"I didn't want one," Kiram said, but he still took the pie carefully. Even with his jacket protecting his hand, the metal was almost too hot to hold.
"The pulley lift is just a little further. Come on." Javier started towards a small shed built up against the west wall of the dormitory.
The savory scent of meat and mushrooms rose up off the pie. He'd never been served anything this nice in the dining hall, nor could he imagine the cooks making enough meat pies to satisfy a hundred hungry students. He wondered if the pies had been intended for the scholars or the war master.
If so, Kiram sincerely hoped that he was stealing Master Ignacio's breakfast.
Once inside the shed, Kiram realized that it had no roof. Instead, a series of pulleys and heavy chains dangled down from the third floor.
"There's a trap door up there. Scholar Donamillo has the staff haul his mechanisms up there with this." Javier sat down, carefully placing his pie to his right side. He gave the pulley chains a tired look. "How strong are you feeling?"
"I doubt I could haul us both." Kiram paused as he studied the pulleys more closely as well as the shadowy shapes of gears, high above him. "You ass. This is a gear lift. An infant could haul us up so long as the counterweight was properly set. Is it?"
Javier sighed. "Yes. I should have known you'd know what it was right away."
"Of course." Kiram set his own pie down beside Javier's and then located counterweight release. He couldn't see them clearly in the gloom but his hands knew them by feel.
"I helped my father build two gear lifts when I was fifteen." Kiram gently eased the release open. The hand crank turned smoothly. Someone took good care of the mechanism. The chains whirred as the counterweight slowly descended, causing floor beneath them to rise. The lift was surprisingly quiet and Kiram couldn't help but admire its creator. He wished that he had a lamp so that he could examine its engineering more closely. He glanced back to Javier. "How heavy is the counterweight?"
"Heavy. I've cranked it back up by myself before, but it's damn hard work."
"It shouldn't be. A gear lift this well built shouldn't be hard to reset," Kiram thought aloud. "Are you sure you had it in the correct gear when you cranked the counterweight back up?"
"I believe that my ignorance about the lift even possessing different gears is all the answer you need," Javier confessed and Kiram smiled at his honesty.
They rose to the underside of an overhang below the third floor of the dormitory. Javier worked the trapdoor above them open. He hefted himself up into the darkness inside the dormitory. A second later he lowered an iron rung ladder. Kiram handed up the pies and then climbed blindly up into the pitch blackness. The floor beneath him felt like solid stone. The stagnant air smelled of machine oil.
He heard Javier close the trap door. Then a flicker of pure white light flashed up, momentarily illuminating Javier's raised left hand as well as the rows of machinery surrounding them. The light died and then flared back up, flickering across several huge, faceted, glass spheres. Slowly, the light in Javier's hand steadied to a dim, undulating flame.
They were in a windowless store room. Most of the space was neatly packed with the pieces of mechanical cures. They looked old and broken down. Spatters of rust etched the arching iron ribs. Many of the glass panes that made up the enormous spheres looked chipped. Some were blackened, as if coated with soot. Kiram could barely discern the shadows of the leather harnesses and wires hanging inside the spheres.
"The counterweight is here." Javier held his hand over the lift gears mounted in the store room floor. His expression was intent and Kiram imagined that it took a great deal of his concentration to maintain the even glowing light that danced over his palm.
Kiram worked quickly, shifting the gears and then cranking the counterweight back up into its housing.
"Done," Kiram said at last.
"Good." Javier crouched down at the heavy iron base of one of the mechanical cures and the light in his hand guttered out. Total blackness enveloped Kiram again.
"Are you all right?" Kiram asked.
"Fine," Javier replied. "Just catching my breath."
Kiram sat down to wait. A minute passed and the silence began to worry Kiram. He wondered if Javier really was well. Could he have collapsed again?
"Javier?"
"Yfes?" Javier's voice was strong and relaxed. Kiram felt foolish for worrying. "What is it?" Javier asked after a moment.
"Oh," Kiram said, and then a genuine curiosity came to him. "I was just wondering if you've ever been in one of these mechanical cures?"
"Once. My first year here Scholar Donamillo wanted to test one on me."
"What was it like?" Kiram couldn't imagine being strapped into one of the huge contraptions. As much as he loved mechanisms the mechanical cures unnerved him.
"It was much like a catastrophe," Javier sounded amused. "Scholar Donamillo buckled me into the harness and closed the orb and then just when he had cranked the handle fast enough to begin building a current the glass blew out. It blackened and shattered. Then the iron supports broke apart. I think the remains are up here somewhere."
"You weren't hurt?"
"Not badly. But I'd rather not ever do it again."
Kiram couldn't help but remember Fedeles' howls and the mechanical cure in the infirmary.
"What do you think it does to him?" Kiram asked and then he realized that Javier couldn't know who he was talking about. "I mean Fedeles. How does the mechanical cure help him?"
Javier said nothing for a long while and Kiram realized that the subject was probably too close for Javier to talk about. He wished he could take the question back.
"It eases his suffering a little." Javier's voice was soft and humorless. "The treatments exchange one kind of madness for another. He isn't terrified or screaming after the treatments but he isn't well either. The mechanical cure makes him happy, but it can't lift the curse. Holy Father Habalan is certain that it's helping to protect him from being consumed, though, so I suppose it's worth it."
"He was cursed? Nest-someone said that the white hell attacked him."
"People say a lot of things. But they don't know shit about the white hell or the Tornesal curse. They don't know shit!" Javier almost spat the last word.
"I'm sorry. It's none of my business. I shouldn't have asked-"
"No, it's not your fault. People start rumors. They know we Tornesals are linked to the white hell by our bloodline and so they assume that it is the cause of all our infamy and misfortune. But it wasn't the white hell that attacked Fedeles or killed my father. The white hell is in me and I would have known if it had touched either of them. Something else attacked them. I don't know what, but I've felt it. I." Javier was silent for several moments, then sighed heavily. "I'm too hungry and tired to talk about this, that's what I am."
"Do you think you're rested enough to make it to our room?" Kiram asked.
"I've been fine for a while. I was just stalling for time to remember where I put our pies."
Kiram laughed, mostly out of relief to hear a note of humor return to Javier's voice.
Once they located the pies, the two of them raced through the narrow tower halls to their room.
They washed their hands and faces together but Kiram left the bathroom when Javier began to strip off his clothes. While Javier bathed Kiram found a knife and sliced his pie into quarters. When he made an experimental slice in the pie Javier had been carrying he discovered that it was filled with cherries. If they shared, they'd both have a decent meal.
Javier returned from the bathroom wearing his dark blue dressing robe. He looked exhausted but clean. He brushed a wet lock of his black hair back from his face and Kiram caught a glimpse of his left wrist. The wound had closed, leaving that same raw red scar that Kiram remembered seeing the very first day he had met Javier. If he did regular penance then that wound must have been opened over and over again. It must never really heal. Disgust curled through Kiram at the sheer barbarity of the Cadeleonians, but he hid it when Javier pulled a chair up to Kiram's desk in order to inspect the pies.