But it was the nature of its construction that troubled him most. The bridge was formed of massive stone blocks cut and placed so precisely that the seams were barely noticeable. Each block was wedge shaped, with the narrow part pointed downward, the blocks carefully fitted and aligned so that the weight of each was buttressed by the others, the whole arranged to form the arch that spanned the ravine. There were no pins or supports or any kind. Stone abutments at each end wrapped the corners, serving as cradles to keep the stones tightly pressed together and immobile.

But the massive blocks each must have weighed thousands of pounds. How had they been shaped, carried, and placed across the ravine without underlying supports? They could not have just hung in midair, each in turn, while the rest were fitted. Pen could not fathom it. Even using pulleys and a block and tackle it would have been impossible to suspend the first stones while waiting to set the others. They were too big, too heavy, and too cumbersome.

There was something else to consider, he saw. These stones were not as old as those of the ruins themselves. They were smooth and not yet worn and pitted by weather and time as were the walls behind which Pen and his companions had hidden earlier. Stridegate was thousands of years old. The bridge was much newer. It had been constructed long after the city was destroyed and its inhabitants dead.

The implications of his reasoning caused him to shiver; they made him want to turn around right then and there and go back.

It would have taken at least one giant to construct this bridge. It would have taken technology that no longer existed in his world.

Or it would have taken a very powerful magic.

He didn’t care for any of those possibilities. All were beyond anything the group had ever encountered. It dwarfed them, reducing their tiny defenses to a handful of pebbles. Even Khyber, with the magic of the Elfstones to aid her, would not be able to stand against something that could accomplish what he saw before him.

He stopped abruptly, not five feet from the bridge, and stood staring at it. Sensing his discomfort, Cinnaminson whispered, “Pen? What’s wrong?”

He didn’t know what to say in reply, how to explain. He wasn’t sure he should try. He couldn’t turn back, couldn’t give up. The Ard Rhys needed him to go forward if she was to have any chance at all of escaping the Forbidding. Those he had come with needed him to cross if they were to realize any success from their efforts to bring him there. All other considerations, no matter how daunting, had to be put aside.

He was just a boy, but he knew instinctively what he must do.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry.”