by Terry Brooks
There were fountains, ponds, and streams, too, their waters rippling and shimmering dark silver in the fading light. There were walkways formed of crushed stone and tile, set with benches of polished stone. There were shrines filled with strange images and inset with precious metals. There were columns of marble and granite. For as far as the eye could see, that part of Stridegate looked to have been untouched by time.
“How can this be?” Tagwen whispered, coming up to stand beside Pen. “Who could have done this?”
“Not those Urdas,” Khyber whispered back.
Pen didn’t hear them. He was listening to something else, something the others couldn’t hear. It was a voice, deep and resonant. He couldn’t locate its source, but he could hear it clearly. It was speaking to him. It was calling his name.
Kermadec and his Trolls were fanning out through the gardens, searching for hidden dangers, suspicious of what they were seeing. As they should be, Pen was thinking, still listening to the voice.
“Something lives here,” Cinnaminson whispered, her smooth face lifting toward the light. “Something waits.”
Pen shook his head slowly. The voice that called his name went silent. He was aware of something else then, perhaps the same thing that had attracted Cinnaminson’s attention. It was close, but it was deep underground, he thought. It was huge and ancient. It was not human. He was sensing it through his magic at every turn. He was reading it from the things that grew in the gardens, from the small rustlings and movements of the plants and flowers, vines and grasses. They whispered of it. They responded to it. Insects and birds and animals, they carried knowledge of it. They could not give it a name or a description; they could only give it a presence.
Pen took a deep breath. “I sense it, too,” he whispered.
Cinnaminson was already moving ahead into the gardens, her sun-browned face intense and her blind eyes sweeping over everything as if seeing what no one else could. She moved swiftly and determinedly, passing by Kermadec, who turned at her approach but did not try to stop her. Instead he joined her and beckoned for the others to follow.
Khyber was already hurrying after them. Pen stood rooted in place, still hesitating.
“There is something wrong here,” Tagwen said uneasily, standing beside him. “These gardens are beautiful, but there is something wrong about them.”
Pen felt it, too, although he couldn’t explain it. “We’dbetter go.”
They followed the others, Pen casting wary glances left and right, still searching for the voice, for the presence, for anything that would explain what they were seeing. But nothing appeared, and the gardens stretched on in a profusion of brilliant colors and sweet smells. Even in the enfolding twilight, they shimmered with a vibrancy that seemed so foreign to everything that had gone before that it was as if the travelers had entered a dream world.
Pen stared about in wonder. How could it be possible?
They caught up to the rest of the company, which was still following Cinnaminson. The Rover girl was walking as if she knew exactly where she was going, her head lifted into the breeze, her path steady and undeviating. It seemed to Pen as if she were listening to something. He wondered suddenly if the spirits of the air had returned, if she was responding to their voices.
Was that who he had sensed, as well?
The group reached a set of broad stone stairs that led upward until they disappeared into the twilight haze. Cinnaminson never paused. She began to climb the steps as soon as she reached them, and the rest of them had no choice but to follow if they were to see where she was going. Pen and Tagwen still trailed the larger group. The boy was beginning to sense something again, a stirring or a whisper, it was hard to tell. He put out feelers, reaching for what was clearly there, but although he could sense it easily, he could not identify it. There was something confusing about what he was finding; it was almost as if he lacked a frame of reference with which to understand it.
At the top of the stairs, the little company came to a halt behind Cinnaminson, who had stopped finally and was pointing ahead. The Rover girl’s face was intense and she was breathing hard. Kermadec was trying to talk to her, but she wasn’t responding. Pen, seeing what was happening, abandoned Tagwen and hurried forward.
“Cinnaminson,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and turning her to face him.
Her young face was flushed with excitement. “We have to go there. We have to follow them,” she said.
He looked in the direction she was pointing. An ancient stone arch, pitted by weather and time, bridged from the grassy area on which they stood to a forest of massive trees that sat atop a pinnacle of rock, a forested island surrounded by a deep ravine that ringed it like a moat, stretching away for as far as his eyes could see in the rapidly dimming daylight. The trees on the pinnacle were tall and straight and unbroken, rising hundreds of feet against the skyline, their bark mottled by greenish gray patches of moss. Their branches were deeply intertwined, forming a canopy so thick that it shut away the sky, but their trunks were widely spaced and the ground beneath opened through, clear and uncluttered by undergrowth. The forest backed away from the edge of the ravine in front of them until it joined with the curtain of the encroaching night.
Cinnaminson lowered her head against his shoulder, as if all the strength had gone out of her. “Did you hear them, too, Pen? Did you hear their voices?”
He wrapped her in his arms and stroked her long hair. “The spirits of the air?” he guessed. “The ones from before?”
She nodded. “From the edge of the gardens. Did you hear them?”
“I sensed them, but they spoke only to you.” Something else spoke to me.
“No. It wasn’t speaking. They didn’t use words. But I knew what they wanted. For us to follow them. For us to cross to the island.”
