The Distance It Would Follow

The groove ran beneath the wall, and Sella could not see where it ended.

She crouched beneath the low arch, keeping Tassa’s dagger in her right hand. The cut in the stone continued straight ahead, narrow enough to guide a cart or the lower edge of a door. Dust lay on either side. The groove itself was clean.

Sella glanced back. The blue threshold rested against the wall where she had left it. Its opening still showed the landing, the three figures small in the distance. Her shadow stretched from her feet to the door’s shadow, joined at the frame. The connection narrowed beneath the arch and continued along the groove.

She had wanted room to look without the door pressing against her shoulder. She had not expected it to reach after her.

Sella took one step farther beneath the wall. Her shadow followed her, but the part joining it to the threshold stayed taut along the floor. She felt a faint drag at her heel, like the pull of a strap caught on a nail.

She stopped. The pull stopped too.

“Convenient,” she said. “The dungeon has invented luggage.”

The dark ahead gave her no answer. Behind her, the threshold showed no movement on the landing. Brannoc stood beside his shield. Iven’s light wavered. Tassa was out of the visible angle.

Sella could turn back and leave the door where it was. That would keep the landing in view, but it would also leave the only opening to the party at the end of a narrow stair she could no longer see. She had already learned what happened when the door made a request of her. She had not learned what happened when she left it alone.

She went forward.

The pull tightened, dragging at her heel. The frame scraped stone behind her. Sella looked over her shoulder in time to see it shift away from the wall, its lower edge tracking the groove. It stopped when she stopped. The threshold had moved several inches, though no hand had touched it.

Sella set the dagger point into the floor and planted her feet. “Stay.”

The door held.

She grimaced. “That was a test.”

Beyond the arch, the passage widened into a small chamber. A second square cut sat in its floor, lined with a streak of blue paint. The groove ended at one edge. A rusted iron ring, like the one in the chamber behind, was fixed to the far wall. The room contained no other opening.

Sella measured the square with her eyes. It looked wide enough for the door’s bottom edge. She could bring the threshold in and see what changed. She could also refuse the invitation and keep the door behind her, still connected by the stretched shadow.