by Liv Daniels
Leina was speechless for a moment. “I can’t believe it.” She laughed. “I never knew you were such a troublemaker.”
Theo smiled. “I never knew that you were, either. You don’t know how surprised I was when I learned that you were the Masked One. The World could use more troublemakers, eh?”
“I suppose it could.” She let out a long, slow breath. “I asked myself once or twice when I was in the city of the Yurukim if I would be happy staying there. Forgetting about everything else. The answer was always no, but I don’t get why. That’s what the prince did. Probably it turned out better for him that way.”
Theo shook his head. “Prince was determined he was going to stay here forever, but I who knew him best could always see that it wasn’t really what he wanted. When he was with me alone all he wanted to talk about was the sun sparkling on the fountains in Estlebey. He just was never willing to accept everything else that came with the sun. Then Cora came along, and she was his sun, but I think he always knew that she would want to go back if she knew who she really was. That was what tore at him most, so he never told her until he was dying. Coming here, you see, wasn’t better for him. Sun’s a cruel friend sometimes, but you can’t go on without it. Not forever. Whatever happens, Leina, it is better that it should be said that you were never content to hide in the dark.”
“Maybe it won’t matter if we don’t get out of here.” She stared at the darkness around her, and it offered no encouragement. Then suddenly she chuckled. “Anyway, whatever does happen, I don’t think I could have survived down here very long with the food.”
Theo laughed. “I fancy not. You were always like a little princess yeself. Turned up your nose at half the food I brought.”
Leina was silent for a moment. “What fountains are you talking about, anyway? When I was in Estlelbey the only ones I saw were dry.”
“Oh, them,” said Theo. “They used to always come on when the tide was high. The City of Fountains, they called it. But the fountains stopped after Prince ran away. I fancy they won’t ever run again.” Theo paused and looked up as if he could tell the time by the shade of the darkness. “Now the night’s getting on. You best get some rest if we’re to survive the ordeal at hand. Whatever happens tomorrow, Leina, it’s been an honor.”
Leina sighed. “Likewise. And, Theo? Thanks for the books.”
Chapter 26
Leina stayed by the wall as Theo swung the ladder into place. She didn’t fancy standing at the brink of another pit for longer than she had to. Cora stood with her wordlessly, and Leina was glad for her silence more understanding than words. But words were futile here anyways; the great vaporous blasts would have blown them all away. When a billow hit her, Leina could acutely feel the force that it exerted on her every sinew. She thought of testing how well she could keep her balance against the heavy blasts, but it was hard enough to keep her shaking feet in place on their own, so she stayed pressed against the wall. Despite the scalding of the steam, she was stone cold.
Between puffs of steam, Leina saw Theo waving his hand. He was ready. Cora took Leina firmly by the hand and dragged her to the brink of the churning steamfield. The end of the ladder was balanced precariously on the edge, stretching away into unseen reaches of a void-like fog cloud. Leina closed her eyes to block out the vision, but that only brought on a dizzying sensation of falling. With a gasp, her eyes shot open and she vaulted backwards, crashing into Cora.
Theo looked back over his shoulder at the girls. “Steady there,” he said, yelling over the whirling wind. Leina braced herself against a sudden gust. “Now I’ll hold the ladder in place,” Theo bellowed. “Cora first, then Leina. When you are both over there, I want you to hold the ladder down from the other side while I cross. Got it?”
Both girls nodded. Cora gave Leina’s hand a squeeze, let go, and marched onto the ladder, not missing a step. Leina tried to watch, but her eyes darted away in reflexive fear. When she looked back, Cora had disappeared into the mist.
Leina stood as one frozen. Theo turned to her. “Your turn, Leina.”
Leina felt an icy sweat on her forehead in defiance of the heavy wet heat in the air. She stepped forward, but her movements were shaky and blunt.
“Remember, Leina,” Theo said, “this would be easy if the ladder was on the ground.”
