Eight

Kings build the bridges from earth to heaven. But it is their subjects’ decision whether or not to cross—and if they do, there is no guaranteeing the nature of the result.

On the Royal Priesthood, Arien d’Lhared

 

People who live in the Highpeaks find it easy to believe the old story that the Maiden creates the World anew, every day, for the sheer joy of it. Astonishing dawns come there. Later, the face of a mountain changes as the shadows swing across it, revealing a new countenance every quarter hour. Still later come sunsets that run blood down cornices of snow, or light a whole range as if from within, until it all seems one great burning opal. Then twilight dissolves everything, leaving only shadows where peaks have been; cut-out patches on the sky, from which the mischievous Maiden has removed the mountains so She can rework them for the next day.

Huddled in her cloak, Segnbora leaned on her elbows on a battlement of Sai khas-Barachael at dawn, watching the mountains come back. The Sun was up, though not yet visible past the eastern peaks. Beneath her Barachael valley was still hidden in shadow and morning mist. The valley was nearly circular. The walls broke only at the far northern end, where a quarter-arc of the circle was missing and the land sloped down northward toward the rest of Darthen. Khas-Barachael fortress stood on the northernmost spur of high ground, on the western side of the break, commanding a view of both the Darthene plains and the valley.

Segnbora gazed across the gap, though which the little braided Chaelonde River ran down from its glacier, toward the mountains that reached long spurs to each other and made the rest of the ring. First came Aulys, right across the gap, like an eagle with bowed head and drooping wings. South and west of it Houndstooth reared, smooth and polished-looking, and armed with avalanches. West of Houndstooth, between it and the next mountain, was a shadowy spot, the north end of the Eisargir Pass, through which Reavers lad been raiding for food and metal since time immemorial. Then Eisargir himself, like a great stone rose unfolding with his down-spiraling spurs. Westward again lay a low col or saddle between mountains, over which looked red Tamien. Then came rising ground that grew into the long northeast-jointing Adine massif.

Segnbora looked over her shoulder, scanning the long crest line. It was scarred on both sides with old glacial cirques, scraped-out bowls of stone. One such bowl was still full: the South Face cirque beneath the lesser, southern peak of Adine. Ice spilled over from it to feed the glacial lake which in turn fed the Chaelonde. Every now and then the morning stillness would be broken by a remote groan or a huge crashing snap, made tiny by distance, as the glacier calved off an iceberg into the lake.

Above the glacier, and above the eminence of Sai khas-Barachael two thousand feet above the valley floor, Mount Adine loomed like a crooked, ruined tower. Its greater peak stood two miles higher than khas-Barachael and a sheer league above town in the valley’s depths. Segnbora shuddered, though whether from morning’s cold or a feeling of threat she didn’t know. A breath later, the Sun rose through the gap between Aulys and Houndstooth and touched on the lesser Adine summit. There, tiny and sharp, a line of something silvery glittered; the Skybridge, bright even against the blinding white of the peak on which it stood.

Segnbora shuddered again, this time knowing why. Unconcerned, Hasai said from inside her, (We thought about living there, once ... )

(Under the bridge? I thought Dragons didn’t care to live where the shadowed powers are.)

(We don’t. When we saw what happened at certain times of year, we abandoned plans to make a Marchward there. Also there are weaknesses in the valley, and we were afraid we would disrupt the land if we worked as deep into that main massif as we normally would.)

(This was how long ago?)

Hasai looked at his memories and counted the passing suns backward in his mind. (Fifteen hundred years or so.)

(That long ... )

Segnbora moved away from the wall and walked along it, southward, to a corner where she could better see the Eisargir Pass. The increasing light was already revealing the reddish tinge to the rocks where they were bare of snow. There under Eisargir lay the oldest mines in Darthen. From them came the finest iron in the Kingdoms; iron from which the people of Barachael made the matchless Masterforge steel. Goddess only knew how many times Barachael had been raided, burned, and razed by the Reavers, who came down the Eisargir Pass again and again on their forays into the Kingdoms.

