and started wriggling down it in my underwear.
26
Going headfirst down a three-story shaft in complete darkness isn’t ever going to do well as a recreational business. I was completely reliant on keeping pressure against the walls to prevent me from falling. In that, the limited space was actually useful—it meant more of my body’s surface area could be pressed against the walls, and less strain being placed on any one spot.
Unless the hand-cut stone shaft narrowed along the line and I got stuck, in which case I was just screwed. Or if it got a lot wider, in which case, also screwed. I might be kind of tough, but a three-story fall onto my head wasn’t going to end well.
I started shimmying down. It was tough work, but I’d been doing a lot of cardio.
Lara had evidently left the dumbwaiter door open behind her, because there was dim light coming through, showing me a lumpy mass of white towels at the bottom of the shaft, as well as the shape of the walls. Once I had an idea of distance, it was possible to move more quickly—I could just relax a little and half slide down.
I paid with a little skin, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The stones of the castle were ancient. Time (and I didn’t want to think too closely about what else) had worn off many of the rough edges. As long as I didn’t start bleeding and making the walls slippery, I should be fine.
Fine. I felt like a wad of paper trying not to be blown through a straw, but other than that, everything was super.
I went down carefully, moving only one limb at a time, like the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Except that I couldn’t actually stick to walls. And if I slipped, I didn’t have any webbing to save myself with, and I’d fall and break my neck.
“ ‘Friendly neighborhood Spider Man,’ ” I sang under my breath, and inched lower.
My shoulders stuck.
My heart started beating a lot faster.
Not because I was scared or anything. This was just cardio.
It’s not like I was experiencing claustrophobia. I was a wizard of the White Council. We don’t let our emotions control us.
I forced myself to breathe slowly, to stop moving, to think. I was stuck because my muscles were contracted, holding me against the walls of the shaft. I had to relax. But if I relaxed, I would fall and die and that would be counterproductive, too. So the trick was going to be to relax part of me while keeping the rest of me tense.
I stretched out an arm, trying to get my shoulders unsquared to the walls, but it didn’t work. I felt myself wedge in further, and my breathing increased. I strained harder and felt the pressure on my joints increase.
“ ‘Can he swing, from a thread?’ ” I gasped.
Wait.
Stop, Harry. Think. Use your brain.
“ ‘Take a look overhead,’ ” my brain kept on muttering.
Right. Overhead.
This was a Chinese finger-trap problem. The harder I tried to work directly against it, the more impossible it would be to escape it.
So I tensed and pushed myself back, upward. It was difficult, but I’d been working out a lot of late. Fighting the Winter mantle’s pull had reaped me some physical benefits. I was able to back up several inches, readjust my shoulders, and slither past the close spot.
“ ‘Hey there!’ ” I breathed, “ ‘There goes the Spider-Man.’ ”
I kept going down, trying not to think of how hard it was to get my breath, or how I was trapped with my hands up over my head, and how if one of those giant spiders (they have those; I’ve seen them) started coming down the shaft after me, there wouldn’t be a damned thing I could do about it.
Thanks, imagination. I didn’t have enough problems, so I really appreciate you making up another one just to keep me on my toes.
I tried to keep my puffing as quiet as I could as I reached the bottom of the shaft and found a pile of sweaty towels and enough dim light to see them.
Well. There wasn’t going to be a way to get out of this gracefully. I stuck my arms out through the door and started wiggling out after them, bending my neck to take my weight on my shoulders as I came out.
I finally shimmied my head out of the bottom of the shaft and into a wall of