Outings are essential to the health of a wife’s self-esteem. How else can she learn if her things are in fashion, or if she has become the subject of gossip? As a rule, never air your linens more often than yourself.
—The Wifely Way by the Duchess K. A. Pell
They were like ants in a nest. The shaft before them split and converged, then forked again. Red cells beamed from the heads and engines of other machines, laboring through the gloom. Sallow bulbs illuminated the irregularities of the tunnels, the pockmarks left by chiseling arms, the evidence of an ancient industry.
Adam had no sense of place, no sense of what direction the surface lay or how distant it was, and yet he felt neither confined nor confused. He felt as one floating on a river, a thing carried without effort or attention. He was a contented part of this rattling, plodding accord.
In the darker distance ahead of their rocking steed, a star appeared. The star seemed to double and divide, black filaments of space growing between each new point of light. The celestial zygote swelled and spilled into the dark. A crisp draft of air touched his face, distinguishing every pore, every hair, every crease of skin, until he could feel his expression as distinctly as if he were seeing it in a mirror, and he was smiling with exhilaration.
The wall-walker squeezed through the opening in the Tower face so abruptly, Adam felt as if he had been thrown into the night sky. Then the engine crested the rocky sill and began to climb.
Adam let out an exuberant whoop that made Mister Winters laugh.
It was such a novel view he could hardly stop himself from craning all about. He looked over the back of the bench, downward at the foreshortened face of the Tower, and out at the gaudy crescent of the Market, that great morass of aspirations, shining with the light of campfires, torches, and helpless vigils. Beyond that, the cosmos dazzled like a new pitch roof over the gables of the mountain range. When he could stand it no longer, Adam turned his beaming face to Edith. She looked more content than he’d seen her in weeks.
“Incredible,” he said. “We should’ve done this ages ago.”
“The strange thing about driving up a wall is that it starts to feel normal very quickly. If you just look straight ahead, it seems like we’re riding a wagon across a big, fallow field.”
“Yes, but while lying on our backs and depending on six legs.”
“As long as we keep three feet planted at all times, we never have to worry.”
“What happens if we get down to two?”
“Two is as good as none.” Wishing to keep her hand on the stick, Edith pointed ahead of them with a thrust of her chin. “There’s the Collar.”
It was strange to consider the cloudbank from this angle and range; from here, it seemed a common fog rather than the Tower’s perpetual cowl. When newcomers first saw the Tower, the fact that it had no discernable pinnacle made a profound, though conflicted impression upon them. The Collar of Heaven seemed to suggest that either the Tower soared without end, or conversely that it had, in its great ambition, knocked upon some natural limit, like a houseplant grown to the ceiling. Because the truth was uncertain, it was left to the individual’s imagination to either cap the Tower or build it ever on. Both beliefs had the odd effect of making observers feel as though they had contributed in some way to the raising of the monolith, and that gave them the confidence necessary to approach the Tower and be absorbed by it.
Both Edith and Adam felt they had outgrown such amateur ideas, though in fact neither was as enlightened as they liked to believe.
“I forgot how flat this area was. We may have to wander a bit to find a nook for you.”
“What if we just continued on to the summit?”
“You mean drive through the fog?”
“Why not? We don’t have to gallop. And if I have to be outside, I wouldn’t mind having a little room to move about.”
“The summit?” Edith repeated, the frozen smile on her face thawing into something like misgiving.
“Have you ever been?” he asked.
“No, and I don’t know how far it is either.”
“It can’t be that far. It seems obvious the Brick Layer, or the Sphinx, or whoever our host is, claimed the penthouse for himself. I mean, we could spend the next few hours circling about, hoping to stumble upon a shelf, trying not to get noticed by the doorman, or we could just make a beeline toward level ground. Unless you’re one of those who thinks the Tower goes on and on forever?”
“Don’t be stupid,” she said with a withering look.
“Then why not? We’ve come this far already.”
As they spoke, the wall-walker continued its pitching approach of the cottony air, and the closer they came to it, the more navigable it seemed: The mist churned and parted and showed a little ground. It was navigable, if not a touch foreboding.