Pen looked again at the narrow stone arch and the forested pinnacle of rock beyond. The top of the pinnacle was mostly flat, though rock formations jutted from between the old growth and ravines split the forest floor. The interior of the woods was dark and shadowed in the failing light. It was difficult to tell how deep in it went.
“Is the tanequil in there?” he asked quietly. “Is this the place?”
She hesitated, then lifted her head to stare blindly at him. “Something is in there. Something is waiting.”
Kermadec touched Pen on the shoulder and, when he turned, directed his attention to a flat-faced boulder into which symbols had been carved, the markings so worn they were almost unreadable.
“This is the warning of which I spoke,” the Maturen advised. “Written in the Gnome language. Very old. It tells strangers that the place is forbidden. It warns that to cross the bridge is death.” He looked at the boy. “We can’t risk you going until we know. One of us will have to go first.”
“No!” Cinnaminson said sharply. Her eyes were suddenly frantic. “No one is to cross but Pen and me. We alone are permitted entry. The spirits of the air insist!”
Atalan gave an audible snort and looked off into the trees. Tagwen began rubbing at his beard the way he did when he was anxious.
“They told you this?” Kermadec pressed her. “These spirits? You are not mistaken?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Khyber interrupted. “I’m going with them, whatever these spirits say. Ahren gave the responsibility of making this journey to me. He gave me the only real weapon we have. The Elfstones will protect us. And I have the use of Druid magic. Whatever threatens, I will be able to keep it at bay.”
“No,” Cinnaminson said again. She walked over to Khyber and embraced her. “Please, Khyber, no. The warning is clear. You cannot come with us. I wish you could. But whatever lies on the other side is for Pen alone.”
“And for you, it seems,” Khyber said quietly.
“And for me.” Cinnaminson released her and stepped back. There were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand why the spirits have chosen me. But my sense of what they want is very clear. Pen is to go
and I am to go with him. But you cannot come. You must not.”
“This could easily be a trap,” Atalan pointed out, his flat face dark with suspicion as he swung back around again. “You are awfully trusting of invisible voices, Rover girl. If they have bad intentions, you will likely be dead before you know of them.”
“He is right,” Khyber agreed. “You are too trusting.”
Cinnaminson shook her head. “They are not dangerous to us. They mean us no harm. I have felt them guiding us ever since we entered Stridegate. They are a presence meant to shelter us, not to cause us harm.”
She turned to Kermadec. “Please. They have been waiting for us. They want something from us, but they won’t tell us what it is until we cross the bridge.” She hesitated. “What choice do we have but to do as they expect? Pen has come in search of the tanequil, and the Elfstones have shown it to be on this island. Doesn’t he have to cross over and find out if it is really there?”
There was a long silence as the other members of the company looked at one another uneasily. Even the Rock Trolls, who spoke little of her language, seemed to sense what was happening. Already on edge from their encounter with the Urdas, they were suspicious of everything in this strange place. Stridegate belonged to the past, to a time dead and gone. They had intruded on that past by going there, and they were anxious to do what was needed and be gone again. Most looked to Kermadec, waiting on his decision.
Cinnaminson turned to Pen, her blind eyes empty, but her face bright with expectation. “You understand, don’t you, Pen? You know what we have to do. Will you cross with me?”
The boy nodded. “I will.” He looked at Kermadec. “There is nothing to be gained by sending someone on ahead. It would be a pointless sacrifice that would tell us nothing. Cinnaminson and I are the ones who must test the warning.”
He could tell that the big Troll was unhappy with the idea, the impassive face giving away just enough to reveal his displeasure. The Maturen glanced at Tagwen and then Khyber, shaking his head. “I don’t like it, but his point is well taken. We won’t know anything if we don’t let them try. We will have come all this way for nothing.”
Atalan walked to the edge of the ravine and peered down. “It’s deep enough that I cannot make out the bottom. Maybe there isn’t one.” He looked back at them. “If you fall off that bridge, boy, we will have come all this way for nothing, anyway.”
“Tie a rope around his waist,” Khyber suggested suddenly. “Tie one to each of them. It couldn’t hurt.”
They did so, the trolls knotting the ropes in place and taking up positions on both sides of the bridge, ready to haul back should it be required. Pen felt foolish, trussed as he was. He thought the effort pointless. If the spirits of the air or whatever else dwelled in that place wanted them dead, they were not going to be able to save themselves anyway.
He looked at Cinnaminson and wished she weren’t involved. It was bad enough risking his life. He didn’t care to risk hers, as well. It wasn’t her fight. It had nothing to do with her. She was here because of him, and that was unforgivable.
“Pen.” Khyber came up to him. “I will stand at the edge of the ravine when you cross. If anything threatens—anything at all—I will use the Druid magic and the Elfstones to help you.” Her lips tightened. “I won’t fail you.”
He nodded and smiled. “You haven’t yet, Khyber.”
Cinnaminson took hold of his hand. Pen looked around at those assembled, those who had come with him on the quest. The trolls stared back, blank-faced and imperturbable. Tagwen was tugging on his beard, but he managed an encouraging nod. Khyber was already at the edge of the ravine, the Elfstones gripped in her hand, her dark face alert and watchful.
