Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 551 of 619

The boat scraped sand and the crew climbed out. Ajax stepped onto the island and looked up at the cliffs. Grain-colored stone rose from the beach, split by a shadow no eye caught from the water. Rowan reached it first. He ran his hand along the rock and stopped. "Steps," Rowan said. "Cut here. Someone worked this stone." Ajax came close. He saw only cliff. Bare rock, no seam, no ledge. He put his hand where Rowan pointed and felt an edge under his fingers that his eyes refused to show him. A stair, carved and hidden. "Chalam," Ajax said. The wizard knelt and laid his bone staff flat against the stone. It hummed low. He held it a long moment, then drew back. "A ward," Chalam said. "Old, but not like the god seals. This one hides. It bends the eye past the steps. A wizard cut it to keep the stair secret." He struck the rock once with chalk and a line of steps flickered into sight, then faded. "I can weaken it. I can't break it clean." "How long?" Ajax asked. "An hour with the staff. Or your men climb blind." Kael had already stepped past them. He set one boot on the invisible first stair and found it by feel. "They hold," he said. "Solid." He climbed two more, one hand on the cliff, testing each cut before his weight went down. Torren followed him up. He moved slow, deliberate, the way a man moves who spent fourteen years guarding a door. "Narrow," Torren called down. "One man wide. A blade at the top holds the whole stair." Ajax weighed it. The ward would fade in time and cost Chalam a day of clear thought. His men could climb now, by hand, the way Kael and Torren already did. He chose the climb. "Chalam, hold the staff on the ward at the base. Keep it thin so we don't lose our footing on the way down. Rowan, read the top when you reach it." He set his own hand to the hidden stone and pulled himself onto the first step. The rock was worn smooth in the center, a stair walked by feet three hundred years gone. They climbed single file up the face. Kael led, knife out. Rowan came behind Ajax, Torren at the rear. The sea dropped away below them. Wind pushed at Ajax's back. He kept one hand on the cliff and one foot testing each cut, and the ward bent the light so the steps swam under him like water. Kael reached the top and vanished over the lip. A moment passed. Then his flat voice came down. "Level ground. A gate in a wall. Old. Sealed." Ajax pulled himself over the edge and stood. The hidden stair had brought them up onto the island's height. A stone wall waited, and a gate held shut against him. The climb was done. Now he had to open what someone had sealed.