12.

A Door in the Sky

Aetherion, first Outer Frame — AGH 55

The third time Halwen Saye checked the strap, Orren Dask took his hands off the door.

“Shall we leave it here a little longer?”

“This one's working loose.”

Orren looked at the strap. Halwen had drawn it tight enough to put a hollow in the folded cloth beneath it.

“I can wait,” the dwarf said. “I've another move after this. That's all.”

Halwen eased the strap by a finger's width, which made checking it necessary again. The door rested on two pads at the entrance to the Outer Frame. Behind him the older buildings of Aetherion crowded close about the approach; ahead, new pale flooring ran between a wall and a railing, with no other wall beyond the railing to make the distance reasonable. His daughter's room was along there, round a turn and down a passage. She had shown him the route on a drawing.

On the drawing it had been an excellent route.

“We could take that packing off,” Orren said. “The last corner's close.”

“The face is finished.”

“I won't put my boot on it.”

“It's the corners I mean. One knock and you'd see it whenever the light came across.” Halwen smoothed the cloth over the raised panel. “You can mend a corner. You can't make it a corner that hasn't been mended.”

Orren's short black beard moved with a small, private exertion. He bent to look at the projecting end of a batten Halwen had tied across the package.

“All right. Which handle are you taking?”

Halwen picked up the nearer loop. It lay well in his hand. He had added the loops himself, broad enough not to cut, because the door was a good weight and he hadn't wanted somebody seizing the finished edge. All that had worked. The door had come up from his workshop on the surface without a scratch.

Through the railing he could see an expanse of light that ought to have contained a street. Much farther away there was ground. He looked back at the strap.

“Dad?”

Leda came out of the passage carrying a tin of tea. She had tucked one trouser leg into her boot and left the other loose; pale dust lay in a crease across her brown forehead, above the broad nose she was wrinkling at them. She stopped just beyond the entrance.

“I thought you'd gone the wrong way.”

“We were checking the load.”

“I can see that.”

She put the tin in her shoulder bag and came to the other handle. Orren stepped back to let her take it. She was taller than Halwen, though not so broad through the chest, and she bent without his needing to tell her where to put her hand.

“I'll go backwards,” she said. “You come towards me.”

“You shouldn't walk backwards there.”

“Then Orren can tell me if I'm about to tread on something.”

“There's nothing behind you,” Orren said. “And there won't be if we get on.”

Leda tightened her hold. Halwen did not lift.

For a moment she looked at his feet. Then she pointed with her chin to a pale joint in the floor beyond the threshold.

“Put your left foot there. It's easier if you step before we turn.”

“I can see where it goes.”

“Good.” She waited.

He could have let Orren have the handle. The man was being paid to carry things. But Leda had set her feet and was waiting with the door he had promised to make, and Halwen would have had to walk along after it with his hands empty.

“On three,” he said.

They lifted. He stepped onto the pale joint, then past it. The floor met him in precisely the way a floor should. He kept his eyes on the loose hem of Leda's trousers while Orren went ahead, calling the turns before they reached them.

There was more sky between the posts than he had expected. A cloud lay below the far line of sight, its top lit so brilliantly that he could not look straight at it. Between two of the new buildings he glimpsed an older roof, green with weather, and a chimney from which the smoke came sideways. Someone had set a row of little pots on a sill. Their leaves moved. The pots did not.

The door drew on his arms. Leda shifted her handle and said, “How's your side?”

“Fine.”

“Mine's heavy.”

“It's a door.”

“I was hoping you'd say it was mostly wrapping.”

He looked at her. She was watching where his feet were going, not the drop beyond him. He moved his grip a little farther into the loop.

“There isn't much left,” Orren said. “Stop at my hand.”

They stopped at his hand. Halwen was pleased to be told to stop.

*   *   *

The corner had an unreasonable amount of wall in it.

