The elevation of the compacted earth revealed the full extent of the geographical disaster.
Ahead of the party, the trail simply ceased to exist. The continent's crust appeared to have been cleaved by an invisible blade of titanic proportions, opening an abyssal chasm with sheer, dark walls. At the bottom of the precipice, the river ran tumultuous, transformed into a roaring serpent of wild waters. On the other side of that monumental rupture, hundreds of strides away across the void, rested the opposite slope: the exact continuation of the straight line calculated toward Suryashan.
Tribal contemplated the immensity of the gash in the earth. Alaya measured the distance between the margins. Bhāskara stared at the fissure with wide eyes. The wind from the gorge howled among the stones.
— It wasn't on any map — declared the astronomer, his arms still holding the rope's alignment.
Alaya dropped her walking pose and adjusted her tunic, her voice laced with cutting serenity:
— The parchment also omitted that the world's surface plummeted at this exact coordinate.
Tribal approached the extreme edge, his heels flush with the void, showing not the slightest fear of gravity.
— The ground hasn't ended — pondered the Son of the Earth. — It just got deeper.
Bhāskara wasted not a single instant on worldly laments. For a mind raised under the rigor of axioms, every natural disaster was merely a geometric exercise awaiting resolution. With a dramatic snap of his fingers, he leaped back, planting his feet in the sand with an angular twist of his hips.
— Reason does not bow to topographic unevenness! — proclaimed the sage, raising his muscular arm toward the abyss in an ultra-expressive pose, pointing two rigid fingers at the void. — Calculate the width of the gap! Estimate the zenith of the rock wall! The Cartesian conclusion is relentless: we require a bridge!
— A brilliant idea — agreed Tribal, crossing his arms with imposing presence.
Bhāskara dropped the heroic posture, blinking rapidly as he inspected the sparse vegetation around them.
— There's an inconsistency in resources: we lack enough wood even for three spans of decking.
— Then we build a smaller bridge — suggested Tribal, maintaining the purest aesthetic conviction.
Alaya brought her hand to her forehead, feeling a familiar pang at her temple:
— Smaller than the width of the gorge?
— It's the introductory phase of the strategy — countered the mystic man, impassive.
— A bridge that rests upon air is not strategy, Tribal; it's merely a fall with architectural pretensions! — retorted the woman, her left eyebrow already twitching in its rhythmic tic of despair.
Bhāskara, however, was already at another stage of intellectual ignition. He ran to the rocky edge, analyzing some twisted, slender trees with deep roots anchored to the brink.
— Forget traditional timber! The human mind does not drag itself through matter; it soars upon the forces of physics! — The astronomer puffed out his sculpted chest, striking his own abdominal ridges with the back of his hand in a gesture of pure triumph. — If we stretch a high-resistance master cable from one vertex to the other, we create a primary tension line! A sort of ancestral zip line! We'll just need to attach a basket or suspended platform and haul the load through the air!
He froze at the climax of his speech. A bead of sweat trickled down his bronzed face.
— However... — murmured the sage, his gray hair whipped by the gust of wind — for the rope to exert tension, the guide end must be tied on the other side of the fissure. And we are on this side.
Tribal took a long step forward. His luminous eyes glinted.
— I'll take it.
Bhāskara frowned in disbelief:
— How do you intend to cross three hundred strides of void without support?
The Son of the Earth pointed at the opposite rock wall with a defiant smile:
— By jumping.
Alaya intervened in the same millisecond, her tone thunderous:
— No.
— You didn't even let me describe the trajectory of the parabola — he complained, turning his face in profile.
— Because I can already visualize the catastrophic impact at the bottom of the ravine.
The refusal, instead of curbing the men's momentum, only added the necessary theatrics to the situation. Tribal took the roll of braided rope in his arms. The updraft from the abyss inflated his rustic garments as if they were the banner of an invisible legion. He bent his knees at a challenging angle, tensing his muscular thighs against the stone bed, raising his left arm bent close to his eyes, revealing only the impassive flame of his gaze.
Bhāskara's eyes widened. The sage recognized that aura: the man was about to hurl his own body against gravity.
— Tribal... — called the astronomer, his voice torn between pure dread and an almost insane geometric admiration.
— One year marching in a straight line toward Suryashan — proclaimed the Son of the Earth. — I refuse to let a crack in the clay interrupt the march of our destiny!
Behind him, Alaya covered both eyes with open hands, in perfect visual exhaustion:
— He's finally gone mad.
Bhāskara swallowed hard, assuming a reflective pose balanced on one heel:
— I'm beginning to suspect that this calculated madness is precisely the engine that keeps us moving.
But before Tribal could flex his tendons for the impossible leap, a dry crack snapped at the edge of the plateau. A piece of scorched rock broke loose from the slope, plunging freely into the abyss.
Bhāskara and Tribal froze in their postures, eyes fixed on the fragment's trajectory. The stone fell vertically, but upon reaching mid-height of the fissure, a current of thermal air rose from the depths like a colossal furnace breath, pushing the rock in an ascending arc toward the opposite wall before swallowing it into the waters.
The astronomer let out a deafening cry that drowned out the wind.
— The density of the gorge! The very thermodynamics of the canyon act as a thrust channel! — He punched the air frantically with clenched fists. — We don't need to risk anyone's biological matter! We can launch the rope! If we attach a thin line to a projectile shaft or a balanced stone, the updraft itself will sustain the parabolic arc all the way to the other summit!
