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[size=150]Chapter 24: Fazed[/size]

___A hideous sliding grinding sang above the four men round the well.
___“Uh…” Dagon blinked, near the open door. “Did I do that?”
___Between the ticking moments, Seifas tried to figure whether he could drive his aasagai into the rope, so that the indestructible shaft might bear the weight of his falling friends…was Portunista a friend—?
___But someone thought more quickly than even a juacuar.
___With a grunted snarl, Othon seized the diving rope, bracing himself at the edge of the hole. Shards of thread spit from his hands: the rope smoked to a halt! Seifas winced reflexively—but then saw Othon wore his battle gauntlets.
___“Wrong lever.” The giantish man was eyeing Dagon balefully.
___“Sorry,” the Krygian shrugged again. Then his eyes rolled upward toward the ceiling, as an ominous rumbling drifted down from overhead. The thin pull-cord, having been wrapped around a special gear or wheel, serenely sailed past Othon’s staring eyes, into the void.
___“That,” Pooralay mused, “does not bode well…”
___Seifas dashed across the room in leaps; Dagon dove aside as Seifas lunged to stab the knot which was caught in the hole above. Even its sharp tip did not go far into the sturdy knot, but Seifas pulled down anyway, leveraging the rope.
___“Pull!” he ordered Dagon; who regained his feet as Gaekwar slid into place. Once they had gotten their grips on the knot, the juacuar yanked out the aasagai and added his own hands. The three men heaved their bodies down, against increasing pressure from above.
___“Something’s trying to come apart!” The ‘cowherd’ Gaekwar shook his face to fling the sweat away. “We’ve got to pull the tension tight again!”
___The toil became more difficult; but as they worked the rope into its first position, feeding it into the wooden brace, the troubling sounds receded in intensity above.
___“‘Bout anoth’r han’width…” Pooralay told them, standing watch on the brace. Then he pulled the lever down in place, its opposite end impressing the rope above the knot—the knot pressed up in return, increasing the lateral pressure of the lever.
___A few more burps and bumps—and then the series of events above them stopped, although the rumbles from below continued on as usual.
___“We were told, NOT to touch that lever!” Seifas reminded the panting Dagon.
___“Sorry!” Dagon repeated. “Why does he even have this lever?”
___“Who knows,” the ‘cowherd’ said, wiping away the stringy hair now plastered to his brow.
___“Who cares?!” Othon added in his strain. He still was holding his rope in place, and tendons stood out redly on his neck.
___Now recalling their dangling companions, three men rushed to Othon’s aid. But Dagon took his time, ambling over. “C’mon,” he said, “it’s only Jian and Portunista and a plank and rope. It must be easier than pulling trees!”
___“Bad angle,” grumbled the proud Manavilon.
___“Sorry, guys, my arms ain’t long ‘nough t’ really help,” the thug apologized; the other two each grabbed a section under Othon’s hands. “Hm,” he added. “I s’pose this rope ain’t that rope. Oth’rwise,” he pondered while the others raised the plank, “this woulda gone back up when that went down. B’sides, th’ knothole stopped that rope, but this’n kept on goin’. Somethin’ up there mus’ be addin’ friction, too; oth’rwise th’ rest o’ th’rope woulda fallen with th’ cord…” He looked into the pit. “Guess they mus’ be on there still.”
___“Why d’y’say?” gritted Dagon, who had, under glares, joined in the hauling.
___“I doubt y’d be sweatin’ that much, pullin’ up an empty plank with three more men t’ help, doll-boy! O’ course,” allowed Poo grudgingly, “they might be dead weight, too.” He knelt and shouted into the hole: “Ever’one all right down there?!”
