Daywards

by Anthony Eaton

  Sighing, Dara stretched out on her back, staring upwards at the narrow, dim rectangle of light that was the only indication of the doorway above and clutching her shivering arms close around herself for warmth. After some time the wind rose again, though from a new direction, and took up a banshee wail that filled the darkness and took with it any prospect of sleep.

  The hours stretched by and Dara passed them in cold solitude, her ears straining for even the slightest sound, the vaguest shuffle of a footstep over that droning, constant wind.

  Finally she dozed and woke to find herself curled up in a tight ball, a gloomy beam of dull iridescence floating down from above. Daylight.

  Outside, morning was approaching, the sky lightening and the resulting daylight casting just enough light through the doorway above to illuminate the rectangle of floor upon which, all those hours ago, Dara had settled to sleep next to her brother.

  And there was still no sign of Jaran.

  Dara sat for some time basking in the little warmth that was able to penetrate as far as her island of light. Around her, the rest of the low-ceilinged room was still hidden in shadow, except for the small, square doorway over on the far wall, which was beginning to glow brightly as the sun rose above the horizon, so far below.

  It took some minutes for the full meaning of that lit-up doorway to dawn upon Dara, but when it did it settled over her with a sickening horror.

  If the side-door was admitting sunlight, then surely by now the floor-hatch should be doing the same. By this point, it too should be lit up by the dawn outside – throwing a bright beam up into the room and lighting the way out.

  But it wasn’t.

  Apart from the doorway above and the one in the side, not another single chink of light revealed itself.

  Which could mean only one thing: Jaran hadn’t gone back up to the dome above.

  He’d simply gone.

  And he’d blocked the way behind him.

  Dara leapt to her feet and, on legs trembling as much with anger as fear, she forced herself to look around carefully, immediately noticing that a couple of things had changed.

  Firstly, the equipment rack was no longer upright below the hatchway. It had been carefully lowered onto the floor again, and then pinned there below a plascrete beam which, even at a glance, Dara knew she wouldn’t have a hope of moving on her own.

  Secondly, sitting atop the rack, perched deliberately so that she’d find it, was a pile of about twenty prosup sachets, and propped beside the rack were two large containers of water.

  So he hadn’t left her here to starve then.

  ‘Jaran, you shi!’

  Furious, Dara kicked out at the equipment rack, but the only effect this had was to send a sharp bolt of pain up her leg and dislodge the pile of sachets, which scattered so that Dara then had to crawl around and gather them together again.

  He hadn’t left her with equipment to warm the food, and the only thing less appealing than eating nothing but prosup was having to eat nothing but cold prosup.

  ‘Shi, shi, shi, shi!’

  The cursing solved nothing but, perversely, it made her feel better.

  Settling on the floor, her back against the equipment rack, Dara massaged her foot, which still throbbed, then idly tore open one of the sachets and chewed on the bland contents while she waited for the light to improve.

  As far as she could tell, she didn’t have many options. She could try and find another way back up to the level above, but that wouldn’t do her much good. She could sit and wait either for Jaran to return or for something else – she had no idea what – to happen. Or she could find the hatchway, and get down on her own, if she could.

  It was obvious that her first step was to locate the escape hatch and see what Jaran had done to seal it. While she scraped every last skerrick of prosup out of its silvery packaging – there was no point wasting it – she watched as the room around her gradually emerged from the gloom and she allowed herself to wonder, calmly now, what in the sky Jaran meant by leaving her.

  It was, she had to admit, the perfect trap. She couldn’t get up to the top level, and so wouldn’t be able to find any escape there, if there was such a thing. Even more telling, up here she couldn’t reach into the Earthmother, and so she had no idea what Jaran might be up to. She couldn’t track him, or try to call Ma Saria for help.

  After she’d finished eating, Dara decided there was enough light to take a look around. Cautiously, she began to explore, examining the room closely.

  She had a rough idea where the hatchway was – it had to be close to where the domestem rose in an enormous column through the middle of the room – so she made her way over to its shadowy bulk.

  Outside, the easterly wind was still howling, and it might have been her imagination but a couple of times Dara was certain she felt the entire dome sway around her. She certainly didn’t imagine the loud groans and occasional gunshot creaks that boomed through the eerie, dusty darkness.

  Reaching the stem, she began searching in earnest, scanning the floor intently for anything: a square, discoloured section perhaps or even a tiny chink of light.

  It was difficult, though. The room was so much darker than it had been with the hatch open and it was often too difficult to see anything much at all.

  Finally, though, she found it: a square hatchway of dull plascrete set flush into the floor, with a round folding handle recessed into its surface. By the time Dara discovered the hatch, she’d already crawled over it three or four times, and would probably have missed it again but for the changing position of the sun outside, which was now casting a long, angular beam through the side door, revealing the slight relief at the edges of the hatchway.

  Her heart pounding, Dara pulled the round handle out of its recess and hauled on it with every bit of strength she could muster.

  Nothing happened.

