Chương 92: V3: Chapter 33 - The Climb

Just after full darkness, Royce and Hadrian reached the base of the tower and set down their packs. Royce had picked the north side, as it was opposite the bridge. The tower had no visible windows, which put them in Gravis's blind spot. They made their base on the big natural shelf that remained stubbornly resolute against the eternal crashing of waves. The wind sprayed saltwater and worked hard to shove the pair off the slick stone.

"Can you see?" Royce asked Hadrian as the wind whipped the thief's hood and tossed Hadrian's hair.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Outlines and such, but don't ask me to read small handwriting." Truth was, Hadrian could see a bit more than that. A surprising amount of warfare occurred at night, and he was always surprised how well a person could see in the dark. Standing on a narrow spit of land surrounded by a starlit ocean, he could make out Royce's eyes beneath his hood, discern the various plants, and see individual waves rolling in. He also found it disconcerting how the bushes and tall grass waved about, battered by the wind.

Hadrian didn't remember any wind when they stood at the base of the Crown Tower, but by the time they reached the top, it had been intense. He looked up at the impossibly massive wall of stone that appeared to go on forever, silhouetted against the night sky. What's it going to be like up there? Hadrian had accused and found Rehn guilty of murdering Pickles. Maybe that was part of why he was so upset. Reality and his emotions didn't line up. Hadrian had loved the lad. When the boy died, it was like losing a son.

Discovering Pickles had never existed was too much. Someone needed to be punished for that — at least, that's how Hadrian saw it. But... his view was blinded by pain. And so, through a grand cascade of absurdities, Hadrian took it out on Rehn. He blamed the victim for breaking his heart. The conversation with Auberon had altered his view a bit. Hadrian still wasn't worth the air he breathed, but maybe something good could still come from his mistake. If he could help save the city, he had to try.

He owed that much to Pickles, and now also to Rehn.

"Here's your harness," Royce said, pulling what looked to be a giant spider out of his pack. When they had scaled the Crown Tower, they used a simple arrangement of leather straps that looped around Hadrian's thighs and waist and were held by rivets that dug into his skin. The new harness was all black and made from lightweight cloth. If there was stitching, Hadrian couldn't find it.

"Is this going to hold me?"

"Tested it with a one-ton block of stone. So I suppose it depends on what you had for supper." Hadrian stepped into the loops, pulled the belt up and buckled it around his waist.

"It's padded, and... wow, this is actually comfortable."

"Quiet, too," Royce added.

"The rings won't clack. We won't even need to take them off."

"What are the big loops on the belt for?"

"For these." Royce showed him how dozens of clamp assemblies were hung from the loops on his harness's belt. Each clamp assembly was composed of two clamps connected by a short cord.

"After I drive in an anchor, I'll hook one of these to it, and the other end to the rope." Royce pulled one off his belt and handed it to Hadrian. The clamps weren't a solid circle; they had a hinged mouth, and Hadrian played with the spring latch.

"As you come behind me, instead of pulling out the anchors, you'll only need to unhook your rope, unclip the clamp from the anchor, and attach it"— he took the clamp back from Hadrian — "to the loop on your belt." He snapped it back onto his own belt.

"Like that."

"Well, isn't that something?" Hadrian said and meant it.

"Are we going to have enough anchors?" Royce replied by pulling out a massive string of linked pitons.

"How heavy is that?" Royce gave it to him, and Hadrian was stunned. He could have been holding a necklace of feathers.

"Here's the rope." Royce handed over a massive coil.

"This is ridiculous." Hadrian hefted its weight.

"This isn't rope, it's string. Was this tested, too?" Royce nodded.

"They test everything."

"And you believed them?" Royce rolled his eyes.

"Stupid question, but how'd they manage all this in one day?" Royce chuckled.

"You're going to love this." He reached into the bag and hauled out a pair of shoes. They were tiny compared to Hadrian's big leather boots and looked like stripped-down slippers except the tops were canvas and the bottoms looked to be made of a thick tar.

"You asked them to make shoes?"

"I didn't ask them to do half this stuff. Apparently, they all wanted to help. Hundreds worked day and night. Try them on." Hadrian sat down on the flat stone of the promontory. Royce did likewise, and together they traded big boots for strange slippers.

"This feels really odd," Hadrian said, standing up and bouncing on his toes.

"It's like I'm barefoot."

"They're made of something called rubber that the dwarfs make from the sap of local trees."

"And you're going to climb in these?" Royce nodded.

