Sendari waited, cool as the stone that surrounded him. Many of the Widan-Designates never pa.s.sed the test of the Sword-but many did. In a straight contest between a Widan of experience, and a Widan with less, there would be no contest; no test at all. He did not let fear unman him or unnerve him. Fear for himself, fear of his own death- these had never been the force which drove him.

"Very good," Cortano said softly, after a few minutes of silence had pa.s.sed. "There is steel in you, Widan-Designate; and I believe the steel is a fine one. I am your test, but if you survive it, I will be your temper." He turned, his robes dark in the light, his left arm outstretched and pointing. "There, Sendari. Look."

The Widan-Designate followed the line the man's arm made; it ended in a bridge, a natural outcropping of rock that seemed to have grown from either side of the chasm to meet in its center, seamless and whole. There were no rails to this bridge, and indeed, as Sendari studied it, he saw that it was widest at the foot of either side, narrowest at its curved midpoint. Not a comforting structure, although one certain not to break with the mere weight of a man, not to creak and rot with the pa.s.sage of time.

"Your task is simple. Only cross the bridge, and you will be declared Widan."

"In what time?"

Cortano's smile could be seen across that gulf that separated them. "I will wait, Sendari. You will either cross it or perish in your own time."

"How generous."

"A man in my position can afford to be," Cortano replied.

There and then, Sendari vowed to become at least Cortano's equal in the wielding of the art. He did not give voice to the momentary anger; it would only expose the weakness of his reaction. Instead he walked to the foot of the bridge, his steps slow and measured. There were tests to be performed here before he so much as stepped onto the rocky platform. Meticulous, focused now, he performed each in its turn.

The bridge was as it appeared, no more and no less. No spell of seeming was laid upon it to make it appear whole; no spell of displacement; no disguise which might make of this bridge a thing of cloth or string-or air. It was, from his brief exploration, of a piece, although what might form and mold the rock in such a fashion, Sendari could not say.

And what he did not know was always a source of both curiosity and irritation. Knowledge, to Sendari par di'Marano, was like drink to a man long grown accustomed to its taste and its comfort. He rose.

Cortano, impa.s.sive now, waited, his arms by his sides.

Sendari stepped onto the bridge.

There was no light, no flare of fire, no obvious attack. But the bridge itself was treacherous enough; if it was of a piece, it was not a smooth piece, and his foot found purchase, heavily soled as it was, with difficulty. He took another step, removing the foot that anch.o.r.ed him to the tunnel side of the chasm. Found his balance, although the bridge was narrower than it had first seemed.

He looked up, as he took his third step. Cortano smiled and gestured. The lights went out.

No evening sky was as black as this darkness, although Sendari was certain that the darkness was natural. They were buried deep within the folds of the earth itself, and the earth hid-and held- its own. No Lord touched this place with the fiery light of the sun, nor Lady with the soft, silver glow of moon. This was a place beyond their concern and their dominion.

The Widan's home.

Sendari froze and then, with the darkness as cover, he crouched, finding the face of the rock with his fingers, as if truly blind. Instinct, perhaps, or some fear of falling older by far than the man himself, caused his hands to grip its worn edges, its hard folds. Had his first impulse been to call the light, to heighten the senses, he would have perished.

For within the chasm itself, coming from his left and building in force, he could hear howling, the prowl of an angry wind. What had Cortano said?

The winds will judge.

He had just enough time to tighten his grip, to flatten himself into the contours of the bridge itself, before that judgment came, tearing at the flaps and folds of his robes, pulling his hair, twisting his beard up and into his sightless eyes. Sand, scouring, was carried in the heart of the wind-if the wind could be said to have a heart at all-he could feel it sc.r.a.pe across his skin. Thus were mountains worn to facelessness.

He could not speak; the words were torn from his lips and scattered against the rock face of the chasm's walls. He could not gesture; he could not use those elements of nicety that had become part of his ritual when, locked away from prying eyes and babbling voices, he had summoned fire and bent it to his will.

No, all he had was will. Will.

Clinging, blind, his hands warm with blood and pain, Sendari di'Marano began to force that will into channels of his desire. Fire was his strength, and there was no call for it here; no way to use or invoke it. He could not destroy the wind. No living man could; even the Lord tolerated its presence in the Dominion. But destruction was not the only form of victory, indeed, in this struggle there was only one form that victory could take.

