Five minutes was a lie. It was a hope, a fragile dream in a world of hard stone and crushing reality. They rested for maybe one. The air was cold, biting at their sweat-soaked clothes. The only sounds were their own ragged breaths and the faint, almost imperceptible hum of the mountain around them. The sealed tunnel behind them was a wall of silent, white-hot judgment.
"Let's go," Yingluo said, pushing herself to her feet. Her body screamed in protest, every muscle a knot of fire. She ignored it. She looked at Shen Miao, who was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed, her face the color of old ash. "Can you stand?"
Shen Miao's eyes opened. They were clouded with pain, but there was a spark of defiance in them. "I can stand," she said, her voice a low rasp. She pushed herself up, her legs trembling, and a fresh wave of dizziness washed over her. She swayed, and Gao Lian, without a word, moved to her side, propping her up with a shoulder.
"Good," Yingluo said. "Because we're climbing."
Li Xun was already at the edge of the platform, peering down. The torchlight made a small, lonely circle in the infinite black. "The rungs are spaced far apart," he said, his voice still weak but clear. "And they're narrow. It wasn't built for our hands." He touched his head again, wincing. "Be careful. The metal is slick."
Yingluo took the torch from the boy. "You go with Gao Lian and Shen Miao. Stay between them." She looked at Li Xun. "You're after me. Go slow. One step at a time. Don't look down unless you have to."
It was easy to say. It was impossible to do. Yingluo swung her legs over the edge, her heart thudding a heavy, painful rhythm against her ribs. The first rung was cold, shockingly so, and coated in a thin, greasy film that made her want to wipe her hand on her clothes. She gripped it tight, the metal biting into her palm, and lowered herself down. Her feet found the next rung. It was a long stretch, her muscles straining. She was on the ladder. The blackness of the shaft yawned below her, a hungry, open mouth. She forced herself to look up, at the circle of light from the platform, and began to climb.
Down, always down. The rhythm was a painful mantra. Hand. Foot. Hand. Foot. The metal rungs were numbingly cold, the slick coating making every grip a small gamble. The air grew colder as they descended, and a strange smell began to rise up to meet them. It was the smell of a closed tomb, of wet stone and rust, but with something else underneath it. Something faintly sweet, like old, decaying flowers.
Gao Lian came next, the boy strapped to her back with a makeshift harness of torn cloak. He clung to her like a baby monkey, his face buried in her shoulder. Then came Shen Miao, a slow, agonizing descent. Gao Lian had tied a length of rope around Shen Miao's waist, the other end secured to her own belt. It was a lifeline, but it was also a constant, heavy reminder of their vulnerability. If Shen Miao fell, she might pull Gao Lian with her.
Li Xun was last. He moved slowly, deliberately, his mind clearly working even as his body struggled. He was the rear guard, the watchman in the dark.
They climbed in silence, the only sound the scrape of their boots on the metal and the soft groans of effort from Shen Miao. The torchlight was a small, failing bubble in an ocean of darkness. The walls of the shaft were smooth, featureless black stone, broken only by the ladder itself. There were no other tunnels, no other openings. It was a straight, deliberate plunge into the heart of the mountain.
They had been climbing for what felt like an hour when Shen Miao's strength gave out. It happened without warning. One moment she was there, a grim, determined shape in the torchlight. The next, her hand slipped on a rung. She didn't even have the energy to scream. She just fell, her body limp, a dead weight on the end of the rope.
The rope snapped taut with a vicious jerk. Gao Lian grunted, the force of it slamming her against the wall, her feet nearly slipping off the rungs. "Hold on!" she yelled, her voice tight with strain.
"Shen Miao!" Yingluo cried out, looking up. Shen Miao was dangling in the darkness, spinning slowly, her head lolling to one side. She was unconscious.
"I can't hold her!" Gao Lian gasped, her arms trembling with the effort. "She's too heavy!"
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through Yingluo. If Gao Lian let go, Shen Miao was lost. And the jerk might be enough to pull Gao Lian and the boy down with her.
