Scorio studied her, horrified. “Did you?”
She didn’t seem to hear him, and after an extended pause Scorio cast about for something else to ask. “I last died over two hundred years ago. What about you?”
“Two hundred years?” She blinked as if awakening from a dream. “Are you—of course you’re sure. That’s… I mean, the longest delay I heard was twenty years. And I got to hear several hundred have their information announced first.”
Scorio scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know. Just what the Archspire told me.”
“Maybe it’s got something to do with all your titles. Mine’s short. So are those of the others.” She studied him, and her gaze was eager, hungry. Then a veil passed behind her eyes, hiding that moment’s enthusiasm, and she turned away. “Anyway, what I’ve been trying to tell you is…” She shook her head, frustrated, and resumed walking. “I’ve been waiting for a new arrival for some time. Someone new to talk to. But now you’re here and we’re going straight through the Brass Door, and everything feels so… futile.”
“How so?” Scorio strode after her, studied her back, the hunched shoulders, saw how emaciated she was. “We’re going to escape. Things could be just beginning.”
She looked back at him once more, her expression frank, bleak, verging on raw. “No, Scorio. There’s nothing waiting for us on the other side of the Brass Door but death. We’ve all convinced ourselves there’s a chance so that we don’t go mad. But Sal… when I first met him, when he was more… normal, more himself… he shared what his ‘friend’ had truly told him. Things he denies now, pretends to have never heard. That Chars like us—we simply don’t have the power, the abilities, to survive. It’s just a pity. A pity we won’t get to talk more before we go through. That’s all.”
And then she resumed walking into the darkness.
Scorio stopped and stared after her. She’d drawn away a dozen yards before he clenched his jaw and hurried after.
Chapter 8
The Brass Door was a massive wall of dull metal embedded in the side of a circular cavern. Its ornate construction was at odds with the rough stone around it, and it appeared otherworldly in the light of the blue-burning moss. Like some ancient treasure espied at the bottom of the sea.
Sal was busy with his mechanism, his movements verging on frantic, as Havert and Hestia sat to one side, clubs laid over their laps, packs against the wall.
“You’re alive,” said Hestia with a hesitant smile. “Glad you survived the cure.”
“Was there any doubt?” barked Sal, tugging on a rope. “I am an herbalist without equal. Scorio lives because of me. He literally owes me his life.”
“A debt of gratitude, to be sure,” said Scorio, unshouldering his pack and moving to where Sal worked. “Thank you, Sal.”
“Bah. You’re welcome, I suppose. There. We’re about ready. You time your recovery with admirable precision. Behold! The wonders of a brilliant mind.” And Sal stepped back, arms thrown out wide, to present a series of ropes and wooden and bone blocks that hung in a column from the ceiling before the door.
“Impressive,” said Scorio, not understanding what he was looking at. “How does it work?”
“Ah! You take in with but a glance what it has taken me years to devise! Observe. There, affixed to the ceiling—with great effort, might I add—is an iron hook, fashioned from a blade Radert gifted me, and screwed in to a depth of some dozen inches. From this simple hook hangs a thick rope, twined from our original robes, belts, and all manner of tough fibers that we have harvested over the years. Sinew, Lasher tentacles, everything we can think of. This rope descends to these pulleys, winding up and down, around and around.”
Scorio pursed his lips. “And, ah, how does this open the Brass Door?”
“Force multiplication! No magic here, no impossible talents.” He drew a second hook from within his sash. “We mere Chars will slide this metal hook under the door, then turn it so that it catches on the other side. We then attach it to the lowermost pulley, and pull upon this length of rope here to haul the door open.”
Scorio considered the massive brass door. “It looks pretty heavy.”
Sal threw up his arms. “And it is! But this system of mine will multiply our strength by four times. We shall become twenty, a host hauling upon its edge. Though, if it doesn’t work, I’ll have to find a way to add more circles to the system, make longer rope, and wait another year for someone else to assist us… but it will work! I know it will.”
Scorio again considered the Brass Door. “And if there are fiends on the far side?”
“Hestia will rush forward and place this stone under the door once we’ve lifted it a foot,” said Sal, rushing over to where a dark block was placed but a few feet from the door. “If anything wishes to crawl through at that point, we’ll club in their heads. Then, once the way is clear, we’ll squeeze through ourselves, and venture forth into the great unknown!”
Scorio nodded pensively, looking back and forth, then finally back to Sal. “I’m no engineer, but I’m happy to give it a try.”
“Then let us begin! After five years of patience, I find myself unable to wait a moment more.” He clapped his hands energetically. “Everyone, look lively now! Hestia, at the front. Now to squeeze the hook under the door and make sure it holds…”
Sal grabbed his hook, which looked to be a sword blade hammered into the base of a rectangle, and slid it under an exceedingly thin groove that had been chiseled out under the Brass Door. This he then righted, and eyes narrowed, tongue jutting out of the corner of his mouth, he fiddled and adjusted till it caught.
“Took me four months to get that hook made just right.” He leaped to his feet, his energy manic. “Four months! But the dimensions are precise. Now it simply needs to hold the door’s weight without flattening out. Havert, bring the lowest pulley over to me.”
Havert stood and hurried over, took hold of the large, bottom-most circle, and carefully swung it over. Sal elongated the ropes connecting everything so that it connected to the hook, and then raced over to where the long rope was tied to the pack.
“There! Now, Hestia, Hestia, come on, my dear, look alive. Grab the rope here at the front. Then Scorio, then Havert, just so. Nissa? Thank you. I’ll hold the rear. Do we have enough rope? Squeeze forward, I’ve nothing to hold onto. Very well. Everybody got a good grip? When I give the count of three, begin pulling gently, oh so gently. And if we are fortunate, if we are owed anything by this wretched world, the components shall hold. Are we ready?”
Scorio flexed his fingers then gripped the oily rope. If only Leonis were here. He’d be worth almost the rest of the entire team alone.
“One!” Sal’s voice cracked with excitement. “Steady now! Two! Deep breath! Three!”
Everybody leaned back, digging their heels in, and hauled on the rope. Scorio watched anxiously as everything went taut, the pulleys vibrating in their places, the rope creaking and growing leaner.
He pulled harder, bending his knees, leaning back. No movement, but he thought he heard a low grinding come from the top of the door.
“She’s holding!” shouted Sal. “Now, everything you’ve got! This is it! Pull, you fools, pull for your lives!”
Scorio grit his teeth and hauled back with everything he had, hearing Havert grunt behind him.
And the base of the door began to lift. Slowly, impossibly slowly, the door began to open, upward and out, swiveling from hinges hidden at the top.
Hands burning, shoulders on fire, Scorio bent his legs further and heaved.
“The hook’s straightening!” gasped Havert.
He was right. The iron was slowly emerging from under the door frame. Dust was filtering down from around the ceiling hook. Threads were splitting along the length of the rope, popping and peeling back as the pressure became too much.