As he stood back up slowly, he grabbed the hook, attached the board to the brake, and threw the brake onto the whizzing lines. He squeezed the brake, all too aware that if he didn’t brake quickly he might hit the bottom of the shaft at incredible speed, but if he braked too quickly he could break either the board or his own legs.
His legs trembling from the strain of trying to remain standing as he rapidly decelerated, he passed five broad white lines painted on all walls of the shaft. It was the warning that he was almost to the bottom. A moment later, he passed four broad white lines. Still too fast. Three. Two.
Okay, not too bad. One.
He hit the ground with a surprisingly hard thump. His natural reaction was to try to roll with the impact—which didn’t work well, given that there wasn’t any slack in the rope. He flopped over onto his back and rolled on top of the mag torch. It burned through his shirt instantly.
Gavin jumped to his feet with a yelp. Mercifully, the shirt didn’t catch fire. He examined the angry red burn on his ribs. Very painful, but not very serious. He unhooked himself from the lift.
The chamber at the bottom of the lift was only four paces square. Gavin saw none of it. In the blue light of the mag torch, he walked to one blue wall. At his touch, it became translucent, but there was nothing behind it. Not yet. Slowly, ever so slowly, the chamber opposite lifted from its resting place and spun into position.
This was Gavin’s greatest work. He’d constructed it in one furious month, sinking everything he knew into it. But whenever he called the blue chamber forth, his heart seized. And it did so today. The slow speed of the blue chamber’s lift and rotation was necessary so that the man inside wouldn’t even know he was moving.
On the other hand, it gave Gavin five minutes with nothing to do but wait. It would be empty today. Dear Orholam. Gavin’s chest tightened. It was hard to breathe. The chamber was too small. There was no air. Breathe, Gavin, breathe. Paint that nonchalance on thick.
Finally, the translucence revealed the smooth globe of the dungeon’s interior. Opposite Gavin stood a man who looked much like himself, though thinner, less muscular, dirtier, and with longer hair.
“Hello, brother,” Gavin said.
Chapter 35
“Now this,” Ironfist said, “is how you should be introduced to the Chromeria. High tide and dawn.” He’d arrived before dawn, waking Kip to the bewildered feeling of not knowing if it was morning or night. Kip had only slowly been able to get his bearings as the commander hustled him through the less-crowded streets, finally cresting this hill. “They call it the Glass Lily,” Ironfist said. “A rather softer name than it deserves, but then steel isn’t transparent, is it?”
As they crested the hill, on first glance, the Chromeria did look something like a flower. Six towers in a hexagon surrounded one central tower. Because Little Jasper rose in altitude from south to north, the towers farther away from Kip rose higher, though all were the same height from base to tip. And each tower was completely transparent on its south side. Completing the odd flower imagery was the bridge, if it could be called a bridge.
The bridge crossing the ocean between Big Jasper and Little Jasper was green, like a flower’s stem, heading right to the flaring towers and the bulbous walls that actually hung past vertical. But not only was the bridge green, it wasn’t supported by anything. It lay at the surface of the water. It wasn’t floating, because it didn’t move with the waves, and the sea was choppy on one side of it and much calmer on the other.
“Why green?” Kip asked, trying to kick his brain into working. Wasn’t green flexible?
“It’s blue reinforced with yellow. It only looks green,” Ironfist said, resuming his walk toward the bridge. Kip hurried to keep up, having difficulty gawking and walking at the same time, all tiredness fled.
“Yellow?” Kip asked. “How does that work? The Pr—erm, my uncle hasn’t told me anything about yellow.”
Ironfist looked at Kip, his gaze heavy as a sledge. He didn’t answer, not even when Kip shut up and walked quietly alongside him, looking expectantly up at the big man but not bothering him.
Finally, Ironfist glanced at Kip. “Do I look like a magister to you?”