Even more astonishing, I followed them now, not jogging, but walking at an easy pace. I stepped without hesitation off the last of the stone steps when I came to the top of the stairway. Left to myself, I might have flinched, because the light certainly did not seem solid enough to hold my weight. The lack of hesitation was not mine. But of course I did not fall. The light felt firm under my feet, not like stone, but firm and certain. It gave, but there was solidity beneath.
I turned to face down the stairway, and found Aras backing quickly toward me. The ka’a at the forefront now was an even bigger man than most of his kind. He glittered all over, not only his armor, but his skin and his eyes. He looked for all the world like a man made of black glass, of obsidian, but iridescent in a way obsidian is not. Shimmers of blue, of green, of bronze, glimmered across his blackness. Light slid over him, around him, not into him in the way of the ordinary warriors, so that his features were more discernable than theirs. His features were sharp and elegant, his eyes enormous and set wide apart. His thin lips were drawn back, showing many sharp teeth in a smile that showed his confidence. His weapons were blacker than he was, like the emptiness of a sky without stars.
Below that warrior, below all the stairway, I could see the peak of Talal Sabero and then, below that, the lower slopes of the mountain. Farther down, it seemed to me that I could see a white mist, but in many places the emptiness of the shadow tide ate away at that billowing mist. Far below that, the tide lapping upward, very like water against a stone.
Beyond the shadow tide, I could see nothing. The peaks of the lesser mountains, all the world below, had disappeared into the shadow of the dark tide.
Then I ran forward. Aras gave me the sword as I passed him, and I shouted and lunged. The warrior met me, and indeed, he was stronger than others of his kind. The struggle became too fast and too difficult to mark every move; or, indeed, any move. I killed him—even in the press of the battle, I was savagely pleased at the surprise on his face when my sword carved into his chest and he knew himself defeated.
Behind that ka’a was another, and then another, the ordinary kind, and then another of the greater sort. I knew I was backing up the stairway, that much more distance now lay between me and the high peak of Talal Sabero, but I did not know much beyond that. I shook blood out of my eyes and did not know what injury had caused that; I gripped a claw-weapon in my left hand rather than my knife and did not know how that change had been effected; my throat was raw with shouting or with the effort to breathe.
I fell to my knees, tucking myself down low, and Aras stepped across me. He did not have to jump over my body; his legs were long enough that he could simply step. As he stepped over me, he reached down, and I set my sword into his hand. None of this was my decision. I got up when he was past me, staggering with exhaustion I had not felt until that moment. Blood soaked my left side from a deep cut that ran along my ribs. I had not felt that either, but now I knew the weariness that dragged at my body came from blood loss as well as exertion. I set down the claw-weapon, turned and picked up a length of cloth laid ready for me, and bound the cut with this—none of this was my doing, but my movements were efficient and precise. No one watching me could have realized that my body did not move to my direction.
A waterskin was waiting as well. I drank all the water it held. Then I picked up the claw-weapon and jogged upward along the lengthening stairway of light. None of this was my decision. I lifted my head, looking ahead, looking for my sister, and knew Aras had let me look for her, had made me look for her. I was grateful for that. The gratitude I felt enraged me. I had thought myself so furiously angry that nothing could make me angrier, but this perverted echo of generosity did. I wanted to shout, I wanted to curse, but I had neither breath to spare nor the ability to rule my own mouth or tongue. And all the time, I was still grateful to look across the long distance between my sister and myself and see her, so that I might know she was still alive.
The three women were much higher above me now. I could hear them more clearly than I could see them. I could hear them all, but now that I listened, I could hear my sister most clearly. Etta’s voice was stronger than Inhejeriel’s voice and both much stronger and much higher in pitch than Lalani’s warm voice.
Etta was singing the names of our people. Inhejeriel was singing the names of Tarashana people, but my sister was singing the names of Ugaro people. I knew those names. She was calling the names of all the inGara people who had been lost to the dark tide, and every time she sang a name, a single star took up that name, returning it to Etta and to the world. Every Ugaro name already taken up reverberated in the silence that was beyond sound, in a silence that I now understood was filled with unheard song.
