Cold, clear waves lap gently against a pale red shore. Slowly rising from the gentle surf, a broad field of light burgundy sand gradually recedes into beachgrass-speckled dunes. Beyond those wind-shaped hills, the temperate rainforest waits with dark repose.

  A crowded canopy of swaying emerald branches drapes cool shadows over moss-laden trunks. Beneath that verdant awning, clustered trees march backward into dim obscurity, the looming jungle vanishing into its own depth.

  Glancing upward reveals the forest’s climbing course and eventual termination. High above and far away, the caldera’s rising curve buoys life into the sky. A green blanket hugs the concave slope, following its contours to the borders of an alpine tundra, where the treeline frays and diminishes. Grassland rises slightly higher before giving way to bare stone, which ascends in turn to the mountains’ jagged, snow-capped peaks.

  Looking to either side, Lamp finds that same procession of natural features extending beyond the limits of sight in both directions. From gentle shoreline to shimmering ice caps, every point on the horizon shares a common appearance. The lone deviation lies directly ahead.

  There, along the pebble-strewn bank of a narrow river, stands a fortified settlement which toes the line between a large town and small city. Only a few of its buildings rise tall enough to be seen from the water, with the remainder nestled and ensconced behind a high stone wall. If those exposed rooftops and towers represent the general quality of architecture, then Blackwing’s home must rival the grandest districts of Lamp’s own city. At the very least, it must look nicer than any place the scholar himself has ever lived.

  As for the town’s approaching docks, they rest behind protection of their own. An obviously-artificial sandbar juts from the coast to curve around the port, forming a miniature bay. Shattered boulders litter the barrier’s seaward edge, shielding it from waves. Reeds and brush cover its top, interspersed with small groves of stunted trees.

  Lamp has plenty of time to examine the crescent-shaped breakwater while their ship slowly approaches the entrance to Blackwing’s harbor. When they reach its opening and the oarsmen begin to maneuver through the bend, the merchant joins Lamp at the prow to monitor their course. The two of them share a polite nod.

  “Your home seems quite well defended.” Lamp remarks with a wave to the high stone walls.

  “It is.” Blackwing agrees. “When our forebears settled here more than a century ago, the wall ranked among their first priorities. It hasn’t seen much use since we dispersed the local pirates, but it provides peace of mind.”

  Lamp nods in agreement then looks away. Glancing into the harbor, he takes a moment to appreciate the size and quantity of the merchant vessels docked there, along with the open spaces meant to accommodate several more of them.

  It’s an impressively large and busy port, relative to the size of the town it serves. Still diminutive and quaint compared to his home city, of course, but formidable in its own context. All the more so if the bulk of this operation belongs to one man.

  By popular estimate, Blackwing commands the third largest trade fleet in the world. If Lamp had entertained any doubts on that matter, he would dismiss them now. This town, despite its great remove from larger cities, has clearly developed into a major center of wealth. Lamp can’t help but wonder how much of that belongs to his new employer.

  Curiosity gets the better of him, so he asks. “Do you own all of this?”

  Blackwing smiles minutely and shakes his head. “My company manages three of every four piers, and we maintain the embankment. I have a few other holdings inside, along with several claims in the mine, but most local businesses retain their independence. Relatively little of the population works for me.”

  “Ah.” Is all the scholar can think to say in response.

  He’d expected the merchant prince to claim a near-absolute stake. For all that Blackwing observed the norms of previous great captains by eschewing the titles and obligations of rulership, the man still holds immense wealth and power.

  Elsewhere in the caldera, merchants with significantly lighter pockets still manage to command the full economies of entire towns. When Lamp signed away a year of his life the night prior, he had assumed he was entering the employ of one such tyrant. His mild disappointment upon learning otherwise surely marks him as a fool.

  In any case, Blackwing easily remains the wealthiest person Lamp has personally met. He’d encountered moneyed individuals in his prior occupation, but none of those esteemed personages commanded riches approaching this scale. Lamp can still assure himself that he’s rubbing shoulders with the true elite, if that’s something he’s determined to care about.

  The scholar shifts his weight and pushes the matter from his mind, finding it unbecoming. To distract from his self-inflicted embarrassment, he focuses on the scent and feeling of the cool sea breeze and the splendor of the vista arrayed before him.

  He remains with Blackwing at the front of the galley as it drifts across the gentle harbor and approaches its berth. Their ship soon docks without incident, and, once tied off, they disembark ahead of the crew. The sailors lag behind, hauling cargo up from belowdecks and preparing to carry it into town. Only the bleary-eyed light-binder follows down the gangplank immediately.

