Jenemir’s tongue worried at a solitary, yellowed tooth. They shine as long as the machine floats on the molten lake. So was made the Promise.
Adept prattle, Enris judged it, to make the carrying of rocks important. Glows can be powered by other means, he offered, unsure why.
We need nothing from the outside world. Where you belong, lesser Om’ray. The Vyna pulled his hand free, moved his staff, moved his feet, and made his slow way after the child.
Enris made the gesture of gratitude. Jenemir was right.
He didn’t belong here.
Mist butted the black stone like a mattress of lies. Layers of it were above him, obscuring the sky, cutting the light until the glows to either side were the brightest source. When he kicked out with one foot, the mist shied away, then curled back, as if enjoying the game.
The bridge had to be here. Somewhere.
Enris stood at the edge of the platform, reached with care. There were no Om’ray ahead—or below. This wasn’t the bridge to their Cloisters.
Nor was it a game.
There were stairs to the water here. Somewhere. This might be where they’d brought him, the first day. He vaguely remembered doing more congratulating than paying attention, grateful to have been saved.
Saved. Enris would have laughed, but the mist covered the water, and the water held what he especially didn’t want noticing him.
Especially when he had to walk out on the bridge, surrounded by water.
The bridge he couldn’t see for mist.
Enris sat down, his legs hanging over the platform. His fingers toyed with the knot of hair as he considered the problem. The mist swallowed his feet and ankles, tasted his knees. He reached down with his foot. Nothing. A shift to one side, a reach. Nothing. Shift, reach. Shift, reach. Shift…there. Just as he felt a thorough fool, the side of his boot struck what he couldn’t see—a solid surface. The bridge, or a stair to it.
When would they try to stop him? He reached. No one nearby. Enris frowned thoughtfully. Were they letting him go?
Or did they know something about his planned escape route he didn’t?
Not that it mattered. He was leaving and now.
Enris cautiously descended what proved to be stairs, feeling his way. It wasn’t slippery, but he loathed the mist even more as he sank into its damp warmth, its stench. He tried not to think about it or the bridge, instead concentrating on the feel of real sunlight and a proper, cleansing wind.
The third step was the last. The bridge. Mist engulfed his body from the waist down. It would rise higher by truenight. Ahead—an appalling distance ahead—rose the smooth black rock that encircled the lake, the opening that led inside. To what?
He’d worry about that if—when—he got there.
Wishing for Aryl’s effortless balance, Enris slid one foot ahead of the other, making sure each was on a solid support before shifting his full weight to it.
Water lapped, unseen. Vyna craft moved across it, unseen, unheard.
Nice to have company, he decided, licking sweat from his upper lip. Step, step.
Though Enris tried to move in a straight line, too often his next step would slide off the edge of the bridge and he’d freeze in place to keep his balance. After the fourth close call, he glanced over his shoulder at the island.
What island? Mist had consumed the platforms, slipped under the lights. All he could make out was a rumor of height.
He clung to his sense of other Om’ray—without it, the world had no up, down, or sides. There was nothing but mist.
Time for a different strategy.
He lowered himself to his hands and knees. Mist pressed soft and wet against his face; he closed his eyes. It wasn’t as if sight was helping.
Better. He believed what he touched; his movements didn’t need grace, only patience.
Enris measured the bridge by the growing soreness of his knees and palms, unused to supporting his bulk. He vowed to eat less, although with a certain self-pity, since he didn’t see how that was possible. His last meal of denos seemed a feast in memory. He had nothing in his pockets or pouch but his Oud firebox. And the knife in his belt.
The Vyna weren’t used to having captives, he mused as he crawled forward. Just as well. None he’d seen, all modesty aside, would be a match for his big hands and strength. He didn’t want to hurt them.
Warn other Clans, yes. He’d find a way. There was no welcome for those on Passage here, despite Vyna’s abundance of Choosers. No one else should come here.
Enris paused, shaking his head like a beast. Droplets flew from his hair. Something wasn’t right.
He wanted to laugh. Crawling along a thin bridge of stone through impenetrable mist to an end he couldn’t be sure existed? What could be right about that?
No, he told himself, rocking back to sit still and listen. It was something else.
Something within.
A Call.
As he braced himself to resist, he heard a sound. A little splash, only that. Then another, and another.
Denos.
The Call wasn’t from a Chooser—it was the summoning the Vyna used to bring up the rumn!
Enris drew and held his knife, eyes blind in the mist, and began to crawl again, as quickly as he could with only one hand free. As quietly, too. He tried not to breathe.
The Vyna approached the bridge. They made no sound either. Denos began to land on the bridge, silver bodies wriggling and slapping in their struggle to return to water. One thudded into Enris, and he grunted with surprise. More landed in his path, and he swept them aside rather than risk putting a knee on their slippery sides.
The rumn.
It was coming. The denos knew. His inner sense knew.
Enris moved faster. Once beyond the splash and smack of denos, he put away the useless knife and pressed himself flat against the bridge, breathing into a sleeve, wishing his heart to slow. He’d wait it out. Surely a deepwater dweller couldn’t stay near the surface for long. It couldn’t find him if he was quiet.
A shape loomed from the mist and collided with the bridge beside Enris. Bang! One of the Vyna floats—empty. It rocked back with the force of impact, out of sight.
From the other side—a second empty float hurtled toward him. Bang!
Simple, Enris thought with disgust. He couldn’t see them in time to fend them off with his own Power. And they made enough noise to summon the entire lakeful of rumn.
Time to go.
He crawled as quickly as possible, no longer worried about noise. It followed him, the Vyna precise in their aim. Presumably they’d run out of empty floats soon.
Another shape loomed beside him. Enris braced himself for the sound, but there was none. The shape didn’t collide with the bridge—it turned and began to slide alongside. A glistening darkness, the curved sweep of a back.
Not entirely dark. There were faint whorls and patterns of light embedded in it, as if the stars had become stuck in the rumn’s skin. If it was skin and not a hole in the world…
Perverse. Wrong. Like everything here. Enris spat and kept moving. The bridge couldn’t go on forever. Once on land, he’d take his chances against anything alive.
The rock bridge shuddered under his hands.
And again.
The rumn was alive, wasn’t it? Despite its terrifying extension into the M’hir…its feel in his mind…it had to be a living thing…
He wasn’t sure why that was vital, but it was.
Crunch!
From ahead. He knew that sound—a careless foot on loose stone—and launched himself to his feet, desperately running toward it.
His foot lost the bridge, struck what was firm enough to support it, something that rose.
Enris didn’t look down, didn’t dare. He pushed off with all his strength, regained the bridge, ran through the mist…