Beneath the Heartwell

Beneath the Heartwell

“Where am I?”

His voice came back in low pitched waves from somewhere far above him.

Rahkhan kept his eyes shut. But he reached for his ribs on his left side as that is where the most pain was. No blood on his hand. That was good. There had been white flash of light and an awful prolonged screech that wasn’t just in his ears but everywhere in his head. Before that, Delrona coming around the table. A blade leaving its sheath from a guardian in full attack.

He rolled onto his right side and swung a leg round hoping to get enough momentum to get himself up but all it did was roll himself over. His face now flat against smooth stone. The stone was hot and he could now feel other parts of his body. The bones in his legs ached and he felt as though someone had clubbed him over the head with a wooden mallet. He lifted his head more as a taxic response than anything else as his cheeks felt as though they would burn. He could feel sweat gathering on his forehead and his underarms were wet. He pushed his body up and felt a new pain in his arm before being elevated enough to turn to sit, legs straight out and his head flopped towards his lap. In a few moments he lifted his tired head and opened his eyes and squinted at a shape in front of him.

“What is that?”

A river of movement flowed below him as it ran through the darkness just over the precipice that was coming into view next to him. The glowing red, black and orange curved edge caught in a fading glow, disappeared, and returned farther along as it travelled from one side of the hot flow to the other. Nearer to him and parallel to the platform he found himself on he could see teeth locked into place ready to turn the wheel if given the initiative. Each one wrapped in a hard thick coating of a dull and rusted metal.

“It's a wheel!”

He followed its curve until his neck hurt. The upper edge stood higher than the roof of a house.

Behind him light faded drawing his attention to the ring with stone and metal that seemed to be his entry point. It went dark. Rahkhan had turned so quickly that his palm slid across the floor. Pain brought him upright. The only light now was from the red fluctuating glow from below and through it he could now see waves of heat as it rose from the depth. He grabbed for a power crystal and was careful not to think of drawing its energy. It gave him just enough blue light to see into the now darkened area behind him. The ring stood upon a black platform between two square pillars, its metal rim fitted into stone older and darker than the tower he had left. A pale thread lingered inside it, trembling from top to bottom.

Then that disappeared too.

He waited for Delrona to follow, going through what his actions might be with his present injuries. And what if the guardian comes with her? He felt for a weapon but there were none at his side.

He waited expectantly but the darkness was constant. Nothing came through.

Only then did he remember the papers.

One grabbed one of his knees to pull himself as far forward as possible. He reached into his chest and found between his sweating breast and tunic that he still had the papers, they caught beneath his hand. He lifted them carefully and gathered the others still pressed between his chest and his clothing. Sweat fell from his chin onto a blank margin.

He wiped it with his sleeve before it could spread.

All that effort, and he might ruin them himself.

He took off his cloak. The fastening resisted his shaking fingers. He spread its cleanest inner fold across what looked like cut and polished stone, laid the recovered leaves together, and wrapped them without trying to read them. With his hands he ripped strips from the lower lining and bound the bundle twice.

The remaining cloth went around it again. He secured it high beneath his tunic, against his ribs, with the last broad strip passing over one shoulder.

He could feel the edges when he breathed.

Papers till there. He was still here.

Now he needed to know where “here” is.

• • •

The platform overlooked a vaulted chamber so large that its far wall disappeared behind drifting steam.

Bronze and iron gears crowded the shadows. Thick axles vanished into the walls. Enormous levers rested in stone channels polished smooth at their edges, although there was no one to operate them. Above the wheel, a second row of teeth stood ready to move in some direction and be the cause of some immense transfer of movement.

Everything was too large. A single pin holding one arm of the mechanism was thicker than his torso.

He stepped towards the platform's polished edge.

Heat, still rising in visible waves, struck his face.

Far below, lava moved through a broad spillway. A dark skin formed upon it, folded, and broke open to reveal the light reds and yellows beneath. Blue and white seams ran through its deeper red. Branches of the channel passed under stone arches and disappeared into fitted tunnels whose mouths had been shaped to the same curve.