Orren turned the leading side of the package towards the passage. Leda followed his direction, stepping round until the door's broad wrapped face lay diagonally across the turn. Halwen brought his end after her. The packing touched the opposite corner.

“Back,” Orren said.

“We can lift it a little.”

“Back first.”

They moved back. A woman holding a basket had come out of the passage and was now standing on the far side of the door, able to see their heads and very little else.

“Can I get through?”

“In a moment,” Leda said.

Orren squatted to slide one of the pads under the lower edge. They set the door down and held it against the wall while he found the narrow space through which the woman could pass. She turned her basket sideways. Halwen stepped back to make room, discovered there was no more room and had to turn sideways himself.

“Mind the cloth,” he said.

“I'm minding the eggs.”

“Yes. Of course.”

She passed without touching either. Orren watched her clear the entrance before turning back to the load.

“That batten comes off now.”

Halwen looked into the passage. “Who lays out an entrance like this? People have furniture.”

Leda had taken a folding rule from her bag. She opened it across the face of the package.

“The door's the width you gave me,” he said.

“I'm measuring what we're carrying.”

“I know what it is.”

She moved the end of the rule to the projecting batten. It stuck beyond the door on both sides, so that a blow would meet cheap packing wood before it met the edge Halwen had worked smooth.

“This is what caught.”

“It keeps the corners off the wall.”

“It kept the whole door off that one.”

Orren bent to the lower strap. Leda began on the upper knot.

“Don't pull it that way,” Halwen said. “You'll drag the—”

“Then hold this bit.”

She put the loosened cloth into his hand. He held it clear while she worked the knot back through itself. Her nails were short and there was a dark line along one thumb from the instrument-case shop. She got the strap free without picking at it with her teeth, which he had been about to tell her not to do.

Orren lifted off the batten. Leda folded back the cloth. The grain of the door came out into the passage, a long pale movement rising through the two panels. She ran her fingers along the outer molding before taking the bare edge.

“Not there,” Halwen said.

“My hands are clean.”

He looked at the line on her thumb.

“It's dye. It's not coming off on your door.”

Orren put the batten under Halwen's arm.

“Take that through after us. Leda, your end towards me. That's it.”

Without the added wood the leaf passed. Orren and Leda took it round in one slow movement, pausing when he told her to pause and advancing when he told her to come. Halwen followed with the batten and a lump of wrapping. He had plenty of time to watch the corners.

None of them touched anything.

*   *   *

Leda's room had one large window and a smaller amount of wall than Halwen would have chosen to go with it.

The bed stood against the solid side, covered with an old blanket he recognized. There was a cupboard, a narrow shelf, two chairs that did not match and a small table near the open window. A cloth bundle, a basket and a pan occupied most of the table. On the floor beside it stood a vase with no flowers in it.

“That's for the spoons,” Leda said when she saw him looking.

“It's a vase.”

“I haven't got any flowers.”

Orren and Leda rested the door against the wall on its pads. He rolled the loose carrying straps and laid them beside Halwen's bag while Leda found her purse. She paid him, counted the coins again when one clung to the lining, and added it to his hand.

“Thank you. Will you be late?”

“Not if they let me carry their things.”

She laughed. Halwen put the batten down beside the door.

Orren tipped his head to them both and went out with his pads. He had left one folded piece of packing beneath the door's edge. Halwen checked it with his toe after the dwarf had gone.

“He's good,” Leda said.

“I didn't say he wasn't.”

She opened the cloth bundle. The smell of onion escaped, warm and sweet. There were pastries in it, and a covered pot in the basket, and two pears wedged beside a loaf so they would not roll about. She had brought all of it up from the surface with her earlier things.

“I thought you liked those,” she said, holding up a pastry whose folded ends had begun to stick together.

“I do.”

“Well, if we're to eat before they're completely cold, we'd better fit it.”

He opened his tool bag. She carried the food to the shelf and set the vase there too. The table, cleared, showed a pale ring that somebody else's hot pot had left in its top.