___“We’re just fine, thanks!” came a glad shout in reply.
___“Nothin’ fazes that boy…” Pooralay grinned.
___Soon they pulled the couple from the well. Othon, with assistance from the others, lifted the plank until the sitters’ feet were clear, then twisted around to gently set them down.
___“Thanks, Othon!” Jian reached up from where he sat to clasp a massive forearm. Othon knelt to sit and rest. Portunista, on the other hand, had leapt—or rather stumbled—from the plank, as soon as her feet were over the floor.
___“Fazed,” the ‘cowherd’ mumbled beneath his breath to Pooralay, who nodded “mm-hm” in agreement. The maga’s short dark hair had lengthened a little during previous weeks, and normally flared, up and out, in careful wavy swoops. Now, bits and pieces straggled everywhere; and she seemed unable to blink while gulping air.
___“What!” she snarled, seeing their look. She tried to squint her eyes in a glare, which didn’t quite work.
___“Nothin’,” Poo and Gaekwar said in unison. Gaekwar wandered quickly to the door; the sun now touched the treetops edging the dell. The thug meandered over to Jian—who lay on his stomach, looking back in the hole.
___“So,” said Pooralay, casually, “what were y’ doin’ down there?”
___Jian opened his mouth, but—
___“I will tell you what we saw,” announced the maga, glaring more successfully at Jian.
___Portunista gave the squad a brief account of their discoveries in the pit—no need for too much detail over certain points, she thought.
___When she reached their fall, Seifas told her what had happened. Portunista turned her glare on Dagon; although curiosity now was blunting her anger.
___“Why,” she muttered to herself, “does he even have that lever?”
___“Well,” continued Jian, seeing Portunista deep in thought, “we fell a ways before you caught us. Right for the throat of the hole…wsshh!! Except,” he shrugged, “we couldn’t see the hole anymore, because the wisps had doused again. But,” he hurried on, with a cautious glance toward Portunista, “once you caught us, Othon, and the…mm…excitement had lessened, Portunista whistled up another light. Now, here’s the interesting part—”
___“The throat of the well was encircled with sigils,” the maga absently interrupted.
___“Down to the water’s edge,” Jian nodded. “I mean right to the edge. Where the river rushed beneath it, the throat was smooth as if it had been razor-cut…ow,” he coughed, “bad analogy. Still, it was completely strange.”
___“So, were the sigils doing anything?” Gaekwar asked.
___“They were indeed,” Jian nodded. “Portunista can explain it better, though.”
___“Hm? Oh.” The maga turned to face them; then sat down on the floor. Her knees felt wobbly, she decided…”I tried an Yrthescrution once I got my bearings. Sometimes it can help me understand a sigil when I’m in proximity. But I’ve never seen these kinds before.”
___“So, you don’t know what they did,” pronounced the Krygian.
___“Oh, I think I do,” she snap-returned. “A scrution always has at least a little overflowing of perception. Like when you’re focused on a blade, you still see other things. But I didn’t realize what I was seeing, till Jian said something about the bucket being in the water.”
___“The plank was used for a waterwell, I guess?” Jian shrugged.
___“But I wasn’t sensing where the water should have been,” continued Portunista. “The scrution told me that the throat continued past the sigils—not into a rushing river!”
___“How far past?” Gaekwar asked.
___“Another hundred paces, easily. Then I found the water. I could feel its flow, against the throat of the well…but not remotely as quickly!”
___Jian dipped his hand into the pail, placed behind the plank; splashed around; and then drew out his hand with a flourishing spray.
___“That river was there! And it was flowing fast.”
___“Superspace,” Othon murmured.

