Abyl was yet another example of their control. His loyalty was strong and annoyingly lingering, but he did seem genuinely curious. Maybe Ry did have a point about curiosity. Kaydin wondered what other workers would have done had they noticed the sixth bulb. Would they have taken the same actions Abyl did? It was hard to know, especially since Kaydin happened to be in Growing Room One that same night. His being there affected Abyl's actions the following day.
There’s something about him, though. He moved too fast. The sentinel should have mauled him, but he got off with only a few scratches.
Kaydin turned away from the wall. He whispered to the glowworms wrapped around his wrist. They offered less light than earthlights, but required no turma. He checked that the pickaxe was still tied securely to his belt and bent to enter the tunnel. He met a drop-off not far along.
I remember this. This was as far as I got last time. He dropped a small stone, listening for a sound. He counted to two. Several pitches down. Dag could not have cut this one; it was too tricky to carve downwards so sharply.
He shimmied out above the drop off, hands and feet straddling opposite walls. Without proper holds, he would have to keep pressure on three points, then move the fourth limb down a step.
Several minutes later, forearms twitching from strain, he reached the bottom. He sang a soft tune Ry used to sing him as a young boy, and the glowworms wriggled. Kaydin lifted his arm into the room.
This is where the dotted lines lead.
A circular room, jagged edges. It was probably just a natural crevice in the limestone. That, or Dag was taking out his frustration on these walls.
Kaydin retraced his path in his head. He liked to compare his position relative to the chasm and the main chasm walks running parallel to the chasm, which were connected by the chasm bridge. Haven’s main entry corridor was maybe three pitches below the walkways. And he’d climbed several more. He was perhaps ten pitches below the walkways.
This is as deep as I’ve gone.
Kaydin and Gara loved discussing the possible entry points into various rooms and caverns in the city. The one that evaded them—and the only one that mattered—was the escape point from the city itself. If it still existed. The exit that Dag, Ry, Dylan, Mirai and baby Kaydin had attempted to take began about six or seven pitches down from the chasm bridge where the Rahz Spire connected to the apex of the chasm. Ry had since warned Kaydin that it was blocked, but Kaydin had scouted it out anyway once old enough to climb confidently. From as close as he dared go alone, it sure looked blocked. Just a sheer stone cliff face.
Kaydin assessed his current position again, following Dag’s journal. If a way out even existed, this particular path was unlikely to lead to it. It was too far down and led well away from the Rahz Spire. At least I’m unlikely to run into sentinels.
Kaydin fingered his pickaxe and took a swing at the wall across from his drop-in point. Surprisingly, the rock crumbled easily. He stepped out of the way to avoid them crushing his feet. That’s interesting. Kaydin hacked at the wall again, releasing more stone. The wall was not really a wall after all, but a kind of crevice. He broke away a few body length’s of rock, slowly maneuvering his body further in. A few more swings and he found an opening he could pass through.
Air brushed against Kaydin’s chin and into his nostrils. He smelled something unmistakeable. The stone underfoot was damp. Moisture coming up on a draft.
Water.
His glowworms shone into the darkness. Kaydin traced the jagged platform ahead a few paces to what seemed like a drop-off. Darkness engulfed him only a few steps forward. Kaydin knocked gently on the wall with the blunt side of his pickaxe. The reverberation echoed out into the cavern, then down.
So the roof is near, but the cavern descends further. Much, much further.
Kaydin dropped another pebble over the edge. Even with a dose of turma resting within him, his advanced ears didn’t pick up a sound. That was surprising.
I’ll call it Kaydin’s Abyss.
He could even start his own city, he considered slyly.
Kaydin reached into his belt for a vial of turma. He downed it, willing it from his chest into his head, pushing it back and to the bottom. He closed his eyes a moment and used Retain. The tickle on his eyelids indicated the activation was successful.
Time to see if there’s a way down from here.
He drew out an earthlight shard, whispered it to life and tossed it into the utter dark. It was a large price to pay. But how that stone fell! It careened, spinning, until it was a mere point of light like the stars in Ry’s tales of the Above.
A tone echoed from behind him. It was faint, but it drew Kaydin into the familiar memory of a snowy hill. The first toll. It was fainter here, so far away from the Rahz Spire where the gong was rung.
Chapter 16
Abyl did another round of watering up and down the stone pillars. He wondered how things were going in Growing Room One. When the first toll sounded, he nearly fell off. The familiar memory struck him. A white hillside, stark light peeking from his periphery, then the shadow attacking him. What these people liked to call sentinels.
“Hey Abyl,” said Maryn. “Getting lost up there?” She pointed to her head.
“Guess so,” said Abyl.
“You’re not thinking of leaving are you?”
“Ry said it didn’t hurt to think about it.”
She laughed. “True enough. Just be mindful of your actions. After all the trouble we went to get you out, I don’t think the others would be so pleased to lose you.”
Abyl met her at the base of the stone, unhooking a thorn from a vine that wanted a little more to drink. He quenched its thirst with a tilt of his pot.
Maryn smiled. “I don’t think I can get you back in, but I can at least get you a glimpse of Director Dimah. What do you say?”
Abyl stood, facing Maryn. “Okay, I’ll go.”
“It’ll be fun,” said Maryn.
Abyl was pleased to get out of Haven's growing cave, to do something different. It was odd, but for half his life he’d been a grower and hadn’t cared a bit. He’d just gotten to do much of the same work, but hadn’t really enjoyed it. Maybe it was the climbing bit. Up and down the stone pillars was annoying. Or maybe...Maybe it was because I never remembered the shift before. Each day was genuinely new.
They started down the hall toward the main room, passing a dark doorway on their right which Abyl had not seen before. “What’s in that room?”
“That’s the training room,” said Maryn. The light from the hallway shone in just enough for Abyl to make out a wall rising into relative darkness.
“What do you do in there?”
“Climb, fight, test new tools. It’s usually where you’ll find the boys before and after supper. Sometimes Bel and I will watch if we’re not preparing the food or minding the plants. These days, with Bel carrying a baby, I have more to do.”
“She’s with child?”
Maryn made a curving gesture across her stomach. “Can’t you tell?”
Abyl wanted to have a look at the training room but Maryn pulled him along. “So you help Bel with her jobs?”
“Did you already forget what Ry said about being a family?”
Abyl frowned.
“I’m