The trail was precarious, and Mawyndul? was regretting his decision to take it. Narrow, with a sheer drop on one side and the cliff wall on the other, he found himself shimmying along. By the time he reached the top, he was no longer cold. He was sweating.
“Okay, I’m at the top.”
Have a good view of Alon Rhist?
Mawyndul? peered west. He was up only sixty feet, but it felt as if he could see forever. Below him, the entire Fhrey camp was visible so that he could see the orderly precision of the tents punctuated by the glowing red points of burned out fires. “Yeah. It’s across this chasm: bunch of walls, big dome, massive tower—not so tall now that they cut the top of it off.”
Just sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Keep your back straight, cross your legs, and just concentrate on Alon Rhist. Try not to let your mind wander. Just focus on the fortress.
“Okay.”
And try not to scream.
“Scream? Why would I—”
Mawyndul? jerked as he felt a jolt of power slam into him. He didn’t scream. He couldn’t. All he was able to utter was a weak squeak as his mind and body were blasted with the indomitable force of the tower of Avempartha. Power flooded him so that he felt he might drown. Every muscle contracted, as if someone had dumped a barrel of ice water over his head.
He managed a weak gasp as the fortress rushed at him. In an instant, he was viewing the great bronze doors. They were close enough to touch. Then he flew through them. A moment later, he was standing in a courtyard where soldiers—both Rhune and Fhrey—stood or walked. Not needing to use the stairs, Mawyndul? flew upward to a higher courtyard and passed through barracks where men were waking up, getting dressed, and eating at long tables or with bowls in their laps. Next, he reached the dome and rose to a balcony overlooking a huge room filled with decorative weapons. He’d been there before when he and Gryndal had visited. Then he was whisked away, flying across a bridge toward a sturdy square tower built just in front of the decapitated Spyrok. This was the Kype, the fortress inside the fortress. Lamps were being lit. People were dressing. The fort was waking up, and Mawyndul? felt himself growing dizzy. He flew again, back this time toward the front of the Rhist. The jerking, haphazard motion was making his stomach queasy as he flew through the many rooms and hallways spinning left and right searching for—
He stopped.
* * *
—
Suri handed the steaming tea over to Arion. The two were at the top of the Frozen Tower. With the Spyrok gone, it was the nearest Suri could come to the out-of-doors. The closest she could get to feeling any kind of freedom. She’d always hated walls, and lately she had been confined behind a great many of them.
Although no one could actually stop her, Arion could put up a good fight, but Suri didn’t think even she could do anything if Suri really wanted to go out. She had learned there were few things she couldn’t do if she really wanted to. For the last month, her education with Arion had dwindled to discovering not what she could do, or how to do it, but the few things she couldn’t. Flying was one, so was bringing back the dead—at least once they had crossed into that light, into the realm of Phyre. Another was pure creation—making something from nothing. These were all beyond the Art—well, sort of. Nothing was really beyond it. The Art was everything, the common thread that ran through existence, holding it together. Everything was part of the Art, but some things, like pure creation and raising the dead, were so complex, their cords so deep, no Fhrey or Rhune Artist was likely able to master the weaves or control the power needed. That was the realm of gods. The closest anyone had ever gotten—as far as she knew—was the creation of Balgargarath and the Gilarabrywn. Even they weren’t real, not actually alive; each was a force of power held together by artificial bonds, but independent of the Artist: an animated, self-sustaining, thinking thing that could feasibly continue to live even after the Artist who created it died. In that sense and by virtue of achievement, Suri was perhaps the most powerful Artist in the world, second only to the one who had created Balgargarath. Whoever had managed that feat had to be the greatest Artist, and only a little short of the gods themselves.