He strengthened his grip by slow degree, pulling on reserves of power to augment sheer physical strength-of which there was little enough. He could not still the wind's voice, but he could-if his will did not continue to falter and flail like a disobedient child-glove his hands against the grinding tongues of sand. He did not try to stand. He did not try to deny the force of the wind in that fashion.

Pride forgotten, Sendari di'Marano began to crawl.

He had run this gauntlet before, after all.

Not physically, of course.

But the wind had come one shadowed night, and taken, in its wake, the only thing that he would have held onto with everything that he was. The only thing that he had held onto in such a fashion until that moment. He would have done more than crawl to keep her. He had, pleading with the healer until he could not speak for tears. The shame of that single moment burned and stung his cheeks more than the sand-laden winds ever could. And it had been for nothing, although the healer had paid. She died, and he waited while she did so, seeking a blind, instinctive comfort in the arms of his sister. Denied even the ability to hold her and take what comfort he could from that.

Ah. Blood. Anger. Pain.

Jealousy.

Yes. He knew it. Teresa knew it. It was ever between them, and he thought that it would remain so. Because he could not let it go. Would not.

The rock beneath his hands was hard; he gripped it, he forced his hands to become a part of it; he supported himself by the strength of his fingers. The wind pulled him up; his chest skirted rock-ridge and came down with a bruising thud. Ah, fire-he used it just a moment, precisely and perfectly, to sheer the straps of his sandals into ash. Thus freed, the leather fell away, claimed by the gale, and he set about fastening his toes, his soles, the skin of his feet, to the rock itself.

He crawled, b.l.o.o.d.y-minded in his determination.

If her death had not bowed him, if her death had not demanded his own, nothing could. Not one thing. If he crawled across the bridge, he crawled; pride would suffer, but no more. He had but to gain the other edge of the chasm and he was done.

Close, now. He could feel the bridge's incline become decline. He wrapped his arms around the whole of the bridge's thinnest points, as if it were a stone tree, and he a child determined to climb what was, in the end, just beyond his reach. Will sh.o.r.ed him up, and power; he kept his grip and his focus as he moved, surely, across the divide.

He was not prepared for the fire.

It lapped up the sides of the bridge like water, but where it struck, it burned. Elemental, wild, the heart of fire, not fire's civilized core, red flames tried to take his hands. He cried out, but he did not move, for to move was death. Here, the wind helped; it tore at chunks of flame, throwing it, damping it, dulling its heat.

He did not study the flame; he knew it was Cortano's. And he knew, at this point, that he had to unmake the fire before it made of him a thing of ash and bone. He had controlled the flame, and flame's voice, before-but never when another Widan chose to wield it.

No matter.

Sendari par di'Marano brought his teeth together, cutting off the cry that sounded only vaguely like his own voice. Anger sh.o.r.ed him up; the will and the focus that he had brought to bear to crawl this far across the bridge that spanned the crevice was nothing compared to the will that attacked the fire.

Because fire was his. Because it was the one thing, the only thing, that he had left after Alora. Because he could not believe the arrogance of a man-of any man-who would think to use his strongest gift against him.

He was Widan. He was Sendari di'Marano, and he was the p.a.w.n-and the victim-of no man. He took the flames, forced them away from his skin, and then guttered them, viciously, as if they were indeed alive.

Cortano brought them back, but weaker, and he crushed them again, using power-finding power -that he did not know, until that moment, he possessed. Flayed and bleeding, his hands held fast, as if they were separate from him, with a will and a mind of their own.

And then, fires to either side, he began to crawl. The wind raged; the fires crackled; Sendari snarled. He was Widan. He was Widan, and he had been denied too much in his life. This was within his power. This was within his control. And what was internal, what came from within, no one could break, be he even Cortano di'Alexes.

Be he the Lord of the Sun.

Sendari par di'Marano inched his way across the divide, and came, upon raw hands and bloodied knees, into his t.i.tle.

The wind stopped its howl as his first hand cleared the bridge; silence reigned in the darkness that, Sendari realized, he had never once attempted to alleviate.

"You are not afraid of the darkness," Cortano di'Alexes said.

"No."

"Good. You are not humbled by it either. You will need both of these traits in the future. Rise, Sendari di'Marano, if you can. The worst of your life is behind you. You are Widan, and you have joined the Wise."

