Dean sat huddled in the very centre of the lift, holding on to a crate with both hands. Emma stood beside him, peering out at the mist. She felt guilty, like she was abandoning Trix and Wilbur. What if we can't go back up, she'd said, what if they can't find us. She hadn't wanted to consider that they might not be waiting, that the flood might have surprised them and swept them under. Dean was right though, they couldn't miss this chance to find Jeremiah. If the others were fine, they would find them afterwards. If they weren't, well, then Jeremiah was the only other person left.

The lift was powered by a great water-wheel at the top of the cliff. A wooden funnel concentrated forty feet of waterfall into a torrent that flowed over the wheel, cranking two balanced platforms up and down the cliff. As they descended father from the funnel, they were no longer protected from the falling water and Emma felt like she was standing in English drizzle. The cliff-folk on the platform were wearing wide woven hats that sheltered them from the rain. A drip slid down her nose and she licked it into her mouth. She felt clean and refreshed for the first time in weeks. They bumped to a stop. The cliff-folk, accustomed to the journey, began leaving the platform before it had quite stopped moving, dragging crates and rolling barrels. Dean sat unmoving until they were fully stationary before getting up. They stood in the rain, hair plastered to their faces. Their clothes slowly soaking through.

"I wish I had some money, so I could buy one of those hats." said Dean.

"I'm rather enjoying the rain, myself." said Emma, "feels like home!"

The bottom of the cliff was busier even than the top. Pontoons spread in all directions from the platform, forming a rough grid over the sea along the cliff face, rocking in the small waves where the sea met the cliff. Everywhere she turned, creatures were pulling up nets, turning out fish, cleaning them and throwing the guts back into the sea, packing them into barrels of salt. She looked down into the water and saw a roiling frenzy of activity below the surface. Fish played in the rain, leaping out of the water. She thought she saw a shadow, something much larger, moving deeper down. Further out, small boats moved through the water propelled by oars. There was no wind to speak of. At the end of the pontoon, one ship overshadowed the rest. Built of black wood, it wallowed low in the water. Barrels of salted fish and crates of supplies were being loaded up a gangplank. A paddle wheel almost as tall as the ship stuck out of either side, shifting and creaking as the ship rose and fell in the swell. Through the rain, Emma could see the outline of men walking on the deck of the boat, taller than cliff-folk, they seemed human.

"That must be the boat" said Dean, "can you see him? What's the plan?"

"Come on!" said Emma, she crouched a little to make herself look less tall and began moving toward the boat, merging into the stream of cliff-folk on the pontoon. In the rain, nobody should notice the two humans unless they were looking right at them. Dean hurried after, catching up to her just as she stopped against the side of the boat, protected from eyes on the deck by the curve of the hull.

"You almost gave me a heart attack just running over here." hissed Dean. They were next to the great paddle wheel: green-stained and dripping water. Emma wondered how they moved the thing. Slaves? Half way up the side of the boat, tantalisingly close, a hatch was accessible by climbing up the green and slippery wheel. Above, on the deck, they could hear shouting, the language of the cliff-folk merging with something else: Emma remembered the guttural words the mage had tried the day before when attempting to communicate with her. That must have been the language of the scavengers.

Emma was peering up at the hatch, the rain stinging her eyes, trying to see if it was locked. "Huh? Oh, I just wanted to get closer"

"What's the plan? If we find him, then what? He's being taken to be sold, what can we buy him with?"

"Not sure, I wasn't planning on meeting the slavers to be honest."

"...and if they find us, what's to stop them taking us, too?" said Dean

"Maybe we could tell them that we know where a hell-fall site is, say we could lead them there? If we can get them off the boat along with Jeremiah we could maybe lose them in the desert on the way back, somehow...perhaps."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"How? They know this place better than us, we can't even speak their language, how do we try and explain that to them...I wish we'd asked the mage what the common language is down here, is there some sort of local language they use maybe..god I wish Jeremiah was here, even Salome would be useful, however much I hate that cat..." Dean muttered to himself.

"So we sneak in, and rescue him" said Emma, she put one foot on the wheel and pressed down, testing to see if it would move under her weight. It rocked, but didn't start spinning.

