“The fallen colossus,” said Jonathan, in understanding. “Except it was located in the middle of the ocean.”
“It used to be in the middle of the ocean,” said the prince. “The sea is shrinking, and now one may reach it and use it to cross.”
“If we have the courage,” Haplo murmured. He fondled the dog, scratching it on the head. “Not that it makes any difference.” His eyes flicked to Alfred. “As you said, Sartan, we have no choice.”
Alfred tried to reply, but his throat burned, the moisture in his mouth had gone dry. He could only stare at the broken bridge, at the huge gaps yawning between segments of the shattered column, at the magma sea, flowing beneath.
One slip, one false step . . .
And what has my life been, Alfred wondered dismally, but an endless series of slips and false steps?
They scrambled down among the boulders on the shoreline. The way was treacherous—hands and feet lost their grip on wet rock, mists floated before their eyes, obscuring their vision. Alfred chanted runes until he lost his voice and came near losing his breath. He was forced to concentrate on each footstep, each handhold. By the time they reached the base of the broken colossus, he was exhausted, and the difficult part lay ahead of them.
They halted at the base to rest, survey the way before them. Jonathan’s pallid face glistened with sweat, his hair straggled down around his temples. His eyes were sunken, dark shadows surrounded them. He wiped his hand across his mouth, licked his tongue across parched lips—they’d been attacked before they could carry off water—and gazed across at the opposite shore as if he fixed one end of his will on that dark horizon, planned to use it as a rope to pull himself along.
Haplo walked out on the first segment of broken colossus, examined the stone beneath his feet. The first segment, the base, was the longest and would be the easiest to cross. He squatted down on his haunches, stared curiously at the rock, ran his hand over it. Alfred sat gasping for breath on the shore, envying the Patryn his strength, his youth.
Haplo motioned. “Sartan,” he said peremptorily.
“My name ... is Alfred.”
Haplo glanced up, scowled, frowned. “I don’t have time for games. Make yourself useful, if that’s possible. Come take a look at this.”
They all ventured out onto the colossus. It was wide—three large farm carts might have been driven abreast across it and left room on either side for a carriage or two. Alfred crept across it as gingerly as if it had been the branch of a small hargast tree spanning a rushing stream. Nearing Haplo, the Sartan’s foot slipped, sending him sprawling on his hands and knees. He closed his eyes, fingers dug into the rock.
“You’re safe,” said Haplo in disgust. “Hell, you’d have to work at throwing yourself off this thing! Open your eyes, damn it. Look, look there.”
Alfred opened his eyes, gazed fearfully around. He was a long way from the edge, but he was acutely conscious of the magma sea flowing beneath him, and that made the edge seem much closer. He wrenched his gaze from the orange-red viscous flow and stared down beneath his hands.
Sigla ... inscribed on the rock. Alfred forgot his danger. His hands traced lovingly the ancient runes carved on the stone.
“Can these help us in any way? Is their magic good for anything anymore?” Haplo asked in a tone that implied the magic had never been good for much in the first place.
Alfred shook his head. “No,” he said, voice husky. “The magic of the colossus cannot help us. Their magic was meant to give life, to carry life from this realm below to those realms above.”
The prince’s cadaver raised its head, dead eyes looked above to a land it could see perhaps more clearly than the land on which it now walked. The expression on the face of the phantasm grew grim and sad.
“The magic is broken now.” Alfred drew a deep breath, looked back at the shoreline, at the broken, jagged edges of the column’s base. “The colossus didn’t fall by accident. It couldn’t have, its magic would have prevented such an occurrence. The colossus was knocked down, deliberately. Perhaps by those who feared it was sucking life out of Necropolis and carrying it to realms above. Whatever the reason, its magic is gone, can never be renewed.”
Like this world, the world of the dead.
“Look!” cried Jonathan. His face, his eyes reflected the heat of the fire.
They could barely see, in the distance, the first ships setting out from the shoreline.
The dead had begun the crossing.
44
They hurried forward, traveling as fast as they dared across the runeinscribed column. They had an advantage over the ships, in that the shrinking Fire Sea flowed at its narrowest point there. They were much closer to the shore than Kleitus and his army. The sight of the ships gave them impetus, renewed strength. The sigla may have lost their magic, but the runes carved into the stone provided traction, sure footing on a slippery surface.
And then they came to the end of the broken segment. A huge, V-shaped gap separated one part of the colossus from another. The magma sea churned in between, roiling among the sharp, jagged edges.
“We can’t cross that!” said Alfred, staring at the gap in dismay. “Not up here we can’t.” Haplo measured it with his eye. “But we might down below. Even you could make that jump, Sartan.”
“But I’ll slip! Fall in! I—I. . . I’ll try.” Alfred gulped, lowering his eyes before Haplo’s narrow-eyed, angry glare.
“No choice. No choice. No choice,” Alfred chanted, instead of the runes. What magical resources he had left, he had to conserve. And, somehow, the litany seemed to help.
“You’re a fool,” Haplo said, overhearing him. The Patryn stood at the bottom of the vee, legs akimbo, balanced easily, catlike, on uneven strata of rock. He gripped Alfred’s thin arm, steadied the shaking man. “Jump for it.”
Alfred stared fearfully across what looked to him to be an immense stretch of flowing lava. “No!” He shrank back. “I can’t! I’ll never make it! I—”
“Jump!” Haplo roared.
Alfred bent his knees, and suddenly he was flying through the air, propelled by a strong boost from behind. Arms flailing, as if he might flap his way across, he landed heavily on the edge of a lip of rock about twenty feet above the lava sea. He was slipping. His hands scrabbled for purchase. Pebbles slid beneath his fingers. He was falling, sliding into the magma beneath him.
“Hold on!” Jonathan shouted frantically.
Alfred made a wild grab at a jutting piece of rock. His fingers curled around it, and he managed to stop his fall. His hands were wet with sweat, he started to lose his grip, but his foot found a toehold, and he stopped himself. Arms and legs aching with the strain, he hauled himself up over the lip and hunched there, shivering in reaction, not daring to let himself believe he was safe.
He didn’t have time to relax. Before he knew what was happening, Jonathan leapt across the gap, assisted from behind by Haplo’s tireless arms. The young duke landed easily and gracefully. Alfred caught hold of him, balanced him.
“There isn’t room for both of us. Go on up.” Alfred told him. “I’ll wait here.”
Jonathan started to protest.
Alfred pointed. The top edge of the column protruded outward, forming another shelf, this one overhead. It would take strong arms to hoist oneself over that ledge.
Jonathan saw, understood, and began climbing up to the top. Alfred watched him anxiously, for a moment, and was intensely startled to find that the cadaver of Prince Edmund was standing on the shelf beside him. How the corpse managed to cross was beyond Alfred’s ability to explain. He could suppose only that the phantasm had assisted its body.