The light returned; Sendari flinched as it made clear the extent of the wounds he had taken to come this far. But he rose slowly, finding his feet as he turned to face the opposite side of the bridge. There, bearing witness, were the men who had the right, by this test, to wear the Sword of Knowledge.

He could not clearly see their faces, but he knew, although the distance was great, that not a single man begrudged him his victory; his victory reminded them of their own.

"Tomorrow, if you desire it, you may return to the tunnels. And you may cross the bridge; the wind howls only once for each man who seeks entry here."

"The wind," Sendari said softly.

Cortano's eyes were a glittering, almost unnatural blue. "No," he said, "it is not mine."

"Then whose?"

"A mystery, Sendari, that we have never fully apprehended. Perhaps you will be the one; perhaps not. The founder gave us these tunnels, and this chasm, and he decreed that no man with too much pride or too little caution could walk the edge of the Sword well. This was his test."

"And the fire?"

"Ah." Cortano's smile was cool. "I am the Sword's Edge, Sendari. When I make a request of you, think twice before refusing it."

Sendari par di'Marano returned to the surface of the world a Widan; if he returned in robes made ragged by rock edge and sticky by blood, his triumph was not lessened, for he had survived. The chasm had not claimed him, nor the wind, and if he had not chosen to stand against the wind's fury-well, did it matter in the end how a man survived such a test, if the survival itself was all that counted?

The day had pa.s.sed, and the dusk; there was moonlight across the waters of the Tor Leonne, rippled and uneven, but no less bright for the darkness. Hands washed in the waters of that lake and bandaged in soft cotton, Sendari stood a moment, turning this way and that in the cool breeze as if he were no more substantial than an eagle's fallen feather.

He had faced death, but the world did not look new; it looked, measure for measure, like the Tor Leonne that he had grown accustomed to over the years: Grand and perfect, but so distant, so far away, the ripples of his greatest triumph might never touch or disturb it.

I am Widan, he thought, as he began to walk. I am Widan Sendari par di'Marano. The night sounds of insects touched him, as far away as the Tor Leonne itself; the quiet buzzing of mosquitoes, summoned no doubt by the scent of the blood, dry or no, that lay across his sleeves. His hands themselves, he did not bend or curl; they hurt, and they would pain him for some time yet-if they ever fully healed.

Pain of this nature was nature.

Tomorrow, his legs would be stiff, and his arms, his shoulders, his back. He was not a young man, to crawl across a bridge so long or wide with only his physical strength and a touch of the magic that was his pride. He wanted a bath, someplace warm and restful to retire to.

Some part of him did.

But it was night, and the moon was just off full, so close the eye could hardly discern the difference, although spell could. When he found himself standing outside of the small harem that a man of his station was given room for in the Tor Leonne, he knew why he had come. The Moon's face had turned her light upon him, guiding his steps while his thoughts, defenseless, were elsewhere.

And now he stood before the cloth hanging that separated the man from his wives and his children. Wives. He had no wife, and that, he thought, would have to change. This life would have to change.

No light came from around the hanging itself, and in such twilight shadows, even the light of a single candle would make itself known by its flickering. He reached out with his bandaged hands, saw them, pale and indistinct against the hanging whose colors night had temporarily taken from the eye.

Freedom? He hesitated a moment, thinking that he had pa.s.sed his test, that he had survived, and wondering, as his hands seemed to move of their own accord, wondering bitterly, how many more tests he would have to face, how many more he would have to undergo before he finally failed and the winds swept him into their endless turmoil, their eternal death.

Numbly, he pushed aside the hangings. He took a single step and stopped, his toes a candle's width from the mats that lay across the floor in perfect order. In the moonlight, he could see that the women were sleeping; indeed, he could hear Alana snoring, her breath heavy and rumbling. There were animals in the North who slumbered as heavily and defended their own as viciously; he thought it with a stab of affection, a p.r.i.c.kling unease.

Illia lay beside her, head tucked into her arms, legs curled against the cushions she had piled atop the mats. Between these two, the youngest and the oldest of his wives, were two children; in the darkness, he could not tell who they were, although in theory they were his.

His eyes searched the sleeping quarters, and then he sighed, a gust of breath at once heavy with relief and disappointment. She was not here.

