CHAPTER 34

“Jump!” Hilde yells.

I shake my head and hope she understands, because there’s no way I’m about to stop and explain the nuances of solid air walls. Especially when my current issue lies with the stone walls. I step away as it grinds its way forward. The pebbles are still there to point me where to go, but the wall is moving too fast and the path is windy and slippery.

Rue is still apparently floating in midair. His many feelers are still extended up the wall, bordering the edge of the gap, and as his urgent buzzing mixes with Hilde’s shouts I suddenly know what to do.

I jump.

Flying through the air, I take a moment to really miss the Floating Room trap before hitting the edge of the gap with my chest. My hands shoot to the side and a wave of pain distracts me when I scramble to pull myself up. Hilde runs up and down the room, yelling. I can’t make out what she’s saying. The pain is too enormous; my hand feels like it’s being burned with hot irons. It slips, and just as I’m sure that I’m going to die in the pit, that these are my last moments, I feel a rope wrap around my injured wrist.

The yank as I fall and dangle is nearly too much to bear awake. An image flashes through my mind, the Godtouched Rao methodically burying his dagger in my wrist, trying to separate it from the rest of me. It’s not so different from what’s happening now.

What I thought was a rope is actually Rue. His tendrils are wrapped around my injured hand and Hilde is suspended in midair, bent at the waist past the gap in the wall, gripping his body with all her might.

I want to scream that the wall is closing in, that it will crush her, them, against the invisible passage. I want to scream that the unthinkable has happened, that they should let me go and find the Ebony Door and a way out of here. I want to scream that whatever attempt at rescuing me isn’t worth the pain they’re putting me through right now.

Instead, I think of Katha. I think of Katha in the hills, of Katha lying in front of the fireplace, of Katha disappearing in a puff of light, taken by Valkas, lost somewhere. I know she isn’t here, no matter how much I try to convince myself that she is… But she is somewhere. Wherever they took her, I must find her. And Rev. I have to get Rev out of here. I can’t die here. I can’t die yet.

My good hand thrusts into my pocket. The first thing I grab is the thin bit of rope, hardly proper climbing gear, and too short to be of any use to anyone. Except right now.

“Grab!” I yell. The wall is closing, jutting out into the pit, pressing onwards. We don’t have much time, but maybe we have enough.

The rope uncoils in the air. By a miracle, it heads straight to Hilde’s outstretched hand, but before she can grab it changes course.

No.

The tip of the rope snakes in the air and wraps around the the invisible bridge, one loop, then, impossibly for its size, two. I pull myself up, managing a few inches, much too weak to go the whole way.

Hilde is screaming something, but the pain in my wrist becomes more than I can bear. The wall is closing in. It will kill them if I don’t do something.

“Let go,” I mutter. I shake my arm, gritting my teeth with the pain. A few of Rue’s feelers are set loose.

Rue is buzzing aggressively, inanely, communicating nothing but with such raw emotion that it nearly breaks my heart if it wasn’t going to break my wrist first.

“Let go!” I yell. I pull the arm down, snapping whatever there was left to snap. The feelers release. I see Hilde stumble back, waving her arms in the air, and a hand reach for her.

A hand?

But then it’s too much. I fall. The rush of air blinds me, deafens me, and I hold tight to the little bit of rope as everything unravels, as the dark overtakes me.

*

I wake up with a shooting pain in my shoulder and my arm asleep. I blink myself awake before realizing that I’m half-kneeling on a sandy floor. My good hand is held above me, wrapped around the thin golden rope, which projects up into the darkness above. I stand. Immediately the pain in my shoulder lessens, and the numbness in my arm is replaced by a thousand pinpricks of feeling and pain.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I’m a little elated that the rope really did turn out to be magical. Lengthening rope. Killing the drake will certainly be a cakewalk now. I giggle to myself, unable to stop until the echoes of my laughter move up the chute and then down again, augmented and monstrous and sobering. I sit down on the sand.

There is a torch lying in the corner of the room, sputtering in the sand. Why is there so much sand? I shake my arm to free it, and just as I do the rope parts from whatever is holding it up in the darkness. It doesn’t fall as much as it shrinks, coming to a rest at a length a little longer than my arm. I can only imagine how impressed I would be under different circumstances.

My injured hand feels like a lead weight. I bring it up in front of my eyes and keep it there, confront the ruin of it head on. It doesn’t even look like my hand anymore, bruised, purple and broken, streaming blood. My healer-in-training side brings up the only possible treatment even as the rest of me shuts down, my breath picks up the pace and my head grows light, too light to keep up.