He looked from it to the window. There was space by the bed where both chairs could sit against a wall. A person at that table would be able to put down a cup without looking past it into all that air.

He took the near end and moved it.

“What are you doing?”

“You'll get a draught there.”

“I want it there.”

“You can still see out from—”

She took the other end. He thought for a moment she was helping. Then she pulled, and he had to move with the table or let it drag unevenly. They set it down where it had been.

“That's why I took this room.”

“The window?”

“Yes.”

He turned towards it. From here he could see part of the outside wall and a line of bolts carrying something substantial below the sill. He did not know what they carried. Beyond them, the lower sky changed from white to blue, with nothing close enough for the eye to settle on.

“You could have had a larger room for what you're paying.”

“On the surface.”

“There's nothing wrong with the surface.”

“No. We bought supper there.”

She went back to his bag and drew out the packet of hinges. He had wrapped them separately, with the screws in a small tied pouch. She undid the pouch and poured the screws into one of the empty cups.

“These are nice.”

“They're the right weight. The cheaper ones would have carried it, but after a few years—”

“I meant I like them.”

“Oh.”

He picked one up and moved it between finger and thumb. It turned smoothly. He had paid for the hinges as well as the wood; she had paid the rent herself, out of what she earned fitting instruments into cases made to travel. There was nothing in the room he could point to and say she had not thought about the cost. He had been trying to think of something since she sent him the measurements.

Leda held the leaf away from the wall while he checked the opening. The sill of the window caught his eye each time he turned. At last he put the rule down.

“You remember the trial that twisted.”

She kept her hand on the door. “Yes.”

“They had to take it apart.”

“And change it, and test it again. I know.”

“Knowing that they changed it isn't the same as—”

“This is the finished one. They commissioned it before they let us move in.”

“I'm aware of that.”

She waited. He picked up the rule, folded one joint and opened it again.

“I only want you safe.”

“Why does that always mean coming home?”

He looked at her. Dust clung to the close black coils at one temple, and she had a red mark on the inside of her wrist from carrying something. She was twenty-seven. She had put two pears in the basket.

“I didn't say you had to come home.”

“You haven't said much about staying here.”

He had meant to ask where her water came from, and who saw to the common structure, and whether there was somebody to call if a sound began in the night. He knew, in a general way, that rents and civic money paid for the city's new supports. He wanted the names of people who would come when called. The questions crowded together, too late for the day on which he had brought the door.

“You should have let me see it before you took it.”

“I wanted you to see it today.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I know.”

Outside, somebody was calling a name from one window to another. Leda looked that way, then back at him.

“Will you help me fit it? If you won't, I'll ask about hiring someone. But I need a door.”

It was still leaning in her hands. The pale panel lay against her shirt, and the molding he had spent time on was hidden by her arm. He could have taken the measurements and his bag and gone. She would pay someone, the way she had paid Orren. He tried to imagine not being here when it first closed.

“Where do you want the hinges?” he asked.

She showed him.

*   *   *

They fitted the hinges on the side Leda wanted, so the open door would stand clear of the cupboard. Halwen marked and cut the recesses with the leaf resting on folded packing. When they stood it in the opening, they worked the folds beneath its bottom edge until the hinge halves lined up. Leda held it upright while he drove the last screws into the frame.

“Nearly,” he said.

“Can I let go?”

He tightened the last screw. “Now.”

They drew the packing out from underneath, leaving the hinges to take the weight. The leaf moved smoothly out, presenting its panels to the room, and Halwen caught himself waiting for her to notice the grain again.

She did. She stepped back to see it, tilting her head, then put her hand on the edge to close it.

The edge stuck against the jamb.

She pushed a little harder. Halwen stopped her.

“Don't force it.”

He tried it himself. Near the middle of the closing edge a pale rub had appeared. The leaf would approach the frame and go no farther; the latch remained beyond reach of its catch.

