The elf had an idea. He looked to the side, to the distant wall, then looked down, gauging the distance against the height of the bridge.
Dragon thunder shook the ground, not so far away.
Juraviel sprinted sidelong across the bridge and leaped high and far, his diminutive wings beating furiously, catching the hot updrafts of the lava across the wide expanse. He hit the sidewall hard, but held on, crawling to an area shadowed by a jag in the warm stone. Then he ducked his head and tried to ball up as tightly as possible.
He heard Agradeleous enter the chamber, and then, hardly hesitating, rush across the bridge. He waited a bit longer, until the dragon's heavy foot-steps receded, then gradually came out of his curl, craning his neck to look back at the now-empty stone bridge. If he could only get to it and double back along the corridor...
That bridge was a long way from him, though, and above him, and he knew that if he tried to leap from the wall and fly back, he would surely plummet into the lava.
So he crawled along the wall, using his wings to lighten his body and make the climbing easier. Inch by inch, Juraviel worked around toward the wall with the tunnel through which he had entered the large chamber, closer and closer to the arcing bridge. If he could get right beside and be-neath the span, he believed that he could leap up and fly enough to scram-ble atop it.
Inch by inch.
one particularly smooth and difficult expanse of wall and gathering his strength. Then, ready to half fly and half scramble s the elf set himself and took a deep breath.
There you are!" came Agradeleous' roar, from not so far away. The 's voice seemed enhanced now, even more powerful than Juraviel eard it a short while before. And the elf saw his own shadow on the Til before his face, as those terrible lamplight eyes cast their glowing beams over him.
He turned his head slowly, but stopped and just closed his eyes, noting the edge of one huge leathery wing, for the dragon was back in its true, monstrous form.
"Treachery!" Agradeleous roared, and the sheer volume shook Juraviel free of his tentative grasp. He scrambled and beat his wings furiously, but he could not find any solid holds. His fingers bloodied as he raked at the stone, and he kicked hard, trying to set his feet.
But he was falling, without the strength to stop or even slow his descent.
He thought of Tuntun, then, an elf maiden who had been his dearest friend of old, and he marveled at the savage irony that his ending would be so eerily similar to hers.
PART 3 ENLIGHTENMENT Chapter 2O Parallel Journeys
You must let go of your anger," Pagonel said to Brynn.
The dark-haired woman looked at the mystic hard. ?I JX. saw Ashwarawu die."
"I saw many die," Pagonel replied. ?I saw you almost die."
"I saw my parents die," Brynn countered, her lip curling in this dark game of one-upsmanship.
"You must let go of your anger."
"How can I forget..."
"I did not ask you to forget," the mystic clarified. ?Never that. We each are a composite of our experiences, good and bad, and to release any expe-rience from our thoughts diminishes who we are. Do not forget. Do not dull the images. But do not let those images inspire self-destruction."
Brynn looked at him as if she did not understand.
"Anger dulls the consciousness," Pagonel explained. ?Anger sets you on a path that you cannot easily break free of, even if common sense dictates that you take another course. You watched Ashwarawu die, but he died, in part, because he was blinded to the reality of the Behrenese trap, partly be-cause of pride and partly because of anger."
Brynn considered the words for a few moments, and did not disagree. ?It will be difficult to raise another band to battle the Wraps."
"That word rings foully off your lips, Brynn Dharielle."
She looked hard at the mystic.
"Wraps," he explained. ?A word of belittlement, a word to dehumanize your enemy."
"Belittlement?" Brynn echoed incredulously. ?If given the chance, I would kill every Wrap... every Behrenese,"she corrected, seeing the judg-ing scowl.
"Would you? Would you kill a Behrenese child? A poor mother? A man who has never lifted a weapon against To-gai? Are you so hardened by the bitterness of defeat that you have changed fundamentally from that woman who recoiled at the thought of finishing off Behrenese warriors who lay dy-in