Mindaza stiffened her muscles and leaped as she glanced up and spotted the slim, barbed branch. She appeared to float in the air for a second, with that terrifying plummet sucking at her, and suddenly her right hand grasped onto the bramble.
Thorns pierced her palm, drawing blood and causing her to gasp. She clung on, scrabbled with her feet for traction, and shouted as the wind drove her back and slammed her into the rock's face.
The barbs hit into her hand, causing pain but making it tolerable. She took another deep breath and proceeded to climb the rock wall, inch by inch, trusting that the thread would support her weight as she gasped with difficulty and sweated with nervousness.
When she managed to regulate her breathing, she finally slid over the edge of the cave entrance, laid there for a few periods, and then got up, yelling as her head hit the rock above, and peered about.
The cave went forward as far as the light could see, its roof falling progressively until it was an inch below head height.
Mindaza glanced behind her. The ship lay a mile offshore, half hidden in a welter of spray.
"They left me alone here?" she said to herself. She stopped because of a sudden loneliness she felt, took a deep breath and stepped on, slowly, until her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, and she could see where she was going.
The voice sounded again, echoing around the stone cave. Mindaza heard her name called, heard it again and walked on.
"Who is that?" her words bounced around the cave.
The walls were green-streaked with continual streams of dampness, and the ceiling was much lower now, requiring her to walk round-shouldered. Within five minutes, she had gotten into a crouched position. She continued to go forward while getting on her hands and knees, expecting to hear that enigmatic voice for direction.
The sound had been there as soon as she had entered the cave, but she had ignored it. It now went from a low background murmur to a ferocious roar.
After gliding around a dog-leg turn, Mindaza abruptly came to a stop. A liquid barrier that spilled through the roof and thundered down through a hole in the cave floor suddenly plummeted before her. There was no escape; she had to either go back or try to break through the fall.
But this is her fate.
Mindaza attempted to see through the rushing water as she knelt cross-legged in front of it in order to see what lay on the other side, sitting here and taking in the water. She rested her elbows on the rocky wall.
"I don't believe this to be the end in any way."
She inhaled deeply. She couldn't see anything, but she thought that there must be a light source, something beyond the sea. She stood and decided on her two options: try or wait for a miracle. It is preferable to attempt and fail, then to give up because of fear.
"The eagle," Mindaz said aloud," The black and white huge bird. Her mother told her to follow where it led.
"Oh well, here goes my fate," Mindaza said as she leaned into the waterfall and bowed forward in search of anything to cling onto. She shouted as she slid forward, and her feet slipped as she extended. She had been grasping at the water in vain for a handhold. But just for a few yards before she came to rest on a hard rock.
Behind her was the waterfall, and in front of her the tunnel widened into a spacious cave.
Mindaza took a deep breath and continued walking, tripping on the uneven terrain until she reached the farthest end of the cave, where the opening to the outer world was located.
The entrance was separated by a single rock column, where it naturally made the cave's floor to its top. A rock bridge connected the two sea stacks on either side, which loomed above the sheer drop to the ocean below.
The tops of both sea-stacks could not be seen at once. In order to see the first one and then the second.
Mindaza move from side to side. At the farthest end of each stack, she could make out a shape obscured by mist that appeared to cling to the cliff.
"Where should I go? I can't see anything here."
As Mindaza said, the mist disappeared and began to shred, making the stacks appear veiled one moment and then clear the next.
A harp, golden-strung and perched on a silken cushion on the flat peak of the left stack, was flanked by a flagon of wine and a basket of luscious apples. The harp enticed her with a gentle song as the wind caressed its strings, luring her closer to taste the fruit.
Mindaza grinned and reached out to see the rock-bridge spread into a roadway with a guardrail made of polished oak and nicely paved in golden bricks.
Mindaza turned to face the rock stack on the right. This one was smaller, without a fruit basket on top, a silk pillow, and merely a rusted sword driven into a block of granite.
The bridge was also rough-hewn and dripping with moisture, and it was narrower than the length of her foot.
"What should I choose, a sword or a harp that plays some of the most beautiful music that I have ever heard? Hmmm."
Mindaza gave each glance at the two items. She had no prior experience with swords, but that one had a broken hilt and a heavily rusted blade.
Then she took another look at the stack that the harp was resting on. She noticed a man standing there who was as nude as a newborn infant, as attractive as sin, as godlike in stature, with muscles that flowed smoothly and a grin that could soften any heart.
Mindaza gasped in a moment of startling salacity as he waved her inside the heaven of music and luxury that he presided over.
She was engulfed in thoughts and feelings as a result of the god-man's sitting on the silk cushions and strumming the harp's golden strings.
While damaged, an old sword was inserted into that chunk of rough-hewn stone, and the second stack remained as it had been-sterile, desolate, and frigid.
Mindaza inhaled deeply. What was her fate? What option should she pick?
She turned her head past the sea stacks to the sharp horizon line where the water met the sky, unobstructed by land or ship.
The eagle fluttered around the cave and landed at her feet.
"Hey, matang lawin, please be a good guide to me," Mindaza said, as she combed the birds' thick and long feathers.
The bird remained still. Then Mindaza turned her attention back to that stage as the harp's song got louder and more alluring.
The god-man slept on the gleaming sofa, drinking from a golden cup and playing the harp casually with his left hand. He grinned as he gave her a loving look and waved her in. Mindaza let her gaze linger for a time wherever it pleased as it moved over his body before moving back.
"No," she answered.
"My mother will beat my ass if I was being lazy about doing something."
So Mindaza moved to the right-hand stack, where the sword still stood, unadorned, unwelcoming, and rusty.
Mindaza took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and marched to the platform across the foot-wide bridge. A rising wind pounced on her as she walked, flaring her line, so it inflated around her waist and flinging her hair into a furious black fury around her face.
She straightened her line, flicked her hair away from her face, and marched forward, holding it in place with her left hand. She'd made her choice, and there was no turning back. The earth collapsed beneath her feet as she tripped, with bits of granite breaking from the bridge's sides and falling end over end into the water.
Mindaza measured the seconds until one fist-sized pebble vanished as she watched it fall away. She did not see the splash. She walked more slowly and came close to sprinting to the sea stack. The grip on the hilt half of the sword was unraveling and fluttering in the blustery wind, yet it stood still, unyielding, motionless in its stone bed.
Mindaza came out of the cave panting.
Nothing appeared to have changed. The rock stack was still thrust upward from the sea, connected to the island by that slender bridge of crumbling rock, with the wind still blowing.
"So, is this my destiny, just to get a sword?"