Amputation. I lay down on the sand. A two-person job, discounting the afflicted, whose main occupation at the time will be either to cry and beg or to sleep soundly under the influence of powerful herbs.

And barring two trained assistants, potent medicine, and enough time and space for a full recovery?

Cauterization, to stop the bleeding, my healer’s mind volunteers like it’s reading answers from a handy book. I turn my head to look at the torch and consider the cold weight of the dagger against my leg. Then, with a sigh, I stand, prop up the torch, place the dagger over it, and wait. After a while of watching the dagger redden, I stand and begin pacing.

From above, the pit was completely dark, of that I’m sure. Hilde must have dropped the torch when she saw the rope extend with me holding on to it, and then… Gone to the Ebony Door?

I hope so. Gods, I hope so.

But deep down I also know she’s coming, darting down the stairs and trying to get herself oriented on the first floor to find me… Assuming I even am in the first floor, that this pit can be accessed from below.

The walls are made of thick red bricks, different from the upper levels’ stone, with no obvious passages. From above, the pit seemed large, daunting to jump over. Sitting at the bottom looking up, it’s suffocating, claustrophobic, tighter and more cramped than the hollows under the hills of my home.

Slowly, I begin to realize the onset of panic. I calm myself, breathing in and out, closing my eyes and thinking of how far I’ve come, how close I’ve gotten.

“I could have taken the Silver Door,” I say, my voice modulated by the cramped space. The echoes reassure me, underlining that I’m here by choice, suggesting that if choice got me this far it could get me out again. Calmer, I pat my pockets, checking my options, and take each item at a time, displaying them upon the sand.

One magical rope, which I mentally mark as very useful.

One dagger, heated, about to prove its uses go beyond the intended.

One Emerald Key. I put it back in my pocket.

Magic dice, also very useful, but unreliable.

One mysterious red potion. This one I have to think about. Medrein expressly told me to hold on to it, but he didn’t know how desperate my situation would become. I bite down on the cork and stop. No. Medrein knew exactly how desperate my situation would inevitably become, and still he told me not to use the thing. I put it back in my pocket and focus on the last item.

One hard leather bottle.

This one I do uncork. The smell inside is sharp, acidic, and yet the leather is intact, so acid is probably the wrong answer. There are pebbles around me in the sand, remains from my attempts to solve the trap above. I tilt the bottle very slowly onto one of them.

What comes out isn’t exactly a liquid. It moves like a slime, like thick, slow resin. I let a single drop gloop on the piece of rubble and watch.

Nothing happens. I go to touch it with my hand, but think better of it. Instead, I pick up another sliver of rock and poke the syrupy drop. When I pull it away, the two pebbles are joined together. I try to separate them with one hand, and then by stepping on one against the wall and pulling with my good hand. They remain resolutely tied together at the spot of the drop of glue.

Glue. Magical glue. Rope, key, dagger, potion, and glue. Doesn’t sound like drake-slaying inventory. It barely sounds like room-escaping inventory, though I can begin to see the contours of a ladder made of magically-extending rope and glue. It would mean sacrificing both things, though, and coming up in the last place Hilde would expect me to be.

Instead, I stand and look at the walls again. The red bricks are haphazardly laid, but nearly without a crack between them. I go over them all, top to bottom, side to side, wall to wall, running my fingers over each, touching and scraping, and then stepping back. That’s when I see it.

There’s a pattern, a design in the bricks masking as random nicks and cuts, the lines out of order, rearranged to look like nothing. I try one of the marked bricks, turning it on its axis. Obediently, it switches position, moving a few other bricks with it. It’s just like Rue’s prison. I turn another brick, and another, the overall design still eluding me, each piece of the puzzle I twist into place changing everything I did before it.

I get into a rhythm. I more a brick and step back, move another and step back, move a third and step back again and this time focus and consider the entire wall, the whole of the enigma before me. I feel comfortable here. The pit doesn’t seem to close around me anymore, but to protect me from all of the dangers outside, everyone that’s counting on me.

I move a brick. I step back. And there it is. It’s still a little off, but I can see it: a stylized flame, yellow and red, reaching for the top of the pit.

Fire. How apt.

I sigh and sit back down in front of the heated dagger. The blade is a dull red, not very bright but certainly hot enough. Resting my hand on my knee, I pick up the dagger and force myself to look, to assess the worst damage and where the hot metal will be most useful. Then I breathe in, out, hold the blade over the bloody skin and press down.

My scream drowns out the sizzling.