Chapter 33
On the second swing, I used my feet and jammed them into the ice taking up part of my weight as I pulled off my gloves to get at the laser. Once in my hand, I looped the handles through my wrist so if I dropped it I still had a hold on it. The vent was made of a metal called allurvium, an alloy composed of aluminum and titanium steel that was impervious to rust, the cold and most pressure. Unfortunately, it had succumbed to the immense torsion of the ice cracking apart. The end gaped open and jagged pieces threatened to slice my hands to ribbons if I was careless enough to grasp it.
Thumbing the button on the wand, I started to enlarge the space next to the vent making a cavity in stone and ice. When it was large enough to house me, I slid into it. Once free, I leaned against the wall until I could get my breathing and racing pulse under control. I was terrified at what I had done. Melted ice water ankle-deep soaked my boots until I burned a channel to empty the excess over the edge. Water ran in a steady stream and the sound of it was almost comforting. I drank and the sheer iciness of it shocked my system. I didn’t unhook myself from the line until I sank another one in the wall of the hole I was enlarging.
Once I had dug out enough to reach what I assessed was the tower’s base, I went back to cutting through the wall of the vent. The inside of the metal had rungs lining the inside but I refrained from climbing until I’d made a space large enough for all seven of us and one or two birds. Only then, did I give the line four sharp tugs and in a few minutes, felt an answering four tugs back.
It took the first one down about 10 minutes to descend and swing their way into the cave’s mouth. It wasn’t Amarice but Siobhan and he spoke rapidly. “Tobias, Arianell is coming down next. What the hell are you doing?”
“What my master told me to do,” I answered and Arianell was the next one down. I reached out and hauled her inside where she hugged me nearly crying. I was careful not to look out over the edge.
“Tobias, what’s going on? Why are you here? Let’s escape before the rest of them come down.”
“Arian, I am bound by chains that I cannot break. I am a slave to Blackfin and Connacher. There is no escape for me.”
I went back to the vent and re-packed what I didn’t need. As soon as I did that, the next two were sliding into the cavern and the last pair were Amarice and Blackfin. He looked around and asked what the plan was.
“There is a ladder inside the shaft that leads into the maintenance area. We’d have access through that into the city,” I answered. “Did you leave someone with the birds?” I knew not, all seven of us were in the fabricated cave.
“I tethered them down and sent a message back to the camp for a Ranger to watch them. Will we need them to fly back?” The wizard asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Once the gates are open, all hell will break loose. I don’t know what kind of security forces they had–Cabor didn’t get into that with me.”
I entered the vent unhooking my line from the wall. There was only room for one at a time in the tube and I wasn’t sure if the rungs could support more than two at a time. “I’ll climb first,” I told the wizard. “When I reach a junction, I’ll stop so the rest of you can catch up.”
“Do you know where you’re going, Reuven?” Amarice asked and I nodded. One of the things I’d remembered were schematics of the city’s air system. This older vent had been part of the last maintenance check and been closed off and sealed yet it led close to the Operation Center, which controlled the gates. Twenty feet up, the tube was kinked and barely passable. I had to work the twisted folds of metal with the laser to make it free enough to pass. It was still tight enough to tear my coat and expose my skin to the cold. It was dark inside to the point of blindness but Blackfin had created handfuls of plastic tubes that when cracked, flared into green light resembling the sparking of a firefly. It was enough to brighten an area some 3 feet around and ahead of me.
A circle of light beckoned me to the end and I crawled up by the rungs until I reached a round vent. Using my other sense, I scanned the space and sensed nothing live. A quick eye view inside and I saw nothing so kicked with both feet to pop off the metal grate.
I dropped into a small room and studied it. No more than 10 feet wide by 10 long, it was a maintenance room junction where other vents came into a control hub with a giant fan that wasn’t blowing. The rust on it told me it hadn’t moved in ages – it was rusted solid.
The door was jammed shut and it took a concentrated effort to kick it open. I only hoped that no one heard me do it. From the condition of the fan and the jammed door, the dust on the floor and the stale air, I suspected no one had been down here for years. Maybe even decades. I stuck my head out the door into the corridor and saw the same barren expanse of hallway in both directions. The lights were on overhead but dim, enough for me to see quite clearly but for the others it would be a place of shadow and uncertainty.
Within ten minutes, all of us were in the maintenance room and using a burnt piece of charcoal, I sketched a map on the wall. “We’re here.” I made an ‘X’ in the small box. “This is the main corridor that leads to the Control Room and the Gate mechanism. We have to find a way from here,” I pointed to the ‘X’, “to here.” I pointed to the large room at the far edge of the wall.
“Do you know the way?” Amarice questioned.
“If they haven’t changed the plans, I believe so. It’s up several hundred levels and over perhaps a mile from where we are. I’m not sure how close we are to populated areas so I suggest we be quiet.” I paused. “Any questions?” No one had any so we proceeded on.