He went back to the petrified donkey, and I saw him take out his knife and slice through my bird’s leash Kallai took flight, battling the gale, vanishing in the mist. I knew it was the last I’d ever see of him.

Through a blur I saw the Firelord take something out of one of the saddlebags, something scarlet and heavy. He brought it back to me, with a rope, and tied the bundle across my back. It was his divining robe. I thought it was a strange thing for him to give me to carry “It’ll ease the weight on the beast,” he shouted. He tied the rope at my waist, and must have felt me shaking, because he looked into my eyes and smiled. “Go, handmaid,” he said. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

I shook my head “It is a command!”

“No, lord.”

He took my arm, and forced me to the edge of the abyss, to the beginning of the bridge. It snaked across the white depths, a line of flimsy rope across a frozen hell.

“Go!” he shouted, from behind. He put my hands on the ropes, and pushed me. I felt his arm press about my back, his beard rough against my cheek. “Go, woman. There is no other way.”

I turned my head. He was weeping, I think, or else the wind made his eyes moist. And his eyes held pain in them, and love, and other things I couldn’t read, but which frightened me.

“Lord …”

“Go!”

I went, one foot after another on those broken, ancient boards, my hands gripping the worn ropes at my sides, the wind whipping me, tossing the bridge; and all around was wild white. I was between heaven and earth; life and death only a slip of the foot apart. I dared not look back or below, but only looked along those narrow wooden boards, those frail ropes, as I went on, creeping, helpless in the gale.

I went on forever, it seemed, suspended on those threads. At times the wind threw me about so violently, I shut my eyes and clung with all my strength, and thought my time had come to die. I shook so much I could hardly hold on. And all the time my heart thundered, and the sweat of fear trickled down inside my clothes.

At last I saw the cliff and the rocky path on the other side, and the ends of the bridge tied to the upright poles. The bridge was badly damaged at this end, the ropes torn and frayed by the wind. As I stepped off, I heard small threads snapping. I clung to the rocks at the side of the path, trembling, feeling sick, inexpressibly relieved to be on solid earth again.