He felt the choking fog wash over the treasure, pass through it.
Nothing happened.
Gritting his teeth, Scorio visualized the bar. Saw in his mind’s eye the swirling script. Imagined it a glass into which he was pouring water, a receptacle for the fog.
Felt the faintest breath of it enter the rod, sink into its essence, and there… bind? Conjoin? The black energy melded with the rod’s fabric. Scorio felt the enigmatic script blaze to life, and a portion of the sooty cloud simply burned away and was consumed.
Fierce joy surged within his breast, and he went to pump his fist into the air only to realize it was trapped, pressed tight against his thigh by the rod itself.
Scorio opened his eyes and stared in wonder. The rod was pinning his hand to his thigh. He yanked but it remained frozen in the air. The script was alive with a black flame, the lettering perfectly traced by an inner radiance.
He’d done it. He’d activated the bar.
Scorio drew his fingers free and then worked his leg out as well. The rod remained floating some six inches off the ground. Scorio wanted to laugh, to—in a fit of delirium—call out to Radert and tell him what he’d done.
Instead, he took hold of the rod and pulled. Stood, and stomped on it.
There was no give whatsoever.
His smile slowly faded. What if he couldn’t undo the activation? What if it was stuck there, and he’d have to leave it behind—?
The blue light from the script faded, and the steel bar fell to the stone ground with a clink.
Oh.
Scorio picked it up and turned it about in his hands, but the script was now barely visible. Had it burned through all the cloud essence he’d pushed inside it?
Again he sat and sank into that dark space where his Igneous Heart floated. Again he opened his perception to take in the heavy, ambient cloud that hung all around him, and this time he focused his attention on the rod in his hand.
Which felt like a funnel once more, its core empty, hungry.
Huh.
Taking measured breaths, Scorio set to swirling the cloud about himself, feeling like a man stirring a huge vat of mud with a wooden paddle, and again brought the cloud into his sanctum. Again he directed it down to the rod, focused on filling that hunger, on pushing as much of the black cloud into its core as he could.
It felt like trying to stuff cushions into a drinking cup.
He felt the script flare to life, and once again the rod froze in the air. This time Scorio didn’t stop; he kept stirring the sooty black cloud, swirling it about himself, and into the rod. But now it passed around and refused to enter, like falling leaves drifting down past a pole.
Scorio opened his eyes and set to counting as he stared at the rod. It hung at chest height, gleaming softly in the mosslight, the script illuminated. He watched carefully and had reached six seconds when the script dulled and died, and the rod fell into his waiting palm.
Tonguing his cheek thoughtfully, Scorio set the rod aside and took up the bridge. If it functioned in the same manner, directing the sooty cloud into its—funnel? He didn’t know what else to call it—would cause it to activate.
And having a bridge explode into full size in his lap was a precarious proposition.
Scorio set the bridge a good six feet away, placed so it would expand to his left and right, then returned to his seat.
Closing his eyes, he focused on bringing his Igneous Heart into view, then once more stirred the sluggish clouds into action. Were there fewer of them now? They felt as if they’d thinned out some. He formed that vortex-like pull around his heart, and when he had the clouds streaming about him as quickly as he could manage, he searched for the bridge’s own pull.
And could barely sense it. The faintest of pinpricks in the far distance. With sweat prickling his brow from effort, he tried a half-hearted attempt to direct the dark clouds toward that pull, but it was like casting sand into the waves. The moment the clouds left the space around his Heart, they stilled and became inert.
Eyes clenched tight, he crawled toward the bridge. The Heart slipped from his focus, but he brought it back through sheer determination, and reached out to the bridge, fumbling across the damp stone till he touched it.
There. The sense of its being a funnel became distinct. Drawing on the clouds once more, he channeled their darkness down and into the tiny bridge, seeking to fill it to the brim.
At first, nothing happened, but then the treasure must have passed a threshold, because it blazed in his mind’s eye, and he felt it jerk beneath his hand, crashing outward and jolting upward.
Startled, Scorio fell back, eyes snapping open, and he saw a large, arched bridge trapped between the stalagmites, turned half on its side, and rising into the air.
He marveled.
It was easily eight or ten yards long, perhaps two across, and built of stout timbers that were tightly lashed together with thick rope to reinforce the bolts driven through the beams. Railings rose on either side, and the planks were fitted closely together, making for a secure and smooth path from one end to the other.
Just as quickly as it had formed, the bridge shrank, sinking to where its far end touched the rocky ground, losing itself in the shadows.
Scooping up some moss, Scorio hurried over and picked it up. It had taken no damage despite bursting its way forth between the rocky spires.
He turned it over in his hands. It had extended away from the starting point, not out in both directions. Searching its miniature planks, he found a little metal triangle embedded in the left-most beam, its tip pointing across the rest of the bridge. The direction of expansion? And then it shrank down on the far side, which made sense. What use leaving your bridge behind on the wrong side of a chasm?
Cheered, he made his way back to his other belongings and considered them. Neither the bridge nor the bar lasted long—a handful of seconds at best. Curious, he went back to the chalky line he’d drawn and tested the air above it. Still firm. So at least that lasted a good amount of time.
They gave him options, though. A chance to escape this lethal labyrinth and out into Bastion.
At last, even his excitement proved unable to resist his exhaustion. Manipulating those dark clouds of energy had depleted him more than he’d expected. He lay down, propped his head on his arm, and closed his eyes. He slept uneasily and had no way of telling for how long he lay there. But Radert’s unmolested cadaver indicated this place wasn’t frequented by scavengers, so he allowed himself to feel a tenuous sense of confidence.
When he awoke, he was stiff and sore. His leg barely held his weight, and though he couldn’t see them, he knew he’d suffered cuts across his back and shoulders from the death crickets.
Taking a sip from his water, he gathered his meager belongings. The lamp-moss was now at half its previous radiance, limiting his sphere of vision to six or so yards before him, and even that was a ghostly half-light.
Not ideal.
But without any choice in the matter, he tucked it all inside his robe, held a large wad in one hand and Radert’s dagger in the other.
He paused by the cadaver, unsure what he should say or do. If Lianshi had been here, she’d no doubt have wanted to honor the dead. Feeling a connection to her through the memory, but unable to bury the body or say anything meaningful about the man, Scorio simply inclined his head in gratitude and respect and moved on.
The cavern was a bowl drained by narrow grooves he couldn’t fit into. He did a slow circumference of the chamber, and by holding up his moss got a sense of other tunnels opening in the walls high above. Was he in some manner of central drainage area?
The walls were slick, smooth, and utterly defied any attempts to be climbed. Instead, he spotted what seemed a promising ledge some six or seven yards above and set the bridge upon the ground. Gauging the angle carefully, he propped it up and aimed its far end into the air.