Chapter 227: The Spindle

They did not cross the bridge that waking.

Nobody said they would wait. Nobody had to. They sat down on the broad shelf where they were, with the bridge going out into the dark in front of them, and Martha set her pot on the stone.

Vina kept hold of the old man’s hand while she ate. She ate awkwardly with her other hand and spilled stew down her front. She did not notice. Rishin did not ask her to let go.

Across the pot, Isolde handed Garen his bowl. She did it without looking at him.

"Thank you, dear," he said.

She did not answer. She moved to sit on Alice’s other side.

Garen looked at the bowl in his hands. Then he ate, slowly, and did not say anything else to her that meal.

Alice glanced at Logan. Logan shook his head. Not yet.

Link sat on the old man’s other side with the iron staff across his knees.

When they lay down to sleep, the three of them lay down together, and Link’s flame burned over them all through the dark.

[ Time remaining: 320 days ]

Logan woke before the others.

He lay on the shelf and looked at the bridge. It went out from the edge in its long grey curve, with nothing under it, toward the pillar in the dark.

Somebody sat down beside him.

It was Rishin. Vina was still asleep. The old man had worked his hand free of hers without waking her, and Link was watching him from where he lay.

Neither of them spoke at first.

"Thank you," said Rishin. "For not cutting it."

Logan watched the bridge.

"You told me not to."

"I know what I told you. You could have done it anyway. You had your reasons." The old man’s voice was dry and low. "Thank you for not doing it."

Logan thought about the thread, thick and old and burning, going down into the dark.

He thought about asking. He could feel the question in his mouth.

"You are welcome," he said instead.

Rishin nodded once. He got up again slowly. He went back to the girl and lay down beside her before she woke.

They crossed the bridge in the next waking.

Billy went first. He rolled out onto the stone with his blades tucked in and his rim humming, and he did not look down once.

"It is fine, Boss," he called back. "It is a bridge. It is the best bridge. I love this bridge."

"Watch the edge."

"I am the edge."

Halden went after him, and Terry, and then the rest of the units. Logan watched them go, one by one, out over the drop.

Then he looked at Alice.

She was watching him with one eyebrow lifted.

Logan let the last of the units go past him onto the bridge. Then he followed them.

Nothing made his feet stay behind. He could have walked in front of Terry, or in front of Billy. He walked behind them anyway, with Alice behind him, and he heard her laugh at his back.

The bridge held.

It was as wide as two men, as Daniel had said, and it did not move under them. The wind rose from below in long slow breaths and pushed at Logan’s coat.

He kept his eyes on Terry’s back, away from the dark on either side.

Halfway across, Bram sang.

It was low and rough and not tuneful. It was in a language Logan did not know. Edda walked beside her father with her hand on his arm, and after a few lines she joined in.

"What is it?" Vina asked, from behind them.

"A walking song," said Edda. "From home. For the mine bridges. You sing it so you do not look down."

"Does it work?"

Edda thought about it. "Mostly."

Vina hummed along. She did not know the words. By the time they reached the pillar, Helen was humming it too.

The opening in the pillar was as tall as three men and as wide as the bridge.

Inside it, there was a stair.

It went down. It was cut into the inside of the pillar, round and round the wall of a great hollow shaft, the way the stair of the Well had gone round.

But this shaft was far wider than the Well. Logan could not see its far side.

A faint light came up from below. It was grey and cold, like the light before dawn.

The walls of the shaft were carved.

They were covered with figures, cut into the stone in long rows that went round and round with the stair. The figures were people. They were walking down the stair in the carving, the way the family was about to walk down it.

Every one of them was carrying a stone.

Logan looked at the carvings as they went down.

The people in them were carrying stones of every size. Some had small ones in their hands. Some had stones on their backs, tied on with ropes, bent double under them.

One carved man was carrying a stone so large that only his legs showed beneath it.

Lower down, some of the carved people had set their stones down. They walked upright, with empty hands.

The stones they had left lay on the carved steps behind them.

"Daniel," said Helen. "What are they carrying?"

Daniel studied the carving.

"I do not know," he said. "But I think we are going to find out."

They went down the Spindle all that waking.

The stair was wide and the steps were shallow. It was easier walking than anything since the Well.

"Boss," Billy called up from below. "This stair is also good."

"You said that about the bridge."

"I am saying it about the stair now. I am allowed to like two things."

Helen laughed. As she passed the next carving, she put her fingers on the stone that one of the carved women was carrying, and then took them away again.

Link went ahead of Vina with his red flame, and the grey light from below grew slowly stronger.

The carvings went on beside them the whole way.

Vina had not stopped looking at them.

"Grandpa," she said. "Why are they carrying stones?"

"Because they would not put them down."

"Why not?"

The old man took two more steps before he answered.

"Some stones are not yours to put down," he said. "Someone else has to take them off you."

Vina frowned at the wall. She did not ask anything else.

Rishin had stopped looking at the carvings. Logan noticed it on the third turn. The old man walked behind Vina with his eyes on the back of her head, and never once on the wall.

They slept on a landing where the stair turned. Vina fell asleep holding Rishin’s hand again.

[ Time remaining: 319 days ]

Before he slept, Logan looked once more at the wall beside the landing.

There was a carving there of an old man. He was sitting on the stair with his back against the wall. In front of him, on the step, there were two stones.

They were small. The carved old man had both his hands round them.

He was not getting up.