There were two doors in the chamber. She had entered by the north door. It was too small for the dragon to pass through. The cradle had been brought in through the south door. She could recall little else of who she was or why she was here, but she recalled the opening of the door. Ordinarily, it would have been done by four strong men. She would have to do it alone. She went to the first panel beside the south door and found the catch. Her fingernails bent against it, and still the decorative door would not open. She had no tools. She pounded on it with her fist. Something snicked inside it. She tugged again at the catch. This time it reluctantly swung open. With a crash, the panel broke off its ancient hinges and fell to the floor. No matter.
Again, the chamber's memory and her touch were at odds. The well-oiled crank that should have been there was draped in cobwebs and pitted with corrosion. She found the handle and strove to turn it anyway. It would not budge. Oh. The lever. Pull the lever first. She groped for it and found it. The polished wooden handle was gone. Bare metal met her grasp. She seized it in both hands and pulled. It did not move.
When she finally braced both her feet against the wall and dragged down on it, the lever gave. It moved fractionally then suddenly surrendered to her weight. There was a terrible rending sound from within the wall as she fell to the stone floor. For a moment, she was half stunned. A groaning shivered behind the panel. She clambered to her feet again. Now. The crank. No, no, that would not work. The other lever first. The door must be released on both sides before the cranks could lift it.
She no longer cared about her torn nails and bleeding hands. She wrenched the second panel open. As she did so, damp earth cascaded into the room from the compartment. The wall was breached here. She didn't care. With her hands, she dug away around the lever until she could wrap both her hands around it. She seized it and pulled violently at it. It traveled a short way, and then stopped. This time she clambered up the decorative scrollwork on the wall, to stand atop the lever. Bouncing her weight on it moved it down another notch. Far overhead, something groaned. Malta braced her entire body and shoved down with her feet. The lever gave, then suddenly broke off under her. She fell past it, tearing her skirts on the jagged metal. Her knee smacked sharply against the stone floor and for a time, all she knew was pain.
Malta. Get up.
'I know. I will.' Her own voice sounded thin and odd to her. She got to her feet and limped back to the panel. The crank handle was mounted on a spoked wheel the size of a carriage wheel. It was made of metal. Damp earth was packed solidly around it. For an eternity, she dug at it. The soil was cold and wet and abrasive. It packed under her nails and sanded into her skin.
Just try it.
Obediently, she set both hands to the handle on the wheel. Her memory told her that two men should be on this crank and two on its partner. They would all have worked in synchronicity to turn them.
But she was the only one here. She put her weight on it and dragged down. Miraculously, it turned, but not far. Far up the wall, something shifted. She left this crank and walked back to the other one. At least this one was not packed with earth. She seized the handle and turned it. It moved more smoothly than its partner, but not much farther. She walked back to the first crank. It turned a notch. She went back to the other crank, and turned it. As she turned it, she could hear something moving in the wall. There was a tiny shifting. The door itself moved fractionally. She leaned on the crank and it moved again. Odd sounds whispered through the wall and door. Ancient chains moved on pulleys, her memories whispered. Counterweights began their descent. That was how she had designed it, remember? Remember. Remember how it was designed. Remember how the whole dome was designed.
She suddenly saw the whole wall and door and their mechanisms differently. The memory of how it should have been contrasted too strongly with what her hands told her. She felt the dirt and wet earth with her hands, shutting her eyes to block out the memory of how it had been. She groped her way across the door, feeling the bulges in its structure, the cracks that crossed it. She spun suddenly. 'This whole side of the structure will give way if the door is moved. Only chance has kept it intact this long.'
– 'It will give way, the earth will fall away from it, and the light will shine in,' the dragon predicted. 'Continue.'
'If you are wrong, you will be buried here, and I along with you.'
'I prefer that than to continue as I am. Turn the cranks, Malta. You promised.'
So potent a thing is a name. She snapped back to herself, a young woman in muddy clothes in the darkness. The proud young builder was gone, not even a memory, as dreams wisp away when the awakened one clutches at them. She took the crank in her hand and turned it another notch.
It was the last motion either crank would make. From one to the other she went, back and forth, tugging and cursing. It was as far as the ancient mechanism would move. The wall muttered uneasily to itself, but the door would not move.
'It's jammed. I can't do it. I tried. I'm sorry.'
For a long instant, the dragon was silent. Then she commanded, 'Get help. Your brother… I see him. You dominate him easily. Fetch him, and two rods to use as levers. Go now. Now.'
There were good and sound reasons to resist this command, but Malta could not recall what they were. She could barely recall this brother the dragon spoke of. The door and the means to open it were all she clearly knew. The rods were a good idea. Shoved through the spokes of the wheel, she could use them as levers to force the cranks to turn.
She walked in light remembered from another time. She dragged her weary steps up the broad stair and out the north door. As she walked, her fingers found the jidzin strip and trailed along it. The corridor illuminated itself to guide her. A blink of her tired eyes, and it thronged with life. Nobles swept past her, their gangly pages in attendance on them. A seamstress and her two young apprentices backed, bowing, out of a door, rich fabrics draped over their arms. A nursemaid with a chubby-kneed child wailing in her arms hastened toward her and then through her. The nurse called a cheery greeting to a young man in a beribboned cap, and he whistled in reply. Malta was the unseen ghost here, not they. The city was theirs.
She stumbled suddenly on fallen stone. She lost her touch on the wall and was plunged once more into darkness. This was her time, her life, and it was dark and dank and riddled with collapsed corridors and jammed doors. This fall of earth, her groping hands told her, completely blocked the corridor. She could not go that way.
She touched the wall to get her bearings and instantly knew a better route that led to a closer exit. She turned her steps that way and hurried along. She no longer listened to the exhausted complaints of her body. She lived now in a thousand different moments; why focus on the one where she was in pain? She trotted along, her bedraggled skirts alternately slapping or clinging to her legs.
She slammed to the floor. 'A quake,' she said dully, aloud, after it had passed. She lay still on the stone for a time afterwards, waiting for the echo-shake that often followed. Nothing happened. There were sounds, shifting and grating sounds. None of them seemed to come from nearby. Cautiously she came to her feet. She touched the light strip. Light flickered along it, but dimly. Malta had to reach for memories of how the corridor should be before she went on.
There were screams in the distance. She ignored them as she ignored the chatter of strolling couples and the barking of a small dog that brushed past her unfelt. Ghosts and memories. She had a door to open.
She turned down a side corridor that would lead her out. The screaming was close here. A woman's voice cried out, 'Please, please, the door is stuck. Get us out of here. Get us out before we die!' As Malta's hands trailed past the door, she felt the vibration of the woman's pounding. More in curiosity than in answer to the plea, she set her shoulder to the door. 'Pull!' she shouted as she pushed on it. The jammed door suddenly flew open. A woman rushed out of it as soon as it did. She collided with Malta, sending them both to the floor. A pale man stood behind her. Real yellow lanternlight spilled out of the room behind them, near blinding Malta. The woman trampled Malta as she scrambled to her feet. 'Get up!' she shrieked at her. 'Take us out of here. The wall has cracked and mud is leaking in!'
Malta sat up and looked past her into a well-appointed chamber. The carpeted floor was being engulfed by a slow wave of mud. A crack in the wall was the source of it. Even as Malta stared at it, a little water suddenly bubbled through it. The mud began to flow faster, thinned by the water. Its passage ate at the wall. 'The whole wall will give way soon,' she observed with certainty.
The pale young man glanced at it over his shoulder. 'You are probably right.' He looked down on her. 'Your masters assured us we would be safe here. That no one and nothing could find me here. What is the good of
