Authors: Julie E. Czerneda
Did it wait for her?
In case, he sent a little breeze to drop clover flowers at its feet. The fool creature leapt into the deeper grass and was gone.
They knew better than trust him, though he’d not harmed any since she’d come into his life. He still frightened rabbits, Wyll thought morosely, if nothing else.
Night’s Edge. He threw himself forward and ash swirled around him. Small sticks protruded from the ground, snapping underfoot like bones. Forced to throw his arm over his mouth or choke, the dragon kept moving, eyes half shut. Nothing had grown. He’d come to be sure.
Perhaps he’d hoped.
But their meadow was lifeless and Jenn Nalynn was doomed, unless those beneath notice could find a way.
Step, twist, push forward. Step, twist, push forward. His man’s body was awkward at best and a trial to move over uneven ground, but worked. Here. Refusing to think further, Wyll made his way through the gap in the neyet to the hidden field, then turned toward home.
There. A glitter where one shouldn’t be, marking a cave of crystal and dead wood, carpeted in moss. Stray words were stuck here and there inside, remnants of his letter-writing. He’d gaze at them, pondering the nature of “woolly” and “checkerwork” and “enchantment.” There were words he doubted and words that made him curious. Some were amusing to say. “Rapscallion” was a recent favorite.
~ Welcome, elder brother. ~ The house toad, able sentry and busybody, another favorite word, peered from under an aster. ~ Is there something you require? ~
He required his proper form. That being beyond a little cousin’s magic, Wyll ignored the question. He took another step and paused, feeling his way.
Yes. Here. The crossing.
~ Elder brother? ~ with deep apprehension. ~ What are you doing? ~
~ What I must. ~
He could do this, or fail. There was but one way to know.
He didn’t need to see, to find where he’d once belonged, but to cross? As dragon, he’d stood here and simply left Marrowdell behind.
As man?
Only turn-born could carry more than themselves. Wyll removed his shoes and shed his clothing, dropping the encumbrances carelessly to one side. The little cousin hastened to take position near the pile, either confused or sensing a task it could undertake.
Wyll drew a breath scented with flowers and growing things, let it out again, and between the in and out of air . . .
He crossed.
No flowers where he stood. No flowers and the ground was tipped and the sky was falling and he collapsed with a scream onto naked rock, overwhelmed and struggling to understand what was wrong.
He’d crossed as a man. That was all. Calming himself, Wyll forced open his watering eyes, determined to see.
Colors were colors but others were tastes. Touch sang in his ears and shivered his bones, while the sound of his own breathing scalded his skin. He stood, or tried, and something moved, or did it fall? With a flinch, he fell again, hard.
This body lied. It couldn’t be trusted. Wyll rose to his feet again, weaving because nothing assured him what was up or down.
So be it. He knew. He knew this place better than any other. The expanse of orange and green and nameless color were hills and flats and distant plains. What appeared ribboned stone above, threatening to fall and crush him, were the roots of Marrowdell’s kaliia showing through the sky and harmless.
The effort to reconcile knowledge with what he saw and felt was like being remade and, for a fleeting instant, Wyll dared imagine his man’s form wouldn’t last here, away from the girl.
But as the Verge shook into its familiar shape around him, he remained the same.
Shape didn’t matter. Form couldn’t. Once he believed where his foot would land, he moved it, twisted, and wrenched himself along the stone rise. Not to where the river of mimrol curled and flowed, for that led to the turn-borns’ crossing. Not to the steep, winding path to his sanctuary. There was no point hiding.
He was here to be found.
Wyll chose a place where stone met sky to wait, relishing the wind needling his bared skin almost as much as the plunge into cloud below.
Before long, air pulsed against him, driven by great wings.
Dragons.
They rose from the clouds, descended from the sky, circled him at a cautious distance. Silent, for a welcome change, though he supposed they were at a loss, seeing him thus.
One swooped, the wind from her wings knocking him perilously close to the edge. Daring. Stupid. They were, Wyll reminded himself, much the same. He sent a wind of his own, knocking her back and into two of her fellows. The three roared and clawed at one another as they tumbled, pulling apart short of the clouds to regain the sky.
At a more respectful distance.
