His legs and feet had begun to ache dully, and he had been running in the moss beside the road for some way when the bridge came into view. He let his trot ease down to a walk, but the bridge demanded more. He stopped and gave it a full share of attention. He had no comparisons for if, rather it was like the first glimpse of a natural wonder. Like the mountain from his childhood that would always be The Mountain, or his first dimly remembered glimpse of the sea, this bridge would stay with him the rest of his days. It was the pure essence of Bridge, the perfect form that all such structures sought to attain but never did - till this one. He could spend a night looking at it, a week touching its graceful curves and still not have absorbed all the beauty of its lavish arch. If only he had the time.
But he did not. His bare feet throbbed, his shirt stuck to him and his trousers chafed him. Unstoppering the waterskin, he swung it up for a small mouthful. He let it wet his mouth and trickle slowly down his throat. One more small swallow and he regretfully put it away. Much as he would have liked to gulp the water, he could not run with a sloshing stomach, nor did he know how long the water would have to last him. He looked longingly at the stream that chuckled and slid beneath the elegant bridge. Its cool freshness changed the air. He rubbed the back of his sticky neck and looked about at the night that gave no clue as to the passage of time. The wagon was far ahead of him now. He had found no traces of a cold campfire, nor any signs left by the road Romni-fashion. If Ki had not stopped here, then he could ill afford to. But his throbbing feet decided him. Jace had told him not to drink the water; she had said nothing about bathing in it. He trotted heavily on toward the water, pulling his shirt over his head as he went.
The delightful chill of it eased his feet, making their hot throb an unpleasant memory. He lay full length in the shallowness, letting it flow past and over him. He had not known how much he ached until he felt the moving fingers of water soothing it away. Tipping his head back, he let it saturate his dark curls. When he shook his head briskly, he was amazed to find his headache completely gone. The water shattered from his hair in a silver spray. When he slowly rose from the water, it clung to his body in a silver sheen. The night air closed over him like a robe of silk as he moved lazily to the moss and soft grasses of the shore. He slowly rubbed his hands over his face and stubbly chin.
Abruptly he dropped his hands to stare at them. The flesh stood in white ridges on his fingers and palms. Had he really soaked that long? An inspection of his feet showed even their callused surfaces were soaked into tender wrinkles. He lay back on the moss, feeling foolish and relieved. Foolish to have lain so long, and relieved that he couldn't resume his run just yet, because his heels would crack and lame him. Besides, he needed rest. No telling how far he had come from the city. No lights showed behind him, and the glowing of the horizon was as distant as ever. Ki was probably camped somewhere by now anyway. She likely wasn't getting any farther ahead of him. He rolled over on to his belly to relax, and froze.
Just a simple thing. Just a set of wagon tracks that led off the road and then back onto it. Vandien rose hastily to snatch up his clothes. He bent over the tracks, squinting at them in the dimness. Ki had paused here. Here were the cuts of the team's great hooves. But the grass and small plants in them had already struggled upright again, save those broken outright. Vandien straightened to stare down the road. Ki had come through the Gate looking for him. She had stopped here, but made no fire, and had gone on. Something was wrong. He lifted his eyes to the horizon and the pulse of lights thronging it. Jace had said they had a pull, a lure for the unwary. He looked at them and felt only a mild curiosity. A nameless urgency laid hold of him. He began to drag clothing on over his damp skin. He gave the bridge a last admiring look and took up his trot again. He would have to gamble that he would reach Ki before he lamed himself. Unwillingly he glanced again to the horizon. What in hell was a Limbreth anyway?
SIX
'Would that you had taken your courage into both hands and come to me sooner.' Rebeke's voice was gentler than her words, but Cerie still bent her cowled head before them. On the black stone floor of her own hall, Rebeke Windmistress was showing little formality or humility toward this High Council member who had come seeking her out. But for the darker blue of Cerie's robes, an observer would have thought Rebeke the Singer of rank chiding a negligent acolyte. Stranger still was that Cerie accepted this new role.
She spoke softly. 'I thought long before I came. I thought it likely you were already aware of these events. I feared my coming would be a finger on the scales, overbalancing some carefully contrived gambit of your own. But at last I decided I dare not chance that you might be ignorant of all that had transpired. So I came. I did what I could to keep my coming a secret, but if the High Council wishes to know of it, they will. Well I know there are those among my acolytes who would gladly whisper any secret of mine, in exchange for a robe of darker blue.'