He had seen drawings of the fires beneath the Argent Isles. At the Academy they had been coloured lines on a sheet, something a tutor tapped while the class waited to be dismissed.

This was not an inanimate lesson. This was real and wherever he was it was part of something massive that could move.

He slowly tested his legs and feet, wary of balance betraying his stance so close to the edge. He stepped back once up to try and take in the space he was now part of.

There were two chambers. He could see the second through a broad arch beside the wheel, partly built from stone blocks and partly cut into the cave like rock. Bronze rings wrapped there around a black stone cradle. Something blue shone between them, narrow from this angle and brilliant enough to leave a mark across his sight.

Between the lava and the machinery stood rows of dark metal plates. Pipes rose from their upper edges into a mass of fittings beneath the wheel. The great axle was motionless but he could see its potential.

He could not follow and would make it move. He could see that the lava did not touch the wheel. He was grateful for that much.

Somebody had built all this. Somebody had stood where he stood and known which lever to pull.

There must have been a way for them to leave. There would be a way in and a way out.

At the back of the platform he found a pair of doors. No handles. Their edges had disappeared beneath pale mineral crust. He set his shoulder against one, pushed, and felt no movement at all.

He tried the other.

Burbles from the lava river popped behind him.

He looked at the now dead black ring wondering how he could have come through the blackness.

No. He would not spend what remained of his strength waiting beside it or thinking about it for now.

A narrow walkway followed the chamber wall towards the arch. Beyond that, broad stone steps climbed behind the machinery.

Steps were meant for feet.

He started towards them.

• • •

The first blast of steam stopped him before the arch.

It burst from a dribble of water from above the machinery beside the walkway, the trickle struck the opposite wall, and vanished into a white cloud. Rahkhan stumbled back, shielding his face with his forearm.

Droplets stung the skin above his wrist. Even the dripping water from above was hot.

He waited as he determined that this was the only route available.

The hissing diminished, but the trickle continued. Water had found a crack through the roof and was running down the wall onto a shelf of smooth black rock. Some spilled across the walkway. The rest dropped beyond it, towards the heat below, where white vapour gathered and rose against the arch.

He watched the cloud thin, then thicken as more water spilled over the shelf. There was no rhythm he could trust. Nothing in the machinery stirred. Mineral crust bridged the joints of the nearest wheel, unbroken between one tooth and the next.

He would have to cross through the steam.

His tongue felt thick. He could no longer wipe his face without finding more sweat beneath his hand. Staying here would only make the crossing harder.

He loosened the shield crystal at his belt.

Its light was weak after the work in the square and the journey through the mountains. He had been expecting a replacement with the next issue of stores.

That seemed an unnecessarily distant concern now.

He waited until he could see the far side of the arch again, then thought of the forests of Amazania and of fresh flat bread from home and then raised his shield and moved.

The walkway narrowed beside the wet stone. He turned sideways, bundle pressed towards the wall, shield facing the rising vapour.

Water splashed across the blue surface making a bouncing sound as it rolled across energy. His boot slid on the mineral glaze. He struck the wall with his shoulder, and pain ran through his sore ribs so sharply that he almost let the shield fall.

“Keep moving,” he told himself.

He dragged his aching body along the stone step by step. His sleeve caught against a dark glassy projection above the lava channel. He smelled scorching cloth before he felt the heat against his arm and pulled away.

The shield flickered out as he reached the shelter of the arch.

He stood bent beneath it, breathing through his mouth. The outside edge of his sleeve had curled and blackened. His wrist hurt, but his fingers moved.

He checked the bundle. Why its protection seemed to have so much importance in his current situation he could not explain but it was his current purpose.

It was Dry.

He held it for a moment longer than he needed to.

Above him, the mineral ridge his shield had struck gave another crack.

A fragment struck his boot. Another hit his shoulder. He looked up as a seam spread along the underside of the arch. A loose stone sagged out of its bed.

He ran as best he could.

Stone and hardened deposits broke across the walkway behind him. The largest piece struck the outer edge and went over. He never heard it land.

The steps were ahead.