Those forays had been one of the deadlier aspects of life in the South for a long, long time. No one knew much about the Reavers; their language was utterly different from any spoken in the Kingdoms. But prisoners taken in battle had revealed a little of their lives. The countries overmountain were short of iron. Indeed, one had merely to examine the Reaver bodies on any battlefield to see that: Their weapons were largely flint-tipped spears and arrows. Some were not tipped at all, but were mere sharpened sticks blackened and hardened in fire. Because of their lack of metal the overmountain tribes were small and poor. In the high cold South few crops grew and little game could flourish. So it had been until twelve or thirteen hundred years before, when some desperately hungry Reaver tribe had followed a game migration northward instead of southward ... and had discovered the Eisargir Pass, and Darthen, and steel.

Those first Reavers were no fools. They saw that the richness of the farmland below them was not all to the credit of the warmer climate. They discovered the plow and the sword. They stole as many of both as possible, and fled back over-mountain with them to change their world.

The tribes that followed grew swiftly in power, becoming more successful as both hunters and warriors. In no time the old balance of power was upset. Tribes skirmished, merged, conquered, or dominated one another, grew more numerous, extended their hunting grounds. Game became scarce as they overhunted their lands. Their agriculture languished, as it usually does in lands where war has become a profitable pastime.

Already a nomadic people during their short summer, the Reavers took wholeheartedly to a raiding lifestyle in order to survive in their unbalanced world. When the weather broke in the spring and the passes opened, they would raid northward, spending the spring and summer raiding for loot and cattle, but most of all for steel to use in their endless tribal quarrels. Time and again Barachael was attacked, looted, and burned—

Again and again the town was rebuilt, too. Neither the stubborn smith-sorcerers who lived there, nor the Darthene crown that ruled them, would give up the Eisargir mines. Sai khas-Barachael was built on the northernmost Adine spur to keep an eye on the Eisargir incursion route, but even its formidable presence did not deter the Reavers. They continued to raid, though more circumspectly, and in greater numbers, so that the battle for the Chaelonde valley was never over. Only Bluepeak had ever seen more blood shed on its behalf.

The thought of battle, of blood, was not a welcome one that morning. Segnbora turned her back on the southern prospect and walked north along the wall. But that view held no comfort for her either. Northward the highlands fell away to the green and golden plains. On the plains, far out of sight but clear in her mind, was Darthis, her family’s formal home, and the only one remaining, now that Asfahaeg was sold and Wasten Beeches sacked by Reavers.

There in Darthis, on Potboilers’ Street just outside the old second wall, stood the little stone house with doors and windows shuttered blind, and the tai-Enraesi lioncelle carved over the passage to the horseyard. Her mother wouldn’t be singing in the armory anymore, her father wouldn’t be re-hanging the bedroom shutter that was always falling down. There was only one person left to carry the lioncelle; and how long even that one would survive she couldn’t tell. Ice and darkness ....

(Those who sired you?) Hasai said diffidently, (is that question what concerns you? Since last night there’s been a—I don’t know what you would call it—an opening in the depths—)

She blinked back sudden tears, and her mouth was grim. (Mdaha, forget it, they’re rdahaih. They’re gone and I’ll never see them again, not till I pass the last Door. Maybe not even then.)

She felt him turn his head away, a gesture of shock and sorrow at her hard words and her pain. (Their souls live yet, don’t they?)

(They do. It might have been otherwise if we hadn’t found them in time.) Her rage at the murdering innkeeper, which had been gnawing at her like an ulcer all the night before, flared up hot again. She turned her back to the wall, to the wind.

After a long time Hasai said, (We didn’t understand this business—or believe it.) In his voice there was distress. Far back in her inner darkness, the mdeihei were singing a mournful bass cadence, both dirge and apology. (You humans throw yourselves so willingly into strifes and dangers that we thought surely you must go mdahaih somehow. Otherwise it seemed a madness—)

(We don’t get the same life twice. Or know the same people twice. So in this life we fight for what matters. Herewiss fights for Lorn, and Lorn for his kingship. All of us fight for our own happiness, as best we can. Once past the Door, it’s done forever.)

