The sun, without fail, rose.

  I took the time in the morning to heat my meal on the stove and boil some water.

  It was too easy to think making myself suffer was equivalent to performing at my utmost, but the world had been trying to teach me for twenty nine years to take my time, and one day, I was going to learn.

  It was easier without others around me, rushing to be first in line for the torturer. They were the first to judge others who failed to sacrifice themselves to their imagined gods. And strangely, though I didn’t want to care for the opinion of the martyrs, I did.

  But I’d listened enough to force myself to take pleasure in the simple things, at swordpoint if necessary.

  Once I’d finished my breakfast I ambled outside and packed away my tent and wall.

  A fresh piece of wax recorded my spell, while my shield and Zephyr II worked up a breeze in concert.

  Zephyr III: A gust of wind with a conical base the size of a shield blows outward at a rate and direction controlled by the caster. The source of the wind moves up to two feet per second, following the whims of its master for up to an hour.

  It was only after I’d finished recording my spell that I remembered this was my first excursion in a week or more without Attar. Hopefully he trusted my ability to not die the moment I was outside his protection. Otherwise he’d be panicking that I’d not returned last night.

  Still, better to worry him then hasten and not return at all. Trust could be earned if nothing else.

  ***

  There was a dead ruby beetle in the lift room. I wasn’t sure if they had flesh or organs which could rot, but this one smelled as fresh as the rock it was made from. I suspected it was the beetle the others had seen two days before, and that it had only died recently.

  The lift was still at the bottom of the shaft, which meant I would have to provide my own ride down.

  My spell didn’t last long enough for the whole descent, but I had two of them, so as I long as I had my timing right, I’d be mostly okay.

  Lightstep Again

  Alternatively, I could simply slide down the chain at two thirds my normal weight.

  I took out my backpack and deposited my spellbook inside for easy access. I’d need both my hands free for the next part.

  I leapt to the nearest chain and caught it easily enough, but once dangling above the endless pit I felt a sudden surge of vertigo.

  I should have recorded another Lightstep spell instead of the Zephyr, for all the Lightsteps had been cursed.

  Half an hour.

  That was all I needed.

  Even 15 minutes would be enough to provide some overlap for my two lift spells.

  Just half an hour.

  I started shuffling. It would be fine.

  I was forty feet deep when I remembered my spells could fail.

  ***

  I hated counting.

  I didn’t know how Cillian did it, but keeping track of time always drove me crazy. I had a similar problem when canoeing. I started counting my strokes, and then the numbers started searing themselves into my head.

  It was amazing how easily I dismissed my own mind’s complaints with the right motivation.

  Not plunging thousands of feet through darkness did the trick.

  Quick math had me counting to 2000. Paranoia had me revising that figure down to 1500, and then pausing my count for an unknown amount of time to recalculate the figure over and over again.

  I didn’t trust math.

  I made it to 1000, erring on the side of counting too fast rather than too slow, before my nerves failed me.

  Lift

  The lift appeared.

  I gingerly lowered myself down onto it in a sitting position. The chains of the real lift below bulged outward as they were replaced by my summoned construct. Hopefully the pressure pushing the chains into the walls wouldn’t sever them.

  At any rate, the lift moved, though slower than the climbing had been. At least I could relax my arms.

  I started counted again, this time aiming for 3000. As long as I counted my heartbeats I would reach the number long before the timer on my lift ran out.

  I was somewhere around 250 when I realized I could have built a simple timer by summoning nearly any of my spells a few minutes before casting the lift.

  I quickly scanned the runes of my spellbook. Had any lasted 45 minutes instead?

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Soldier’s Swords

  “Follow me.”

  The first would disappear after half an hour, the next two after 45 minutes. I’d have to wait a few minutes more after the second set disappeared to make up for my over abundance of caution in the first leg of my journey, but I’d also summoned the swords five minutes in, so I couldn’t wait too long.

  Time passed. My first sword vanished. Time passed. My body felt suddenly heavier as my Lightstep ended. Two more swords vanished soon after.

  Five minutes. I could make it five minutes. I began counting to 300.

  My heart was racing by the time I got there.

  Rapture

  My backpack began to glow.

  I hopped up half a foot and cast my next spell mid air.

  Lift II

  A second lift began descending on top of the first.

  Three minutes later (I was counting, despite myself), the first lift vanished.

  I sank to the floor unsteadily.

  Too close.

  I’d never liked heights.

  The only saving grace was the fact that I’d more or less guaranteed the rest of the journey to the fourth floor by getting the timing wrong earlier.

  Time passed.

  My backpack was still glowing strong when the real lift came in sight. I slowed, then stopped my magical lift just above the brake lever on the real one, then dismissed my spell, falling a heart stopping two feet.

