Tunnels 02, Deeper

over the creased, hairless pate of the cat's domed head, and the beehive sounded as if a riot had broken out.
    Elliott went first, followed closely by Chester, who pushed past Will to the front. "Excuse me," he said brusquely.
    Will chose not to say anything, and as soon as Chester disappeared from view, he went next. He found it disconcerting as he took hold of the two rusty uprights and edged his legs over the brink until he found a rung with his foot. But once he'd started to move, it wasn't too bad. Last to follow was Cal, who had dispatched Bartleby on the longer journey down via the ledge but was having huge misgivings himself as he descended the ladder, stiffly and deliberately.
    It was a long climb and the ladder trembled and creaked ominously with their combined movements, as if some of the fixings had broken loose. Their hands soon became coated with rust and so dry that they had to be extra careful not to lose their grip. The wind gradually dropped off the lower they went, but after a while Will noticed that he couldn't see or hear Cal above him.
    "Are you OK?" he shouted up.
    There was no reply.
    He repeated the question, louder this time.
    "Fine," came the begrudging reply from Chester below.
    "Not you, you dork. It's Cal I'm worried about."
    As Chester mumbled something in response, Cal's walking stick swished past Will, spinning end over end as it fell.
    "Cal!" Will exclaimed, thinking for one awful moment that his brother had slipped and was going to follow after it. He held his breath and waited, but still there was no sign of the boy. Reversing his direction, Will began to climb. He soon came across Cal, who was completely stationary, both arms wrapped tightly around the ladder.
    "You dropped your stick. What's up?"
    "I can't do this... " Cal gasped. "Feel sick... just leave me alone for a minute."
    "Is it your leg?" Will asked, concerned. "Or are you still upset about Sarah? What is it?"
    "No. I just feel... feel dizzy."
    "Ahh," Will said, remembering. There'd been signs of it before when they were Topsoil. Cal wasn't used to heights after spending his whole life in the Colony. "You don't like being up here; it's the height, isn't it?"
    Cal swallowed a yes.
    "Well, just trust me on this, Cal. I don't want you to look down, but we're almost at the bottom... I can see Elliott there right now."
    "Are you sure?" Cal said skeptically.
    "Absolutely. Come on."
    The deception worked for about a hundred feet, until Cal again came to a standstill.
    "You're lying. We should be there by now."
    "No, really, not far now," Will assured him. "And don't look down!"
    This went on several times, Cal becoming more and more distrustful and angry until Will really did reach the bottom.
    "Touchdown!" he announced.
    "You lied to me!" Cal accused him as he stepped from the ladder.
    "Yeah, but hey, it worked, didn't it? You're safe now," Will replied with a shrug, happy that he'd been able to talk his brother down, even if he'd resorted to deception to achieve it.
    "I'm never going to listen to you again," Cal threw huffily at him as he began to hunt around for his walking stick. "You're a lying slug."
    "Oh, sure, feel free to take it out on me... just like everybody else around here does," Will replied, more for Chester's benefit than Cal's.
    Will turned from the ladder, his feet making a glassy noise as if he were treading on pieces of broken bottle. Indeed, as they all moved around, the ground produced a grinding and vitreous ringing. From what little Will could see, before them seemed to be a colonnade of closely packed pillars spearing up into the darkness, each one more that 200 feet in girth.
    "I'm only going to do this because the Limiters should be far enough behind that it doesn't matter, and I want you to know what we're getting into," Elliott said, turning up her lantern and holding it on the area before them.
    "Wow!" Will exclaimed.
    It was like looking into a sea of dark mirrors. As the beam from Elliott's light struck the nearest column, it was reflected onto another. The beam crisscrossed around them, creating the illusion that there were scores of lanterns. The effect was staggering. He also caught sight of his and the others' reflections from all angles.
    "The Sharps," Elliott said. "They're made of obsidian."
    Will began to study the nearest column. Its circumference wasn't rounded after all, but composed of a series of perfectly flat plains that ran vertically up its length, as if it had been formed by