Bridging the Divide

The next day, Elias already felt a little better than he had yesterday. Sleeping beneath the celestial vault and breathing the mountain air had done him good. And though he’d had to keep watch for a while through the night, he woke feeling refreshed enough.

“Now that we’ve got a master builder with us,” Cecile teased, nibbling on a piece of pie for breakfast, “maybe we’ll finally get a proper bridge here. One that actually stays standing.” She turned toward Elias, waiting to see how he’d react.

Elias was still sitting on the bedroll where he had slept, both arms wrapped around his right knee, his expression grave. He gazed across at the opposite cliff as if already calculating what kind of engineering could support a bridge-ladder at this point. Morning light filtered from several directions as the suns rose, catching the dew and making the whole place glisten. The first rays touched the cliff’s crown and then slowly descended toward them, tracing bands of stone that seemed to mark time itself – minutes tallied by how long it took for the gorge to fill with gold.

“That would be far too much effort, for no good reason,” Bard cut in. “We don’t want anyone worn out before the day even starts.” He paused, still staring up, then finally said, “We’ll cross the way we did last time.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that!” Cecile groaned, her face betraying how unpleasant the last crossing had been. Heights weren’t exactly her weakness, but stepping out over empty nothingness wasn’t exactly her idea of comfort either.

“I think I could… at least try,” Elias started to say.

“Save your strength,” Bard interrupted, already shouldering his things. He plucked a chord on his lute. Instantly, five thin lines shimmered into being before them, stretching from where they stood to the cliff-top opposite, like staves on a musician’s sheet.

Bard looked back at them, nodding for them to come closer.

They packed the little they carried. Elias scattered earth over their firepit to snuff the embers, and together they approached the edge.

“Follow my lead,” Bard said. “And try to keep the rhythm.”

He struck a trembling note, and at once a treble clef appeared at the brink. From that clef, a shining black note  –glossy as a droplet of ink–  coalesced solid in the air, settling onto the lines. It was large, like a hay wain almost, big enough for all four of them to stand on together.

Bard leapt lightly onto it, still sustaining the tremolo. Below yawned the enormous chasm. Fawks followed with a fearless jump – unsurprising, since he alone had nothing to fear if he fell. Cecile went next, carefully, every step hesitant.

But Elias froze. He couldn’t even approach the brink. Beyond that clef, that single note and those lines… there was nothing. No ground, no guardrail, only a drop into chaos. His stomach lurched; the void magnified his vertigo until he felt dizzy just imagining the fall.

The others waited. Still, he didn’t move.

“You’re afraid of heights, aren’t you?” Cecile asked gently.

“For me, too, it isn’t exactly pleasant,” she admitted. “The notes are wide enough, but still… no handrails.” She hopped back beside him. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s try this.” She tied a handkerchief over his eyes.

“You want me to start jumping over this massive void – blindfolded?!”

“Well,” she countered, “seeing the void certainly isn’t helping, is it?
Besides,” she added softly, “you’ll have us. We’ll hold you the whole way.”

Elias swallowed hard. “Could we… wait a little?”

But Fawks had already hopped back too. Together with Cecile, they steered Elias toward the edge.

“Jump!” they shouted together.

And all three leapt. Elias’s jump was wild and clumsy, but it carried him across.

The note dipped beneath their weight, bouncing like a boat rocked on a wave, then slowly steadied – a strange, buoyant reaction, as if momentum itself held them.

“I don’t like this!” Elias blurted, though he couldn’t help a nervous grin.

“Trust us,” Cecile murmured.

The note had plenty of room for them all.

Bard shifted his playing, moving from tremolo to a slow, rhythmic tune that sounded almost like a sirtaki. At once, more notes appeared ahead of them, evenly spaced, rising in a staircase across the gorge.

Together  –nearly in rhythm– they hopped from one note to the next, Cecile and Fawks each holding Elias by the arms. Each new note dipped and swayed beneath their weight before bouncing them upward, carrying them toward the next. Behind them, as Bard’s song shifted forward, the old notes began to fade, vanishing one by one into silence.

Despite his companions’ steadying hands, Elias was in torment. His chest was tight; sweat trickled down his temples. Then, halfway up – only five or six notes left to go – a strong gust tore the blindfold from his face.

For one terrible instant his eyes darted down. The void spread wide beneath him, endless. His stomach lurched, his head spun – he squeezed his eyes shut, clamping them so tight it hurt, turning his face upward toward the sky. Only Cecile’s and Fawks’s grip kept him steady as they half-pulled, half-guided him forward.