"Li Xun!" Yingluo screamed into the dark below her. "The rope! Tie it off! Use your cane!"
There was a moment of frantic scrambling below. Then Li Xun's voice, weak but clear. "I have it! I've wrapped it around the rung! It's holding!"
For now. The thought was a poison in Yingluo's mind. She began to climb back up, her movements quick and desperate. "Gao Lian, hold her steady. I'm coming."
She reached them, her own muscles burning. Shen Miao was a dead weight, her body a limp burden. "We have to get her back on the ladder," Yingluo said, her mind racing. "There's no other way."
It was a nightmare of a task. Hanging on the ladder with one hand, they tried to maneuver Shen Miao's limp body back onto the rungs. Her head lolled, her arms were useless. The slick coating on the rungs made it impossible to get a good grip.
"This is useless," Gao Lian grunted, her voice a low growl of frustration. "She's a dead weight. We're all going to die because of her."
"Shut up," Yingluo snapped, her voice sharp with a fury that surprised them both. "She's one of us. We don't leave people behind. We get her up. Now."
They worked, their bodies aching, their fingers growing numb. Finally, with a final, desperate heave, they managed to drape Shen Miao's arms over a rung, her chin resting on her chest. She was secured, but only barely. She was a human-shaped sack tied to the side of the ladder.
"We have to tie her to it," Li Xun called up from below. "Use the rest of the rope. Wrap it around her and the rungs."
It was a slow, painstaking process. They passed the rope, looping it around Shen Miao and the metal rungs, tying knots with cold, numb fingers. When they were done, she was lashed to the ladder like a piece of cargo. It was a desperate, ugly solution, but it was the only one they had.
They started climbing again, the mood now heavier, more desperate. Every creak of the rope, every soft groan from Shen Miao, was a fresh stab of fear.
It was the boy who saw it first. He had been silent, his face hidden against Gao Lian's back. But now he lifted his head, his eyes wide. He pointed a small, trembling finger down into the darkness below them.
"Look," he whispered, his voice so thin it was almost carried away by the vast emptiness.
Yingluo angled the torch down. The light cut through the black, reaching down, down, down. And it hit something.
It was not the wall. It was a shape. A large, hunched shape, clinging to the ladder about fifty feet below them. For a second, Yingluo's heart stopped. It was the monster. It had found another way down.
But then the light caught it fully, and she saw that it was not moving. It was still. Too still. It was a body, lashed to the ladder just as they had lashed Shen Miao. But it was not human. It was tall and thin, its limbs long and jointed at wrong angles. Its skin was a pale, waxy white, and its head was hairless, with a large, domed skull and a small, faceless mouth and it was not the only one.
As she moved the torch, the light revealed another. And another. And another. The ladder was a gallery of the dead. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, stretching down into the unfathomable dark. They were all of the same strange, inhuman species, all lashed to the rungs with a similar, dark, fibrous rope. They all hung in the same limp, lifeless way, their heads bowed, their long arms dangling.
They were not climbers. They were cargo or prisoners or sacrifices. A cold, sickening horror washed over Yingluo. This was not a ladder. It was a spine. And these things were the vertebrae, a string of dead bodies leading down into the guts of the mountain.
"What… what are those?" Gao Lian breathed, her voice filled with a revulsion that mirrored Yingluo's own.
"I don't know," Li Xun said, his voice a hushed whisper of awe and terror. "They're not like the other one. The guard. These are… different. Peaceful."
But Yingluo didn't feel peace. She felt a profound, deep-seated dread. They were climbing down a rope of corpses, descending into a tomb filled with the dead of a race they could not comprehend.
As the torchlight passed over one of the bodies, the head of the corpse, which had been bowed, slowly, creakily, lifted up.
It had no eyes. It had no face. It was just a smooth, pale dome of bone. But as Yingluo watched, frozen in a state of pure, unadulterated terror, a crack appeared on the surface of that dome. A thin, black line, like a seam. And the crack began to open.