  No matter how hard she pulled, the hatchway didn’t budge. Her eyes full with tears of frustration, she slammed the handle back into its cradle.

  ‘Jaran, you bloody shi!’

  The curse echoed around the circular room, mocking her.

  In the shifting light she noticed a thin smear of liquid along the back edge of the hatchway and, dipping a finger into it, found it to be oily and slippery. Jaran had obviously lubricated the hinges with some sort of tech before closing it, which meant that this had been planned all along.

  Gradually, her ragged breathing returned to normal and, for the first time since she’d come to the realisation that her brother had left her here, she asked herself the question she’d been avoiding.

  Why?

  What in the sky would have possessed Jaran to do it? She knew he didn’t particularly like her a lot of the time, but she couldn’t come up with any reason for him to leave her like this. Especially here.

  The only explanation was that Uncle Xani had put him up to it. And that, in turn, meant that Ma Saria was probably in a lot more trouble than Jaran had implied.

  This thought drove her back to her feet, and she grabbed the handle again, giving it one more hard pull, to absolutely no effect. It was impossible, she realised. If he’d known enough to silence the hinges, then he’d have known how to lock the hatch, too.

  Which meant there was no hope. None at all.

  Resisting the temptation to kick at the stubbornly sealed hatchway, Dara took stock of her situation. Jaran had left a lot of food and water. Enough for at least a week if she ate and drank at her normal rate, and even more if she …

  Where had the water come from?

  Jaran had been carrying his pack with him, true, but when Dara had gone through it she’d noticed only a couple of small flasks, not the large containers now resting on the ground beside the equipment rack. Clearly the water, at least, had already been cached here when they arrived. And that suggested a whole range of possibilities she didn’t like to contemplate. Like this whole thing was somehow … planned.

  Dara pushed that thought aside for the mom
ent. Jaran had left her supplied enough to ensure that she stayed alive for some time – she’d easily manage a fortnight, perhaps more, if she rationed herself. This meant that he – or somebody – was probably going to return and get her. And when they did, they’d be lucky if she didn’t kick them off the ladder! Either way, she should expect a long stay.

  The prospect of an indeterminate number of days trapped in the freezing gloom of the dome was too awful to contemplate. Sighing, Dara clambered through the wreckage towards the opening in the side wall. If nothing else, there was enough sunlight angling in through there to warm her up a little.

  The hatchway, like the one in the floor, was a perfect square. She felt the chilly breath of the easterly on her arms and suppressed a shiver. The sun threw a long, intense rectangle of light into the room, and she bathed in it, allowing the warmth to wash some of the tension from her.

  The hatchway was the opening to a small, square tunnel, which ran several metres through the thick outer wall of the dome. Ducking slightly, she peered through and was surprised to see what appeared to be a small balcony. If she wanted to see the view, she would have to crawl through the tunnel and stand out on that ancient, flimsy platform.

  This was not a prospect that filled her with joy. Briefly, the memory of the dome as seen from ground level ran through her mind. From down there, the dome was so high as to be a speck at the top of that impossible stem. The thought of standing exposed at the edge of such a precipice sent a cold shiver through her.

  She didn’t move back into the dark, though. If nothing else, stepping out there would be a small victory over Jaran. She wouldn’t be as completely trapped as he’d imagined. At least she’d get to feel the sun on her face.

  Quickly, before she gave herself time to change her mind, Dara crouched herself along the narrow tunnel and stepped onto the balcony. At first, her eyes and brain found it difficult to reconcile the sight before her, but when they did, Dara was overcome by the most curious sensation – half terror, half sheer exhilaration.

  Below, the ruins were a smear across the landscape, punctuated here and there by the piles of rubble which at ground level seemed as big as mountains but which from up here looked like mere pimples on the earth.

  In the far distance, directly ahead, the low hills ran as far as she could see along the eastern horizon in both directions, marking the edge of the great forest, the individual trees combining to paint the entire inland plateau a smoky green until it vanished into the haze of distance. The horizons themselves seemed impossibly far away and that distance was, in itself, enough to leave her awestruck. She didn’t dare to look straight down over the edge.

  The wind tore at her, whipping her clothing and filling her eyes with tears. The air around her resonated with thrumming power as it met the wholly unexpected spear of plascrete on which she was now perched.

  For a brief moment all of it – the dizzying height, the power of the wind – was enough to make her forget the precariousness of her situation and, unable to stop herself, Dara let loose a primal yell – a scream of exhilaration, which poured from her and was whipped away by the quicksilver wind.

  Then the moment passed, and Dara nerved herself to lean forward – just a little, not trusting her weight against the centuries-old plascrete railing – and to look directly down into the abyss.

  Surprisingly, it didn’t bring on nearly the vertiginous effect that she’d expected. So great was the height of the dome, and so blasted and ruined was the landscape below, that there was no frame of reference by which she could gauge her height comparative to the ground.

  Dara leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Even with the sun shining directly upon it, the plascrete remained cool, and she could sense the emptiness of it at her back – not a malevolent emptiness, just … nothing.

