The night prowlers settled down for the day and the day prowlers took their place, but moving along the road atop the giant black seetarr kept Aesnil and me safe. The sun had been up three or four hours when we came upon a branching in the road, one arm leading off to the right, steeper-looking than the main road and turning higher into the mountains.
“That road would also take us to our destination,” Aesnil observed, giving it a brief glance as we passed by it. “It was used by all before the construction of the bridge across the abyss, yet is it considerably longer and more arduous than the bridge road, which halves the distance. We will reach the bridge well before dark at our current pace, therefore will we cross before seeking a place of rest. When we reach Vediaster, we shall allow ourselves proper rest.”
But not before, I thought to myself, feeling her eagerness and determination. I, myself, was beginning to feel annoyed, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t begrudge Aesnil her shining purpose, but it was possible her continued “we” was beginning to rub me the wrong way. Her attitude wasn’t simply a matter of friendship or concern over what would become of me; her thoughts became somehow proprietary when she said “we,” and I didn’t care for it. If she was thinking about owning me again the way she had when she was still actively Chama, she was in for a rude shock.
We rode on another couple of hours, sweating in the heat, eyes slitted against the peek-a-boo glare of the sun every time it came out from behind the high-floating clouds. Since Aesnil hadn’t said anything about the road branching again I was surprised when the second branching appeared, also off to the right but this time going level if not dropping. As unexpected as it seemed there were trees around this second road, and it looked a decent place to stop and have lunch. Keeping to a saddle so long had me feeling as though I’d been switched, but when I made the suggestion Aesnil’s reaction surprised me even more than the sudden appearance of the branching had.
“We may not stop here,” she said at once, her voice even despite the agitated jumping of her mind. “That road holds difficulty and danger for us, for it leads to the holding of enemies of mine. We will continue ahead, and will take our sustenance only when well away from here.”
Even if I’d wanted to argue with her words, I couldn’t very well argue with the fear she felt. I could tell she wasn’t simply being high-handed, so I sighed and gave in again. If it had been anything but fear motivating her I wouldn’t have, but fear is too strong to ignore.
Lunch break was hardly long enough to let me stretch the kinks out of my back before we were mounted and moving on again. Aesnil had developed a heavy anxiety to reach and cross the bridge, and the longer it went on the better chance it had of giving me a headache or forcing me to shield. I had begun thinking about going my own way as soon as we were out of the mountains, and the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. I still hadn’t decided on a definite place to go, but once I was alone I could stop to think about it. The one thing I really wanted was to get off that planet, but I didn’t yet know how I could accomplish that. Maybe thinking about it would give me an answer, so undisturbed thinking time was the first order of business. Having something of a plan, if not a true purpose, raised my spirits, making me feel better despite the ever-increasing saddle-ache.
If I was feeling happier, Aesnil was suddenly feeling considerably worse. The road went on and on, bearing ever so slightly to the right, and then we reached a curve, rounded it—and came upon the abyss Aesnil had mentioned. It was no more than twenty feet ahead of us, the road disappearing over its near edge, better than sixty feet of emptiness gleaming in the sun before the far edge appeared, the road then beginning again. I gasped at the unexpected sight, but Aesnil moaned with true pain.
“The bridge!” she cried, undecided whether to wring her hands or tear her hair. “What has happened to the bridge?”
I dismounted without answering her, then walked closer to the abyss to get a better look. A wind blew in over the openness, flapping my clothes and sending my hair backward, but it wasn’t strong enough to drive me back before I peeked over the edge. There, just below me, was what was left of the bridge, a tangle of charred and broken wood, rope, vines and boards, all of it much too short to reach to the other side of the dizzying drop. It didn’t look as though it had been all that sturdy to begin with, the sight keeping me from summoning up the sort of knife-edged disappointment Aesnil was feeling.
“It appears to have burned,” I called back to Aesnil, fighting with my hair as I turned away from the chasm. “Are there those about who would have burned it?”
“No,” she choked, fighting with tears which became more obvious the closer I got. “It must have been the storms recently past, the lines of fire thrown from the skies. Once before this happened, bringing about the need to rebuild the bridge once the storm season was done. It had not occurred to me it would happen a second time, when my need for the bridge was so urgent. What are we to do?”
The tears were rolling freely down her cheeks by then, her desolation so strong I winced. She’d gone ahead with her plans as though nothing in the world could stop her, and now that nature had gotten in her way she wasn’t prepared to cope. It was the reaction of someone who hadn’t often been denied whatever it was she’d wanted, and it annoyed me.
“As we are ill-equipped to fly over the abyss, we would do well retracing our steps,” I answered, getting ready to remount even though I didn’t want to. “Though the alternate route to our destination is longer, it seems we have little choice.”
“Yes, yes, the alternate route,” she gulped, wiping at her tears as new hope welled within her. “We will surely grow a bit hungry before we arrive in Vediaster by that route, yet will we arrive there. Let us continue on at once.”
She backed up her seetar then turned it to go back the way we’d come, moving slowly despite the return of her anxiety to allow me time to catch up to her. I followed suit on my own seetar, but not because I was that anxious to be moving on again. Being that close to such a deep chasm bothered me, but once we were far enough away I intended calling a halt. I needed time to sleep and rest my body, more time than I’d recently been allowed. It would help us very little if we avoided all pursuit, only to fall over dead from pushing ourselves too hard.
Going back took us down rather than up, and the seetarr showed their enjoyment of the change by increasing their pace. I stood the bouncing, jarring motion as long as I could, then called out to Aesnil that it was time we stopped. I could see in her mind that she heard me, but there was no other positive acknowledgment from her aside from that. Instead she kicked her seetar to increase its pace even further, pulling away ahead as though she were intent on winning a race. If I’d had any intelligence I would have let her go on alone and be damned, but what she’d done had gotten me mad. If we were going to part company then rather than later, I had a few words I wanted to say first. I jiggled the reins of my own mount to let it know I wanted to go faster, and began chasing after the former Chama of Grelana.