He lay down in the snow and summoned deep vision as fast as he was able. If Kelat could be saved, time was their enemy.
Kelat awoke to the cheery light of a fire flickering on the shelter walls.
That was odd. But it was pleasing. He thought he would never see fire again. He thought he would never see anything again.
He tested his hands. They ached unbearably, but he could move them. His leg, too.
“Oh, you’ll live to fight another dragon someday, if that’s what you’re worrying about, Prince Uthar,” he heard Deor remark.
Kelat lifted his head. “Name’s Kelat.”
“Yes, but Ambrosia suggested we start calling you Uthar instead. It’s all those other Uthars who’ll have to change their names, from the sound of things.”
Kelat considered this in silence. It seemed rather momentous, but in a distant way. Being alive—and not seeing his arms and leg go the way of his nose—all that seemed more important, was certainly more immediate.
Morlock and Ambrosia were lying still on opposite sides of the fire. Their eyes were not lit up with vision. They were just sleeping.
Kelat gestured at the fire. “What . . . ? What . . . ?”
“My pack,” Deor said. “It was almost empty anyway, so I’ll distribute what’s left among the other three. The seers are out, as you see, and we have to get through the night somehow. I had some fun designing the occlusion so that the smoke departs but most of the heat remains—but I suppose you don’t care about that.”
“Keeps me alive. I care.”
“Some food will help, too. I was all for making werewolf sausages out of that dead meat-puppet, but Morlock seemed to think the meat might not be healthy.”
“Ugh.”
“Well, that was what he actually said. I take it you agree. You want a mouthful of flatbread and dried meat? It’s what we’ve got, so that’s kind of a rhetorical question.”
“Water more.”
Deor unfolded a flatware bowl and got him some melted snow.
“We’re going to make it, I think,” Deor said to him while he drank. “I didn’t think so before.”
“Make it a while longer,” said Kelat. He tried to think of himself as Uthar. He was still thinking about it when he fell asleep.
They did make it.
One pale, unremarkable morning they ate the last crumbs of their food and struck their shelters. They trudged up a steep ridge and, at the top, looked all the way down to forever: the wintry sky of that harsh summer faded to a misty blue like evening below. The land ran raggedly up to the edge of the sky and stopped. At the very end of the world, the winds from beyond the edge had scoured the stone free of snow.
But they no longer needed the track of the sun’s death in the snow to lead them. There, on the blue-black stone at the ragged edge of the world was a bridgehead. Beyond it a bridge extended in a long, curving arch beyond the eye’s ability to follow: paving stones black and white gave way at some indefinable point to patches of light and darkness.
“The Soul Bridge,” Ambrosia remarked.
Morlock nodded. There was nothing else it could be: the bridge the Sunkillers had made to invade the world, the way Skellar had been sent beyond the sky by Rulgân.
They saw no one there at or near the bridge, but their enemies were not material entities. Morlock kicked off his much-repaired snowshoes and drew Tyrfing, which was also not a material entity (or at least not merely material). He strode down the far side of the ridge and walked up to the bridgehead, Ambrosia at his side, the others close behind.
As he got closer, he did see someone or something: a vaguely manlike body, half-buried in snow, sprawled next to the bridgehead.
“Skellar,” he called over his shoulder.
Ambrosia grabbed Morlock by the elbow. He turned to look at her. She was in rapture, eyes closed and faintly glowing, the focus-amulet at her throat throbbing with pulses of light.
The light faded. She opened her eyes.
“Then?” he said.
“The body is not dead, but neither is it the residence of a soul any longer. There is nothing else alive between here and the edge of the sky except us—and except that.” She pointed at the Soul Bridge.
He grunted. “Alive?”
“It is tal interwoven with matter, like your blade Tyrfing there. Or, for that matter, like you.”
“Odd, but not unexpected. What’s troubling you?”
“That.” She pointed at something on the first step of the bridgehead: sheets of crystal, pinned with something like ice to the stone. There was dark writing on the crystal in a language that he knew, by a hand that he recognized.
It was a letter. And it was addressed to him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Graith Divided
The battle outside the Dome of the Graith grew louder, but it was hard to tell who was winning. Apart from cries of pain, no one spoke: there were no pleas for mercy, no offers of quarter, no boasts or war cries.
“Aloê,” Lernaion began.
“Shut up, and I mean both of you. Any talking you do you can do to the Graith at Station. It sounds like it won’t be long now.”
“You’re very confident your allies will win.”
“Fairly confident. You’d better hope I’m right. If that door opens and your servant Maijarra lets in your band of thugs, then I’ll kill you both and have done.”
Lernaion allowed himself a cold smile. “Very confident. But how will you justify yourself to your peers in the Graith.”
“I have the Graith’s mandate, you old fool! I am the Graith’s vengeancer, and you three are the murderers of a summoner. Your lives are mine whenever I choose to take them.”
Bleys was looking toward the double doors. The sound of the battle was fading, gone. Booted feet came striding up the hallway.
The doors were unbarred from the outside and Maijarra swung them open. Her silver spear was deeply stained with blood.
Aloê tensed and Bleys laughed aloud.
Through the open doors strode Noreê, Jordel, Illion, Styrth Anvri, Sundra, Callion, Keluaê Hendaij—bloody weapons in their hands, grim looks on their faces. The Awkward Bastards were victorious, but not triumphant. Aloê knew how they felt.
“Vocate Maijarra!” cried Bleys. “How could you betray us?”
Maijarra’s milk-pale face was motionless, unmoved. “I am thain to the Graith of Guardians,” she said, “not to you.”
And, at Aloê’s command, she put the summoners in chains and led them away to the lockhouse.
The trial of the summoners had to wait for the healing of the Witness Stone. (Illion and Noreê were taking up that task.) But other strings in the conspiratorial web snapped more easily.
Aloê got a writ of authority from the High Arbitrate and rode on Raudhfax up to Big Rock to apprehend Ulvana. She anticipated some difficulty finding Ulvana: the woman must have heard of Naevros’ exposure, and she had many places to hide in.
But when Aloê arrived at Big Rock House, the householder told her that Ulvana was being held prisoner at the Arbiter’s House . . . by Noreê, who had appeared with a company of thains the night before.
“Thanks, Goodman Parell,” Aloê said.
“Will you be staying with us long, I hope?”
“Only overnight, I think.”
“Are you going to the Arbiter’s House instanter?”
“Yes, goodman, if that means what I think it means.”
Parell hesitated a moment and said, “Will you please tell Vocate Noreê to have her things removed from here? It’s just that—well, if she wants an explanation, I will make one to her.”
“I’ll tell her, Parell.”
“Thanks to you for that. Vocate, I don’t know if I’m too old-fashioned or not old-fashioned enough. . . .” His voice trailed off.