The Chain

The launch from twenty-six to twenty-seven was the longest yet.

Jake stood at the column's base and faced it. The gap was enormous — the next platform higher and further than anything they'd crossed, hanging in the sky like something that didn't want to be reached. The wind between the platforms was visible, carrying dust and moisture in long horizontal streaks. A Verath woman on twenty-six had assessed them when they arrived, assessed the gap, and assessed them again. She'd said nothing. Her expression said plenty.

"That's far," Jake said.

Vauren was studying it. His black eyes moved from the column to the platform above to the space between, measuring angles, calculating the arc. His left arm was at his side. The shoulder had been improving for days but it still wasn't full range. On shorter launches the compensation held. This wasn't a shorter launch.

"The wind is coming from below," Vauren said. "It will push the arc upward. The angle needs to be flatter than the previous launches."

"Flatter means faster."

"Yes."

Jake faced the gap again. The platform above was so far away it had weather on it — a thin layer of cloud sitting on its surface, drifting. The launch columns up there were barely visible. Below the gap, nothing. The cloud layer, white and thick and a very long way down.

He climbed the column. At the top the wind was worse — pushing upward from below, pressing against his body, trying to lift him off the cap before he was ready. He set his bare feet in the grooves. The light fired at his soles. He took a breath.

He could see the whole world from up here. Every platform they'd climbed, the chain of them going down into the distance, the base platform barely a smudge of pale stone near the cloud layer. Weeks of climbing. Somewhere down there Torek was on his railing with his cup.

He launched.

The arc was long. Longer than any he'd done, the air holding him, the sky around him. The wind from below pushed him higher and he had to fight it, the light at his feet firing in pulses to keep his trajectory flat. The peak of the arc came and the platform was still far away. For a moment he was just hanging in the sky, the highest he'd ever been, alone in the air with nothing beneath him. His feet corrected. The platform came at him. He landed hard, rolling, the light blazing through his shins, the stone rough and cold with the cloud drifting across its surface.

He came up standing. Breathing hard. His feet ached from the corrections.

He turned to watch Vauren.

Vauren left the column clean. The push was good, the angle flat the way he'd said it should be, his body curving into the arc. The water carried him through the asymmetry, the right side leading, the fluid adjusting. For the first few seconds it looked fine.

Then the distance started telling.

On the shorter launches the compensation had time to work. The water adjusted, the body curved, the landing came before the drift could accumulate. This launch was different. The arc stretched out and the pull from the dead arm had more air to work in. Vauren's trajectory drifted left. The water shifted to correct. The wind from below hit him unevenly and the drift worsened. His body was curving away from the platform, the angle sliding, the water fighting a battle it was losing by degrees.

Jake watched it happen. Vauren's arc pulling left and down. The platform's edge sliding away from his trajectory. Five meters off. Seven. Ten. The landing angle going past recoverable and into the other thing.

Vauren knew. Jake could see it in his body — the water surging, the skin going deep blue, everything he had pouring into the correction. It wasn't enough. The gap was too long and the arm was too dead and the wind fought him every meter.

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He was going to miss the platform. Below the platform there was nothing for a very long time.

Jake went off the edge.

He didn't think about it. His feet hit the stone at the platform's lip. The light fired. He was in the air, moving down and out, the wind slamming into him from below. Vauren was below and to the left, still arcing, still drifting. Jake's feet corrected — one pulse, two — his trajectory bending toward Vauren's.

They met in the air.

Jake came in from above and to the right, moving fast. Vauren saw him — the black eyes widening, the body shifting toward the contact. Jake's shoulder hit Vauren's right side. The impact was hard. Vauren's water absorbed it — the skin softening, the force rolling through his body, redirecting. Jake felt it happen. Vauren's body took his momentum and turned it, the water converting the collision into a new arc, Vauren's trajectory bending upward and right, toward the platform.

Jake's trajectory went the other way.

