In the dream the stair went down into black water, and this time Brannoc counted the steps.
He had never counted them before. He had only walked down, each night, a little further than the night before, with the water coming up to meet his feet and the rope going down beside him into the dark. He had not wanted to know how far it went. He had thought that counting would make the stair a thing with an end, and he had been afraid of the end, and so he had walked without looking at the numbers, as a man walks past a door he does not want to open.
Tonight he counted. He could not help it. The steps were worn and hollow in the middle, and the cold came up through the soles of his feet, and every step he took made a small sound on the stone, a flat wet knock, like a hand laid on a bucket. One. The water was at his ankles. Two. It was at his knees by the tenth. Ten. He could not feel his teeth. He could taste the iron in the back of his mouth, which was impossible in the dream and yet was the strongest thing he knew, the same taste as the iron in the gate-chain when the rain had got into it. Twenty. The rope moved beside him in the water, slowly, like something breathing in its sleep.
