Mavin leafed idly through one of the books, scanning a few pages while Beedie talked about the story of Lovewings and Mirtylon and how sad it was, then let her eyes close.
“Mavin ... Mavin. Are you asleep?”
“Trying very hard to be, sausage girl.”
“Do you think old Slysaw is still following us?”
“I can guarantee he is, child. At this moment, he is two-thirds of the way down the stair to Midwall. He will rest in Midwall tonight. Two nights hence he will rest here in Bottommost. And the day after that, someone will show him where the broken stair is.”
“Do you think we will get proof he killed my family? That he set fire to the mainroot?”
“I don’t think it matters, root dangler. Whether we get proof Mercald would accept or not, I have enough to suit me. You may depend upon it. Old Slysaw Bander will not return from the depths.” And then there was only the gentlest of snores, like a dragon purring, as Mavin slept.
There was a traverse of considerable extent across the root wall between the morning-light end of Bottommost and the place the old stair began, its splintered end well hidden behind a cluster of side roots and a fountain of fungus. The Bridgers of Bottommost were so excited at the thought of finding the old stair, however, that they had worked most of the night while the expedition slept to build a temporary footbridge across the root wall. Except for Mercald, the expedition crossed it without difficulty, and Roges solved the Mercald problem by carrying him over on one shoulder. Once the stair was reached and they had burrowed into it with h atchet and knife and much flinging aside of great blobs of fungus, Mercald was able to stand once more, though it took him a little time to be steady on his feet.
“It’s hidden,” Beedie said, looking down the stair in the direction they would go. “The roots have grown all over the outside of it.” Indeed, it was like walking through some dusky cloister, the roots on the outside of the stair making repeated windows into the chasm so that they walked first in shadow, then in half light, then in shadow once more. “How far down does it go, Mavin?”
“I didn’t find out. Just found that the stair was here, then flew up above to check out old Slysaw. Shh. Here’s the Thinker coming along behind. I’d as soon not talk with him about my private habits. Hush now.”
They set a slow pace at first, warming up to it as the day warmed, easing up again when they had eaten their midday meal, then slowing still further when the afternoon wind began to blow down the canyon, whipping the root hairs over the stairs, making their eyes water.
“I postulate a desert at the lower end of this chasm,” said the Thinker, wiping his eyes so that he could see his notebook. “Quite large, very dry, very hot. At the upper end of the chasm a range of mountains, perhaps a tall, snow-capped range ...”
“Actually,” said Mavin, “it’s a glacier. A monstrous big one.”
He did not ask her how she knew, but simply plunged on with his explanation. “The sun heats the air over the desert. It rises. The air in the chasm, being cooler, flows out onto the desert. The air over the glacier, being cooler still, flows down into the chasm. We have wind each day from afternoon through about midnight, by which time the desert has given up all its heat. Then the hot springs in the chasm begin to warm the chasm air once more. The lower we go in the chasm, the stronger the winds will become. That is, unless there are many barriers down there, narrowings, turns, fallen rock. In that case, it might be strongest above the bottom ...”
“Is that true?” Beedie whispered to Mavin. “Is that really why the wind blows every day? The Birders say the Boundless does it to move the smoke away, so we won’t suffocate.”
“Is there any reason it couldn’t be both?” laughed Mavin. “I suppose the Boundless can use deserts and glaciers to sweep smoke away if it wants to.”
“The way I would use a broom,” said Roges. “Why not. Still, it makes traveling difficult.” He wiped away a clot of wet root hairs the wind had driven into his face.”It wasn’t this strong on Bottommost.”
“It was stronger than you felt. The buildings on Bottommost are all built facing down-chasm, away from the wind. Besides that, they’re all built with curved backs, I noticed, and there are wind shields along the streets.” Mavin leaned out into the chasm to look down. She was now the only one of the party not constantly wiping streaming eyes, though the others had not noticed the clear lids she had closed to protect her own eyes from the wind. “We may have to find a sheltered place and wait until the wind drops before we go on. I’ve brought fish lanterns, so we needn’t camp in the dark. Hss. What’s that?” She pointed away along the root wall, toward a distant shadow. Roges and Beedie thrust their heads out, drawing them in immediately.
