“It’s something, isn’t it?” Wade says in a surprisingly pleasant voice.
He doesn’t let me enjoy it for long, however, and we continue downward a short moment later. As we descend, my attention shifts to the steep, cliff-covered mountainside, which I presume to be to our east since my guess is that I exited the mountains on their western slopes. They go up for miles from their base, gradually fading back into the mist.
I try asking Wade questions about where we are and where we are going, but he mostly ignores me or gives brief, vague answers. Perhaps he thinks this will deter me, but I continue to barrage him with questions in hopes of breaking him down. Yet, true to his word, he says very little at all.
It makes me feel like I am a child, one too young to explain things to. That’s how the people at the temple treated me for a long time, but at some point, they opened up. I don’t know if it was my persistence or simply that they eventually deemed me old enough to speak to like an adult, but whatever it
was, I want to make it happen with my new companion.
By the time we reach the bottom of the slope, light has stopped pouring in from the clouds above, I’m guessing because the blue sun has set. Darkness quickly overtakes the world beneath the mist, and we rush to prepare our camp for the night. Instead of building it on the ground or in a cave, however, we make our place of rest among the trees.
“Smart of you to keep the rope,” Wade says after I explain to him where I got it from, the first time he’s said something remotely positive in reference to me.
He has rope himself, coiled up and tied to his pack, but rather than cutting it in half so we both have a length, we are able to fasten ourselves and our things up high in the branches of a large tree without the trouble of rationing rope. As he points out, you can never have too much rope in the wilderness.
The night passes in almost complete blackness, though a small amount of moonlight does pour in where the sunlight once did. I try to sleep, but it is hard to get comfortable against the bark of the tree. Still, I am able to nod off now and again, each time waking up to find that Wade remains awake and vigilant, staring off into the dark as though there is something watching us. I become too anxious to say anything or try once more to spark up conversation, having already seen what terrifying things the darkness can hide.
It seems like an eternity passes before the light returns, and because I’m starting to feel safe under Wade’s close watch and protection, my thoughts drift toward homesickness and a longing to be immersed in the light of the sun once more. It gets so bad that when we are underway the next day, I ask Wade if we can journey closer to the region of light so that I can look up toward the heavens again.
“No,” he answers firmly. “Everything this side of the river is going to be wandering toward that light, which turns it into a big hunting ground for predators.”
“What river?” I ask.
“The River Lethe,” he says. “We have to cross it to get from the Erebus Plains, which is where we are, to the Aspros Wild, the region on the eastern shores of the river.”
“Aspros like the flowers?”
“I think that’s what they’re called,” he replies, “but don’t let that give you the idea that it’s anything but a pure nightmare there. The river is wide and deep, not an easy cross at all. Only the strongest and most dangerous of beasts are able to escape the plains and reach the other side.”
“Escape from what?” I puzzle.
He stares blankly at me, the look on his face suggesting that he doesn’t want to elaborate beyond what he already has.
“You’ll see. Today we have to pass by a place I was hoping to avoid, one you’re sure to recognize. The area of light in the plains has widened substantially since I last saw it, so we have no other choice. I think your people simply call it the Great Stairway.”
His knowing the name startles me. Up to this point, I’ve been in a world entirely different from the one I was raised in. The Great Stairway is the connection between here and there, and the thought that I will soon see it makes me extremely apprehensive.
“You make it sound like it’s dangerous,” I say.
“That’s because it is, enough that I actually considered going through the light if not taking an extra day to go around it the other way,” he warns, “but I don’t know if we have the luxury of an extra day to reach Sanctuary. We’re already behind.”
After he says this, I consider the hurried pace he has kept us going ever since he found me, and it makes me even less at ease. Although things in the plains have from what I understand been unchanging for a long time, at least as long as I’ve been alive if not for centuries or millennia, my arrival here seems to be accompanied by a great sense of urgency, one that Wade remains unwilling to tell me about.
“Are you ever going to let me know what is going on?” I ask dispiritedly.
The look he gives in response to the question is one I do not expect, almost a look of pity, like he is holding back bad news and debating whether or not to just break it to me.
“I don’t know,” he says, “but I promise that you will be safe as long as you’re with me. I just need you to trust me.”
Those words make me feel like Wade has transformed into someone else, leaving me unsure of how to respond, so I simply nod. For the first time I can sense warmth coming from him, though I don’t understand why he would have hidden it from me before. I really do want to believe that my well-being actually matters to him, but I still don’t know if I can trust him like he says I should.
We travel south all day, approaching the lighted area while also veering closer to the cliffs. By late afternoon, I start to see the outline of stairs on the distant mountainside. They seem small at first from so far away, but as the evening closes in, I begin to understand how daunting they are, running and meandering down the mountain like a great river.
They are made of the same stone that forms Kalepo’s Northern Wall, but as I consider the course the Great Stairway takes, I realize that it is much wider and longer than any of the walls or gateways that run in or around Kalepo. Its construction must have taken decades, if not lifetimes.
Seeing it firsthand has me completely dumbstruck, though I suppose that I should have been able to imagine it before. Its top, which I’ve seen from the high walls of the Warrior District, is no less extravagant, though it is narrower. As the stairway descends, it gets slightly wider, not noticeably, but comparing the bottom to the top reveals a stark difference.
The trees we walk among become thicker as we approach the bottom of the stairway. The light from above doesn’t quite reach it, stopping about a mile from the mountainside. It is in that narrow patch of darkness that we move quietly and carefully, Wade instructing me to remain silent.