SKYFALL RIDGE

"There is a storm," said Declan, "that comes for those who would be Archmage."

We were riding west, on the high plains beyond the Redwater, at the end of the third day. The country had changed again. The long tawny grass had given way to a gray, wind-scoured steppe, studded with boulders and scattered with the white bones of cattle. The sky was enormous. To the north, far away, a ragged line of peaks stood against the sunset like the teeth of a saw.

"The Awakening Storm," I said.

"You know of it."

"I have read of it. In the Doctrine. It is a trial of the body." I shifted in the saddle. Nimbus, riding before me on the pommel in a state of lofty tolerance, shifted too. "At the crest of Gold, a mage who tries to cross is struck by a storm of her own making. Lightning. Wind. Fire. It tears the Sigil from the body and rebuilds it. If she survives, she is an Archmage. If she does not..."

"There is nothing left to bury."

"Yes."

"It has a name among the old soldiers." His voice was calm. "They call it the Reaping. Nine in ten die. Of the survivors, three in four are crippled. It is not a trial for the faint-hearted."

"I am not faint-hearted."

"No. But you are very tired." He glanced at me. "I have waited a month to say this. I would have you rest another season before you try."

"I have no season."

"I know." He faced the mountains again. "I merely wished to say it."

I did not answer. I rode in silence for a mile. Then I said, "Why Skyfall?"

"Because it is the only place in the Republic that can hold it."

…

Skyfall Ridge was the highest point on the Frontier.

I saw it first at dawn on the fourth day: a single peak, black and sheer, standing apart from its fellows like a tooth. It rose twelve thousand feet above the plain. Its summit was lost in cloud. Its flanks were a wilderness of broken rock, patched with old snow, scored by avalanche paths, and no tree grew on it above the line of the foothills. There was no road. There was no path. There was a thin, treacherous goat-track that wound back and forth up the south face, and the wind howled down it like a wolf.

"Why Skyfall?" I asked again.

"Because of the sky." Declan was looking up. "It is the nearest place on the continent to the Storm. The old Sovereigns came here to ascend. They built a ring. You will see."

It took us two days to climb.

We left the horses at a hut in the foothills, with a shepherd who asked no questions, and went up on foot, with Nimbus flying ahead. The air thinned. The cold deepened. My lungs burned. At the end of the first day we camped on a ledge, in the lee of a boulder, with a fire of juniper and a bitter smoking tea. Declan sat on the far side of the flames and said nothing, and in the firelight he looked carved from stone.

On the second day, at noon, we reached the ring.

It stood on a high shelf, a quarter-mile below the summit: a great level platform of black rock, a hundred yards across, scoured bare by wind. It had been made. I saw that at once. The surface was smooth as glass, and set into it, in a pattern of dizzying complexity, were rings of white stone: a dozen concentric circles, linked by spokes, each carved with the same flowing script that I had read in the Fort. At the center, a small round disk of black basalt, no larger than a table. Nine pillars, broken, stood at the compass points.

I walked to the middle. I stood on the disk.

The wind dropped.

It did not stop; it merely lowered, as if a hand had been laid over the mouth of the world. The silence rang. I heard my own breath. I looked up, and the cloud on the summit had parted, and above it the sky was deep and clear and the color of a bruise.

"It knows you," said Nimbus, softly. He had landed on a pillar, and sat there, small and white and alert, with his tail curled. "I do not like it."

"Neither do I."

"You are going to do it anyway."

"Yes."

"Then I will stay."

I looked at him, and I could not speak.

…

They came up the mountain at dusk.

I heard them before I saw them: a clatter of hooves on the shale, the creak of harness, a snatch of oath. I had thought it would be the shepherd. It was two figures, on mules, leading a third that was loaded with bundles. The first was a tall stooped man in a long gray coat. The second was a short round girl, red-faced and scowling, with her hair falling out of a bun.

"You couldn't have warned us," panted Josie.

I stared.

"You've left a note! A note, Tam! 'Gone to Skyfall, back in a week.' On a piece of cardboard! On the kitchen table!" She slid off the mule and nearly fell. "And then Mabel burst in at breakfast with a telegram and said, 'She's gone to be an Archmage, someone stop her,' and I said, 'Stop her how?' and she said, 'Follow her,' and—" She stopped to breathe. "My legs are ruined."

"Josie."

"What?"

"Why are you here?"

She straightened. Her round face was flushed, her eyes bright. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve. "Because you're going to try to do something stupid, and you'll need someone to hold the cat."

"I do not require holding," said Nimbus.

"You'll require holding." Josie opened a bundle. "I've brought six Ward-stones, a flask of Elder-dust, twenty feet of copper cable, and a crate of my best self-igniting flares. I thought they might help." She thrust a paper-wrapped package into my arms. "And a pie. Mabel made it."

I took the pie. My hands were shaking.

