Then following the flight of chips, white and red and trailing, over the railing's edge and down onto the snow-strewn rocks of Burkhan Cape, she saw the fallen form, the exquisite work so carelessly tossed aside, the delicate shape that had sacrificed itself spread and broken.
She turned to the man, her mouth working at an uncontrolled sentence, words that must, in their order, be perfect or remain unreleased. And saw him with the hammer, the b****y chisel, the glistening hand slowly freed, dropping away from the ragged wrist.
The man looked up, eyes dark knots in a rough bark face. "I could not hold him," he gasped. "I could not keep him here. He wanted to be somewhere else. He needed to be somewhere else."
And then he looked away, back straining into the work of removing the tool that