I began to see that the whole span of the stairway of light was filled with people ... with shades. Perhaps with people who were neither living nor dead. I did not know a word for what these people might be. Lost, perhaps, except now they had been found. I could see them, now that I knew they were there, but when I tried to fix my gaze on one or another, I could not do it.
Nearly all of these half-seen people were Tarashana—tiny, fine-boned, and very fair. But a few were Ugaro. Some of the half-seen Tarashana might have been singing. I almost thought I heard their voices, but very faint, as though from a great distance. Perhaps I heard only an echo of Inhejeriel’s voice.
I pivoted. This was not my choice. I strode forward. Aras met me, staggering. As I took the sword, he let himself sag to his knees. He held one arm close to his body, and his face was streaked with blood, and his breathing was harsh and rapid, but he had won enough of a respite that I did not have to leap over him instantly to engage an enemy.
The pause would not last. I gazed down along the stairway of light, and, though that pause was not my choice, I took the opportunity to measure the number of our enemies. There was no end to them. I knew we could not hold them back very much longer. Weariness dragged at my body despite trading the effort back and forth with Aras.
I could kill any single one of the ka’a. But I could not kill them all. For Aras, it was the same. If not for the sword given to me by the eagle-warrior, we would have been overwhelmed long before this. I carried two wounds serious enough to hamper me now; from the way Aras held his arm, he was probably in no better condition.
The first of our uncountable enemies had almost come to me. I did not go to meet him, conserving my strength while I could. This was not my decision, but it was the only sensible decision, so I was not surprised that I waited where I was. But now I lifted my sword, hefting the claw-weapon in my other hand, measuring this new enemy.
This was another of the greater ka’a, bigger than most of his kind, stronger, glittering like glass, shimmering with iridescence. His black sword curved in a long arc. He gestured with that weapon, and streaks of emptiness dripped from the blade, obscenely wrong in the crystalline clarity of the sky. The stairway dissolved to mist where those streaks touched the light. I could see that this ka’a must be some manner of sorcerer. No doubt a sensible man would have been afraid of him. I was too tired to be afraid, and far, far too angry.
I could tell from the way he moved that he believed that no matter the superiority of my weapon, I could not match his strength. So I did not try to match it. When he struck at me, I stepped back and aside. I did the same when he attacked again, backing away, letting him follow me. Once more, the same. This time he might have been a little careless, expecting me to retreat again, as I had done.
He rushed forward, striking at me, smooth and deadly and confident, and this time I did not step back. Nor did I meet his strength directly. I let his curved sword slide along mine, stepping to the side, guiding his blade and his attention to that side, then dropping low to rake the claws of my other weapon across his belly. He had been a little careless, a little overconfident, but even so, he was very fast. He caught my weapon with his own, and I discovered at once that indeed, I could not match his strength. When he twisted his weapon to tear
mine from my hand, I let it go, let go of my sword as well, seized his hand and arm, dropped, twisted, got a foot against his hip, and threw him over my shoulder. This was a wrestling move I had learned from Esau and practiced against Lau, against opponents who were taller but lighter than I, very much like this Saa’arii warrior. I had not known I would do that, but the move had been good. On level ground, he would have been on his feet again at once and I, having thrown down my sword, would have been weaponless. Here, he went over the side of the stairway. I came to my feet, looking for my sword—it had slid some small distance, but because the gods were kind, it had not fallen away into the air. I stepped that way, to recover my weapon in time to meet my next enemy, another of the greater ka’a—
— and spun, snatching out of the air a knife Aras threw to me. That had not been my intention, the next warrior was coming fast, he would be at my back in another instant, but I pivoted and saw that the Saa’arii warrior I had thrown over the side of the stairway had not fallen. He had caught the edge of a stair with one hand, buried his claw-weapon to the haft in the glimmering light, and he was pulling himself up. In a heartbeat, less than a heartbeat, I would be fighting two of the greater ka’a warriors at the same time, one from either side—and I had no time to recover my sword.