  Blackwing sets a brisk pace down the quay. At least, it’s brisk for Lamp. A relaxed stroll for someone of Blackwing’s height constitutes a less-than-leisurely speed for most others. Lamp keeps up without difficulty, but he suspects that his employer would adopt a faster pace if he wasn’t conscious of the shorter translator trotting at his side.

  The scholar wonders whether their difference in gait might pose more of a struggle as this journey progresses. Now that they’ve left the ship and initiated the overland leg of their jaunt, he starts to give more attention to that question. He looks upwards towards the mountain wall and searches for a pass between the peaks. After a few moments of searching, he spots a likely point.

  Lamp darts an incredulous glance aside at Blackwing before returning his eyes to that distant, ice-packed valley. The thought of wading through its snowdrifts chills his spine. He tries to imagine a bygone era in which that deathly substance blanketed the world for months at a time, and he finds himself wondering how his ancestors ever survived. Praise the gods for exiling winter to the extreme edge of civilization where it belongs; may they take pity on any foolish mortals who insist on forging through.

  With an exhalation somewhere between a sigh and a grown, he mutters. “I admit, I’m not looking forward to that climb.”

  “Hm?” The merchant follows Lamp’s gaze, then chuckles lightly in response. “We won’t use that route. Our town sits on the mouth of a tunnel that leads through to the outer wall.”

  “Oh.” Lamp tries not to feel stupid. “That must have taken a while to dig.”

  “More than a decade.” Blackwing nods. “But it was finished long before I assumed command of the operation. Our fixation on the outer wastes predates me by two generations.”

  Lamp makes a humming noise of affirmation and holds back from further questions so he can take one last look at the town’s exterior before they reach the end of their wharf. The city’s wall sits a short distance farther inland, ceding ample room to its port and the infrastructure of affiliated commerce. Few buildings outside the wall resemble houses, but the flurry of human activity shows that many more people work and shop in this area than reside here.

  Of those people, roughly six out of every seven share Blackwing’s skin tone and physiognomy, an approximate demographic reversal from Lamp’s home city. The local fashion seems to favor white cloth with colorful accents, though the cut and style mostly adhere to familiar norms. From snippets of overheard conversation, the scholar detects a local accent mysteriously absent from his employer’s voice.

  Foot traffic between the docks and the city converges onto a wide road that runs uphill to a stone archway supporting an open set of heavy wooden doors. Lamp follows Blackwing up the avenue, through the gateway, and into a walled courtyard. Uniformed guards watch attentively from above as they cross through the enclosure to a second set of equally sturdy doors hanging open on its far side.

  From there, they enter the town proper. Despite his curiosity, Lamp has little time to play tourist while Blackwing ushers him down a well-paved and busy street. As they move, his host explains passingly that this compound contains most of his business ventures. The two of them don’t stop to examine anything closely, but Blackwing points out a few contracted workshops as they pass.

  The merchant indicates ateliers for dying and weaving his textiles, along with the jewelers who cut and set his gemstones. He waves vaguely in the direction of refineries for his silver and tin, located outside the city, and describes the factories which ferment his fish sauce, also located outside the city. Several other industries follow in the merchant’s long list of commercial interests, confirming to Lamp that even if his new boss doesn’t own the town itself, he handles the majority of its exports.

  “We have a few smaller operations dotted throughout the islands,” Blackwing concludes as they near the apparent midpoint of the town, “and of course our ships traffic all major ports, but this is the heart of my empire.”

  “It’s quite impressive.”

  Impressive and somewhat daunting. There’s a marked difference between understanding great wealth in abstract terms and having it pointed out to you over the course of a tour given by the man who owns it. The more Lamp dwells on what he’s seen, the more it dizzies him.

  As the poor scholar silently wrestles with feelings of personal inadequacy and economic injustice, Blackwing ushers him through a sequence of clothing stores. The prince of merchants gifts his distracted employee with a petasos cap and convinces him to exchange his worn out hamation for a more practical chlamys. Blackwing promises to replace the old cloak on their return journey.

  They continue down mainstreet from there, climbing slightly uphill as they move further inland. The town has only a modest size by Lamp’s standards, and the long side of its roughly elliptical footprint splays out along the coast, so it only takes a few more minutes of walking to reach the back wall.

  They pass through another gated courtyard to exit the city proper, emerging onto a wide, grassy division between two wheatfields. That cleared strip of land leads directly away from the wall, directing the gravel-paved lane which runs down its center. The pathway dips into a shallow valley before climbing upward to the base of a broad promontory. There, as Blackwing had promised, Lamp sees the entrance to a tunnel.

