He watched her appreciatively, then shook himself.
I’m not going to be able to lace my pants if I keep this up.
After she laid out his clothes, she came back to the bath as Gavin stood, but he waved her off, he could towel himself dry today. Marissia dried and dressed herself in about the time it took Gavin to pat his chest dry. Then she went out.
After getting dressed, Gavin opened the little service closet, carefully lifted the stacked, folded linens from the shelves, and walked them over to another closet where he stacked everything carefully. He then lifted out the shelves themselves and slid them into a nook on the other side of the room. The result was an open space in a closet that barely came up to his chest. The process was slow, but the point was that no one ever discover his secret. If someone came while he was gone, the room must simply look empty. If they searched the room, they should find nothing that appeared out of the ordinary. That was worth extra time and inconvenience.
Gavin drafted a blue-green board fit to his feet, shoulder width, with a hole in the center. Then, tucking a mag torch into his belt and clutching the board in one hand, he stooped and stepped into the closet. He closed the door behind him. The floor beneath his feet clicked. In order to keep it secret, he’d designed the floor not to open unless the door was shut. Hunched, he found the hook and pulled it up, threaded it through the hole in the board, and wrapped it around his belt. He dropped the board and slid his feet into the slots on it. His design was based on the tower’s lifts, but simplified because he had no one to maintain it, and no space for counterweights. It was basically ropes into the darkness and a pulley at the top.
Now the terrifying part. Gavin edged the floor open farther—and dropped like a stone into the darkness.
The pulley whizzed, but its high-pitched protests disappeared within moments as Gavin fell. There was no resistance at all. He fell faster, faster. He drew the blue mag torch and broke it against his leg. The lift shaft, which he had cut himself into the Chromeria’s heart, was barely a pace and a half wide. There was nothing to be seen except smooth cut stone and the rope, one side whizzing up and the other side speeding down with Gavin.
He reached to the rope brake at his belt, but his movement tilted the board strapped to his feet, making one side touch a wall. The friction yanked that side upward, slamming him into the rock on the other side. The brake went tumbling from his fingers—and landed on his board. He snatched for it. Missed. He drew his knees up, his back skidding along the smooth wall, and grabbed the brake.
As he stood back up slowly, he grabbed the hook, attached the board to the brake, and threw the brake onto the whizzing lines. He squeezed the brake, all too aware that if he didn’t brake quickly he might hit the bottom of the shaft at incredible speed, but if he braked too quickly he could break either the board or his own legs.
His legs trembling from the strain of trying to remain standing as he rapidly decelerated, he passed five broad white lines painted on all walls of the shaft. It was the warning that he was almost to the bottom. A moment later, he passed four broad white lines. Still too fast. Three. Two.
Okay, not too bad. One.
He hit the ground with a surprisingly hard thump. His natural reaction was to try to roll with the impact—which didn’t work well, given that there wasn’t any slack in the rope. He flopped over onto his back and rolled on top of the mag torch. It burned through his shirt instantly.
Gavin jumped to his feet with a yelp. Mercifully, the shirt didn’t catch fire. He examined the angry red burn on his ribs. Very painful, but not very serious. He unhooked himself from the lift.
The chamber at the bottom of the lift was only four paces square. Gavin saw none of it. In the blue light of the mag torch, he walked to one blue wall. At his touch, it became translucent, but there was nothing behind it. Not yet. Slowly, ever so slowly, the chamber opposite lifted from its resting place and spun into position.
This was Gavin’s greatest work. He’d constructed it in one furious month, sinking everything he knew into it. But whenever he called the blue chamber forth, his heart seized. And it did so today. The slow speed of the blue chamber’s lift and rotation was necessary so that the man inside wouldn’t even know he was moving.
On the other hand, it gave Gavin five minutes with nothing to do but wait. It would be empty today. Dear Orholam. Gavin’s chest tightened. It was hard to breathe. The chamber was too small. There was no air. Breathe, Gavin, breathe. Paint that nonchalance on thick.
Finally, the translucence revealed the smooth globe of the dungeon’s interior. Opposite Gavin stood a man who looked much like himself, though thinner, less muscular, dirtier, and with longer hair.