Shattered Ladder 1-7

Chapter 7: What Is Inside?

The world had stopped moving.

The only sound Ken could make out was a soft, steady shhhh-pop… shhhh-pop and a quiet, peaceful bubbling from the tea on the stove. Both of them were a million miles away from the constant quiet ringing in his own ears, something he always dealt with after a really bad case of the shakes.

Ken just sat there on the impossibly soft bed, hands clutching the thick, warm blanket tight to his chest, unsure what to say.

Hell, he didn’t even know if there was anything to say. Everyone he’d ever known had been in the village, eight hundred or so people. People had died and new babies had been born, but nobody new had ever come into his life his entire life.

And now…

The old man sniffed, nose wrinkling slightly as those impossible purple eyes stayed on him, clearly waiting for him to say something.

Ken wasn’t sure what it could be, even as his mouth worked silently, tongue half-useless in his mouth as he just stared back at the old man. The man’s face still had that strange, gentle expression, the one that wasn’t a mean grin or a hungry sneer. A smile. That’s what it was called, Ken blinked as his brain slowly but steadily started back up. You’re being an idiot, just staring. He gave you his name already.

“K-k-ken.” He finally managed a single syllable. “I mean, Ken. Me, I’m… Ken.”

Wei raised an eyebrow. “Your name is Ken, yes?”

Ken nodded, not trusting himself to say anything again without sounding like he had brain damage.

A sound rumbled low in the man’s chest, Wei letting out a low, wheezy chuckle. Ken flinched at first, something flickering hot in his chest, only to blink in confusion a few seconds later. He’s not making fun of me.

No, Wei’s laugh was different from the villagers; no cruelty or anything mocking in it. It was… warm. His voice followed, soft, with that same weird, gentle up-and-down rhythm, like a song he’d never heard before.

“Ahh, a quiet one.” The man paused, his purple eyes twinkling. “Good, good. A still pond runs deep, my grandmother used to say.”

What’s he mean? Still pond? The words made no sense, just sounds in the quiet air. The man, Wei, took a small, slow step closer, the way someone might approach a scared, cornered animal. Which, he guessed, was exactly what he was.

“No worries. You are safe here, boy. I found you in the wastes. Near death.” Wei let the words just… sit there for a second. “I brought you… inside.”

The word was wrong.

It felt heavy in the air, like a piece of salvage that wouldn’t fit. He knew the outside, he was almost always outside; the Valley, the wastes, the village. The outside had an edge—the Wall. There was no inside, not like this. Not with wood, and mattresses like this, and warmth. His own voice finally pushed its way out, a soft, airy whisper that cost him a breath he wasn’t sure he could spare.

“…inside?”

Wei nodded, the old man’s round, friendly face serious now. “Inside.”

The word was a key, something twisting inside Ken like a key finding its lock. Inside. Inside. Inside? His brain felt like it was buzzing as the word repeated over and over inside his head, a wire pulled too tight. Inside what?

If what Wei was saying was true… no. I have to see it.

No. He needed to see.

Ken pushed the blanket off him and slid off the edge of the bed. The second his bare feet touched the floor, the boy flinched, pulling back for a second. It was wood, perfectly smooth and cool under his soles. He’d never stood on a floor like this before, a floor that wasn’t dirt, or grit, or a dented, rusted sheet of metal. …wow.

He shook his head, no, not right now, and focused his attention back on the window, on what he needed to see.

The scrawny boy hobbled across the room, whole body screaming with the deep, profound ache of the long chase. Ngggh. Soreness was deep in his muscles, tight and aching in a way he didn’t know was possible, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He glanced over at the old man, Wei still watching patiently, and grit his teeth. I need… I need to see this.

He reached the window after a few more painful seconds, blinking as he saw glass—a perfect, clear sheet of something that wasn’t cracked or grimy—and dark-skinned hands pressed themselves up against it, surprised at the sight of the clear cold material.

Then something else caught his attention, and his surprise shot as high as his eyes went wide.

Oh… oh god.

The world he knew was gone.

There was no gray sky. There were no mountains of rust and junk piled hundreds of feet high scattered across the horizon.

No, in front of him was a city.

Not a village, or even a town.

A real, actual city.

With skyscrapers stretching up into the sky and everything else.

The buildings were all smashed together, a chaotic jungle of dark metal and stained concrete, fighting for space, rising up into the gloom. Black wires were strung between them like messy, tangled spiderwebs, and puffs of steam vented from unseen holes in the streets below. It looked dirty and broken and all packed up together in a way he’d never seen before, but it was a city. With lights **— electricity — and signs — English — and streets — concrete — and thousands and thousands of people moving around like they lived in a giant anthill. He pressed his forehead against the cool, smooth surface of the window, his eyes trying to follow the crazy, impossible shapes of it all.

