Michael Sullivan - The emerald storm

"Maybe they're compensating," Royce said, dropping several lengths of rope.

"Damn it, Royce. It's been eight years since we did this. I was in better shape then. I was younger and, if I recall, I vowed I would never do it again."

"That's why you shouldn't make vows. The moment you do, fate starts conspiring to shove them down your throat."

Hadrian sighed, staring upward. "That's one tall tower."

"And if the dwarves were still here maintaining it, it would be impregnable. Lucky for us, they've let it rot. You should be happy-the last eight years will only have eroded it further. It should be easier."

"It's granite, Royce. Granite doesn't erode much in eight years."

Royce said nothing as he continued to lay oils of rope, checking the knots in the harnesses, and slipping on his hand-claws.

"Do you recall that I nearly fell last time?" Hadrian asked.

"So, don't step there this time."

"Do you remember what the nice lady in the jungle village told you? One light will go out?"

"We either climb this, or let the place blow. We let the place blow and Merrick wins. Merrick wins, he gets away and you never find Degan Gaunt."

"I never thought you cared all that much if I ever found Gaunt." Hadrian looked up at the tower again. "At least not that much."

"Honestly? I don't care at all. This whole quest of yours is stupid. So you find Gaunt-then what? You follow him around being his bodyguard for the rest of your life? What if he's like Ballentyne? Wouldn't that be fun? Granted, it will be exciting, as I'm sure anyone with a sword will want to kill him, but who cares? There's no reward, no point to it. You feel guilt-I kinda get that. You ran out on your father and you can't say you're sorry anymore. So for that, you'll spend your life following this guy around being his butler? You're better than that."

"I think there was a compliment in there somewhere-so thanks. But if you're not doing this to help me find Gaunt, why are you?"

Royce paused and from a bag he drew out Wesley's hat. He must have fetched it down before they left the ship. "He stuck his neck out for me three times. The last one got him killed. There's no way this fortress is blowing up."

Even in the dark, Royce found hand and footholds that Hadrian could never have spotted in the full light of day. Like a spider, he scaled the side of the tower until he came to the base of the first niche. There, he set his first anchor and dropped a rope to Hadrian. By the time Hadrian reached the foothold of that niche, Royce was already nailing in the next pin and sending down another coil. They continued this way, finding minute edges where several thousand years of erosion revealed the maker's seams in the rock. Centuries-old crevices and cracks allowed Royce to climb what was once slick, smooth stone.

Two hours later, the trees below appeared like tiny bushes and the cold, wintry winds buffeted them like barn swallows. They were only a third of the way up.

"It's time," Royce shouted over the howl of the wind. He anchored a pin, tied a rope to it, and climbed back down.

Hadrian groaned. "I hate this part!"

"Sorry buddy, nothing I can do about it, the niches are all over that way." Royce gestured across to where the vertical grooves cut into the rock on the far side of a deep crevasse.

Royce tied the rope to his harness and linked himself to Hadrian.

"Now, just watch me," Royce told him and, taking hold of the rope, he sprinted across the stone face. Reaching the edge of the crevasse, he leapt swinging out like a clock's pendulum. He cleared the gap by what looked like only a few inches. On the far side, he clung to the stone, dangling like a bug on a twig. He slowly pulled himself up and drove another pin. Then, after tying off the rope, waved to Hadrian.

If Hadrian missed the jump, he would slip into the crevasse where he would end up dangling helplessly, assuming the rope held him. The force of the fall could easily pop out the holding pin, or even snap the rope. He took a deep breath of cold air, steadied himself, and began to run. On the far side, Royce leaned out for him. He reached the edge and jumped. The wind whistled past his face, blurring his vision as tears streaked back across his cheeks. He struck the far side just short of the landing, bashing his head hard enough to see stars. He tasted blood and wondered if he had lost his front teeth even as his fingertips lost their tenuous hold and he began to fall. Royce tried to grab him, but was too late. Hadrian fell.

He dropped about three inches.› Hadrian dangled from the rope Royce had the forethought to anchor the moment his partner had landed. Hadrian groaned in pain while wiping blood from his face.

"See," Royce shouted in his ear, "that went much better than last time!"

Hadrian declined comment knowing the look on his face said it all.

They continued scaling upward, working within the relative shelter of the vertical three-sided chimneys. They were too high now for Hadrian to see anything except the tiny lights of the port city. Everything else below was darkness. They rested for a time in the semi-sheltered niche, then climbed upward again.

Higher and higher Royce led the way. Hadrian's hands were sore from gripping the rope and burned from the few times he slipped. His legs, exhausted and weak, quivered dangerously. The wind was brutal. Gusting in an eddy caused by the chimney they followed, it pushed outward like an invisible hand trying to knock them off. The sun came up and Hadrian was nearing the end of his endurance when they finally reached the bridge. They were slightly more than two-thirds of the way, but thankfully they did not need to reach the top.

What appeared from the ground to be a thin bridge was actually forty-feet in thickness. They scrambled over the edge, hauled up their ropes, ducked into a sheltered archway, and sat in the shadows catching their breath.

"I'd like to see Derning scale that," Royce said, looking down.

"I don't think anyone but you could manage it," Hadrian replied. "Nor is there anyone crazy enough to try."

Dozens of men guarded the great gates at the base of the tower, but no one was on the bridge. It was thought impossible for intruders to start at the top, and the cold wind kept the workers inside. Royce gave the tall slender stone doors a push.

"Locked?" Hadrian asked.

Royce nodded. "Let's hope they haven't changed the combination."

Hadrian chuckled. "Took you eighteen hours last time, right after you told me, 'this will only take a minute.'"

"Remind me again why I brought you?" Royce asked, fanning his hands out across the embossed face of the doors. "Ah, here it is."

Royce placed his fingers carefully and pushed. A hundred tons of solid stone glided inward as if on a cushion of air, rotating open without a sound. Inside, an enormous cathedral ceiling vaulted hundreds of feet above them. Shafts of morning sunshine entered through distant skylights built into the dome overhead, revealing a complex world of bridges, balconies, archways, and a labyrinth of gears. Some gears lay flat, while others stood upright. Some were as small as a copper coin, and then there were those that were several stories tall and thicker than a house. A few rotated constantly, driven by steam created from the volcanically superheated seawater. The majority of the gears, particularly the big ones, remained motionless, waiting. Aside from the mechanisms, nothing else moved. The only sound was the regular, ratcheting rhythm and the whirl of the great machine.

Royce scanned the interior. "Nobody home," he said at length.

"Wasn't last time either. I'm surprised they haven't tightened security up more."

"Oh, yeah, a single break-in after centuries is something to schedule your guards around."