The Broken Eye(328)

“Coins,” Kip said. “Our pay! Can’t spend it dead.”

They all looked at him for one moment like he was insane. And then they all tossed their coin sticks to Big Leo, who was sitting on the ground, back braced against the door. He popped the danars and quintars off the coin sticks and into the barrel.

The top third of the door was gone.

“They’re about to rush us,” Cruxer said, peeking through a hole. “Hurry, please.”

“Hurrying!” Big Leo said, stuffing pieces of a torn handkerchief as wadding down the barrel.

Kip ran back to the lever and pulled it again. Twisted, pulled, turned, and there! It grabbed and he heaved on it.

He could feel something give within the tower, and suddenly the steel cable was zipping down. He turned his head and saw that the entire crenellation, a huge slab of rock, had broken away from the side of the tower and tumbled off. Suspended on another post just feet away from the wall, the counterweight plunged downward, pulling the cable taut with incredible force.

Kip ran to the island side of the Prism’s Tower to see his handiwork.

Ben-hadad was downcast. “And this,” he said, “is why engineers have to think of everything.”

The steel cable had pulled perfectly out of its hidden places along the side of the Prism’s Tower, and along the top of the walkway in the air between the Prism’s Tower, and the sub-red tower and the tiny strip of land before it came to the water. But then, instead of connecting straight to the far post on Cannon Island far away, the line went straight into the water of the bay.

“They laid that line along the sea floor hundreds of years ago,” Ben-hadad said. “But since then, it’s grown over with coral and Orholam knows what. The entire sea floor could have shifted. The counterweight isn’t heavy enough now.”

Kip looked at the angle of the line. If they rode the line, they would plunge into the water at incredible speeds, not even halfway to Cannon Island. The drop was too steep. They wouldn’t survive it.

They heard the roar of the blunderbuss as Cruxer fired, but couldn’t see anything beyond the broken door and the black smoke.

“We could … maybe draft brakes onto the mechanisms,” Ben-hadad offered. “But those of us who are injured … Breaker, there’s no way I can make that swim.”

“I hate to criticize when we’re on the verge of death and all,” Teia said, “but what good does it do us to get to Cannon Island?”

“It keeps us alive for another half hour?” Kip said. He scowled.

“They’re withdrawing!” Cruxer shouted.

“The ship is on the other side of Big Jasper,” Teia said. “You think we can make it down the line, row from there, get to Big Jasper, and run all the way to the docks before any of five hundred eighty-two Lightguards can intercept us?”

“It would be less than five hundred eighty-two now,” Ferkudi said. “We’ve killed at least—”

“They’ll catch us easily, and without a choke point like the door here to hold them off, we’re dead.”

“Teia, not helping!” Kip said. “Wait! Teia! You’re a genius!”

“I am?”

“Teia, get over here!” Kip said. He was flipping through his spectacles, one at a time, searching. “Paryl!”

“They’re coming! They’ve got some kind of shield wall!” Winsen said.

“What are we looking for, Breaker?” Teia asked.

“The script, it says, ‘To the Island,’” Kip said. “Why label a destination if there’s only one destination?”

“I could kiss you!” Teia said.

They looked at each other, and both looked away.

Winsen fired a musket. “Got one! But it’s not enough. They’ve got reinforcements!”

“There,” Teia said. She ran over, pushed a second key, and script and another key appeared. Kip pushed it, not worrying about the translation. They were running out of time. Pulled open the compartment and started ratcheting the lever.

“Faster!” Cruxer said.

“No, wait!” Ben-hadad said.

Kip stopped.

Ben-hadad said hurriedly, “This wire goes all the way to the southeast side of Big Jasper. It’s got to go right along a bunch of streets that are packed with people today! If this cable comes ripping up out of the streets with all this weight behind it, we could kill dozens. You have to give them time to get out of the way.”

“This is the Lightbringer’s life we’re saving!” Cruxer shouted. “Do it! That’s an order!” He was reloading the blunderbuss as fast as he could.

Kip heaved, and the crenellation-counterweight split off the side of the building and fell. This one was far larger than the other. It plunged and the steel line hummed, and then the counterweight crashed into the ground near the base of the Prism’s Tower far below—and through the ground, into the vast underground practice yards, as it had apparently been designed to do.