He had eased that edge for the other arrangement, the one he had pictured in the workshop. The change in the way it opened had left a corner too full. He had checked the face, the hinges, the height above the floor. Now the uncut sliver of wood seemed indecently visible.

“I'll take it back,” he said.

Leda looked at him.

“It's a small thing. I can do it properly on the bench. Bring it up again tomorrow.”

“I want to close it tonight.”

“I haven't brought a plane.”

“I can borrow one.”

“And somewhere to hold it?”

She looked about the room. “We've just got it in. We're not taking it all the way down again.”

“It needs a proper edge.”

“Then help me give it one.”

She went out. He could hear her footsteps in the passage, then a knock and another voice. He set the screwturner down and held the door half open. It was an awkward thing to find himself holding. If he let go, it would stay where it was; if he closed it, it would stick. He moved it a little each way until he heard Leda returning.

She had a small plane and a scrap of thick cloth. Under her arm were two wooden blocks.

“The cloth goes back clean enough to use,” she said. “And he wants his plane this evening.”

“Who does?”

“Three doors along. He's fitting a shelf.”

Halwen looked at the plane. It was sharp and well cared for. He had been prepared to object to it, and had to put it down without saying anything.

Leda found a piece of chalk among her work things. They marked the place that rubbed, eased the hinge pins free and lowered the leaf together. They set the padded blocks under the clear wood between the hinges, with the closing edge uppermost, and Leda braced the broad face with her palms. The thick cloth lay beneath it to catch the shavings. The only length of clear floor that gave Halwen room to work ran beside the window.

He set the plane on the marked corner.

The first shaving broke almost at once. He had lifted the tool without meaning to. He put it back and tried a shorter stroke. A little roughness appeared where there ought to have been one clean line.

“I can hold it harder,” Leda said.

“You're holding it.”

“All right.”

She did not ask what was wrong.

Air came across his forearms. The loose end of the floor cloth stirred, and for an instant his hands expected the door to stir with it. He took the plane off the wood and laid it on its side. Leda's hands remained where they were.

He put his palm against the window frame.

The wood was warm. Below the sill, beyond the stout rail outside, he could see the shadow of the new building falling across part of an older roof. There was a bucket on that roof. Someone had left it near a chimney, and it was standing in a patch of sunlight no bigger than a table. Farther off, a bank of cloud had opened to show strips of the surface, pale and dark, with a road winding between them. Something moving on the road became visible only when it crossed a light patch. Halwen watched until it passed into the dark again.

He had not expected to be able to see an ordinary journey from up here.

The air moved over the back of his hand. The frame beneath his palm stayed warm and solid. Leda adjusted her stance against the door.

“Tell me before you start,” she said.

He took his hand off the window. Picked up the plane.

“Now.”

She braced. He let the tool travel, following the grain through the marked place. A narrow shaving curled over his deep-brown knuckles, whole this time. He let it fall. The next came away nearly as clean.

Leda looked down at them. “That's like the strips we take off the case linings.”

“You don't plane those.”

“No. We cut them with a knife. I said like.”

“It's harder to make a clean cut across cloth.”

“Yes.”

He glanced at her. She lifted her eyebrows.

“I didn't say you couldn't do it.”

“No.” Her mouth had begun to move at one corner. “Go on.”

He examined the edge. The rubbing mark had gone. Under his thumb he found a slight ridge where the new cut ended; he rubbed across it again. He set the plane down to look from the other end, then reached for it again.

Leda put her hand on the handle first.

“Try it.”

“There's just—”

“Try it before you take any more.”

“I can see the edge.”

“So can I. Let's see it in the hole.”

He looked at the door, then at the tool under her hand. He had been about to take a longer cut than the mark required.

“All right. Lift from your end.”

They stood the leaf upright, brought the hinge halves together and slipped the pins home. Leda kept her foot against the bottom until he told her the weight was taken. He moved it out, then slowly back.

