I cannot bear to contemplate that future. There are no good outcomes to be had.
The ride through the hinterlands feels long, until one realizes one is riding to the edge of one’s own world. Then the painful smallness of our existence may threaten to overwhelm an unwary soul, crushing him with awareness of his own futility. But today,knowing what is coming, the ride feels endless. I long to urge Elydark into a gallop, to leave these lonely miles behind us. The landscape close to the Morrona River boasts patches of clearly-defined territory, everywhere licorneir have gathered and sung together in numbers.
But out here, in the wild, unpopulated country, all feels eerily unfinished. The land is flat, the sky without luster. Eventually swaths of short, brittle grass give way, and our mounts’ hooves churn up clouds of colorless dust. There are no forests here. Few animals. And with every step, we draw nearer to the brink of our world, a world we no longer possess the means to expand. There aren’t enough licorneir still living to sing this land into wholeness and bounty.
I cast my gaze around at the riders in this company. So many on horseback, for lack of a more exalted mount. Kildorath and six other warriors ride their proud licorneir, but we lost too many in that last campaign. Other than those survivors, the only other licorneir are ridden by adolescents. I spot them in our midst, twenty-three individuals, all of whom I know by name, all of whom I’ve worked to train for the role of Licornyn riders. It’s a fine crop, but small compared to previous years. Most of their licorneir are older beings, passed down from old to new riders. So few new licorneir are born in this age, as the adults do not feel secure enough to couple. I think sadly of Elydark and Nyathri—Diira. I’d cherished hope for the two of them and the new life they might bring into this world, but now?
We ride on. Every so often, I catch a glimpse of Ilsevel, far ahead on that gray nag of hers. Mostly, however, I’m aware of her via ourvelraconnection. It sings between us, as bright as ever, and it is a relief to feel it. Our separation last night wasn’t as bad as previous partings. Our bond is so much stronger now, and I am so much surer of my heart. Still I rested poorly without her by my side. I dread what will happen when she passes into the Unformed Lands.
It seems both painfully long and all too soon before we arrive at our destination. I’ve only been this far out a handful of times in my life. Youngsters of Rocaryn Tribe like to dare each other to ride out this way and gaze upon the end of the world from a distance. And, of course, I rode with other warriors-in-training to observe Elashor’s ordeal, long ago. Otherwise people don’t venture this far. The experience is much too unsettling to the spirit, a disquiet that gets down into the bones and remains long after the fact.
That disquiet is reawakened in me as we draw nearer. It’s difficult to describe the appearance of nothing, for it is simply that—unsolid, unformed blankness. Potential unrealized, a great wall of it. Neither light, nor dark, but a simple cessation of land, of sky, of reality. My eyes seek to fill in visuals, as my brain grapples with the madness of true emptiness. In the end my vision must invent something or go mad—so it chooses to perceive this colorless landscape extending on and on into a gray horizon. But I never can shake the feeling that the far horizon is in actuality an enormous painted prop, and if I tried to walk into it, I would hit the wall within a few paces.
Our company halts. Every rider’s eyes avert slightly so as not to look upon that nothingness. A roiling self-hatred burns deep in my gut. How could I have suggested this foolish plan? How could I have convinced the elders to send Ilsevel into . . .that?
A bugling cry cuts across the tense silence of our mutually held breath. I jerk my head to one side and see Diira. They brought her ahead of the rest of us, bound tightly in chaeora ropes. At sight of Ilsevel, she sets up a frenzied struggle, but the chaeora keep her limbs constrained and her flame subdued. The sight of her struggle is like a stab to the heart. I don’t like to imagine how Ilsevel must feel.
Elydark growls like a wolf, and flames flare in his soul, mounting fast.Easy, my friend,I sing into his mind.Let them prove themselves. Their bond is true.
A confident speech. It would be more effective if Elydark couldn’t directly sense the fear vibrating through the core of my being. He allows himself to be soothed, however, and his flame recedes to a low simmer.
The licorneir and horses form a long line, facing forward toward the Unformed Lands. I take my place among them, painfully aware of the distance between me and Ilsevel, who remains perched on that gray horse at the far end of the line, close to Halaema. I’d hoped we would be permitted a last word before the test began. It is not to be.
But she will do it. She must. I’ve seen her accomplish the impossible time and again. She brought me back from the brink of virulium madness, did she not? She bonded with Diira andsaved herself from a torturous death by fire. She wrested me from Shanaera’s grasp, crossing the wilds of hell-plagued Cruor to do so. She is a wonder, a fighter, a spirit of flame and song akin to the licorneir herself.
She will do this. She will astonish them all.
Halaema is speaking, but I’m too far away to hear what she says. I watch as Saevelor, an unbonded warrior, helps Ilsevel down from the saddle and sets her on her feet. For a terrible moment I fear they will send her forth into that emptiness still gagged. I am briefly relieved when Saevelor removes the gag, but tense up once more when three archers train their arrows upon my wife, threatening her to silence.
