Anvar rolled away from the brink and lay panting. His arms, freed of their burden, were aching, their muscles locked. “What a stupid thing to do!” he raged at Shia. He felt the cat’s mental equivalent of a shrug.
“It worked, didn’t it?” But for all her bravado, she sounded shaken.
Anvar had to smile. “It did indeed—and it saved all our lives.”
“As you humans saved mine. My thanks to you both.”
“It’s Bohan you should really be thanking.” Anvar clapped the eunuch on the shoulder, and the huge man grinned.
“It took all three of us to defeat the creature.” Shia paused, growling softly. “If Aurian met it alone ...”
“Oh Gods . . .” Anvar shuddered, thinking of her facing the fearsome metallic beast, naked and unarmed as she had been. He thrust the thought away, and got to his feet. “I’m not giving up. We have to go on.”
“I agree—but how?” Shia looked across the yawning gulf of the cavern, her tail twitching unhappily.
“That thing managed . . .” Anvar forced himself back to the edge, trying to work out how the beast had achieved the crossing. “There must be some way that we can’t see. Shia, come over here. See if you can sense any magic at work.”
“There is!” The cat backed away from the brink of the chasm, her fur bristling.
Anvar knelt beside her, feeling along the edge. Though his eyes told him nothing was there, his searching fingers encountered smooth stone that continued, as far as he could reach, out across the chasm. “There was a bridge here all the time. An invisible bridge. We can cross!”
Bohan had gathered-ap their discarded bundle. Now he hesitated on the lip of the precipice, frowning. Looking ques-tioningly at Anvar, he gestured across the chasm and made vague passes in the air with his hand.
Anvar understood all too well. His own stomach was churning at the thought of crossing that dizzying drop with nothing, seemingly, beneath him but thin air. “No, my friend,” he said ruefully, “unfortunately I don’t know how to make it visible. We’re just going to have to be very careful.”
Bohan shuddered.
Anvar went first, crawling out onto the invisible stone on his hands and knees. It took more courage than he had known he possessed to make that first move out into nothingness. He fought down the clutching panic that threatened to unman him with thoughts of Aurian and forced himself to inch forward, feeling for the limits of the span with hands that shook violently. He tried to call back to the others, but only a strangled squeak emerged. Anvar cleared his throat and tried again. “Be careful, it’s very narrow and there’s no rail. Move slowly—the surface is very smooth. We daren’t rush this.”
Time stretched out into an endless nightmare. Anvar tried at first to keep his eyes on the opposite wall of the chasm, but it didn’t help. It seemed to grow no nearer, and he found himself wondering if there was some evil magic in the bridge that kept his goal receding, trapping him endlessly suspended over the abyss until his strength gave out and he plummeted to his death. Anvar closed his eyes—and immediately felt better. He realized that he had no need of vision—the bridge was invisible anyway—and he could progress much more easily if he shut out the sight of the sickening drop beneath him. He crawled on with painful slowness, feeling blindly for the edges of the span on either side with sweating hands, the thunder of his heart loud in his ears.
“I’m across!” The feel of the stone had roughened beneath Anvar’s groping hands. He could no longer find the edges of the bridge, and opened his eyes to find himself safely on the ledge at the other side. He crawled out of the others’ way and collapsed gratefully, his cheek pressed to the blessed, solid rock.
His body ached and trembled with tension and he was drenched in sweat, but he could have wept with relief. Bohan and Shia joined him and all three rested for a while, too overcome even to speak.
Finally Anvar forced them into motion once more, though the eunuch looked exhausted, and even Shia’s lithe stride was unsteady. Anvar never paused to think of the emotions that drove him beyond endurance, beyond even hope. He only knew that he had to find Aurian, or perish in this mountain as she had done.
They had expected to see another curving blank wall beyond this archway, but instead it opened out into a long narrow chamber with a high vaulted ceiling. Once again the stone had a fused, glasslike surface, as though it had been melted and recast into its present form. A weird, reddish half-light washed the chamber, seeming to come out of nowhere, and the air prickled with a high-pitched, distant humming that produced an irritating resonance in the bones of Anvar’s jaw and skull. But his attention was elsewhere. Arranged along the right-hand wall of the chamber was a row of tall, oval-shaped gems that glistened dully like frosted moonstones. They looked like nothing so much as the cocoons of some sinister giant insect, and Anvar, looking at them, felt disquiet stir in his breast. With Shia and Bohan following, he went to examine the nearest.
He found a single clear facet in the front of the frosted gem, like a window upon the interior. Anvar peered through— and jumped backward with a strangled exclamation as the bony, grinning face of a human skull leered at him—seeming, due to some trick of the gem’s internal structure, to leap out at him from its crystal tomb.
Shia pushed past Anvar, standing on her hind legs to look into the clear facet. “This is what becomes of those who penetrate this place,” she growled. “Imprisoned in crystal by the metal creature.”
Anvar suppressed a shudder. “You don’t think—” “I hope not! But all the same, we must search.” Shia t ted away to the next crystal and stood upright to peer into u Anvar, sick at heart, followed her.
One by one they investigated each cocoon in the row. Anvar had to steel himself to look into each one, dreading what he might find. All contained bones, mostly human, but some belonging to other creatures. Some were intact, but others had been cruelly crushed^and hacked by the metal beast’s appendages. Some were unrecognizable, but there was one skeleton of a great cat that made Shia snarl savagely, and two of the crystals contained small, human-seeming skeletons—with a fanlike tracery of bones springing from each oddly jointed shoulder. Winged Folk! Anvar was astounded. When they reached the last cocoon, he hesitated.
“Let me look,” Shia said. She peered into the aperture, while Anvar watched, dry-mouthed. At last she got down, her tail twitching with emotion. “Aurian is in there.”
32
The City of the Dragonfolk
Aurian was suspended in the milky light within the gem, inaccessible through the thick crystal that sealed her tomb. She was frozen like a statue in alabaster, the only color about her the brave flame of her hair. Her eyes were closed as though in sleep, her pale lips slightly parted. Anvar saw that much before tears misted his vision. “No!” he howled, the cry dragged up from the raw depths of his despair. He was barely aware of Bohan pulling him away from the crystal, and did not see Shia taking his place at the pane. His knees gave way and he sank to the ground, overcome with anguish.
“Wait!” Shia’s voice flashed into his mind. “She breathes!”
Anvar turned on her. “Don’t be stupid,” he shouted. “She’s dead, damn you! It’s just a trick of the crystal. You saw the others—the bones!”
Shia cuffed him hard, her eyes aflame with rage. “I saw her breathe!” she roared. “Get her out, human!”
Slowly, Anvar picked himself up. “If you’re wrong about this ...”
“Look for yourself. Look long and hard this time. See with your head, not your heart.”