  I slid off the lift and carefully lowered myself back onto the solid stone floor of the dungeon. The cool floor soothed my fevered skin. I always overheated when I was stressed. Strangely, I wasn’t sweating. Which of my transformations had that been?

  I waited until my backpack dimmed before allowing myself to consider the next leg of my journey.

  This time it would be a mere two, maybe three hundred feet to the floor.

  I peered at the awaiting hole out of the corners of my eyes.

  Maybe it would be better to take the stairs.

  The situation was occurring often enough it was time to work a solution. The gem holding the sun found itself into my fingers as they dipped into my pouch.

  The stone disappeared.

  The sun rose.

  Crayon and spellbook were readied by my feet as I firmly grasped the Dead King’s spear in both hands. The shaft had been worked through the handles of my purse, and I carried the purse aloft without wavering. I began walking around the room, raising up onto my toes and dipping down into deep squats. BEWILDERING STEED.

  My finger slipped as the whispers in my mind became a roar. The rune I’d been crafting for the last hour was marred and the form was lost. The Bewildering Steed galloped around the echoing void, then like an apology, offered to leave.

  I refused. The least it could do was serve me.

  I was accustomed to failures in attention. It was the path of the Magi.

  I raised my spear and started again.

  Handle: A shaft, three and a half feet in length, supports up to 484lbs of weight. The shaft lasts for an hour. It moves at a walking pace following the whims of its master.

  Certain truths were obvious upon revelation. It was why I was doubtful of human invention. Ideas were the domain of the gods. When the time for an idea came, mortals would become a conduit, but the gods were the source.

  Still, I found it hard to believe it had taken me this long to create the spell.

  Handle

  Even with my solid gold lungs, I could comfortably support my own weight now that I didn’t have to bear the weight of my pack.

  I stowed my spear and wax back in the pouch, tied the pouch back to my belt, and threw my spellbook in my empty pack.

  Then I firmly grasped the handle with both hands, and walked myself over to the edge. I had to slide backward underneath the lift in order to maneuver down, treating my handle like a handhold in order to lower myself down, and then I was slowly descending into the depths.

  I could only bless my birth that I didn’t sweat.

  ***

  Several hundred feet took about a minute to descend. It was a long time to be hanging by my finger tips, but I found it difficult to release the magic handle even once my feet hit the ground. I’d grown used to cramps and stiffness after long exertion, but my healing spells seemed to have healed deeper than I expected.

  The moment I released the handles my fingers only felt limber and pleasantly warm. The tiredness faded almost instantly.

  It was then I realized I could have cast a healing spell to extend my stamina.

  For the future.

  It only took me about half an hour to make it to the stairs heading down, and ten of those minutes were heading the wrong way to the room full of gas. It was amazing how much faster the journey was without ten other people in tow.

  Fifteen minutes down to the place where I’d been ambushed by those horrible spiders, then down through the room full of broken statues of myself, down the straw covered hallway, past the mushrooms and to the stairs to the next floor.

  It was mid afternoon by whatever vague sense of time I had remaining by the time I reached the eight floor.

  I decided to return to our base, both to relax from a day of hanging over the abyss, and to reassure my friends I hadn’t died the day before.

  My friends barely looked up as soon as the sentry (Stovepipe) confirmed I wasn’t hostile.

  “Off sight seeing, Oswic?” Stovepipe asked.

  “I got lost. Don’t know how it happened, but somehow ended back on the first floor.”

  I didn’t mention the thuamaturges. Gunhild’s “betrayal” had me paranoid. Not of my friends, nor even of inspired greed, but gnomes and worse could be hidden in the walls for all I knew, and having a fallback that even spies were unaware of could save us all. My magic pouch and cloak could make all the difference.

  “Will it happen again?” Attar asked.

  “Probably. Though not in the same way. Might be I take a week to come back.”

  Brace nodded over at the giant baby statue, “We can wait. If we didn’t age I could stare at the wall for a thousand years. It’s the strangest thing, but it works.”

  “Not growing bored.”

  Stovepipe chimed in, “She’s right about it being strange. But when you aren’t hungry, aren’t thirsty, don’t need to take a leak, no demands that you move, you stop being fidgety and anxious. It’s like the hours after a feast, but those hours never end. Endless contentment.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “There’s worse ways to die.”

  I grunted in affirmation.

  “Still,” Stovepipe continued, “There’s no guarantee this will last, is there?”

  I shook my head, “The moment we give up, the Rift ends and we become prisoners of the warlocks.”

  “Shame. Maybe I leave my burdens in Bleak Fort when we leave anyway, aye?”

  “Maybe I will too.”