“I can’t see anything,” Roges complained. “What did you think it was?”
“A shape,” she replied, still peering into the chasm. “Only a shape. Vaguely manlike. Perhaps it was nothing, only a shadow.”
“Probably just a shadow. Our eyes are tired. I think stopping for a time would be a very good idea,” said Mercald apologetically. “We’ve been climbing down since early this morning, and my legs have cramps in them. Both.”
“Well then, why not. Start looking for some kind of declivity or protected spot. We’ll stop as soon as we find one.” Mavin drew her head in and clumped along behind them, her face both thoughtful and apprehensive.
Beedie moved ahead, Roges close beside her, searching the root wall. There were many small holes, but none large enough to offer shelter to the group. Then they came to a fairly flat stretch of stair solidly overgrown on the chasm side with only a shrill shiver of wind entering from the bottom end. “We could close that off,” said Beedie, measuring it with analytical eyes. “I can cut some short lengths of ropey root, and weave a kind of gate across it, then we can put a blanket or two across it to shut out almost all the wind.” Without waiting for the others, she began to hack at the wall, pulling down lengths of shaggy root. Roges tugged them to the opening, thrust ends into the root wall and began weaving them together, hauling and tugging until the woven gate was in place.
By this time the others had arrived, and Mavin fastened her blanket to the gate, tying it along the sides. It felt as though the temperature on the stair went up at once, just from excluding the cold wind.
“I suppose it would be too much to hope for that there’d be some deadroot along here,” Mercald commented. “I’m thirsty for tea.”
There was usually deadroot up under the thatch along the wall, and a few moments’ scratchy burrowing brought a pile of it to light. It was brittle enough to break and dead enough not to threaten them with lethal smoke, but it was soggier than they were accustomed to burning. Roges had trouble lighting it upon the portable hearth. However, once started, it burned readily enough, the smoke roiling upwards along the stair. They sat in the firelit space, hearing the wind howl outside, all of them aware of some primitive, fearful feelings concerning darkness and the creatures which dwelt in it. Mavin found herself listening to the wind, listening through the wind, trying to hear what other sounds there might be in the chasm. There had been a manshape upon the root wall, and yet not exactly a manshape. It should not have been there. There were no men in the bottoms. She knelt, thrust her ear against the root stair, but there were no hostile sounds, no rasp of great slug teeth, only the thrumming of the wind upon the root fibers, the monotonous hum of steadily moving air.
They sat, dozed, woke with a start only to doze again. The light faded and Mavin took the fish lanterns out of her basket to hang one upon the staff she carried, one upon Mercald’s staff. The light was not the warming amber-red of firelight but the chill blue-green of water, and they found themselves shivering.
“The wind will let up about midnight,” said Mavin. “I suggest we wrap up tightly, get as close together as possible to share warmth, and wait until then to go on.” She heard no dissent, not even from the Thinker, though he did not lie down among them but sat under the chill green lanterns muttering to himself, making notes in his little book.
The wind began to howl loudly, rocking the stair, moving it in a curiously restful motion, so that they all slept as in a cradle, or, thought Mavin, as on the deck of a sea-going ship.
It was the cessation of motion that wakened Mavin, that and the stillness. The Thinker still sat, still muttered, eyes fixed on s omething the rest of them could not see. In the darkness, she could see firelight glittering on Beedie’s open eyes. “So. You’re awake, sausage girl.”
“I’m sore,” she complained. “Next time I’m going to bring something softer to sleep on.”
“How often do you plan to go on such expeditions?”
“Whenever I can. Don’t you think it’s exciting?”
“Umm,” said Mavin. “What does Roges think?”
“I’m sure he thinks he’ll be very glad when he can get me back to Topbridge and maybe marry me and probably talk me into having babies.”
“What do you think about that?” Mavin sat back, pulling her own blanket around them so that they half reclined between Roges and Mercald, warmed by their sleeping bodies. “Is that something you would enjoy?”
“When Roges and I are—when we’re ... ah ... involved, I don’t mind the idea. Then, other times, like now, I do mind the idea. I want to go to Harvester’s bridge and around the chasm corner and see what’s there. I want to see that thing you told the Thinker about, that glacier. I can’t do that if I’m all glued down on Topbridge with babies and Aunt Six being grandma. Whoof. I’d sooner eat dried flopperskin.”