"I had my doubts, too. Then I tried them." Royce stood up, moved to the base of the tower, and without using his hands, he began to climb. He went up two strides before dropping back down, but that was enough to make Hadrian's jaw drop. Royce had appeared to walk up invisible steps.

"How'd you do that?"

"Small imperfections in the stone combined with the gripping power of the rubber is an amazing combination. The shoes are better than bare skin. I'll have four hands instead of two."

"This isn't even going to be a challenge, is it?" Hadrian asked with mock disappointment. Royce looked up, and a grimace overtook his usual frown.

"Oh... it will be a challenge." The two finished suiting up. Royce explained in detail the new system the dwarfs had devised. Instead of a pouch dangling from a drawstring, nearly all their gear hung individually from the big loops on the belts. The dwarfs had supplied everything from the chalk Royce would need to keep his fingertips dry, to their meals, and even a small healing kit, all in easily attached containers. In total, everything weighed less than Hadrian's three swords.

"Change your mind about dwarfs yet?" Hadrian asked.

"Are you kidding? This is exactly why I hate them. I'm a thief, and they make locks, doors, and boxes as cleverly crafted as that icebox and these shoes. If anything, this trip has revealed how absolutely awful they really are. Dwarfs are weeds to a farmer, chainmail to a blade, a deep body of water to an armored knight, or an antidote to a poison."

"So you're the poison?" Hadrian asked.

"That's surprisingly self-aware." Royce scowled.

"If you're looking for accuracy, they are the pebble in my shoe — small, trivial, but irritating beyond belief."

"You realize you're about to risk your life to save thousands of those frustrating pebbles?"

"Every job has a downside." They tied up their bags and used rocks to keep the wind from being a thief. Then Royce moved slowly around the tower to a point that faced the open ocean. He pointed at a section of the wall where the fin, or gear's tooth, made a sharp V with the body of the tower.

"I'll start going up along this wedge. You wait here until I reach that crack up there — see it? I'll pound in an anchor, then run a rope down to you. After that, it should be like old times... until we get up to there. See that big crevice?" Hadrian spotted a section a bit more than halfway to the bridge where a massive chunk of the stone fin had fallen away, leaving a bare spot.

"We'll need to cross that to get to the niches on the far side and to reach the bridge."

"You make that sound as if it will be a problem." Royce didn't answer, which was answer enough. The thief walked him through the steps of the climb, narrating the trip like they were embarking on a stroll about town. Royce wasn't really speaking to him, as Hadrian had nothing to do with the process; he only needed to do what he had done at the Crown Tower — pull himself up along the rope line that Royce secured. Royce was speaking to himself, verbally expressing the mental map he'd created.

As he did, the whole of the world illuminated as the moon dawned. In the span of only minutes, night receded before the advancing brilliance of moonlight, and it quickly became obvious why Royce chose the route he did. The moon was rising in the east; they would climb in the hidden shelter of the tower's dark side. As Royce made one last check of his gear, Hadrian watched the slow creeping rise of the moon.

"It's huge." Royce looked up and stepped to one side to see.

"Near perfect circle. It will be full tomorrow night." He looked at Hadrian.

"We can watch it from the dock. I'll even steal a bottle of Montemorcey from The Blue Parrot to toast with."

"Steal? If we're alive to toast the full moon," Hadrian said, "Graxton will give you all the wine you can drink, and he'll likely cater our dockside picnic." Royce frowned.

"Killjoy." Royce began the climb using the corner. He pressed out with his arms and legs, relying on counterbalancing, shifting opposing hands and feet and keeping a hip against the wall to avoid peeling off. He moved upward like a splayed-out water bug. This wasn't a new or difficult technique; it only looked tough. Most of his weight was on his legs, and since they pushed against each other, the effort was low. Balance was the struggle, and the solution was his hips.

Leg swings and hip rotations controlled so much more than anyone ever realized — unless they were climbing a nearly vertical wall. With chin to stone and hovering hundreds of feet above the ground and sustained by three points while reaching for the fourth, one got to know the mechanics of their body really well. Even the expansion of his chest for air moved the center of balance outward, and outward was bad. The truly disconcerting part was the rope.

Royce had never used one except for their climb on the Crown Tower. Now, once more, he had this annoying tether like a long tail dangling from his waist. The weight was negligible, but he had to avoid stepping on, or tangling himself in, the line. The first crack was only a few stories up, and once he got a good toehold and set his hip, he was able to grab his hammer and drive his first piton.

