and supported by an external wood frame. The chimney descended at least four stories into the ground to meet the natural crack in the earth’s crust.
Looking into the shadowed depths of the Crack, Kylar understood why people called this a marvel. The men who worked here not only harnessed the power of the hot air that blew out of the earth itself, they also kept the Plith River from spilling into the earth.
If that happened, the river would boil; the fish would die; the fishermen would be wiped out; and Cenaria would lose its major source of food.
Even now, oblivious to the chaos not a quarter of a mile away, men were working: servicing ropes, checking pulleys, greasing gears, replacing sections of sheet metal.
Kylar crossed a long catwalk, took a few turns, and found himself at a crossroads where he could go to a door below ground level or go up to a maintenance door by the outlet of the chimney on the north side of the building—where Roth would be.
He went down. The door was set beside double doors used for bringing in huge pieces of equipment. Kylar eased it open a crack.
A young wytch was standing outside, her hair pulled back and vir-marked arms folded. She was looking up a long stone ramp. Someone was talking to her, but Kylar couldn’t see the other person. Beyond her were a dozen others, dressed similarly.
Kylar eased the door shut. He went back to the other branch of the catwalk and opened the door set into the horizontal section of the chimney.
Bent sideways, the chimney was more like a steam tunnel here. It was fifteen paces across until it pinched down to four paces at the last fan. The floor was sheet metal reinforced underneath so the workers could stand inside it as they worked on either the massive fan set just before the chimney turned straight down, or the much smaller last fan before the hot air escaped into the Cenarian night. The northern fan spun slowly enough that Kylar should be able to see Roth through it.
He stepped inside carefully, testing the floor to see if it would squeak as he put his weight on it. It didn’t. But even before Kylar closed the door behind himself, he had a vaguely uneasy feeling.
Cooled from its long journey up the metal chimney, sulfuric smoke poured sluggishly through the tunnel into the night air outside. Heavy smoke filled the bottom third of the tunnel, curling and rolling. The only light came from the moon outside but was filtered through the spinning fan. Between the dense smoke and the dancing shadows, Kylar’s vision was no better than any other man’s.
There’s someone here.
59
D urzo’s heart had just leapt out that goddam window. He walked to the window and watched until he saw Kylar surface.
Amazing. In all my years, I never tried anything so dumb, and here he does it on his first day—and it works. Kylar clambered onto shore and began working his way north. Durzo knew where he was headed. The stubborn fool. He’d always had that streak, from the time he’d refused to accept that he’d failed in Rat’s murder and had gone and killed the twist in the next three hours.
Kylar did what he thought was right, and to hell with the consequences, to hell with what anyone thought, even Durzo. He reminded Durzo of Jorsin Alkestes. Kylar had chosen his loyalty to Durzo, had clung to it despite Durzo. He’d put faith in Durzo Blint as Jorsin had put faith in him. Kylar was just a damned kid, but he’d also put his faith in a much worse man than Acaelus Thorne.
The pain resonated along every string in Durzo Blint’s life. He’d been a thousand kinds of fraud in his years, so everyone who had believed in him during his deceptions could be written off, but Jorsin had known him. Kylar had known him. Not for the first time in seven centuries, existence ached. All the world was salt and Durzo Blint was an open wound. Where did I go wrong?
He moved, because like every man Acaelus Thorne had been, Durzo Blint was a man of action. His Talent puddled around his hands and feet—funny that it still worked like that, despite losing the ka’kari—and he stepped out of the window. He didn’t fall.
The magic around his feet gripped the stone and he pitched forward, catching himself with his hands so that he hung face down on the castle