Hasai fell silent again. The same fear, of not-being, and not-remembering, was at the heart of the terror of going rdahaih, and nothing could frighten a Dragon more. She heard Hasai wondering what would become of him and the mdeihei when her time came to change bodies. Perhaps this human death would be more final and terrible, in its way, than going rdahaih. Segnbora’s pain turned to sorrow for the fear she had planted in him.

(Mdaha,) she said, (I’m sorry. But you and I, we’re an experiment, it seems. If it’ll make you feel better, I intend to put off my death as long as possible.)

His low rumbling sigh of agreement mingled with the sound of steps on stone. Segnbora looked southward along the wall. Eftgan was coming, not in country clothes, this morning, but dressed for battle: boots and britches, jerkin and mailshirt, and the Darthene midnight blue surcoat blazoned with the undifferenced royal arms—the White Eagle in trian aspect, wings spread, striking. Eftgan’s sheathed Rod still bumped at her side, but she was carrying another weapon over her shoulder. It was Forlennh BrokenBlade, Earn’s sword, without which no Darthene ruler went to war.

Eftgan was a fair sight, and even a little funny, bumping down the parapet toward Segnbora with a sword over her shoulder that was almost as long as she was. Segnbora remembered the days when Eftgan had been her wreaking-partner in the Precincts. Back then she had refused to wear any gear more complicated than a belt for her tunic, or maybe a ribbon in her hair. Evidently queenship had brought some changes. Segnbora smiled, and wiped her nose as Eftgan came up and leaned on the parapet beside her.

“Fair morn, your grace.”

“Oh, don’t be formal,” Eftgan said, making a sour face. “I have enough problems today. Your friends are looking for you, ’Berend.”

“I dare say. I needed to get away from their watchful eyes for a while.”

Eftgan looked somber. “I didn’t say it last night—you were getting drunk and I didn’t want to interfere—but I share your grief, dear.”

“May our pain soon be healed,” Segnbora said. They were words she had thought she wouldn’t have to say for years yet. She sighed and gazed down at Barachael town with its moat and ditches and star fortifications. “Where are you off to?”

“Orsvier, as soon as I’m finished here. A force of Reavers and mercenaries is forming there to raid the granaries. There will be a thousand or more gathered by nightfall. They’ll attack tonight, or tomorrow morning perhaps.”

“Goddess,” said Segnbora, disturbed. “More mercenaries .... Where is Cillmod getting them all?”

“Most of them are Steldenes. Some are even Steldene regulars; evidently King Dariw sold their services to Cillmod at a discount to make up for letting Freelorn get away.”

Segnbora went cold at the thought of what might have happened had she not stepped into a certain alley in Madeil one night. She shook her head. “How do you stand?”

“A thousand foot, five hundred horse, thirty sorcerers, and the right is on our side. Whether that’ll be enough, I don’t know.” Eftgan let out a tired breath and fell silent.

Segnbora thought of Herewiss standing on the Morrowfane, an open challenge to the Shadow. Obviously It had taken up the challenge. These latest incursions by the Reavers were too well timed, and too well organized, to be coincidence.

“Have any suggestions for me?” Eftgan said.

Segnbora put an eyebrow up. “The Queen’s grace hardly needs to discuss battle tactics with an outlaw.”

“With an outlaw, no. But with the head of one of the Forty Houses—”

Segnbora winced.

“’Berend, I’m sorry,” Eftgan said, “but you had better face up to it. You’re now the tai-Enraesi, and I have the right to require your advice as such.”

“For what it’s worth.”

“Your present position makes it worth more than old Arian’s, say, sitting up north on his moneybags. Stop thinking of yourself as ‘landless’ and ‘poverty-stricken,’ and tell me what I should do about Freelorn.”

“You should ask him that,” said Segnbora. “Or Herewiss.”

