I grabbed her wrist and held her tight, gathering power and weaving enchantment into the words Jen had given me. "This is the writing of Mu'Tenni the Speaker, bound to Truth, in the matter of King D'Arnath's girl child lost in the great war . . ."
To my surprise, the words came not in a choking rasp, but in a stern, clear voice that sounded more like my father than like me.
"For after the Catastrophe made grim the days, the King's favor rested upon his youngest heir above all others in his realm for the solace she brought him …"
A story undeniable in its truth. Did my enchantment make it so, or was it the power of the words as the Speaker had written them, or, perhaps, some magic of the one who had passed the words to me? D'Sanya stood paralyzed, one hand pressed to her lips, her hair limp and streaming with hot rain.
". . . Yet the King dared not allow the Lords' captive to inherit his power and the fate of the Bridge. Indeed her talent had come mightily as he had foreseen, and she
had become a sword in the Lords' hands, striking at the very soul of the Dar'Nethi. Came the day when D'Arnath saw the vile neck binding the Lords used to enslave his people and reive their souls, and knew that his own child had devised it, he wept bitter tears for that child of his heart and struck her name from his life and descent forever …"
As I described Prince D'Alleyn's refusal to speak her name on his deathbed, D'Sanya sank to the ground at my feet, her hands clamped over her ears, flinching as if each word were a blow. When I finished, she drew up her knees and bent her head over them.
"Papa . . . why won't you come for me? I said I'm sorry. So sorry. I did my best. For so long I wouldn't listen to their horrid tales. I sang and I wrote and I drew. But the days were so long … so lonely . . . and you didn't come. . . ." She raised her head and peered into my face, twisting her own countenance into a childlike puzzle. "The Three made me do dreadful, disgusting things with them . . . and with the Zhid . . . and do other horrid, wicked things that made people scream. They said that if Papa truly loved me, he would come and take me home where I wouldn't have to hear the screaming. I tried so hard. . . ."
"I know. It wasn't fair at all." I crouched in front of her and grasped her cold, limp fingers that had woven white fire. "D'Sanya, we have to destroy the Bridge. The worlds are dying."
She shook her head and wrapped her arms about her knees, shrinking from me. "I won't betray him. I won't. I won't. I won't. He'll come for me. He is the High King of Gondai, and he loves me as the earth loves the sky. He would never leave me in this awful place. .. . Papa?" Blood leaked from the cuts I had left on her hand. She licked the blood, leaving scarlet smudges on her lips, shuddered in pleasure, and rested her head on her arms, releasing neither sobs nor wails, but a low keening that was the very essence of misery and madness.
I had run out of time to think or to analyze or to seek counsel or solace or the encouragements of love and faith that had carried me through my most difficult decisions of the past. D'Sanya's anointing had changed the course of our decline from a downward slope to a precipice, and we were very close to smashing against the hard bottom. I had to choose.
Standing on that mountaintop in the driving wind and knife-edged rain, I looked out on the lands joined by the Bridge and saw no alternatives.
Destroyer . . .
I ignored the sly whisper and bent my mind to the work, focusing instead on a clearer voice, one given its rich timbre by strength and courage and a trust uncolored by blood ties or friendship. A voice that spoke truth. Consider the object to be destroyed… the need. .. the use or misuse that justifies destruction . Not difficult at all. I had been thinking of nothing else for two days.
Now, ownership … I, who had been born in one of these encircling worlds, nurtured and corrupted in another, and given, in the third, the first inkling of the reason for my own being, could well assert my ownership of this place.
Disrupt containment . The flaw in the Bridge was already there for me to exploit. I settled myself on the ground beside D'Sanya and touched her hair. Forgive me, Lady .
She did not look up.
My soul moved quickly into her body, reaching through the harrowing morass of guilt and denial to find the hidden link with the Bridge—a silver thread buried deep, long tarnished, the bent and broken fragment of her father's working. I took it from her and felt her last defenses crumble. I wove that flaw into my spell of breaking, then withdrew, grieving for the cold and lonely barrenness of a spirit once so bright.
As soon as I had reclaimed my own senses, I gathered power. Yes, Jen'Larie, as you taught me —everything I feel, everything I am, everything I remember . I reached into the deepest places of my soul and fed power into my enchantment. . . .
The air about me shimmered as if I viewed the triple landscape through the heat haze of the desert. I opened my arms and spread my legs and raised my head, allowing the power to flow through me unhindered, a torrent sufficient to drain an ocean of magic. Too quickly I was struggling with the effort, my extended arms quivering, my knees threatening to collapse. And nothing had happened.
Gods, had I not worked the spell correctly? I'd been so sure I could do this. The enchantments of the past days, of the battle—portals and threats and deceptions had been so easy once I had opened myself to the past. Yet D'Arnath's Bridge had taken twenty-one years to build . . . the extent of my whole lifetime. How could I imagine I could destroy it in one moment or one hour or one day?
Best be ready for a long siege . Using the discipline I had learned in Zhev'Na, I spread my fingers, angled my feet, and settled more deeply into my position. With eyes closed, I set free memories and visions to come and go in my head. Comigor . . . Verdillon . . . Zhev'Na . . . the Bounded … I felt and lived and embraced past and present.
Creeping darkness threatened to suffocate me…. Madness lurked in the shadows . … I held on. Gave more. There passed what seemed like an age of the world. . ..
Cold … As you can only feel when exhaustion saps the last of your inner fire. Dizzy . . . and so thirsty . . . I'd not had a sip of anything for hours. The rain had stopped, but a warm flow tickled my chest and side— my shoulder bleeding again. Would the end of the world be halted by a damnable puncture wound?
I croaked and gasped in some grotesque semblance of laughter at the irony, terrified to the marrow that I might fail and equally fearful of success. Then a blast of wind almost collapsed my knees. The mountaintop trembled. A skull-cracking barrage of sound, like the cannon fire of a year-long siege compressed into a single moment, had me fighting for composure. Yet the noise did not stop after that initial blast, but grew louder, a grinding cacophony. D'Sanya flung her arms about my ankle and wailed.
The gale howled in concert with the Lady; the sky itself spun. Fragments of color broke away from the landscape—the bright green of new grass . . . the red-gold of autumn leaves . . . the translucent blue-green of forest ponds—each of a thousand shadings one by one, and a many-textured darkness began to close in over the sprawling worlds. Destruction . . . chaos . . . the terror, panic, and madness of thousands of souls tore my flesh and shredded my mind. . . .
Rent . . . shattered … I could not breathe. My bones cracked; my blood surged through its course like liquid fire. Once, in some other age of creation, I had experienced such agony. On my twelfth birthday, as I escaped Zhev'Na. On that day I had abandoned this physical shell when it became uninhabitable.