“I was on the Via Salita,” I said, stepping gingerly around a barrier of rocks and packed dirt that I hoped would prevent us slipping down the steeps.
Behind the barrier Placidio had excavated a sizeable crater, deep enough to shield Dumond, who was crouched in its center, from view of anyone but birds—or anyone stupid enough to stand above us on the broken hillside. The metalsmith was setting a square of wood at the lowest point of the crater and packing the earth around it tightly to make a stable boundary. The square was painted with the perfect image of a trapdoor hinged to a wood frame.
Dumond could lay his hands on one of his painted doors, using his magic to convert that flat image into a true door that opened onto another place. If he painted the image on an ordinary wall, we could walk through to the other side. With substantially more effort, he could paint an exactly matching door somewhere else not too far distant, and we could walk from one place to the other. Such a work used everything he had. But thick, dense barriers like masonry and earth, with no matching door waiting, made everything far more difficult. This one? We would see.
“I’m ready,” he said. “Didn’t bring my paints, but it won’t be the failure of the art if this doesn’t work.”
“Maybe two of us joining in, first,” said Placidio. “No need to sap all our reserves if we don’t need to. I’ll keep shoveling. Watch for sniffers or other busybodies.”
“Vashti sent these,” said Dumond, pulling a wad of black out of his pack. “In case we’re successful.”
Masks. Vashti kept a supply of black scarves cut with eyeholes for Chimera business. I tucked mine into a pocket. No one would remark them today.
My brother scooted down into the crater, knelt beside Dumond, and laid a hand on his shoulder. I did the same. As Placidio’s shovel took up its rhythmic crunch, Dumond held his hands above the painted door. A deep, quiet, steady heat passed through my hand and into my veins, as if my blood had turned to mead. Magic … Dumond’s magic.
Dancing blue flames appeared over the metalsmith’s open palms, vanishing only when he pressed his palms to his painting. “Cederé,” he said. Give way.
On a simple crossing, it would be only moments until the painted door took on the dimension of truth. So deep as this …
Time swirled and puddled, going nowhere. Sweat beaded on Dumond’s forehead. Wisps of his dun-colored hair were stuck to his head. Neri and I glanced at each other. I spoke with lips, not voice. You.
A nod and Neri closed his eyes. Like liquid sunlight, my brother’s power joined Dumond’s. Strengthened it as well, it seemed, for the painted door wavered, an ever-so-slight shifting of light that gave it bulk and thickness. But in moments it was flat again, and it was my turn.
I focused on the imagining of those who could be trapped in a crowded shed in the pitchy dark. Hot, breathless, feeling the air decay around them. Surely the absence of any sound beyond themselves would speak a certainty that they were already in their graves. Reach for them, Dumond. Your gift is their hope.
Bringing all my will to bear, I dipped into my own well of power, bidding it join the river my brother and my friend had made.
“There!” snapped Placidio. “Get the ropes.”
Dumond yanked the iron handle. The hinges that had moments before been naught but a mix of powdered pigments and oil on wood opened smoothly to a well of blackness.
The three of us knelt carefully at the edge but could hear nothing.
“Fortune’s dam, let the ladder be long enough,” said Dumond, unfurling the bundle of rope he’d carried up.
Dumond kept the rope ladder in the single upper room where his family slept, ready to drop out the window and provide a way out if sniffers came hunting in the night. The ladder was fixed to a notched beam of ash just long enough to fit across a window opening—or a trapdoor—and strong enough to support the hanging ladder and whoever was on it.
“Vashti’s idea,” said Dumond. He pulled a handful of long spikes, a coil of wire, and a hammer from his pack, and proceeded to poke one of the spikes into the rubble here and there, until he found a spot where it encountered solid resistance. Once he’d hammered the spike into the ground, he used a length of wire to anchor one end of the crossbeam to the spike.
“Not so reliable on unsettled ground,” he said, as he started poking around with the next spike. “But better than naught.”
Meanwhile Neri unfurled his coil of rope and tied one end firmly about his waist. He tossed the coil to Placidio, who knotted the other end about his own waist and pulled on thick leather gloves.
“Wait!” I said, understanding instantly what they were about.
“Somebody’s gotta go down,” said Neri, tying on Vashti’s scarf mask.
But if the earth collapsed again, even Neri’s magic wouldn’t get him out. My brother could walk through walls of brick or stone if there was an object he wanted badly enough on the other side. But he had to be walking, not buried under half a hillside.
“No discussion,” snapped Placidio as I opened my mouth to argue. “You, lady scribe, must help anyone we rescue get down the hill; you’re the only one can make sure they don’t give us away. Dumond keeps his ladder from getting jerked loose and hauls people out. I hold the safety rope. That leaves Neri to go down. I won’t let him fall … or get stranded. Certain, I felt the anticipation … before the quake. Always do.”
I didn’t ask Placidio how long his magical gift of anticipation gave him before the earth shook. Even for one with his honed reflexes, it was likely just enough to save his own life. In no way would it be long enough to haul Neri up if Dragonis raged again. Perhaps the dreadful pain in my head before the quake actually began was a touch of Placidio’s gift of anticipation. Did his linger so long as this one?
Rage … The memory of the bawling fury in my head just before the earth shook could make a person believe in the gloriously beautiful monster who had tried to rape Mother Gione so she would beget him children. According to the Canon of the Creation, that crime had set off a millennium of divine warfare that ended only when Atladu, god of sea and sky, had raised a Leviathan from the deeps of Ocean to sweep Dragonis from the sky and imprison him under the lands of the Costa Drago. Exhausted by the war, the gods had retired to the Night Eternal, abandoning their human charges.
I had never believed any of it. But then charming, mysterious Teo had raised questions and imaginings that challenged my whole concept of our god stories. What would he say of this dreadful day?
Neri’s black curls vanished below the rim. Placidio sat on the upsloping face of his shallow crater, knees bent, boots dug into packed dirt. He kept a light tension on the coiled rope that lay in front of him, slowly unwinding as Neri climbed down the rope ladder. Dread settled in my gut like a cartload of cannonballs that would not be relieved until my brother returned whole and healthy.
Certain, their plan made sense. I didn’t have to like it.
Only a few coils remained when I flattened myself on the rubble and peered down the dark hole.
“Anyone down here?” Neri’s quiet call was clear, but scarce hearable. He didn’t want to attract attention from those beyond our crater.
A pale, ivory light flared—one of the few magical skills any of us had learned beyond our inborn talent. The darkness in that hole devoured it. Surely Neri wouldn’t let anyone see its origin.