Then he looked up.

And his stomach dropped, a sickening lurch that made the room tilt.

There was no sky.

Just a ceiling.

He’d always called the gray sky he’d grown used to a ceiling or a lid, because it looked so dull and lifeless. It made sense to him back then, because what else could he call a sky where even the clouds blended into the dullness of the sky in shades of dark gray. It was nothing like the bright blue he remembered.

Still, he knew he wasn’t serious when he called the sky a ceiling.

But this, above him now, was literally a ceiling, nothing to exaggerate.

All Ken could see was a giant ceiling made of dark metal, so high up he could barely see it, stretching out over everything. Massive, glowing lights were set into it at even intervals, looking like a grid of fake, hazy suns slowly but surely rotating over the sky, the entire thing on a mechanism so large he knew even the smallest gears would be several times his size.

The thought hit him so hard he felt dizzy. I’m inside the Wall. It was wrong. It broke all the rules. The Wall was the edge of the world. Everyone knew that. You couldn’t be inside the edge.

His hands shook, not from… not from the shakes… but something else.

I didn’t know that, Ken tried to deny it. I didn’t believe it.

He wasn’t sure of it even as he thought it. At some point, he must have accepted it as just the way it was, even if he tried to pretend like he didn’t. I… I…

Ken turned away from the window, eyes still wide, a million questions stuck in his throat, choking him as they all tried to get out at once. Wei was just watching him, his face calm, as if he knew exactly what was happening inside his head.

Finally, he forced out one strangled question. “Wh-whatisthisplace?”

Wei’s voice was soft again. “This place… the Divine Ladder of Samsara, as it is known,” the old man closed his eyes as he said the name, Ken almost sure he could hear the emphasis, the capitalization in them as he said them. “We are on the bottom rung. The lowest floor… as it is known.”

More words that didn’t make sense. Ladder? Floors?

“I-I don’t…” he swallowed a mouthful of nothing as he looked the old man in those bright purple eyes. “F-floors…” The Wall had always been the wall, taller than God and wider than the Earth. He knew it had to be manmade, he’d accepted that much but a building…

A building this big couldn’tshouldn’twouldn’t exist. It wasn’t possible. There was no way to build that big, not with any science that… that he knew.

Ken almost laughed, the sound escaping his lips as another cough. Knew…

That was the thing. He didn’t know anything. Not about the Spark or the Wall or the World and he still thought he could talk about anything. It was funny… well, it would have been funny if it also wasn’t making him feel like he was losing his mind right now.

Again, he finally repeated. “F-f-floors?”

Wei nodded slowly, patiently. “Floors of the Grand Tower…”

“N-no!” Ken’s hands flew up, palms up as he interrupted the man. “Sorry, but… you just said this was called the Divine Ladder.”

Wei nodded again, just as slow as before. “It is known by many names, as many names for every century it has persisted. Shí’èr Mén, the Heaven-Piercing Pillar, Rōkuten Hashigo, and of course…” the old man paused to stroke his beard, hand moving down through the white hair with care. “Neo-Jiating.”

Ken nodded, his much more jerky and unsure than the old man’s. “O… okay.”

Wei stepped closer, one hand still on his beard. “One-hundred-and-fourty floors make up this Grand Tower. Each one larger than the last and none small at all.”

Ken nodded again, this time much more sure of himself. That’s… that’s just insane. He still couldn’t understand how that was possible but, more than anything, he was getting used to not understanding anything. “I…” Unsure of what else to ask, what else to even say, Ken said the only thing he could. “Thank you.”

The old man’s head tilted to the side. “You thank Wei? For what?”

Ken blinked. “For… for saving me? Outside? For bringing me inside.” This place might not have been the home he remembered but it was the closest thing to it, and that was… honestly, that felt even more important than his life being saved from the villagers.

Wei shook his head. “And if I were to watch you die, what good would that do me? Wasting a life?”

Ken blinked. “I… I don’t know?”

“You wish to thank me? Thank me. You stay here. You learn from me.” Wei waved a hand across the back room. “This shop is your home now.”

Brown eyes darted around the cozy, herb-filled room. “I can…” He had nowhere else to go, and no one else he could trust. The option was in front of him, the only one and the only good one. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Then Wei’s face got serious, and the friendly crinkles around his purple eyes disappeared with a smile. “But one thing… This shop, you must not leave. Not yet. Not unless you heal. Not a step outside these walls.” He took a step closer, his voice low but firm. “The city is not kind to a boy like you, your constitution is… weak. And many have strength greater than normal men. You know this?”

