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the tree. He must be part of it. He must bend with the branches.
    The gorge went on and on like a chute. Hidden rocks made dragon-backs, whale-backs, rearing horses, in the water. The tree rode some and slouched through others. Nick moved his grip and jumped from side to side to keep his weight even. Water broke on him and punched and stretched him. He did not think he could hold on much longer.
    The gorge opened out and hills sloped up on the left and right, covered with bush. Trees leaned into the water and broke it into eddies and back-currents. Nick tried to steer at the left-hand bank – away from the side where guards would be coming with their crossbows – but the tree would not answer. It kept in the middle, turning over with a corkscrew motion. The hills began to close in. Another gorge, another chute, was coming. Its narrow hungry mouth was full of spray.
    Nick rode through. He was beaten with water, half-drowned. The branches of the tree were stripped of leaves and the bark on the trunk was shredded. Then another stretch opened up, between low hills. The water seemed to gallop along, rising and falling. A rock standing up from the surface turned the tree left. It sped near the bank, roots first, running easily with its foliage gone. Nick sat in the branches like a helmsman and watched for a chance to jump ashore.
    Then a third gorge showed its mouth, round a bend. It was blacker, deeper, and breathed out spray like smoke from a forest fire. It seemed to draw Nick in as though it were a mouth sucking in breath. It boiled and rumbled. Great twisting melon-shapes and tongue-shapes grew in it. Cables writhed and lashed, slugs of water bounced into the air, and into it the river slid as smooth as oil running from a spout.
    Nothing could survive. Nick must take whatever chance he had, take it now. He climbed out of the branches, ran three steps along the trunk, and threw himself at the bank ten metres away. He hit the water as though running into a wall. It bounced him off and turned him over and over. Then it swallowed him. He clawed for the surface, and had a glimpse of the reeling sky, a lungful of air, then was down again. A boulder struck a club-blow on his back. He flung his arms at it but found no grip, and was tumbled into the hollow, the boiling pot, on its down-river side. Something came to join him. He thought it was alive and gave a cry. But it was the tree, pushing him with roots splayed like fingers. It freed him from the hollow but pushed him at the gorge, then turned away. He swam with fierce over-arm strokes, but felt he was falling down the river as though down a cliff. Bushes flashed by, out of reach. A smooth rock wall curved into the gorge and he slid on it as though on ice. He hooked his fingers, trying for a hold, but they ran like glass marbles on a floor.
    The tree went from sight, tipping its head as though in farewell. A sound of fracturing came from the gorge. Nick grabbed again – his last chance. A bush with red flowers leaned at the water, growing from a crack in the stone. Red in this dark place was unnatural. It flashed on his eye, he lunged at it and caught his fist in a web of roots. Then he hung, body flat, hand locked in the bush. He tried to turn himself to give his other hand a better chance, but the water pulled too strongly, sucking at his legs as though trying to swallow. So he bent his elbow, drawing himself back. It took all his strength, he knew he would not manage it again. He flung his free hand over his head, clutching blindly. Something met his fingers, strong as wire. He dug, he clutched; and had two hands locked in the roots of the bush. He could lift his body. He raised himself as though on an exercise bar, forcing his head among branches. Then he freed one hand and made another grab, and had a branch as thick as the handle of a bat. He pulled again and climbed into the bush and crouched like a monkey, looking round.
    There was little to see: river, hills, stone,