  He sees multiple entrances, in fact. Dotted across the cliffside, half a dozen dark apertures admit and disgorge steady streams of workers and wheelbarrows. Judging by the piles of glistening rubble stacked in the outgoing trams, this hill must be the entrance to an active and lucrative mine. It stands to reason that Blackwing’s passage through the mountain started as an extension of these prior excavations.

  As Blackwing leads him across the valley toward the largest and most central opening, Lamp silently takes in the sight. While the other tunnels provide sufficient room for two wheelbarrows to comfortably pass each other, this entrance yawns wide enough to admit a wagon and a half. Whatever goods Blackwing gathers from the wastes, this must be the point at which they enter the caldera.

  The closer Lamp comes to the mountain’s maw, the more intimidating it grows. Though he has no cause to fear darkness, he finds himself daunted by the oppressive weight of stone and the looming uncertainty that waits within. He almost requests a moment to compose himself before they step inside, but he quashes his apprehension and follows Blackwing’s lead with feigned indifference.

  As they pass into the deep shadows of the mine, Lamp’s adjusting eyes pick out faint spots of graft light bouncing through the stone passages. Other light-binders must accompany the miners to provide illumination, so Lamp supposes he should perform the same service. He raises a hand, intending to activate his graft, but Blackwing forestalls him with a wave.

  Lamp watches in mild confusion as Blackwing steps into a side room and emerges a moment later with another light-binder in tow. At her employer’s request, the woman activates her graft at low level and bathes the surrounding stone in dim red light.

  Lamp isn’t sure whether it would be ruder to object to this development or to remain silent, so he errs on the side of openness. As they begin walking down the tunnel, he clears his throat.

  “I don’t mind providing light, if she’s needed elsewhere. I have sufficient reserves.”

  Blackwing shakes his head in refutation. “I’m sure you’d complete the work without fault, Lamphand, but it’s not in your contract. Now that you work for me outright, I will never ask you to perform any service beyond our agreement.”

  “Okay.” Lamp replies, nonplused. “I really don’t mind, though.”

  “I do.”

  Lamp shrugs and drops the matter, but he’s not sure how to take this. It feels a little strange to be shown this sort of deference, to have his graft treated like it isn’t a common utility. Over the course of his life, no one ever hesitated to ask him for light when they needed it. The priests who educated him, his friends, his peers, his employers, and even his former partner all came to him when they needed someone to light their way. Lamp had seldom minded that. It made him feel useful.

  Although confident of his worth beyond magic, he’d always counted it among his assets, a constant compliment to his other services. He feels strange knowing that it isn’t needed anymore. That confused sentiment grips his heart more tightly than he would have expected, but it’s a quandary for another time. For now, he simply follows along in dutiful silence.

  As they progress deeper into the mine, Lamp begins hearing the faint echoes of pickaxes hammering against rock. Two distinct sound patterns betray the forms of magic at work. Heavy swings from momentum-binders reverberate as deep thuds while rapid staccato impacts indicate vibration-binders chipping through the stone with their rattling picks.

  He can only discern the difference by listening closely. Operations have clearly progressed far beyond the mine’s main entrance, as the only workers within view are those coming up from or heading down into the numerous side-branching shafts. At such a remove, the distant tapping sounds remain soft enough for Lamp to hear his own footsteps rasp against the leveled stone.

  Perhaps there’s magic at play in that as well; someone might be dampening the excavation’s noise to spare the workers’ ears. Or maybe just the ears of those traversing the main tunnel. With every active digger out of view, Lamp has no way to judge potential interference, so it must remain an open question.

  “Or I could just ask.” He mutters to himself before raising his voice and addressing the back of his boss’s head. “Do you hire sound-binders to control the noise? I can’t tell if it’s being dampened.”

  “It is, but not by my company.” The merchant replies without looking back. “It’s a public service funded by the tax levied against claim owners.”

  “A generous use of funds.” Lamp remarks with sincere approval.

  “Moreso appeasement.” Blackwing answers dryly. “We had a small riot the last time rumors spread about a similar program terminating.”

  “Ah.”

  Lamp holds back a comment that any basileus back home would forcibly disperse such movements. Pondering the reasons for that difference, he supposes that a lord without neighbors would have much less cause to fear the appearance of weakness. And perhaps Blackwing’s insular, isolated settlement also maintains a stronger social cohesion.

  That speculation rekindles Lamp’s curiosity, so he bothers his employer again to ask the man if he’d be willing to describe the history of his hometown. The merchant nods, then absently reaches out with his long black arm to trace its claws along the wall, softly scraping against the rock with an occasional dull click. His voice sounds sentimental as he begins to speak.