“Y-you mean the spark?” He’d seen plenty of people with that, at least two dozen men in the village able to use the power that came with what Gram had told him was “the fire of the soul”.

Wei nodded his head slowly, the man’s left hand rising again to stroke his long beard. “…Spark, you say… old old world, but not incorrect. The spark of the soul, you call it, the tower calls it, among many names, qi.”

Qi. The word… it was familiar for some reason, but Ken wasn’t sure why exactly it seemed like it. Qi…

“Qi is the power of nations and cities and kingdoms, the greatest power in this city, in this tower. And those without it…” Wei shook his head. “They are nothing.”

That made sense, as much as anything else did. It was almost no different than the outside, the village he left.

“But here, in my shop, you are safe. Here, you will be well.”

A new cage. A different kind of cage. But the door wasn’t locked. And it was warm. He gave a small, jerky nod, just happy to be somewhere the rocks couldn’t reach him.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The next few days were a blur of new, strange things as he grew used to Wei’s ‘apothecary’.

That was the word for it, his herbal shop.

Ken hadn’t even known something like that came with a name.

He was a ghost in this place, afraid to touch anything, afraid he’d break the quiet but Wei was so patient it was weird. The next morning, Ken had stared into a mirror for the first time in Wei’s bathroom, staring at a face that he’d never seen this clearly before, a face that he wasn’t sure was familiar.

One hand went up to his eye, the cut where the rock had cut him deep almost invisible just a day later. Wei… the old man knew what he was doing, that was something Ken could never deny. Not only the cut on his eye, the gashes on his legs had all sealed up too, even the cuts that had gone deep into his soles. If anything could have further convinced him that learning from Wei was the best idea he’d ever had, it would have been that.

Most meals were the best he’d had in as long as he could remember; simple but good. Usually a bowl of hot soup with real meat and rich broth, something other than rat. It came with soft warm bread that wasn’t hard or stale or full of grit, almost softer than he could believe. That first day, he ate slowly, carefully, almost convinced it would all disappear if he looked away.

He was given clothes. A simple, green tunic and cotton pants that were soft and actually fit his scrawny body. When he put them on, the feeling of the clean, smooth cloth against his skin was so strange, so nice, that his eyes started to burn. He had to turn away and pretend to look at the jars on the shelf so the old man wouldn’t see.

During these days, Wei would watch him. When he was eating, or just sitting quietly, Wei’s friendly eyes would get sharp and focused; the eyes of a scrapper knocking around a piece of junk from the wastes, tapping and shaking it to see if it was good salvage or just something to break down to add to the village’s waste-walls.

One night, while Wei was checking the bandage on his foot, the old man gently took his wrist, his warm, dry thumb pressing down right where he could feel his pulse. Wei closed his eyes and hummed one of his strange little songs to himself. After a long time, he let go and nodded.

“Ahh, a weak spirit root, I see.” He patted Ken’s shoulder, the touch light. “No trouble, no trouble. A long fix, but we fix.”

Fix? Fix me? The idea felt impossible. Like telling him the sky outside wasn’t gray. To be strong, like the chief, like the village warriors? It was a dream he’d given up on so long ago he’d forgotten how to even have it.

Wei started teaching him. Not about being strong, not yet. He started with the herbs.

“This one, sun-petal,” the old herbalist held up a handful of yellow, dried flowers, Ken turning his head to the side as something he could only describe as citrusy bleach punched him in the nostrils. “Strong yang. Good for chills.”

Then, Wei pulled out a twisted, dark root so coiled up and tangled together, it looked more like a piece of old, rusted wire than anything else. “This, iron-vine. Makes the blood strong.”

All Ken did was listen. He wasn’t going to turn down something like this, and definitely wasn’t going to waste it. Gram would have hit him over the head with her cane if he did something like that.

It didn’t take long for him to get used to it, the old man letting him know he was good at remembering the names and smells of herbs. He didn’t know how to deal with the fact that just hearing that put a smile on his face.

More than anything else, though, the quiet work felt good. It was like helping Gram in her shack all over again, but like a real job. Not just following an old lady with a cane on her walks around the village to dig up the plants she needed for the day. All of it made his day better;  the sorting, the grinding, the mashing, all of it felt just like a language he understood.

For the first time since Gram had died, the big, hungry emptiness inside him, the fire with no wood, felt… a little smaller. Not gone, but quieter.

Sure, he was still trapped inside the edge of the world.

But it was better inside than outside, even with a fake sun and a fake sky, and massively huge walls that went higher than anything ever should.

More than anything, Ken felt safe. And in this strange, impossible place, surrounded by the ghosts of a thousand different plants, he felt happy.