He turned, let the hanging fall to one side, and began to walk down halls that seemed interminable, suddenly, in their length. He wanted rest now; sleep-a celebration of his victory required more energy, and more pride, than he now had. The only movement in these halls and walks was the flicker of torchlight and lamplight; these burned low, and they would not guide him home for long before they were guttered.

Yet they served their purpose, and that was, in the end, enough. Perfection would have to wait, as ever, the start of another day.

He shoved the hangings to his private rooms aside; he did not desire the company of his wives, and in any case, he did not trust Teresa to arrive after he had had a chance to change his robes and comport himself in a manner befitting a Widan; he thought rather she would find him, sleeping in stained and torn clothing, his blood soaking through the new cloth that bound the back of his hands, as vulnerable in his exhaustion as any of the children there.

A man was allowed his vulnerability in his harem, among his wives, but Sendari would not expose himself to Teresa in this fashion; indeed, he had all but decided that he would send her back to Adano.

He took a step forward, into the darkness of his rooms. The outer chamber was austere, almost empty; the inner chamber likewise, except that the mats were laid, and cushions delicately arranged against the eastern wall; beneath these cushions, sleeping silks with which to protect oneself from the evening's chill-for the nights in the Tor Leonne could be almost unpleasantly cool.

He walked between these two rooms, his legs growing heavier, his pain more severe. In the morning, at the rise of the Lord's light, he would celebrate.

Alesso di'Marente would be the first outside of the Sword of Knowledge to know of his victory and his t.i.tle-if, Sendari thought with a minor frown, he did not already know it-and they would celebrate as friends, as clansmen, as men of skill and power.

He lifted the second hanging, slid between it and the wall, and then let it go.

Let it go to flickering candlelight-had he been so tired, so bleary in his travel, that he had missed the narrow frame of flame around the door?-in a near dark room. The mats were down, and two cushions had been taken from their place by the wall. Not pulled or dragged, but chosen with deliberate care, so that the pleasing pattern by the wall itself, altered, was not destroyed.

Teresa's handiwork, he thought, in one way or another.

But he did not feel the anger that he should have, in this place that was, by his stricture and his rightful rule, forbidden to all but the serafs who were to clean it.

Because across those two pillows, not two feet away from the falling, rolling wax of the candle itself, lay Na'dio. Her eyes were closed, her hands beneath her cheeks; such a child, he thought, the Lady must love, for in sleep, beneath the darkened sky, she was so very perfect he felt another stab of affection, pure and clean, a terrible weakness.

Was he free?

No. For this child was Alora's child. I made an oath to Alora, he thought, as his hands curled reflexively, and stiffened just as reflexively, but I made no such oath to Dior a. She is not the same weakness. She is not a weakness.

He wavered a moment on the threshold, and then he whispered her name-not to wake her, but to say it, because he felt that he had to say it. "Na dio."

It was enough, Lady's judgment, enough; the child on his mats stirred, and her eyes flickered, in odd counterpoint to the flickering of the candle's insistent, tiny flame.

Her eyes, as dark as night, but larger somehow, brighter in spite of their color.

He watched her wake, and then, paralyzed, watched wakefulness transform her face as if it were a sculptor. He saw her momentary disorientation give way to shock, to round-eyed wonder, and finally, utterly abandon itself to a fierce joy.

"Father!"

He should have told her that his hands were injured, his chest sc.r.a.ped and scored by rock, his arms and legs bruised by their rise and fall-the wind's work-against solid stone. If he could not, then at least, at very least, he should have told her that his hands were raw and the flesh near scored from them by the bite of an elemental mage; that they were almost done bleeding, but to move them, to use them, was to open the mess-it could hardly be called a wound-again.

And he knew it, but as she lifted herself from the mats, shoving her slight weight up by the palms of her whole and perfect hands, he stiffened, bending at the knee, removing the distance of age and height that separated a man from his child. He caught her as she hurled herself across the room, staggered with the weight of her, the unexpected burden, took a strangled breath at the strength of her grip round his neck.

And he laughed, although the laughter was a pathetic, choked sound. "Na'dio," he said. "I have barely survived the test of the Sword-will you strangle me for my trouble?"

But he wrapped his arms around her, catching her and lifting her, his hands stretching and bleeding at the motion. Because there were moments that a man must take, when he could take them-or find them-at all. And this, precious, unlooked for, was one.

CHAPTER SEVEN.