“Rolf,” I cut him off.
“Yes?”
“Sorry, but I’m trying to concentrate on not falling to the bottom. Could we have this conversation later?”
“Oh, sure. Sorry.”
“No problem,” I answered, straining against my rope.
Shouts came from below. I glanced down to see that the men had found a ledge. As I lowered myself to the ground, I felt grateful to be on my own two feet again, even if it was a ledge barely wide enough to stand on.
Kull stood near me. We scanned the ledge as it hugged the mountainside. Far in the distance, the ledge ended and a bridge spanned over a deep crevasse. From my vantage point, the bridge was the only way across the canyon. A river ran along the gorge’s bottom, cutting its way through sharp rocks, although it was so far down, my bauble lights barely illuminated it.
Mochazon hovered over us. “That way,” he said, pointing at the bridge.
Kull nodded. “We’ll untie here and follow the trail,” he called, his deep voice booming around the canyon.
My fingers felt swollen as I untied the knots. Blisters formed where I’d been burned by the rope. As the rest of the Wults and I worked to free ourselves, Mochazon sped to the top of the crevasse and loosened our ropes. They fell to the ground with a loud thump.
After coiling our ropes, we replaced them in our packs and then started down the trail. I was thankful to be rid of my rope so soon, though I wondered if the trail was any safer. My pebble lanterns stayed with us, casting their soft glow over the uneven path.
I stared at the canyon with fascination. Anytime I thought I knew everything about Faythander, the world surprised me. Unlike Earth, there were still many places in Faythander that had yet to be discovered.
We stopped when we reached the bridge. At first, the arching stone formation appeared to be a natural creation, but on closer inspection, I noticed symbols carved along its edges. As my pebble lights drew near the bridge, the symbols lit up with their own magic in a faint pink glow.
All magical creatures possessed distinct magic, and I’d been trained to decipher them. Dragon magic glowed green; elven magic shone blue; pixie magic was pink; and goblin magic appeared gray. Not everyone could see the colors the same way I saw them, which gave me an advantage, but I sensed something odd. The pixie magic felt faint, as if the spell had been cast a very long time ago, and there was something else, too. Concentrating, I tried to see past the pixie’s spell. Searching deeper, I found another spell hidden beneath, so interwoven into the bridge’s molecules I almost didn’t sense it. Gray magic.
Goblins.
Mochazon landed beside me. Uli stirred, but her eyes remained closed.
“Goblins have been here,” I said. “They’ve tampered with the bridge.”
He nodded, his face grim. “Many generations ago, my people created this bridge, not to deter other pixies, but to prevent those who could not control flight from discovering the tree. Either Geth has set a trap for us, or he has broken the spell and crossed.
“Each of these symbols represents an ancient word. This one—” He pointed to an H-shaped symbol that had a long line drawn vertically through the center. “—is the word for ‘life’. And the symbol beside it is a word that means ‘destroy’. Translated altogether, the phrase reads, ‘I give life, yet I destroy. I am as large as the world but as small as a seed. Call my name, and you shall release me’.”
“A riddle?”
Mochazon nodded. “It appears so. The answer must be the magical word that will allow us to pass.”
“Do you know the answer?” I asked him.
He shook his head.
I studied the bridge as Kull walked forward and stood beside me. “Are you any good at riddles?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “That depends on how the riddle is worded.”
I repeated the phrase for him, and at the same time, tried to understand its meaning. What would give life and destroy? A mother gave life, and she also had the ability to destroy, but comparing her size to the world and to a seed made no sense. What else could it be?
“Could it possibly speak of the elements?” Kull asked. “Light, perhaps?”
“Yes, maybe,” I said. “It both gives life and destroys. It can also fill the entire world, or be as small as a seed.”
Mochazon nodded. “I will try it.” He stood tall, and I felt the magic gather within him.
Magical words were unique to each person and so could never be taught. Every word had to be discovered by the practitioner. The word that meant ‘light’ to Mochazon could have an entirely different meaning to me. It was a tedious process, and no one had ever learned all the magical words. Even Fan’twar, who had lived for hundreds of years and gained new magical words throughout his entire life, still had not learned them all.
Mochazon held Uli to his chest as he spoke the word for ‘light’.
“Gi’vellia,” he said, releasing his magic. The symbols on the bridge glowed brighter for half a second, but then they faded and the bridge began to shake. Dust rose into the air as chunks of the bridge fell away. Large boulders came loose and smashed to the ground far below. When the shaking stopped, we stood at the foot of a half-formed bridge. To cross it, we would have to jump across a wide gap.
“I guess that means we came up with the wrong answer,” I said.
“It must be something else,”
