Episode 145 · Beyond the Pillar

The east wing smelled of wet plaster. Sheets of canvas covered two openings where windows had been. Farther down, daylight fell through a break in the roof. The corridor ended at a boarded door; before it, Tarn turned into a room with no door left in its frame.

— Was the opening here before the wall fell? Soles asked.

— We don’t know when it opened. The earliest recorded complaint about the heat predates the collapse by three weeks.

— And you called it gas.

— There was no mention of gas in that complaint.

Soles let that sit between them. The man kept walking.

Soles knew which door it was before he counted. The last cell on the corridor. Someone had nailed planks across it at chest height, as if whatever had lived there might still want to come back out. The wall beside it was dry. Everything else on the corridor sweated.

The room had been a washroom. Broken basins lay under the pipes on one wall. A length of hose hung from a faucet, ending above a drain. Part of the ceiling remained, with a crack running from the light fitting to the missing outer corner. Tarn stopped behind a square pillar just inside the doorway.

— Stay on this side of the pillar.

— Why?

— Beyond it, the pressure becomes difficult to tolerate. Two men have been sick. One lost consciousness.

Soles felt it already. Yesterday it had pressed on his face across an open field. Here it pushed against his chest and made swallowing uncomfortable. He breathed through his nose, slowly. In the garden, Phenom’s attention turned toward the room.

A crack ran across the floor between the basins and the drain. Above it hung a pale thread, no longer than his forearm. Nothing held either end. Its lower tip stopped just clear of the tiles.

At the water, the opening had filled his sight. This one was thin enough to lose when he turned his head. He looked straight at it again, and the pressure gathered behind his eyes.

Maxim rested a hand against the doorframe. Tesa took his elbow and drew him back a step. Krista stayed by the pillar, looking from the thread to the cracked ceiling.

— How long have you been standing here? she asked Tarn.

— We limit the time inside.

— How much time?

— We haven’t established a safe duration.

Tesa breathed in through her nose and frowned.

— Apples, she said under her breath. Old ones.

— In a drawer, Krista said.

They had both been down there. Neither of them had forgotten the smell. Maxim, who had stayed outside that night, looked from one to the other and kept his mouth shut.

Soles stepped past the pillar.

Tarn caught at his sleeve. Soles stopped before the grip became a pull.

— You agreed to observe.

— I can’t see the bottom from there.

— We have photographs.

— Then show me.

The man released his sleeve, opened the briefcase and took out an envelope. The first photograph showed the room from the doorway. In the next, the thread was barely visible. A white rule lay on the floor beside the crack.

— Yesterday morning, the man said.

He handed Soles another. The same rule, the same angle. The crack had passed the next black mark.

— This morning.

Soles held the photographs side by side. The man had given him an answer at last. The wall was down, the prisoners were gone, and the opening was still growing.

— Did anyone try to cover it?

— With a sheet of steel. They couldn’t bring it close enough to set it down.

— And the sheet?

— Outside.

— Damaged?

— No.

Soles gave back the photographs. The pressure felt like trying to bring two magnets together with the wrong ends facing. He could lean into it. The men with the measuring rule had reached the floor. He needed to know where the resistance began, before he brought the blade anywhere near it.

He took another step.

— Soles, Krista said.

He held up his empty right hand.

— I’m only going to feel it.

— You can feel it from here, Tesa said.

He could. He could also stand against it where Tarn had not followed. The weight in his body was available, steady and familiar. He used enough to keep his feet moving.

The thread brightened.

Soles stopped. A drop fell from the hose into the drain. Then another. He let the extra force go. The pressure did not lessen.

— Come back, Tarn said.

His hand was a few inches from the thread. If he withdrew, he would still know nothing about what happened at the edge. He bent his knees and put his left foot behind him, as he would to loosen a bolt that resisted the first turn.

He pushed with more than muscle.

The pale line drew tight. Under his boot, a tile clicked against the one beside it. Soles reached with his fingertips. He felt resistance before contact, firm and smooth, although there was nothing between his hand and the light.

He pressed harder. His fingertips touched.

The thread widened into a narrow strip.

The pressure struck his palm and chest together. His planted foot tore off the tiles, and he went up hard enough to drive his shoulder through the cracked ceiling.

Plaster broke around his head. He fell among it, struck a broken basin with his hip and landed with no breath left to cry out. He raised a forearm over his face as the smaller pieces came down.

Tesa caught his collar with her good hand and dragged him clear before a slab struck the place where his head had been. She kept pulling toward the pillar. Krista caught his jacket below the shoulder and helped, while Maxim ordered someone out of the doorway.

His breath came back in a thin, painful gulp. Dust stuck to the blood in his mouth. He put his right hand down to help them and his elbow gave way.

— Leave it, Tesa said. Let us.

He let them pull him. A smaller piece of plaster fell onto the tiles behind his heels. The younger man backed into the corridor, coughing, and cleared the doorway.

Soles reached the pillar on his knees. He held his damaged arm against his stomach and looked past Tesa at the floor.

The thread was thicker than it had been before he touched it.