At dawn on Day 123, the four climbers stood on the 240-pace upkeep ledge, their lanterns trimmed and their harness lines checked.
Above them, the restored air-flow draft whistled cleanly down the spiral stairwell. That kept the air fresh, dry, and cold. Below them lay the leftover two hundred and seventy-two upright paces of the main upright shaft—the final descent into the deep mountain root beneath Windpit.
Voss took the point on the ladder, his heavy boots clanging steadily on the iron rungs leaded into the shaft wall. Kezra followed ten paces behind on belay, her brass-and-ash sounding rod strapped securely across her shoulders, with Yseld and Paxa bringing up the rear. Each climber was tied into the nonstop safety line with a forged brass carabiner, clipping around each iron wall-bracket as they dropped.
The descent was a test of steady, rhythmic endurance. Two hundred and seventy-two paces of upright iron, each rung spaced exactly twelve inches apart, set into leaded sockets in the live granite. Kezra established a steady rhythm. Left boot, right boot, clip carabiner past the anchor bracket, slide left hand, slide right hand. The shaft around them was eight paces wide, a massive circular chimney of dark rock falling away into lantern-lit mist. The air rushed past their faces in a gentle, upward-moving current. They carried away the heat of their bodies and the smell of their animal fat lamps.
