by Диана Дуэйн
"And with you," those at the table said. Eftgan shouldered Sarsweng and strode out, the sunlight flashing on the poker's gemmed haft as she passed through , a bar of light falling down the stairs.
At breakfast's end Harald, Moris, Dritt, and Lang went off with the Darthene officers to look the place over. Herewiss sat quietly in his chair,
drinking spiced wine and looking thought-ful, while Freelorn stared out the window at the towering Adine massif.
On her way to the stairs, Segnbora stopped beside him. Her underhearing was prickling with his unease. "You all right?" she said. "You
look green."
Freelorn shrugged, not looking at her. "The change in altitude," he said. "It didn't agree with me. I had a bad night." He was lying, she knew. His eyes were fixed on Adine, and on the lesser peak, where a tiny glitter of silver bridgespan caught the morning Sun. Freelorn said nothing more aloud, but she caught his thought: If only my dreams weren't so bad! And behind the thought lay the sure conviction that something he had recently seen in dream was no baseless vision, but a foreknowledge of reality. A reality that he could avoid if he chose—
Freelorn swung around and leaned on the table. "Are you going to sit there drinking all day," he said to Herewiss, "or are you going to get
up and get Eftganf s business out of the way so1 we can tend to our own?"
Herewiss*s glance was much like Freelorn's — all mockery
above, and love below. . and underneath that, a breath of
fear very much suppressed. "Hark to the early riser," he said,
"who pulled me back into bed twice this morning when I
would have gotten up. Come on, you can help correct my
scansion. This wreaking tonight is going to be difficult …"
Their easy laughter faded down the stairs behind them. Segnbora sat down on the windowsill, gazing up in turn at the terrible blind walls and cruel precipices of Adine. The moun-tain cared nothing for human life. With such an audience before her, and the empty room behind, Segnbora took what was likely to be her last opportunity for a while, laid her head against the windowframe, and mourned the dead.
An hour or so before sunset, the seven of them took to horse at khas-Barachael gate to begin the ascent of Adine.
While they were saddling up, Torve came out of the stables leading a little rusty Steldene gelding. "Of your courtesy," he said to Herewiss,
"perhaps you'd take me as guide. I've rid-den this trail a number of times, and climbed to the summit too."
Herewiss looked at the young man, suppressing a smile. There was no need to read Torve's thought, for it was plain enough: He was staring at Khavrinen, which was slung over Herewiss's shoulder, like a small child staring at what the Goddess had left him on New Year's morning.
"With all these other spectators," Herewiss said, glancing around at Freelorn's band, most of whom were along only for the ride, "certainly we can use one person who'll earn his keep on the way. Come and welcome."
They headed out over the half-bridge that reached out from Barachael, on its two-thousand-foot pier of stone, across to the spur of Adine proper. The sorcerer-architects who built the place had carved a hundred foot gap right through the spur, so that with the drawbridge up the fortress stood unas-sailable, one great corner-shoulder turned to the spur.
Once across, a causey wide enough for ten horsemen abreast wound downward through several switchbacks. On both sides the road was overshadowed by cliffs, the shattered faces of which made it obvious that invaders had occasionally tried to come up that way against the defenders' wishes, and had had large rocks dropped on them for their trouble.
"They've tried a few times to shuck this oyster," Torve said cheerfully, "but even Reaver horses can't charge straight up." At its bottom the paved road gave out onto a narrow sad —
die-corridor between khas-Barachael rock and Swaleback, a flattened, marshy little spur of Adine. Torve led them east-ward and out into the valley proper, then southwestward along the skirts of the Adine massif. Past two minor spurs they went. The ground was rocky, and every now
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and then the mountain, cooling from the warmth of the day, would let a little reddish scree slide down at them.
Under Adine" s lengthening shadow they turned due west-ward into a long shallow rampway scoured out by an ancient glacier, and picked their way carefully among the boulders that lay scattered about. Some fifteen hundred feet up the mountain's flank, the ascent became too steep for horses.
"We'll leave them here," Torve said, dismounting. (Not all of them,) Sunspark said mildly. Torve glanced up in great surprise from the hobbling of his gelding, and noticed that Herewiss's mount was calmly stand-ing a foot above the ground. "Sir," he said, addressing Sun-spark with the slight bow due a fellow officer, "we haven't been introduced."
