Chapter 14 of 15·6 min read·Minutes after the crew descended the ridge passage
The Man on the Ratchet
The metal sound came again from below: a measured click, then a strained scrape.
Pell raised two fingers. We stopped on the narrow stair, close enough that Tarrow’s shoulder brushed the bone wall. The passage had been carved through a rib, then narrowed where the rib curved inward. There was no room to pass one another without turning sideways. Behind us, the ridge opening showed as a white seam high above.
“Someone’s winding something,” Venn said.
“Or unwinding it,” I said. “Either way, they’ve brought more equipment than manners.”
Pell gave me a look that suggested she’d saved a better remark for someone who deserved it. Then she went down, knife ready. I followed, keeping my bad hand against my coat so it wouldn’t catch the bone. The smallest finger was still numb. The stone in my palm had made fine work a negotiation, and I’d never been good at negotiating with myself.
The stair ended at a ledge above a gap. Across it, a bone gate hung from iron straps, slotted into the walls like a jaw set crooked. A man knelt beside a hand-cranked winch. One boot was caught beneath the gate’s lower edge; his other leg stretched toward a pale cylinder lying just beyond reach. A thin silver line ran from his belt down through the gap.
He had one hand on the winch and a short bone pistol in the other.
“Don’t come closer,” he said. His voice was tight with pain, not panic. “The ratchet’s holding this up. If I let go, the gate drops.”
The gate creaked, lowering a finger’s width. The trapped man gritted his teeth and leaned harder on the handle.
Pell kept her knife level. “Name.”
“Malk.”
“Who sent you?” I asked.
His gaze moved to the black letters in my palm, visible where my glove had split. “The people who paid your Factor.”
Behind us, the Masked Factor made a small sound. Pell turned her knife toward him without looking away from Malk.
The man gave a humorless half-smile. “You didn’t tell them about me?”
“I didn’t know about you,” the Factor said.
That was the first honest thing he’d said in a while. It did not make me like him more.
Malk let the pistol dip a little. “I was sent ahead when the ridge was marked. My instruction was to wait at the inner gate and bring the taker back alive once the fire opened the passage.” His eyes fixed on Tarrow’s shoulder. “That’s him.”
Tarrow’s fingers curled against his thigh. The fire under his Saltified arm had been quiet since the climb. I watched the muscle tighten around the stone-hard patch spreading over his shoulder.
Next
With Malk in chains and the first fire tugging at Tarrow again, Vera must decide whether to trust the agent’s claim that the inner gate requires Tarrow to open it.
“It keeps me alive when clients change their minds.”
The gate lowered again. Malk’s trapped boot shifted with a crunch. He swallowed the noise that wanted to come out of him.
Pell moved toward the winch, but the man lifted the pistol. “Touch that and the teeth release. It’ll come down on my leg, then the line catches whatever’s below.”
“Whatever’s below?” Venn asked.
Malk nodded toward the gap. “I was trying to bring up the cylinder. The line’s snagged. I don’t know what it’s attached to.”
The silver tether gave a faint shiver, then slipped another inch into the dark.
Tarrow stepped forward.
I saw the pull take him. His arm jerked toward the gate, though his good hand caught the wall. The first fire wanted the opening. It had found a seam and was asking him to make it wider.
“Tarrow,” I said.
“I know.” His voice came through clenched teeth. “I’m holding.”
The ratchet clicked. One of its iron teeth had begun to shear. Malk’s boot was still trapped, the line was sliding into the gap, and the gate would soon have no use for any of our opinions.
Tarrow looked at the winch, then at his left arm. “If I wedge it—”
“No,” I said.
He glanced at me. He knew I was about to make an argument out of arithmetic. So did I.
“You’ll lose more,” I said.
“I’ll lose it later if it closes.”
He moved before I could make that sound less true. Tarrow shoved his Saltified forearm between the gate and the ledge. Bone scraped stone. His shoulder locked; the gate settled onto him with a hard, grinding weight.
The fire surged. His whole body strained toward the winch, toward the gap, toward whatever the dead bone was hiding. Tarrow planted his feet and held the gate in place.
The stone climbed visibly over his shoulder. A pale crust pushed beneath the torn collar of his coat, and his jaw worked once without making a sound.
I had seen men bargain away years at a time for one more use of marrow. Tarrow was paying by the inch, with no clerk to write down the balance.
Pell crossed to Malk and knocked the pistol from his hand. Venn seized the winch handle and braced it while Pell got her shoulder under the gate’s edge. I crouched beside Malk, careful of my broken palm, and cut the leather strap pinning his boot. My numb finger made the little knife skitter once. I set it down, wedged it against the strap with the heel of my hand, and leaned until the leather parted.
Malk dragged his foot free. The silver line snapped taut. Something below struck the other end with enough force to jerk the winch. Venn caught the handle before it spun back and tore through his grip.
“Let it go,” Malk said. “That line isn’t worth a hand.”
“Then stop tying things to it,” Venn replied.
Pell pulled Malk clear and bound his wrists. I got under the gate with Tarrow and helped him shift his arm out. For a moment the weight stayed on him. When it lifted, his knees dipped. The new salt reached past his shoulder, rough and bright against the dark skin at his neck.
He looked down at it, then at the trapped space where his arm had been. “It wanted me to turn the winch.”
“But you didn’t,” I said.
He gave me a tired look. “I did enough.”
He was right. That was the kind of victory available to us: a man still standing, at a price no one could refund. I put my hand against his back, above the spread of stone, and kept it there until he found his balance. He didn’t lean on me. He did not move away, either.
Malk watched us from the floor. “The instruction was to bring him back alive. The client needs the taker at the inner gate.”
“You’ve already mentioned that,” Pell said.
“There’s a reason.” He nodded toward the passage beyond the raised gate. A second doorway stood at its end, taller than a man and fitted with three shallow impressions. The bone around them had been smoothed by use, though nothing living should have used it in a long time. “The inner gate won’t open for the map or the name. It opens when the taker brings the fire to it.”
The black lettering in my palm seemed to press against the stone. I kept my hand closed.
“You were meant to tell us this after we freed you?” I asked.
“I was meant to bring him back.”
“Those are different jobs.”
“They became different jobs when you tied me up.”
Pell tightened the knot. “They’ll stay different.”
The cylinder remained below, its silver line drawn tight into the gap. We could leave it there and walk toward the second doorway. We could also ignore the client’s agent, the unknown thing on the other end of the line, and Tarrow’s new stone shoulder. I was very good at choosing between terrible options. It was one of the few skills Saltification hadn’t taken.
Malk lifted his bound hands as far as the rope allowed. “The client sent me to bring the taker back. The gate needs him to go forward. Decide which order you believe.”
Tarrow looked at the three impressions in the doorway. The fire had started pulling again, faintly but with purpose.
I looked at Malk. “You’re coming with us.”
He didn’t look surprised. That was worse than if he had.