Chapter 381: The First Commitment

Ren adjusted his pack and started toward the light at the end of the passage.

’He had spent longer arranging to leave than the door had spent closing.’

The floor was cut stone, like the public stairs, with faint inscriptions shining along its edges. He could see no lamp. The light remained steady as he walked, reaching into the corners and beneath the shallow seams in the wall. Nothing told him whether he was still inside the spire.

The passage opened onto the side of a tall, round shaft. A stair climbed around its inner wall in short flights, ending far above him at a broad landing. A dark mark stood beside that landing. Below, a ring of pale inscriptions ran around the shaft, well beneath the lowest step. He could not see the bottom beyond it.

Three gaps interrupted the stair. Each had a level approach with a line of inscriptions crossing the stone from the wall to the outer edge. Beyond the first gap lay a broad landing, offset to the left. The next led to a row of separate treads, and the last to a narrow shelf projecting from the wall.

An inscription beside the entrance faced him. He couldn’t read its characters. The System relayed them privately, as it had the instructions at the cistern.

[CROSS THE MARKED THRESHOLDS IN SEQUENCE AND REACH THE UPPER LANDING.]

[A THRESHOLD PASSED AROUND IS NOT CROSSED.]

[CLAIMANT DESCENDING BELOW THE LIT BOUNDARY: FAILURE.]

[SURRENDER ENDS THE ATTEMPT UNDER THE STATED TERMS.]

Ren looked down at the ring, then followed the stair to its end. Gravebloom’s heel-seeds could give him brief footing in the air. He could climb without using every ordinary step, but going up the wall past the three thresholds would not complete the task.

He checked the first approach from the passage before stepping onto the stair. Its stone continued to the inscription, then ended. The landing across the gap was wide enough to stand on comfortably. Getting there along the marked route was the problem.

— • —

Ren stopped short of the first line.

A straight step would carry him beyond the edge, with the receiving landing well to his left. He had seen a similar displacement at Carrow, but he had no measurement of this one yet.

Enna had made him fix the entry point and direction before measuring where he emerged. She had also had a crew, reference posts and a field book. Here he would have to use the stone edges he could see and leave himself enough room for an imperfect reading.

He broke a bean-sized chip from a plain margin of the approach, away from the inscriptions, then worked a handful more loose and put them in his coat pocket. Crouching, he set the first beside a seam a short distance before the threshold and pushed it forward with one finger.

It rolled across the line and disappeared from the approach. He caught its movement on the broad landing to the left, where it continued a little farther before stopping.

Ren stayed crouched and studied where it had first appeared. The stopping point lay beyond that. He would need to stop his own movement after crossing, too.

He took two more chips of similar size from his pocket and sent them from the same seam, keeping the direction and push as close to the first as he could. Both appeared near the first chip’s emergence and rolled into a cluster he could have covered with his hand.

The landing left plenty of room around that cluster. He could test the walking crossing there without aiming for an edge.

Using Earth, he raised a knuckle-high ridge beside the starting position. He left the surface beneath his boots level and the inscription untouched. The ridge would let him find the same position when he stood; he had been judging it from close to the ground.

Ren set his boot beside the ridge, aligned himself with the seam and walked toward the line. He kept the steps short.

His leading foot met stone on the other side. The wall was closer to his shoulder, and the gap he had been facing lay behind and to his right. He brought his other foot beside the first and stopped. The three chips rested a little ahead of him.

He had emerged near their route, with room for both boots and the pack. He turned to look back at his raised marker. Its position against the opposite wall gave him another view of the shift.

Ren made a second low mark beside his landing position. One crossing agreed with the probes. He could use that result here; the next threshold still needed checking.

— • —

At the second gap, a row of separate treads climbed toward the next flight. The fourth was closest to the wall. Ren could see the ring through the spaces between them.

If this fold had the first one’s leftward offset, an entry near the middle of the approach would put him on the second tread. He chose a seam for that starting point and pushed a chip toward the inscription.

It emerged to the right, higher than he had expected, at the outer edge of the fourth tread. For an instant it balanced there. Then it tipped off.