The redirect threw him down and left. Nothing to push off. Nothing to correct against. The light at his feet fired — once, twice, burning through whatever he had left — slowing him, changing his angle, keeping him from tumbling. But he was falling. The platform above was gone. A shelf of stone three levels down was coming up fast.

He hit it.

The light blazed at his feet, his shins, his forearms at the moment of impact. It wasn't enough. The stone took him hard. He hit on his side. Rolled. Hit something solid with his back and stopped.

He lay there. The sky above him was blue and very far away. His ribs ached. His left arm hung useless. The light had gone out entirely, his reserves empty, the warmth at his soles gone cold.

Vauren was up there. The redirect had worked.

Jake lay on the stone and laughed. It came out broken, half a sound, his ribs cutting it short. He pressed his hand against his side and kept laughing.

Vauren landed on the twenty-seventh platform on his hands and knees. The redirect had given him the angle but the landing was rough — the water absorbing what it could, the rest going through him. He came up and turned and went to the edge.

Jake wasn't there.

Three platforms below, a shelf of pale stone, a figure lying against a wall. Not moving. Then moving — one arm coming up, pressing against the ribs.

Vauren went off the edge.

He dropped. The water took each impact — platform to platform, the landings rolling through him, fast, controlled, the fastest he'd ever descended. Three platforms in seconds. He landed on the shelf where Jake was lying and crossed the stone to him.

Jake looked up at him. Bleeding from somewhere on his head, his left arm held close, his ribs clearly broken. And when Vauren reached him, he was grinning.

Vauren knelt beside him. His hands were shaking. Jake had never seen Vauren's hands shake.

"You are injured," Vauren said. His voice was level. His hands were not.

"Yeah." Jake studied the shaking hands, the black eyes. "You made it though."

"You jumped off a platform."

"You were going to miss."

"You jumped off a platform," Vauren said again. He was regarding Jake the way you regard a thing you don't have a category for.

"It worked," Jake said. "The redirect — did you feel that? Your water took my speed and just turned it. That was —" He winced. The ribs. "That was amazing."

"You could have died."

"But I didn't."

"You could have."

"Vauren." Jake reached up with his good arm and gripped Vauren's wrist. The shaking stopped. "I didn't."

Vauren's gaze dropped to Jake's hand on his wrist. He didn't pull away. He stayed there, kneeling on the stone, his hand held, his face open in a way Jake had never seen.

"Thank you," Vauren said.

They stayed like that for a moment. The wind moved across the platform.

"I'm going to need help getting up," Jake said.

Vauren pulled him up. Carefully, the water softening his grip, the right arm doing the work. Jake stood. His ribs screamed. His left arm hung. The platform was three levels below where they needed to be.

He faced upward. Three launches.

"Ready when you are," he said.

Vauren's face closed. "No."

"No?"

"You have broken ribs. Your arm is injured. Your Vincu is depleted. You cannot launch."

"I can launch."

"You will fall."

"I just fell. I'm fine."

"You are bleeding from your head."

Jake touched his head. His fingers came back red. "That's cosmetic."

"It is not cosmetic. You are injured. We wait."

Their eyes held. The composure was fully back now, the posture straight, the Lindrith formality reassembled. Except Vauren's hands were still close to Jake, closer than they needed to be, and his eyes hadn't moved.

"Vauren. If we wait my body stiffens up and the launches get harder. If we go now I've got enough to make three short jumps."

"You have nothing. Your light is gone."

"It comes back. It's already coming back." Jake held up his right hand. The faintest warmth at the palm, barely visible. "See?"

Vauren considered the hand. The faint glow that was more hope than light.

"That is nothing."

"That's enough."

They stared at each other. The wind pushed between them. Jake was standing on broken ribs, bleeding, his arm held close, his Vincu barely a flicker.

Vauren held his gaze for a long time.

"If you fall," Vauren said, "I will not say thank you again."

Jake grinned. "Deal."

They climbed.