The old iron line began where the black rail gave up.
Oliver backed Mercy's engine away from the flexing section one careful wheel at a time. Behind them, the loose bell on the signal post rang once as the rail eased. It rang again when the engine stopped. He wrote both sounds in his log, then shut the book.
“Still not a call,” Nadia said.
“No.” Oliver checked the pressure gauge. “And this line has no bell.”
It ran down from the broken signal post along the fragment's exposed underside, narrow rails fastened to iron brackets sunk into the stone. The first few brackets looked older than the black route, and the rust on them had been scraped clean in places by something passing over the years.
Mercy's passenger carriage remained far behind, held at the Stair of Or by the separate supports its people had chosen. Only the engine had come east. That made the decision simpler, but not safe.
Oliver leaned out of the cab and followed the line down with his eyes. It vanished around a shoulder of stone.
“I can take it slow,” he said. “If the first brackets hold.”
“And if they don't?”
“I stop before the next one.”
Nadia looked at the abrupt drop beside the rails. “That isn't a plan.”
“It’s the plan I have.”
She didn't argue. She took a coil of maintenance rope from the cab wall and tied one end around her waist. Oliver held the other end while she climbed down to the narrow ledge beside the line. She tested each bracket with her boot and struck the rail with the heel of her hand.
“First three are firm,” she called. “Fourth moves.”
Oliver shifted the engine back another foot. The fourth bracket scraped against the rock.
“Can you pass it?”
“Maybe. If you keep the wheels on the inner rail.”
“I can do that.”
“You can try.”
It was a fair distinction. He eased Mercy forward. The wheels crossed the first brackets with a low metallic knock. The line curved out of sight, then dropped steeply enough that Oliver had to keep one hand on the brake and the other on the regulator. The engine's weight dragged at the couplings. He could feel the uneven pull through the floorboards.
Nadia walked the ledge beside him, testing the brackets ahead. At the fourth, she raised a hand.
“Stop.”
Oliver set the brake. Mercy settled, shivering against its own weight.
Next
Oliver and Nadia must inspect the jammed counterweight and find a way to align the hanging rail without sending Mercy across an unsupported gap.
The old line split at the bracket. One rail continued downward. The other bent toward a short side spur, half hidden under a shelf of rock. A switch lever sat between them, its handle pointing toward the branch.
“The branch looks intact,” Nadia said. “The main line doesn't.”
Oliver looked from the switch to the narrow spur. Its far end disappeared behind the stone shoulder. “Can you move it?”
“From here? No.” The lever was bolted on the opposite side of the rails, beyond the gap in the ledge. “You'd have to reverse and take the main line.”
The main line ended at a bent bracket above open space. Oliver could see no rail beyond it.
Nadia tested the rock beside her. A crack ran through the ledge between her and the lever. The rope between them hung slack.
“I can cross the crack,” she said.
“Wait until I can take up the line.”
“Then it pulls me toward the train.”
He looked at her, then at the length of rope in his hands. He could shorten it, but not enough to keep her from the edge. “I can brake if you slip.”
“You can’t catch me with a brake.”
“No.” He didn't dress it up. “I can keep the engine from moving.”
Nadia watched him for a beat. Then she unknotted the rope from her waist and tied it around a bracket behind her, leaving enough slack to reach the switch. “Hold that end. Take it in when I tell you.”
Oliver wrapped the rope around his wrist and braced his boots against the cab step. Nadia crossed the crack sideways, one hand on the wall. A fragment of stone shifted under her foot and fell out of sight. She caught the edge with her fingers, held still, and waited for the loose rock to stop grinding.
Oliver didn't call to her. His grip stayed fixed on the rope.
Nadia pulled herself up. When she reached the switch, she leaned her weight against the handle. It moved less than an inch.
“Take in the rope.”
He drew it through his hands. She planted her feet and shoved again. The lever snapped across with a clang that ran down the old line.
“Branch,” she called.
Oliver reversed a fraction, then brought Mercy forward. The engine entered the spur. The rails held. Nadia climbed back across the crack and stepped onto the ledge beside the cab. Her hands were scraped, and one sleeve had torn at the elbow.
“You all right?”
“I'm fine.” She glanced at the blood on her knuckles. “Keep going.”
The spur curved beneath the fragment. The rail brackets here were newer, and each had two bolts driven into a deep seam in the stone. Oliver watched the gauge as Mercy descended. It showed no rise in fuel use. The engine was moving on its own weight and the old rails, not on a signal or a borrowed feeling.
They passed beneath a row of dark windows cut into the rock. A service platform opened ahead, broad enough for the engine and anchored by thick iron braces. Oliver eased Mercy onto it. The wheels rolled to a stop against a pair of wooden blocks fixed across the track.
He got down first and checked the braces. They were solid. Nadia stepped onto the platform and looked back along the line, where the spur curved away from sight.
“So it holds,” she said.
“Here.”
“That’s more than we had.”
It was. Oliver let himself enjoy the fact for a moment. The air smelled of rust and damp stone. A small control hut stood at the far end of the platform, its door hanging open. Inside, he found a wall map beneath a cracked pane of glass. The line they'd taken was marked as an inspection branch. It continued past the platform, toward a second fragment, then stopped at a symbol shaped like a counterweight.
Nadia joined him. “What does that mean?”
“Transfer mechanism, I think.” Oliver traced the route with one finger. “It should shift the rail from this platform to the next section.”
“Should.”
“That's what the map says.”
The transfer mechanism stood outside the hut. A heavy iron arm ran from a circular plate at the platform's edge to a counterweight housing bolted into the rock. A crank had been fitted to the arm, but the handle was bent nearly flat. The track ahead ended at the edge of the platform. Beyond it, a short rail section hung at an angle, its far end facing a matching track across the gap.
The gap was too wide to jump. Too wide even to mistake for a narrow crossing. The hanging section might reach the far rail if the mechanism turned. It might also drop.
Oliver checked the counterweight housing. A chain ran from it through a slot in the stone and out of sight beneath the fragment. The chain was taut. One of its links had split, leaving the weight jammed partway through its travel.
“Could the crank pull it?” Nadia asked.
“Not with that link.”
“Could we replace the link?”
“We don't have one that size.”
She looked again at the angled rail. “Then the line gets us to the edge and stops.”
“For now.”
Nadia gripped the bent crank. She tried to straighten it by hand, then let go when the metal groaned. “There has to be another way to move the weight.”
Oliver inspected the housing. Its cover was secured by four bolts. Two were missing, and the remaining pair had rusted into place. The chain disappeared behind the cover; the mechanism itself was hidden.
“We can open this,” he said. “But not with what we brought.”
Nadia turned toward the engine. “The tool cabinet.”
“Has a wrench. Not a cutting saw.”
“We don't need to cut it. We need to know whether the chain is jammed or broken farther in.”
Oliver followed her gaze to the platform's edge. Beyond the hanging rail, the next section of track was still there, bolted into the far fragment. It didn't offer a safe crossing yet, but it was a real destination. The old line had brought them to the machinery meant to connect them.
Nadia's fingers curled around her scraped palm. “We found the route.”
“Yes.”
“And it still won't let us through.”
She said it without anger, which made the frustration in her voice harder to ignore. Oliver reached toward her hand, then stopped before touching it. Nadia looked down at her torn sleeve and flexed her fingers once.
“Get the tools,” she said. “We can at least learn what failed.”
Oliver went back to the engine. Behind him, the tilted rail shifted a little in the wind and tapped the far side of the gap. It didn't reach the track.