  The heat of the sun on her face was welcome, though, and for a time Dara stood, statue-still against the dead corpse of the skycity, and let the warmth flow into her. It wasn’t the same as earthwarmth – it was still too detached, too distant for that – but it was something.

  Eventually she tired of standing there, and took a closer look at the balcony.

  It was narrow, only a little wider than her body, and ran around the circumference of the dome. What its purpose might have once been, she had no idea, but it seemed solid enough – certainly no more degraded than the rest of the dome, despite its exposure to the elements – and she decided to attempt a circumnavigation.

  It wasn’t difficult, although the first few steps felt strange. The distant horizons and yawning space below played odd tricks with her peripheral vision, but she quickly adapted and was soon strolling, almost nonchalant, around towards the nightwards side. As she did so, she passed into the shadow of the wall and the day grew cooler, but this discomfort was quickly forgotten as the saltwater, which lay west of the city, revealed itself.

  It filled the entire western view – deep, unbroken indigo. There was not a mountain, not a tree. Nothing except silver-streaked water, so far away that the waves seemed little more than wrinkles on the skin of an enormous, living, heaving creature.

  She continued her slow path around the dome, until about three-quarters of the way back to the hatch she made a discovery.

  She almost missed it, entranced as she was with the view, but her fingers, which she’d been trailing along the wall beside her, caught the strange ridge and drew her attention.

  There was a door set into the wall. And it was ajar.

  Her first thought was that she’d arrived back at the hatchway, but a quick examination showed that this wasn’t the case.

  This door was different. It was double the size of the access hatch, its top well above Dara’s head. It also had a sign attached – a faded metal plaque, etched and pitted by time, on which Dara could just make out the remnants of barely visible printing:

  merge y Mag t S ft Access

  CAUTION!

  Ccess only wi thorization from Pr lat Div

  Dange glift ope io s 24 hour

  Below this was a lot of much smaller writing, most of which had been scoured away. Dara hesitated. The warning aspect of the sign was clear, but so was the word ‘Access’, which carried with it the tempting possibility that the door might also offer escape.

  In any case, she reasoned, it wouldn’t hurt to have a look. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. Like the floor hatch, this door had a round, recessed handle set flush into its face. Dara pulled it tentatively, expecting to find it seized and her escape thwarted. Surprisingly, though, the handle came out with only a little effort, and even turned slightly.

  Holding her breath, Dara pulled.

  And nothing happened. The handle may have been free, but something somewhere in the door had clearly seized up.

  Pulling with all her weight, she managed to open it a few centimetres, but she had to fight for every last one and it was obvious that, unless something changed, the door would defeat her long before she’d managed to pull it all the way open.

  She had, however, moved it enough to reveal a long, dark slit, against which she placed her eye, but all she could see inside was a tiny wedge of plascrete wall and a whole lot more darkness.

  There was no way she’d open the door under her own steam, but it occurred to her that with a suitable lever it might be possible to pry the door open a little further.

  Energised now, she made her way back around to the accessway and plunged into the gloomy interior, half-expecting to find Jaran waiting there for her, but not at all surprised when this wasn’t the case.

  It took only a few minutes to uncover a piece of metal piping, long enough to give her good leverage but small enough that she could carry it easily. On her way back to the hatchway she detoured to the fallen equipment rack and filled her pockets with as many prosup sachets as she could cram in. She considered the water containers, but discounted them as too heavy and inconvenient. If this actually led her anywhere, she’d just have to find more
water back on the ground.

  She did, however, take a long drink, and almost gagged. The water was warm and odd-tasting, as though it had been in the container for a very long time.

  Back out on the balcony, she carefully inserted the pipe into the narrow slit, and transferred her weight onto it until slowly the door began to yield. As it did, she was able to get more and more purchase until, with a screeching protest born of years of neglect, the door creaked sideways into the cavity of the dome wall.

  A wave of pungent, heavy air rolled out from the dark space and washed over her, the smell instantly familiar: the stale, oily scent of the air inside the central shaft. Dara dropped the metal pipe onto the balcony beside her and peered in.

  The space inside didn’t extend straight back into the dome as she’d expected, but rather she found herself staring down a long staircase, running at perhaps 45 degrees to the floor of the balcony, back towards the domestem.

  It seemed impossible. The balcony ran around the outer edge of the dome, and there was no way a stairwell could exist at that angle and direction without running into thin air. Then Dara remembered the three support arms they’d passed during the climb up and understood immediately that she was, in fact, staring down the middle of one of these.

  The stairs were narrow, formed into the plascrete of the floor, and beside them was a long, smooth ramp that descended sharply away into the dark. The ramp took up the majority of the space inside the shaft, and had clearly been designed as an access slide for large items of equipment. Set into the wall was a row of long-dead powerlamps.

  Dara stepped aside slightly, allowing light in through the hole, but even then she was only able to see perhaps twenty-five metres downshaft. At that point the angle of the staircase increased sharply as it descended around the curve of the support strut.

  Chewing her lip, Dara debated the wisdom of entering.