Chapter 104: Orsa Says No

The wrong-way current tugged at Dane’s right wheels until the channel floor rose under all four and split the pull three ways.

Something wooden struck stone above the left-hand flow. The blow traveled down wet reed cords and jolted through the raised floor beneath him. Eight sleeping breaths shivered overhead—four in one hanging bed, four in another.

The hit had driven one platform too far uphill. Its high rail punched the wall. Four bodies rolled together, a blanket struck stone, and the woman beneath them swore underwater. Her fork caught the loose bedding before its weight could drag the platform back. Two lighter taps separated the sleepers again. Seven breaths settled. The eighth caught, snorted, and sank beneath the drain’s roar.

Serrick stopped where the approach was still dry. Cloth rasped over his bound arm. "Orsa."

A body drove up through the center current. Water sheeted off patched hide and slapped the stone beside Dane. Her landing carried more weight through one forearm than two wet feet, then shifted as she changed hands on the pole.

"Keep that wrap out of my channels," she said. "I have enough limbs doing what they please."

Serrick’s answer came flat. "Dry work."

One hanging bed gave a long reed creak as its low cord sank into the channel. The other bed answered at a tighter pitch and held.

Brant moved to the point where the incoming channel divided. "Triangle is twelve paces across. Four sleepers left, four right. Right bed is lower and one wax plug has come loose. Center cover between them."

The geometry arrived under Dane as Brant named it. Incoming pressure hit the point of the black-stone triangle, divided around his wheels, then crowded beneath the two loaded beds. Each platform hung from three cords whose strain entered the stone at different pitches. A third route waited behind a broad surface in the center. That surface bowed with each pulse and pressed back against every Door line inside his frame.

Flat Hands and Lye Scar carried Buk’s litter onto the highest stone. Their mismatched steps put a slow tilt through its poles before they corrected. The responsive coffer followed, six feet crowding close to the right-line approach, and stopped with its bed clear of the wet edge.

Two wooden broom handles knocked together above Buk’s chest.

"Kesh names Orsa Drel," Buk called over the water. "Wants Orsa back alive."

"No. The beds go first."

Orsa shoved her forked pole beneath the sinking right cord. The pole bowed, the bed climbed, and four drowsy bodies rolled against one another on the reed slats. A heel struck the outer rail hard enough for Dane to feel it through the platform brackets.

"Six cuts meant six hands," Orsa said. "Did Kesh send hands, or only the message?"

Buk tightened both brooms against his chest as his litter shifted. "Buk carries words. Buk carries no Orsa. Kesh knew the difference when she gave him these."

The next pressure pulse ended the argument.

Both platform cords snapped taut. The right bed dropped first. Brant warned of a bare foot over the low edge, and Flat Hands caught the ankle before connected water could reach it. His broad palm could not close; he trapped the heel against his forearm while Lye Scar kept Buk high with one hip under the litter pole.

Pressure flattened across the broad center surface.

Dane’s body knew what a Door did with an opening.

The center pressure found every joint that had once made him square. His lockplate drew tight. The moving axle wanted to stop being an axle; the front rail wanted to become one bar wide enough to deny the water. Door offered four fixed corners, a seated hinge, and no late wheel to betray him. For one hungry instant, damage and instinct agreed on the same easy answer.

His front crosspiece shortened. The intact right-front wheel entered a groove leading straight to the cover, while the dead left rail lifted away from load. Every remaining hinge wanted height and width. Closing that face would be easier than holding his wounded Wagon together against three competing currents.

The supply lash across his bed drew tight as the load slid toward the turn. Ada’s rod held the split beneath his right quarter, but the old axle facet answered late. His right wheel advanced another spoke before the rest of the Wagon followed.

Orsa’s pole cracked against the curb before the crosspiece could finish shortening.

She drove the fork crosswise between his right-front wheel and stone. Dane rolled onto the shaft. Bark peeled beneath his rim. One more spoke would crush it and put his broadest surface against the waiting face.

"That cover opens," Orsa said. "Let me get under it."

Dane stopped with the pole bent beneath him. His rim trembled against the stripped wood. The forming Door edge kept pressing forward inside his Wagon frame until he forced the right wheel back against the old axle facet and held it there.

Orsa dragged one breath into her lungs and dropped into the center flow. The current shoved at her through the pole. Its fork scraped along the underside of the cover, missed whatever she sought, and hammered stone. The right platform cord sank until Brant called water at the sleeper’s heel.

Flat Hands hauled the leg higher. Lye Scar widened his stance under Buk’s litter and lost half a step when his short side met the slope.

Orsa broke the surface beside Dane’s rim. She coughed once, spat water across the stone, and pulled the pole back under with her before the current could turn it. The failed attempt had cost enough time for the right platform to strike its lower bracket. Above that impact, one sleeper’s breathing broke into three frightened grunts and then quieted without waking.

"Again," she said to herself, and dove.

The fork grated beneath the cover while clay dragged through a tight socket, moved, and jammed again. Orsa’s kick hammered the underside near Dane’s rim. She shifted the fork rather than spending another breath on force, and the plug came free with a dull pop conducted through his stopped wheel.

Water punched out.