Questions began. ~ Why are you here? ~ ~ Why are you that? ~ ~ What do you want? ~
Wyll waited for silence to return. Some settled below, clinging to the stone, fanged heads twisted to keep him in view. Others rode the air, scaled sides catching the light, so many the sky glistened like the surface of a great ocean.
Glorious, his kind.
When they weren’t fools.
Once sure of their attention, Wyll bared his teeth. ~ You’ve carried me before. Carry me now! For all our sakes, I must reach the base of the Wound. ~
Those on the stone launched themselves with wild cries of dismay. Those in the sky spun and whirled, colliding with one another in a mass confusion of wings.
~ COWARDS! ~ he roared after them, but to no good. The dragons fled as if he actually could hurt them.
As if he would.
He should have known. Beardless younglings. They’d found him entertaining in his fall and stayed to watch, but hadn’t they scattered from any threat? A dragon worth fearing wouldn’t come near him, wary not of him—not anymore—but of the sei’s interest.
There was no help here.
So be it. Wyll turned toward the Wound. It loomed above all other thrusts of stone, linked at its foot to this and other hills by a crooked, rock-strewn ridge. That was the way, for those with two strong legs. A day’s walk, if not an easy one, for the terst turn-born.
For him . . . he started walking. It would take what it took.
~ Why are you here? ~
Knowing that voice, Wyll twisted around as one last dragon climbed onto the flat with him, claws cracking the stone. Emerald green, with awkward limbs and malformed head, the sei settled on its haunches, regarding him with flat golden eyes.
He stared back, too afraid to so much as blink.
Again, deep enough to shake bone. ~ Why are you here? ~
The little cousins were braver. The truthseer. Jenn Nalynn, the bravest of all. Thinking of her, Wyll found he could speak. ~ I’ve come to save the girl’s life. ~
The sei’s head turned improbably on its neck, its expression like the old kruar’s when puzzled. ~ At the Great Turn, all is possible. ~
The moth had said the same. Wyll scowled. Riddles, when he needed answers. ~ Why wait? You showed her the pebble, knowing what she was. She suffers. Let her have it now! ~
The head snapped upright, misshapen jaws agape in threat.
He braced himself, but nothing prepared him for the speed of the sei’s pounce. Claws dug in, ripping through skin at shoulder and thigh, taking hold deep in his flesh. Wings unfurled, the sei launched itself into the air, with Wyll hanging below.
To drop him for his impudence. He waited for death.
But the claws gripped, blood sliding over his skin, and the first heavy beat of wings brought a surge of hope. For whatever reason, it was taking him to the Wound.
There’d been a time he’d dreamt of flying. This painful jerking through the air was nothing like his memories of riding the wind. The sei, lacking grace, forced its way through the sky. They followed the ridge and Wyll watched for the turn-born, but they were nowhere to be seen.
The gathering of dragons wouldn’t have frightened them; the arrival of the sei must have sent them scampering for cover.
He didn’t need them. His plan was to find a fallen pebble and leave it at the crossing for Sand to bring to Marrowdell, that turn-born being the only one he halfway trusted. In his darkest dreams, he’d not thought to ask a sei to help.
In his darkest dreams, he’d not imagined entering the Wound itself, but instead of slowing to land where the ridge met the upthrust stone, the place where pebbles, white and otherwise, should lie waiting, the sei’s wings beat harder and faster, taking them straight at that stained cliff.
Before they hit, its body tilted and began an impossibly steep climb. His useless arm and worthless leg scraped and banged against the uneven rock, but still the sei climbed. The wall glistened with something dark.
Or was it white?
Still it climbed, entering a cloying fog that burned his nostrils. The thick stuff swirled around the beating wings. Something dire gibbered and shrieked in the distance; the dragon snarled in answer, thoroughly outraged.
Better to be dropped, than a plaything of the sei.
Anything was better than to be brought here, to the Wound itself, where even turn-born weren’t safe and no dragon dared fly. A clean fall, from this height, might do what it hadn’t before. He might die this time. Wouldn’t that annoy his old enemy?
Before he could struggle free, they broke through the fog and reached the top.
As the sei flew slowly over featureless bare rock, dread filled Wyll until he could hardly breathe, not that the air wasn’t already foul. Because he saw nothing, meant nothing.
Dragons knew in their bones. The greatest danger didn’t show itself. Didn’t roar or give warning.