“I have. And they’ve been very cautious and polite. But that doesn’t tell me what to do, really. Consider my position ... even if we put down the present incursion, Darthen is still suffering worse and worse harvests, things are coming over the borders of the Waste that shouldn’t be, Arlen is yapping at my western border, the Oath that made those borders safe is in pieces, and the Reavers are coming out of every bolt hole like rats out of a burning granary.” Eftgan sighed.

“Arlen needs someone on that throne who’ll enact the royal rites again, and restore one of the Two Lands to normal. And, lo, here’s the Lion’s Child, sitting right in my lap, wanting his throne back. The question is, if I spend Darthene blood to put him on his throne, will he fulfill his responsibilities as King, or just sit there collecting taxes and parading around in silks and furs, looking royal?”

Segnbora looked her old loved in the eye, reluctant. “I’ve known him for all of a month—”

“You have underhearing. Better underhearing than mine, if things are the same as they used to be. You know them.” She poked Segnbora in the ribs, not entirely out of humor. “The Queen requires your advice, tai-Enraesi. Stop stalling.”

She wanted no responsibility for advising Eftgan on such a decision. But she had no choice. “I think Lorn will make a good king,” she said. “Better than some who’ve had long quiet reigns and never been in trouble. He loves his land, and he loves his people ... perhaps too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you made him King one week and halfway through the next told him that the royal sacrifice was necessary, he’d tie himself up in the fivefold bond and tell you to hurry with the knife. He has an unfortunate fondness for death and glory stands, you see. Luckily, he’s got Herewiss to advise him. He’s as conservative as they come.”

Eftgan looked at her squarely. “Does ’Berend, the ‘swift-rusher,’ say this?” she said. “Or does the tai-Enraesi?”

Segnbora shook her head. “Tegane, after just a month I could tell you endless stories of the noble things he’s done. But they’d be just that—stories. What I know about Lorn is that although I could have hired my sword to any number of high-paying rulers in the Four Kingdoms, he has something that moved me to swear liege-oath to him.”

Eftgan simply kept looking at her. “Loyalty can be blind,” she said.

“So can love,” Segnbora said, “or so I hear. Tegane, what else can I tell you? I’m fresh out of proofs. But the truth is that he’s my liege, and my friend, and once or twice a bit more. And if I go to my death in his service, that’s as good a death as any other I’m likely to find.” She swallowed. “Segnbora says that, Queen. The standard-bearer. His standard-bearer, for the moment. Will that answer your question?”

Eftgan looked away from her, gazing down the vale, northward toward the rest of Darthen. She let out a quiet breath of decision. “Yes,” she said. “So be it. And we’ll hope that the famous tai-Enraesi luck will stick to him too, just this once. Now, shall we have breakfast?”

“Absolutely.”

They went together from the wall to the great inner court. Halfway down the stairs, Segnbora suddenly lost her footing and brought up hard against the wall to the left. “Sorry!” she said, and then realized that the wall itself was jittering, and all around them a low mutter of vibration ran through the fortress. It subsided after a few seconds.

Eftgan let go of the wall, which she also had been holding for support. “Just a little shake,” she said.

Segnbora gulped as they continued down the rest of the stairs.

“Does it do that often?”

“Two or three times a week, they tell me. Better a lot of little quakes, though, than a big one that would bring the mountains down on the valley ....”

They went across the huge paved court, where men and women in Darthene blue were grooming horses and practicing at the sword or bow or lance. The court, like the walls that surrounded it, lay in a square around khas-Barachael’s central tower. Eftgan led the way in, through a high-roofed hall and up a stair that climbed along one wall. In a smaller room on the next story a table was set under the south-facing windows. Freelorn, Herewiss, Lang, and the others sat there breaking their fast with several of Eftgan’s officers.

“Sit here,” Eftgan said, and pulled out a chair for her between Lang and a Darthene officer.

Segnbora sat down and reached for an empty cup, glancing up and down the table. To her surprise and slight discomfort, she saw that around Lang’s left arm, and Dritt’s and Moris’s and Harald’s and Freelorn’s, and even Herewiss’s, was bound the white cord of mourning. All up and down the table, eyes rested on her with concern. She swallowed hard.