He connected the rope to the anchor using the handy-dandy double clips the dwarfs had fashioned, then he followed the crack upward. Always searching with his eyes and fingertips, Royce looked for holds or cracks to exploit and new points to anchor. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

The line went briefly taut, a signal from Hadrian announcing that he had a hold of Royce — meaning that if his partner slipped, that single piton and Hadrian on the other end of the rope, would keep Royce from falling. At least that was the rumor. While climbing the Crown Tower, Royce found the rope and anchor system tedious, annoying, frustrating, and utterly stupid. This time is different. That single announcement-tug felt reassuring.

The sensation was unexpected, and the more Royce thought about it, the more disturbing the thought became. Different. Royce had scaled hundreds of walls, terraces, and towers where a fall would have killed him. He'd leaped across the gaps between rooftops that he wasn't entirely certain he could clear. Never once had he worried. But now his heart raced, and not in a good way. Stop thinking. Climbing was as much in the head as in the limbs.

Everything else needed to disappear, to be replaced by a simple operation: hold to hold, step to step, a pause to rest and breathe. Royce struggled to force out distractions and establish a calculated rhythm, his eyes constantly scanning the rock for the slightest imperfections that might be exploited. For Royce, scaling a sheer wall was a meditative process that brought the world down to a single focus. There was a beauty to the motions, an art to the act.

He found it again, and soon he was in a different place where the concerns of the world disappeared and time stopped. He knew there was wind, aware he was rising above a dark ocean, and he had a vague sense that Hadrian was with him, but these were mere ghosts, shadows cast from a different reality. The wall was his world now. The warmth of the rock made it a living thing. Texture gave it personality. Cracks and chips became the imperfections that lent character.

The shifting grains suggested a certain attitude and values that could be plumbed by the firmness of edges. He didn't conquer walls; they were a team working together. Rock, Royce felt, was more reliable, more generous, than people. When his fingers went in search of a hold, the wall granted his wish. Often, this gift was not exactly what he had hoped. The wall had a mind of its own, but the way was there; he just needed to find it. The rock spoke in a different language.

Learning to bridge that linguistic gap was key. With each reach, step, and pull, Royce learned more about his dance partner, and together they grew close. The string of clamps and anchors jangled free as he methodically advanced, using mostly his toes while seeking to keep his arms straight to avoid fatigue. The wall was not nearly as perfect as he'd first imagined. Salt, wind, water, sun, and time had devastated the upper reaches where the party really got fun. Whole gashes revealed themselves.

From the ground, they appeared as tiny pits or dimples. Up close, they were the yawning mouths of shallow caves where a giant slab of rock had sheared away. Reaching a broad, luxurious ledge that was nearly a whole six inches wide, Royce set a pair of pitons, double-anchored the rope, and tied it tight. Then he tugged three times on the rope. A couple of seconds later, the rope went taut and stayed that way as Hadrian began his climb.

Tethered and seated with knees up, Royce peered out for the first time, and all he saw was ocean and sky. Both were surprisingly bright as the nearly full moon was already high. It hadn't crossed to their side of the tower yet, but it wouldn't be long. While time didn't exist in the climbing mind, it ran through the real-world's hourglass at a shocking rate. Trusting the anchored rope, Royce leaned out and looked up to check their progress. He was more than halfway to the bridge, which looked a lot larger now.

The ledge he rested on was the start of the crevice they would need to cross. Looking down, Royce spotted Hadrian. He was using the pulley-clamp system the dwarfs had built where Hadrian lifted himself by a foot in a loop, then he slid a clamp up and pressed down again. The whole process made him look ridiculous as he jerked his way up, but it was fast, and sooner than expected, Hadrian was up to the ledge.

"This thing works great!" he said, grinning as his head appeared.

"It's so much easier than last time."

"Glad you're enjoying yourself," Royce said as he studied the next step. It hadn't looked like this from the ground. In fact, it had looked nothing like this.

"What's wrong?" Hadrian asked.

"Something's wrong. You drop your knife?

'Cause if you did, you're never going to find it."

"I didn't drop my knife." Royce pulled him up on the ledge. The combined pitons and clamps jingled like poorly tuned bells on a sleigh. Hadrian was puffing for air, his face glistening. Some hair was sticking to his forehead. He brushed away loose stones from the ledge. Royce watched them fall and noticed how they didn't go straight down. The currents of wind caught the pebbles and whirled them out away from the tower, then threw them back against it, where they slapped and bounced off.

Eventually, they hit the sea, but at that distance, and in the angry surf, he never saw a splash. Hadrian tilted his head out and looked up in the direction Royce had been staring.

