I didn't need any extra incentive at that point to move faster. With the hourglass cradled in my arm, I bounded two steps at a time. When I thought my heart was about to explode, I looked up and saw an aperture in the floor of the dome, like an open trapdoor.
Anotine reached it and jumped through, and I was no more than a second behind her. As I hit the floor inside the dome, I rolled over and kicked the trapdoor shut. I let the hourglass tumble out of my hand as I found Anotine, and we entwined each other in a viselike embrace, our bodies heaving, in syncopation. I could feel her heart pounding against mine as I closed my eyes and waited to fall.
We waited and we waited, and my obvious expectation that the floor would dissolve beneath us did not seem soon to be fulfilled. The howling wind of disintegration suddenly died, and there was complete silence. I opened my eyes and saw Anotine open hers.
"Well?" she said.
I shook my head.
Then we dropped, not through the floor, but with the dome intact around us. The fall seemed to have been slowed by some force, for we did not plummet the way the Doctor's winch had, but instead dropped with the lightness of a feather. Still, we held tightly to each other for a long time until there came a modest collision with the surface of the ocean, the impact of which bounced us a few inches off the floor. The dome settled on the surface like a boat, and the hellish roar of the wind was replaced by the thick liquid sound of rolling mercury. The motion of the waves rocked us gently and, dismissing my fears that we would soon sink or the dome would be melted, I reveled in this moment that did not call for physical exertion.
"We should get up and see what predicament we have gotten into now," said Anotine.
"Why?" I asked.
She smiled and closed her eyes. I did the same and found myself falling yet again, this time into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion.
I was delighted eventually to awaken in that it was a good sign we had not been consumed by the ocean, but at the same time, my entire body ached so thoroughly from all of the punishing work I had required of it that existence was now barely preferable to the alternative. My knees cracked as I straightened them, and even the simplest movements elicited a groan. It soon became clear to me that Anotine was gone. As I rolled onto my stomach to find a position from which I could use my arms to push myself up, I heard her call my name.
"Cley," she said, "you've got to see this."
With a good deal of effort, I rose to my feet, staggering somewhat in the process. I stretched and rubbed my eyes before turning around and getting my first true look at the inside of the dome. Of course, it was circular to match the cylindrical form of the tower. The trapdoor, which I stood next to, seemed to be the central point of a wide space. There was a short wall, no more than four feet all around, and then the dome began, some kind of crystal or glass that arched upward at its center at least twenty feet. I fully expected to see some kind of beacon or light source, remembering the way the structure had glowed at night, but there was nothing. Instead, the substance that the dome was made from generated its own luminescence. The glow of it lit the interior more efficiently than even spire lamps might have.
"Come here," said Anotine, waking me from awe at the architecture of the marvelous place. When I turned to find her, she was off to my left, standing next to a chair whose back was to me. As I approached, I could see that it was no ordinary chair, but more like a black, leather throne without legs. The seat hovered two feet off the floor and appeared connected in front to a low metal rail that, I just then noticed, ran the entire circumference of the inner dome.
All of this was interesting, but the sight of Anotine standing there, still alive, diverted my attention and almost brought tears to my eyes. Her clothes were torn and there were scuff marks of grime on her cheeks and arms, but she was beautiful. The fact that we were now prisoners in this structure, adrift on a seemingly limitless expanse of silver ocean, did not faze me as long as I was with her.
I moved close in order to touch her, but as I approached, she put her hand on the back of the chair and pushed. It remained stationary, attached to the device that connected it to the rail, but it spun around so that the seat faced me. Sitting in it was an old man with a white beard. He was bald on top, and the same white hair grew at the sides of his head. His eyes were closed and his lips were drawn into a subtle grin. If I had any doubts that it was Below, the blue silken pajamas he wore erased them. It was the exact outfit he had been wearing back in the other world.
"The sentinel," said Anotine, and laughed horribly. "The judge of our lives on the island. I knew he must be sleeping.
It was all for nothing." She began to cry, then turned and slapped Below across the face, screaming for him to wake up.
She brought her hand back to strike him again, but I caught it and restrained her. "It won't do any good," I said, trying to put my arm around her. She shrugged it off and stepped away.
"This isn't even death, Cley. I should have given myself up to the Delicate. Where are we? What are we? This is forever."
"Easy, easy," I said to her. "We'll find a way out of this," but as I spoke, I could feel the crushing weight of loneliness that she was feeling. We had each other for the moment, but beyond us, there was nothing. I fought back my desire to tell her everything I knew.
"Look here," I said, noticing that the device that connected the chair to the rail also had another part, a console that, when the seat was turned toward the outside, could be controlled by the occupant. It was a black board with switches and dials and two long levers.
"This reminds me of your black box," I said. "Perhaps you could figure out what its purpose is."
She refused to take the bait I hoped would divert her attention from the deplorable state we were in. Turning her back, she moved away to the opposite side of the dome. I left her alone for the time being, knowing there was nothing I could say that might change our situation, and anything I could tell her would only serve to reveal greater depths of hopelessness.
The fact that Below, or some mnemonic representation of Below, was there in the dome did not surprise me all that much. From the beginning of my journey, I always expected that I would find the Master. And why not? It was his world. We were breathing his imagination. I only wished he had been in a condition that might have allowed me to reason with him. "If only I could awaken him," I thought, "I could simply ask him what the antidote is." At that point, though, I was uncertain if Misrix would be able to bring me out. It became clear to me as I stood there above the old man, staring down at him, that the demon had lost me.
I reached over to the console and slowly turned one of the knobs. As it spun, the light thrown off by the dome diminished in brightness. The more I moved the knob, the more the darkness of night outside became evident, and I realized then that my nap had lasted for an entire day. Wanting to see the extent of the device, I brought the glow to a bare minimum, then turned it out altogether.