The duct of breaths

The streaks of the wall widened near the ground. Zaelyra followed their inclination to a sheet of rock that the moisture had detached from its frame. Behind, a conduit was sinking into the mountain.

"It's going to be fair for Rhylor," says Nym.

"I heard," replied the master of arms.

Orl couldn't stand up without help. His injured leg dragged behind him, leaving a dark line on the dust. The whistles continued to run through the rooms. They didn't get closer; they were looking.

Rhylor pulled up the rope of his waist under his shoulders, without squeezing his chest. Nym would pull him by small distances from the front; Rhylor would push him behind, while Orl would advance with his valid leg.

"If we take the conduit, we won't be able to fight," says Rhylor.

"If we stay, they won't need to find us," Zaelyra replied.

Rhylor took off his package and passed it in front of him. He engaged at an angle, without his shield, his shoulders grating the stone. The duct led to a horizontal chimney, so low that they had to crawl. The stone was dry. The air current pulled west, then forked abruptly after a few dozen steps. Zaelyra advanced in the lead, one hand on the wall, the other holding the lamp closed.

The first bifurcation only allowed one person to pass at a time. Zaelyra slipped a piece of chalk on it, then waited for the current to carry it away. He left to the left.

"The right passage is a cul-de-sac," she says.

Nym shook his head. "Or he doesn't breathe. It can lead to a closed room."

"Do you prefer me to write down both possibilities?"

"I prefer that you write down what we saw. The possibilities, keep them in your head until we check them."

She scratched the word "cul-de-sac" and replaced it with "absence of current". The gesture was small, but she felt his resistance. Since childhood, she had learned that assurance inspired more confidence than hesitation. Nym taught him the opposite: a map could be useful precisely because it showed what was unknown.

The duct narrows again. Sszindi had to advance to the side, his wound pressed against the rock. Pell spoke to her in a low voice, not to distract her, but to give her a rhythm. Every time she stopped, he counted three breaths before asking her if she could leave.

Zaelyra wanted to give him simple orders. Pell had found a fairer way to help him.

Pell followed, then Sszindi, the girl, Nym and Orl. Rhylor closed the march. The sound of the whistles became weaker, before turning into a dull rumble.

The conduit had just collapsed behind them.

They found themselves in complete darkness. The girl stifled a scream. Zaelyra turned on the hooded lamp. A fine dust covered everyone's hair.

The light revealed a collapsed stone elbow behind them. The passage they had just crawled through was now filled with blocks, with no interstice wide enough to let a hand pass. Zaelyra counted the lamps. Two worked; the third was just a split box.

"How long before the air runs out?" asked Pell.

"There is no shortage," replied Nym. "It circulates. For now."

He took the strip of oiled paper he had left and hung it from the crack in the vault. She rose slightly to the west.

"As long as it moves, we have a path that breathes."

Zaelyra divided the rope into two sections. One would remain attached to the group; the other would be used to probe each passage. She entrusted Pell with the task of keeping the first tense without shooting. To the girl, she gave the split lamp, which could still illuminate the ground if it was held tilted.

The girl examined the flame and then turned the case a quarter turn. The draft made her resume.

"Did you know she could hold? Zaelyra asked.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. She didn't pretend to know. She had tried.

Zaelyra noticed the crack, the collapse and the direction of the breath. A map could record the road we had lost as well as the one we followed. She added the approximate date and the number of people present, then stopped before writing their names.

"Is anyone hurt?"

"Only my pride," says Rhylor.

Nym coughed. "So it's less serious than most injuries."

A crack crossed the vault. The duct in front of them went up, but its end was invisible.

Zaelyra consulted the pocket compass. The needle turned on itself, disturbed by the ore. She put it away. The map she carried had never described this place. For the first time, she could not correct her route by referring to a previous route.

"We will follow the air," she says. "Nym, you check the forks. Rhylor, you stay close enough for me to hear you. Pell, if the rope is stretched twice, you stop. Once, you move forward."

"What if she tenses up three times?" asked Pell.

"You ask why."

They advanced to the touch. The duct often split, but the air always headed west. Zaelyra marked each crossroads with a small line of chalk. At one of them, she found two others, old, almost erased.

At the third bifurcation, the current reversed. Zaelyra's lamp flickered and the dust returned to her face. Nym signaled him to stop.

"There is a call of air behind us."

"The duct collapsed."

"He collapsed on one side. The air passes through a crack."

Rhylor turned back to the elbow and put his ear against the rock. On the other side, something was hitting at regular intervals. Three shots, a pause, then a fourth.

"It's not a voice," says Zaelyra.

"No. Someone may be knocking to tell us something."

They gave up the rhythm once and waited. Zaelyra repeated it. On the other side, silence continued.

"We can't come back," says Rhylor.

"I know. Zaelyra looked at the two lines of chalk she had picked up earlier. They did not teach him who had traced them or if they were related to the blows. She noted them separately, without giving them meaning.

Then she added to her map the place where the blows had resounded, without transforming them into a sign or giving them a name.

"These features are old," she says. "Do you recognize the hand?"

"No. I recognize the care."

He didn't add anything, but Zaelyra noticed that he followed the features as we follow the trace of a known person.

An hour later, the duct opened onto a high cave. Pale mushrooms grew at the foot of stone columns. In the distance, a stream of bluish light marked the exit of a crevasse.

Nym inhaled deeply. "We are under the road to Veyr."

"How long to reach it? Zaelyra asked.

"If the crevasse is practicable, half a day."

"What if she's not?"

"A whole day to find out why."

Pell laughed, then covered his mouth as if he had just made a mistake. The sound, small and clear, was lost in the cave without returning.

Zaelyra marked the exit on her map. She has not yet traced the road. She simply wrote: air to the west; passage possible; check before driving other people there.

She followed the survey with her finger until the next bifurcation, without connecting the duct to the Relay. They had a direction to check, not an itinerary yet.