Sarev Tal Oradan's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The recipe answered, but the recipe needed silt. Sarev walked down to the old intake at first light. He carried his portable separator, a brass-and-ceramic machine with a hand crank and layered screens. He meant to fill its collecting tray with the bronze-black fibers the deep mix required. He needed enough for a full batch. He reached the ravine and stopped. The basin lay dry. A broad stone tank sank into the rock, lined with settling chambers. Cracked black-red sediment scaled the walls beneath a sealed diversion gate. No water. No fresh silt. Sarev climbed down and scraped a chamber floor. The old crust crumbled to dust. The fibers had rotted or blown away years ago. He worked the crank anyway, feeding handful after handful through the screens. The tray caught almost nothing. A few dead threads, no more. He sat back against the cold stone and counted what he had. Not a tenth of a batch. Guess a substitute, and his new mortar would fight the old, and the pier would fail faster than if he left it alone. "You're cranking a dead machine," a voice said above him. An old woman stood at the rim. She was small and square, with sharp eyes that moved over his separator like she was pricing it. She held a long bronze rake, its teeth worn nearly black. This was Ilyra Sen Var, the last intake keeper, the one who had told him the fibers were never made in any factory. She climbed down without help, refusing his hand. "The silt's gone," Sarev said. "The silt was never the source. Only where the source settled." She tapped the sealed gate with her rake. "You dig upstream. There's a room under the basin. The old builders let the water rest there before it ran on. Living stuff grew on the walls. It sheds the fibers. That's your bronze-black." Sarev stood. "A settling vault." "Collapsed stair. Nobody's opened it in forty years." She looked at him plainly. "You want it, you clear the fall yourself. I'm too old and you're too stubborn to wait." They found the stair choked with rubble. Sarev worked two hours, hauling stone by hand, ignoring the ache in his short-fingered grip. Ilyra sat and named each course as he freed it. At last a low arched door showed in the dark. He pried it open. Inside, water still seeped along one wall. Dark membranes clung to the stone in flowing sheets. They shed strands of bronze-black filament into a shallow pool. A living colony, feeding a supply the river had abandoned. Sarev dragged the bronze rake across the sheets. The teeth came away heavy with fiber. He filled the separator tray, then filled a sack. Enough for the full batch and more. "There," Ilyra said. "Now you owe the vault, not me." Sarev looked at the colony. It grew slowly. He had taken a season's worth in one morning. Whatever he cut from the pier now, he could not cut twice.