Chapter 120: First Into the Rising

The east corridor tightened around Dane while the last crash from Pump Nine still trembled in his sound wheel.

Mortar dragged both wounded Wagon sides. His late wheel clipped the right wall, and his dead front-left rail rasped against the left. Behind him, broken gears settled under falling water. Ahead, too many breaths occupied too little stone.

Marda kept thirty-six civilians moving until the corridor released them onto the first steps of a central stair. The two freed pump workers stayed near her voice. Higher up, the calf-wounded survivor’s good heel struck stone while two curved shell plates scraped beneath their body. The third plate knocked once against the upper stair beside the wrapped centipede meat.

Uphill water followed them out of the corridor.

It reached Dane from three directions. Iron roots rang to his north. A straight run ahead gurgled through a trough under the floor. South water clicked across metal teeth, each click farther uphill than the last.

Orsa’s broken pole tapped the stair lip. "Three galleries. North has roots low enough to take a head. Straight has the trough and reed rails. South has red drain teeth, and every third slab is already low. All three currents are coming for this stair."

The black seam contracted behind Dane. Its pull traveled under him and struck the lowest tread.

Stone split beneath Flat Hands’s boot. Water punched through and tore a lump from the tread’s underside. The stair settled toward the straight-gallery trough, squeezing a cough from every person seated above it.

"Right corner," Orsa said. Her pole rang against the cracked stone. "The trough runs under there. When the seam pulls again, that corner goes first and the stairs follow."

Two civilians were still below the first tread at the north mouth. Water rebounded from the low iron roots and took their legs sideways. Kril wound their blanket over the rail and stopped both against the wall; the current kept their knees off the floor.

"The blanket holds them for one pull," he called. "Maybe two."

Marda crouched at the split tread. "Then Dane gives us a road, and Kril brings those two to the tread before we crowd it. Nobody piles onto a broken stair because they dislike waiting."

Dane rolled his sound wheel toward the straight mouth. The trough seized the edge of his late wheel before his body cleared the stair. Current twisted his wounded right quarter down, driving rod one against the old split.

He backed one rim-width. The wall caught his dead front-left corner and tried to turn him broadside across the only walking strip.

A Door-wide closure there would hold water and seal people on the wrong side. His square Wagon angle put the late wheel over the trough and the old split under the stair. Both pressures arrived in his body before anyone could explain them.

Dane rotated until intact rear grain faced the outer wall. He opened one low Door-derived plane on a diagonal beneath the broken tread. The opposite side stayed shoulder-wide for people. A Stall-fine rib touched the buried root of the nearest reed rail without pinning it.

Uphill placement kept water off the old split while rod one sat at its previous depth.

Water caught Flat Hands’s first guide cast and dragged it toward the trough. Voss stopped the rope with his one good hook, hips and back wedged across the second tread while both splinted legs lay supported against the wall.

The pull lifted the coil from Flat Hands’s hands. One awake coffer foot trapped it against the left stair post. The other chose the right post. Its four habitual feet backed uphill into seated adults until Marda caught the frame and turned it across the stair.

"If you’re determined to flee," she told the four running feet, "at least flee somewhere useful."

The rope fibers sawed lower. Kril cut three drowned reeds from the shoulder lane before the guide could sink between them. Lye Scar bound their tops to the rail, and the new handhold took the next sideways jerk instead of the rope.

Brant leaned his hip against the third tread. His right arm stayed strapped; his crushed left hand remained bundled against his body. "Pull the reed hold before anyone trusts it. I can watch a knot, but I can’t tell you what it feels like anymore."

Lye Scar loaded it with both forearms. The knot tightened and stayed.

Vera crouched above Brant, left elbow tucked against her stiff side. Blue chalk in her wrapped right hand marked the black seam where it touched the guide. The lower stroke wavered.

"Your late wheel barely fits now," she said. Chalk kept moving while her voice thinned. "I’m afraid the wall takes your way back before the last person is off these steps."

Dane pressed his sound wheel onto the external guide. He laid the rope along his intact rear rail, then rolled the late wheel through the return gap. Mortar brushed its rim throughout the turn, leaving less than a wheel-width for return.

At the broken tread, he struck stone four times with his rim.

Each tap came slowly, one full breath apart.

After the fourth, Dane folded his low plane one handspan and opened it into the same seat. Flat Hands caught the released slack before the trough could take it.