It struck.
Then the landscape changed. Ahead, neyet ringed eruptions of familiar pale stone, their wooden arms woven into a fence. Or was it a wall?
Where their broad bodies entered the ground, for the roots of these were in Marrowdell, things prowled, slipping between gnawed branches, flashing teeth before they ducked from sight.
Nyphrit, naked and gray. Larger than any he’d seen and in greater number.
Something oozed outward from each encircled stone, between the neyet, dark where it flowed into cracks and fissures, opalescent where caught by light.
The sei groaned and spasmed, driving its claws deeper in his flesh.
Needful agony he could endure; this was insult. Wyll growled in protest and, for a wonder, the creature’s grip eased slightly. ~ What are you showing me? ~ he demanded.
~ At the Great Turn, all is possible. ~ With this unhelpful reply, the sei aimed for the largest of the stones.
Seen from above, their arrangement matched the mounds of Marrowdell’s Spine, though not their shape. This one, in that world, would be the centermost. The path to its summit was here a crooked line of rock descending from empty sky. The edge was perverse.
The sei flew lower as it crossed the ring of neyet, forcing the dragon to contort or risk his good limb to their upward reach. ~ All is possible, ~ it intoned again. ~ Even this. ~
They passed the ring of neyet, to hover over the rise of pale stone. Buffeted by the sei’s powerful wingbeats, clenched in its claws, Wyll stared down.
An eye, larger than them both, opened to stare up.
Better than a mouth, he calculated coldly. An eye was vulnerable, even one rimmed in night’s edge blue, its center flecked with stars. An eye meant something alive that could, by a dragon’s sure reckoning, be made dead.
Alive and, by the way the eye tracked them, aware. ~ You put the others to sleep, ~ he accused the sei. ~ Why not this? ~
~ There was an opportunity for penance. ~
Being trapped as stone between two worlds wasn’t punishment enough? Of course not, Wyll thought grimly. They made examples, the sei. Of the dragon’s lord. Of the kruar’s general.
Of whatever this had been.
A tear leaked from the eye, falling round and white, to land with a bounce and rattle.
A pebble.
More lay gathered, a talus of suffering. What the sei had given Jenn Nalynn; what she had to have! Wyll grinned with triumph. ~ Take me down there, ~ he commanded, forgetting what carried him. ~ It’s what I’ve come for—what the girl needs! ~
The sei swept down, but not to land. Somehow, it forced itself and Wyll into the narrow space, one wingtip brushing through the twigs of the neyet, the other stroking the side of the trapped one.
Nyphrit leapt for his dangling legs, claws reaching, jaws snapping. They dropped back atop one another, so thickly were they packed. Others, Wyll saw with rising horror, were oblivious to the temptation of new prey, busy eating the one who couldn’t escape.
The sei, point made, took them higher.
~ Why? ~ he shouted. ~ Why make it suffer? Why ask her the impossible? ~
The emerald head bent and twisted, the eyes regarding him molten. ~ We ask nothing and do nothing. We are not in her world or of it. ~
Wyll looked down at the trapped one, meeting the gaze of that ancient eye, unable to tell if it felt pain or fear. But he had no doubt. None at all.
~ This is one of you. This is a sei. ~
The legends said the powerful had tried to reach from this world to the next, in their failure creating the edge and the Verge and becoming trapped. How had he not understood? Who could but the sei? This one was caught in both worlds. This was what had spoken to him, as the moth.
And this, he thought with growing fury, was what lured the turn-born, the truthseer, and Jenn Nalynn. Easy to see what killed any who came too close, but why call them to their death?
~ What does it want? ~ he asked desperately, since only a sei might know.
But the sei become dragon gave no more answers. ~ At the Great Turn ~ it said for the third time ~ all is possible. ~
It flew him back to where he’d crossed without another word, letting him drop from a height. The breath knocked from his body, he reeled at the edge of consciousness but fought to stand, unwilling to show it weakness. Blood pooled at his feet.
The sei hung, no longer bothering to flap its wings, like a poorly drawn dragon pinned to air. ~ You must return to her world. ~
Without the pebble. Knowing above all Jenn Nalynn mustn’t cross alone to retrieve it. Wyll snarled his defiance.