Yeah, perspective changes everything, said a voice in Leina’s head, and not an encouraging one. She took another uncertain step, squaring herself with the ladder. Then, after a deep breath, she stepped onto the first rung.
The ladder made a tremendous renting creak under her weight. The world swirled and churned around her. A million thoughts flashed through her mind in a blinding succession. You’re crazy. Are you really doing this? You might not survive this. That’s worse than if it was certain that you would not survive this. Don’t think like that. And then—all was still, and she was standing there with one foot still on the ground.
The dizziness began to return, and Leina felt herself trembling uncontrollably. But with sudden determination she swung her other leg out and planted it on the second rung. She resolved to keep her eyes straight ahead, but they kept darting down to check on her feet, and instead being drawn to stare at the unfathomable abyss below. It was all she could concentrate on. She felt the immeasurable precariousness of her position in an overwhelming wave.
Leina forced herself to look up. She took one step, and then another, and another. Spurts of steam snaked up on all sides, but the subterranean wind mercifully kept its distance. She progressed along the length of the ladder, slowly at first, but increasing her speed as she went on. The void-like space around her seemed to go on and on, but she settled into a comfortable rhythm of movement. At one point she felt herself teetering to one side, but her arms seemed to raise themselves and she regained her balance. Before too long, a dim likening of Cora’s silhouette emerged among the vapor.
There. You’ve almost done it. Leina had the sudden urge to laugh.
Then, suddenly, a great stabbing blast hit her from the side. Leina panicked, flailing her arms wildly at her sides. But the extraneous movement only upset her balance, and the wind prevailed against her. In a last desperate effort, Leina threw herself down upon the ladder, grappling to keep hold of it with her soaked hands. The ladder screamed in protest at the sudden change in weight, and at the same time Leina felt a searing pain stab at her left leg. She squeezed her eyes shut, hugging the ladder desperately.
The wind passed, and when Leina opened her eyes, Cora’s hand appeared from out of nowhere. Leina clutched it and vaulted to the outcropping of land, tearing her leg free of where it had been wedged between rungs. With a cry of pain, she crumpled to the ground.
“I’m coming now,” said a faint swirling ghost of Theo’s voice.
Leina dragged herself to the ladder and helped Cora hold it down while Theo crossed. Soon he appeared, unsteady but upright, and alighted onto the outcropping. Cora helped him swing the ladder back onto land, then he knelt down by Leina, who was cradling her foot.
“Did you get hurt?” he asked.
“There was wind. I panicked,” said Leina.
Theo knelt down and felt her leg. “It’s not broken. Try walking on it.”
Leina stood up shakily. Pain shot up her leg, and she bit her lip, crumpling back to the ground. She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t do that again, Theo.”
“You can’t break now, Leina. Later, fine. Just not now.”
“I’ve been breaking ever since I left home. No one knows. The Masked One is their creation, and nothing more. I can’t do even this.”
A wind kicked up and steam splattered over the lonely island. Theo sighed with the wind, and it died down, leaving behind a rare calm. “Let’s just take a break, okay?”
Leina nodded. For a long time she sat and stared at the swirling mist that surrounded them, wondering what had turned this day so sour. But she knew, really. It was the pit, and the Desert: her staunch insistence against al
l that they represented and her simultaneous inability to face what such an insistence meant. The Yurukim had found a Silence in this place, but though she had glimpsed it, it was not hers. Inside, she still couldn’t look herself in the eye. She was afraid of who she was. She had become by reputation everything that she had ever wanted to be, but now it seemed only a mockery, and a crushing weight. She had hoped that she would be able to bear it better after the Silence of the Yurukim, but it had already returned greater than ever before.
“Why can’t I do this, Theo?” Leina said numbly, staring at the darkness swirling all around them.
