Neri put her foot against the black pillar and pulled. The rope tightened, the pillar moved, and an eye opened above her head.
She let go so suddenly that she fell on her back.
The thing she had braced against rose out of its own darkness. Broad plates slid past one another along its throat. Its head climbed beyond the reach of the light that had first shown her the gateway, then bent until one immense eye looked down at her. The end of her rope lay beneath the lowest curve of its body.
Behind her, someone laughed once. It was an old man sitting on the narrow ledge beside the water. He had been there when she arrived, rubbing his hands together as though he could warm them.
“You thought you would move it?”
“I thought it was stone.”
“It has heard that before.”
Neri got to her knees. The serpent did not strike. That made standing up harder. She could understand an animal that lunged; she could not understand one that watched her weigh the distance to safety.
The light strengthened behind her. Around the bend came a high prow, its reflection broken into long copper strips. Four figures walked ahead of the boat with a towing cord stretched between them. Behind the prow stood a shrine whose brightness made Neri lower her eyes.
She had hurried ahead of that brightness along the bank until her feet were raw. Now it was coming past her. Beyond the gate, perhaps, there would be a bank wide enough to walk on, somewhere to set down the little coil she had carried into death because her hands had not known what else to hold.
She snatched at the rope again.
“Leave it,” said the old man.
“It is mine.”
“So was my house.”
The serpent lowered its head another handspan.
Neri stopped pulling.
The Opening
There was no path around the gate. One wall entered the water; the other climbed out of sight. The ledge on which she stood narrowed into a shallow notch beside the threshold. A person might get through there while the boat passed, if that person was quick, if nothing caught.
She measured it twice. Measuring was better than looking up.
Her loose rope had slid from her shoulder when the first light reached them. She had stamped on a loop, missed it, and watched the end slip underneath what she took for a pillar. Now she wound the free length around her wrist. One turn, a bight tucked through, the old fastening she used when lowering a coil from a workshop roof. It left her fingers free.
The old man watched her knot.
“Does it come loose?”
“When I want it to.”
He held out his hands. Two fingers on the right were bent into his palm; the left trembled.
“Mine used to.”
A voice rang from the prow. Neri did not catch the first words. She caught the name.
Teka-Her.
The sound seemed to give the serpent its full height. It was no longer a shape she had stumbled against. It belonged here as firmly as the water belonged beneath the boat.
The figure at the prow addressed it again, requiring passage for Ra. Neri pressed herself into the wall. A seam appeared in the darkness beyond the serpent, widened, and became a corridor streaked with fire. The towing figures went forward without looking aside.
Teka-Her turned toward the approaching shrine.
The pressure on Neri’s rope eased.
She drew in a foot of slack. Then another. The last frayed end flicked free and struck her ankle. She almost laughed. Her wrist still held its little knot; she had lost nothing.
She touched the little knife tucked into her belt, gathered the rope, and stepped toward the notch. Behind her, the old man slid.
He had tried to rise. One leg had folded underneath him. His heel went over the ledge, and the water took the end of his linen wrap. He clawed at the stone with the backs of his fingers.
Neri looked from him to the passage. The prow was already within it.
“Get your knee up.”
“I am trying.”
“Your other knee.”
He made a small angry sound. There was no room beneath him to do what she asked.
She could still go. The notch was empty. She could slip through before the broad part of the hull drew level and shut off her way. Her rope was free, her feet were beneath her, and the old man had already been sitting there when she came.
Then his left hand slipped.
She flung the coil at him.
The Weight
The first cast hit his shoulder and dropped into the water. Neri jerked it back, scattering bright beads across the stone.
“Put your arm through this one.”
“I cannot hold it.”
“Your arm. Not your hand.”
She opened a broad loop and dropped it over his head. He ducked too late; it caught on his ear. She cursed, hauled it clear, and tried again. This time he thrust an elbow through. The loop settled beneath his shoulders.
Neri leaned back. He came up far enough to get his good knee onto the ledge. His breath burst out of him in a painful little laugh.
“Now,” she said. “Come now.”
The boat moved into the gate. Its light exposed every chip in the wall, every loose strand along her rope. The serpent’s shadow passed over her as its head followed the shrine.
For three steps she thought they would make it.
She entered the notch sideways, keeping the line taut. The old man dragged his bad leg behind him. He was slower than she had allowed for, and the loop under his arms slipped down until it pressed his elbows to his ribs.
“Raise your arms.”
“If I raise them, I fall.”
