would still reach Lianar by nightfall when it began to rain again. Instead he hunched his cloak around himself and lost interest. They would arrive when they would arrive. He was quite cold now, his hands were numb and he felt weary, so weary.
He jerked awake suddenly, feeling alarmed and foolish. He had gone to sleep on his horse! None of the others were watching him, so either his hood had hidden him or he had slept only briefly. Even so he was surprised at himself, and somewhat horrified. He remembered jokes he had repeated as a boy about old men and women who were so senile they fell asleep on their horses.
As he fumbled with his thoughts, telling himself that he was very tired today and making other excuses, he became aware that Azkun was speaking with Althak again.
“That is what I realised as soon as I saw the bridge. The road between corruption and the dragons is broken by a great gulf, a chasm not a wall. This chasm must be crossed and to cross it a bridge is required.”
“Fine words, my friend,” said Althak. “But what do they mean? I see no bridge, I see no chasm.”
“You see no chasm because you stand in its shadows, as I did once. I did not know there was an upper world until I was called from the Chasm. That calling was my bridge.”
“So what is to be my bridge?”
Azkun was silent for a long time, then he spoke.
“I am your bridge.” He said it loudly enough for Hrangil to hear, and Menish wondered what he would make of that remark. Althak only laughed. Menish heard him clapping Azkun on the shoulder.
“A bridge to the dragons! You have a great heart, Azkun. One day you'll have me believing you.”
Azkun no longer wanted to flee. He had reconciled himself to the futility of that course. The corruption had insinuated itself into the very rocks. Their jagged edges had attacked him mindlessly in the river and he still felt their wounds. Running from his comrades would not escape it.
He resolved to resist the evil he felt around him, to face it and to somehow defeat it in the end. Yesterday, before they had killed the pig, his perception of the world had been so different. Yesterday the trees and the rocks and the water were things of beauty he had taken delight in. But yesterday he had not realised the fundamental darkness that infested everything even during the day. The spectres of the night were merely hidden. He perceived that darkness with a desperate clarity. He was in a place of death among people who killed, who deliberately sought that terrifying darkness that had swallowed the pig.
But he fought many battles within himself that day to contain his panic. Sometimes it lurked in his mind just beyond a scream. Sometimes he was almost able to ignore it, but it was always there. At first he wondered if he could possibly last the day. His mind would sometimes brush against the thoughts of the others, and he would clench his teeth against horror. But as the morning wore on his defences became more secure. He remembered the dragons and that gave him hope.
So it was that he began to speak to Althak about dragons. Althak, because he was most receptive to talk of dragons. Althak, because he had, after all, shown him kindness. He was not all darkness and death. Azkun felt he had some measure of success, but he had no answer to the Vorthenki’s assertion that he must eat if he was to live.
The bridge provided him with that answer. They had struggled along the face of the gorge for hours. It reminded him so much of the Chasm with its sheer cliffs and its biting wind. He felt the instinctive numbness creeping back into his mind. It was almost a relief from his contained panic. But the bridge had driven all that away. The bridge was the answer.
When he tried to explain this to Althak he found that his grasp of the symbol was incomplete. A bridge was needed between the corruption and the dragons. A bridge across the chasm. But Althak could see no bridge except the one of stone. In the silence that had followed his question the truth had whispered the answer. It was Azkun himself who was the bridge.
He did not know how, or even why. But this was the purpose of the dragons. He himself was the bridge. In spite of the spectre of corruption that lurked so close he rejoiced. He wanted to sing, but he knew no songs. Surely there were songs of dragons to be sung. He looked at Althak, for he had heard Althak sing before, but Althak’s song was not what he wanted.
On his other side, a little ahead, for he was leading them, Hrangil’s horse plodded through the rain. Hrangil was rigid with his doubts and hopes and weighed down by the water that ran off his cloak. Azkun had not heard him sing, but he told tales. Perhaps he knew a tale of the bridge, and perhaps it would please him to tell it.
He nudged his horse and it trotted obediently up beside Hrangil’s. A spasm of anxiety and alertness from Althak twitched in his mind but his senses were too dulled by the rain for it to register deeply.
“Master Hrangil?” The others called him that. It seemed to be a title of some sort.
The old man jerked up his head as if he were started out of deep thoughts. The eyes he turned towards Azkun were full of contradictions.
“Yes…” he trailed off, as if grasping for a title he should give Azkun but unable to find one.
“You told a tale last night about the Lansheral. Do you know a tale of the bridge?”
“I know the tale of the bridge, yes,” he appeared puzzled to be asked.
“I would like to hear it, if you wish to tell it.”
Hrangil started to object and stopped himself. Azkun could see he was confused for some reason.
“I enjoyed your tale last night. I would like to hear more. I felt as if I had been to the places you spoke of.”
At that Hrangil smiled, as if an unspoken question had been answered.
“Very well. It is a delight to tell you. Perhaps you will remember.
“It was sixteen years after the founding of Relanor that Gilish made his journey north to Kelerish. He and a small company travelled by sea and the journey was long, for it was winter and the north wind blew. For this reason Gilish forbade Sheagil, his wife, from accompanying him and left in secret so that she would not follow.
“But, although he had forbidden her, Sheagil followed Gilish north. When she caught up with Gilish and his company she found that they were separated from each other by a mighty gorge.
“When Gilish saw her he was moved with compassion, for she had travelled many days alone and with great hardship to be with him. He resolved to make a monument to the love that inspired her journey so, using his magic, he constructed the Bridge of Sheagil, which allowed him to cross over the gorge and be reunited with his wife.”
Hrangil stopped there. He seemed on the verge of continuing the story but decided not to say more. Azkun did not press him. He had said enough. This Gilish they had spoken of so much had built the bridge as a kindness to reach someone called Sheagil. It was what Azkun expected of such a structure and the story confirmed his feeling that he, himself, was a bridge.
Chapter 6: Lianar
Dusk was falling by the time they rode into Lianar. The last few miles had been easier because the villagers had kept the way clear of obstacles for their own use. The horses, sensing food and warm stables, changed from their reluctant plodding pace to an enthusiastic trot.
They found themselves moving down a cleft in the hills where the forest had dwindled to low scrub and tussock. A tangy salt wind blew in their faces and, not far ahead, they could see the first of the Vorthenki long houses. The smell of cooking fires drifted in the wind.
Azkun’s panic stirred uneasily with the approach of night. The spectres of the darkness gathered around him. But he knew now that this was only night. After the chasm of night would follow dawn. And he could smell smoke. Fire was not far away. He was weary with pain now. His arm was no longer numb, and it ached.
The houses they approached were made of wood and earth and their roofs were thatched with the scrub that grew around them. A doorway darkened the side of the nearest house, it was hung with a heavy curtain. As they passed the curtain was pulled back and a figure stepped out. Azkun caught a glimpse of fire and shadowy forms inside. It made the night seem suddenly deeper. The man in the doorway called something to his fellows inside and more men came out.