Halfway up, a fallen slab blocked the first few steps from wall to wall.

Rahkhan stopped so abruptly that his knee struck its edge.

There was a gap beneath it, scarcely higher than his boot.

He stared at it, then at the wall above. No purchase there. No way around the outside without stepping into open space.

Beside the steps, a metal bar projected from the mechanism's stone housing. Its end had been worn smooth by use.

It was a lever of some sort.

He almost pulled it.

His fingers closed, then loosened.

He had just watched Delrona make decisions about machinery she did not understand.

Instead he crouched. Beyond the slab, along the inner wall, a shallow maintenance opening continued beneath the housing. Warm air moved out of it against his face. He could see the underside of the steps farther on.

He would have to crawl and he would not be pulling any levers.

He removed the hard shoulder guard that would not fit and left it beside the opening. Then he turned onto his uninjured side and worked beneath the stone, keeping the wrapped pages clear of the ground.

Halfway through, the cloth around his ribs caught.

He stopped breathing.

“Do not pull.” He guided himself into a state of calm.

His cheek lay against hot grit. He could not get an elbow beneath himself to shimmy through. Carefully, with two fingers, he reached back and lifted the binding from a broken iron tooth protruding from the wall.

It came free.

He eased his shoulder past the obstruction and worked forward into the dark.

• • •

The passage rose.

Rahkhan counted the steps when he could see them and felt for their edges when he could not. Behind him the hiss of water and the deep sounds of the lava faded and more importantly the heat was becoming more tolerable. The great gears remained still in the last reach of his crystal light. Ahead, another sound grew clearer.

Bells.

Small bells, rung without any regular interval.

He reached a landing where a crack divided the ancient masonry from a wall built across the upper stair. Blue light passed through the gap and spread across his hands. He shielded his own crystal beneath his tunic and leaned towards it.

He knew that colour and the light was instantly recognisable.

Beyond the crack, immense facets rose through a framework of stone and metal. He could see only the lowest portion, but he recognised the narrow inspection bridge around its base. He had stood above it with Delrona while the Keeper explained why her experiment could not be permitted to draw upon the Heartwell.

Kefar. He was beneath the Heartwell.

He pressed closer.

For a moment the relief was so strong that he nearly called out.

Footsteps crossed overhead.

“Those are huge fluctuations,” the Keeper said. “Look at the lower return. We have lost a full charging interval, and now it is climbing again.”

Another man answered too softly for Rahkhan to distinguish the words.

“Then send to Alfadin. Ask what they have connected this time. Until I know, no one increases the cradle draw.”

Rahkhan drew back from the crack.

Had he done that?

He thought of the ring dying behind him. Had his crossing drawn power from the crystal above? Nothing in the chamber had moved to give him an answer. The Keeper's voice had sounded frightened beneath its irritation but he was relieved that he recognized anything at all.

He wanted to tell him about the chamber. About the pipes and the cradle and the opening through which a man had just fallen.

But he remembered the masked Guardians who had carried Delrona's equipment into this building. The permission she had obtained. The ease with which her assistants entered its offices.

If he called up, who would come down?

He waited until the footsteps receded.

The gap was scarcely wide enough for his fingers. Beyond it he could see the back of a fitted stone facing; whoever had built the gallery had closed off the older stair. There was no doorway. He studied the junction of old and newer stone, trying to remember enough to find it again, then turned towards a narrow opening where fallen mortar exposed the rough rock beside the landing.

Cooler air touched his wet face.

He followed it, turning sideways between rough rock and the broken end of the newer wall. Beyond the constriction, a seep had washed mortar from beneath a brick channel. He lowered himself through the opening onto a narrow ledge, holding the bundle against his chest.

• • •

He soon found himself at a place where water reached his ankles. It was not salty.

It ran through a channel beneath a low brick arch. Newer work enclosed the ancient stone here. Clay pipes entered through the ceiling, their mouths furred with white deposits of minerals. He touched it and felt one that carried a steady stream of hot water. Another dripped.

The air smelled of sulphur, soap and something he tried not to identify.

He crouched beside the channel and listened.

