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DUN AND PADG TOOK THE long way round to get home to the Sanctuary. Dun was finding himself more cheerful than he had been in cycles. They had taken a few detours from even that tortuous route to search for cave spiders. They found none.
“So exactly how important do we think that cave spidery plant is to this potion?” said Dun.
“We-ll, I’m guessing that Sari isn’t going to send us off to get ourselves killed if it isn’t, is she?”
“I dunno, we were pretty annoying back in Bridgetown when we were pups.”
“You think it’s an awful, long-held grudge?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“To us? Sure,” said Padg
“And you are pretty annoying.”
“It’s a gift.”
They rounded the last corner to climb the access ladder that would take them to the top level of the Bureaucracy.
“How’s your hand?” said Padg.
“Sore. Better now you strapped it up.”
“Can you climb?”
“I don’t get a lot of choice, do I?”
“Sure,” said Padg, “everyone has a choice—you climb the ladder, or we go all the way back round and through an escalating conflict to get ourselves accidentally shot on the last leg of the journey.”
Dun sighed, “When you put it like that, how could I resist.” He stepped up to the ladder, squared his first foot on the bottom rung and reached as far as he could with his good hand.
“I’ve got you, old friend,” said Padg.
Dun found if he got his balance on his feet right, he could reach up one rung and then climb his feet up one rung and pull. This was going to take some time. It wasn’t all that easier despite the reassuring sounds that Padg was making below him. He’d have preferred it if he were swearing. He didn’t have to wait all that long.
The world shook.
“Holy hell in a pipe,” said Padg.
Dun couldn’t even swear, one of his feet had slipped as the ladder had juddered against the wall. He was holding on by his good hand and his second foot was slipping off its rung. Now was probably the worst time for it to occur to him to ponder how long the ladder had been attached to its moorings. He’d clenched his hand reflexively, although he was getting older, those warrior reflexes ran deep. But while the wall was still shaking and the ladder attached to it, he couldn’t find purchase with his feet on the rungs below.
“Hold on fella!” Padg yelled up from below, fumbling with his gear.
“Planning on it!” Dun yelled back.
The wall gave a mighty heave. The ladder bucked. Dun felt the rung wrenched from his grip and that odd quiet moment before gravity took hold. Then he fell. Gravity seemed to pull slowly at first, that uncertain dance of a first date, not knowing where to hold or touch. But the spark between the lovers was there from the start. The first tendrils of her touch promised the inevitability of a lasting caress. Dun’s ears rang with all the noise he could hear from everywhere. The Dark was singing, like a vast twisted organ.
“Gotcha!”
Dun was caught up in a new caress. The familiar scents of his friend. He was pressed between the ladder and Padg. How both weren’t falling off was beyond him, but he was grateful.
“I clipped on,” said Padg.
“You read that out of my head,” said Dun.
“Maybe this shaman game is rubbing off on me after all.”
The shaking stopped as suddenly as it began. The noise reverberated for a moment then there was silence.
“What the hells was that?” said Dun.
“Systems breaking down?”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“Meh, you were thinking it anyway.”
That had always been in the back of Dun’s mind since he had become friends with the control system that ran the Dark. What else did Myrch control? The forces that held the planet together? He definitely controlled the systems that circulated water and air and warmth around Dark, if they couldn’t save him, they’d be dead enough, but what if he also conducted the instruments that kept the very planet from breaking apart?
“We need to go,” said Dun.
“You good to climb?” said Padg.
“I think so.”
“Tell you what, I’ve got a better idea. Let me clip you on here, I’ll climb the rest and drop you a line from the top.”
“Be careful,” said Dun. Arguing with Padg when his mind was made up was a pointless exercise.
“Always am.”
Padg untangled himself. Dun’s hand now just felt numb. They roped an improvised harness round Dun, then as quick as the last knot, Padg was gone, climbing like a pipe rat.
Dun felt safe, clipped onto the ladder. A fan somewhere below him must have turned on as he could feel the billow of dry warm air on his whiskers. When the rope finally plopped down onto his head, Dun was nearly asleep.
“Come on then!” shouted Padg from above.
Dun found a knot with a loop that Padg had already tied in the end of the rope and pressed it into the clip at the chest point of his harness. He gave a tug to the line to let Padg know he was about to climb and started the long trek up. With the line clipped on, Dun made much better progress getting into a steady rhythm, so much so that he was almost surprised by his friend reaching over him and pulling him up over the lip of the ladder onto the floor of the passage. It was one of those odd ladders that bent over into the passage it was entering, like the passage was a mouth of some mythic monster and the ladder was a long tongue lolling out to the depths below.
Then the deep rumbling began again.
“Time to go!” yelled Padg.
Dun broke into a stumbling run and followed his friend into the mouth of the beast.