The jet struck his right-front rim and climbed over the rail. It crossed the lashed packs, shoved the whole load rearward, and spilled from his open bed. At once the pull beneath both sleeping platforms eased. The right cord rose clear of the heel in Flat Hands’s grip. The left bed stopped grinding against its bracket.

Dane reversed one spoke. Orsa tore the pole out from under his wheel.

The next swell hit the triangle.

Stone separated along the center face with a crack Dane felt from front wheels to rear axle. A flat plate tore loose, crossed the approach at the height of his axle, and burst against the curb he had just left. Fragments rattled under his dead rail and missed the wood.

The same release snapped through Orsa’s pole. One tine struck stone and broke. The current wrenched the remaining shaft sideways; Orsa’s feet kicked once against the center lip and lost it.

Serrick’s voice cut across the crash. "Right of the plate. High edge, Orsa."

Her hand hit stone, slid, and struck again. A wet forearm dragged over the lip. Orsa came up coughing against the current, jammed the one-tined pole across the mouth, and trapped the broken plate downstream before it could sweep back.

The center route swallowed the next sheet of water. Both outer cords climbed. Eight separate breaths knocked through the reed beds above it, with the frightened sleeper’s broken rhythm slowly finding the other three on the right.

Orsa stayed on her forearms until the cough released her. She pushed the clay plug onto high stone and knocked the broken fork against the center lip.

"Pale opens. Black holds."

The broken tine skipped once along brittle cover stone. Orsa lowered it, dragged through loose grit, and struck a denser line under the triangle. Its vibration divided beneath Dane, running left into one bank and right into the other.

"Rear weight only," she said. "Feel for both banks before you give it more."

He backed away from the pale mouth. Door width loosened inside the Wagon frame one joint at a time. The lashed supplies pulled toward his rear edge when he turned, and the late wheel let the load yaw farther than he intended. Ada kept both hands on rod one.

"Your split is climbing," she said. "Take one spoke back or come off the turn."

Dane reversed the bad wheel, put his intact rear quarter toward the mineral line, and lowered an inch of weight. The packs pulled across his bed, threatening to carry the late side off the narrow crest. He caught their shift through the lash and widened the rear wheels by half a spoke.

The black seam carried the test away in both directions. Stone answered under the left bank, then the right, while the open center mouth continued to drink. Above him, neither platform received the hard upward knock his first approach had sent into its cords.

He eased off. His damaged quarter tugged against Ada’s rod when he changed the rear angle by one spoke. Vera’s bootsteps cleared the swinging end of his bed and stopped near the center lip. Chalk rattled once inside the closed pouch at her belt.

Orsa crossed to the left platform bracket. Her wet nail scraped through a row of flood cuts, then she slapped the pole against the opposite bracket and made Serrick check that side from dry stone.

"Both match," he said.

"Nine cuts below red. At this rise, nine minutes."

The right platform groaned low enough to shake water from its underside. A sleeper shifted above Dane; three others rolled after the changed weight. Brant’s voice crossed from the right bracket. "Loose plug is striking the sleeper’s cheek. They’re still down."

Vera crouched near the broken center cover. "If that seam gives while he’s on it, where does the load go?"

"Through the triangle." Orsa tested the surviving tine against the crawl. "Then left, center, and right become the same channel."

She ran a hand over the moss-packed opening beneath the lip, found her space, and turned toward the scrape of Buk’s litter poles.

"I’m cutting the center from underneath. The black seam needs weight. Put a line on each bed before I open anything wider." Her breathing still rasped from the second dive. "Take the work or leave while the approach is dry."

Buk’s brooms shifted against his chest. "Kesh asked alive. Orsa remains very alive."

The right bed creaked again. Orsa turned back to the crawl.

Kril carried Serrick’s bone-and-iron rake to the triangle’s highest point. He set the shaft across two dry stone teeth, rake teeth raised and every piece of iron clear of runoff. Only then did one folded blade open against the left platform line. Across the triangle, Voss dragged himself toward the right bracket on one good hook, splinted legs scraping after him while he rolled to his hip. He caught the line and tested its pull with his back. The cord yanked him half a handspan toward the channel before the hook bit into a dry stone ring.

Flat Hands and Lye Scar lifted Buk’s litter another step onto the crown. Six coffer feet followed Voss toward the right-line approach, then stopped short of the rope. Two widely spaced knocks sounded from its forward corners and went quiet.

Orsa wedged her damaged pole beneath the center lip and turned one shoulder into the submerged crawl. Wet cloth dragged through the center flow; then her breathing disappeared above it. The shaft scraped twice as she pulled it in after her.

Dane approached the black seam again. His intact rear wheel found the line first. The supply lash drew hard across his bed; the damaged quarter hovered above the mineral crest instead of bearing it. Ada’s rod stayed seated, but the split around it warmed as the late wheel searched for the corrected angle. He halted before that warmth sharpened into new tearing.

Brant waited until rope, blade, hook, litter, coffer, chalk, and wheels had found their places.

"Lye and Kril on left. Flat Hands with Voss on right. Keep Buk high and the center empty."

Serrick’s good sleeve moved beside the dry bracket. One fingernail tapped stone.

"Nine."

Dane stopped before full weight reached the seam and corrected his rear angle one final spoke.

Under the triangle, Orsa’s broken fork struck black mineral once. The impact divided beneath his wheels toward both banks. A breath later, two blows came from deeper inside the crawl.