  “Our earliest ancestors were merchants and their assembled kin. They congregated here after discovering tin deposits, and we’ve mined this stone for generations since. My mother’s father helped carve these tunnels…”

  Blackwing continues detailing his heritage as they march deeper, distracting Lamp from the mild claustrophobia of their environment with his surprisingly soothing voice. This method suffices to maintain the scholar’s interest and calm for a few minutes longer until their path abruptly terminates at a bottomless pit.

  Shortly before the drop, they pass a slumbering worker laid out on a reed mat to one side of the corridor. Blackwing silently gestures for the others to avoid disturbing the man, so they leave the laborer to his dreams. Several paces farther on, they find the hole.

  A wooden platform, less than half the width of the shaft it occupies, hangs suspended over the rectangular chasm. Lamp keeps his eyes off the drop by examining that device. Aside from its floating floor and the surrounding frame, the only other visible components are a long, tar-stained rope and a sturdy-looking pulley system through which that rope winds.

  Though Lamp received little education on the principles of engineering, he can easily discern how this arrangement of parts would allow the dangling platform to be lowered while some object on the other side of the assembly is raised. Understanding the basic mechanics doesn’t make him trust the machine, however.

  When Blackwing and the other light-binder walk onto the contraption without hesitation, Lamp follows them only nervously. He steps onto the hanging floor with evident reluctance, and Blacking smiles at him with slight amusement.

  “This system hasn’t failed since installation, and we perform regular maintenance. It’s safe.”

  “If you say so.” Lamp replies woodenly while he moves to the exact center of the platform, intending to stand as far from the edges as he can manage.

  “I do,” Blackwing affirms, “but if we fall, I promise to catch you.”

  That assurance does offer some consolation, so Lamp gives his gravitational guarantor a curt nod. Blackwing, in turn, nods to the other light-binder. At her employer’s signal, the woman carefully moves to the edge of their platform, leans over the railing, and flares her graft in two quick pulses. She stares intently into the darkness for a moment before turning back to the boss.

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  “Clear.” She tells him.

  Blackwing nods and waves for her to move away from the edge. Once she repositions, the merchant activates his graft. There’s no visible change to the man himself, but the creak of wood beneath his feet and the slight lurch that jostles their platform into motion plainly illustrate what he’s done.

  Their vehicle begins to fall into the abyss but thankfully doesn’t plummet. Instead, the long, tarred rope from which they hang slowly passes through its pulley system above their heads, and their hanging wooden cage begins a gradual descent. When the wood beneath Blackwing’s feet squeaks again, their speed increases slightly.

  Lamp inhabits a constant state of near-panic during the first half-minute of their controlled fall, but as the time grinds past without incident, his fear steadily subsides into a background feeling of dread. Slowly acclimating to the strange conveyance, he gradually realizes that the drop isn’t his only subconscious concern.

  “Does this thing fall below sea level?” Lamp asks with a horrified tone.

  “Yes.” Blackwing answers matter-of-factly. “Our lower tunnel runs deeper than the coastal seabed.”

  “That's, um… How do you handle flooding?”

  “We don’t. The caldera’s ring contains no natural caves or fissures. Water has no path by which to reach us.”

  “Oh.” Lam’s not sure whether he’d heard that before, but he sees no reason to doubt Blackwing’s word. Still, he has concerns. “What if a new cave opens and the dam breaches, so to speak? Aren’t you worried you’ll drain the top off the sea?”

  Blackwing smiles indulgently. “I doubt the gods would allow that, but we’d have plenty of time to plug the hole regardless. The caldera would not drain quickly through an opening this size.”

  “I… suppose you’re right.”

  Despite his acquiescence, Lamp continues brooding over the threat of a sudden flood while their contraption furthers its descent. At least his premonition of drowning under a dark column of water distracts him from his earlier vision of plummeting down this seemingly infinite mineshaft to a lethal crash at its eventual base.

  Lamp’s attention turns so deeply inward that he barely notices when another platform, identical to theirs but carrying a bag of rocks instead of passengers, rises level with them in the darkness. Blackwing reaches his graft arm into the other cage as it passes to snag its stowaway counterweight. After he transfers that heavy bundle to their own side, their speed increases again.

  That exchange marked the midpoint of their descent, meaning this miserable experience is already halfway over. Holding that thought in mind, Lamp shuts his eyes and takes deep, calming breaths until he eventually feels their platform settle on solid ground.