“All right,” she said, depressing a switch by her foot. Twin headlamps came on at the engine’s fore. “We’ll go to the top.”
The fog was warm as rising dough. And though its density and presence vacillated, little more than the immediate ground was ever visible. The sandstone glistened like a tide line in the wall-walker’s lamps. The low thrum that permeated the Sphinx’s lair could be heard here, too, though more mutedly.
There is no stranger privacy than the one supplied by a cloud. It is as containing as a room and as open as the sky. A cloud is intimate and exposed at once. A cloud puts a soul in a confiding mood, which is why old aeronauts stand apart when their ship hits a cloud: to keep from spilling their secrets.
After some moments of marching into the murk and thinking, Adam asked, “Were you joyriding out here with Captain Lee?”
Edith squinted into the fog and adjusted her grip on the shivering throttle. “It’s really none of your business, airman.”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” He said nothing more for a moment and then, “What if we exchanged secrets? I’ll tell you about my plans, and you tell me what went on with Lee.”
“Just like that? Swap secrets like two diners at a table: white meat for dark, butter for jam, that sort of thing?” She didn’t add that he had nothing to trade, regardless. The secret he was so gleefully keeping from her would inevitably include rivers of gold and trees of silver. Or was it the other way around? She had heard both. Many times. There was only one reason anyone ever wanted to go to the top of the Tower.
But she felt sorry for him, sorry for the disappointment they were hurrying toward even now, so she decided to give him part of an answer he wasn’t owed. “I’ll say this: The experience left me suspicious of the kindness of strangers.”
The bench jostled beneath them as the walker got down to three anchored feet in the midst of stepping over a crack in the edifice. They held their breath as the engine beneath them began to pull away from the wall. Then the fourth foot caught again, and cinched them back to the bosom of the Tower.
“I learned that lesson, too,” Adam said, loosening his grip of the rail. “I learned it so well, I taught everyone I met to be distrustful of strangers. And I was very convincing, that is, at least until the captain came along.” He mulled over the memory. “That’s the trouble. I still owe the man. His flaws don’t absolve me of my debt.” Snapping his mouth closed, his jaw began to work as if he were sucking the stone of a fruit. Edith could see he was trying to force himself to say more. “But it’s hard to have absolute faith in a man who has given in to Crumb. I am”—he searched for the most diplomatic word—“ concerned.”
The internal hum of the Tower, which had been little more than a muffled thrum a moment before, was discernably louder. Soon, it drowned out the rattle of the engine beneath them. The air, warm before, was now nearly steaming. Into the sphere of their frail lamplight came a new feature, a vertical curb. Edith steered a little nearer, and they saw the iron slats of an immense vent. They could only guess its size by the torrent of hot air and the roar it made. It seemed a vast gill in the neck of the Tower.
They climbed a little farther, and the curb disappeared. The roar receded into a bark and then a grumble. They, seasoned airmen that they were, practiced a steadfast dispassion, devoid of amazement, as if a lack of surprise, a superiority to awe, could protect them from the unknown.
Edith returned to his last statement as if some minutes had not passed. “It’s perfectly reasonable to be concerned. If you find you can’t have faith in the captain right now, then have faith in me. I am determined to help and support the man, but if it becomes apparent that his responsibilities are making things worse for him, then I’ll help and support him by intervening. And that’s all we’re going to say on that subject.”
“Aye, sir. Thank you,” he said, feeling satisfied for the moment.
“Now, do you want to tell me about your treasure map or not?”
“You’ve been going through my things!”
“No, I haven’t,” she said, rolling her head in exasperation. “And that was far too easy, Adam. If someone asks you about your treasure map, the only answer is ‘what treasure map?’”
“It’s a diary, not a map,” he said sulkily. “And how did you know?”