A scraping sound came from above. Then the rush of a sluice opening.

Water struck him across the shins.

He braced against the wall as it rose to his knees, bringing grey foam, hair and a small wooden cup that knocked against his boot and spun away.

“The baths. They are not more than 100 meters from the Heartwell! He thought. “I am under the baths now.”

He had visited them often enough to recognise the little cups used for rinsing the steam-room benches. Their heat came from beneath the city. An attendant had once explained that the spring water passed through stone galleries above the deep fires before being admitted to the bathing pools.

Rahkhan had thanked him and returned to complaining about the temperature.

He would have listened more carefully now.

Another sluice scraped.

The first surge had barely subsided.

He hurried along the channel, one hand keeping the bundle high against his chest. The water grew cloudier. His boot sank into something soft, caught, and came free with a noise that made his stomach contract.

At the next junction, the passage narrowed beneath a stone lip.

Beyond it he could see daylight.

Behind him came the gathering roar of another emptied pool.

Rahkhan bent beneath the lip. His remaining shoulder plate struck the ceiling. He tore it loose and let it fall.

The water caught him from behind.

He went forward onto one knee and drove his free hand against the wall. Water climbed his chest. He twisted to keep the bundle above it and scraped his knuckles along the bricks until he found a joint deep enough to hold.

His ribs protested with every breath. He could not stay braced here against another surge.

He kept his feet moving, half walking, half carried, until his fingers found the rim of an open inspection shaft that drove straight up. He caught it with both hands and hauled himself onto a ledge as filthy water rushed past beneath his heels.

For a while he lay there with his face against the bricks.

The papers pressed painfully into his ribs.

Still there.

• • •

The iron cover lifted into a narrow service lane.

Rahkhan pushed it aside and emerged into afternoon sunlight.

A woman carrying folded towels stopped.

Two boys stopped kicking a small woven cane ball and stared from beside a delivery cart.

Water ran from his torn tunic and collected around his boots. One sleeve was scorched almost to the elbow. His cloak had become strips and knots beneath the remains of his clothing. Black grit clung to his hair, and the smell rose around him in the warm air.

The woman pulled her towels closer.

“You cannot come through the baths like that.”

He tried to answer. A cough came out instead.

One boy laughed. The other looked into the shaft and stopped laughing. “Do you live in the sewer mister?”

Rahkhan lowered the cover.

The woman pointed towards the end of the lane. “I don’t know what you were doing down there but you’d better get out of here before I call a watch guardian.

He went.

Outside the bathhouse wall, the city continued around him. Porters argued over a handcart. Somewhere near a local square, an official announcement was being read aloud. Steam rose from the bath vents into a sky so blue that it hurt to look at it.

No one called him Guardian.

At a public drinking spout he washed his hands until he could bear to cup them. He drank, stopped himself, then drank again more slowly. He rinsed his face and the worst of the filth from his hair.

The water loosened dirt into his collar. It did little for the smell.

He found shade behind a shuttered oil merchant's stall, where he could watch the bathhouse entrance without sitting directly in its path.

Neral came after the evening bell.

At least, he had before Rahkhan left for Alfadin.

The harbour tally clerk rented a room above a cooper's workshop. He had complained often enough about washing in a basin beneath a roof that leaked cold water precisely when he did not require it. The baths were his one regular expense. In Rahkhan's first week in Kefar, they had argued over whose boots an attendant had returned. Afterwards they had shared supper.

Neral had shown him where to buy bread after the harbour stalls closed. Rahkhan had helped him carry his mother upstairs when her knees became too painful. Their friendship had grown through small things and though they had gone on to new friendships Rahkhan felt this one could be picked up at any time.

Tonight he would test that feeling.

Rahkhan rested his head against the wall but knew he could not give in to sleep.

If Neral had changed his habits, he would wait, sleep and then try again tomorrow.

If he had left Kefar.. Then he didn’t know what was next..

He watched the entrance.

Two Guardians passed through the square. Rahkhan lowered his face and held out his empty hand before he could think better of it.

They walked past.

He kept the hand extended until they were gone.