  The scholar hastily steps off the machine, foregoing decorum to achieve immediate safety. Blackwing follows at a more measured pace, with the other light-binder trailing last. The bundle of rocks Blackwing transferred from another platform keeps the system weighed down in their absence.

  Lamp waits to the side of the tunnel for his employer to pass. When the tall man walks ahead, his two subordinates fall in line behind him.

  This lower section of tunnel has a slight downward grade, and their guide’s dim red graft-light reveals stone grooves carved into its floor. The engraved channels both span wide enough to comfortably fit a wheel, and they sit far enough apart to seat a wagon. No surprise, then, that their next vehicle is a wheeled platform designed to ride these tracks down their gentle slope.

  They find a modified minecart sitting inside a flat pen to the side of the tracks. Contrary to Lamp’s expectation, it looks like the wheels actually span wider than the channels in the floor. He squats down to get a view of the contraption’s underside and spots a pair of brass runners underneath; those must hold it on the lines.

  Blackwing politely waits for Lamp to stand back up before he effortlessly lifts their next vehicle off the ground and sets it down atop the grooves. He gestures for Lamp to board the wagon, and the scholar complies with resigned wariness. Their attending light-binder steps on after him, and they both sit at Blackwing’s instruction. Then their leader hops aboard and assumes a standing position at the front of the platform.

  The cart begins rolling downslope as if by its own accord, and soon they’re wheeling down the tunnel at jogging speed. The vehicle rattles a little beneath them at that pace, but it doesn’t shake as badly as Lamp had worried. He’s glad Blackwing didn’t try to push them any faster, however. This machine probably couldn’t handle a much higher speed, and neither could Lamp.

  Feeling secure, if not comfortable, Lamp glances past Blackwing’s legs to eye the parallel ruts leading off into the obscured distance.

  “Is this a straight shot to the far side?” He asks over the noise of clattering wheels.

  “Yes.”

  Lamp nods, impressed. He doesn’t recall the exact width of the rim, but he knows it’s a rather long way, so this must be a rather long tunnel. Consequently, their cart ride will take a while. He’s about to ask how long the trip will be when Blackwing shouts a question.

  “Are the two of you comfortable going faster?”

  The woman answers first. “Yes sir!”

  “Um.” Lamp follows with less enthusiasm. “If you’re sure it’s safe?”

  “I am.”

  An odd twist in Lamp’s gut betrays the touch of weight manipulation, indicating that Blackwing has wrapped the entire cart and all three of its occupants in his power. It feels strange, though, different from Lamp’s memory of his single prior experience. Whatever meddling their driver has begun to perform, the cart starts moving a lot faster. From jogging pace, to running, to sprinting, to something past that.

  Lamp’s teeth rattle in his head as he stares wide-eyed into the yawning emptiness of the onrushing tunnel. The bouncing sight terrifies him, but at least by looking he can confirm their path is clear. If he couldn’t see, Lamp would imagine imminent collisions or impossibly sharp turns on the track ahead, so he denies himself the false mercy of squeezing his eyes shut. Instead, he hunches down to bring his center of mass as close to the platform as possible. At this point, it’s the only defensive measure he can take.

  Why did he agree to this?

  He should have said no. The next time Blackwing asks him to do something crazy, he needs to refuse. Gods, he hates this machine even more than the last one! Humans weren’t meant to move so fast! How many more seconds do they have left before this damnable contraption slips out of its tracks and they all careen into the wall and die?

  Those thoughts loop inside Lam’s head for an indeterminate amount of time, interspersed by an occasional conviction that the wagon is about to vibrate itself apart. The worst continues not to happen, however, and their vehicle eventually begins to slow as Blackwing finally relaxes his hold.

  Lamp squints ahead hopefully, and his heart swells with joy when he sees sunlight peeking through an opening in the distance. They made it! And nobody fell off or died of shock! The scholar would collapse in relief, but he has nowhere left to fall from his already hunched position.

  Blackwing further reduces their speed with each subsequent second, gliding them forward at a progressively gentler pace until they finally reach the end of the tracks. As soon as they come to a complete stop, the other light-binder primly rises to her feet, steps off the platform with composed ease, and stands ready for her next orders.

  What a showoff.

  A petty corner of Lamp’s mind hates her now.

  The scholar makes his own, less-graceful dismount, and Blackwing follows last with a light step. The subordinates then look to their employer for direction, and he points down the tunnel before walking that way himself. The two light-binders follow behind, and as they near the sunlit exit the woman finally deactivates her graft.