[size=150]Chapter 25: Settling In[/size]

___With the sun’s descent into the forest top around the grassy bowl, the air was turning chill and damp, filling full with shadows. The juacuar insisted they explore the floor above, before the full night fell.
___“This is where we quartered,” he explained, while leading up the narrow stairs which curved along the inside of the Tower. Here the sturdy lumber ceiling rested rather higher. Past this landing, stairs continued winding.
___Where the narrow crossing hallways met, a rock-lined firepit showed no signs of recent use. In every wall of every hallway section stood two doors, totaling sixteen. The sky’s light filtered indirectly in through deep and open windows, at three of the hallway ends, including on the stairway landing. Sconces lined the walls between the doors; but Portunista whistled wisps, until the torches could be checked and lit.
___Directly across from the entry landing, at the southern hallway’s end, stood no window—but a door. After careful scrutiny by Pooralay, Jian—at Dagon’s order—opened it.
___Only a blank stone wall.
___“J’st like Seifas said. Int’restin’,” Pooralay murmured.
___“More interesting,” added Portunista, “this one also has no sigils.”
___“You mean, Qarfax bound a tesser here permanently into place?” Dagon blinked, and thought this over. “Could he do that? I mean, he had to sleep eventually, right?”
___“Cadrists don’t—or didn’t—see the world the way we do,” explained the maga, with a touch of wistfulness. Being in the Tower, seeing only these few things…she could taste that power, that distinction, that position in her world…
___“They remained awake, to enjoy the duty of sleep,” said Jian, softly. Then he blinked. “Sorry…you were saying?”
___“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she irritably replied…what sort of drivel was that…?! “But a Cadrist could attend to dozens, maybe hundreds, of his bindings at a time; and he could keep them all in place, or many, even while his mind and body slept.” She didn’t have a clue how this was done, or what the feeling would be like; but someday she would find it out…
___“So, people could go in and out this door,” the lanky ‘cowherd’ brought the topic back on track, “as if it was the door downstairs. Why would Qarfax do that?”
___“He never told us,” Seifas shrugged. “He never told us anything about this door. He only told us, never use the basement door, except in an emergency. As you can see, the windows for the garrison floor are slim and few. We never noticed different heights,” he ruefully admitted.
___“I’ve got an even better question,” Dagon said. “If Qarfax could create a tesser with those sigils in the well, why not put them on the doors? Why bother with a bind at all?”
___The maga shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. Maybe he was going to, and never got to do it? Maybe scribing a tesser-sigil as large as this door, was something he hadn’t discovered, yet.”
___“But why would he do it at all?” Gaekwar exclaimed. “It doesn’t make sense! No more than him rigging a seat to go down in the well, when he could just jott himself there when he wanted!”
___“I don’t know!” Portunista was becoming very tired of saying this; it wasn’t improving her mood. “I simply don’t know how tessers work, so I don’t know what their limitations are. If we ever reach his private rooms or laboratories, maybe I can figure something out from his notes. That is why we came here,” she reminded them impatiently, “not to stand in this hall!!”
___“Why y’re all here, not me,” the thug corrected idly. “I came here f’r the Well.”
___“And?” Othon asked.
___Pooralay shrugged. “I dunno. It’s a well, an’ I guess it’s at th’ end of a woods. But it don’t seem t’ mean or t’ do anything—not anythin’ worth discoverin’, I mean. Like ‘ista says, maybe there’s some notes upstairs.”
___“First we check these rooms,” insisted Seifas. The longer Portunista took to reach those notes—any notes—the better. And discipline dictated they ensure the barrack rooms were clear.
___“Fine,” Dagon said. “Send Jian in.”
___Pooralay snorted. “Y’re gettin’ t’ sound like a brain-flogged macaw. ‘Send Jian in, send Jian in, bwa-CAAAWW!’”
___“Just get on with it,” Gaekwar demanded. “I want supper!”
___So they settled in. The thug began to examine a door, by wisplight and the torches being lit by Othon on the wall.
___“These were only barracks, right?” Gaekwar asked, fiddling with the disker.
___“That is what they were,” the juacuar confirmed. “But who knows what has happened here, in the slopings since?”
