the others, the whole arranged to form the arch that spanned the ravine. There were no pins or supports or any kind. Stone abutments at each end wrapped the corners, serving as cradles to keep the stones tightly pressed together and immobile.
But the massive blocks each must have weighed thousands of pounds. How had they been shaped, carried, and placed across the ravine without underlying supports? They could not have just hung in midair, each in turn, while the rest were fitted. Pen could not fathom it. Even using pulleys and a block and tackle it would have been impossible to suspend the first stones while waiting to set the others. They were too big, too heavy, and too cumbersome.
There was something else to consider, he saw. These stones were not as old as those of the ruins themselves. They were smooth and not yet worn and pitted by weather and time as were the walls behind which Pen and his companions had hidden earlier. Stridegate was thousands of years old. The bridge was much newer. It had been constructed long after the city was destroyed and its inhabitants dead.
The implications of his reasoning caused him to shiver, — they made him want to turn around right then and there and go back.
It would have taken at least one giant to construct this bridge. It would have taken technology that no longer existed in his world.
Or it would have taken a very powerful magic.
He didn't care for any of those possibilities. All were beyond anything the group had ever encountered. It dwarfed them, reducing their tiny defenses to a handful of pebbles. Even Khyber, with the magic of the Elfstones to aid her, would not be able to stand against something that could accomplish what he saw before him.
He stopped abruptly, not five feet from the bridge, and stood staring at it. Sensing his discomfort, Cinnaminson whispered, «Pen? What's wrong?»
He didn't know what to say in reply, how to explain. He wasn't sure he should try. He couldn't turn back, couldn't give up. The Ard Rhys needed him to go forward if she was to have any chance at all of escaping the Forbidding. Those he had come with needed him to cross if they were to realize any success from their efforts to bring him there. All other considerations, no matter how daunting, had to be put aside.
He was just a boy, but he knew instinctively what he must do.
«Nothing's wrong,' he said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. «Don't worry.»
He started forward again, leading her onto the bridge, reaching out with his senses into the twilight shadows that now draped everything from the forested pinnacle to the ravine that surrounded it to the bridge that reached to it. He used his tiny magic, his strange gift, to seek anything that might be waiting. Whispers came back to him, small rustlings and little hissings. They came from unidentifiable sources, from the impenetrable dark, from the void. He heard them, but could not make sense of them. He sorted through them swiftly, seeking just one that he might recognize.
Nothing.
He glanced over the side of the bridge into the ravine, into the pooled darkness. His gaze tightened. Was something moving down there?
He slowed, caution once again taking hold.
-Cross—
A chorus of voices spoke, all sounding the same, all whispering in perfect unison. They echoed in his mind, clear as the ringing of a bell. He started in shock, then glanced quickly at Cinnaminson.
«The spirits of the air,' she said softly. «Can you can hear them, too?»
He nodded, surprised that he could, wondering why they were speaking to him, as well.
-Cross–Fairy voices, soft and feminine. Telling him to come ahead, to do what they had brought him to do.
«Who are you?» he whispered.
— Aeriads. Spirits of the air—
«What is the matter?» Khyber called out to them, a disembodied voice from somewhere behind. «Are you all right?»
He waved back at her without looking.
-Cross
The whispers urged him to obey, and he did so, not knowing why exactly, not understanding the nature of his readiness to do as they commanded, only knowing that he should. He moved slowly, one careful step at a time, climbing toward the apex of the stone arch, watching the island pinnacle draw steadily closer.
«Where do you come from?» he whispered, not really expecting an answer, but curious anyway.
-From our father and mother. From seedlings strewn far and wide. From wind and rain and time–Surprised, Pen considered the words. He had no idea what they meant, but the wordseedlings caught his attention.
«Are you children of the tanequil? Is the tree your father?»
-Our father and our mother. One lives in light; one dwells in dark. One has limbs, — one has roots. They wait for you—
Pen shook his head. At the center of the bridge, at the apex of the stone arch, suspended above the dark void of the ravine, he was suddenly aware of something stirring down in the depths, down where he couldn't see. His senses warned him, but he could not trace that warning to anything specific. He just knew. He froze in response, feeling Cinnaminson do the same. She was aware of it, as well. It wasn't the rustle of grasses or the whisper of leaves. This was something much larger—like the heavy rub of a massive animal passing through brush or the drag of logs, cut and chained, through dry earth. But it wasn't localized like that, either. It was spread all through the ravine, twisting and turning along ruts and down sinkholes, oozing and burrowing through dirt and under loose stone.
Mirrored in the sharp glare of the setting sun, a vision flashed before his eyes. Out of that glare, a monstrous apparition took shape, vague and unformed, a thing of tentacles and feelers, of crushing strength and brutal response. He saw in its grip the bodies of humans and animals alike. He saw them break and bleed. He watched their struggles and heard their cries. He cringed from the vision, turning quickly away, closing his eyes to shut out the sights and sounds.
-Cross
The ropes that had been bound about their waists fell away as if severed by knives. Shouts and cries ensued from those left behind, but quickly faded.
-Cross
The voices of the aeriads called to him once more, firm and insistent. Keeping tight hold of Cinnaminson, he moved swiftly ahead, no longer even glancing toward the ravine. The shadows had thickened with the twilight, and it seemed as if, sinewy and rapacious, they were trying to climb from the ravine, out of the darkness and into the light. Pen walked more quickly still, trying to ignore their presence, to block away his perception of the thing below, to ignore the possibility that it was attempting to find him.
Then he was across, safely off the bridge, standing on the solid rock of the pinnacle amid a fringe of trees and brush, just another of the twilight shadows. He no longer sensed the thing in the ravine. He no longer felt it coming for him. He breathed slowly and deeply, steadying himself, pushing back his fear. He was all right. He was safe.
He looked over at Cinnaminson, whose shadow–streaked face was pale and drawn, etched with lines of fear. He squeezed her hand. «We're across. It isn't coming anymore.»
She nodded that she understood, but her tension would not be so easily dispelled.
-Come
The aeriads had no time or interest in fear, it seemed. Pen and Cinnaminson started ahead once more, moving into the trees. Night descended, the moon and stars appeared, and the texture of the light changed. Slowly, their vision adjusted, and they were able to see well enough to know how to place their feet. The trees closed about them, towering old–growth giants, age–worn sentinels of that strange place. Pen could almost feel them watching, waiting to see what he and Cinnaminson would do. The forest was deep and still, and it was living. Pen stepped lightly, gingerly, thinking it made a difference where and how he walked. The earth was soft, carpeted with needles, damp and smelling of mulch and rot. He did not hear the sounds of night birds or small animals. He did not see anything move.
— Come