  When they step outside, Lamp mentally embraces the comforting warmth of the sun. He’d missed it dearly. After taking a few moments to luxuriate, he looks around to get his bearings. To his mild surprise, he finds himself in another, significantly smaller walled compound.

  Half-buried in the mountainside and completely ensconced within high stone walls, the fortress strikes Lamp as an exercise in paranoia. Why bother with defenses out here? There’s nobody around. Hostile forces would need to cross over the rim mountains to reach this place, and Lamp can’t imagine any advantage to be won from that effort.

  Distracted by these thoughts, Lamp almost misses it when Blackwing gives their accompanying light-binder the rest of her day off. Rather than heading back into the tunnel, she hurries away to another part of the settlement. Blackwing notices Lamp’s befuddlement and offers a passing explanation.

  “Her sister lives on this side, which is why she volunteered. She’ll return with another group in the next few days.”

  “Ah.”

  Blackwing nods, seeming distracted. “I need a few minutes to prepare. You should climb the wall while you wait. I recommend the view.”

  The merchant walks away without further explanation. Left without a preferable alternative, Lamp decides to follow his employer’s suggestion. He finds an interior stairway and climbs up to stand atop the compound’s wall. From that vantage, he beholds a wondrous sight. The view instills an emotion somewhere between awe and fear. Either way, it steals the breath from his lungs.

  The mountain’s gradual slope descends more than three times as far below him as it rises above. Even after their descent through the tunnel, and even though they started near sea level, they’re still this high above the world-tile’s true floor. Lamp had no idea his caldera stood so tall.

  But the wonders don’t stop there.

  Starting at the mountain’s base, an endless, wrinkled labyrinth of canyons and crags stretches out beyond sight, vanishing into a haze-filled horizon. Lamp isn’t sure whether he sees patterns within the maze of shadow and stone. Their twining shapes almost seem familiar, but he can’t tell why.

  That sight arrests his eyes for quite some time, but he eventually raises his head and glances to the side. The lateral view is less spectacular, but he finds it no less absurd.

  Resembling a slanted berm or a steep earthen ramp, the mountain ring stretches infinitely in length and rises to impossible height. Gazing across that endless surface, Lamp sees little besides arid stone and nearly lifeless dirt. The only interruptions to that empty vista are a few baren scrubs waving their skeletal branches at the cloudless sky. Lamp counts only five of those plants within his view.

  Finally, he looks up. To his surprise, he spots a single lost cloud drifting past overhead. Nothing else occludes the deep blue sky. No birds or insects fly here. No pollen drifts on the breeze. The dry slope contains almost no native life at all. Blackwing and his people maintain their foothold here in arrogant defiance of nature.

  Although, in fairness, Lamp supposes he’s now guilty of the same arrogance purely by dent of standing here. Humans weren’t meant to travel this far, yet he intends to travel further. What a thing that is.

  The scholar glances back down to the canyons and shakes his head in disbelief. Where in that shaded wasteland could Blackwing have possibly built anything, and how far does the man intend to lead him? With a sign, Lamp pushes those unanswerable questions aside. He lingers on the wall, soaking in the view, until he feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks up to find his employer gazing out over the same barren expanse.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Lamp agrees. “It is.”

  Blackwing removes his hand, and the two of them tarry on the wall for a moment longer, gazing out over the sublime emptiness. After a few seconds, Lamp glances back at Blackwing’s dark-skinned face. He sees less stress in the other man’s expression. The merchant’s constant professional mien has relaxed slightly, now that they’ve left the caldera behind. Lamp wonders if the man feels freer out here.

  A second later, Blackwing turns and beckons for Lamp to follow him down from the wall, and the scholar complies. Upon descending, he finds a small group of workers waiting for them in a wide yard. Each laborer carries a heavy-looking pack, though the size of each porter’s burden bears no relation to the apparent strength of their body. The weight distribution must relate to their grafts, then. Does everyone in this group share the same ability as Blackwing?

  Lamp’s presumption seems validated when Blackwing walks to the head of the collective and shrugs his way into the heaviest load present. Lamp glances around to check if anyone prepared a bag for him to carry, but he doesn’t spot any remaining packs on the ground, so he supposes he’s the sole member of the group exempted from this duty.

  Lamp starts to head towards Blackwing when one of the lesser weight-binders calls the scholar over, and he obliges with a minor welling of apprehension. As he approaches, the other man turns around and falls to one knee. On his back, the man wears a reverse-facing, chair-like contraption. Lamp’s heart sinks as he realizes that he’s expected to ride in it.