“Wine?” Lang said, reaching for her cup.

Her head throbbed at the thought. “Dear Lady, no. Is there barley-water with mint in it, perhaps?”

There was; Harald passed it up.

“Segnbora,” Eftgan said, “you haven’t met Torve, I think. He was raised here.”

She turned to the man on her right. He was young, of middle height and build, with dark hair and beard and a slightly reticent smile. His downturned gray eyes, however, smiled even when his lips did not.

“Torve s’Keruer,” Eftgan said as the two of them touched hands in greeting, “the Chastellain-major. He runs this place.”

“You were raised here?” Segnbora said.

Torve nodded. “My mother was the last Chastellain. But she got tired of the long winters and retired to the lowlands. The Queen was good enough to confirm me in her place.”

“Anything you need, he’ll give you,” Eftgan said.

“Thank you, Queen.”

“Pardon,” Dritt said, and reached across the Queen for the butter.

Eftgan raised a tolerant eyebrow. “His manners haven’t improved any,” she said, looking with wry amusement at her former court musician. “He used to do that at court too. My father thought sending him to Arlen might put some polish on his manners. But then what does he do but leave his post there, and not send word for seven years ....” There was mild chuckling over that. “Of course,” Eftgan said, “his liege seems to have done the same thing, and taken the long way home as well.”

The laughter was more subdued this time; Lorn shot Eftgan a quick look. Herewiss was suddenly very busy with his porridge.

“Freelorn,” the Queen said, helping herself to bread and holding out a hand for Dritt to return the butter plate, “we’ve already talked a great deal since last night, but I still have a few questions to ask you.”

“Ask,” Freelorn said, sounding unconcerned.

“What on earth do you want to be a king for?”

He looked at her in shock. He took brief refuge in his mulled wine, then said, “It’s what I was raised to be.”

“Rubbish,” Eftgan said merrily but with force. “That’s like saying that a slopman’s child should spend his life carting slops because his father before him did.”

Freelorn stared at Eftgan, his shock growing greater by the moment.

“Look at this,” the Queen said, gesturing around the room. It was comfortable enough, on a bright summer morning, but definitely not luxurious. “If I’d had the sense to marry out of the royal line young, I could be spending my day sitting on silken cushions in some mansion in Darthis, eating roast ortolan and botargoes on toast, taking lovers, going to the races in the daytime and to parties at night. But instead I let them make me Queen.”

Segnbora took a long drink of her barley-water, to hide her rueful smile.

“I had to be Queen,” Eftgan said again, “and now look what I’ve got for my troubles. Battlefield food and soldier’s quarters, five days out of the ten. Back home in Darthis are three children I hardly ever see, because by the time I’m finished meeting with my ministers all morning, presiding over court-justice all afternoon, and receiving visits—I should say, ‘complaints’—from the various members of the Forty Houses all evening, it’s long past the children’s bedtimes. I say nothing of my bedtime. My husband has to have a separate bedroom so that my reading won’t keep him awake all night. In the daytime he has to throw people out of his wineshop because they don’t want to buy his wine, they want to buy appointments with me. Even he aches at the end of the day.” Freelorn had at this point just gotten around to closing his mouth.

“So do I,” Eftgan said. “Sometimes I do more than ache. I get wounds, too. A Queen has to be first in every charge and last in every retreat ....” She pulled aside the shoulder of her surcoat, looking under it with a momentarily abstracted air. “I was knifed here, once—No, of course you remember that; you were there. Herewiss stopped the crossbow quarrel, but I got the knife of the Reaver before that one.” She pulled the surcoat back in place and spent a moment looking around her plate to find the butterknife. “Bad enough to have to put up with that kind of thing from your enemies. But sooner or later it comes from your own people ... in Darthen, at least. One day when you’re hammering out your crown in the Square, somebody whose crops failed last year comes out of the crowd and runs you through. Or worse, the rains won’t come, and all the wreakings and all the royal magics refuse to work. Then there’s only one thing that will save the land from famine.” She looked down and began slowly buttering her bread. “So you take the knife, and call the person who loves you best in the world to witness the ceremony; and pierce the sky’s heart by piercing yours, and cause it to shed rain by shedding blood, and bring the breath of the stormwind by breathing out your last ....”