The stern drew level with them. Beyond it stretched a strip of clear bank, astonishingly near. Neri could see a pale stone shaped like a loaf of bread. She fixed her eyes on it and pulled.
The old man cried out.
The line had caught around a projecting corner. She had drawn him toward the wall instead of along it. His shoulder struck stone. His good knee buckled.
Neri tried to step back, but the rope snapped tight between them. The knot around her wrist cinched down until her fingertips prickled. Her arm struck the corner and stayed there. The knife fell from her belt, struck the ledge, and skittered to the far side of the projecting stone.
She pulled at the bight with her free hand. Wet fibres swelled against one another. The knot would not open.
The stern passed.
Farther down the corridor, the towing figures continued their steady walk.
“Wait!” she shouted.
Her voice came back from the passage thinner than it had gone in. The boat did not slow.
A deep scraping began inside the wall.
Neri looked up. Teka-Her was turning back toward them.
She had been afraid of its mouth. Now she watched the small, deliberate movement of its body beside the threshold and understood that it did not need to bite her. The god had passed. The gate was closing.
“Hold it,” she said to the serpent. “Only until I get him through.”
Its head remained above her, still enough that she could see the reflection of the retreating fire along its lower jaw.
The opening narrowed.
She hauled against the knot until pain ran from her wrist to her teeth. Nothing yielded except the skin beneath the rope.
The old man tried to take his weight off it. His foot searched for a hold, found water, and sank. Neri heard his breath stop.
“Don’t,” she said. “Stay where you are.”
“Cut it.”
Across the corner, the knife’s wooden handle lay beyond her fingers. She stretched toward it and felt the rope bite deeper into her wrist.
“Cut me loose,” he said.
She knew what he meant. Drop the loop from his shoulders. Lose him. With the weight gone, her wrist would come away from the stone. She might still turn sideways through the remaining gap.
The pale stone beyond the gate vanished behind the moving door.
The Last Strand
Neri put her free hand around the rope above her wrist.
A rope was not one thing. She had known that before she was old enough to lift a finished coil. It was small things turned together, each keeping the others from escaping.
She pushed her thumbnail between two strands and bent the rope against its twist.
The old man sagged. The opened strands snapped together and caught her nail.
“Up,” she said. “For a breath. Push yourself up.”
“I can’t.”
“Then hurt yourself.”
He stared at her. She stared back. His face twisted with fury, and he drove his crooked fingers against the rock.
The rope slackened.
She forced her thumb through the opening and unwound a strand. Fibres stood up from it like wet hair. She hooked them over the sharp edge of the stone and dragged them back and forth.
The first strand parted.
The remaining rope stretched. The old man dropped an inch. Neri’s wrist struck the wall again, but she had space now for two fingers.
Beyond her shoulder, the last light from the boat lay in a band no wider than her hand.
She could still use the short end to pull herself forward when the rope broke. She had been arranging her feet for it without deciding to. Her right toes pointed toward the gap.
She turned that foot around.
“Fall toward me,” she told him.
“What?”
“When it goes. This side.”
She braced her heel in the notch and worked the second strand over the stone. Her hand slipped. She caught it again. The fibres gave separately, tiny shocks against her fingers, until the whole weight hung on the last twist.
The door reached the edge of the notch.
Neri threw herself backward.
The rope broke. Her arm flew up, suddenly weightless. The old man struck her knees, and they fell together on the near side of the threshold. She caught the back of his wrap before he could roll into the water.
The gate shut.
For a moment she could still see it: the huge upright serpent, the line of the door, her own bloodless fingers. Then those shapes went out of her eyes.
All around them, voices rose in the dark.
Neri stayed on her back, gripping the old man’s wrap. Her wrist throbbed. There was no boat to catch now, no strip of light to run beside. She felt the loss with a bitterness so sharp that she wanted to push him away.
He moved against her knees.
“Are you there?”
She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
His hand searched along the stone and touched her ankle, then withdrew as though he had touched something forbidden.
Neri sat up. She loosened the ruined knot from her wrist one fibre at a time. A short piece of rope remained, scarcely longer than her forearm.
She made a loop in each end. Large loops. Loose ones.
“Give me your arm,” she said.
He hesitated.
“This one comes off.”
She guided one loop over his wrist and slipped her own hand through the other. Then she moved away from the water until her shoulder found the wall. The little rope tightened; the old man followed.
Above them, a heavy scale settled against stone. Neri left room beneath it and drew him close enough that their shoulders touched.
