“Ropes and wheels? Ropes and wheels?” Sal darted across the floor to where Hestia sat and raised his hands as if to strike her. “I’ll give you ropes and wheels, you—you—!”
Hestia ignored him, and after a moment he relaxed and turned back to Scorio. “But yes.” He sniffed. “Pulleys. A natural means of lifting great weight.”
Scorio wiped the sweat from his brow. Getting the man to speak felt like digging in hard clay. “Hestia said the four of you weren’t enough. You need a fifth to lift the door?”
“Even with six wheels, we cannot do it, no.” Sal slumped back down into his seat. “I’d devise more, but there’s not enough rope. But if you are willing to help, we can raise the Brass Door, or attempt to, and if your strength is insufficient, why, we can cannibalize the last of our clothing to make more rope, and I’ll devise more blocks, and we’ll make our escape as naked as the day we were born.”
“Then let’s pray Scorio’s strength is sufficient,” said Nissa.
“But what lies on the other side?” asked Scorio. “A way to the surface?”
“Supposedly,” said Sal, expression turning dour. “But my old friend said you first had to descend before you could climb, and that the way was too perilous for him to bring me with him. So…”
“So he has no idea,” said Nissa flatly. “But anything’s better than sitting in this cave for another year.”
“You’ve been here but three,” said Sal. “You don’t have the right to complain till it’s been at least four.”
“One is plenty,” said Hestia, voice almost inaudible. “My gums bleed. My strength is almost gone.”
Havert sighed and plonked down next to her. “And if I have to eat stewed mushrooms and rock beetle for another year, I’ll accidentally forget to close the cavern door.”
“I’m willing to help,” said Scorio firmly, or as firmly as he could manage. “I just need a rest. The Lasher’s bite… and what Praximar did to me… it’s all hitting me pretty hard.”
“Bite? Bite?” Sal leaped to his feet. “Is that why you are perspiring so freely? I thought you were shy, or overwrought!”
“You’re lying,” said Nissa. “You knew he was infected.”
“So if you’re satisfied,” said Havert, “give him the medicine before he keels over.”
Scorio bit back his own comments and watched as Sal bared his teeth at the other three. “Attacked from all sides. Where is the gratitude? Without me—”
“Yes, we know,” said Nissa. “So maybe heal him before we have to wait another year?”
Sal scowled at them all and stalked over to the little fire. Bending down, he shoved some dried moss onto the coals, which he blew on and coaxed back to life. He then ran his fingers lightly over several small stone cups that were arrayed on another carved ledge, and drew one down.
“Concentrated Lasher poison,” he said over his shoulder to Scorio. “Reduced to a powdered form, and then combined with a secret blend of herbs and extracts. It won’t be pleasant, but it will break the fever.”
“Concentrated poison?” asked Scorio. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Trust him,” said Nissa. “It works. He won’t share the formula, but we’ve all had to use it at one time or another.”
Scorio nodded reluctantly and watched Sal as he tapped some powder into the stone bowl, then poured a beaker of water into it. Then, anxious as a brood hen, he set to stirring with a bone spoon, and finally tilted the stone bowl and poured a thick, noxious liquid into a small cup.
“Here,” he said, setting it down before Scorio. “The taste will curl your toes, but if you want to live, you’ll lick the cup dry and then ask for more.”
Scorio accepted the cup. A spoonful of ichor had collected at the bottom. Unsure, he glanced to Hestia, who gave a subtle nod.
“He doesn’t trust me!” cried Sal, throwing up his hands and looking stricken. “I offer him the fruits of my wisdom, and he—”
“Sal!” Nissa’s voice had risen to a bark. “Enough! He doesn’t know you.”
“That’s right,” said Hestia, voice placating. “This’ll be where he learns to respect you and your talents. We all have to begin somewhere, don’t we?”
Sal frowned down at Scorio. “Perhaps.”
Scorio raised the cup to him. “You have my thanks. Truly.” And then he drained the ichor to its last drop.
His whole body did its level best to reject the antidote, spasming and causing him to gag. But through sheer bloody-mindedness, he forced it down, then did lick the stone cup, grimacing and coughing the whole time.
“Well done,” said Sal stiffly, taking the cup back. “Now you’d best go lie down before you collapse. Just like everything in life, it’ll get worse before it gets better.”
Scorio nodded, forced himself to dry swallow once more, then rose shakily to his feet.
“Here,” said Hestia, patting the ledge she’d been sitting on and moving away. “You can have mine.”
“Be a little less transparent, won’t you?” asked Havert.
Hestia looked mortified. “I wasn’t even—”
“Peace, you two. I swear.” Nissa shook her head tiredly. “True freedom is being alone.”
Scorio staggered over to the ledge and sat heavily. “Thank you.”
“No need to thank us,” said Sal, slipping back onto his stool. “You are both a source of novelty and a means of effecting our escape!”
“Seeing as old Radert never showd up to help,” muttered Hestia
“Radert,” repeated Scorio, as if seizing onto a lifeline. “Your old friend?”
“Seems there’s nothing sacred left in this old world,” sneered Sal, glaring at Hestia. “But yes. An old and dear friend of mine. What of it?”
“He… had he lit his Igneous Heart?”
“He had.” Sal drew himself up. “But that’s privileged information. I don’t share it with anyone. He told me in confidence.”
“Might as well give up, Scorio,” said Nissa, drumming her heels idly on the ledge’s side. “Sal guards information on Radert like a Lasher does a stream bed.”
Havert tamped some mulched fiber into his cheroot leaf and set to carefully rolling it. “Radert the Mighty. Radert the All-Knowing. Radert the Wise.”
“Radert the Missing,” sneered Nissa.
“Something happened,” said Sal, darting angry looks at them both. “He swore he’d come back, and he would have, if he could. You’ll see. When we get out, I’m sure we’ll find out the why of it.”
“Radert with his magical toys,” said Hestia, but her tone was wistful, half-longing. “I don’t really care if he’s real or not. I just like hearing about him. We’ve so little to talk about, down here.”
Scorio was shivering now, despite his rising fever. “Magical toys?”
“None of your business,” snapped Sal, turning away.
Havert rose and walked to the fire, where he crouched to touch the tip of his cigar to the coals. “A magical bridge that could reach the sky when you spoke the right word. An enchanted piece of chalk that drew invisible walls—”
“Silence!” snarled Sal, whipping back around, eyes gleaming.
“A rod that once activated couldn’t be moved by all the forces in Bastion and hell,” said Hestia dreamily, leaning back on both arms.
“That is privileged information!” Sal rose to his feet, his whole frame shaking in rage. “I shared it with you under the strictest confidence!”
“Scorio’s one of us now,” said Havert, placing the cheroot between his lips and inhaling rapidly over and over again till the tip began to burn cherry red. That done, he took it out, narrowed his eyes, and blew out a plume of oily smoke. “If he’s going through the Brass Door, he ought to be able to hear our bedtime stories, right?”
“Wrong,” said Sal coldly. “Don’t disappoint me further, Havert, or I’ll leave you behind.”
“No, you won’t,” said Havert calmly, moving back to his seat. “Unless you’re willing to wait another year.”