The Magic Circle by Katherine Neville (13 inch ebook reader .TXT) 📗

but unsure whether to duck into the woods and risk a tree falling on me or to take my chances here, with this mountain of heavy snow moving down like a load of cement.

My mouth was dry from terror and my hands were growing numb. I prayed I wouldn’t black out—then I thought maybe I should, so that when I went under, the angry onslaught would be painless. I was moving, but I knew the snow was moving faster. To my left, out on the open slope, it was tossing big rocks in the air like children’s beachballs. At my right, from the corner of my eye, I saw trees going down, their roots flung up toward the sky. The avalanche was a living, breathing thing, devouring whatever fell into its maw, like the beast of the Snake River.

I couldn’t outrun it. I was no downhill racer, and better skiers than I had tried to beat avalanches in the past, with small success. There wasn’t a thing in my bag of tricks that would save my ass. And I still had this bloody backpack on my back.

Just at that second, two things flashed into my mind. The first, knowing the mountain as I did, was that I was about to run out of woods on my right-hand side, woods that separated me from the powder bowl just at the base of the slope, where the bowl emptied out. The second was, what had become of that bowl? And since powder moved quicker than packed snow toward uncontrollable avalanche, what had happened to Wolfgang Hauser?

These two questions were answered together.

Beneath, I could see the spot where the snows met in a cauldron of violence, where the groomed slope to my left and the powder bowl to my right unloaded masses of snow, rock, and debris. At their impact point a funnel of snow was flung into the sky.

My legs were shrieking with pain from the strain of my flight, every sinew screaming to stop and rest, but I knew that to stop now meant certain death. Then, in a blur to my right, I saw a black form cutting through the trees. Timber was being ripped from the ground as the snows hurtled down without respite, but still he came.

“Ariel!” he screamed above the crashing roar all around us. “Leap! You must jump!” I scanned frantically, trying to see what he meant—and then I knew.

Just below, where the line of forest ended, was the lip of a crevasse that jutted into the air like a ski jump. I couldn’t see over the top, but I already knew what was beyond it. Many times in the past I’d gone off that edge, letting my ski tips tilt over the lip so I slid like a teardrop down the sheer cliff face and into the chasm; then I would slalom through the forest of rock littering the floor of the gorge.

But at the speed I was now moving, I couldn’t slow down at the edge of the gorge to drop safely over the side. If I did try to slow down, I’d be crushed by moving snow. I either had to bypass the gorge altogether, taking my chances on the open slope, which were now practically nil with the avalanche closing on me, or take the jump, as Wolfgang had told me to, and pray I’d land upright on my skis, more than a hundred feet below, and on snow instead of hard, sharp rock.

I had no time to think, only to act. I yanked off the wrist straps, dropping my ski poles in my wake so I wouldn’t get skewered by one of them when I hit bottom. Then I shed the parka tied around my waist for the mobility I’d need to get enough loft. I knew I couldn’t unbuckle the damned backpack in time to make the jump, so it had to come with me: the flying hunchback of Notre Dame.

I crouched into my boots to increase speed and control. As I shot off the cliff, I lifted my body, stretching out full length into the wind with my arms pinned back and my chin thrust forward, so I could completely clear the cliff and make a clean landing.

My skis were resting on bottomless space. I was hurtling into the gorge, falling. It was free fall, and I knew I had to concentrate and not panic. I struggled to keep my tips high and together for the landing, as snow and rubble flew from the cliff, tossed like a sea of confetti around me. I fell and fell. As the ground loomed toward me, I saw how truly narrow was the ribbon of snow beneath, how many and massive were the rocks. And again I thought of the serpentine beast, and the open jaws of death.

After what seemed the eternity of a bad dream, my skis struck snow—and simultaneously my arm smashed into rock. The jagged edges ripped through the sleeve of my silver moonsuit like a serrated knife; I felt the slash of flesh parting, ripped from elbow to shoulder. The impact knocked me sharply sideways, off balance. Though there was no pain yet, I felt a sickening throb as the warm, wet blood soaked into my sleeve.

The forest of rugged rock flashed by me in a blur. I struggled frantically to stay on my feet. But I was moving too fast, without poles for balance. I caught an edge and spun out, whirling sideways and then flipping head over heels. I was somersaulting out of control, my skis striking rocks, knocking the binding locks open. But to my surprise, more than once when I smashed into a boulder, the thickness of the backpack actually protected me.

My shoulders and shins weren’t so lucky: they were smashed into rock after rock. I felt the deep bruises blossoming as I tried to protect my head with my ragged and bloody arm. One loose ski flipped up and whacked me on the