Somehow, the one thing Sën hadn’t been prepared for was that it might be pretty.
It was, though. Even going on ten years of his life spent pulling raw ores and gems out of the earth, it was one of the prettiest things he’d ever seen. He couldn’t help holding up his lantern toward the side of the lift as it descended, lighting up the slightly swaying scroll of each crag and crenellation of the Wall as they went past. They each caught the glow as brightly as a ripple in water, like the gleam off a lake in sunlight. Or the best he remembered what that looked like, anyway. The stone of the Wall itself was pure black, but so glossy and smooth it gave back just as much light as it took.
There was plenty of time to watch it go by. The lift moved by hand-crank, one at the top and one at the bottom, and even the two burly dwarves sweating and grunting to turn it now together could only make it go so fast. More of the weight had to be chain than lift, Sën figured. The sheer drop of it went down further than their lantern-lights had been able to reach from the top ledge, and probably much further beyond.
“This is your first time, eh?”
He glanced over, startled, to find the soldier next to him looking over at him. It was just the two of them right now, that being all the lift would bear at a time, but Sën hadn’t been expecting a chat. Or really that any of the soldiers would much bother acknowledging him at all, if he was being honest.
No point in being rude himself, though. “Aye,” he allowed, and hitched up his pack a bit on his aching shoulders. “Do I come off that green?”
The soldier surprised him again by laughing, easy and friendly. A strip of weathered skin around his eyes was about all that showed between his helmet and beard, but it crinkled at the corners in a pleasantly well-worn way. “Only in that you’re not sick of looking at it yet,” he said, and nodded smiling to the wall behind Sën’s shoulder. “We’ll fix that soon enough.” He nodded again to Sën’s tentative smile back. “Name’s Thallr. Been coming down here since the scouts first found it, just about.”
Sën’s eyes widened a bit. “Really. How many tours is that, then?”
“Oh, not quite a dozen,” Thallr said, dismissively, as though that were somehow not much. “No one regiment can come more than one moon out of every three. Regulations.”
That could’ve lured Sën into asking more, in spite of himself, but it was just then their descent slowed down and turned increasingly shuddery. He had to brace with his no-lantern hand on a strut of the lift to keep from stumbling. By the time he looked up, he could see dimly that a stone floor was rising up to meet the bottom of the lift’s entry doorway, and a moment or two later they at last came to a jolting stop.
The soldier motioned him out first, and followed — and then when they were out and the lift on its way up again, surprised him one more time by stopping to offer a hand. “Didn’t catch your name,” he said, kindly enough, for all it jolted Sën guiltily with realization.
“Ah, beg your pardon. I’m Sën.” He took the offered hand for them to clasp forearms. Thallr’s was huge and boulder-solid in his hand, under the chain and leathers.
“Welcome to the Wall, then, Sën,” Thallr said, catching his eyes with a smile. But though he held the gaze, the smile faded after a moment, into an oddly intent seriousness Sën didn’t yet in that moment understand. “And good luck to you.”
Read the rest of this story in the full issue, Shousetsu Bang*Bang Issue 121: The Great Outdoors
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