Eftgan’s tone all this while had been light, almost matter-of-fact. Now she looked up at Freelorn and, in the profound silence that had fallen around the table, said, “This is a stupid job to go hunting for, Lorn. You were smart to stay away from it as long as you have.”

Segnbora listened hard and could have sworn that people were holding their breaths. Only Lorn looked at all normal. The amazement had worn off him; his face was set.

“Eftgan,” he said, “I ran away from Arlen because I was afraid of being tortured to death. I still am. But I notice that I’m not running in the opposite direction.”

At that Eftgan paused to bite into her bread. She chewed reflectively, and swallowed. “You’ve had a lot of help.”

“I have,” he said, with only the swiftest glance to one side at Herewiss. “What is it they always say about lovers? That they usually know your mind better than you do.” It was Freelorn’s turn to pause now, looking around the table for honey for his porridge. He pointed, and Lang passed it to him. “Herewiss always knew what I wanted—what I really wanted—better than I did. It’s a good thing, too. If he had been one of those spineless anything-you-say-dear types, I’d probably be peacefully dead in a ditch somewhere now. Instead I’m here, with Fyrd and Reavers on three sides and the Shadow on the fourth.”

That got a smile out of Eftgan.

“You’re right to question my motives and intent.” Freelorn ate a spoonful of porridge. “Yes, Herewiss called the tune. And yes, I followed his lead toward kingship because it was convenient, and I was confused. But the confusion isn’t so much of a problem now.” He took another spoonful, throwing a quick glance out the window at the great silent mass of Adine. “Dusty will probably still be the strategist of this group’s business, the brains. But I’m this group’s heart. I’ve forgotten that, once or twice, I know. A prince gets used to having things done for him. But in the past couple of weeks I’ve seen my loved almost die for me—for my cause, rather—three times. I suspect I’m done being a prince. It’s my turn to be a king.” Lorn took a long drink of mulled wine. “And as for you, Eftgan ... if you don’t like your job, you should abdicate. Maybe afterward you could take up carting slops.”

Eftgan, who was also drinking at that moment, spluttered and choked—then, when she had finished choking, began to whoop with laughter. “Oh Goddess!” was all she managed to say for a while. When she was calmer, she wiped tears of merriment out of her eyes. “I guess I left myself open for that. Freelorn, your hand! Keep this sort of thing up, and we’ll do very well together.”

They reached across the length of the table to touch hands.

“Truth,” Lorn said, sounding rueful, as if the speech had cost him something, “and beauty. A perfect match.”

“Flatterer.”

“Now, what about that news about the Reavers that you promised us?”

“Well ... let’s take this in order. There’s more news than just of Reavers. When you left Arlen, Lorn, what was your understanding of the way things stood with the Lords-Householders, the Four Hundred, concerning your succession to the throne?”

“Mixed. There would’ve been no question of the succession if I had been Initiated, taken by my father into the Lion-hall on the Nightwalk. But he put off the ceremony, until finally it was too late. When he died, the Four Hundred split on the issue. I had been spending a lot of time out of the country, helling around, and there was some question about whether I’d be a fit ruler. The army split on the issue too, and with Arlene regulars assigned to each household the situation quickly became volatile, as you can imagine. No one wanted a civil war, so the Householders hesitated ... which gave Cillmod time to step in with his mercenaries and make the whole question moot.”

“Yes, and when he made you an outlaw, you and Herewiss and the rest fled the country.” Eftgan sat back in her chair.

