'And the mission?'
'It seems this realm is home to numerous entities, powers long forgotten, buried in antiquity. The mission involved an assay of such creatures. Since Lady Sedara was accompanying the mission, no other details were available. Presumably, she knew what she was looking for.
Now, Ganoes Paran, it is your turn.'
His frown deepening, Paran walked closer to the destroyed carriage. He studied the tears and gouges in the copper sheathing on the roof. 'I'd always wondered where they went,' he said, 'and, eventually, I realized where they were going.' He faced Karpolan Demesand. 'I don't think there's a guardian here. I think the travellers met on this bridge, all headed the same way, and the misfortune was with Darpareth and Sedara Orr. This carriage was destroyed by two Hounds of Shadow.'
'You are certain?'
I am. I can smell them. My… kin. 'We'll need to get this moved to one side, over the edge, I suppose.'
'One question,' Karpolan Demesand said. 'What happened to the bodies?'
'Hounds are in the habit of dragging and throwing their victims.
Occasionally, they feed, but for the most part they take pleasure in the killing – and they would, at that time, have been both enraged and exuberant. For they had just been freed from Dragnipur, the sword of Anomander Rake.'
'Impossible,' the High Mage snapped.
'No, just exceedingly difficult.'
'How do you know all this?' Karpolan demanded.
'Because I freed them.'
'Then… you are responsible for this.'
Paran faced the huge man, his now hard, dangerous eyes. 'Much to my regret. You see, they should never have been there in the first place.
In Dragnipur. I shouldn't have been, either. And, at the time, I didn' t know where they would escape to, or even that they would escape at all. It looked, in fact, as though I'd sent them to oblivion – to the Abyss itself. As it turned out,' he added as he faced the wreckage once more, 'I needed them to do precisely this – I needed them to blaze the trail. Of course, it would have been better if they'd met no-one on the way. It's easy to forget just how nasty they are…
Karpolan Demesand turned to his shareholders. 'Down, all of you! We must clear the road!'
'Captain,' Hedge muttered, 'you're really starting to make me nervous.'
The wreckage groaned, then slid over the edge, vanishing into the mists. The shareholders, gathered at the side of the bridge, all waited for a sound from below, but there was none. At a command from Karpolan, they returned to their positions on the Trygalle carriage.
It seemed the High Mage was in no mood to conduct idle conversation with Paran, and he caught the Jaghut sorceress eyeing him sidelong a moment before she climbed into the carriage. He sighed. Delivering unpleasant news usually did this – he suspected if trouble arrived there wouldn't be many helping hands reaching down for him. He climbed into the saddle once more and gathered the reins.
They resumed their journey. Eventually, they began on the downslope – the bridge was at least a league long. There was no way to tell, unless one sought to climb beneath the span, whether pillars or buttressing held up this massive edifice; or if it simply hung, suspended and unanchored, above a vast expanse of nothing.
Ahead, something took shape in the mists, and as they drew closer, they could make out a vast gateway that marked the bridge's end, the flanking uprights thick at the base and tapering as they angled inward to take – precariously, it seemed – the weight of a huge lintel stone.
The entire structure was covered with moss.
Karpolan halted the carriage in front of it and, as was his custom, sent the two Pardu shareholders through that gateway. When nothing untoward happened to them and they returned to report that the way beyond was clear – as much as they could make out, anyway – the carriage was driven through.
Only to halt just beyond, as the lead horses splashed into the silty water of a lake or sea.
Paran rode his horse down to the water's edge. Frowning, he looked right, then left, eyes tracking the shoreline.
From the carriage, Hedge spoke: 'Something wrong, Captain?'
'Yes. This lake is what's wrong.'
'Why?'
'It's not supposed to be here.'
'How do you know?'
Dismounting, Paran crouched by the water. No waves – perfect calm. He cupped his hand and dipped it into the cool, silty liquid. Raised it up, sniffed. 'Smells like rot. This is flood water-'
He was interrupted by an eerie, wailing cry, coming from somewhere downshore.