“By that, I presume you mean the idea lacks flavor.”
“Flavor, and chewability, and a good smell. Oh, Mavin, I don’t know. Were you ever in love?”
Mavin considered this. In the lovely summer forest, once, she had loved. In the long ago of Pfarb Durim, when she had been the age Beedie was now, she had looked into love’s face, had heard its very voice. Since she had seen the dead youth fluttering like a dry leaf into the chasm, she had been aware of mortality in a way she had never been before. If she were honest, she would admit that the five years which stretched between now and that time she would meet Himmaggery seemed a very long time, a time she would shorten if she could. And yet it would be hard to say why, for little had passed between them in that long ago time. Little? Or perhaps much?
Finally she answered. “I believe ... believe that I love, yes. Someone. And yet, I have not sought him out in many years. I do not go to him or call him to me.”
“How do you know he’s still alive? People die, you know. Things happen to them.” Beedie had thought of this in the night hours, had wondered how she would feel if she put off Roges until some future time and then found there was no future time for them. “If I had to choose, I suppose I’d rather have a child now than never do it at all.”
Mavin shivered at this expression of her own thoughts. “You would rather love Roges now than never a do it at all? Even though it might keep you from that far turn of the chasm?”
“Hmm. I think so. How do I know? Would there be someone else who would make me feel the same way? Would I have cheated him if I did not?”
Mavin chuckled, humor directed at herself rather than at Beedie. “I know. Since I met ... the one I speak of, all other men have seemed to have ... too much meat on their faces. I find myself longing for a certain cast of feature, a strong boniness, a wide, twisty mouth, eyes which seem to understand more than that mouth says ...”
“Eyebrows which meet in the middle over puzzled, sometimes angry eyes,” whispered Beedie. “A certain smell to skin. A certain curl of hair around an ear ...”
“Ah, yes, sausage girl. Well, I will say only this one thing to you. If you would regret forever not having done a thing, then do it. But you need not give up your dreams in order to have done it. Go, if you will, and take your man and babies with you.”
“Roges has the down-dizzies .” She said it sadly, as though she had announced a dire and deadly disease.
“Well then, leave him at home with the babies and tell him you’ll see him when you return.” She stood up, stretching her arms to hear the bones crack. “Midnight?” she announced loudly into the silence. “Are we ready to go on?”
They rose, groaning from the hard surface. “Stairs should be carpeted,” said Beedie. “Either that, or they should put way stations with beds every half day along them.”
“Shhhh.” Mavin’s hiss quieted them all. She had pulled the makeshift windshield aside and was leaning out over the stair rail, peering into the depths. “Look.”
Below them in the suddenly calm air, the chasm was full of lights, globes of pearly luminescence which swam through the moist air, c ollected in clusters like ripening fruits, then separated once more to move in long, glowing spirals and curving lines. As they watched, several of the globes swam up to their level, peered at them from the abyss with wide, fishes’ eyes from bodies spherical and puffed as little balloons of chilly light. One of them emitted a tiny, burping sound, then dropped with a sudden, surprised swoop to a much lower level and fled. The other, a smaller, bluer one, with quick, busy fins, followed them as they continued the downward way. There were smaller things in the chasm, also, vibrations of translucent wings, shivering dots of poised flight, darting among the glowing fish to be gulped down whenever they approached too near. Other blue fish joined the one which followed them, and then still others, until they were trailed by a long tail of blue light, shifting and glowing. “There,” said Mavin suddenly, pointing ahead of them. After a moment they saw what she had seen, huge stumps of mainroot, projecting into the chasm like broken corbels. “This is where the city was.”
“Watertight.” said Beedie and Roges together.
“What was that?”
“Watertight,” said Roges. “The name of Lostbridge was really Waterlight. At least, according to the books up in Bottommost.”
“I can see why,” murmured Mercald. “I haven’t seen a bird of a ny kind since way before Bottommost. Do you think these fishes k eep them away?”
“I think the air is too wet for them,” said Mavin, not bothering to tell him that she knew so from experience. “Feathers would get soggy, heavy in this air. It would be almost impossible to fly.”