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LJI F&R 17: Just breathe...
Apr. 8th, 2016 09:44 amThe story so far:
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11| 12 | 13 | Part 14
Popping my head up above street level from the cellar staircase, I saw the cart that had brought me and Usha into town, it seemed, an eternity ago. It stood about twenty yards from the cellar entrance and it occurred to me that, next to the bag under the driver’s seat was a set of pulley blocks and ropes that…
I stopped thinking and started moving.
Master Lascaux had made a point of teaching me how to use a block and tackle. Because it confers advantage to a person of your size, he had explained. Using a double pulley, for example, you can move a forty stone load using a force of only ten stone.
As I rapidly arranged the blocks and tackle from the back of the cart—I mumbled a prayer of thanks that the rope was not tangled—I became increasingly confident that Usha and I could drag Fremd’s bulk clear of the cellar and the inferno the inn was becoming.
I jumped down from the cart, chocked the wheels with some of the other gear in the back of the cart, and ran back into the cellar with a rope end. Before tying the rope around Fremd’s ankles, I got Usha’s attention, pointed to a bag of onions, and mimed opening it.
As she set about that task, I lifted Fremd’s legs and—it was as if she had read my mind!—Usha emptied the sack she had opened in the space where Fremd’s legs had been. We're going to roll him right over those onions! I thought to myself.
Fremd’s torso was too heavy for me to lift, so I turned my attention to grabbing several smaller sacks of beans and laying them in the spaces between the risers and treads of the cellar steps. Between the onions and the less bumpy nature of the stairs, I hoped to make it easier to get Fremd out of the cellar.
The air moving through the cellar had been keeping the temperature in the cellar from becoming lethally high, but the glowing embers in the door frame and in the passage beyond made it clear we had to remove ourselves from the place as quickly as possible. I motioned for Usha to come with me.
She put her mouth next to my ear. “I’m not leaving Fremd!” she cried.
“I need your help to save him!” I yelled back, into her ear. She rocked back to look into my eyes and then, satisfied with what she saw, unhesitatingly scrambled up after me, over the bags I had placed in the stairs.
We dashed to the cart, where I picked up the rope and planted my feet to maximize my pulling force. Usha mirrored my actions on the other side of the rope, taking hold of the line a couple of feet in front of me. Arranged in this way, we started pulling on the rope that wound its way through the pulleys and eventually, around Fremd’s ankles.
While it is true that a pulley confers an advantage in terms of how much force you need to exert to move something, the nature of machines is that an advantage in one place is accompanied by a disadvantage in another. In practical terms, this meant that instead of hauling Fremd a distance of twenty yards, we pulled one-quarter of Fremd’s weight for four times the distance in rope.
When we were finished, Usha and I were trembling with the effort—my muscles felt like jelly and it seemed to take all my remaining energy to just breathe—but Fremd was well clear of the cellar. That said, Fremd and Usha and I were still too close to the inn.
I looked up at the sky, and saw it was filled with angry red sparks and glowing orange gases being belched from the top of the vertical shaft that ran the height of the structure, and it occurred to me that the sight must be visible for some distance.
I turned my head to look around, and saw that Usha had stepped away to talk to some townfolk, who had gathered at a safe distance to see the conflagrating spectacle. Now, a few of them broke away from the group to join Usha as she returned to where I was now trying to untie Fremd, and meeting with little success. My fingers could barely move.
“Here he is,” I heard her say. “He’s been rendered unconscious by Malon’s men. Please get him away from here and take care of him.”
“We will, miss Usha,” said one of the group that had come with her as another man gently moved me aside and started working on the rope around Fremd’s ankles. I found I could not gain my feet, so I sat down there, in the dirt.
Moments later, a litter appeared. Fremd was placed in it and taken away. Usha knelt next to me and kissed me gently on the cheek. Thus renewed, I felt strong enough to rise to my feet, and did, if unsteadily.
I then turned and took a good look at Usha, and I smiled. The frock she had taken from mother Malon was burned in places, most of Usha’s red hair had been singed away, and black soot covered much of her face, her arms, and her legs. But she was alive! And she was looking at me and smiling, too.
I was sure I looked just as hard-ridden.
“What now, milady?” I asked Usha, with mock formality. Her immediate reaction was to roll her eyes. Then her smile got even bigger.
“I suggest we make ourselves scarce,” she said. “Malon’s going to be pretty upset about us burning down his inn and me doing what I did to his mother.”
“Lead the way,” I said. My questions—and a whole lot of rest—could wait until later.