Theo was silent for a while. “A wise person once said to me,” he began slowly, “that at times like this you only need to look up. If you are looking in the wrong place, she said, you only hear the voices that are dragging you down. But you only hear them because you allow yourself to listen. If you looked up, maybe you would hear that there’s another stronger voice that says you can do it. That’s the one you listen to. It’s the looking up and the not falling that takes courage, but you have it. And it’s all you need.”
“That’s what I said to Sam and Edward. Look up,” Leina said faintly. “Then I said haec est mea carmina.”
“This is my song,” Cora translated.
“Yeah,” Leina said. “Easy words to say when death is certain, but not, perhaps, when it’s uncertain.” She turned her eyes to Theo, grateful for what he had said but regretful of having to speak. “How do you know all of these things, Theo? Why don’t you save the World yourself, if you can say such things?”
“I am doing my part already. I gave the World its Masked One, and now I am helping her out of a ditch. There is great good working through you, Leina. We all see it. I may be foolish to say so, but I don’t believe that your part in this story is over.”
After a deep breath, Leina jumped up suddenly. She cringed as a stab of pain shot up her leg, but it passed. “Alright. No more fear. Let’s get out of this place.”
Theo raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure you can?”
“Yes,” said Leina. “And I want to go first.”
Theo heaved the ladder to rest on the next island. The gap was smaller this time.
“When the wind comes, you have to lean into it,” Cora said.
“What if it’s not strong enough and I fall?”
“It is. Trust me.”
Repressing a choke, Leina nodded. “You Gecko People are crazy,” she muttered. “Do you see where the name comes from now?”
Cora blinked. “Oh, that’s why.”
Leina speeded onto the ladder and cleared the first few rungs in a succession of quick steps. Pain flashed in her leg, but she grit her teeth and bore it. The pain almost made the walk easier because it gave her mind an object on which to concentrate. Her balance wavered and her heart dove, but she shakily adjusted her raised arms and found firm footing again. She kept her eyes pointed straight ahead, but she was sharply aware of the ample space between the rungs for her to fall through. It was as if she could see it even when her eyes were turned away.
Then Leina felt it coming. She turned her eyes slightly and saw the great gust of steam mushrooming to engulf her. Time slowed, and every second became an unbearably infinite length. As the mass of steam expanded and slid forward, it seemed that its every movement represented the fearful passage of ages—mountains rising and falling, glaciers crashing their way to the sea, landforms descending and being engulfed by a frightful white abyss. Leina knew what she had to do, but even in those long eons of time she knew that she could not. Every year-like second only intensified the writhing certainty that the simple action that would save her was forever beyond her reach. Because she could not knowingly abandon her weight to the abyss, not even to save her life. This is it. You can’t lean into the fear. And you can’t fly.
That’s not true. You don’t have to accept that you can’t.
And so, as the eons opened and closed, Leina thrust herself in the direction of the wind. The terrible sensation of falling overcame her, and as the ages went on and on, on she fell. Her thoughts fractured into a million confused particles, and she could not piece them back together.
Then, suddenly, time reeled back into place, and Leina found herself leaning suspended by the wind over the abyss at an impossible angle. Her feet were moving unaided, fleeting from rung to rung. Then the end came, and she was on solid ground again, and the wind stopped, and she lost her balance and fell. Somehow she had survived another stage of their passage.
Chapter 27
Leina tried not to count the close calls. Every stumble that she or Cora or Theo made was a spar with fate. Every creak of the ladder was a timely reminder of the frailty of the situation. Every gust brought with it a cruel obligation to accept the paradoxical, to lean into the fear. The worst part was when the wind started to wane. Then it was a delicate game of balance to get to an upright position at just the right moment. Always the gaping abyss below made its presence known.
And yet somehow they went on with nothing worse than minor trips and scares. Leina began to hope that they would actually make it out alive. They embarked onto an especially large island with a massive stone pillar rising from its center.
Then they saw it.
At first Leina thought the World had fractured into a million pieces before her and she was standing on the edge of all that was left. Then she realized what that meant: she was staring at a giant whirlpool.