They would kill me. Then they would kill Aras, or if not, then the next shadow warrior would kill him, or the next after that. Then the ka’a would have nothing but barely-present shades between their swords and my sister and Lalani and Inhejeriel. Everything that had happened—everything—would have been for nothing.
I threw myself forward. I could not even tell whether my body moved because I willed it or because Aras willed it. I threw my knife as hard as I could. It turned a precise one and a half times, and struck the first Saa’arii warrior in the face just as he got a knee beneath him and pulled himself back up to the stairway. The blade snapped into his eye. Even a shadow warrior felt that; his head jerked back, giving me a chance to grab his claw-weapon and kick him hard in the chest. This time when he fell, he did not catch the edge of the bridge.
The force of my kick had flung me into the glimmering spire of light. I caught myself against its strange solidity and flung myself down, hearing a sword cutting through the air behind me, knowing I would be too late to avoid that blow completely, hoping only to take a wound that might not be mortal at once so that I might take one more enemy with me into death.
But no blow fell. I came to my feet, spinning with an effort I felt through my whole body, guarding myself with the claw-weapon, and stopped in amazement. I was so astonished that I even forgot my fury.
The eagle had come. He had plummeted from the sky with blazing speed to strike my enemy, tearing gaping wounds into the shadow warrior’s back and shoulders and face with his talons. I understood now that the sound I had heard was the wind whistling through the feathers of those great wings, not the sound of a sword cutting down at me.
The eagle turned on a wingtip, spinning impossibly fast—no ordinary bird could have done that, not in the land of the living—dropped to the bridge, and rose up as a man. No one could have mistaken him then. He stooped, pivoting, and came up with the sword I had lost, so that now he held a weapon in each hand. Before I could move—before Aras could decide that I should move—he cut down the wounded ka’a. Then, rather than flinging himself into the air and once again becoming an eagle, he raced down the glimmering stairway, straight toward the other shadow warriors. Where he could not have stopped them along a broader front, obviously he could do so easily on this narrow stairway.
I did not watch. Now that there was no need for urgent speed, I could barely move at all. I straightened slowly, catching my breath. Then I turned, and walked the other way, upward. Aras waited for me, but he said nothing to me when I came to him. He glanced at my face and then looked away. I could not speak unless he permitted it, but I would not have said anything anyway. I had nothing to say to him.
His condition was no better than mine. From the way he held his arm, at least one bone was probably broken. I was far too angry to care.
He drew a breath, let it out, and began to climb the stairs painfully slowly, one step after another, almost too weary to make the effort. I understood exactly how he felt, and resented that bitterly. I fell into step beside him—that was not my decision, but I hardly cared now what he did, what he made me do. Above us, Inhejeriel sang, and my sister, and Lalani. Shivering just beyond the edge of hearing, the voices of the uncountable stars wove an intricate harmony. Surrounding us, above us, crowding the stairway that led into and through the sky, I half saw and half felt many shades—not exactly shades. I still did not know what to call them. Aras and I walked side by side, not very fast, along the stairway that spiraled up and up into the sky, surrounded by those who had been lost and might, now, be redeemed.
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Aras glanced back now and then, and after a while he made me turn my head so that I could see as well. Then we both turned completely around and stood together, watching.
I saw the eagle-warrior fall, cut down, cut completely in half by the dark sword of a greater ka’a warrior. But the parts of his body fell, not off the stairway, but through it, blending with and then falling through the light, and then the eagle swept away and up, unharmed by any enemy weapon. Moonlight and mist streamed through his feathers, a trail of light that lingered along his path.
He swept down and down, stooped into a blazingly fast dive, and vanished.
The foremost of the shadow warriors took that chance to race forward. They had not yet given up, so I supposed that meant they had not yet been defeated decisively enough. I tried to prepare myself to fight again despite my weariness and wounds—I knew Aras would send me to fight before he took up the effort again himself—but before I took even one step, the eagle appeared directly above the ka’a in the lead. The eagle struck that shadow warrior so hard and fast that the blow flung our enemy from the stairway. They fell locked together, a tangle of light and shadow.
