slipped it in. Slowly he trusted his weight to the cracks. He felt for the next one and saw another near his face. Slowly, one hold at a time, he descended, always pressing his cheek against the cracked stone, never looking down. He stiffened when he felt Osidian's hands on him.
'It is very hard, the first time.' Carnelian could only growl at him.
It was as if his life had become trapped in a falling dream. Ledges led to flights of steps, then handhold ladders, then to more steps, in an unending, gruelling succession. They had been cursed like serpents to squeeze along on their bellies with the sun always burning its stare into their backs. Carnelian's longing for the next rest stop was like a thirsty man's for water. But, every time they stopped, he found the waiting for the next leg a torture and would hurry Osidian on. Here and there a cave had been cut back into the jointing between two slabs. He feared their coolness more than anything else. Each time they crammed in, he was not sure he would find the courage to come back out.
'Halfway… down…' said Osidian, panting.
Carnelian fanned himself. He tried to loosen the tension in his throat enough to speak. 'Have you… done this… many times before?'
Osidian lifted his hand up to perhaps the height of a man's waist. 'Since I was that tall.'
Carnelian gaped. 'You dared… as a child? Who… showed you the way?'
'I found it for myself,' Osidian's eyes were sun through leaves, 'and always, before, alone.' He closed his eyes and rested his head back on the rock.
Carnelian smiled at the compliment. His eye traced the curve of Osidian's throat up to his chin, over his lips up to the beautiful jutting of his nose. In the gloom his birthmark was like an open eye.
The sun was rifling down its rays, wilting Carnelian with the onslaught. He craved release from his tunic, lusting after the wind's cold caress. But he did not even loosen it, fearing for his skin.
His head and shoulders cooled. He looked up, through his fingers, expecting to see some cloud momentarily blinding the sun. Instead, the burning eye was impaling itself on the Pillar's black spear. As Carnelian watched, the sun melted away till there was only a smouldering rind, then that too went out and the Pillar was holding up a smooth blue sky.
'Look,' cried Osidian below him.
Clinging hard, Carnelian dared to look down the Pillar's craggy narrowing plunge into the ground. Its shadow was beginning to creep out over the Yden. He closed his eyes, hugged the rock, rejoicing at their deliverance from the burning tyranny of the sun.
His rejoicing was short-lived. The wind blowing up from the Yden abated until it became a gentle breeze. It grew steadily colder until he was pressing himself against the rock to suck up what he could of its fading heat.
Down they climbed and ever down, the passage of time measured by the Pillar's shadow-creep over the Yden.
Carnelian felt it coming like a tidal wave. He looked south and saw the black horn of its crescent. He stopped for a moment watching as shadow engulfed the Sacred Wall, a coomb at a time.
Osidian came scrabbling up towards him. 'I have miscalculated.' His eyes squeezed almost closed with each pant. He shook his head, swallowed. 'We will not make the Yden.'
Garnelian looked down. The Yden had become an immense garment of trees. Its air clung to him like sweat. Its further edge tattered into glimmering emerald water that was eventually hemmed by Skymere blue. Strange buildings were sewn here and there like buttons. It did not seem that far away.
'It is,' said Osidian, as if he had heard his thoughts. He looked up, judging whether they could make the climb back to the last cave.
There must be some place further down,' said Carnelian.
Osidian made a face. There is, but it will not be to your taste.'
'Why not?'
Osidian shook his head. There is no time for discussion. You will see.' In the east, the Pillar shadow was already fumbling at the Sacred Wall. 'If we do not get to where we are going before nightfall, we shall either have to spend the night here,' he indicated the windswept wall of stone, 'or risk stumbling down, blind.'
They hurried on, Osidian leading them down into the thickening humid air. The shadow of the Sacred Wall washed over them and began rippling off towards the east. It seemed no time at all before it had covered the Yden and was pouring its ink into the lake. Carnelian reached the bottom of one long ladder to see the shadow lapping against the faraway wall, then fill the crater up to the very brim with darkness. All the light they had then came from the sky. As flames engulfed it, Carnelian began to notice movements out of the corner of his eye. Monstrous shapes lurked here and there in the crevicing Pillar rock. He saw a pickaxe head lifting and, hearing a flapping, turned to see enormous bat-wings opening and folding back.
He caught up with Osidian and grabbed his arm.
'Gods' blood,' cried Osidian.
The air rustled and squealed. The monsters shifted round them. Carnelian came to a halt as Osidian hugged him back against the stone.
'If we raise them they might knock us off the Ladder,' Osidian hissed in his ear.
'What…?'
'A sky-saurian roost.'
Carnelian scrunched up his nose. 'It stinks of fish.'
'Just be glad there are no saurians nesting in here,' snapped Osidian.
'Ugh!' grimaced Carnelian. The floor was oozing, sticky.
Osidian's hand grabbed his arm and dragged Carnelian after him, deeper into the cave.
'Do you have a light?' asked Carnelian, wincing at each moist footfall. There was no answer. 'I said, do you-'
'I have not grown suddenly deaf. The answer is no.'
'But-'
'I did not think we would need it. We could have brought a bed as well, if I had thought of it, but perhaps my Lord might have also complained at having to carry that down the Ladder.'
Carnelian decided it might be better to say nothing more.
The noisome walk ended at something like a low smooth wall.
'Jump up,' said Osidian.
Carnelian felt him lurch past. He slid his hands up the wall, over the edge. The ledge above it was damp. He brought his fingers near his nose. They smelled of nothing worse than must. He pulled himself up and found that he was sitting on a narrow flat space. He could feel a column backing it, an ankle of stone, with another beside it. He slid his hand up to the knees.
'Will you stop fidgeting around! Lie down and sleep,' said Osidian.
Carnelian lay down. His tunic and trousers clung to him. The air around him was as moist as breath. 'What is this place?'
There was no answer, just the sound of Osidian breathing. He supposed there was no point in telling him that, fishy stench or no fishy stench, he was hungry. Carnelian waited until he could hear Osidian's breathing slow and then he shifted closer to him, buried his nose in the sweaty-smelling cloth of his back and quickly fell asleep.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
Clutch my warmth
Until day comes
For then we must part