Ren watched it fall until it passed below the lit boundary and became too small to follow. The threshold remained lit. The chip’s descent had told him where his proposed crossing led without ending his attempt.

’Good thing he’d sent the stone first.’

He crouched to prepare another. The receiving tread was still within reach of the crossing, though his first choice of entry would not put him safely on it.

Two more chips, rolled from the same seam, reached the same outer strip of the fourth tread. Neither stayed on it. The repeated emergence was useful, even though he could not stand where they had arrived.

Ren moved the starting point toward the wall. There was still room beside him on the approach. He kept the direction unchanged and pushed another chip through.

It appeared farther inward on the fourth tread and stopped before reaching the edge.

At Carrow, shifting the entry had shifted the emergence by the same amount. He tried a smaller change here, moving closer to the wall again. The next chip arrived nearer the tread’s center. A repeat from that position settled beside it.

Those entries gave him a usable route through this fold. He checked the width around the chips, then looked down at his boots. The fourth tread was narrower than the first landing, but there was room if he stopped as soon as he crossed.

He raised a low marker beside the chosen start and stood. From that height, he checked his line again against the seam before walking forward.

His boot landed near the two chips. He set Holdfast with his sole on stone, brought the other foot beside it and held still while the pack settled against his back. The outer edge lay close on his right. He had no reason to go nearer it.

Ren released Holdfast and marked his position. The remaining treads led upward along the wall without another inscription across them. He climbed those normally, watching the edge until he reached the final approach.

— • —

The third receiving shelf ran along the wall but projected only a short distance from it. There was room to stand with his feet turned along its length. Facing the wall, a full boot would overhang.

Ren checked it before preparing the probes. This crossing would need more than a good entry point. He would have to arrive, turn and settle without letting his next step carry him off the shelf.

He tested three positions along the approach. The first sent a chip too close to the shelf’s end; the second brought it against the wall. From the third, two successive chips appeared near the middle and stayed there. He marked that entry beside his boot.

Ren traced the route onward with his eyes. A short flight began at one end of the shelf and climbed to the upper landing. Once he was turned along the wall, he could reach it. There was no need to reverse the fold or leap across another gap.

He took off the pack and tightened the straps, leaving nothing loose enough to swing as he turned. The cloth around the bread stayed tucked beneath the flap. After putting the pack on again, he checked the seed-torc Harrun had forged and the smaller seeds at his heels.

The leading foot could take Holdfast as soon as it met stone. A heel bloom beneath the trailing foot would give him the moment he needed to bring it alongside and turn. He would use it during the transfer, before his weight pulled him away from the wall.

Ren aligned himself with his marker and crossed in a short step.

The front of his leading boot met the shelf. Its heel overhung the gap, as he had expected. He set Holdfast through the sole while calling a bloom beneath his trailing boot.

Black petals opened under it. He pressed against their brief support and brought that foot alongside the first, turning it along the shelf. As the bloom withered, he transferred his weight to the stone beneath that boot, shifted his anchor and turned the other foot to match.

He stood facing along the wall with both soles supported. His pack brushed the rock behind his shoulder. He waited until it stopped moving, then checked the shelf ahead.

The heel bloom was gone. The next stair was within reach.

Ren released Holdfast and climbed. He kept his attention on the remaining steps until he was fully on the broad upper landing, then moved away from its edge and lowered his pack.

The dark mark lit beside him. Below, the three threshold lines extinguished in order, leaving the lower boundary and the steady light along the stone.

He sat against the wall and drank. When he lowered the water, he noticed how tightly he had kept his shoulders braced during the last crossing. He rolled them, then opened the pack.

The bread was still soft beneath its crust. Ren broke off a palm-sized piece and ate it while looking down at the stair. A few crumbs caught in the cloth. He gathered them with his thumb, ate those too, and wrapped the remaining bread before putting it back above the dried food.

The light had not changed since he entered. He could not judge how much time he had spent crouched over the probes. His legs were steady when he stood.

A seam had opened in the wall beside the completion mark. Ren shouldered the pack and approached it.

Beyond lay a long hall with a stone bridge across its width. The piers beneath the bridge ended in open air, inscriptions shining under their bases. Above the far end, a single chain held a block the size of a cart.