They had not fallen far before the eagle pulled free and wheeled away, leaving his enemy to fall alone the long distance down and finally into the dark emptiness that eddied now just below the peak of Talal Sabero. The eagle vanished again—
— and plunged from the vault of the heavens, striking the surface of the stairway, blurring instantly from bird to warrior. Dropping to his knees, he plunged both his swords up to the hilt into the starlight where he knelt. A sound like the scream of an eagle sliced through the air, and that stair and the two above and below that one all cracked into pieces and fell away, the pieces shattering into smaller fragments as they fell, dissolving into drifting mist. The shade of the warrior fell with the broken shards of light, then swept away again on immense wings, milky light streaming around him, through him. The remaining shadow warriors fled the shattering bridge, leaping away to fall into their dark tide. The eagle swept around in an impossibly tight turn and stooped upon them, plunging into the shadow tide himself.
“That most certainly wasn’t—isn’t an ordinary shade,” Aras said softly. He sat down, sighing with the effort, holding his arm close to his side, cradling that elbow in the opposite hand. Some bone in that arm was certainly broken.
I sat down too. That was not my decision. I did not say anything, of course, but he was obviously right. By no means was that eagle-warrior an ordinary shade. I could not think of any tale that explained what he was. My sister might know such a tale.
Raga might have known that kind of tale, if he had lived. I heard him again in memory, his voice calling out to me in horror when I left him to die, his scream when enemies cut him down.
Despite the anger that filled my heart, that memory was so vivid that Aras could not fail to hear it. I saw him flinch. If I had not known him so well, I would not have seen it.
I had obviously not known him as well as I thought.
No. I had. I had known for a long time, almost from the beginning, that when he set himself agains
t an enemy, he would be ruthless, with himself and with everyone else, until that enemy was defeated. Even so, I could hardly believe what he had done to me. What he was still doing to me now.
He did not look at me or answer this thought. He said, his voice rough with pain and long effort, “If Inhejeriel is right about all this, then sunrise here ought to lift all those upon this stairway into the world of the living. I’m fairly certain that’s what she meant, and it’s consistent with everything I know and can guess. Inhejeriel’s task will end at that moment, whether she is finished or not. Only the people she has already called onto this ... this bridge between earth and sky will be redeemed. You’ve realized that the Moon has been holding her place in the sky, refusing to step toward the horizon. The gods are holding back the turning of the day, giving Inhejeriel time to redeem as many of her people as possible. Once the other Tarashana sorcerers have returned to the land of the living, they should be able to drive back the black tide, force the sunless sea back to its proper place, and restore the starlit country. If the Tarashana sorcerers can force the black tide back within the land of the living, then the shadow tide here should subside as well. Or ... Inhejeriel thinks everything should happen in something close to that way. If she’s wrong ... I hope very much she isn’t wrong. I’ve set everything on the hope that she’s right.”
He had most certainly done that.
He flinched. I was so angry that I had made sure he would see that thought, but now I had other things to consider as well. He had explained many things that I had wanted to know. Some of it I had guessed before, and some was new to me. But nothing in all this explanation addressed the questions that most concerned me. As I could not speak, I tried to put down my anger enough for him to hear my thoughts more clearly.
He said, “I’ve given your brothers’ names to Lalani. Etta’s mind is so far away that she can’t hear me. Inhejeriel is so caught up in her own task, she wouldn’t listen to me even if I could speak to her, which is actually quite difficult for me in any case. But Lalani is much easier. She should be able to give those names to your sister at the right moment, although ...” He paused. Then he said, “Inhejeriel wasn’t certain whether she, or anyone, would be able to redeem any living person who died here. You know that’s different from redeeming those lost in the shadow tide. Those of us on this bridge will probably be carried with it. Everyone else ... I don’t know, Ryo.”
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