"Torve, this is Sunspark," Herewiss said, dismounting. "Firechild, be good to him, he's on our side. Torve, if you ever need a fortress reduced on short notice, Sunspark is the one to talk to. He eats stone for breakfast."
Torve nodded. Having seen a man with the Fire he looked as if he was now ready to believe anything. "Up this way," he said, and led them up the side of the cirque to a trail that led along its top, under the shadow of the great Adine summit.
They rounded the east-pointing scarp, moving quietly under the great out-handing cornice of snow that loomed a thousand feet above them, and so came to face the north side of the lesser summit ridge. The ridge stood up sheer as a wall, overhung in places, itself at least seven hundred feet high.
"Don't worry, it's not an expert-level climb," Torve said, looking up the walls of rock and ice with relish. "Beginners could handle it—" Freelorn, who had done extensive climbing in the High-peaks of Arlen as a child, made a wry face. Herewiss gazed up the cliff. "This trail is exactly as the song
describes it," he said. " 'Awful.' Torve, I hope you won't tell the Queen's grace on me, but I'm no climber. Maybe we Brightwood people have been down from the mountains too long. Sunspark?"
(Who'll go first?) Sunspark said, with an anticipatory grin. Freelorn's band blanched and began deferring to one an-other.
It took Herewiss and Freelorn and Torve first, managing the thousand-foot ascent to the summit ridge in a single leap. When Segnbora swung herself up into the saddle, Sunspark looked around at her with a naughty light in its eye. (Ner-vous?)
She gave it a threatening look in return and said nothing, while inside Hasai laughed at her. (Afraid of heights! Oh, Immanence within us, what kind of sdaha—) (Well enough for you to laugh. You've got wings. .) Hasai continued laughing, a deep rough hiss. Segnbora did her best to ignore him and made very sure of her seat. A moment later she was glad of her care, for Sunspark shot up to the summit, trailing bright fire like a newborn comet and going at least twice as fast as it had the first time. It came down fast, too, landing on the snow with a hiss of steam and an incongruously light impact. Shaky-kneed, Segnbora scrambled down. (Well, that was probably the high point of your day,) Sun-spark said, genially malicious.
"Mmmnh," Segnbora said, slapping it familiarly on the flank, and burning herself. "The others are waiting." It gave her a final look, walked off the precipice and plunged down out of sight.
She picked up a fistful of snow to cool the burned hand and walked over to join the others. They stood around the base of the Skybridge where it rooted into the stone, some thirty feet broad. The bridge had no look of a made thing about it, for there were no rivets, no marks of tools anywhere to be seen. Drawn from the mountain's heart by Fire, the metal had the light uprising grace of a growing thing about it, as if Adfne had put up stem and flower. There were actually a number of stems — three lower ones, anchoring the main spans to consecutively lower points on the side of the peak. The angle of the bridge itself wasn't steep: It gained perhaps a foot in height for each three of length. Herewiss he
ld Khavrinen out and touched the bright silvery metal of the bridge with the point — then jerked his arm back quickly as a blue
spark jumped from bridge to sword. "Fire-work, all right," he said, rubbing his arm as if it stung. "And a life-wreaking. No wonder poor Efmaer never came back. She either died of this wreaking or didn't recover enough Power to fight her way out again before Glasscastle vanished and took her away forever."
"You're going to have to do a life-wreaking too, to seal it off." Freelorn looked uneasy.
Herewiss stood with one hand on his hip, staring at the bridge the way a carpenter stares at a tree he must fell. "Well, the sealing has to be done whether I survive it or not. Don't worry, though, Lorn. Merely sealing it won't cost me the kind of effort building it cost Efmaer. I'll lose a month or two of life, and my head'll hurt tonight, but that's all."
Sunspark came up with Moris, whose great bulk left no room for other passengers, and then with Harald, Dritt, and Lang. Finally it paced over to Herewiss, peering over his shoulder at the bridge. Herewiss reached around its neck, patted it, then turned as if he had noticed something disturb-ing. "You all right, loved?" (It's cold up there,) Sunspark said.
