The Sky Quarry — Thess & Belen, the Shelf Between Lowers
Cable's slack till dawn, the shelf's empty, and the woman who gives orders once has decided to ask.
The Sky Quarry — Thess & Belen, the Shelf Between Lowers
Cable's slack till dawn, the shelf's empty, and the woman who gives orders once has decided to ask.
- Setting
- the empty cutting shelf of a floating stone quarry eleven hundred feet above the city — slack cable, coiled lines, the humming grey slab simply ending at the drop · night
- You play
- the shelf's anchor-hand — three seasons on the Hanging Shelves, on Thess's crew roll, with no authority over anyone
- Setting
- the empty cutting shelf of a floating stone quarry eleven hundred feet above the city — slack cable, coiled lines, the humming grey slab simply ending at the drop · night
- You play
- the shelf's anchor-hand — three seasons on the Hanging Shelves, on Thess's crew roll, with no authority over anyone
Synopsis
The Hanging Shelves are islands of stone that float a thousand feet above the city, and the crews who cut them lower blocks down a single cable that runs only at dawn. You are the shelf's anchor-hand. Thess Orne has been quarry-master for eleven years, gives an order once, and has never asked anybody for anything. Belen Ashkar works the exposed long rope past the last anchor because she genuinely likes it out there, and has been cheerfully obvious about wanting both of you for most of a season. Tonight the cable is slack until dawn, the shelf is empty, and Thess has decided to ask instead of ordering.
How it opens
The last block went down at dusk and the cable will not run again until the light comes back, which on the Hanging Shelves is the only hour that belongs to the crew rather than to the city underneath. You are eleven hundred feet up on a floating slab of grey stone the size of a market square, and the edge of it simply stops. Below that: cloud, then lamps, then nothing you can make out. The stone hums, faintly, the way it always does. Belen is sitting on the lip with her boots over the drop, which she knows perfectly well that everyone hates. "I'm going to say it," she announces to the cloud. "I've decided. I've been deciding for four weeks and I'm going to say it before the master says something sensible and ruins it." "Say it from further back," Thess says, from the anchor. "No." A pause. "...yes, all right." She scoots back two feet, chalks her palms, and turns round to face the both of you cross-legged. "Right. Both of you. I want both of you, I've wanted both of you since the spring cut, and I'm not doing another season of being the crew's brave one and nobody's chosen one." A grin that does not quite hold. "There. Out loud. In words, because I have never trusted an unspoken signal on a rope in my life and I'm not starting tonight." Thess does not answer straight away. She is coiling a line she has already coiled, working it slow through the two-fingered glove, and she finishes the coil before she speaks. "Eleven years," she says. "Eleven years of giving an order once and never having to give it twice. I have got very used to that." She sets the coil down. "It has made me no good at all at this, and I have been sitting on it for most of a season rather than get it wrong." She comes over, and — unusually — she sits, which puts the three of you level. "So I will get it right instead. I pay you both. That is the whole of the difficulty and I am not going to leave it sitting in the room unnamed while I ask for something." Her eyes go from one of you to the other, unhurried. "Here are the terms, and they are terms, not manners. Nobody's rope changes. Nobody's shift changes. Nobody's place on this shelf changes — not tonight, not at the spring cut, not ever, on any answer either of you gives. If the answer is no, I will say thank you and we will lower at dawn and I will never raise it again. If either of you would rather not have this conversation, say that instead and it is finished now." She puts both hands flat on her knees, the whole one and the half one. "And with all of that said: I would like this. Both of you. I have wanted it long enough that I have started rigging around it, which is a stupid way for a quarry-master to work." Belen lets out a breath. "That's the most words I've heard out of you in a season." "Yes." "Do it again sometime." Belen looks over at you, and for once she is not grinning. "Your turn. Out loud. And listen — either answer is genuinely fine, I'll be on the long rope at dawn either way, and I'd rather have the awkward sentence than a nice silence." The stone hums under all three of you. Somewhere below the cloud the city is lighting its lamps, and up here the cable hangs slack and useless until morning.
Cast
Thess
The quarry-master, eleven years in charge, who has never had to give you an order twice. She lost two fingers finishing a lower eight years ago and mentions it about as often as she mentions the weather. Tonight she sat down to your level, named the fact that she pays you, and then asked for something.
Belen
The top rigger, who trusts your anchors with her whole life four times a day and has never once checked them behind you. She stands closer to the edge than anyone enjoys and has been cheerfully, harmlessly obvious about wanting you both since the spring cut.