Pen took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. With Cinnaminson’s hand in his own, he began to walk toward the bridge.
TWENTY-THREE
As he approached, Pen was able to take a closer look at the bridge, and what he saw gave him pause. It was narrow, less than eight feet wide, and provided no handholds to protect against a fall. You don’t want to walk too close to the edge, he thought. You don’t want to look down.
But it was the nature of its construction that troubled him most. The bridge was formed of massive stone blocks cut and placed so precisely that the seams were barely noticeable. Each block was wedge shaped, with the narrow part pointed downward, the blocks carefully fitted and aligned so that the weight of each was buttressed by the others, the whole arranged to form the arch that spanned the ravine. There were no pins or supports or any kind. Stone abutments at each end wrapped the corners, serving as cradles to keep the stones tightly pressed together and immobile.
But the massive blocks each must have weighed thousands of pounds. How had they been shaped, carried, and placed across the ravine without underlying supports? They could not have just hung in midair, each in turn, while the rest were fitted. Pen could not fathom it. Even using pulleys and a block and tackle it would have been impossible to suspend the first stones while waiting to set the others. They were too big, too heavy, and too cumbersome.
There was something else to consider, he saw. These stones were not as old as those of the ruins themselves. They were smooth and not yet worn and pitted by weather and time as were the walls behind which Pen and his companions had hidden earlier. Stridegate was thousands of years old. The bridge was much newer. It had been constructed long after the city was destroyed and its inhabitants dead.
The implications of his reasoning caused him to shiver; they made him want to turn around right then and there and go back.
It would have taken at least one giant to construct this bridge. It would have taken technology that no longer existed in his world.
Or it would have taken a very powerful magic.
He didn’t care for any of those possibilities. All were beyond anything the group had ever encountered. It dwarfed them, reducing their tiny defenses to a handful of pebbles. Even Khyber, with the magic of the Elfstones to aid her, would not be able to stand against something that could accomplish what he saw before him.
He stopped abruptly, not five feet from the bridge, and stood staring at it. Sensing his discomfort, Cinnaminson whispered, “Pen? What’s wrong?”
He didn’t know what to say in reply, how to explain. He wasn’t sure he should try. He couldn’t turn back, couldn’t give up. The Ard Rhys needed him to go forward if she was to have any chance at all of escaping the Forbidding. Those he had come with needed him to cross if they were to realize any success from their efforts to bring him there. All other considerations, no matter how daunting, had to be put aside.
He was just a boy, but he knew instinctively what he must do.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry.”
He started forward again, leading her onto the bridge, reaching out with his senses into the twilight shadows that now draped everything from the forested pinnacle to the ravine that surrounded it to the bridge that reached to it. He used his tiny magic, his strange gift, to seek anything that might be waiting. Whispers came back to him, small rustlings and little hissings. They came from unidentifiable sources, from the impenetrable dark, from the void. He heard them, but could not make sense of them. He sorted through them swiftly, seeking just one that he might recognize.
Nothing.
He glanced over the side of the bridge into the ravine, into the pooled darkness. His gaze tightened. Was something moving down there?
He slowed, caution once again taking hold.
–Cross–
A chorus of voices spoke, all sounding the same, all whispering in perfect unison. They echoed in his mind, clear as the ringing of a bell. He started in shock, then glanced quickly at Cinnaminson.
“The spirits of the air,” she said softly. “Can you can hear them, too?”
He nodded, surprised that he could, wondering why they were speaking to him, as well.
–Cross–
Fairy voices,
soft and feminine. Telling him to come ahead, to do what they had brought him to do.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
–Aeriads. Spirits of the air–
“What is the matter?” Khyber called out to them, a disembodied voice from somewhere behind. “Are you all right?”
He waved back at her without looking.
–Cross–
The whispers urged him to obey, and he did so, not knowing why exactly, not understanding the nature of his readiness to do as they commanded, only knowing that he should. He moved slowly, one careful step at a time, climbing toward the apex of the stone arch, watching the island pinnacle draw steadily closer.
“Where do you come from?” he whispered, not really expecting an answer, but curious anyway.
–From our father and mother. From seedlings strewn far and wide. From wind and rain and time–
Surprised, Pen considered the words. He had no idea what they meant, but the word seedlings caught his attention.
“Are you children of the tanequil? Is the tree your father?”
–Our father and our mother. One lives in light; one dwells in dark. One has limbs; one has roots. They wait for you–
Pen shook his head. At the center of the bridge, at the apex of the stone arch, suspended above the dark void of the ravine, he was suddenly aware of something stirring down in the depths, down where he couldn’t see. His senses warned him, but he could not trace that warning to anything specific. He just knew. He froze in response, feeling Cinnaminson do the same. She was aware of it, as well. It wasn’t the rustle of grasses or the whisper of leaves. This was something much larger—like the heavy rub of a massive animal passing through brush or the drag of logs, cut and chained, through dry earth. But it wasn’t localized like that, either. It was spread all through the ravine, twisting and turning along ruts and down sinkholes, oozing and burrowing through dirt and under loose stone.