Under his tunic, the cloth bindings had dried tight. He worked a fingertip beneath the outer fold and touched the protected edges. The damp had reached the outside wrapping. Within, the leaves still felt dry.

The old scholar's face returned to him. The hands held flat beside the papers as Delrona claimed them.

He had gotten them out and though he had no idea what their pages contained he knew they were the most valuable papers in all of Kefar at that time.

That would mean very little if he fell asleep here and someone took the bundle for spare cloth.

He straightened up and forced his eyebrows up as he started at the bath’s doors.

The shadows lengthened. The oil merchant returned. He put out his hand again and said nothing. The merchant kicked him and told him to move away from the shutters.

Rahkhan found another place.

• • •

The evening bell had sounded some time before Neral appeared.

Rahkhan nearly missed him. He had been watching for the brown harbour coat, but Neral wore a short grey jacket and carried his towel beneath one arm. His shoulders sagged with the familiar weariness of a man who had spent the day making numbers align.

Rahkhan stood too quickly.

The square tilted. He waited until the paving settled beneath him, then stepped into the lamplight beside the bathhouse gate.

“Psst....Neral.”

His friend reached into his pocket without looking properly at him.

“I have a copper. The kitchen round the corner sometimes has....”

“You still owe me supper. Your boots were the ones with the split sole.”

Neral's hand stopped.

He looked up.

Rahkhan tried to smile. It hurt the cracked skin beside his mouth.

“Rahkhan?”

He nodded.

Neral took one step towards him, then glanced at the gate, the square and the open windows above them.

That glance frightened Rahkhan more than the question.

“They said you had gone to the Alfadin mountains.”

“I need somewhere safe indoors where we can talk.”

Neral looked at the strips of cloth beneath his torn tunic. His eyes paused on the reddened wrist. He smelled the odor from his now declined friend and held his hand to his nose.

Rahkhan waited.

He could see Neral processing the risk, realising the danger. Rahkhan was a guardian close to Delrona and he was in this state. Neral looked again up and down the street again. Rahkhan stood in front of a friend and waited to discover how good that friendship was.

“Please!”

Neral put the copper back in his pocket.

Then he placed a hand beneath Rahkhan's elbow.

“Come round the side.”

They passed beneath a steam vent and through a service door. An attendant began to object. Neral spoke quietly to her, opened his purse, and continued supporting Rahkhan while she found a key.

Beyond the laundry stood a small washing room with a bench, a basin and a door that closed.

Rahkhan sat.

Only when Neral turned the key did he begin to shake.

“A healer?” Neral asked.

“Not through the front entrance.”

His friend nodded once and went to find clean cloth.

Rahkhan loosened the binding beneath his tunic. He laid the bundle on the dry end of the bench and opened it layer by layer with hands that would not quite obey his directions.

The inner cloth came away clean which was a good sign considering its journey.

Fine writing covered the first leaf. Along its edge ran part of a diagram, a circle joined to branching lines.

The putrid water had not seeped through and the burning stone and lava had left no scorch marks.

He covered it again before the door opened.

Neral returned with a robe and a jug of drinking water. He set both within reach, then drew the basin closer to the bench so Rahkhan would not have to stand.

Outside, bathers moved between the pools. Hot water ran through the walls, warmed by the same deep fires he had seen beneath the city. Far below, mineral crust still joined the teeth of the great wheels below. No hand had touched their levers in a very long time.

He wondered whether anyone living knew they were there.

Rahkhan drank.

When he could speak without coughing, he looked towards his friend.

“I need to get a message to a Rider.”

Thy Quest: What Will the Pages Reveal?

What do you predict the recovered pages from the Book of Lyt will reveal? Support your prediction with at least two clues from this chapter or Rahkhan’s escape from Alfadin. You might consider the diagram of a circle joined to branching lines, the hidden machinery beneath the Heartwell, or Delrona’s determination to control the ancient knowledge. Explain how your predicted discovery could help Kaelen and his companions, and what danger it might present if Delrona obtained the pages. Make clear which details are evidence and which ideas are your predictions.