Free A Shadow's Bliss by Patricia Veryan

there was no other path until one reached the steps that had been cut into the rock below Castle Triad. Several times the drifts were so thick that he could see no more than a few yards ahead. Certainly, he had no need to fear catching sight of the ocean.
    He ate his bread and cheese after he reached level ground and began to make his way through this strangely isolated world. The only sounds were the muffled cries of the seagulls. The tide was far out at this hour, but the sands were still wet, the smooth surface marked here and there by the fine precision of bird tracks. Occasional tidal pools appeared suddenly at his feet, glistening, and still as glass. Twice, he almost stumbled over gnarled and bleached tree limbs, but both were too large for his purpose, and he searched on. He came upon a shallow pool where tiny crabs scuttled about busily in their miniature world, and he paused to watch them, then took up a shell so perfect and so delicately hued that he put it carefully into his pocket thinking that someday, if he summoned the courage, he would give it to Miss Jennifer.
    Minutes later, he was brought up short by something he had not expected to see: a broad swath of boot prints. Curious, he followed them along the beach and northward, toward Castle Triad. The tracks of at least twenty men, he judged. Obviously, they had passed this way since the tide went out. Perhaps Sir Vinson entertained a large party of friends, although it seemed an odd hour for company to have arrived. Then again, the boots may have belonged to free-traders. But free-traders would surely have been met by ponies to carry their tubs. Lost in speculation, he awoke to the realization that time was passing and he was following a set of boot marks like a bewitched fool, instead of tending to his own business.
    As luck would have it, almost immediately he found a large tree limb having many off-shoots that would serve his need admirably. It was short work to chop off a number of these, but took rather longer to saw some rounds from the main branch to be used for the top and bottom of the cage. Adding his collection to the knapsack, he slung it over his shoulders, then was stricken into immobility. Faint, but discernible, his shadow was on the sand. His head jerked up. The sun was breaking through, the fog almost dispersed. Before he could check the impulse, he had turned to the west.
    How stealthily it had crept in. The long shining line that was the outstretched arm of the mighty Atlantic. Even as he watched, frozen, a clear green wave lapped toward his boots …
    The great ship wallowed helplessly, tossed by mountainous waves and battered by the screaming gale. With all his strength he fought to stand, but his legs would not obey him. A deafening crash. A shocking impact that hurled him from the bunk and extinguished the lamp, plunging the cabin into darkness. The need to get out became a frenzy. She was going down … Somehow, he was crawling along the slanting quarter-deck. Then the freezing, tumultuous water had him in its relentless hold. He tried to swim, but his efforts were too feeble. He was drawn under … suffocating … tossed up again into the ravening night, choking, blinded, gulping air into his tortured lungs, only to be dragged down … down … He was cold … so terribly cold … He must get back up to …
    Daylight. His cheek was pressed against the ground. He was panting, and bewildered because the beach was bent in a most odd fashion. He lifted his head, had the dizzy sensation of falling, and with a convulsive grab, steadied himself. He looked again at the beach. A shocked gasp was torn from him, and a cold sweat broke out on his skin. Once again his mind had blotted out an indeterminate interval, returning him to a here and now that was nightmarish. He was halfway up the cliff, with a sheer drop below, and an equally sheer rock face stretching above. His hands, clinging