Ilsevel backs away slowly. Her gaze runs up and down the ranks of horses and licorneir. Finally, as though tugged by my own soul reaching out to her along thevelra, her searching eye finds mine. We are too far from each other for me to see her face clearly. I long to spur Elydark’s flanks, urge him out of line and cover the space between us, but who knows what those archers might do in response? So I restrain myself and merely look at her, sending love pulsing along our connecting soul-thread. Let her feel my belief in her, my confidence, and take heart.
She turns from me, her final look reserved for Diira. Her licorneir struggles feebly under those hideous ropes, but I suspect they exchange some silent song-words between them.
“Enough of this!” Halaema’s rough old voice barks, her wordsloud and clear in the tense silence which holds the rest of us captive. “Get on with it, human, before my archers’ fingers grow weary!”
Ilsevel startles and backs away several paces. I silently will her to look at me one last time, but she faces into the Unformed Lands instead. Heart in my throat, I count her footsteps as she makes her way toward that unreal horizon. Already a certain wavering uncertainty plays at the edges of her being. She looks transparent, ephemeral, and it takes all the willpower I can summon not to drive forward and snatch her back again from the very brink.
Diira lets out a terrible, shrieking cry. In the same instant Ilsevel vanishes from sight.
7
ILSEVEL
There’s a moment of strange resistance as my physical body and conscious mind both war against the unreality into which my footsteps carry me. I must fight with every ounce of will I can summon not to turn and run, arms outspread to receive the deadly arrows, which will be my fate if I refuse to honor the test now. Death seems preferable by far to this terrifying unknown.
But I cannot think or choose for myself alone any longer. Even as panic thrills through my veins, the twin golden cords, extending from my spirit through the ether, vibrate with profound energy. Taar. And Diira. Their lives also hang in the balance. If I am shot down by Licornyn archers, Diira will be hearttorn and then killed. As for Taar . . .
No. I grit my teeth, refusing to think any of the dire thoughtspressing in on my imagination. What’s the use? Taar believes I can do this, believes my connection to Diira is strong enough to see us through. How can I let either of them down?
So I walk on. Into that uncanny landscape, which plays such bizarre tricks on the eyes. Nothing in my previous life—the life of a spoiled, pampered princess in an altogether ordinary world of stone and dust and disappointment—has prepared me to face the wild wonders of the multi-worlds which have ever existed just beyond my range of perception. Yet here I find myself, walking with reluctant determination into an unknown far more incomprehensible than any I have encountered. Even the darkness of thevardimnar, though it seethes with raw evil, is, at least,something. Not this amorphous confusion over which my mind tries to lay veneers of understanding.
In the end I close my eyes. If I don’t, my mind will simply crack in two, spilling my brains on this featureless soil. I close them tight and, putting on a little burst of speed, hurtle forward. One step. Two. Three, four, five, gods! How many? I could have sworn I would have crossed by now. Ten, twelve, fifteen, I’ve lost count, but I’m running full tilt now, committed to this course, committed to this trial, committed to—
Diira’s voice shrieks along our soul-tether, bursting in my brain and scattering through my veins. It’s the last thing I hear, the last thing I know before I am flattened and stretched and dragged and pulled out, one small particle of existence after another. Soon all that ismeis stretchedinto a single thread, so long, it crosses a hundred worlds all at once. I see—feel—know—everything and nothing all at once, as eons without measure pass through me like a tunnel of light. I twist and wind, whatever remains of my conscious awareness rushing over oceans, over mountains, over twisted terrains for which no language spoken by the tongues of men has words to describe. I see civilizations rise and fall and turn to dust, bizarre entities made of light and energy and flame, all perceived in less than a blink as I speed along that infinitesimal and infinite highway of being.
Eventually—eternities later—the string of selfhood begins to coil up on itself, forming little groups and bunches, bundling back into . . . something. Something like the experience ofmeI once knew, long ago. I feel a sense of selfhood that is strangely cumbersome but not altogether unpleasant. There’s a little thrill of . . . what is it? It’s difficult to define existence with thoughts structured from mere words, but I had it just there on the tip of my awareness. Oh, yes. Fear. Panic. Terror. Madness. All such foolish little things. I shrug them away with a lash of my long-coiling thread-spirit.
I float in the state of un-ness for a millennia or so, quite uncaring. I am stardust, drifting lonely through the void between worlds, between atoms. Until I hear something. A voice. A voice, so clear, so bright, it sears across my consciousness and drags me streaking at the speed of light through planets andnebulas and all the black nothing in between. My being suddenly centers on that one fixed point of existence, buried deep under layer upon layer of heavy, unwieldy, suffocating time. Some core part of me knows that voice and is irresistibly drawn to it.
