by Diane Duane
Segnbora 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. Drawn from the mountain’s heart by Fire, the metal had the light uprising grace of a growing thing about it, as if Adínë had put up a shining shoot or stem. There were actually several stems—three lower ones, anchoring the main span 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 held Khávrinen 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. “Firework, 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 with it forever.”
“You’re going to have to do a life-wreaking too, then, to seal it off,” Freelorn said, looking 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. But, Lorn, don’t worry. 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 should be all.”
Sunspark came up with Moris, whose size 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 disturbing. “You all right, loved?”
(It’s cold up there,) Sunspark said.
Herewiss looked shocked. The others glanced at one another: they’d never heard the elemental say anything of the kind 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 Sunspark reacting to: a cold that had nothing to do with the bone-chilling wind whining around the summit. From 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. Everyone was shivering, but the looks of foreboding and concern on the others’ 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 silhouette against the crystalline clarity of the golden mountain sunset. Abruptly he sent Fire down Khávrinen, 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 south-face 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 reached out to the ice and snow with Khávrinen. Despite her trouble with heights, Segnbora crowded close to the edge with Torve and the others to watch the wreaking.
Blue Fire lanced from Khávrinen’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 incandescence. Flame leaped up from the kindled stone, though the tongues were small and sluggish, like those of an ordinary fire on 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, shaking 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. 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 manipulate field, when you don’t have to? This is a fine height. Not as high as the Eorlhowe, to be sure, but quite respectable—)
“There it is,” Torve said, his voice very quiet. Segnbora glanced up from the glacier.
High to the west, above the vista of Adínë peak behind them, past Esa and Mirit and the long sleek flank of Whitestack, had risen a slim crescent of Moon. To its right, and lower, a point of light glittered: the Evenstar. Quickly Segnbora looked upward along the silver-blue curve of the Skybridge… 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. Sharp-roofed halls and high towers pierced the upper air; slender spires were bound together by curving bridges and 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; and the evening sky could plainly be seen through the walls and towers. The fading hues of sunset—rose, gold, and deepening royal blue—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, reflecting the sunset, the Moon’s icy light, and even the frozen gleam of the Evenstar, but casting 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 Khávrinen in his hand, gazing up at the crystalline apparition.
“Beautiful,” he said. “But from now on, that’s all it’s going to be.” He struck Khávrinen’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 upward. “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
“It’s dangerous to invoke the Goddess as you conceive Her to be,” said Tav, “and more dangerous still to invoke Her as She truly is.”
“Right enough,” said Airru. “Breathing is dangerous too. But necessary…”
Tales from the South, x, 118
Herewiss’s anguished shout came back as echoes, but had no effect on the small dark silhouette walking purposefully up the bridge. “What the D — What possessed him? Lorn!” Herewiss shouted again, and swung Khávrinen up two-handed, pointing it at Freelorn. The sword spat
a blinding line of Fire that ran upward toward Freelorn—but whatever wreaking HerewisseHe had in mind came unraveled before it ever touched his loved. Many feet short of the bridge, the Fire hit some unseen barrier 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 ran up the bridge after his loved, swearing frightfully in ancient Arlene, with Khávrinen streaming frantic Fire behind him. Sunspark went galloping up after him.
“Damn!” Lang said, and followed.
“Torve, wait here!” Segnbora said, unsheathing Charriselm as she headed after Lang.
“Are you joking? Do you know what the Queen would do to me?” Torve said, following 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 Charriselm harder than necessary, for her hands and face were numb from the chill. That other, more inward cold was pouring 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 silently as she caught up with Herewiss and Sunspark and Torve. (Is that you?)
(Sdaha, against the great cold of the outer darknesses, this is . We’ve learned to cope with cold.)
(I’m glad!)
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, assured himself that the footing was secure, and took off after Freelorn again at a run. Torve and the others went after, Sunspark hammering along behind them at a gallop, the bridge under its feet ringing like struck crystal.
Segnbora followed, stepping out onto the bridge. Reflexively she started to look down, then thought Maybe I shouldn’t… But to her surprise, the vista of shadows and creeping fog that veiled the south-face glacier half a mile below wasn’t much troubling her. Hasai’s Dragonfire was strong in her at the moment, getting stronger as she headed after the others. Lady grant it holds, she thought, beginning to run.
Away up at the Skybridge’s end, between the two huge crystal doors that lay open there, a tiny figure passed into the dimness beyond and was lost to sight. The group ahead of Segnbora slowed and came to a stop at the end of the bridge, gazing up at the chill clear grace of towers and keeps and the awful height and thickness of the doors before them. Segnbora caught up with them, feeling their fear almost as clearly as her own. Sai Ebássren, the place was called in Darthene: the House of No Return. What lay within, no legend told. The only certainty was that when the three Lights vanished, so would Glasscastle, and anyone trapped inside would never come out again.
Herewiss did not pause for long. Pushing a great defiant glory of the Flame down Khávrinen’s length, he stepped through the doors, and the twilight within swallowed him as it had Freelorn. For an instant Khávrinen glimmered like a star seen through fog; then its light vanished.
Sunspark hesitated at the doors, though only for a moment. It was trembling in body, a sight that astounded Segnbora. “Firechild?”
(I’m bound,) it said in terror. (I can’t burn! I can’t change—)
She reached out to it in mind, perplexed, and felt Sunspark drowning in a cold more deadly than the lost gulfs between stars that Hasai had mentioned… a cold that could kill thought and motion and change of any kind, and from which Hasai had been shielding her. (Maybe you should stay outside,) she said.