The execution of the theory, however, exacted the price of empirical method. On the first attempt, the stone hurled by Bhāskara's hyperextended arm described a timid curve and plunged unceremoniously into the foaming river.
On the second, propelled by a wooden lever, the line almost reached the grass of the opposite plateau, falling mere spans short of the edge.
On the third attempt, the rope spun in disorderly loops and tangled in the dry branches of their own bank, demanding twenty exasperating minutes of untangling from Alaya.
— Enough of amateur approximations! — bellowed Bhāskara, gesturing with arms raised to the firmament. — Tribal! Channel the muscular torque of your corporeal shell! Execute the launch!
Tribal did not hesitate. He picked up one of the heavy wooden poles they used to brace their cargo, tied the end of the lighter rope with an infallible blind knot, and stepped back three measured paces. His body curved backward in an absurd arc of tension. The muscles of his back and shoulders stood out like sculpted reliefs under the relentless sun.
In a continuous motion that tore through the air with a sharp whistle, he released the pole.
The projectile flew.
Silence reigned as the line uncoiled in the air like a golden serpent. The pole crossed the center of the abyss, was lifted by the gorge's thermal current, and drove itself with spectacular violence into the cleft of a fossilized trunk on the opposite bank, locking the anchorage with the precision of a cosmic harpoon.
Bhāskara paled, slack-jawed.
— By the laws of mechanics... it worked!
Tribal dropped his throwing pose, dusting off his palms with absolute naturalness:
— Of course it worked.
Alaya crossed her arms, eyeing him with narrowed eyes:
— You had no idea about the wind's drag coefficient.
— But the rope is tied on the other side.
— Chance is not scientific method, Tribal.
Bhāskara intervened, eyes gleaming in ecstasy:
— If the results converge toward our crossing, Alaya, ignorance of the formula becomes a secondary detail!
The guide line allowed them to pull across the thicker master rope. Hours of work under Tribal's technical supervision resulted in a robust anchorage between the trees on both escarpments. For transport, they lashed a rudimentary platform of braided branches with slip knots onto the main cable.
— Before any advance — warned Bhāskara, picking up a stone block to test the load — we must calculate the cable's breaking point against dead weight!
— The calculation can be performed dynamically — replied Tribal, already settling his own feet onto the floating platform.
— Wait! The elastic tension of the braiding hasn't been calibrated!
— Calculate while I slide.
With a confident tug on the maneuver rope, the platform advanced over the abyss. The deck slid the first ten strides with apparent smoothness. Suddenly, right over the center of the void, the wooden binding protested.
CRACK.
All three froze instantly in the landscape.
CRACK. CRACK.
Alaya took half a step forward at the edge, hands clenched:
— Bhāskara...
— I heard the fibers straining — whispered the astronomer, feeling his own stomach turn.
The platform stopped mid-way, swaying gently above the distant, raging mouth of the river. Tribal looked down, staring at the sharp rocks hundreds of strides below his bare feet. Slowly, an expression of genuine discomfort spread across his usually mystic countenance.
— ...It's considerably deeper than it looked from above.
— Marvelous — Alaya mocked from the plateau. — The philosopher finally grasps the concept of altitude.
A sudden gust of hot air rose through the earth's gash. The cable twisted. The platform spun violently on itself, flipping upside down.
Tribal released his legs from the wood and grabbed the master rope with only his palms, hanging in the void, legs swinging in the air.
— Haul! — shouted Bhāskara, abandoning all academic solemnity and throwing himself onto the end of the safety line alongside Alaya.
The two pulled with all their strength, digging their heels into the bank's soil, while Tribal, laughing at the instability of the physical world, advanced hand-over-hand along the taut rope, defying the abyss until his hands finally reached the firm roots on the opposite side. He rolled onto the dry earth in an acrobatic leap, securing the line with absolute certainty. The path was open.
Minutes later, with the tension corrected and the platform reinforced, Alaya and Bhāskara completed the crossing without further anatomical disasters, stepping onto solid ground with heaving breaths. The gorge was behind them.
As they untied the transport knots, Bhāskara walked along the edge of the newly conquered slope to check the horizon to the south. His steps abruptly halted before a dark stone monolith that guarded the gorge's exit.
He approached slowly. He ran his calloused fingers over the rock's roughness, wiping away the ancient lichen crust that covered the surface.
There were carvings in the stone. They were not wind erosions or geological scars: they were precise grooves, engraved with refined metal tools. At the center of the block, a familiar angular design stood out under the afternoon light: a series of concentric circles cut by an ascending arrow—the old imperial emblem that men once carved upon the gates of knowledge.
A mark indicating strictly the same direction in which they were marching.
Suryashan.
— Someone was here before us — the sage stated, his voice stripped of all pomp, steeped in solemn awe.
Tribal approached, setting his luminous eyes upon the ancient trace carved into the matter, and then raised his head toward the infinite plain that unfurled to the south.
— Then perhaps we are on the exact path toward the answer.
Alaya knelt beside the monolith, opened the parchment over her knees, and sketched the contours of that symbol in the footer of the measurement page. With a firm stroke of ink, she recorded the feeling that the crossing had just revealed to the three travelers:
Suryashan was not merely a coordinate calculated on the horizon.
It was the place where someone waited patiently for their arrival.