"Okay, so what is it that's spooked you? You didn't spot any soldiers dressed in clothes that would make a clown jealous waiting for us on the bridge, did you?"

"No." Hadrian pulled two sticks of jerky out of his little pouch and offered one to Royce.

"Then why the look?"

"What look?"

"The one you've got right now." Royce sighed, then he shook his head. After a moment he said, "Different." Hadrian peered at him and frowned.

"That's not an answer, Royce. Not a question, or even a statement. That's just a word." Royce glared.

"This ledge, this gouged-out chunk, I thought it would be different from this."

"How is that a problem?"

"We need to get over that way." Royce pointed in the direction of the bridge.

"I know that."

"So, do you see a way to do it?" Hadrian laughed and shook his head while chewing.

"I didn't even see a way to get here."

"Yeah, well... take a look at that gap. We need to get across it. Can't climb on air. I thought this gash made a little bridge. It doesn't — just a nasty cliff."

"What if we go higher?"

"These gear teeth run the full height of the tower. We either have to go all the way to the top and then come back down, or we start over from the bottom, except on the other side of the fin. And if we do that, we run the very real risk of Gravis spotting us."

"And you can't, you know, crawl in and out of the trench?"

"I don't think so. I've been using the inside corner to get up, pushing out, using friction and pressure. To get over there, I'd have to go around the outside of the tooth. Pushing out is easier than squeezing, and I'd be more in the wind, and the stone looks pretty smooth. It would be like scaling ice."

"What about up there?" Hadrian asked, pointing to the top of the gash on the far side of the gap where a sizable rock protruded.

"Looks like a good handhold there."

"And if I could fly, that would be great."

"So, we're gonna have to climb down?" Hadrian sighed, looking below them.

"It will be dawn by the time we get back up to this point."

"Did it really take that long?" Hadrian nodded.

"We're running out of time, Royce. And if we have to pull out all these anchors to use again..." Royce looked up at that single handhold of rock the size of a small lemon. It was up and over the gap. He'd need to run the length of their six-inch ledge, then literally jump through the air across the open gap and hope to catch it.

"What are you thinking?" Hadrian asked.

"I might be able to jump it."

"Jump?" Hadrian looked shocked, but only for a second.

"Sure, of course. You'll have the rope. If you fall, it will catch you, and I'll reel you up." Royce shook his head.

"I won't make it with the rope."

"You're going to jump without a rope?" Hadrian looked down and then back up at the rock.

"It's a long way down, Royce."

"I know, which makes this a big decision." The moon was well up. It had to be getting close to midnight. If they went down now and then came back up, it might be daylight by the time they reached the bridge. Gravis would easily see them. If there was a door where the bridge joined the tower — and there had to be — the dwarf would lock it. And if that lock was anything like the one at the base — and Hadrian couldn't think of a single reason why that wouldn't be the case — it was over.

Tur Del Fur would be destroyed, hundreds, probably thousands, of lives would be lost, and Rehn Purim would have died for nothing.

"You're thinking something," Royce said.

"What is it?" Hadrian pushed down the sickening sensation that always rose whenever he had to do something ugly.

"Just wondering why it took so long to get up here."

"It's a long climb." Hadrian shrugged.

"You climbed the Crown Tower a lot faster."

"This is harder." Hadrian stared at Royce, feeling sick. The climb hadn't done it. Even sitting on that six-inch ledge — so high up that if there were birds, they would be flying beneath his feet — hadn't done it. Hadrian was sick because of what he was about to do. He pursed his lips and made a dismissive sound.

"Maybe. Could it also be that you're scared?" This brought Royce's head around, eyes glaring.

"It's Gwen, isn't it?" Hadrian said.

"You didn't know her when we climbed the Crown Tower. You didn't care if you died because you didn't have a life, nothing to lose. And don't bother denying it. I know it's the truth because I felt the same way. Still do, sort of. No friends, no family, no real future; neither one of us has anything we're upset at leaving behind. At least we didn't until now. I still don't, but you... you're afraid now because you've got something to live for. You danced with her, kissed her.

You know for the first time you have a future that isn't all blood and death. You're terrified of losing that. It's easy to bluff when your pockets are empty; it's a lot harder to make a blind jump when you've got skin in the game, right?" Royce stared at him for several seconds.

"No," he said, but it lacked anger or even the usual dismissive tone Royce used when he thought Hadrian had said something stupid. Then Royce sighed.

"I'm afraid of letting her down. She said she believed in me."

"Gwen's a big girl, Royce. She'll find someone else — someone better, I suspect. Just about anyone would do, really."

"Since when did you become a bastard?"