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11| 12 | 13 | Part 14
Part 15
The burning door frame to the secret passage under the inn was doing a fair imitation of the Gates of Hell as air rushed in through the cellar door, whistled through the frame, and then howled onward, through the natural “chimney” formed by the passage and vertical shaft that ran the height of the building. Usha was tending to an unconscious Fremd, who lay on the floor with his feet pointed at the cellar stairs, and she had already made it clear to me that she—which meant we, in my mind—would not leave the cellar without him. So be it.Popping my head up above street level from the cellar staircase, I saw the cart that had brought me and Usha into town, it seemed, an eternity ago. It stood about twenty yards from the cellar entrance and it occurred to me that, next to the bag under the driver’s seat was a set of pulley blocks and ropes that…
I stopped thinking and started moving.
Master Lascaux had made a point of teaching me how to use a block and tackle. Because it confers advantage to a person of your size, he had explained. Using a double pulley, for example, you can move a forty stone load using a force of only ten stone.
As I rapidly arranged the blocks and tackle from the back of the cart—I mumbled a prayer of thanks that the rope was not tangled—I became increasingly confident that Usha and I could drag Fremd’s bulk clear of the cellar and the inferno the inn was becoming.
I jumped down from the cart, chocked the wheels with some of the other gear in the back of the cart, and ran back into the cellar with a rope end. Before tying the rope around Fremd’s ankles, I got Usha’s attention, pointed to a bag of onions, and mimed opening it.
As she set about that task, I lifted Fremd’s legs and—it was as if she had read my mind!—Usha emptied the sack she had opened in the space where Fremd’s legs had been. We're going to roll him right over those onions! I thought to myself.
Fremd’s torso was too heavy for me to lift, so I turned my attention to grabbing several smaller sacks of beans and laying them in the spaces between the risers and treads of the cellar steps. Between the onions and the less bumpy nature of the stairs, I hoped to make it easier to get Fremd out of the cellar.
The air moving through the cellar had been keeping the temperature in the cellar from becoming lethally high, but the glowing embers in the door frame and in the passage beyond made it clear we had to remove ourselves from the place as quickly as possible. I motioned for Usha to come with me.
She put her mouth next to my ear. “I’m not leaving Fremd!” she cried.
“I need your help to save him!” I yelled back, into her ear. She rocked back to look into my eyes and then, satisfied with what she saw, unhesitatingly scrambled up after me, over the bags I had placed in the stairs.
We dashed to the cart, where I picked up the rope and planted my feet to maximize my pulling force. Usha mirrored my actions on the other side of the rope, taking hold of the line a couple of feet in front of me. Arranged in this way, we started pulling on the rope that wound its way through the pulleys and eventually, around Fremd’s ankles.
While it is true that a pulley confers an advantage in terms of how much force you need to exert to move something, the nature of machines is that an advantage in one place is accompanied by a disadvantage in another. In practical terms, this meant that instead of hauling Fremd a distance of twenty yards, we pulled one-quarter of Fremd’s weight for four times the distance in rope.
When we were finished, Usha and I were trembling with the effort—my muscles felt like jelly and it seemed to take all my remaining energy to just breathe—but Fremd was well clear of the cellar. That said, Fremd and Usha and I were still too close to the inn.
I looked up at the sky, and saw it was filled with angry red sparks and glowing orange gases being belched from the top of the vertical shaft that ran the height of the structure, and it occurred to me that the sight must be visible for some distance.
I turned my head to look around, and saw that Usha had stepped away to talk to some townfolk, who had gathered at a safe distance to see the conflagrating spectacle. Now, a few of them broke away from the group to join Usha as she returned to where I was now trying to untie Fremd, and meeting with little success. My fingers could barely move.
“Here he is,” I heard her say. “He’s been rendered unconscious by Malon’s men. Please get him away from here and take care of him.”
“We will, miss Usha,” said one of the group that had come with her as another man gently moved me aside and started working on the rope around Fremd’s ankles. I found I could not gain my feet, so I sat down there, in the dirt.
Moments later, a litter appeared. Fremd was placed in it and taken away. Usha knelt next to me and kissed me gently on the cheek. Thus renewed, I felt strong enough to rise to my feet, and did, if unsteadily.
I then turned and took a good look at Usha, and I smiled. The frock she had taken from mother Malon was burned in places, most of Usha’s red hair had been singed away, and black soot covered much of her face, her arms, and her legs. But she was alive! And she was looking at me and smiling, too.
I was sure I looked just as hard-ridden.
“What now, milady?” I asked Usha, with mock formality. Her immediate reaction was to roll her eyes. Then her smile got even bigger.
“I suggest we make ourselves scarce,” she said. “Malon’s going to be pretty upset about us burning down his inn and me doing what I did to his mother.”
“Lead the way,” I said. My questions—and a whole lot of rest—could wait until later.
