that have fallen into the Rockshaft over the last fifty years. And the rocket has enough fuel to carry you all the way to Nayve-so long as you penetrate the blue magic barrier.”
It was as the iron door clanged shut that she became afraid and suddenly felt very, very lonely. She thought of Karkald, wondered if she was doing the right thing. If he was alive, in Nayve, then she was doing the right thing. And if he was dead, it really didn’t matter. Once she reached that understanding, she felt better, more confident.
Until she heard the sputtering of the fuse, and all her misgivings returned tenfold. A few seconds later, there was a powerful rumble, as of something seizing her chair and shaking it violently back and forth. Smoke billowed around her, choking her nostrils, stinging her eyes. It was very hot, as if a furnace had ignited beneath her chair. Explosives roared with a sound like uncontained thunder.
And then, the violence really began.
“Let’s stay close to the wall; we’ll be harder to spot that way,” Miradel whispered. Shandira nodded and shrank against the dark stones where the cliff met the floor of the winding ravine.
They were following a passage that was considerably wider than the one where they had fled from the diving gargoyle. Another day had passed as they made their way deeper into the citadel, and still they had not encountered the vast hall of the Deathlord. But Miradel was confident that this major ravine, gently descending as it did, was taking them in the proper direction.
Their progress was slow because they advanced in short dashes, moving from one place of cover to the next. They hadn’t seen the stony guardian for several hours, but neither of them was inclined to take any chances. Finding shelter in narrow cracks in the cliff wall, against the base of overhanging cliffs, even under flat boulders, they were scraped and sore, dirty and weary.
But they managed to keep moving.
How long they had been following this passage, Miradel couldn’t begin to recall. It seemed like it was becoming a way of life, an eternal journey toward a place that didn’t really exist, a survival of hiding, where life itself depended upon avoiding discovery.
Until they came around a final bend in the widening ravine, and the cliff walls terminated to either side. They were faced with a steep drop, perhaps a hundred feet down a slope of large, tumbled talus, that spill of stone spreading, fanlike, onto the floor of a vast basin. High, black mountains surrounded the depression, which was at least a mile in diameter. The feet of these summits were sheer blocks of stone, descending to the flat floor around the entire periphery, except for the six or eight places, like this ravine, where gaps in the surrounding mountains created passages into this place. The background sky, across the bowl, was an impermeable, lifeless black-the end of all worlds.
“This is the Throne of the Deathlord,” Miradel breathed, staring through the shadows at the cliff on the far side of the basin. “You see the two eyes, glowing so high above.”
“Yes,” Shandira breathed, hushed and awestruck.
The glowing beacons of those fiery orbs burned in the air, suspended a hundred feet above the mountain shelf that served as a seat for that mighty throne. As the druids watched, the fire seemed to swell, an inferno of evil power growing as if in response to their intrusive presence.
It was difficult to discern much detail through the shadows-only as she tried did Miradel realize that night had fallen-but she was utterly certain this was the place. The images she had seen in the Tapestry were perfectly mirrored here, even to the extent of the vast blankness rising above the mountains on the far side of the valley. There, in the direction that was neither metal nor wood, she knew that she was looking at the very terminus of the cosmos.
“Let’s start across now, while it’s dark,” Shandira whispered, her lips close to Miradel’s ear. Soundlessly, the elder druid nodded.
They began to pick their way down the talus slope, feeling big rocks shift and wobble from the impact of their passage. The footing was irregular, with wide gaps to drop between or narrow crests to teeter along. Miradel went first, exerting great care to keep any of the stones from tumbling free. A rockslide that trapped them here might be deadly in its own right; in any event, it was certain to attract the attention of the one who was entrusted with guarding this place.
Without speaking they adopted the safest formation, each of them descending at the same elevation, side by side but some twenty feet apart. If one of them did start a slide, at least she minimized the chances of catching her companion, below, in the path of destruction. Miradel felt as though she was walking down a stairway of slippery bricks. She took care to test each foothold, very gradually, before putting all of her weight on it.
Several times they heard the rumble followed by a clunk of a boulder shifting slightly, rebalancing in the loose pile. Once a small rattle of debris skittered downward, shockingly loud in the still night. Miradel gasped and froze, seeing the outline of a similarly motionless Shandira to her side. For several minutes they remained still, and as the soft echoes swiftly faded, there was no other sound that rose from the night in response.
Finally they continued, even more gingerly. How long it took to complete the descent was far beyond Miradel’s awareness. By the time they reached the bottom, however, her shirt was soaked through with sweat, and in the chilly air this dampness seemed to penetrate right into her bones. They paused to rest for a few minutes and soon her teeth were chattering.
“We’d better get moving,” she said. “I’d hate to get this close and then die of exposure!”
“I admit… I’d hate to die for just about any reason, if I didn’t have to,” Shandira said. “So, let’s go.”
They started across the flat floor of the bowl-shaped valley. In the sky were myriad shifting stars overhead, while the great throne of the Deathlord rose like a miniature mountain itself. The gray shape atop that throne was barely visible, utterly motionless, except for the crimson slits of its eyes.
They were perhaps halfway across when Miradel saw something fly across the vista of the stars. The two druids were far from any shelter, could do nothing but stand in fear and wait as the gargoyle glided to the ground and came to rest before them, sitting squarely astride their approach to the Deathlord’s throne.
“I am ready.”
With these words, the ancient serpent tried to convey a sense of farewell and love, sentiments he felt perhaps more deeply than any mere human could know. He saw that Natac was moved beyond his own ability to reply, the man reaching out to touch a hand to the smooth scales of the long, supple neck.
The night was dark around them, this pair who had come together on the lakeshore for a farewell that might be their last meeting. For fifty years they had flown and fought together, forming a partnership of leadership and power that had mustered one of the great armies in the history of the Seven Circles.
Regillix Avatar had, for all his life, been a solitary, remote, and aloof creature. He had lived for nearly ten thousand years, most of that time in the cloud world of Arcati, the Sixth Circle. Yet he was forced now to acknowledge that this most recent half century had been the most profoundly important part of his life. Now he was strangely reluctant to bid farewell to this place, these people… this man, in particular.
Yet Darken was progressing, nearly halfway along by now, and the serpent knew that he had a long way to fly before dawn. He had talked to Socrates and made the plan that seemed most likely to work, but this required him to be high over the region of Winecker at the Lighten Hour. The scholar had speculated that, in addition to the rising current opposite the Worldfall, the descent of the sun would create a reverse pressure away from the center of Nayve, and Regillix Avatar would try to ride that draft of air all the way through the region of intense heat. Then he would rely on his own strength to lift him to the Overworld.
“It is time to go,” he said. “You will return to the army at Lighten, and I will try to return home.”
“Good luck, old friend,” said Natac.
“And to you, as well.”
With that he was off, springing into the air, then winging low over the smooth lake, using leisurely strokes of his wings to climb as he approached the far shore. He passed over the Ringhills, almost directly opposite the crest where the army of Nayve was preparing to stand, and continued to climb as the ground below faded into a patchwork of broad forests and wide lakes. Mist rose off the water, obscuring much of the landscape, and the dragon was strongly reminded of his own world.
Now he started to climb in earnest. He felt the draft rising around him, and as the Lighten Hour drew near he rested, coasting on widespread wings, and even then he continued to rise. He began to allow himself a measure of hope.
The sun began to brighten, and he knew that it was descending toward Nayve. He spread his great pinions
