What are you doing here so late? Maybe he was curious how the bulbs had made their big turnaround since Director Dimah took over from his predecessor. Kaydin frowned; Haven still didn’t know why Director Leber was so suddenly sent to his death in the Abyss.
“Growing fast, aren’t they?” said Kaydin, approaching the worker.
The worker started, but turned the attention back on Kaydin. “Why are you still here?”
Of course, Kaydin should have assumed he would be taken for a worker. “I’m new, so I was a little slower today.”
“Wasn’t your training sufficient?” He kept glancing down at the leafy folds of the turma plant at their feet.
Kaydin tried to calm him. If nothing else, he imagined the worker might find his stubbled beard intimidating. “I think I’ll learn fast. But maybe they will give me a new uniform tomorrow?” Kaydin laughed to diffuse the tension.
“Perhaps Director Dimah will provide you another back at quarters.”
“Sure,” said Kaydin. “So, what was it you were looking at?”
“I think I should be going.”
“It’s okay,” said Kaydin quickly, “I’m not a director in disguise. I’m curious, too.”
The worker turned back to face Kaydin. “Quickly. The toll will ring soon.” He lifted a leaf to reveal the bulbs huddled around the stalk. “Normally the turma plants have five bulbs. But this one has six.”
“Interesting,” said Kaydin casually. But this was fascinating. With his knife he cut the entire bulb from the plant.
The worker gasped. “You can’t do that, it’s not ready for harvest!”
“You mean I wasn’t supposed to do that?” He flashed a sly grin.
The worker was distracted, felt his nose, sniffed, and looked down as he wiggled his toes. Kaydin knew he'd caught a whiff of the turma powder. He was going to make a comment about it, but he was interrupted.
A low tone echoed through the walls around them: the first toll.
“We should go,” said the worker urgently. “You’re new aren't you? Do you know the way back?”
“I’ll be alright,” said Kaydin, smiling again, brushing his hair from his eyes. The worker grimaced, confused.
“But you should probably go now,” said Kaydin. As the worker continued to stare at him, Kaydin raised his eyebrows. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to be out past the second toll.”
“Well…then, goodbye, and," the worker searched for word, "may you descend in peace.”
Kaydin watched as the adolescent strode quickly to the front of the small cavern, only making noise as he replaced his tools in the alcoves lining the entrance wall. Kaydin shook his head. The poor boy thought I couldn’t handle himself when the sentinels came out to play.
Chapter 4
The stone steps led the worker from the growing room toward the chasm bridge. Underfoot, the obsidian was cool, and his leg hairs were made rigid by the air streaming up from the Abyss.
The worker walked along the middle of the bridge to avoid looking down to where those possessed spirits roamed. The shadows. They took the shape of an overgrown lizard and their movement was faster than thought. At the halfway point he glanced to his right. There was the Rahz Spire, a jagged obsidian tower rising like a disjointed finger from the knuckling limestone lips of the chasm. Against all judgment, the worker stopped to gaze upon the monument.
Empty balconies curled up its perimeter. He saw no-one, but he hoped the Rahz were watching over him. He hoped they were protecting him from the the shadows. He hoped. Then his eyes found a small patch of red like an earthlight's glow. So faint, and so high! But his awe was cut short.
A hiss sliced through the darkness. He remembered where he was, and where he should be going. He briefly imagined a scene where the noise hadn't come to him. He failed, and fear took him.
He urged his legs forward. As he carried himself along the bridge, he realized he had not run since he was a young child. At the bridge’s end he followed the path at chasm's edge. Glancing up and to his right the red glow remained and he asked for protection, reached out for it with his mind. Just a little further now. His heart thumped repeatedly.
As he neared the workers’ quarters, he wondered if he would be let in. Another hiss cut through the crevices in the stiff air.
He took the brief stairway two and three steps at a time. He slapped his hand against stone. “Let me in!” he cried. But there was no reply except his voice echoing through the cavern behind him. I’m too late. He pounded both his fists against the rock face. “I’m here, outside!” He pressed his ear against the stone, panting. “Let me in,” he whispered. He dared not turn around, afraid the shadows would greet him, lifting him in their jaws and carry him down into the Abyss. I guess this is it for me.
The wall moved and a hand was on the scruff of his neck, pulling him in. “You’re late."
Chapter 5
Kaydin closed his eyes and unlit Retain. The sharp after-image of the boy’s portrait disappeared beyond the door, fading to mere echoes on the back of his eyelids. He opened his eyes.
On with the job. He exchanged several more earthlights. The first dislodged easily. The second forced him to scratch the stone with his knife. The larger stones within which the earthlights were embedded didn’t always want to give up their eyes. Just as he took the third, something wrapped his wrist. A vine. He tugged but the tendrils sunk their thorns deeper. Fortunately Kaydin had tangled with them before. He let his arm give, then slashed through the vine just as the thorns receded. He skipped out of range of two vines that had crept toward his feet. The plants liked their earthlights, too.
From his sixteen years of hiding in the bowels of this city, Kaydin knew the time lapse between tolls instinctively. He was almost out of time. His inner rhythm, which played in his consciousness as a drum, reached its climactic crescendo with a second gong. It had the same quality of the first toll, but a half-pitch lower. The start of the tone brought to Kaydin's mind the familiar image of a white cliff sprinkled with light. Part way through the reverberation the snow fell away from the cliff. At its conclusion, he glimpsed a forest path leading to a clearing; there, looking out on what Ry had called mountains, waited a bench.
Kaydin felt the satchel pocket’s bulge and knew he was almost done. He came to a dip in the room’s topography and leaned into a crevice. There an earthlight shone across the vines lining the alcove. The woody tentacles slid toward him but eased back when he showed them his knife. As Kaydin reached for the light-giving stone, he heard something he’d not expected quite so soon. A hiss.
He wanted to take the stone. It was a bright one, crimson blended with amber. But, hearing claws scrape against stone near the cavern's entry, he had to pull way.
Kaydin hugged the side wall as he moved away from the entrance. He climbed the large stone he'd used before. He spotted the holds he wanted on the balcony wall just as a hiss slithered through the air. He could hear the beast coming. The grips of its claws and the swish of its long tail. Catch me if you can, sentinel. Kaydin prepared himself. A mistake at this height could be fatal with or without the sentinel. Now or never.
For a breath he was airborne. His hands connected with the holds; his nine fingers tightly gripped them. A moment later his feet caught the wall too. He flipped himself up and over the railing, then, in one motion, located his crawlspace and dove through the opening. He found the hand holds, twisted them, sliding the block back into place.
Crouching below the slit, satchel of stones on his lap, Kaydin listened for the sentinel. The scrapes seemed to come from below, as if the sentinel was scaling