The northern stair began behind a laundry yard.
Iven had expected a monumental entrance, which was foolish after forty-three days of reaching important places by paths someone used to carry washing. Sheets moved above the first stone landing. A woman took them down before the damp rose from the ravine and waved Garn toward the service gate without interrupting her count of pegs.
Beyond the gate, Rootwell descended.
The stair followed the outer wall of a natural sink, turning between ribs of rock that had been cut, braced, broken and repaired by different generations. Pale roofs stood over separate shelves below. Some protected workshops. Others covered open channels. Farther down, water vanished beneath a dark arch wide enough for a town’s main street, then emerged through two different mouths with different colors in the steam above them.
Nyla stopped at the first overlook.
“Three feeding systems meet below that line,” she said. “The old maps draw their crossings. We need to learn which crossings still exist.”
Iven looked until the view stopped being a single impressive hole.
A cold channel along the northern face. A warm return farther south. Vent chimneys rising where the underlying fault let gas escape. Roofs connecting some human routes, bridges connecting others. Separate houses of work, each requiring its own way in, power, people and an exit.