Segnbora knew much of the rest of the story, and listened with only half an ear as Eftgan filled in details for Freelorn. Cillmod had done well enough for several years. He took the throne and bore Stave, though he didn’t go into Lionhall. Likewise, he reaffirmed the Oath with Eftgan’s father, who was still alive and ruling then. It was around the middle of his fourth year that the crop failures began. The next year the crops were worse, and the next year worse still. Then the failures began spreading into Darthen as well. The royal sorceries, and the Great Bindings, were wearing thin.

Eftgan’s father had been unwilling to help Cillmod beyond the reaffirmation of the Oath: He was among those who hoped that an uprising would eventually bring Freelorn back. But by the time of Eftgan’s first crowning the situation was unbearable. Unaware of Freelorn’s whereabouts, Eftgan wrote to Cillmod and offered to repair the Royal Bindings herself. Amazingly, he refused.

Segnbora looked up from her food in surprise at that, as did the rest of Freelorn’s company.

“He said that inquiries were being made in Arlen for a surviving heir to the Lion’s Line,” Eftgan explained. “He had put about the story that you had died, did you know that?”

“No!”

“Later there was even proof of it: a mangled head sent from the torture chambers of Dariw of Steldin, whom you eluded at Madeil.”

“Hmmm ... Do ghosts eat? No? Then there must have been a mistake.”

“Must have been. Anyway, Cillmod was apparently unsuccessful in finding any other children in the Lion’s Line. Which is fortunate, since I’m sure he would have killed any that he found. Another question, Lorn: Do you have any children outside of Arlen?”

Freelorn shook his head sadly. “I only fulfilled the Responsibility once,” he said. “My daughter died in infancy.”

“Well enough.” Eftgan chewed some bacon. “I ask because Cillmod’s search for an heir took some strange turns. For example, some of the searches were conducted by large groups of mercenaries who crossed the Darthene borders and went after our granaries. It was the only way Cillmod could forestall a revolt by the Four Hundred and their starving tenant-farmers. Anyway, to continue: There were also reports for some time of sorcerers and Rodmistresses visiting Prydon. More sorcerers than Rodmistresses, of course. There’s one sorcerer in particular—”

“Someone who either claimed to be of Lion’s Line,” Freelorn guessed, “or who claimed he could get Cillmod into Lionhall without dying of it, and show him how to reinforce the Bindings.”

“Exactly. The second was what this sorcerer claimed. Rian, his name is. But then something peculiar happened. The man never went into Lionhall at all, as far as my spies can tell. Neither did Cillmod. Nevertheless, starting about a year ago Rian became a fixture at what now passes for the Arlene court.” Eftgan took a drink of barley-water. “Other odd things—the Four Hundred have become very quiet recently. When you robbed the treasury at Osta, for example, it became apparent then that you weren’t dead after all. Naturally there was a clamor for your return. But it died down very quickly.”

“Why?”

“I believe because the families who called loudest for your crowning were suddenly beset by Fyrd—the thinking variety.”

Mutters of distaste were heard round the table. “Rian,” Segnbora said, very quietly to herself.

The Queen nodded. “I have no doubt that we’re dealing here with a person whom the Shadow occasionally inhabits and controls. The man has a past and a family just as he should, but he’s the center of too many odd occurrences. Where his influence appears, Cillmod’s neglect usually breaks out into full-fledged malice.”

Lorn, who had finished his porridge, set down his spoon. “What else has friend Rian—or rather, the Shadow—been up to?”

“You know the problems the Reavers have been having with the weather, their crops, and their game? How they are being forced northward? That’s obviously the Shadow’s work. There’s something else, too. Starting about six months ago, it seems that emissaries—mostly mercenary captains—were sent over the mountains in to Reaver country to strike a bargain. In return for making incursions into the Kingdoms when ordered, some of the hardest-pressed Reaver clans were promised loot, cattle ... and land in Arlen in which to settle.”

All around the table, there was silence.

“The Shadow’s purpose is apparently to keep Darthen busy with war until something special happens,” Eftgan said. “My guess is that ‘something’ is the collapse of the Royal Bindings.”

