29 #3

The man bound to it had been there for months. His hair had turned white in patches, and blue lines covered his skin. A small tablet hung from his neck.

Rian Dorna. Central conductor.

Isolde remembered his mother in Halver, holding a list in the rain.

Rian opened his eyes.

“Inspection?” he asked.

“Way out.”

“The key’s upstairs.”

“We’ll find it.”

The central lock had no slot. Nine cables held the clamps. It would open only when the cylinder lost pressure.

“Balance first,” Rian said. “Then cut the black arm.”

“West-9 is off.”

“The black arm takes the energy to the prison. The others feed the cylinder.”

Isolde saw a tenth line beneath the platform. It descended into the fissure.

Ydrael’s route.

Footsteps echoed at the main entrance.

Cevran had arrived.

“Secure the controls!” he shouted. “Synchronize immediately!”

“We’re in the high phase,” a technician replied.

“Compensate with the conductors.”

“We could lose them.”

“We have reserves.”

Isolde felt Ydrael tense beneath the stone.

“Hold on,” she said.

The answer came firmly. Ydrael was ready.

Cevran descended the spiral with Leth and twelve men. Beren waited in the first room. The clamps still held eight people.

Leth saw him beside the controls.

“Tavra Keral died a traitor,” he said.

Beren raised the crossbow.

“Tavra Keral died counting ways out.”

He aimed at Leth’s chest.

The captain advanced behind his shield.

“You can try.”

The first bell rang.

Beren looked at the gauge. The white was still rising. Two warnings remained before balance, and Leth was advancing toward Elar.

He fired at the locking lever. The bolt pierced the wood and left it beyond the captain’s reach. Elar held the release key beside the slot, waiting for the light to change.

Leth hurled his shield at Beren. Beren fell, rolled under a walkway, and dragged a bench across the way to the controls. The conductors watched him brace himself against the wood.

The second bell rang.

On the upper level, Oren fitted his key. Vena repeated the count for the other nine. Cevran passed the bound guards and continued toward the spiral, where he could reach the central controls.

Isolde set her hands on the central cylinder.

The metal recognized her fire.

The fissure opened another handspan.

Ydrael took the pressure. Rheskan roared from the lower chamber. All three points of the bond lit at once.

Isolde saw the entire mechanism.

The eight stations pushed toward C-0. The distributor turned pressure into a sustained wound. The black route carried the excess to Ydrael’s chains. His body absorbed what would have fractured the valley all at once.

They used him for containment and sustenance.

“We’re going to cut the black route,” Isolde said.

Ydrael showed her the red veins closing around the metal.

Rheskan sent an image of his claws on the lower ring.

Each had a task.

The third bell rang.

Elar turned the key. The eight clamps opened, and Beren moved the bench aside to lead the group toward the tunnel. Above, Oren released the remaining ten; Vena helped the woman beside her stand.

Seventy-four heartbeats.

Isolde counted.

One.

Rheskan turned the ring.

Two.

Ydrael pushed from the prison. The black arm lost tension.

Three.

Isolde poured fire into the red cylinder. The plates tried to absorb it. She redirected the current toward the gap at West-9. The dark line received heat and opened a side outlet.

The pressure escaped into the water channel.

Ten.

Cevran reached the platform.

“Step away from the distributor!”

Isolde kept her hands in place.

The captain inserted the copper plate into a console. The eight arms closed around the cylinder.

Twenty.

Rheskan lost his grip. The lower wheel turned backward. The dragon locked his tail around a column and pushed again.

Ydrael held the black route.

Cevran raised his sword.

Rian Dorna moved a leg. The central chain pulled taut beneath the captain’s foot. Cevran stumbled.

Isolde pulled one hand away and struck his wrist. The sword fell into the fissure.

Thirty-one.

Leth appeared on the walkway with four men. Beren came behind them, blood in his mouth and his crossbow unloaded.

“The people are out!” he shouted.

“Rian’s still here.”

Beren saw the central chair.

Leth attacked from the walkway. Beren used the crossbow as a staff. The blade cut through the wood. He backed toward the edge.

Forty.

Oren set aside a copy of the records and the list of thirty-one active conductors for the third shipment. He launched the first cylinder down the water conduit. The pressure books, his rubbings, and the complete list of conductors entered the current.

The second cylinder followed.

Cevran seized the plate and turned the console.

The black arm began closing again.

Isolde set her other hand over the fire.

Fifty.

“Rheskan, now!”

The dragon knew the timing. He chose to wait two more heartbeats.

The lower wheel reached a point where the teeth aligned. Rheskan struck.

The red ring broke.

The base of the black arm sprang free of the distributor.

Ydrael pulled from the other end.

Sixty.

Isolde tore the metal free.

Pain crossed all three bonds. Rheskan fell to one knee. Ydrael struck the prison chains. Isolde felt something break behind her breastbone.

The black arm came out.

The tenth route was severed.

The red cylinder went dark.

Rian’s clamps opened.

Beren broke off his fight with Leth. He leaped onto the platform and lifted the conductor.

Seventy.

“Out!” Oren shouted.

The neutral phase ended.

The fissure began to close.

The red edges advanced.

The platform tilted toward the center. Isolde seized the black arm and dragged it away from the opening. Cevran tried to retrieve the copper plate. A pipe fell between them.

Beren hoisted Rian over his shoulders.

“Route?”

“Water conduit,” Isolde replied.

“The lower exit’s closer.”

“Rheskan’s taking people through it. We keep the group from bunching up.”

Oren was still beside the scale on the wall.

“Fourteen centimeters,” he shouted.

“Move!”

“I need a second measurement.”

Another edge of the fissure contracted. The earlier marks now lay above the opening.

Oren laid paper over the scale and traced the position with charcoal.

He noted the time, phase, and temperature.

He took the metal strip Isolde had used to measure before the cut and marked the new position on it.

Then he tore a strip from the automatic record.

The needle had drawn a vertical drop just after the cut.

“Now we have cause and result,” he said.

He put the scale rubbings, the marked metal strip, and the automatic record into the third cylinder with the copies he had set aside.

Leth jumped from the walkway. The structure gave way beneath his foot. A beam trapped his leg.

Beren stopped.

The captain lost his sword. He lay five paces away, conscious and unable to move. Tavra’s crossbow hung on Beren’s back.

Leth saw the weapon.

“Do it.”

Beren shifted Rian’s weight.

“She would have counted the man I’m carrying.”

He continued toward the conduit.

Leth remained beneath the beam while his soldiers tried to free him.

Isolde caught up with Oren. Together they pushed the third cylinder down the pipe. The current carried it toward the river.

“Three shipments of evidence out,” Oren said.

“Three routes.”

An explosion shook the second needle.

Rheskan had opened the lower chamber into a natural tunnel. The twelve people were emerging onto the northern riverbank. The dragon stayed behind until the last had passed.

Then he tore away the plate that closed the tunnel.