Page 85 of The Queen's Huntsman
“Lest you forget,” he said, turning away, perhaps moved by the moment, because she saw his throat bob. “They opened that portal for us that day we were stranded on the rocks.” He sighed. “I hope you know some means to open it that I do not, since it cannot be done from the outside—lest you plan to have us mount each other and scale the wall?”
“And watch you all tumble down that cliff?” Gwendolyn scoffed. “I forget nothing,” she assured.
“Magic perhaps?” he pressed, and Gwendolyn laughed softly, and said, “Not precisely.”
It was time. The sun lowered to its final position before plummeting beneath the sea, and Gwendolyn gave him a nod. He flashed his bit of glass against the sun’s dying rays and within moments, the distant sound of a lyre could be heard drifting up the hill.
This was their cue.
They slid down the hill on their bottoms for the first few yards, then bounded to their feet and ran to the beach. It was fully dark by the time they rejoined the crew.
Dressed in black-dyed leather to conceal them against the night, with Gwendolyn in her black mithril, they traversed the length of the beach, staying close to the cliff wall, then scaling the rocks where they must. The view onto this beach was far too good for anyone standing atop King’s Bridge, but no one should be on that bridge after nightfall. Now seemed as good a time as any to test her mithril. At the most vulnerable spot, Gwendolyn went first simply to be sure, then waved them along when no alarm sounded. There was only another furlong or so before they reached the caverns below the city.
Naturally, Gwendolyn knew the tides as well as she knew her city. To know them, or not to know them, was a matter of life and death—particularly for an intrepid little girl.
For the time being, the tide was still low enough to traverse the lower cave and emerge onto the rocks below the hidden portal.
From there, it would be a steep path up one side of that cliff to the alcove, where the Dragon’s fire was visible by night. Bryn knew the way there, so she tasked him with the ascent to lower the tarp. Once that was done, it would plunge the entire vicinity into darkness, and then her men faced another perilous climb up to the hidden portal with no room for mistakes.
But Gwendolyn must take yet another, more dangerous path—one she knew could be done, though no one except her father’s engineers had ever attempted it before her.
This was the way up via the water screw—an ingenious feat of engineering designed by a generous, well-meaning Phoenician merchant, based on some design employed in the gardens of a city called Babylon.
The design comprised a lower chamber beneath the rocks, which made use of a natural cavern only accessible at low tide. Between that cavern and another reservoir above lay a conduit, with a rotating spiral, powered by a crank in the bathhouse. With that, the water was lifted to its highest elevation throughout a series of turns. It was a complicated process that must be done precisely—too slow, and the water would sluice down over the blades, straight back down into the cavern below. Rather, it must be turned at a precise speed. And because they could not use a pulley in that bathhouse, there were men who’d trained only for this purpose—strengthening their arms so they wouldn’t tire and lose momentum. Essentially, as the shaft turned, the bottom end scooped up a volume of water, and the water was then lifted through the spiral until it poured into the reservoir above the salt bath. However, because of the design, lifting too much water was an impossibility—the greater the volume, the more labor involved in turning those cranks so the shaft was purposely narrow.
Within it, there would be scarcely enough space for a single, skinny engineer, but there was room, because, as all wood did when submerged in water, it eventually rotted and must be replaced. The stability of those blades was imperative to the workings of thepiscina.
That was where Gwendolyn intended to go—alone.
She waited until Bryn started up the path to the Dragon’s Lair, letting him believe she intended to wait for him before ascending to the gate. Once he was gone, she explained where she intended to go—down.
Through the rocks.
Under the surf.
Beneath the cliff.
Into the cavern below.
The narrow aperture was hidden amidst the rocks. Gwendolyn herself might never have known about it, except that, one day about five years ago, when the mechanism in the bathhouse malfunctioned, she’d followed the engineer down to watch him work.
She’d followed him straight here to these rocks, asking questions all the way, harassing him for answers that he gave readily for two reasons—one, because she was the King’s own daughter; and two, because Gwendolyn had been fortunate enough to study those blueprints and he was the one who’d built the contraption and she was enamored of his work.
But this was the tricky part, and why she needed a swift tide: Once inside the cavern, with churning waters, she would have to wait until the water rose high enough so she could reach the conveyer. If she waited too long, she would drown. And worse, if she did not climb that conveyer in good time, there was every chance those dancers would lose the guards’ attentions, and wander over the parapet, close enough to spy Gwendolyn’s men.
“You arenotgoing down there!” Málik demanded.
“Oh, I will,” Gwendolyn said, undeterred.
There was nothing for it but to do it.
“You cannot!” he argued. “Let me go in your stead. Stay, lead as you should.”
Gwendolyn shook her head. She was the only one who had ever seen those blueprints. She alone knew how to dismantle the tongue-and-groove blades.
At any rate, after so long traveling, hers was now the leanest body, and those conduits were scarcely wide enough to allow one person to ascend, particularly with only one side of the blades removed and she intended to use the other side to climb, like a ladder.
“For the love of the Divine, this is madness!” said Caradoc, blinking down into the dark, narrow crevice, filled with sea foam. The aperture was scarcely wide enough for a grown person to slip through, much less dive. “That is your mysterious plan?”