“No one wants to just have a gander around the roof. As for the map, I’ve seen dozens of them, and diaries, and divining rods, special goggles that sooth a hidden path, even an astrolabe that funnels the wisdom of the stars and points the way to gold. Wherever there are aging air wolves trying to stuff their brains into a bottle, there are treasure maps for sale. Everyone has heard of the treasure atop the Tower.”
“Well, if it’s so famous, why hasn’t anyone claimed it?”
“Because it’s not there! The summit is just a roof, shrouded in an inconvenient cloud. That’s the real culprit of the ill-fated crews: They ran afoul of the fog. They were dashed to bits.”
“But have you never heard of the sparking men?”
“You mean lightning?”
He gave a frustrated grunt. “But the trees of silver—”
“—and the rivers of gold,” she finished. “Adam, I don’t enjoy ruining your plans, but there is absolutely nothing there.”
Unconvinced, he turned under the rope a little so he could more directly address the mate. “All right, say those ships did crash into the Tower. That won’t happen to us. Isn’t it possible that we’ll be the first to surmount the Tower? Unless you went there with Lee?”
“No, of course not,” Edith said. She saw no point in arguing. Adam would have to see the summit for himself before he would be convinced. And since they were more or less near it now, what harm was there in indulging him? “Perhaps I have it wrong. You’ll have plenty of time to scout about and tell me what you find.”
“You admit to the possibility, then. Which means there’s at least a chance that I will encounter some danger. I might never see you or my sister or anyone ever again.”
“Granted. If there isn’t peril, then it isn’t an adventure.”
“Exactly. So, it’s not unreasonable for me, as your crewman and your friend, to make a last request.”
“Go on.”
“I’m very curious to know, did you have a romance with Captain Lee?”
“This is your parting favor? To stick your nose into my business?” Edith huffed but privately felt a little flattered by the young man’s curiosity. Still, she wasn’t prepared to indulge his cheek. “I can’t believe you don’t have a message for your sister. That’s what you’re supposed to ask for with a last request. ‘Tell my family I love them,’ that sort of thing.”
“Oh, she wouldn’t believe that,” he said with a dismissive swat of his hand. “Besides, you have to understand, part of the reason I’m so happy to be out here in the fresh air is that I don’t have to try to figure out what to say to her. We never had a thing in common. That’s the truth. We rarely talk. She doesn’t know who I am.” He paused to consider, feeling surprise at the admission. “And I’m not sure I know either. But I do know that I’m tired of being a nag. I’m tired of being the unneeded mother. I think she’s tired of running away from me, though I can’t really blame her anymore. So now I just think maybe it’s my turn.”
When he looked up, Edith could see how battered by guilt and exhausted he was. And like a flush runs up the neck and floods the head, she recalled how it felt to be his age, what it was like to live for ill-fitting obligations.
She took a deep breath.
“After the Sphinx gave me my arm, while I was recovering, Lee started paying a little attention to me,” she said with some difficulty. “You have to understand, it had been a long few weeks.”
“Were you in love with him?”
“That is the most repulsive word you could have chosen for it, Adam. No. It wasn’t a romance; it wasn’t love. That’s the captain rubbing off on you. I was—” She stumbled on the word, and that sent her eyes rolling at her own awkwardness. “I was recently disfigured and feeling unattractive. No, that’s not the word. I was feeling ruined. I wondered who was ever going to see past this.” She nodded at her empty sleeve. “Lee just had good timing. And Tom”—her voice cracked—“the captain had been so kind to me in the Parlor, it made me think there might be other kind men in the Tower. And perhaps there are. Lee wasn’t one.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I enjoyed myself. It was restorative. And then we left here, and it was finished. It turns out, as far as he was concerned, I was the only skirt in port, and he had made do. Which was only fair, because I thought I was making do.”
She felt a little rewarded by how shocked Adam looked.
“Was that worse than you guessed?” Edith said.
“No, so much better. It makes me like you more,” he said, smiling. “It gives me hope to think—”
Edith jerked back on the stick. The engine staggered for footing in the pocked and weathered stone, and then fell quiet when she released the throttle. The walker stood upon a sheer edge.
They had run out of Tower to climb.