After I lock the three soldiers in the storage room, I set Calea down in the lab. She screws her face into some interesting expressions, but she doesn’t complain about the pain. The color has left her lips.
I am restless, bottled, ragged. I know I have to keep moving. If I stop, fatigue will catch up to me. I try to think. My brain is spinning wildly. I can’t even begin to consider what to do with the soldiers; Calea is my one concern. Thoughts come, but they don’t follow one another. I consider heading back to the Tower. I search the cabinets for something I can use for a descent. I walk down the hall and bring back some day-old cookies someone left in the common room. I make Calea eat one while wondering if I can signal for help somehow.
Of Jalseion’s many specialities, medicine is not one. Magic is difficult to use in a healing capacity. Doctors are normally non-Select. The Academy partners with a special medical school in Averieom, the village nearest Jalseion.
I need tools. The descent is near a mile, if Calea is correct. I have no idea how Architects managed to measure the Well’s depth. I hope they are wrong.
I force myself to take a breath, take stock of my surroundings. As my eyes pass over the desk, I feel a wave of guilt and disgust. I lied to her in this room a week ago. I want to tell her the truth. She has closed her eyes. No–not now. I will save her, somehow.
I am insane. What good will descending do?
It will show her what I am willing to do for her. She needs to understand. I want her to understand. Even if she…
In the back of the room is a steel door, locked and deadbolted. I retrieve the key from its hidden place and throw open the door. I feel the cool air of evening. I am at the edge of the Well. The sun is nearly set. The floor is shadowed and growing darker. I stand on the stone pillar that supports the Academy. A day ago, at its greatest expansion magic rose up almost to the lip, near enough that one could touch if one dared. Now, a sheer descent. I walk the edge; only a small arc of the circumference is accessible from Calea’s lab, but if I am to start, I need to start immediately. I have little enough light as it is. I search for the best path down. I need handholds if I am to have a chance. An incline less than straight down would be helpful.
I stop. I cannot believe what I see. I carefully lower myself down, placing my foot upon the ledge about four feet down. It is solid. It is real. It is a step, almost. And below it, another, hugging the pillar. It is impossible.
I climb back up. I am hopeful, excited, but convinced that something is wrong. It is too good to be true. There must be an explanation. I return to Calea. She is staring blankly at the ceiling. My presence brings her back.
“Have you found the way we’re to die?” she asks.
There is a strange hope rising within me. Her bitterness fans it. “I’ve found stairs.”
“Impossible.”
“There are stairs.”
“It is not possible. What hand would have made them?”
It doesn’t matter to me. All day I have pressed ahead against hope. I will take hope when I can. My mother, she believed in things I was never able to. She would not be surprised by this. I am not sure why I think of her now; whatever hope I have is from her, and whatever kindness. Perhaps in this strange moment, I understand a little of what she felt when she spoke of her beliefs.
“We need to move quickly. The sun is setting. I want to use the light as long as I can.”
There is no sensible way to carry an injured woman down into a gorge, even with the aid of steps. I must carry her on my back. Calea keeps a small drawer with spare clothes in the back room. I cut them into strips and, placing myself as if to allow a child to climb onto my back, I begin to tie her to me. The bonds are tight, causing her to complain. It is all I can think of on such short notice. I heave myself to my feet. Her arm is around my neck again, and her head is over my shoulder. She has grown quiet.
“Ready?” I ask.
There is no answer. I learn the distribution of weight as I walk outside. The bonds seem to want to slip. I reposition some. I have a complicated strand, made of several lengths, that runs around the back of my neck and crosses over my chest and around Calea so that she can place her weight as in a chair. Between that pressure and the crook of her elbow around my neck, I fully expect my head to pop off.
I take a moment to refocus myself. That ridiculous image tells me I am growing fully aware of the situation’s severity. My mind is trying to compensate by making jokes.
I lower myself feet first, crawling down face toward the rock like a toddler practicing on steps. My feet touch the ledge. It is thinner than I remember. My face is pressed against the rock. I search for the next ledge with my feet. It is much closer than the first step down. It is not a steep descent, but it takes caution.
“There is an explanation for this,” Calea says. I do not know if she is speaking to me or to herself. “There have been numerous unscientific attempts to manipulate the columns of the Wheel. We are still unsure how the original Architects managed such a feat. Perhaps they constructed the steps. The great goal of our study has been to move magic, transport it, contain it, multiply it.”
I hardly listen. My world is the rough wall before me, the stone upon my hands, the pressure of my feet. I let her talk. It keeps her occupied and it allows me to focus; it acts as white noise, sharpening my senses. I do not hear the wind or the sounds of the city, whatever they might be.
“Hewren talked of cultivating the Well. He wanted to build passages through it, that we might study it from within. Our strength with magic is proportional to our proximity to a well, with the limit of our reach determined by Tourac’s constant, but we have only guessed at the consequences of being within the source itself. Some thought our power would grow exponentially if we could somehow find a way to enter the magic in some sort of capsule or submerged lab. What feats we might have performed for the world. How we might have changed everything!”
She continues to cite those who might have constructed the steps. I walk upon them, unconcerned with their history. They are smooth, almost slick. Time expands as she talks. Distance expands. One minute passes, and I feel an hour of patient movement completed. Another minute passes. I do not count them. I do not count the steps. The light is fading. It has faded. It is dark. Another minute passes. Another step. I do not look down to see my progress. I do not allow my brain to consider the fire in my muscles. It is best to be a machine, to stifle human weakness, in these cases.
Calea is silent. I do not know when she ceased. I can hear her breath in my ear. It is labored. Her belly is warm against my back. She is bleeding again.
She is no longer half-machine, trying to stifle human weakness. But I do not know if she has the strength to allow herself to be weak.
I dare a look downward. The bottom is hidden in darkness. Perhaps it is close. I do not tell myself that. It is far away, I tell myself. Then I do not look again. I take a step, then another. It is a rhythm held together by will. My legs burn, but I am beyond that.
“We’re almost there, Calea,” I say. “We’ll reach the bottom.”
She does not respond.
Don't miss a single word of stories as they are published! You'll also receive first notice of special sales and behind-the-scenes information.