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 west-ward 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 stand-ing a foot above the ground. "Sir," he said, addressing Sun-spark 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-handing 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 an-other.
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. (Ner-vous?)
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 Adfne 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. "Fire-work, 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 disturb-ing. "You all right, loved?" (It's cold up there,) Sunspark said.
Herewiss looked shocked. The others glanced at one an-other: 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 silhou-ette 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 incan-descence. 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, shak-ing 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.
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