___“I thought a good burglar could wipe through a check in a moment or two,” Dagon sulked. “Or maybe you failed basic thievery?”
___“Oh, I c’d do it that fast, if I wanted to. But the fancy stuff is f’r ‘mergencies, or for showin’ off. Speed kills.”
___“‘Oh, I could do that, if I wanted to,’” Dagon mocked. “That’s sure easy enough to say.”
___Pooralay looked back at him. Then he turned around completely, pulling out an ohre from his pocket. “Okay, doll-boy, check this out.” Setting the coin upon his left hand’s thumb, he flipped it into the air.
___It didn’t come down.
___“Pretty smooth, hm?”
___“Cute street trick,” the arrogant Krygian said with contempt, as Pooralay walked to him. “It’s in your fist. Probably never left your thumb.”
___“Guess y’r eyes ain’t even as good as I was ‘xpectin’,” Poo replied. “Nor y’r ears. Any of th’ rest’a yous, see and hear th’ coin go up?”
___Jian raised his hand. “I did.”
___“Okay, I did, too,” Gaekwar admitted, interested in spite of himself.
___“You snatched it out of the air that fast?” Dagon dubiously stared at the fist.
___“Nah.” Pooralay opened the fist, under Dagon’s nose.
___It was empty.
___Portunista had wandered over, to look more closely for herself. Not taking his eyes from Dagon, Pooralay reached and stuck his right hand into Portunista’s thick dark hair.
___“Hey!” she exclaimed as she batted his hand away…then choked.
___He held the ohre on edge between his thumb and index finger.
___“Very nifty!” nodded Jian.
___“Hey, ‘ista,” Gaekwar grinned. “How come that never happened whenever I did that?” This earned him the expected spiky glare, but he continued grinning all the same.
___“I snatched it that fast, doll-boy. That’s how some of us do magic, sister,” Pooralay winked to the maga. “So, unless y’wanna kick th’ door in y’rself an’ check fer traps that way, stay outta my hair!” he added over his shoulder to Dagon—who edged even farther down the hall.
___The thug went back to work, but not for long.
___“What,” Portunista mused, “would a mage be like, who could move that fast?”
___“Lethal,” rumbled Othon.
___Portunista pondered this. True, in terms of teeth and tongue and throat, a mage could only jott so fast. But still…
___With a smile, she sauntered over to the little man, and knelt beside him.
___“Would you perhaps consider giving some private lessons?”
___Seifas sighed in disappointment for his commander…
___Poo’s hands froze.
___He slowly turned his head in her direction.
___“Doll,” he said, very deliberately—faltering her smile. “If y’re talkin’ ‘bout payin’ me gold, don’t bother. I c’n pick up all y’r gold, whenev’r I want. If y’re talkin’ ‘bout payin’ anoth’r way…” and he narrowed his eyes even further, “y’r tent looks too crammed-full already. I de-cline.” He returned to work.
___Seifas suppressed a laugh: that didn’t happen often…!
___Portunista was much less amused.
___“Considering who I am,” she slid her voice like steel through her lips, “and what I can do, you might want to treat me with more respect than you’ve shown so far.”
___Again, the thug’s hands froze.
___Again, he slowly turned his head toward her.
___“True ‘nough,” he allowed. “But then, y’might wanna watch what kinda threats y’make, considerin’ how closely we’re sharin’ this hallway…”
___—yelping indignantly, Portunista leaped, crashing backward into the wall behind her at an angle—
___“…and considerin’ some of us’s hands’re quicker than th’ Eye.” The thug returned to work, grinning in satisfaction; Jian softly chuckled.
___The maga pushed herself off the floor, bracing against the wall, her eyes nearly popping out of her head in fury. How dare he—he—!
___Then her fury melted into growing horror. Staring at the thug, who whistled a bawdy dancing tune, Portunista edged her hand to her practical—well-cut!—shirt, undid the second button, and reached inside.
___She drew the ohre-piece out.
___“Hope it was good f’r you too, doll.”
___Gaekwar whistled.
___“Hey, ‘ista,” Dagon began. “How come that never happened when—”
___“Shut up!” she barked.
___Pooralay leaned away from the door. “Done!” he announced.
___“Okay!” Jian walked over—very carefully looking not at Portunista; but smiling and winking at the little man once his face was out of her line of sight. He composed himself, squarely faced the door—and with a loud “Ha-HAAA!!” he threw it open and leaped into the darkness beyond.
___A moment’s silence.
___“All clear!” rang out his cheerful baritone. “Um. I think. Anyone have a light?”
___“One down, fifteen t’ go.” Pooralay stepped to the next door over.
___“This is going to take forever,” Gaekwar groused.
___It only took an hour, though. There were fewer interruptions.

