The songsmith halted, regarding her arms with a silent thanksgiving to Gunnora that she had not panicked. Dozens of small pinpricks oozed a single droplet of scarlet apiece. Cautiously, she explored her grimy face with even dirtier fingertips, discovering several more stabs.
“For an illusion,” she said to Alon as he came up beside her, “that was all too real.” She held out her arm.
He nodded grimly. “At least we are past. You have learned a valuable lesson today, Lady. When one is working any kind of spell or counterspell, it can be disaster to let one’s concentration break. The first year or so as an apprentice is spent learning to focus and not to be distracted. You had to master that lesson in the space of minutes.”
“Be assured it is a lessoning I shall not soon forget.”
He stepped up beside her, and together they made their way to the crest of the hillside. As weary as they were, it took them a long time, and they were gasping when they reached it. There they halted, gazing down at what now lay before them.
A short walk beyond, the blighted land ended abruptly in a chasm so deep and so black that Eydryth could not discern any bottom to it. A wall of thick grey mist seemed to rise out of the opening, roiling and drifting as though blown by a wind, though she could feel none. The mist extended before them, as high as she could see in each direction, blocking their sight of what, if anything, lay beyond.
They had reached the end of their road… they could go no farther.
Tears of despair filled the songsmith’s eyes, and she sank weakly to her knees, pressing both hands to her broken lips. Sobs shook her, wrenched her shoulders. To have come all this way, only to have it end thus. To have come all this way for nothing!
Alon sighed, dropping to sit beside her. His bare shoulders bowed forward as he buried his face in his hands, obviously as shaken as she.
“We shall have to go back,” Eydryth whispered, after a while. It was either that or die right here, and she wasn’t… quite… ready to die. “Perhaps there is another way…”
He shook his head, then, with an effort that was palpable, straightened his shoulders. Retrieving his shirt from Monso’s head, he pulled it on, buttoning it with none-too-steady fingers. “We cannot,” he said. “Our way out lies there.” He pointed across the chasm. “That mist hides the real Arvon. We must find some way to cross over the chasm… to bridge that gap.”
Eydryth stared at him, certain that he was now completely bereft of his wits. “But… how?”
“We must make a bridge.”
“There is no way! We have nothing to build with—even if a bridge could span that void, which I do not for one moment believe!”
“It is the only way out,” he maintained stubbornly. “Arvon—the real Arvon—is there.” He pointed. “I can sense it. By the Sword Arm of Karthen the Fair, I can smell it! Cannot you?”
She gave him a sideways glance, then, as he regarded her steadily, ventured a sniff. “I smell…” she whispered. “I smell flowers! And water! Is that another illusion?”
“No,” he said. “It is real. The other hillside is there. We must cross the chasm to reach it, Eydryth. We must make a bridge.”
“Out of what? We have nothing!”
He did not answer, only unfastened the last water flask from Monso’s saddle. “Drink,” he said, holding it and the packet of food out to her. “And eat. Force yourself. You will need all your strength for what is about to come.”
Bewildered, she did as he bade. Scenting the water, Monso whickered pleadingly, but this time the Adept shook his head at the stallion. “I am sorry, old son,” he said, giving the Keplian a comforting pat, “but if we succeed, your thirst will be eased very quickly.”
“And if we fail?” asked Eydryth, giving him a sidelong glance. She could not imagine what he had in mind.
“If we fail,” he said grimly, “then neither thirst nor hunger will torture us for much longer, so the result will be the same.”
After they had eaten and drunk, emptying the third and last flask between them, they made their way down the raw rock of the hillside, then walked the short distance to the edge of the drop. Making sure both feet were planted as securely as possible, Eydryth took hold of Monso’s right stirrup and leaned forward, gazing downward.
Sheer red rock for as far down as she could see, disappearing finally into the swirling grey mist.
Alon picked up a stone, held it suspended over the gorge, then released it. It fell… and fell…
… and fell. They never heard it strike bottom.
Eydryth stared at the wall of mist before them. It was perhaps two of Monso’s lengths distant. “You believe that if we can plunge into that mist, we shall be released from the spell and back in the real Arvon,” she said finally.
Alon nodded.
“How shall we cross the gap?” she asked, keeping her voice level, as though they were discussing a problem with a solution, rather than quick and certain death.
“We must make a bridge,” he repeated.
“Using what?”
“Ourselves,” he said flatly. “Our Power. My blood. Your music.”
She gazed at him wide-eyed. “You are mad,” she whispered.
Alon shook his head at her warningly. “You have already learned the value of belief, Eydryth. You will need all of it you can summon. Do not let doubt intrude. I am sane, never doubt it. This”—he waved at the abyss—“is our way out. On the other side lies the Arvon we left.”
She caught again that faint scent of flowers. Monso sniffed the air; then the Keplian’s nostrils widened and he nickered, pawing. “He smells the water,” Alon said.
Eydryth bit her lip, then took a deep breath. What choice, after all, did she have? “Very well,” she said quietly. “I believe. How shall we do it?”
He gave her a quick, approving nod. “We will need to combine our Power,” he said. “Create a Seeming of our own. One of the ones so strong that it has solidity, substance. It will not be easy,” he finished, warningly. “But it can be done.”
“I am ready,” she said resolutely. “Tell me what to do.”
“In the first place, you must concentrate,” he told her. “If the earth trembles this time, you must not let it disturb you, do you understand?”
She nodded.
The Adept took his knife out of its sheath, handed it to her. “When I nod, you must cut,” he said, tapping his wrist. “Cut deeply enough so that the blood flows freely, but not so deep that we cannot staunch the wound later.” Eydryth hesitated, then took the knife he held out. “I would do it myself,” Alon said, with a note of apology, “but we must link hands for this. Whatever happens, do not let go.”
“I understand,” she said, studying the blue veins running along the inside of his forearm, planning the best place to do as he bade. “Then what?”
“You must sing. You will feel the Power leaving you, joining with the blood to create the bridge. Use your music to strengthen your Power—and our bridge. Sing, and stop for nothing! As soon as the bridge is solid, you must send Monso across, then lead me. I will have my eyes closed, holding the spell in my mind’s eye, and I will not be able to see what I—we—have wrought.”
He gazed at her intently. “If Gunnora smiles upon us, by the time I next see you, we will be back in Arvon.”
Eydryth touched the symbol of the Amber Lady that she wore upon her neck. Then, quickly, she checked that all their supplies were securely lashed to Monso’s saddle. “We are ready,” she told Alon.
Solemnly, he unbuttoned his left sleeve, rolled it up so his arm was bared. The he held out both hands to her. Eydryth grasped his right hand tightly with her left, then raised the knife.
Alon closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, then nodded. “First, the music,” he muttered.
Eydryth began to hum softly… Choosing a tune nearly at random, she was taken aback to realize it was “Hathor’s Ghost Stallion,” the melody she had been singing when first they had met. As she began to sing the words, his fingers squeezed hers. “Now,” he whispered.