Merlyn's Arc

Chapter 26 of 20

The shaft was steeper than it looked from below. Merlyn climbed a body-length and stopped. His good hand gripped a ledge. His dead hand hung useless. His arms shook, and the ten years he had spent on his sight had left nothing in his legs. He pressed his cheek to the cold rock and breathed. The gray light stayed far above. Too far. He would not reach it. He would fall, and the fall would break him. "Merlyn." Thorgar's voice came from above. The dwarf had climbed ahead to test the holds. He was four feet of muscle and could crawl this shaft all day. "You stopped." "I can't," Merlyn said. The words cost him. "My strength's gone. I'll fall before the top." Below him, Gunnar climbed close. Thirty years at a forge had made his hands and shoulders like iron. He set his palm on the shaft wall and went still, reading the stone the way he always did. "Old cut," he said. "Chisel marks. All the way up." Merlyn understood him at once. Worked stone. Every mark a mason left held a thread of the strength that made it. He had drained dressed stone before to fill his signs. But he had no bead now, nothing to hold the power. "I have no vessel," he said. "Your body's the vessel," Gunnar said. He did not soften it. "Draw it into your arms. Not to carve. To climb." It was raw and dangerous. Merlyn had never poured raw stone-strength into his own flesh. It could burn him worse than the blood-sign had. But the daylight would not come to him. He pressed his good hand flat to a chisel scar and reached with his brands. The old marks answered. Power ran up his arm, cold at first, then hot. His brands flared. His shaking stopped. He gripped the ledge and pulled, and this time his body rose. "Again," Thorgar said from above, and reached down. Merlyn climbed. At each hold he pressed the wall and drank another mason's mark. The stone went dead behind him, grain by grain, spent forever. He did not look back. Thorgar hauled at his good arm. Gunnar braced his boots from below. Above, Thorin and Kjell had already reached the mouth and lay flat, arms out. Hands caught his wrists. They dragged him over the lip and onto open ground. Merlyn lay in real grass. Cold air filled his chest. Above him the sky was gray and wide and living. He rolled onto his back. His brands still glowed. The power had held. But his good hand ached, scorched from within, the skin tight and shining. He flexed it and felt the damage. He had one hand that carved, and he had just half-burned it climbing out. "You're up," Kjell said. He did not smile. "Now finish it." Merlyn looked at his ruined hand and knew the sacrifice still waited.