The wind roared and ripped at them even where they stood, but before them was a force ten times more powerful: a solid wall of rapidly churning steam.
Theo wiped the sweat off of his forehead. “This just doesn’t get any easier, does it?”
“Where’s the next island?” Leina yelled, gritting her teeth as she tried to keep her footing against the fierce wind. Her hurt leg throbbed under the pressure.
“The ladder!” Cora yelled suddenly.
Leina’s head snapped to where it was resting on the ground, and she saw it inching toward the abyss. It was already tipping, and in the next moment it would disappear into the blackness. Leina lunged for it and managed to snag a weak grip on the last rung. But the wind overpowered her, and she felt herself sliding with the ladder. She grappled for it with her other hand, but she could not get hold of it. The first hand’s grip was failing.
Theo jumped in from the side. He thrust the ladder into Leina, and she staggered back into the wind under its weight. But now Theo was at the very brink of the island. Only one of his feet was touching the ground, and he was flailing his arms desperately in an effort to thrust himself back onto the island. It was clearly a losing battle.
Without a second thought, Leina threw herself free of the ladder and rushed to Theo. The wind propelled her forward at a frightful speed. With a cry, she planted her feet on the ground, skidding to the very brink and still inching forward despite all of the resistance that her strength could give. Just as Theo started to go over, Leina seized his arm in a vice grip and dove backward. They toppled to the ground. Cora rushed to them, ladder in tow, tears now streaming from her eyes.
“We’re alright, Cora,” Leina said. Actually her injured leg had been crushed underneath her when she fell, bringing with it another onset of pain, but she didn’t mention that. For a long time they could only sit there panting, bracing themselves against the wind, trying to slow their rapid pulses. At length Leina lifted her head and tried to descry an island past the swirl of steam that engulfed them. But it was then that something strange caught her eye. In the thickest part of the storm before them, there was a distant blue glow, faint but undeniable.
“Look,” Leina said. “What is that?”
“I don’t know,” said Theo grimly. “Do you see another island?”
“I think so. There’s a darker spot above the glow. But there’s no way we can cross the ladder in that tempest. We’d be ripped off before we had even begun.”
“Well, only one thing for it.” Theo got up, hauling the la
dder with him, and approached the churning wall.
Leina turned to look at Cora. “Did he hear me?”
Cora shrugged.
Theo thrust the ladder into the vortex, straining his arms against the massive resistance.
“That thing’s going to snap,” Leina breathed. “It can’t take that much wind.” Her heart started pounding, and there was nothing she could do to subdue it. She saw all of the frailty of their position in the ancient splintering length of ladder that was still visible. She did not know which she feared more: the ladder breaking, or the ladder staying intact.
“I need some rope!” Theo bellowed suddenly.
Leina limped forward, slipping off the coil of rope that was still slung over her shoulder.
“The ladder’s caught on something,” Theo said over the bellowing storm. “I don’t know what it is, but it feels secure and it’s a little higher up than where we are right now.” He took the rope from Leina and started to secure one end of it to the ladder. “If we can make the ladder close to horizontal at that height, we can hang on with our hands and climb across like that. Then we can’t get blown off the ladder unless we let go, and you don’t have to walk on your leg.”
Cora, who had come up behind Leina, nodded and took the other end of the rope. She looped it across the stone pillar and brought it back to Theo, who tied it to the ladder. He slowly released his grip and the ladder, though it swung violently in the wind, stayed secure.
“This is crazy,” Leina muttered. Yet she felt a kind of reckless resolve even as she said it. She knew that this was the moment she had been fearing ever since she survived her fall into the Pit, but the fear was so overthought that it had worn out at last. This moment was inevitable, and she must face it, and that was enough to consume her thoughts now when she should have been most afraid.
“We go together,” said Theo. “You first, Cora, then Leina. I’ll be last. Hold on tight, okay?”