  A soft sigh of preemptive regret escapes his lips before he can stifle it. This is Lamp’s third time today standing in front of an insane method of transit, and he had just promised himself that he would start saying no. Gods damn that merchant and his creativity. May the Artisan pluck it back out of his head!

  “You’re going to carry me on your back?” He asks the kneeling man to be sure. “I assume you’ll be traveling downhill at high speed.”

  The man gruffly confirms Lamp’s understanding, so the scholar resolves himself and steps forward. As much as he doesn’t want to climb into this thing, he also hates to keep people waiting. Lamp reluctantly maneuvers his way into the chair and fastens himself in place. As soon as he’s settled, the kneeling man rises to his feet and their procession gets moving.

  Lamp watches in reverse as they leave the compound. He attracts some attention from onlookers as the party makes its way out, and he embarrassedly avoids meeting anyone’s eyes. Lamp hopes this situation is less mortifying for the man carrying him. He’d hate for both of them to suffer.

  When they step outside the outer wall, and two sturdy wooden doors swing shut behind them, Lamp starts to wonder how long he’ll be stuck in this chair. A simple hike down could require more than twice the time they would have spent climbing over the interior mountain range. At that pace, this descent might take several days.

  No sooner does he entertain that thought than Blackwing shouts from ahead. “Brace yourself, Lamphand!”

  “Why?” The scholar shouts back. “Are you running downhill?”

  “No! We’ll jump!”

  “What does-”

  He gets his answer immediately.

  His chair lurches as the man carrying it reduces their weight and launches himself off the mountainside. Lamp yelps in alarm as they fly out into empty space. Looking backwards, he can see the other porters behind them make similar leaps. They all seem to glide through the air for a few moments before the ground rushes up beneath them.

  Lamp’s heart pounds a rapid beat through those long seconds of freefall, and he almost shouts again in the final instant before impact. Then, he feels the shudder of his carrier’s feet hitting the earth, and his stomach lurches as the man kicks off a second time.

  It doesn’t get smoother from there. Blackwing’s gaggle of weight-binders descends the mountain in expertly planned leaps whilst Lamp jostles about in his little cocoon chair. He manages not to scream or puke, but that’s as far as his composure extends. He holds onto his harness with a white-knuckled fear and wears his discomfort openly on his face.

  For the first minute or so, Lamp would swear that this experience inspires the same degree of terror as being chased by graft hunters, and he maintains a similar degree of pessimism regarding his survival. However, as with today’s previous adventures in transit, he learns to fear the method less the longer it goes without killing him. He might have even started to enjoy the ride at some point if it hadn’t given him a mild headache.

  All the same, he feels deeply relieved when the weight-binders finally stop for a break. When Lamp’s porter lowers back into his kneeling position, the scholar eagerly scrambles to exit his chair. Once free, he takes advantage of his mobility to stretch his legs. He paces around and massages his neck while the rest of the group, save Blackwing, sits down to relax.

  Lamp uses his brief window of freedom to take another look around. He finds that the mountainside appears even more bleak now that he’s away from what might be the only settlement on its vast exterior surface. There isn’t a single man-made structure within eyesight now, and Lamp feels a profound sense of loneliness, looking out over the empty world.

  A call from Blackwing interrupts his reverie. Their break has ended too soon for Lamp’s liking, but he doesn’t complain aloud as he loads himself back into his chair. Shortly thereafter, their group resumes hurtling downslope.

  They make the rest of their journey in similar jaunts, taking breaks when necessary. The strange method of travel covers ground quite quickly, and they approach the bottom within hours, rather than the days Lamp had worried over. By late afternoon, or perhaps early evening, they reach the entrance to the maze.

  Blackwing orders one last break before they descend, and Lamp takes that time to appreciate the bizarre geographical labyrinth waiting ahead. The canyon tops maintain a perfectly level height as they march and meander into the distance. Meanwhile, the mountain slope continues its decline beneath the craigs. The further forward they go, the taller the walls will rise above them.

  Lamp peers down into one of the gorges, trying to see where the mountain finally levels out, but his eyes can’t discern sufficient detail through the gloom. Maybe it just keeps going down forever; that’s a frightening thought. Lamp decides to question Blackwing so he doesn’t need to wonder, and his employer informs him that they have less than an hour remaining before they reach an outpost at the mountain’s base. The sunlight should last until then, and they can establish a camp if it doesn’t.

  The end of their conversation marks the end of their break, and Lamp clambers back into his chair for what should be the final time. The weight-binders begin their last bout of controlled falling, bounding down the arid slope as it falls beneath the canyon walls. True to Blackwing’s word, the journey ends less than an hour hence when they finally reach the level floor.