Herewiss looked shocked. The others glanced at one an-other: they'd never heard the elemental say anything like that before. It pawed the ground uneasily, melting snow.
(All this water,) it said. (It's uncomfortable. And there's something else. .)
Segnbora turned her face away and considered what she felt coming from Sunspark: a cold that had nothing to do with the bone-chilling wind whispering about the summit. Up near the end of the bridge, something was pouring down a cold of the spirit that grew stronger as twilight grew deeper and the mountains less distinct. All of them were shivering, but the looks of foreboding and concern on their faces were far more disturbing.
Herewiss stroked Sunspark's neck. "We'll be down soon enough, loved. This won't take long. Shall we?"
It turned, offering him the stirrup. Herewiss mounted and sat looking at the bridge for a moment. It was a dark silhou-ette against the crystalline clarity of the golden mountain sunset. Abruptly he sent Fire down Khavrinen, lighting the whole mountaintop, and nudged Sunspark with his heels. The elemental walked off the cliff on the east side and stood on the empty air two thousand feet above the southface cirque.
"Down a bit," Herewiss said. Sunspark sank leisurely through the air, as if sliding down a stairway banister. "Torve," Herewiss called up to the peak, "where are the usual accesses?"
"East face," Torve said, "and northwest. But a climber with stepping-spikes and a rope could go up about anywhere. As for the suicides, the Queen said they find themselves on the summit without climbing."
"Thanks," Herewiss said. "It's got to be the whole thing, then." He reined Sunspark close to the sheer cliff that fell down from the summit, and touched the ice and snow with Khavrinen. Despite her trouble with heights, Segnbora crowded close to the edge with Torve and the others to watch the wreaking.
Blue Fire lanced from Khavrinen's point, melting snow and striking into the bare red rock of the mountain, which heated from red— to yellow— to white-hot and finally to an azure incan-descence. Flame leaped up from the kindled stone, though the tongues were small and sluggish, like those of an ordinary fire upon wet wood.
Sunspark moved around the peak, staying within arm's reach, and as elemental and rider progressed the bright line of blue melted itself into the stone behind them. Around the southeast spur they went, and out of sight. Most of Freelorn's band went around to watch the work on that side, but Torve stood by the cirque-facing cliff with Lang and Segnbora, shak-ing his head.
"This is a marvel," he said. "And strange. He's not what I expected a man with the Fire to be …" "The Rodmistresses in the Precincts agreed with you, I'm afraid," Segnbora said absently. For the moment her mind wasn't on Herewiss.
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For all her uneasiness with heights, something different was stirring in her now: a desire to lift wings and fall out into that glorious gulf of darkening blue air beneath her. A smile crossed her face at the realization that Dragons, like any of the more common soaring creatures of the world, preferred to drop from a height rather than to work for altitude. (And why not,) Hasai said, stretching wings lazily inside her and admiring the view himself. (Why waste energy, or man-ipulate field, when you don't have to? This is a fine height. Not as high as the Eorlhowe, to be sure, but a respectable height—) "There it is," Torve said, his voice very quiet. Segnbora glanced up from the glacier.
High to the west, above the vista of Adine peak behind them, past Esa and Mirit and the long sleek flank of White-stack, had risen a slim crescent of Moon. To its right, and lower, a point of light glittered: the Evenstar. Quickly Segn-bora looked upward along the silver-blue curve of the Sky-bridge. . and forgot to breathe.
It had come out as silently and suddenly as the Moon. The Skybridge, half of a curve before, was whole now. The new part of the span did look to be made of the sky — cerulean blue, transparent, yet very much there. And at the span's end rose Glasscastle. It was like a castle in an old story, a place built for pleasure rather than defense, fanciful and wide-windowed and fair. Halls and high towers pierced the upper air; slender spires were bound together by curving bridges and fairy buttresses. Everything, from the wide-flung gates at the end of the bridge to the highest needle spire, was built of the same airy crystal as the bridge.