Hawk had dismounted. He stood by the mule, looking up at the summit, with his hat in his hand. He didn't say a word. He just walked across the ring to me and put his arm round my shoulders, awkwardly, the way a man embraces a daughter he is afraid of breaking. He smelled of tobacco and old leather.

"I wasn't going to miss it," he said gruffly.

"Hawk."

"Hush, girl."

I hushed.

…

We built the ring that night.

It was Declan's design, and Josie's execution. He walked the circles of white stone with a lantern, tracing the inscription with his fingers, murmuring corrections. She followed him with her Ward-stones and a hammer, setting each into its socket. Hawk strung the copper cable round the outer rim, in a pattern Declan sketched on a flat rock with the point of his knife. By midnight the ring was alive. It glowed softly, a pale cold radiance, rising from the stone.

"The outer circle holds the Storm," said Declan. "The inner circle holds you. Between them, a gap. It must not be crossed."

"By whom?"

"By anyone. If a person enters the gap while the Storm is in progress, the Storm will consume them." He wiped his hands. "I shall stand at the edge of the outer circle. I shall hold it. I shall not enter."

"And if something comes?"

"Then I shall deal with it."

"And if it is too much?"

He looked at me.

"It will not be," he said.

I went to the edge of the plateau, alone, and looked out.

The night was clear. The sky was a vast inverted bowl, black and brilliant, and the stars hung so low that I felt I might catch my hair in them. Below, far down, the plains lay in a pale silver haze, and the river wound across them like a thread of mercury. The wind had begun to rise again. It tugged at my coat.

I heard a step behind me, soft on the stone.

He stood a few feet away. He did not speak. He had taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, and in the starlight the great silver sigil on his breast glimmered faintly through his shirt. His hair was loose. He looked at the plains, as I did. He looked, I thought, rather tired.

"If I fail," I said.

"You will not."

"If I do." I kept my eyes on the dark. "I want you to promise me something."

"Name it."

"I want you to finish it. The Engine. The Chancellor. All of it." My voice was steady. "I do not mean to avenge me. I mean that I have made a start, and it is a good start, and it would be a waste to leave it half done. I want you to do it, whether I am there or not."

"Tamsin."

"Promise."

"I will not promise that."

I turned my head.

He was looking at me. In the starlight his face was stern and grave and utterly still. He did not smile. He did not blink.

"I will not promise," said Declan Marrow, "because you will not fail. I do not say it to comfort you. I say it because I have seen you at the Pits, and in the Mist, and in the Fort. I have watched you walk into every fire the world has built. You have not once been consumed." He drew breath. "If you fall, I shall be beside you. If you rise, I shall be beside you. That is the only promise I have. It is the only one I need."

I swallowed.

"That's not an answer."

"It is the only one I have."

I nodded. My throat ached. I looked away, at the stars, and let the wind dry my eyes.

"Then," I said, "that will have to do."

He stepped forward. He took my hand. He did it quite simply, in the dark, without a word. His palm was warm and rough and enormous. His fingers closed over mine.

We stood there for a long time, side by side, at the edge of the world, looking at the sky.

…

At moonrise, the ring began to hum.

I felt it first in my boots: a low, steady vibration, like the purr of a very large cat. It rose through my legs. It filled my chest. It hummed in the stones and in the air and in the bones of my skull. The white circles flared. The pillars brightened. A pale cold light rose from the rim of the plateau, and the whole mountain seemed to take a deep, slow breath.

"It begins," said Declan.

I let go of his hand.

I walked to the center of the ring, and stepped onto the basalt disk, and sat down cross-legged. I laid Ashbrand across my knees. I closed my eyes. I felt the Gold tree on my arm, glowing, warm, pulsing in time with my heart. I felt the Heart in my chest, vast, patient, immense.

Ready, I thought.

The moon rose over the shoulder of the peak. Its light fell on the ring, and the circles flashed, white and clear. The wind died. In the sudden quiet, I heard Josie, behind me, begin to pray in a thin high voice, and Hawk telling her to hush.

Then I heard something else.

It was far below. It was faint, but it was clear, rising through the thin air from the foothills: a low, rhythmic, dragging tread, like a long procession climbing a hill. A rattle of chains. A murmur of voices, many voices, deep and sibilant, in a chanting cadence that raised the hair on my arms.

I opened my eyes.

Nimbus had risen on the pillar, every hair on end. His wings were half spread. His lips were drawn back from his teeth.

"They are coming," he whispered.

Down the south face, along the thin goat-track, in the silver moonlight, a long line of figures was climbing toward the ring. They moved in single file. They wore black, hooded robes. In each hand they carried a pale-flickering lantern, shaped like a human skull. There were dozens of them. Scores.

And at their head, on a litter borne by four silent bearers, rode a tall, gaunt figure in robes of white and silver, with a mask of beaten gold.