He was never fully aware of how long it took for the platform to descend. It could have been an hour or a few minutes, such was the pitch of his initial terror. When the first flush of panic began to abate his underlying terror actually rose in pitch. Despite all he had seen he knew that whatever awaited them below was far beyond his knowledge. For all its maddening confusion, the vision born of the White’s blood had at least engendered a sense of certainty, an unwavering determination to bring himself to the intersection between past and future. Now he was just one of three very small souls snared in the innards of a vast mystery.
The terror finally subsided when the platform began to slow and it occurred to Clay that they weren’t in fact about to die. Loriabeth’s distress took longer to fade. She kept clutching to him, jaw clamped tight to prevent a cry escaping her lips. Clay could only hold her and cast the beam of his lantern about. The light revealed a series of symbols carved into the wall of the shaft, at first sliding past at too great a speed to make out but becoming discernible as their descent continued to slow. Clay detected a pattern in the symbols, their curving lines becoming less complex the deeper they went. Numbers, he realised. Counting down. His mind kept flicking back to the sight of the plinth and the beads of his sweat on the crystal. Loriabeth touched it and it just glowed, he recalled. One touch of my sweat and it took us down.
Lieutenant Sigoral had the stock of his repeating carbine jammed firmly into his shoulder, fingers twitching on the trigger-guard. From the wild cast to the man’s eyes Clay judged his panic had been only marginally more controlled than his own.
“Can’t see anything to shoot at,” Clay said. “Can you?”
The Corvantine’s gaze jerked towards him and he flushed in momentary anger before straightening and lowering the carbine. “Did you do this?” he asked.
“Not on purpose.”
The vast grinding of huge gears reverberated through the shaft once again and the platform gave a brief shudder before coming to a halt. For ten full seconds no one said anything as they stared in turn at the plinth, the carved symbol on the wall and the dimly illuminated shaft above. Clay fancied he could hear a faint voice calling somewhere and pictured Hilemore standing at the edge of the empty shaft shouting desperately into the gloom.
“We’re alive, Captain!” he bellowed, tilting his head back to project his voice as high as he could. He had no notion if Hilemore heard him for the only answer was silence.
“We should touch it,” Sigoral told Clay, pointing to the plinth. “Perhaps it’ll take us back up.”
“Or farther down,” Loriabeth said.
“No.” Clay pointed at the symbol on the wall. It was the simplest marking he had seen yet, a single unembellished form resembling a stretched tear-drop. “I think we’re at the bottom.”
“All the more reason to try,” Sigoral said, moving to press a gloved hand to the crystal then stepping back. They waited. The platform didn’t move and the crystal continued to cast out its glow without a flicker.
“You try,” Sigoral said, gesturing to Clay with the butt of his carbine. From the hard insistence in his tone Clay decided this wasn’t a time to argue the point. In any case, if it responded to his sweat it stood to reason the crystal might well do so again at the touch of his skin. He moved to it and tapped his forefinger to the stone. This time it gave off a pulse of more intense light and the low musical note sounded again. But still the platform failed to move.
Loriabeth tried next, producing no reaction at all. “Guess we should just wait it out,” she said, peering upwards. “The captain’s sure to be fetching rope . . .”
They whirled at a new sound to the left. It was the grinding gears again, but on a smaller scale, hidden mechanicals locking and unlocking as a section of the passage wall slid aside to reveal a rectangle of greenish-blue light. Sigoral raised his carbine once more and Loriabeth drew both pistols in readiness, however, nothing appeared in the opening.
“I think we’re being invited in,” Clay said, moving forward.
“Stop!” Sigoral barked.
Clay turned to find the Corvantine regarding him with implacable resolve. He also saw that the barrel of Sigoral’s carbine was pointed at the centre of his chest. “I’ve no wish to cause you harm, Mr. Torcreek,” he stated. “But you are not stepping through that door. We will stay here and await rescue . . .”
He trailed off at the sound of Loriabeth drawing back the hammers on both revolvers. She stood with them levelled at her sides, both pointing at the Corvantine and ready to unleash a salvo that would probably cut him in half at such close range. “I’ll thank you to stop aiming a weapon at my cousin, sailor boy,” she said, all trace of her previous distress vanished now.
“It’s all right, cuz,” Clay said, moving between them, staring hard at her until she lowered her guns. He cast a hungry glance at the opening then shook his head. “He’s right. Once the captain fixes the ropes, we can get the others down here. I’ll feel a lot better about venturing inside with more guns.”
He turned to Sigoral, holding the man’s gaze until he lowered his carbine. “I’m a marine,” Sigoral told Loriabeth. “Not a sailor . . .”
His words died as a tremor shook the platform beneath their feet. Clay initially thought it was about to ascend, a conclusion dashed as the tremor continued, growing in violence with every passing second.
“Maybe we broke something,” Loriabeth said, arms spread as she sought to maintain her balance.
A loud booming crash echoed down from the shaft and Clay looked up to see a very large, jagged shape descending towards them, too fast to allow for the slightest hesitation. He turned and sprinted for the opening, pushing Loriabeth ahead of him. They stumbled into the light, Clay barely having time to take in the new surroundings, a broad rough stone floor surrounded by tall columns, before Sigoral barrelled into him, sending them both sprawling.
The opening slid closed behind them just as whatever had fallen from above slammed into the platform. The sound of the impact died as the opening closed, but the tremor continued for at least another minute, Clay casting a wary eye at the surrounding columns in the fearful expectation they might topple over onto them at any moment.
Finally, the tremor faded, leaving them gasping in relief.
“And now we’re trapped,” Sigoral said, getting to his feet. “Wonderful.”