musicians wanted to be saved, the raft was going to collide with the bank. The wounded percussionist must have become firmly entangled with some of the equipment, because the strain on the line was extraordinary. Most of the musicians continued to play. A couple of them seemed to be attempting to free themselves from their lashings.

When the raft crashed against the sheer bank ten yards shy of the falls, buckling somewhat, many of the spectators groaned. But moans turned to exclamations as the impact launched the stocky woman overboard along with her curved flute. The ruckus reached a climax as she washed over the brink and down the thunderous cascade.

Jason’s eyes widened in horror, and he felt the bile rise up in his throat, barely able to believe what he had just witnessed. All around him cheering broke out, as the lean man slashed the taut line, and the crippled raft once again surged ahead with the current. Jason thought one person might have jumped from the raft to the bank, but he could not be certain. The uproar from the crowd reached a jubilant crescendo as the raft sailed over the falls directly below the packed bleachers, vanishing with a cymbal crash and a final squeaky note from a woodwind instrument.

Jason stood frozen, feeling like he had been kicked in the stomach. None of those people could have survived!

Knife still in hand, the lean man and his waterlogged colleague were swiftly returning up the riverbank. Jason shook himself out of his paralyzed shock and hurriedly retreated back into the trees away from the river.

CHAPTER 2

THE LOREMASTER

After crashing recklessly through varying densities of foliage for some time, Jason paused, legs tired. In a crouch he listened intently, his head throbbing with every heartbeat. Either he was not being followed, or his pursuers moved like ninjas. To be safe he ran on, until a stitch in his side and an extreme shortness of breath finally forced him to stop. Doubled over with his hands on his knees, Jason still couldn’t hear any evidence of pursuit.

He sat on the ground with his back propped against the rough bole of a tree, panting quietly. In what kind of place would anyone applaud as people floated off a deadly waterfall? Had he really just shot a man with an arrow?

Closing his eyes, Jason rested his face in his palms and tried to will himself awake. With his eyes shut he could be anywhere. Unconscious in a hospital bed. Senseless on the artificial turf of the batting cage. Except he still felt the tree at his back, still heard the insects chirping.

The percussionist had been heading toward certain death off a gigantic waterfall. Did it really matter if an arrow lodged in his shoulder a few seconds before the suicidal plunge? Jason gritted his teeth. Through lack of skill he had aimed too low. That didn’t make him a criminal, did it? Just a failure as a rescuer. After all, he had been trying to assist people who were already doomed. Right?

The real criminal had been the jerk who cut the line. Jason could hardly believe the man from the rescue squad had felt comfortable cutting loose all of those people. He had basically killed them.

Jason’s hands trembled. The night was growing colder, and his damp coveralls magnified the chill. He slapped his cheek. He pinched his arm. The sensations felt genuine.

Tired of sitting and shivering, he got up and continued tramping away from the river. The churning of the falls slowly diminished to a hiss.

The ground sloped generally upward. He kept watch for shelter. In the dimness of the woods, time passed at a crawl. After an hour or two, with his coveralls feeling a trifle less damp and the long walk leaving him exhausted, he settled for squirming beneath a thick bush. It smelled a little like the tree-shaped air freshener in his dad’s car. He could no longer hear the falls.