Chapter 732: Where the Steps Continue

Chapter 732: Where the Steps Continue

Leon delayed Water’s return by too much.

He felt the mistake before the two flows met. Earth reached the center ahead of the correction he had intended to make, and Water followed late enough to produce a second uneven pulse.

He eased the intake and restored the familiar cycle.

The interruption was small, but irritating. He had known what he wanted to do and still managed to make the original problem worse in the opposite direction.

Less. You’re nudging it, not moving the whole branch.

He waited while the court settled into a steady supply, then reviewed the timing without changing it. His mistake had been treating the visible increase in Earth as a measure of how much Water needed to move. They were different things. The delay in the return was slight, and his correction only needed to match that delay.

The Lord of Illusion and Mystery’s observation came back to him: balance need not mean equal flow.

He had spent months learning to give that idea a workable form. It was easy to agree with a sentence. Keeping several branches in harmony while one of them changed was considerably less convenient.

On the next rise, he allowed Earth to take the measured increase and eased Water’s return by a smaller amount.

They met without the earlier uneven pulse. Leon kept the intake open at its controlled level and followed the next complete circuit, ready to correct it.

The cycle continued.

He felt a quick surge of satisfaction and almost opened his eyes to tell someone. Instead, he made himself wait.

Do it twice before you start grinning.

The next change favored Water. He watched its actual passage rather than assuming the reverse correction would be identical. Its fuller return also arrived slightly later under the new load, so he delayed Earth enough to meet it while maintaining the other branches.

That adjustment worked too.

Over the following hour, he tried several more changes. Twice he needed additional corrections at the center. Once he reduced the intake because he had followed a variation too late. None of it justified letting the Scripture run without his attention.

But he no longer had to interrupt the whole cycle for every mild change. He could adjust intake and individual returns while the wider circulation continued.

He tested the same approach through another gradual rise, then let the new supply taper off. His foundation remained settled when he finished. No sudden advance followed, and he had not expected one. What he had gained was a more useful way to work with the strength and structure he already possessed.

Leon opened his eyes.

Loriel was sitting near the wall with her notebook. She looked up at once.

"Better?" she asked.

"I kept it running through the changes." He stretched his legs. "Most of them. I still had to make every adjustment myself."

"Did anything hurt?"

"No."

"Then you may keep looking pleased."

He laughed and reached for the water she offered. Only after drinking did he write the successful sequence in his own notes. He marked the conditions beside it: mild currents, controlled intake, Earth and Water changing most noticeably. A good result here did not tell him what would happen under a sudden surge of Fire or several changes at once.

That was work for later. For now, he was pleased enough that even the cramped line at the bottom of the page annoyed him less than usual.

Ira came over while he was closing the notebook.

"Can you do it while moving?" she asked.

"I haven’t tried this adjustment that way yet."

"You should. Unless you’re planning to sit through every fight."

Leon rose and walked slowly along the bare front edge, maintaining a reduced circulation. Movement itself presented no new difficulty. When the Water supply shifted, however, he stopped beside the wall to follow its return properly.

Ira waited without saying anything.

"More practice," he admitted.

She accepted that with a nod. He added a short note before putting the book away: the adjustment worked while seated and attentive; doing it during ordinary movement still needed testing. That was useful to know before confidence became an expensive mistake.

He was putting the notes away when the steam changed direction across the slope.

This time, the movement extended far beyond their court. Several upper channels turned north and west, carrying their supply toward the hillside’s shoulder. People stopped working to look. A collector on the next row called for someone to bring a viewing lens.

Leon stood and followed the change with his perception.

Above the highest occupied courts, the thick bank of steam lying against the western slope began drawing aside. Dark stone appeared beneath it, then a landing and the first stretch of a narrow stair.

Seraphine came to his side.

"That wasn’t visible this morning."

"No." He watched another section emerge. "The steam covered the whole approach."

The stair climbed over the shoulder and disappeared beyond it. Deep channels ran between its worn blocks, their arrangement unlike the shallower cuts around the occupied courts. Several strong currents followed those channels, crossing and separating around the landings.

Leon could feel distinct energies moving through the same small area without merging into a single muddled flow.

He wanted to get closer immediately.

Below them, Tobin had left the Hall’s resting place and was staring toward the same stair. Leon went down, the women following once their belongings were stored.

"I’ve seen a drawing of that," Tobin said before Leon could ask.

"In your records?"

"The older ones. A stair above the western shoulder, with a broken gateway halfway along it." He pointed. As the steam thinned, two leaning pillars appeared on a landing. "There. That’s what I remember."

"What did the record call it?" Leon asked.

"The old court. There wasn’t a proper account of entering it. Just the drawing and a note saying the Steps concealed the approach." Tobin rubbed the ink-stained fingers of one hand together. "My teacher thought the route might have collapsed."

"Have any of your people been there?"

"Not that I know of. Certainly nobody on this expedition."

Leon studied the broken pillars. Beyond them, another stretch of stairs was emerging. Mineral growth caught the light along the deeper channel edges, though he could not judge its quality from here.

The route looked promising. It also looked old enough to have more wrong with it than a little loose stone.

Tobin glanced toward his people, then back at Leon.

"Are you going up?"

"Yes," Leon said. "I’ll examine the approach first."

He had no intention of sitting below it until someone else found out what was there. The harvest was secure, his household was ready, and the circulation he could sense along those channels was more interesting than anything he had tested that afternoon.

Ira adjusted the fastening of her coat beside him. Seraphine was already studying the exposed landings. Vyra tucked away the route notes, while Loriel followed a line of growth beside the newly visible stone.

Leon waited long enough to see that the first stretch remained clear as the steam withdrew.

Then he started toward the western shoulder.

Behind the broken gateway, another landing emerged, and the channels continued beyond it.