Streamers of blue fire scudded across the sky, like rivulets of water finding their way down a cliff side. Or, Raidon thought, like blue veins pulsing close under the skin of a giant's fleshy back.
The monk blinked away the unwelcome image and fixed his attention on his companions.
"Well? What have you decided? Leave the bridge here or continue across the vortex?"
Finara, the gray-haired former mage, shook her head with exaggerated care. "Both choices could prove fatal. I cannot decide."
"I can!" broke in the youth. "The bridge, we stay on the bridge! The path is safe, up to its terminus-we all know this to be true!"
"The Granite Vortex has moved. That is a change. Other things may be different too," explained Finara. "Nothing is certain here."
"We stay on the bridge," Hadyn repeated, defiance hardening his face.
Raidon considered. He couldn't predict which route was safer. If the bridge spanned the horrendous gap, they should be able to do the same by staying on it. Perhaps leaving the bridge sooner than necessary was the worst choice. He said, "Hold tight to the handrails as we cross. The vibration will try to shake you to a long fall."
They passed over the vast empty gulf, ringed by swirling stones whose fluid mobility and resounding impacts attempted to knock them physically from their footing and mentally from their belief in the world's comprehensibility.
Though he owed his traveling companions nothing, the monk found himself periodically glancing back to monitor their progress. They were nearly across when Raidon saw a portion of the old wood railing give way beneath Hadyn's desperate clutch.
Hadyn pitched out over the chasm, his face convulsing in terror. The ringing granite crashes blotted out his scream.
Raidon lunged for the man's hand. His fingers found the flailing youth's wrist. The weight yanked the monk down to his chest against the bridge's wooden slats. Pain jangled up his arm. Raidon gritted his teeth and retained his hold.
Hadyn dangled over the churning maw, his eyes fixed on Raidon's, pleading. Save me, they said.
The monk began to haul Hadyn up. From the periphery of his vision, Raidon noticed a single streamer of blue fire. Its flow dipped uncomfortably close to the bridge. The streamer bucked, became erratic, and dispersed into disconnected globules of blue fire.
A second streamer twisted out of the sky and speared the youth in the chest.
Regardless of its flickering, flame-like guise, it wasn't fire. The radiance spreading across the youth's suddenly convulsing body was naked, potent, active spellplague. It was a germ that infected earth and stone, flesh and blood, magic, and even space itself.
Raidon overrode his first instinct to let go.
The youth's convulsions redoubled. His skin began to glow blue. Hadyn's eyes gleamed like those in the grip of a divine vision. His hair whipped and sawed as though underwater. Unaccountably, he grew heavier.
Muscle suddenly rippled on Hadyn's forearms, shoulders, and chest. The youth's frame lengthened, as if to accommodate even more strength, and yet more muscle rolled onto him. The pressure of Hadyn's grip on Raidon's hand doubled, and then redoubled. Raidon heard the bones in his hand grind together.
"I feel… strong!" yelled Hadyn.
Then the youth screamed.
Already Hadyn's boots were a blaze of fire, and Raidon could see naked bones in his lower legs. White sticks burning. His upper legs were like translucent wax melting inside a stone oven. Or like Hadyn was a candle, and spellplague, the flame.
In three more heartbeats, Hadyn was consumed. Burning ash dispersed in the wind.
Raidon rose, looked into Finara's terrified eyes. He didn't really see her.
His mind remained fixed on Hadyn's death. Or, more accurately, the manner of his death. A vision of the dissolving caravan chief who died so long ago assaulted him for the hundredth time. As always, he couldn't help wondering if Ailyn had perished similarly. Had she screamed like Hadyn? Had she called his name? Or cursed it?
The monk's gritted teeth couldn't restrain the groan at the image of Ailyn's death clawing its way into his mind.
If he wanted to end that personal misery, now would be an easy time to do it. Just a step or two…
No. The weakling's way was not his, no matter the provocation, even his own failure to follow through on his promise to protect Ailyn. He let the images flow away from him like a river until his mind was empty. Let focus be his only emotion.
The sound of the Granite Vortex returned. The past faded, for the moment.
Ahead, the bridge terminated in a meadow of tall, scarlet grass strewn with boulders. The boulders didn't actually rest in the grass; each hovered a foot or two off the ground. Some were stationary, but several drifted in random directions. By the scars each bore, it seemed likely they'd all survived impacts.
Raidon checked the map. Some previous traveler called the meadow Cyric's Table. According to the legend, their route required they leave the bridge and pass through it until they reached the roots of something labeled Grandmother Ash. Glancing up, the monk spied a fantastically tall tree in the misty distance. Its topmost branches bore a canopy of blue fire.
He motioned with his head to the bridge terminus.
Finara stood rooted in place, morose and muddy-eyed. She clutched her own copy of the map in one hand; the other held tight to the burro's reins.
"I can't do it, Raidon. I can't step off the bridge. Hadyn was… The odds are against me."
He nodded.
She looked at him, her eyes beseeching him for words of encouragement. He had none. He replied, "Perhaps this is not your day."
Tears broke from her left eye, but she nodded as relief struggled with anguish and fear.
"Gods willing, I will see you back in Ormpetarr in three days," she said. "If you return with a spellscar, then I know it is possible and not merely a tale told to bilk the incredulous."
Raidon clasped her shoulder, then turned to regard his path. He excised concern for her safe trip back from his consciousness.
A drifting cube obscured "the distant tree for a moment. Above, a jagged trail of blue lightning split the sky, sending a flash across the plain. Blinking away the after-image, Raidon left the bridge and entered the plain of red grass. He did not look back.
The long-bladed, crimson grass crunched beneath his feet. The boulders drifted like tiny versions of the earthmote he'd seen west of Nathlekh. Unlike that massive air island, these moved and left wakes of bluish radiance. He wondered if the masses were solidified spellplague. He avoided the darting masses with the diligence they deserved.
He left the unmoored rocks behind and reached the edges of the exposed, tangled root mass. The field of burrowing roots, stretched perhaps a mile, maybe more, surrounding the tree in the distance. He'd misjudged the tree's size. It was larger than he'd thought. At least no grass grew between the great, fingerlike roots that clutched at the earth so fiercely. He studied the roots for a time. It seemed they slowly twined and churned the earth, moving, but only as quickly as earthworms through soil.
He moved out across the root field. They offered solid footing and did not react to his weight. He quickly reached that which the roots all supported.
The bole of the tree was more like a cliff face than an ash trunk. No limbs offered access for several hundred feet, but those above were as thick as roads. The sound of the wind in the roof-like leaves high above was like the roar of a distant cataract. Each leaf gleamed like a tongue of sapphire flame.
Raidon scratched his chin, and then drew out his map. The Pilgrim's Path led to the Grandmother Ash's base. A dotted arrow led away from the tree into the heart of the discontinuity, as if the cartographer had lost confidence in the route in this final leg.