Chapter 211: Across the Western Ridge

Harl turned Sella’s route sheet sideways, studied the road beneath the western ridge, and put a dirty finger across it. Luke caught the other edge before it slid from the barrel between them.

“Don’t use this bend. You’ll come out below the receiving garden with a cliff between you and the entrance.”

Luke leaned closer. He and Lauren had returned to the carters’ yard during their next supervised visit, after reporting the glider encounter and completing their examinations. The scrape had caused no corresponding wound on his real arm, and his right hand remained under the same restrictions. Today, they were finding out whether the journey was possible before asking to make it.

“Did the road collapse?” Lauren asked.

“They moved the deliveries uphill. Carts can turn there now.” Harl lifted his hand and pointed across the yard. “Vessa came from that direction this morning. She’ll tell you more than an old map.”

The woman he indicated was counting empty wicker carriers beside a wagon. She had cropped gray hair, a pencil behind one ear, and a ledger balanced on her knee. Luke waited until she finished the row before introducing them and laying the route sheet on an empty carrier.

“Aster Hollow?” Vessa asked. “Buying or delivering?”

“Asking about a graft. Sella sent us.”

Lauren handed over the note Sella had written after finding her old account. Her last direct order had arrived three autumns earlier. The nursery had since bought its ordinary stock closer to the city, leaving the account unused rather than closed.

Vessa read the name at the bottom and nodded. “Orven still manages the receiving garden. He was there when I collected these.”

Luke grinned. He had tried not to imagine arriving at another abandoned building, but the possibility had followed him all the way from the conservatory.

“How long from the gate?”

“On foot, about twenty-five minutes. Take the western stair through the saddle. It’s steep near the top, but the paving’s sound. The cart road takes longer.”

Lauren asked about handrails, narrow sections, and the return climb. Vessa answered without making Luke repeat the questions for her, then borrowed his charcoal to mark the public entrance. The path ended on the upper terrace, where they could speak to Orven without descending into the gorge.

“There are little signs for the gardens,” she added. “Follow those, not the delivery marks. And don’t let anyone put you on the freight lift to save walking.”

“That happens?” Luke asked.

“People ask. Usually after seeing the stairs.”

Vessa returned to her carriers while they checked the marked route against their own map. Its final stretch still lay beyond the region they had been allowed to visit. Luke added her walking estimate to the sheet, and they took the information back to the courtyard for their report.

Their report included the estimated journey, the staffed reception terrace, and the public route back. When the Bureau cleared their next dive, it added that route and the upper garden to their permitted area. The session remained ninety minutes, with no changes to their combat restrictions or permission to experiment with the graft.

Luke was ready to leave the courtyard almost as soon as Powerforge settled around them. The folder remained in his inventory, his spear was secured across his back, and Lauren had left the seed growing at Sella’s bench. Sella was caring for it while they sought advice.

The western gate opened onto a different part of the countryside. Low stone houses crowded the first slope, with narrow gardens tucked behind their walls. Beyond them, steps climbed between terraces where people were turning dried cuttings with wooden forks.

Luke slowed to let a man carrying a basket pass. Lauren kept her hand on his arm and listened to the dry rustling farther up the hill. When she asked what they were doing, he described the rows spread across the terraces.

“Hay?”

“I think so. There’s a lot of it.”

A woman working beside the path overheard him. “Leaf litter for the beds. The hay’s on the other side.”

Luke looked at the forkful she held up and saw the broad leaves among the stems. He thanked her before continuing, glad Lauren only squeezed his arm instead of making him suffer for it.

The last houses fell behind them. Wind moved freely through the saddle, carrying a cooler smell from somewhere beyond the ridge. Lauren paused at the top step, one hand on the stone railing while Luke checked the way down.

“I can hear water.”

He could too, although the path ahead still curved between tall hedges. They followed it until the hedges ended at a broad wooden gate. Through the opening, Luke saw the far wall of the gorge and a waterfall breaking into white spray halfway down it.

He stopped so abruptly that Lauren’s fingers tightened on his sleeve. “Step?”

“No. Sorry.” He moved them clear of the gate. “We’re here. The picture left most of it out.”

Terraces stepped down both sides of the gorge, some built from stone and others resting among enormous branches. Narrow bridges joined them beneath trees with pale, copper, and deep red leaves. Water ran through channels along the beds, then spilled over the edges into hanging curtains of moss.