Next chapter

Notes from the real author…

This type of adventure story is largely about exploration of an area and putting together enough pieces to infer or discover what has happened there and what the secrets are. Rather like a detective novel in that regard–and there’s even the question of who or what killed the magus to investigate!

The whole rest of the book won’t be like this–a good 100 pages toward the end, close to 25% of the total book by weight, is dedicated to what I like to call the Macro-Fight Sequence. And we’ll have a couple of action sequences before leaving this Section, too. Still, I thought it was important not only to establish the environment and the exploration here, but also to get the various people settled in with each other for working together. (Thus one of the chapter titles.) Sure, 'ista has been working with Dagon, Othon and Gaekwar for a while, but under very different circumstances (personnel management and small amounts of field fighting); Seifas rather less so; Jian and Pooralay even less so again by proportion. They really are getting to know one another better now.

Yes, there are people whose hands really can move that fast; I don’t know any of them personally, but I’ve seen them in action. Literally faster than the eye can see, and with that degree of precision. Some of those people are modern day gunfighters (who do exhibitions of course); and frankly if they can do what they do, I don’t have any trouble believing people could do it back in the Old West days, too. What we see in movies ISN’T FAST ENOUGH to match the unbelievable reality.

(That’s true about swordfighting, too, as I know from personal and direct experience: the action has to be slowed way down for filming, or it would be incomprehensible to the human eye. B level fencers can literally stab flies out of the air, with the bulkier epee swords, faster than the eye can see, as a friend of mine reported incredulously after visiting a good fencing dojo. The A-level fencers, who compete at national and Olympic levels, ARE EVEN FASTER! This is a main reason why fencing has never been popularized for broadcast at the Olympics. The only things at the games which move faster than a foil tip are the bullets in the shooting competitions.)

Anyway, unbelievable levels of hand (and arm-)speed, literally baffling to the human mind, are a main component of stage magic (and pickpocketing for that matter), thus explaining Poo’s comments.

Yes, I borrowed Jian’s mystical saying about staying awake to enjoy the duty of sleep directly from something written by C. S. Lewis regarding ancient humanity. Readers shouldn’t infer from this that Jian knows Lewis, any more than Pooralay knows Star Trek when he comes up with a shared terminology phrase a couple of chapters from now. As previously noted, I follow the fantasy-writer’s dictum that every good saying occurs in all alternate realities sooner or later; Chesterton has pointed out, in tracing story transmission and development, that good sayings even develop independently from each other in this world!

(Incidentally, I don’t think I had read any G. K. Chesterton when I wrote CoJ, but I certainly did soon afterward and I include nods to him in Book 2.)

Chapter 25 features a leftover ‘seam’ from when I was trying to synch up the various characteristics of the Tower with what people there would be seeing and hearing and otherwise experiencing; I kept discovering things I had missed or miswritten up to the final days before sending the text to the printers. One of the last things (maybe the last thing) I tried to fix was when I realized that Seifas of all people should have noticed there was a substantial difference between what he could see out the windows of what he thought was the first floor (the garrison floor) but which physically was really the second floor. The most I could do was lamely have Seifas admit with embarrassment that he never had noticed (before he and the garrison troops fled of course–the tessers on the doors failed and so then they had to go out what they had been told was the basement, and Seifas definitely noticed then.)

Once I had plotted out all of what happens through the first night, I realized that the only way the timing would work would be if the party arrives in the area only an hour or two before sundown. Which wouldn’t make good sense–Seifas, if no one else, would be the first to vehemently advise against attempting to explore the Tower so soon before night. The only feasible solution I could think of was that the brigade arrived in the area around midmorning to set up camp near the pass leading into valley; and then Portunista, impatient with having had to wait for the camp to be settled before moving, insisted on trying something that afternoon even though her party wouldn’t arrive at the Tower until near sundown. (Seifas would still have been sent out scouting of course–troop management not being his forte anyway–but he wouldn’t have had time to do a thorough job, explaining why he misses a few key things to be discovered later.)

I don’t much like making a character hold the Idiot Ball, but sometimes there isn’t any other way around a plot corner. When that’s the case, the best thing an author can do is exploit a personality fault; Portunista’s attitudes plausibly lead to unwise impatience. That’ll be true again, more dangerously so, before the end of this Section. (But then, if I appeal to that as an author, I ought to have the character learn better from it. Which she will, though not explicitly so: her prideful impatience only becomes a problem again in Book 2, at a tragically important point of the plot, but I’ll have developed her deteriorating character sufficiently to make it plausible again–for someone in her state of mind anyway.)