Sage winterwood's Arc

Chapter 7 of 29

The pool shone blue far below the cracked ridge. Sage lay flat and reached down. Her fingers found only cold air. The water sat too deep to touch. She could not carry a garden's worth up by hand. She needed a machine to lift it. Terros crouched nearby, one hand on the silver buck's neck. The animal stood strong again, its coat marks glowing bright. The god watched Sage without a word. He had split the stone, but he would not do her lifting. She saw that in his set jaw. "You earned the water," he said. "Raising it is your work." Sage went to her shed and dragged out her supplies. Beside it sat a heap of spare parts, left from Aquaria's pump. Pipes, planks, brackets, bolts. She knelt and sorted them. Aquaria's pump had found this water. Now Sage would build the rest herself. She worked through the afternoon. She fit pipe to pipe and sealed each joint with pitch. She lashed planks into a tall frame above the crack. She lowered the longest pipe down into the dark until it kissed the pool. Her hands cracked and bled. The buck watched her, ears forward. Terros watched too, still and quiet. Her first frame leaned wrong. The pipe swung loose and clanged against the stone. Water splashed but slid back down. Sage cursed and started over. She braced the frame with two more beams and drove the brackets deep. "The joint leaks," Terros said. He pointed one thick finger at the seam near the top. Sage looked. He was right. She smeared fresh pitch and bound the seam with cord. "Watch it now," she said. She set the pump's handle and pushed. Nothing came. She pushed again, harder. The pipe shuddered. Deep in the crack, the water gurgled and rose. She pumped fast, her whole weight on the bar. The pipe shook and groaned. Then water burst from the spout. It splashed cold across the stone and pooled at her feet. Sage laughed and kept pumping. The stream ran clear and steady. She cupped her hands and drank. It was cold and clean and endless. Terros stood. The buck stepped forward and drank beside her. The god almost smiled. "You built it," he said. "The earth kept its water long enough for you." Sage guided the stream into a channel toward her patches. The green plants would drink now, all of them, every day. Her small garden was safe. But as the water ran, she saw the channel end at bare stone. Two patches held life. The rest of the plot stretched wide and dead beyond them. She had water at last. She had room to grow. Now she needed far more soil than Terros had ever woken. And her legendary garden asked for all of it.