Sunspark turned hard eyes on her. (I will not let him come to harm in there,) it said, and turned away to walk shaking through the doors. The dimness folded around its burning mane and tail, and Sunspark vanished.
“That’s done it,” Lang said, genial and terrified. “Damned if I’ll be outdone by a walking campfire—” He unsheathed his sword and went after, Torve close behind him.
There Segnbora stood, left alone on the threshold, trembling nearly as hard as Sunspark had.
No return…
She swore and hurried in behind the others.
***
She was in a great hall, all walled in sheer unfigured crystal, through which Adínë and the peaks beyond it showed clear. The air was thick with a blue dusk, like smoke. Segnbora barely had time to glance around her, though, before the terrible thought-numbing cold she had experienced through Sunspark came crowding in close around her, ten times worse than it had been outside.
From within her came an answering flare, Hasai and the mdeihei calling up old memories of warmth and daylight to fight the cold. Segnbora regained a little composure, looked around for the others. They were nowhere in sight. Deep in the twilight she saw vague forms moving, but somehow she knew that none of them were those with whom she’d entered. Her companions were all lost in the blueness, with Freelorn.
(Herewiss!) she called silently. (Sunspark!) But no reply came back, and her underspeech fell into a mental silence as thick as if she had shouted into a heavily curtained room.
“Herewiss!” she shouted aloud. The curling twilight soaked up the sound of her voice like heavy fog. She hurried off into the blueness to try to find him or Freelorn.
For all her terror, the sheer scale of the wreaking that had made this place astonished Segnbora. Even at first entrance the place had seemed as big as Earneselle, or the Queens’ Hall in Prydon. But as she walked across the vast glassy floor, the walls grew remote, and the ceiling seemed to become a firmament that not even a soaring Dragon could reach. Mirrored in walls, galleries and crystalline arches, Segnbora could glimpse vague intimations of other rooms: up-reaching towers and balconies, parlors and courts, an infinity of glass reflected dimly in glass, too huge to ever know or search completely.
That terrible chill was part of the wreaking too, though here inside the castle seemed not to bite so viciously at the bones. It was becoming a quality of the mind: a cool lassitude, a twilight that ran in the veins and curled shadowy in the heart, smothering fear and veiling the desire to be out of there. She could feel that cold rising in her, but the presence of Hasai and the mdeihei was a match for ; their ancient sunfire burned the twilight out of her blood as fast as it grew. A weary melancholy, a desire to leave off striving and surrender to the dim stillness of the place forever, came in with every breath – but there was Dragonfire at the bottom of her lungs, painful and bright, burning the sad resignation away. Frightened by the constant assault, but reassured by the Dragons’ presence, Segnbora headed deeper into the shadowy blue.
The dead and those who had abandoned life gradually became evident around her. They were many, but none of them walked together. Young men and old women she passed; foreigners and countrymen, maidens and lords, and none of them took the slightest notice of her as they walked slowly, aimlessly through the blue—languid, uncaring, lost.
The place was a terrible parody of the last Shore by that Sea of which the Starlight is a faint intimation. The dead who walked there were at least aware. Here and there Segnbora caught sight of a surcoat-device she recognized, but afterward she was generally sorry she had looked. The dead wandered through the blue with ancient wounds in plain sight, neither bleeding nor healed…and the eyes of the wounded were oblivious, as if the injuries belonged to someone else.
Through ha
lls and galleries and passages Segnbora made her way in increasing haste, up and down stairs, while Glasscastle’s inhabitants drifted around her, unaware, unconcerned. The feeling of sorrow in the air crushed in harder now, as if sensing Segnbora’s resistance. Every breath she drew seemed to have a catch in it, as if tears were about to follow.
But against the shadowy sorrow Hasai and the mdeihei blazed within her, the white of their Dragonfire burning and glittering from scales of many colors. The defiance and dismay of the mdeihei at so many beings who had given up being burned them… burned her. Their appalled song, a heart-shaking weave of deep notes like the ocean speaking in outrage, fought with the song of melancholy that whispered from Glasscastle’s walls.
Terrified that she might fall victim to the inward-stealing sorrow, Segnbora began breathing the litany of life and pain along with the mdeihei as she sought around her in mind for any feeling of Freelorn or Herewiss. The effort was in vain—the wreaking seemed to have shut down her underhearing almost completely. Finally she paused at a meeting-place of three long halls, and, in midbreath of a long phrase of Dracon song, felt a shadow looming over her.
She didn’t look up. That would have broken the illusion of the great head hanging over her, the mighty body burning in its iron and diamond, defying the cool darkness. But she put out a hand behind her to touch the sapphire hide. The hand was taken, ever so carefully, between great jaws. The heat fighting the encroaching cold flared higher. (Have I told you recently that I’m glad you’re here?) Segnbora said.
(Yesterday,) Hasai said, (I remember you telling me now. What’s that?)
She looked where he did. From among indistinct, wandering forms came a flash of light—faint, but still bright enough to be noticed in this blue gloom. (I don’t know, but let’s see—)
The path ahead was dark. She reached up a hand, simultaneously reaching down inside her for her little dying spark of Fire. Forcefully, she willed the one thing she had always been able to manage: a brief flash of light. For once it would be enough.