'And that is what weakens us, or them, I should say. Political skills are rewarded more readily than true ability to sing the winds. What do they think we will come to, when their Council is full of voices that can sway a crowd but not stir a breeze?' Cerie quailed before Rebeke's glowering eyes.
Rebeke flung out her hands as if discarding the entire High Council and began to pace the bare hall, robes swirling about her ankles. There was little to impede her stride. The shining black floors were bare of rugs, as the walls were innocent of pictures or windows. A tall black stool for Rebeke, a scattering of coarse straw cushions for the lesser Singers of her hall; these were the scanty furnishings of the room. The very austerity of the setting gave an ominous importance to the blue-curtained alcove at the end of the hall. Cerie felt her eyes stealing to it, and drew them back to her feet.
'So Yoleth has dared to put Ki through the Limbreth Gate? That one has ever been wont to sing a breeze both warm and cold. What did she think? That I would never find out? That I would find out and pretend I hadn't? Or is she hoping to force a confrontation with me? Oh, I have no time for this! I should be bending my every effort to train my Singers, to make of them what the Windsingers of old were! Or is that Yoleth's aim? To hamper and distract me from that duty? Does she sense that her days of power dwindle with every Singer I shape?' Rebeke turned a sudden glint of eye on Cerie. 'Do you know her purpose? Has she been so blatant to the High Council?'
'So Yoleth has dared to put Ki through the Limbreth Gate? That one has ever been wont to sing a breeze both warm and cold. What did she think? That I would never find out? That I would find out and pretend I hadn't? Or is she hoping to force a confrontation with me? Oh, I have no time for this! I should be bending my every effort to train my Singers, to make of them what the Windsingers of old were! Or is that Yoleth's aim? To hamper and distract me from that duty? Does she sense that her days of power dwindle with every Singer I shape?' Rebeke turned a sudden glint of eye on Cerie. 'Do you know her purpose? Has she been so blatant to the High Council?'
Cerie shook her head mutely. Guilt filled her eyes as she raised them to Rebeke. 'To the Council she has said nothing. She has breathed no word since that last meeting, except to Shiela.'
'Then how do you know of it?'
Cerie gave a sigh of regret for lost innocence. 'I overheard, in a way said to be impossible. You know Iam entrusted with a speaking egg?'
Skin moved on Rebeke's face in a parody of eyebrow raising. 'No. I did not. Go on.'
'But you are familiar with the use of one, I am sure. I was seeking to reach Yoleth on an unrelated matter; on the production level of Dowl Valley. What happened should not have. I reached Yoleth, but she was speaking through an egg to Shiela. They were unaware of me. I listened.'
Rebeke stared at Cerie, at her eyes cast down in shame. She breathed out slowly. 'There is more you have not told me, isn't there?'
Cerie turned pleading eyes on her. 'There was much I didn't understand. The eggs speak not with words, but with knowledge. I think I would have been happier knowing less.'
'Go on.'
'There were two things, besides that the Romni woman had been lured through a Gate. She went, yes, but a Keeper was there who held the balance. No sign was left of a Gate being used. But the man, Vandien, did what is believed impossible. He forced the Gate. It has created an imbalance, a rip between worlds. The Limbreth world bleeds into ours.'
'Fools!' hissed Rebeke, and Cerie knew she didn't mean the teamster and her friend. 'Just as our strength begins to blossom again, they draw attention to us. A ruptured Gate is like a blazing signal fire. Do they think the Gatherers will ignore our tinkering? Do they not realize that the Gatherers would prize this as highly as we do?' With a few sweeping steps, Rebeke drew the blue curtain aside. Cerie gazed in wonder at the Windsinger revealed.
The white flesh of the petrous body seemed to glow against the plain black back curtain. The sole complete fossil of the extinct race gazed out at her with eyes serene in their complete whiteness. Cerie let her eyes and thoughts feast upon the sight, let her body take new direction and inspiration from the Relic. Thus would she be when her transformation was completed: the multi-jointed limbs, the high domed skull with the ripples that cascaded down the spine, the smooth lipless mouth, the face immaculately cleansed of emotion. Like all children chosen by the Windsingers, she had imbibed the powdered bone and flesh of such creatures, had sought a metamorphosis into the form of the ancient race that had ruled the winds. But the most intricate changes could only be guided by knowledge of the original. For long had all complete Windsinger bodies been lost to them, until Rebeke had recovered this one - incurring no small debt to the Romni teamster Ki in doing so. Rebeke had used this image to shape her own transformation more swiftly, to give to her voice and wind songs more power than current Windsingers deemed possible. This power had brought her the enmity of the High Council.