The evening sky could plainly be seen through walls and towers. The fading hues of the sunset — rose, gold, and deepening royal blue — were reflected from them, pale and ghostly. Yet there was nothing fragile about the place. Glasscastle stood as immovably founded on the air as if on rock. It reflected the sunset colors, the icy light of the Moon,
and even the frozen gleam of the Evenstar, but cast no shadow.
"Not a moment too soon," Herewiss said, his voice hushed, as Sunspark stepped up to the peak again, completing their circuit of the mountaintop. All around the barrel of the peak burned a line of blue, the circle within which the spell would be confined. Herewiss dismounted and stood for a moment with Khavrinen in his hand, gazing up at the crystalline appa-rition.
"Beautiful," he said. "But from now on, that's all it's going to be." He struck Khavrinen,'s point down into the snow at the foot of the bridge, and looked up the curve of metal, raising his arms—
— and stopped, squinting upwr ard. "Who's that?" he said. Everyone looked. Segnbora's stomach constricted at the sight of the lone dark figure approaching the end of the metal part of the span, a tiny shadow against the twilight.
"I don't believe it," Herewiss said, in the voice of someone who does believe it, and wishes he were wrong. "I don't — LORN!"
Nine
THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
"It's dangerous to invoke the Goddess as you conceive Her to be," said lav. "and more dangerous still to invoke Her as She truly is."
"Right enough," said Airru. "Breathing is dangerous too. But necessary.. "
fates from the South, x, 118
Herewiss's anguished shout came back as echoes, but had no effect on the small dark silhouette that hurried purposefully up the bridge. Herewiss swung Khavrinen up two-handed, pointing at Freelorn, and the sword spat a blinding line of Fire that ran upward toward him — but whatever wreaking he had in mind came unraveled before it ever touched Lorn. Many feet short of the bridge, the Fire hit some unseen bar-rier and splashed in all directions like water thrown at a wall. Freelorn kept walking. Another twenty paces would see him up onto the phantom portion of the span. Herewiss wasn't waiting; he ran up the bridge after his loved, swearing fright-fully in an ancient Arlene dialect, Khavrinen streaming frantic Fire behind him. Sunspark went galloping up after, unable to leave his loved.
"Damn!" Lang said, and followed. "Torve, wait here!" Segnbora said, unsheathing Char-riselm as she headed after Lang. "Are yo
u joking? The Queen would. ." Torve began to say as he followed her and the others onto the bridge. They didn't run long — the altitude saw to that. Only Torve could run fast enough to catch up with Herewiss. In addition, the bridge was longer than it looked: an eighth mile, perhaps, to the point where it truly became sky. Far ahead of them, Freelorn's small figure slowed in its stride, hesitating only briefly. He put one foot on the phantom bridge, found it would support him, and went on as before, in a confident but hurried walk.
Damn! Segnbora thought as she ran. She clutched Char-riselm harder than necessary, for her hands and face were
numb from the chill. That other, more inward cold was pour-ing down more bitterly than before, yet she didn't suffer much from it. Something was blunting its effects; something inside her, burning— (Hasai!) she said as she caught up with Herewiss and Sun-spark and Torve. (Is that you?) (Sdaha, against the great cold of the outer darknesses, this is nothing. We have learned to deal with cold.) (I'm glad!) she said silently.
Herewiss and Torve had paused at the edge of the phantom span, and behind them Sunspark stood, looking downright dubious. The Fire— wrought part of the bridge was as thick and wide as the railless metal span, but clear and as fragile as air. Herewiss knelt to brush his fingers across it and straightened quickly, as if burnt.
"Whoever did this wreaking," he gasped, "they've got more Power than I have — and they're up there now, fueling it!" He got to his feet and stepped out onto the crystalline part of the bridge, realized that the footing was secure, and took off after Freelorn again at a run.
Torve and the others went after, Sunspark hammering be-hind them at a gallop, the bridge under its feet ringing like struck crystal. Segnbora followed, stepping out onto the bridge. Maybe I shouldn't, she thought as she looked down. But to her surprise, the vista of shadows and creeping fog that veiled the south— face glacier half a mile below didn't much trouble her. Hasai's Dragofire was strong in her, getting stronger as she headed after the others. Lady grant it holds, she thought, beginning to run.
