Climbing the Long Stair (40)

The long stone staircase reached as far as I could see, up to the sky and perhaps beyond ....

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The long stone staircase reached as far as I could see, up to the sky and perhaps beyond. Not beyond the sky, but beyond the limit of what I could see.

The staircase was wide enough for ten men to march abreast, but at that moment there were fewer than ten people in sight over the stairs’ entire stretch.

Every half-storey, some seven steps, there was a short landing several paces wide. I was soon grateful for each of these short respites.

Each step was not square or straight. Each had been worn down to undulations of stone -- a dangerous state for such a flight of stairs. No two steps were worn in the same way, as if no one climbing or descending these steps had ever done so in a straight line.

Other ancient stairs I’d seen, like the ones on the Black Isle, had been worn by the centuries of use by the procession of countless young mages, up and down them so many times a day, day after day, grinding the middle of each step away.

But the Citadel Stair reminded me of cloth woven from the rough-spun wool of a hand-spindle, uneven with knots and narrows, and each warp and weft unlike its neighbours.

The stairs were of white marble, not merely cut out of the same grey rock as the houses below, the bare rock of the cliffs surrounding the Citadel itself. And on either side, the walls contained detailed friezes, which showed scenes of fighting or of mythology, men and women of different kinds engaged in crafts, stood together as if in conversation, or locked together in various intimate acts.

The staircase could be a study all of its own, for the right scholar or artist. The detail was exquisite, except in certain places. Here and there a detail was worn smooth, an island of abrasion surrounded by untouched detail. I could discern no particular pattern from it. Some were faces. Some were bellies. Some were animals. Some were objects. It had to mean something to someone, but it meant nothing to me. I could have asked Godiar, but he seemed utterly focused on the climb, and besides, I doubted I had the breath to call out to him.

When we were a little over halfway up the long stair, Mother staggered to the frieze on the next landing, as if to steady herself.

“Shall we rest?” called Godiar, who had already passed the next landing, as spritely as anything, despite his age.

“Just for a moment,” Mother gasped.

“Mother?” My concern was genuine -- I’d never seen her like this, so weakened, so overcome.

She glanced up at me with the slightest hint of a twinkle in her eye, and the mere suggestion of a smirk on the side of her face Godiar couldn’t easily discern. He’d think it a grimace if he saw it at all.

But I knew she was fine. In fact, she was up to something.

I turned from her then, and from Godiar, and instead looked out over the city, now laid out before us. The mansions of the Cellar Precinct filled most of the view, but I could see the high right of the Mill Precinct off to my left, although the detail beyond was smoothed out like one of those patches of frieze.

Further still, and the hazy southern horizon was filled with clouds, looking like a slowly-moving mountain range.

Having established that I was lost in some reverie, or overcome by the view, I reached out to my right, to Mother and the rock she leaned on, beyond the white marble frieze, and into the virgin rock of the mountain.

The Back Stair was nearby. That’s why Mother had come to a stop here. She’d noticed it, had been following the ebb and flow of that hidden path’s proximity, and had chosen this spot to draw my attention to it.

Even without laying hands on the rock itself, my awareness could seep through the intervening space, the rock, and to the cavity beyond.

That stair was rough-hewn from the bare rock. And Father had indeed gone that way. And not alone, although I couldn’t discern who his companion was.

“Are you quite recovered, Ollyna?” Godiar called down to us, his patience exhausted.

“Yes, yes, let us continue,” said Mother, with a smile of reassurance for me.

We understood each other. She’d discerned as much as I, but not more.

The rest of the climb became truly arduous, as our rarely used muscles were pushed to their limits. I was still a young man, and perhaps I should have been in better shape. Perhaps I would’ve been, without thirteen months in an Agalin prison cell so recently concluded. But then again, perhaps not. Given the choice, I would have farsended up this long stair, of course. It would have taken a moment, no more, and would have used well-practised mental muscles. We already knew enough not to try anything of the sort so close to the Precinct boundary, especially as a second line of boundary magic circled the upper edge of the cliffs as well, according to the map.

Godiar stood there, at the top of the stairs, looking out over the city, much as I had done, trying to keep the triumphant smirk from his face, and failing.

Mother and I still had three landings to cross when he said, “I’m surprised youngsters like the two of you are having so much trouble with a few steps.”

I could see Mother going back and forth between annoyance at being mocked and pleasure at being called a youngster.

She was too winded to speak just yet.

I was more annoyed at his obvious flattery than the mockery, and by the fact that flattery always seemed to have such an effect on her. I had been certain this was an affectation she put on in order to manipulate people, but perhaps there was an echo of truth to it, after all, some measure of insecurity behind it.

Well, she had been married to Father for years.

*

Continue reading with Part 41 next Thursday.

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