Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 19 of 63

The wind above the cut changed pitch. Bram heard it before he felt it. A low grinding sound came from the slope over their heads, not the storm itself but something the storm had built. He stood up. Snow sifted down through the gap in the slabs and landed on his sleeve. It was fresh, dry, and light. Not blown snow. Loose snow, sliding. "Parisa." He kept his voice flat. "Get up. Slow." She looked at him and stood. The compass was still in her hand. He stepped to the mouth of the cut and looked up. He could not see far in the whiteout, but he could see enough. A shelf of new snow had built on the rock lip above them. It bulged out over the cut like a lid. The grinding was the shelf shifting on itself. "If that comes down, it closes the mouth," he said. "We won't dig out. Not with what we have." "How long?" "Minutes." He looked at the back of the cut. The crack she had wanted to enter was still there, black and narrow. Cold air moved out of it against his face. That meant it opened into something wider behind the wall. He hated it. He said it anyway. "Get in the crack. Now." Her eyes went to his. She did not ask why he had changed. She grabbed the pack. He scooped up the mechanical owl. It folded against his ribs, warm through the cracked leather of his jacket. He pushed Parisa ahead of him toward the crack. She turned sideways and slid in. He followed. The rock scraped his shoulders. His jacket caught, tore, freed. Behind them, the shelf let go. The sound was not loud. It was heavy. A soft thud that shook the floor, then a long hiss as tons of snow packed against stone. The gray-blue light at the mouth of the cut went out. Dark closed on them. Bram stopped moving. He listened. No more sliding. The pack had set. He reached forward and found Parisa's shoulder. She was breathing hard but steady. "We're alive," she said. "Yes." "The mouth?" "Gone." He struck a match from his pack. The flame showed her face, the wet rock, and the passage bending down and away from them. The compass in her hand had opened on its own. The needle pointed forward, into the dark, steady as a held breath. She looked at him. She did not smile. She did not need to. He thought of the tender flying south without him. He thought of the final package he would not sign for. The route was finished. Someone else would land it, or no one would. He shook the match out before it burned his fingers and lit another. "Stay close," he said. "Watch the needle." He went first. She followed. The mountain took them in.