The edge went in. The latch clicked.

He opened it again.

“Let me.”

He stood aside. She closed it, opened it and drew it to from outside. Through the doorway he saw her look down the passage before coming back in.

“Yes,” she said.

“It might want a touch along—”

“No.”

She ran her palm over the panel, following the movement in the grain that had made him choose those two boards. Then she went to the shelf and lifted the covered pot.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Fold that cloth inwards.”

He folded it inwards, catching the shavings. Leda brushed the last small curls off her shirt and found the place to put his tool bag. He emptied the shavings into the discarded wrapping, brushed the borrowed cloth clean and wiped the plane. Then he gathered the cloth and blocks and carried the borrowed things along the passage. The man three doors away was holding a shelf against his wall and trying to mark both ends of it. Halwen waited until he could take the tools. When the man asked whether the door had fitted, Halwen said it did now, and returned to the smell of reheated onions.

*   *   *

They ate the pastries first because Leda said they would not improve. The pot held beans, which she had warmed while he was returning the tools. They sat at the table by the window, and he accepted a spoon from the vase.

The pastry was soft at the bottom and good at the folded ends. He ate one end and then the other, trying to decide which had kept more of its crispness. Leda had already finished hers and was using a torn piece of bread to collect onions from the paper.

“I could have bought another,” she said.

“I've got plenty.”

“I meant for me.”

He pushed the paper towards her. She took the little loose corner beside his hand.

From the chair he could see very little of the ground. The sill cut it off. There was sky, and the weathered green roof, and a narrow part of the new building opposite, where somebody had hung a towel out to dry. It billowed, settled and billowed again. A hand appeared to move the peg. The towel hung more evenly after that.

He ate a spoonful of beans while watching the hand disappear.

“What?” Leda asked.

“Nothing.”

She looked where he was looking. “I don't know who lives there yet.”

“The room looks different when you sit down.”

“You haven't sat down in it before.”

“I know that.”

She smiled into her cup and drank.

The daylight lay across the table at an angle that brought out the pale ring in its top. He had thought of sanding it. With the plates and the bread there, it was only a patch of lighter wood between things. He could see why she had put the table here. He would still have moved it a little farther from the window.

“Have you got far to go to work?”

“Not as far as I did from yours.”

“How much less?”

She considered with her mouth full, then held up a hand until she could swallow.

“I can leave after I've finished my tea.”

“That doesn't tell me anything.”

“It tells you why I like it.”

She filled his cup. The tea tin stood open beside the pot, its lid underneath it, and he recognized the smell. It was the kind he kept at the workshop. He reached for the lid and she held out her hand for it without looking. He passed it over.

For a while they ate without talking. The new door stood open, showing the empty passage beyond. Somewhere farther along, the man with the shelf dropped something small and said a word Halwen knew very well. Leda laughed, then tried to make the laugh into a cough because she had just taken another mouthful.

“Don't choke,” he said.

She held up the same hand, eyes wet, until she could swallow. He waited. She looked at him, and the laugh escaped again.

He had to put his cup down. They were quiet after that, except for a last small noise she made into her hand. When he picked it up again, the light was leaving the old roof. Its green darkened from the chimney outwards. The towel opposite had stopped moving.

Leda cut the pears. One was hard enough to resist the knife. He offered to take it; she gave him half and kept the other. The second was softer. They ate that one as well.

The draught returned while he was collecting the plates. The door moved away from the wall, drifted through the last part of its swing and closed with a clean click.

Leda glanced at it. Halwen's hands stayed under the plates.

“Where do you keep the washing cloth?”

“Beside the basin. The blue one.”

He found it under the drying cup. When he turned back, Leda had picked up the packing batten and was holding it against the wall beneath her narrow shelf. She tried it one way, frowned, then turned it over. Halwen put the plates in the water and began with the spoon that had beans dried along its handle.