The receiving garden occupied a wide stone shelf at the top. Workers carried trays between shaded tables, and rows of young trees stood in open-bottomed crates. Far below, a wooden platform rose slowly on thick ropes, bringing another load toward an opening in the terrace rail.

Luke described the bridges first, then the different colors across the gorge. Lauren tilted her face toward the spray drifting over the upper beds. A fine mist caught on her hair and sleeves, and she smiled before asking him to take her closer to the public railing.

He chose a section away from the loading opening. The stone underfoot was dry there, and she could rest her hands on the broad wooden rail without reaching over it. Luke stood beside her until a worker pushing an empty trolley asked them to leave the passage clear.

They moved to the visitor bench, where Luke took the folder from his inventory and laid Sella’s note on top. The session timer showed just over an hour remaining, which gave them time to speak to Orven and still leave a comfortable margin for the walk back.

A man in a faded rust-colored coat came out from behind a row of saplings. He was carrying three labels in his teeth and a pot beneath each arm. Luke stood to make room as the man set the pots down, removed the labels, and looked at their folder.

“Sella’s handwriting. I haven’t seen that in a while.”

“You’re Orven?” Lauren asked.

“Unless she’s complaining about an order. Then I’d like to read it first.”

He grinned, accepted the note, and fell quiet as he worked through it. Luke handed him the copied conservatory instructions next. Orven compared the drawings with Sella’s description before setting both sheets on an empty table.

“And the seed’s still on its first support?”

“With one new root starting in the moss,” Lauren said. “We left it there.”

“It doesn’t need a journey yet.” He pulled a stool up to the table for her. “Tell me what you’re hoping to grow. Sella’s note says a tree, but that covers a fair amount of my business.”

Lauren explained Heartwood without summoning it. She described the hollow, the protection, and the fact that she remained fixed inside until the roots released her. Orven listened while turning the copied seed diagram toward the light.

“Does the trunk stay when you’re finished?”

“No. The whole thing withdraws.”

“Then I can’t treat it like a tree you’ll plant here and leave for twenty years. The seed may accept a trait from our stock, but your skill decides how it uses it. I can help you compare the plants. I won’t promise a result I’ve never seen.”

Luke appreciated that more than an immediate offer to make the tree indestructible. He set the folder down and looked along the nearest row of crates. Several held saplings with dark bark packed into tight ridges. Others had smooth trunks that curved around their supports.

“The records mentioned thicker bark and flexible branches,” he said. “Are those separate kinds?”

Orven led them to two adjoining beds. He placed a fallen strip of bark in Lauren’s hand, then held another piece where Luke could see its thick cross section. The difference was obvious before he explained it.

“Ironbark grows dense outer plates. Ribbonwillow gives more before it splits. We use both, depending on where the force will come from.”

Lauren felt along the edges of the piece she held. “Thicker sounds better when someone’s trying to reach me.”

“Against a straight strike, it may be. But a limb that won’t bend can tear out its own attachment.” Orven nodded toward the loading frame. “The braces up there are grown from ribbonwillow. Those curves aren’t decoration.”

Luke followed his gaze. Two pale boughs rose from beds beside the lift and arched over the open landing. They supported the overhead beam, their grain running in smooth curves around the joined wood. Metal fittings held the pulleys beneath it.

“Can we look at both before deciding?” Lauren asked.

“That’s why they’re here. Put that strip on the table and I’ll find the samples you can handle without pulling anything out of a bed.”

He turned toward a rack of narrow trays. Behind him, the lift bell rang once, and two workers stepped to the landing to receive the rising platform. Luke moved Lauren away from their path before looking over the rail again.

The load was a young tree in a square root crate. An adult porter stood beside it with a short safety tether clipped to the platform rail. He lifted a hand toward the workers above as the top of the crate came level with their boots.

Something cracked beneath the nearest pulley. The platform lurched sideways, and a metal guide wheel struck the stone below the landing before dropping out of sight.

One worker slammed the brake lever down. The lifting rope went taut, but the platform tilted away from the terrace as the crate shifted against its outer rail. The porter fell to one knee and caught the corner post with both hands.

Luke heard Orven shout for everyone to clear the loading edge. He moved Lauren behind the stone pier beside the visitor path, then turned back as the crate slid another few inches across the platform.

The porter’s tether pulled tight across his hip. Beneath him, the tilted platform hung below the landing, with open air between its inner edge and the stone.