The silence in the room erupted into cries of disbelief. The end of the Royal Bindings was unthinkable. Such a calamity would turn the Shadow loose in the Kingdoms as It hadn’t been loose in centuries, since the Lion and the Eagle first bound It.

Lang looked at Freelorn. “I can’t believe anyone would knowingly do this to his own country! Can it be Cillmod doesn’t know what the failure of the Bindings will mean?”

“Could be,” Lorn said. “After all, he’s not trained in the royal sorceries. Perhaps the true nature of the destruction that would follow is being hidden from him somehow. In any case, if this is the Shadow’s purpose, it must not be allowed.”

The firmness of his resolve sent a dart of sharp pride through Segnbora. The others, equally moved, quieted. Eftgan nodded her approval.

“First of all, what are we doing about the Reavers locally?” Freelorn asked.

“I’ve spoken to Herewiss about the possibility of closing off the Chaelonde incursion route with a sealing,” the Queen said. “That would cause the Reavers a great deal of trouble right away. Without it, they’d have to go as far east as Araveyn or as far west as Bluepeak itself to get into the Kingdoms. Araveyn is practically in the Waste; they wouldn’t bother. And Bluepeak is in Arlen, meaning that Cillmod would have to march Reavers all the way through his own country to attack Darthen. Tactically, a sealing is a good idea. The question is whether it can be done.”

“It can,” Herewiss said. “But right now the timing’s bad. I wouldn’t dare try it with Glasscastle imminent; we’ll have to wait until it passes. Which brings us to another problem—sealing off the peak of Adine so that no sorcery of the Shadow’s, or anyone else’s, can bring anything down out of Glasscastle onto our heads. That, too, I can do; and I’ll do it tonight. My only fear is that the sudden removal of access to a place where our mortal world and another world touch might cause Power imbalances. In a place as delicately balanced as Barachael is, with its years of warfare and piled-up negative energies, that can be dangerous.”

“I know,” Eftgan said. “But it can’t be helped. My true-dream made it plain that the next time someone passed into or out of Glasscastle, so great a disturbance would follow that the Kingdoms might not survive.”

Herewiss looked gravely at Lorn, and then back at the Queen again. “I’ll do what I can, madam,” he said. “I hope it’ll suffice.”

“It’s more than I could have done, that’s for sure ....” Eftgan pushed her chair back from the table. “I leave the matter in your capable hands. I should be back from Orsvier tomorrow, and we can worry about sealing the pass itself then. As for you, Arlen—” She fixed Freelorn with a hard, smiling look. “I stand on the Oath. As soon as I get this unfought army off my right flank, and yours, then it’s ‘the Eagle for Arlen and the Lion at bay.’ I trust you two will be willing to deal with this flank, should it become necessary today.”

“Darthen,” he said, returning Eftgan’s look without the smile, “you know how my loved has been handling this so far. And I agree with him. I’d prefer not to shed blood, Arlene or Darthene.”

“Cillmod’s had no such compunctions,” Eftgan said. “Neither have the Reavers, and right now there are Reavers corning here, and Reavers at Orsvier. You two clear this flank, I’ll clear the other. Then we’ll have leisure to consider what to do about Arlen. When we campaign, there I’ll be guided by your judgment; you know your land best.”

Freelorn nodded, looking solemn. Eftgan turned to the corner and picked up something that stood against the wall—a big old iron fireplace poker, its haft studded with rough white diamonds. It was Sarsweng, the battle-standard of the Darthenes. “I have to get my work done,” the little fair woman said. “My husband hates it when I get home late. The Lady be with you all ’til I get back—”

“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 thoughtful, 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 Eftgan’s business out of the way so 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 mountain 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 ridden 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 unassailable, 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 saddle-corridor between khas-Barachael rock and Swaleback, a flattened, marshy little spur of Adine. Torve led them eastward 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 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 westward 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 standing a foot above the ground. “Sir,” he said, addressing Sunspark 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-hanging 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 another.

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. (Nervous?)

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 Adine 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 held 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. “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 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 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 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 silhouette 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 incandescence. 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, 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 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 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 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 apparition.

“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 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!”