"Four spaced taps," he said, winding the slack around his forearm. "On the fourth, I free his line."

Dane answered with one knock and held the plane open.

Orsa entered the shoulder lane on her right leg. Her wrapped left knee followed without taking weight. She sank the broken pole into the trough until water struck the far side.

"Current is under your front edge," she said. "The wall adds its weight in two breaths."

Dane moved that edge one grain toward the outer wall.

Water climbed the diagonal plane. Pressure entered intact rear grain, crossed him, and settled the broken tread onto his upper edge. The stair held until the next pressure arrived.

Then the front edge peeled out of the floor.

The lowest tread dropped with it. One seated adult’s boot slid into the widening crack. Marda caught the blanket around their waist and hauled them back while Voss’s guide hook jerked toward the trough. Behind him, the coffer’s four habitual feet drove into the crowd in a panic of empty steps.

"Edge is above the load," Orsa said. Her pole bucked against her palms. "The water is lifting you out."

Dane folded the raised finger-width before it could climb farther. He rotated that strip beneath the stair corner and opened it against the black mineral foot of the outer wall.

The next pressure hit drove his plane deeper.

Kril crossed on the reed handhold while the placement groaned. Loose stone was stacking beneath Dane’s return wheel; Kril kicked each piece into the trough before it could build a trap, then came back without touching the brace.

One breath ground stone against wood.

On the second, the seam pulled hard enough to bow the reed rail. Dane’s Stall-fine rib bent with the living curve and stayed seated at its buried root.

The split tread stopped moving.

Marda slapped the cloth at the north mouth. "You two waited long enough. Arms around it and bring each other up."

The stranded pair locked forearms over the folded cloth. Kril eased his end forward, letting the blanket turn them toward the stair instead of the north current. They reached the first tread together. Water filled the place their knees had occupied.

Marda immediately put one of them between the two freed pump workers and pointed down Dane’s shoulder lane. The young man from Pump Nine pressed his hurt thumb against his palm.

"Give me an elbow," he told the middle adult. "The hand is bad. The shoulder still works."

The young woman took the reed rail with both hands. She opened her fingers once around it before stepping. "If this rail starts pulling me back, somebody says so before my body votes for it."

They moved as straight water slapped their boots and tried to separate the middle adult from both supports. The woman’s old pump grip started to close. She shifted the wet guide around her forearm instead, leaving the fingers open. On the other side, the man’s shoulder met the middle adult’s ribs when a heel slipped from the strip.

Together the freed workers returned that heel to stone.

All three reached the far rise and turned to face the stair. The woman kept the guide on her forearm. The man planted his good elbow beside it.

Marda heard their boots settle. "Send the two plates."

Flat Hands and Lye Scar lowered the calf-wounded survivor onto the diagonal brace. The shell curves rode two separate points of Dane’s intact side. A trough surge shoved their front ends apart.

The injured adult put a hand through each rib hole and pulled the plates back into overlap. "Both plates or I spin. My good heel only has one direction left in it."

The freed workers drew from the far rise while that heel pushed. Water reached the plate edges and fell away without wetting the bound left calf. When the rear curve cleared the cracked tread, the survivor caught the young woman’s forearm and controlled the final slide.

Their palm struck shell once from safe stone.

"Calf is dry," they called. "Use the road."

Brant shifted his shoulder blade against the wall. "Next two stand when Marda gives you cloth. Keep your hands inside it if the water takes your feet."

Marda joined six adults into three pairs. The first pair wrapped their forearms through opposite ends of one blanket and approached Dane’s shoulder lane.

Vera’s chalk made a brittle snap beneath the contracting wall.

Her wrapped right hand climbed the guide before stone could catch her fingers. "The seam ate my mark. Rope is next."

She fed the guide over Dane’s intact rail. Flat Hands took its pull. The return path remained open by less than a wheel-width.

Marda sent the first pair into the lane.

Halfway across, pressure reached Dane from all three galleries in the same heartbeat. North water hammered the iron roots until the ceiling rang through his frame. The straight trough climbed over his upper edge and struck both adults at the ankles. From south came one rapid chain of metal clicks, then Orsa’s voice: every red tooth had vanished.

The lowest stair tread broke away under the combined pull. The second lost half its dry width.

Dane’s diagonal brace drove harder into its seat and held.

He gave two knocks.

The pair locked their blanket and stopped halfway across while high ground continued shrinking above them.