XVIIIFinn closed the door behind him. At least he couldn't see any ironclads. But he couldn't face climbing more stairs. He was so exhausted it felt like the ground was sucking him into it. The old man had talked about a lift. Perhaps it was something like the hay lifts back home.
The tips of his fingers tingled and throbbed from the chain wrapped tight around his arm. He tried to prize it off but the barbed teeth of the grapple were completely interlocked with the chain's links. He succeeded only in slicing open the tip of his thumb. Perhaps he should have asked the old man if he had a key.
He sighed and set off, walking past the steps, around the tall, curving wall on his right. He could hear a wooden clumping noise coming from up ahead. A little farther around the wall the room ended