  There, at the bottom of the slope, they stop for the night to sleep inside a hidden complex carved into the chasm wall. No host waits for them inside it, and the structure will remain empty after they have gone.

  The scholar has some difficulty falling asleep on the rolled mat Blackwing provides, but once he drifts off, he manages to slumber peacefully until morning.

  He’s not quite sure what time they rouse themselves the following day. Poking his head outside, he sees a narrow line of direct sunlight bouncing off the canyon’s western lip. Based on this, he assumes the sun still hangs low in the eastern sky. To their dark-adjusted eyes, the refracted light provides sufficient illumination to show the way.

  After a quick breakfast, they start the second leg of their journey. This time, Lamp gets to walk instead of riding backwards. He feels grateful for the freedom and the exercise; he hadn’t enjoyed being luggage yesterday.

  Blackwing sets a decent pace for the group, but it’s a slow enough march that Lamp has no initial trouble keeping up. As the hours pass his shins begin to burn, but he maintains his pace and keeps his complaints to himself. Everyone else spent yesterday jumping down the tallest mountain in creation; Lamp can handle a single day of walking. All the same, he’s happy to take breaks whenever Blackwing calls for them.

  He's equally happy every time Blackwing demonstrates his mental map of the labyrinth. The gorge they’re following mostly runs in a straight line, but they find a few places where it curves to intersect with its neighbors. Blackwing strides confidently through each of these junctures, even when neither branch leads directly forward.

  Lamp tries to keep track of the route they follow at each switch, but every passage looks exactly the same. Despite the small number of junctions, he’s not entirely certain he could retrace his steps through these twisting corridors. He’s therefore perfectly content to follow someone else’s lead. The looming canyon walls and their deep wells of shade would seem even more oppressive if not for the apparent ease of Blackwing’s navigation.

  As their march extends into mid-day, the sun advances in its own journey across the sky. At noon, the bright line it casts on the western wall finally reaches the chasm floor. Lamp absorbs a little sunlight out of habit, but something about it feels off. The light seems… stale.

  Lamp glances up at the sky, looking as near to the sun as he can manage without hurting himself, and he finds the bright star somehow out of order. It hangs in its usual place, following its normal path, but it seems dimmer and more removed. It’s almost as if their displacement from the caldera has also distanced them from its light.

  Lamp speaks for the first time in hours, calling ahead to Blackwing to ask about the sun. His employer confirms that the change is normal, or at least expected. He elaborates that the dimming intensifies the further one travels from the mountain.

  On learning this, Lamp’s thoughts return to a subject he had considered yesterday: that humans shouldn’t travel this far, and the gods never wanted him to come here. In spite of those concerns, he continues onward, following the pack. He goes along not only because he no longer has any real option of turning back, and also because he’s arrogant enough to pursue Blackwing’s hidden knowledge even when it waits for him on forbidden ground.

  Besides, if the gods truly didn’t want him here, then why did they leave a road?

  Lamp wishes he found that logic more convincing. He revisits those thoughts throughout the rest of the day, and they linger with him that evening as he falls asleep in their camp on the canyon floor. After closing his eyes, he mutters softly in the old tongue.

  “Regent forgive our trespass. Wayward keep us to the path.”

  The following morning, Lamp feels better, or at least his primary concern has shifted from existential dead to his aching legs. He fears another day’s march almost as much as he fears the gods. Thankfully, Blackwing promises they’ll reach their destination soon, and the man proves true to his word. They meet the gorge’s edge shortly before noon.

  Even burdened by fatigue, Lamp’s mind still makes room for wonder.

  The creviced maze terminates at a flat wall of polished stone. The grand barrier rises no higher than the canyon tops, and it appears to the eye as a natural continuation of the same geological structure. Some of the ravines abruptly stop short of it, creating a wide lateral gap of open air. Others run directly into the blockade, blending their rough, natural surfaces with its perfect fa?ade.

  Blackwing’s final compound sits inside the smooth stone wall, half-buried into the shimmering rock. Rather than walking directly inside, their leader stops for a moment to absorb the view. He turns to Lamp with a proud expression and gestures ahead.

  “This is the most remote settlement in our world. Beyond it, nothing lives, and only we venture. From this staging ground, I launched the first expedition across the empty plane in over two hundred years, and I became the first to cross it twice. Every pair of eyes behind those walls has gazed into another world. We have discovered secrets untold since the rupture, and we have claimed trophies that prove mankind’s survival across the void.”

  Blackwing sweeps his arms wide, as if to embrace the world.

  “Welcome, honored scholar, to the jewel of my crown.”