"Oh, under cover of night?" said Dean.

"Hah. Ok, Dean, you think of something then, I'm just throwing out ideas, don't be so negative."

"No, I'm sorry, you're right, we need to brainstorm, think of a plan of attack. Do we have any advantage we could use?"

"The element of surprise, and no time to plan, I think that's all we've got!" said Emma.

"Scant help."

"Look" said Emma, and she began climbing up the wheel toward the hatch, "last time you planned everything out we ended up in hell, maybe this time we do it my way and just wing it."

"That sounds suicidal..." said Dean

Emma was high enough to touch the hatch now, she reached over and yanked at the latch, it opened. "Well if you sit here thinking much longer, they're going to leave, so unless you have a better idea.."

"Emma, be careful! — shit...shit, fine. Ok" said Dean, and he followed her up the wheel.

The room beyond the hatch stank of rotten fish and mould. It was a cramped space full of gearings and linkages. Through a small gap between two metal gears Emma could see into the ship's hold. Crates were already stacked high, only narrow corridors left between. She could hear shouts and the banging of barrels being rolled down into the hatch. She crawled through the gap and poked her head out into the hold. The stocks were hiding her from view of the loading doors, but the whole room was bathed in light. Boxes were not worth endarkneing, after all.

She crawled back to Dean. "I don't think we'll be able to go in until they finish loading" she said.

"Won't that be just before they set sail?"

Before they could argue further, there was a banging and the sound of the doors being thrown shut. Behind them, with a loud clunk, one of the gears changed position.

"That seems like a bad sign" said Emma, "let's hurry"

The squeezed through into the hold, waiting a heartbeat to listen for footsteps, then rushed through the maze of boxes. A door on either side of the loading doors lead further into the ship. One of them was locked and had a smaller hatch at the bottom, allowing food to be passed through. Emma rushed over and laid on on the floor so she could look inside. Jeremiah was laying unmoving on a wooden bench.

"Jeremiah" she whispered through the hatch, "Jeremiah!". He didn't move. She looked at the lock hanging from the door.

"Can you pick it?" asked Dean.

"Sure. Easy." she said, it was a very rough design, lots of play in the mechanism, it would be easy enough with rudimentary tools, but she had nothing. "No time though, grab me one of those metal poles from the waterwheel room."

"From out of the mechanism? Won't that break it?"

"I hope so."

Dean ran back to where they had entered the boat and began pulling at the mechanism. The main axle was bolted firmly into the wheel, but a pole hung from the ceiling seemed to be loose. It was the brake that had been disengaged earlier. It could be dropped into a slot that would stop the wheel it from rotating but was currently raised up. He climbed onto one of the gears and unhooked the pole from the linkage, stretching up on tiptoes to push it off. It fell to the ground with a loud clang that echoed through the ship. He thought he heard a startled shriek from nearby, from somewhere behind the mechanism. He crawled back into the hold, dragging the pole, and emerged to the sound of speaking from on the deck. Emma was busy tying a rope to the hatch, the other end attached to a metal ring on the floor that was used for tying down the piles of crates.

"What the hell was that noise? They must have heard that all over the ship!" she said angrily. "Block the other door, I'm going to break the lock."

She grabbed the long pole and stuck it into the shackle of the lock to make a long lever, then pulled the very end in an arc. The shackle twisted and pinged open, the mangled lock falling to the floor. Emma pulled the door open and rushed inside.

"What now, you revolting oafs" said Jeremiah weakly without opening his eyes. "I'm exhausted, let me rest."

"Jeremiah, it's me!" said Emma, "get up, we're rescuing you."

Jeremiah rolled onto his side. "Emma? Emma Sharp. You're alive? Astonishing."

"Alive and kicking! Dean is outside, we have to go, they're going to leave the dock any second."

"Of course, I'll do my best." he tried to get up and nearly fell. He was dressed in rags, and one of his trouser legs dangled loosely. He stood on his good leg, half bent over, looking much smaller than he ever had in the classroom. Emma took his elbow. She wondered how he would climb down the paddle wheel in this state. They exited the cell together and came to a quick stop. Dean stood in front of five unhappy looking men, one of whom was holding a knife at this throat.