“Demonfire!” Paulo muttered under his breath.
Karon halted just outside the walls at the point where a faint track branched off from the main road. His gaze remained fixed on the eyeless guardians. “Our destination is a small valley in the foothills beyond the city,” he said softly. “I’m sure of it. But to make use of what we find there, I must go into the city. Take this path outside the walls and wait for me where it meets the main road once again. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
“Let us ride with you,” I said. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
Bareil spoke at the same time. “I think I should be at your side, my lord.”
A rueful smile glanced across Karon’s face. “This is my home. I’ll see nothing I’ve not imagined a thousand times over. Power awaits me in its contemplation, just as in those things I might prefer to look on. Ours is a perverse gift.” He clucked to his mount, but immediately pulled up again, turning to Kellea. “Come, if you wish. This was your home, too.”
Kellea wrenched her eyes from the grisly welcomers atop the poles. “My home was in Yurevan with my grandmother. Horror holds no power for me.” But her cheeks were flushed, and she would not meet Karon’s gaze.
“Don’t blame yourself that you’re not ready,” he said, “or even that you may never be. I believe it’s taken me a very long time to come back here.” He spurred his horse toward the black gash in the wall that would once have been the wooden gates.
The cold wind gusted across the barren fields as the rest of us rode around the mournful ruin. I rued my angry words that had increased the distance between Karon and me. Long ago I had promised him that I’d go with him to Avonar when he was ready, a promise lost in the past he did not yet own.
The leaden evening settled into night as we rounded the city’s eastern flank and picked up the road again close to the boundary of the desolation. Once Kellea had made sure of the way, we dismounted to stretch our legs. After only a brief wait, an agitated Bareil said he was going back. “He should not be alone in such a place,” said the Dulcé. “Not in his fragile state.”
I touched his hand before he could mount up. “Let him be, Bareil. He said he could manage it. In this…I think it’s important that we trust him.”
When the time had stretched far longer, I was on the verge of contradicting my own judgment.
But just as the first glimmer of the rising moon broke through scudding clouds beyond Karylis, the weak light outlined a dark figure riding toward us at a gallop from the east gate of the dead city, such urgency in his posture, I bade the others mount and be ready. In moments Karon shot through the clearing where we waited, crying out, “Ride! We’re racing the moon!”
Half a league up the road, he turned north into a narrow vale. The moon danced in and out of the clouds as we rode, revealing smooth slopes, broken by groves of slender trees and great boulders of granite, tumbled and stacked atop each other. As we followed the faint track, the faithless moon was swallowed by thickening clouds. Soon snowflakes stung my cheeks. We slowed to a walk in the uncertain light. But a burst of enchantment swept over us, and the horses surged forward, sure-footed again as if the way had been lit for them. After half an hour, perhaps a little more, Karon pulled up suddenly, all the beasts halting at the same time. I had never even tightened the reins.
“Quickly,” Karon whispered as he dropped from his saddle, drawing us close as we did the same. From his hand gleamed a faint light, revealing his face ruddy with the wind and the cold, his eyes shining. “They’re just ahead of us. The enchantment requires the proper angle of the moon, so we’ve a chance to take him. But you must be prepared to follow. Leave everything behind. Paulo, unsaddle the horses and bid them wait in this valley. They’ll find grazing enough here, even in winter.” Paulo nodded and hurried to do as he was asked, Bareil assisting him. Karon looked at Kellea, jerking his head to our right. “Does your sense agree with me?”
“Yes. Up the hill.”
“Then follow me, quickly and quietly.”
As Paulo shoved the last saddle under a bush, tied our blankets tight over them, and patted the last horse’s rump, we started up a gentle slope alongside the stream, rippling and bubbling in its half-frozen shell. Karon let his light fade. Soon, from ahead of us, yellow light nickered from a triangular opening formed by two massive slabs of granite set into the hillside. To the right of the doorway stood a riderless horse, and to the other side was a pile of boulders.
Something about the place teased at my memory. Karon had once mentioned an incident with his father…
Karon gathered us together again, whispering, “We must draw them out here at least as far as the opening. It’s too cramped to attack him inside-a risk to the boy. Count to ten, my lady, then call the man out. Be convincing. I’ll take him from the left. You,” he said to Kellea, “be ready to grab the child. Bareil and Paulo, help us where it’s needed most.” Without waiting to hear an acknowledgment, he disappeared into the darkness.
When the interminable interval had passed, I stepped from the sheltering trees and stood before the torchlit entry. “Darzid!” I called. “Bring him out. I know who he is. You can’t hide him.” My plea sounded futile and stupid, even to me. “Please, just come and talk to me.”
“Our time for conversation passed many years ago, Lady.” His laughter rippled from inside the doorway just as the moon broke through the clouds, its beams shooting straight through the opening in the rock. The dim yellow light inside the cleft flared to eye-searing white, and every other sound was lost in a low rumble like a buried waterfall. Earth and sky-a Gate to the Bridge!
“Karon!” I screamed.
The Breach between the worlds was a boundless chasm of nightmare and confusion, of the corrupted bits and pieces left from the beginning of time, of horrific visions and mind-gnawing despair. Even if this Gate was open, how could Darzid and Gerick survive the passage or pass the wards D’Ar-nath had created to bar easy crossing? Only the Heir of D’Arnath could pass, so I had been told. Only the most powerful of sorcerers could control the terrors of the Breach.
“Hurry! Stay close!” Karon shouted as he leaped from the boulder pile. Sprinting across the patch of light, he disappeared through the doorway.
With Paulo, Bareil, and Kellea, I followed him through the cleft in the rock and down a brilliantly lit passage toward a wall of white flame. Karon was barely visible beyond the blazing veil, moving rapidly away from us. I hesitated. A few moments on the Bridge at Vittoir Eirit had almost destroyed my reason.
“He’ll shield us,” shouted Bareil over the roar of the fire. “Don’t be afraid.” The Dulcé took Paulo’s hand in one of his; Paulo reached for Kellea; and together the three stepped through the curtain of fire. With a fervent plea to any benevolent god that might take an interest, I followed.
Pits of fire and bottomless darkness yawned beside my feet. Murmurs, growls, wailing laments, and monstrous roaring tore at my hearing. Shadowy figures took shape at my shoulders, one of them a woman with rotting flesh. She flicked her tongue toward me-a tongue the length of my arm with razor-sharp spikes.