"Same time you became a coward." Royce's eyes narrowed. His mouth leveled out into that straight thin line.

"Careful, this is a thin ledge."

"Do it," Hadrian dared. Confusion flooded Royce's face.

"You really want to fight me... here?" Hadrian rolled his eyes.

"No! I want you to make that jump!"

"What? Why? What do you care, Mister I-have-nothing-to-live-for? What difference can it make to you? Don't tell me you're jealous." The last statement hurt because deep down, Hadrian couldn't deny there was a little jealousy. Gwen was an incredible woman. To have someone like that love you? If the situation were reversed, Hadrian wouldn't risk that jump. He wouldn't even have started this climb. Only one thing could get him to do it.

"Because I don't want to watch you tell Gwen that Tur Del Fur is gone and thousands of people died because of her."

"Because of..." Royce was bewildered.

"It's not because of her; it's because of me."

"Yeah, sure." Hadrian took another bite of the jerky. Then he wagged the stick of meat at Royce as he chewed.

"Really think she'll see it that way, do you?" That did it. Hadrian saw it in Royce's eyes. They went wide. This was a new factor in his calculations — a big one. Royce was incapable of imagining how Gwen might blame herself. In his world, that notion was the same as considering the possibility that rocks might float or that time might start running backward. But Royce had gotten to know Gwen. He saw firsthand how a healthy normal conscience worked. He knew her well enough to realize that some rocks did float.

Royce gritted his teeth and looked again at that distant handhold. It made Hadrian want to vomit. Hadrian had seen him make longer, more precarious, leaps. He wouldn't have pushed him otherwise, but there was a difference between making a jump you're confident about and attempting one you're not. In battle, doubt was often the point of failure, while confidence tipped the scales in a person's favor. The slightest mistake would see Royce falling hundreds of feet to his death. Doubt was deadly.

Royce didn't say a word, but he reached down and unhooked the rope from his harness, letting it dangle from the clamp. Then he stood up and moved to the end of the ledge and peered across the gap. The wind blew back his hair. His cloak had been stowed for the climb, and without it, Royce looked small and thin, like a long-haired cat soaked to the bone. He let go of the wall and stood like a tightrope walker. Then he backed up. Hadrian got out of his way, granting him as much ledge as he could.

Please, Maribor, Novron, Drome, and anyone else who can hear a prayer — give him wings. Royce crouched. He took several breaths, puffing his cheeks in the process. Then in a burst, he sprinted forward. His footfalls made no sound as he ran. Then reaching the end of the short track, with his last step, Royce leaped. If it had been Hadrian, he would have flailed through the air, then slammed into the far wall, bounced off, and fallen to his death. Royce flew tight, elbows in, face forward.

He landed across the gap and just stayed there. Hadrian had seen flies pull similar stunts on windowpanes. In an instant, Royce mantled up, climbed to another tiny ledge, and sat, legs dangling.

"Throw me the next coil of rope," he shouted back.

"Keep an end." Hadrian took several breaths, letting his heart calm down before throwing the line over. Royce hauled it up, drove in a new anchor and tied it off.

"You're going to have to swing across now."

"Royce," Hadrian said.

"You know I did that on purpose, right? I didn't want to, but I knew you needed a little push. I was honestly terrified for you." Royce grinned back.

"Are you worried I might cut the rope as you swing?" Hadrian looked down at a whole lot of nothing. He hadn't until that moment.

"Maybe."

"If it makes you feel better, I knew what you were doing."

"You did?"

"I'm not an idiot."

"Wait... So you knew I was manipulating you, and you decided to make the jump anyway but didn't tell me? What if you'd fallen? What if you died? I'd be here thinking I killed you."

"I was okay with that." Hadrian frowned.

"Allow me to return the bastard crown to you."

"Careful, you have a dangerous swing to make," Royce shouted back to him over the roar of the wind.

"We'll be using this new coil for the rest of the climb, but keep that other line attached to you so we can use it if we come back this way. Just make sure you leave enough slack to make the swing." Hadrian kept the old line hooked to his belt and ran the new line through as well. Then he grabbed hold of the new rope, took up all the slack he could for his pendulum swing across the gap. When he stepped off the ledge, he fell. There was a brief tug-and-give as Hadrian felt the anchor pop.

He also thought he heard a faint ping! and felt like a child on a swing if the branch above had snapped. The rope went limp. Hadrian's stomach flew up into his mouth as he began the free fall. In a panic, he reached out, but just as Royce had explained...

"can't climb on air." So, this is how I die... Interesting.