the windows were bright from lights flickering in the chambers within; the rounded bulwarks of attached and window-lined bastions jutted from it at regular intervals—perhaps ten of them across the breadth of Colemaigne.
The tower leg sank out of sight below the railing. Diverus, wedged between his guides, couldn’t lean over the edge to see what lay below. He was being guided toward a small portcullis in the leg.
Along the front of the tower wall ran a wide avenue, still in deep shadow. Beneath the lowest tier of windows in the tower stood carts and makeshift stalls. The street itself was littered with confetti and streamers as if a parade had passed by earlier. Neither of the woodmen seemed to take any notice. They crossed it briskly.
The portcullis turned out to house a gate that opened on well-oiled hinges. Inside the tower leg, dank and dark, stairs spiraled down along a central shaft, and Diverus followed his companions in their descent beneath the surface of Colemaigne.
The pillar did not offer any windows or landings along the way. The light, what there was of it, came up the open shaft from the water far below, while the way to the top, so far as he could tell from leaning his head back, receded into darkness. There must have been doors to the various levels of habitation, but those likewise all must have been closed.
The trio spiraled to the bottom. There the exit was barred with another iron gate, and this one seemed to be locked, reminding Diverus all too uncomfortably of the paidika. While the woodmen fiddled with the latch, he circled the open well to the water in the middle. If the tower leg extended all the way to the seabed below, as it surely must, then there had to be holes or cracks in the stone, letting in the dark water.
Finally, the gate creaked open, and he looked up to see one of the woodmen lifting the lock aside. He followed them out onto a wide shelf that girdled the columnar leg. One peered over the edge. The other struck a pose and indicated that Diverus should look above.
He turned as the two of them glanced at each other with obvious consternation.
Overhead was a huge transverse arch, its ribs chalky with calciferous stalactites. It curved to the center of the span, where more support pillars jutted down. Beyond them another arch reached to the far side. Even at its lowest point the ceiling was high enough for small sailing vessels to pass, but it was nowhere near the height of the span, and there was no undercity there, no levels of desperate, squalid habitation as he had known beneath Vijnagar. The thicker structure didn’t allow for them. Diverus said, “There’s nothing at all.”
The woodmen circled the tower leg, scanning the arch. They completed their circuit, then dejectedly came over to him and patted his shoulders.
“So,” he said, “there was an inverted span up there once?”
In unison the two shrugged.
“You never actually saw it yourselves, did you?”
One shook his head. The other pressed fingers to thumbs repeatedly.
“Talk. You heard people talk of it.”
The nearest woodman touched one finger to his nose and smiled, opening his hands as if to say they’d meant no harm. For all they knew, after all, it might have been here.
Diverus started to say that he had actually seen the place, then decided against it. What could they possibly add to what he already knew? He’d asked them if they had heard of it, and they had. There was nothing more they could tell him.
Disheartened, the two woodmen plodded back to the gate. Diverus ushered them along and then closed the gate after them, choosing to remain behind by himself. They reached through the bars for him, but he said, “No, I’ll be fine. You tell them at the Terrestre where I am. I’ll be along in a while.”
He watched them climb out of sight, unable to explain to them why he felt compelled to linger when there was nothing to see. He couldn’t have explained it to himself.
He sat on the shadowed side of the ledge, removed his sandals, and dangled his feet into the water, sloshing them back and forth and peering into the ripples. Sunlight reflected in the depths below him revealed the moss on the bridge support, thick tendrils of it waving lazily back and forth in green-gold depths full of darting fish. He tried to imagine a fathomless world where the light