Sister, he called, or tried to, I’m falling. I’m lost...! But she did not come, not even as a ghost of memory; they were separated by some gulf that even their blood tie could not bridge.
Sister. I’m dying... He could never have guessed that it would happen this way—that they would have no last farewell. But she must know how he loved her. She was the only thing in this corrupted world that mattered to him. He could take solace in that, anyway... Who...are...you...?
It came to him as a whisper—no, less than a whisper, it came like the sound of a flower unfolding on the far side of a meadow. Still, in the midst of such utter emptiness, it was a glorious sound, glad as trumpets.
Who’s there? Is that you, Storm Lantern? But he knew that the fairy’s words could never feel like that in his mind, each one as cool, gentle and precise as water dripping from a leaf after the rains had stopped. It was a woman speaking, he could feel it, but that still didn’t seem quite right: the touch seemed even too light for that. And then he knew. It was the dark-haired girl, the one who had watched over his other dreams.
Who are you? he asked the emptiness. He was still falling, but the movement seemed different now, no longer plunging toward something but sailing outward. Do I know you?
Who am I? She was silent for a time, as if the question surprised her. I...I don’t know. Who are you?
A silly question, he thought at first, but found he had no easy answer. I have a name, he insisted, I just can’t think of it right now.
So do I, she told him, still no more than a ghostly voice. And I can’t think of mine, either. How strange...!
Do you know where we are?
He could feel the negation even before he caught the wordthoughts. No. Lost, I think. We’re lost. For the first time he recognized the sadness in her voice and knew he was not the only one who was afraid. He wanted to help her, although he could not help himself or even say what it was that troubled him. All he knew was that he was falling endlessly outward through nothing, and that it was a blessing beyond price to have someone to share it with.
I want to see you, he said suddenly. Like before. Before?
You were watching me. That was you, wasn’t it? Those things were chasing me, and the halls were on fire... That was you. It was not a question, but almost a sweet note of satisfaction. I was afraid for you.
I want to see you.
But who are you? she demanded.
I don’t know! When he grew angry her presence became fainter and that frightened him. Still, it was interesting to know he could still feel anger. When he had been falling alone, he had felt almost nothing. I just know that I was by myself, and then you were here. I haven’t felt... It would have been almost impossible to explain in his waking life— in this wordless, directionless place it was far beyond impossible. I haven’t felt anyone in my heart since I lost her. He could not summon the name, but he knew her, his sister, his twin soul, his other half.
The other was silent for a long moment. You love her.
I do. But there was a misunderstanding between them, a sort of cloud of confusion, and again the girl’s presence became remote. Don’t go! I need to see you. I want to... There was no word for what he wanted—there weren’t even thoughts that could be strung together—but he wanted a reason to exist. He wanted a place to be, and to feel someone waiting for the thoughts in his head, so that he knew there was more to the universe the gods had made than simply a few whispers in endless darkness. I want to... There is a place around us, she said suddenly. I can almost see it.
What do you mean?
Look! It’s big, but it has walls. And there’s...a road?
He could see it now, at least its faint lineaments. It was a space only slightly smaller than the endless dark through which they had been falling, and only a little more bright, but it had shape, it had boundaries. At the center of it he saw what she had called a road, an arching span of safety over an astonishing, terrifying dark nothing—a nothing even more profound than the void through which he had been falling. But this pit of blackness beneath the span was not simply nothing, it was a darkness that wanted to make everything else into a nothing, too. It existed, but its existence was a threat to all else. It was the raw stuff of unbeing.
No, that’s not a road, he said as the one stripe of something slowly hardened into visibility. It’s a bridge.
And then they were facing each other on the curving span, the boy and the girl, shifting and vague as objects seen through murky water. Neither of them were really children, but neither were they grown or anywhere close to it. They were raw, frightened, excited, and still new enough to the world that a thing like this made as much sense as anything else.
Her eyes were what held him, although he could not keep his stare fixed on them for more than a moment— everything here was inconstant, shifting and blurring as though he had exhausted his sight with hours of reading instead of just regaining it.
It wasn’t the eyes themselves that fascinated him, although they were large and kind, brown like the eyes of some creature watching with caution from the forest depths. Rather it was the way her eyes looked at him and saw him.
Even in this fit of madness (or whatever had swallowed him) the brown-eyed girl saw him, not what he said or what he seemed or what others imagined him to be. Perhaps it was only because they were in this place without names— perhaps she could have seen him here in no other way— but the way she looked at him felt like a welcoming campfire summoning a freezing, exhausted traveler. It felt like something that could save him.
Who are you? he asked again.
I told you, I don’t know. Then she smiled, a surprising flash of amusement that transformed her solemn little face into something astounding. I’m a dreamer, I suppose, or maybe I’m a dream. One of us is dreaming this, aren’t we?
But that was a jest, he knew. She was no idle wisp of either his fancy or her own—she was strong and practical. He could feel it. And who are you?
A prisoner, he told her, and knew it was true. An exile. A victim.
Now for the first time he felt something other than kindness from her, a sour taste in her reply. A victim? Who isn’t? That isn’t who you are, that’s just what’s happening to you.
He was torn between his desire to feel her sweetness again and the need to explain just how badly life and the gods had treated him. The gods? They were trying to kill him!
You don’t understand, he said. It’s different with me. But he found that here on this bridge over Unbeing, this span that led away in either direction to unseen and unknowable ends, he couldn’t explain why that was. I’m...wrong. Crippled. Mad in the head.