Then disaster. On the next leap, Fawks slipped. He let go, dropping back to save Elias from being dragged down.

“Fawks!”

“What happened?” Elias cried, his face still screwed upward, eyes clenched.

A blur of motion – and Fawks darted right back onto the note above. “Oops!” he grinned.

Cecile stared at him in wonder. Bard, unfaltering, kept playing until they reached the summit, where the road sloped gently downward beyond.

Elias collapsed to his knees in a child’s-pose crouch, eyes still shut, gasping. “We made it,” he sighed.

“Of course we did!” Bard called back, sweat beading on his brow.

Behind them, the notes faded away, until only the five staves remained and the clef, far below.

“What is with this world’s obsession with heights…” Elias muttered, half-laughing at himself as he opened his eyes at last to the road ahead. He rose slowly, brushing dust from his clothes.

“Welcome to the Common Ground,” Cecile said with a smile.

♦♦♦

When Red opened her eyes again, it was morning. She was still draped over Kestrel’s back, in the same position as before. The pain from yesterday was still there… but she had, in some strange way, grown used to it.

The day was breaking the night’s dampness, though no sun yet showed above the ridges or the treetops. Only a few birds sang, faint and scattered.

With effort –and a sharp groan– Red managed to shift upright. The guard she had seen walking beside Kestrel the day before was not at her side.

He was trailing a little further back, dragging his feet. His leather-and-mail armor was gone; he had stripped off the chest, back, shoulder, and wrist plates, even his greaves. He walked now only in his padded gambeson, sword-belt strapped across his waist, leaning heavily on his spear. His shield, helmet, and the rest of his gear he had abandoned somewhere behind.

Just turning her head to look back at him made Red’s whole body ache. She turned forward again and raised her voice without glancing over her shoulder.

“How long have you been walking?”

“One day… and almost two nights,” came his voice at last. It was ragged, exhausted.

Red tugged weakly at the reins to slow Kestrel. She could feel the horse’s weariness beneath her as well – he still bore the wounds the dragon had given him when he saved her the first time – but even so, he seemed to have more spirit left than the man.

“No, don’t stop!” the guard cried out, almost panicked. He was bound by duty to see her safely to the Common Ground. “What if they’re still behind us?”

“Hop on,” Red told him, waiting as he struggled to catch up.

At last he reached them, but only with great effort.

“I don’t know if Kestrel can carry us both,” he muttered, yet he accepted her offered hand.

It was a mistake. She could not hold him; he nearly toppled, almost dragging her down with him. Planting his feet again, he tried once more alone. Kestrel stood as still as a statue, patient and steady, and on the third attempt the man hauled himself up.

The horse moved forward again, slow and steady.

“Remind me your name,” Red asked softly.

“Lameth,” he answered after a pause, as if waking from a half-dream. He was utterly spent, teetering on the edge of fainting.

“Ah! You and Roric were friends, right?” Red said with a sudden flicker of life, as if remembering pulled her closer to reality.

“We were good friends,” Lameth murmured, head bowed – half mourning, half asleep.

Moments later, he truly did doze off. But it was a strange, disciplined kind of sleep. Though he sat on horseback, though every jolt and sway should have toppled him, his posture stayed upright, his chest firm, only his head nodding forward in surrender to sleep.

Red said nothing. She let the silence linger, savoring the cool breath of morning. But the pain and exhaustion still clung to her body, reminders that every breath, every heartbeat, was borrowed time.

She didn’t feel strong enough to climb down from Kestrel, yet she knew the stallion could carry them both for a good stretch still. Perhaps, by then, they would find some place to rest – even if nowhere in this world would feel truly safe again.

The road curved into a wide arch and began to climb. At last, straight ahead, figures came into view – Talmerefolk. Dozens of them, strung out at the tail of a long column that stretched onward, vanishing into the distance.

“Red?”

“It’s Red!” one voice shouted from the line ahead, sharp with disbelief.

Another picked it up, louder, brighter. “Hey – it’s Red! She’s alive!”

The cry spread like a spark racing through dry grass. One voice became ten, ten became fifty, until the whole rearguard seemed to roar with it.

“Hooray! Hooray for Red!”

Faces turned back toward her, grins breaking through fatigue. Men and women who had been trudging with heads bowed now raised their hands and waved in triumph. Some even stumbled forward, as if seeing her alive gave their weary legs new strength.

Behind her, Lameth startled awake, blinking against the sound. Red swayed in the saddle, too weak to answer their joy with more than a faint, trembling smile. But still – it was enough.