I looked back along the bridge, but could see little. Mist, shredded by the gale, raced across the chasm, and I was aware again of the echoes, the weird sounds made by the wind in the ravine far below. I saw the bridge quiver and tighten, and knew that the donkey and my lord stepped on the other side. I gripped the rocks, ice forming on my hair and hands, and waited for him.

A thousand years, I waited. I cursed the mist. I could see nothing, nothing but white. Then I thought I heard a sound, a shout, and a hoof striking wood. The bridge swayed, and was still again.

“Can you hear me, lord?” I called.

His voice came back, wraithlike in the wind. I could not make out his words.

“The bridge is damaged!” I called. “Leave the donkey. Come on alone.”

I waited again, hardly breathing, terrified. I saw the ropes of the bridge go tense, and threads break. There was a creaking, snapping sound, and a great and awful cry. I saw the ropes part, tearing, separating, threads flying in the wind, rope and wood and life hanging, falling … gone.

Then there was silence, but for the storm. And nothing. Nothing across all that abyss but mist and ice and wind.

I stared at it, unbelieving, half expecting the ropes and wood to materialise, to form again with my Firelord there, smiling, and laughing in that quiet way of his. But the ropes did not come back, no matter how hard I stared and hoped and prayed, and after a while I knew they never would. And I knew I’d never see the Firelord again, or hear his voice, or know the great and gentle way of him.

There are no words in our language to describe where I went that day. I don’t remember what happened to me, physically. I know only that my spirit went to some terrible place, some place desolate and full of pain. Somehow I came back from it. Cold brought me back, I think; my body shivering reminded me it was still alive and needful of my care.

I was covered with snow, my feet and face were numb, and my hands were bruised and bleeding. With great difficulty I untied the knots of the rope binding his robe to me, shook the robe free, knocked the ice and snow out of it, and put it on. It dragged on the ground, but warmed me a little. A strange sense of unreality settled over me. The Firelord’s presence had filled my thoughts, my days, and all my road ahead. I felt now as if a part of my own self had been cut off. In disbelief I clambered up and down the treacherous edges of the ravine, calling to him, twice nearly falling, and missing death by wild seconds. In the end reason prevailed, and I struggled along the road away from the ravine.