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or used both of them if he wanted. The first rope ended in an anchor of small cords that passed through metallic loops wedged into the stone wall.
    One segment down. Nine more to go.
    He wasn't sure how much time had passed. Maybe a little more than half an hour. He bounce-tested the second cord with a quick pull, and when he felt the faint answering vibration, he slowly transferred his weight until the rope carried his entire body.
    He climbed onward, hesitant at first, and then faster as his trust confidence grew. He was growing tired, true, but he covered the second segment almost as vigorously as the first.
    He started slowing down on the third rope. The climb was beginning to wear on him.
    By the fourth, he felt like going back. His shoulders ached. His biceps throbbed. The sides of his back behind his armpits felt numb. His extremities throbbed painfully from the cold.
    By the fifth rope, he was thoroughly beaten. He couldn't go on. By his reckoning, he'd been climbing at least three hours.
    He knelt against the rockface, secured the bottom of the next rope around his waist, and rested. He ate some of the salted meat from his duffel bag, and balled his hands beneath the gloves to warm his fingers. He released a trickle of electricity into his extremities, and it was enough to improve the blood flow to fingers and toes, and prevent frostbite.
    The urge to look down was almost overwhelming. Just one peek. He was secure. What was the worst that could happen?
    He'd lose heart, that's what. Not to mention the vertigo would probably overwhelm him. The same vertigo he felt if he looked up too far, and saw the hopeless, infinite grade above. By focusing on the rockface before him and nothing else, he made the climb doable. And by not knowing how far he'd plummet, by pretending he was only a few feet off the ground, well, that helped calm nerves that would otherwise paralyze him, or lead to a fall.
    But while he didn't look, he didn't climb either.
    He just stayed there, waiting.
    For what?
    Resting, he told himself.
    And he was cold. So cold. And it would only grow colder the higher he went.
    Halfway. Come on Hood. You're halfway.
    He sighed, and reluctantly untied the sixth rope from his waist, and pulled himself up along it, his body rebelling at every step. Resting had proven a mistake, because he just wanted to stop and rest again. His muscles ached all over. He had no energy. He wasn't a climber. What was he doing out here on the Forever Gate, a mile above the city?
    Saving Ari, that's what. Now climb damn it.
    He climbed, not daring to overthink his motivation, knowing how easily he could poke holes in it. He climbed for Ari, and that was good enough.
    Each handspan became a small battle. Though it was a battle he was determined to win.
    The air became thin, and he found himself panting constantly now. Or was he just tired? The frigid wind tore into him incessantly, and at times it felt like he wasn't even wearing a double layer of ermineskin.
    He reached rope number seven.
    Then rope number eight.
    His double layer of gloves was pretty chewed up by now, and his fingers were exposed in places. He had to constantly expend some of his charge just to keep the frostbite at bay.
    And then he reached rope number nine. Whereas all the previous ropes had overlapped to some extent, the ninth rope lay above the eighth.
    But it was only a little ways above, just an arm-length. He could handle an arm-length of bare wall, couldn't he?
    He climbed to the very top of rope number eight, wrapping his hands around the metallic loops that anchored the rope into the wall, and reached up with one hand.
    His gloves had worn down enough so that even his unexposed fingers could feel the protuberances in the rock. He ran his fingers along the surface, searching for something that could take his weight. There. A rather large knob of stone. He found an appropriate higher foothold for his boot, then slowly transferred his weight to the handhold. The