The Glass Word Read Free

been through, Junipa had probably forgotten what had happened to Merle. Who could really believe that the Flowing Queen—a legend, an incomprehensible power of whom the Venetians whispered reverently—would one day be living in Merle’s mind?
    So much had happened since then. Merle wanted nothing more than to tell Junipa of her adventures, of her journey through Hell, where they hoped to find help against the overwhelming Empire. But instead they’d found only sorrow and danger and the Stone Light waiting for them. But Junipa, too. Merle was burning to find out her story. She wanted to rest somewhere and do what she’d done with her friend before, night after night: talk with each other.
    A metallic
clang
sounded from inside the bark.
    â€œVermithrax?”
    The lion did not answer.
    Merle looked at Junipa. “Can you stand up?”
    A dark shadow passed over the mirror eyes. It took a moment for Merle to realize that it was only the reflection of a raptor that was flying over their heads.
    â€œI can try,” said Junipa. She sounded so weak that Merle had serious doubts.
    Junipa struggled to her feet; heaven only knew where she got the strength. But then Merle remembered how thefragment of the Stone Light in Junipa’s chest had healed her wounds in seconds.
    Junipa stood up and dragged herself closer to the bark along with Merle.
    â€œDo you mean to climb down there after him?”
the Queen asked in alarm.
    Someone has to see about him, Merle thought.
    Secretly the Queen was just as worried about Vermithrax as Merle was, and she didn’t conceal this feeling especially well: Merle felt the Queen’s unrest as if it were her own.
    Just before she reached the farthest tip of the curving fuselage she looked down at the lifeless sphinx two yards deeper in the snow. He had lost still more blood. It fanned out like an irregular red star, pointing in all directions. The blood was already beginning to freeze.
    Merle looked up at the hatch again, but the fuselage of the bark was too high and they’d come too close to be able to see the opening now. It wouldn’t be easy to climb up on the smooth surface.
    A loud
crack
made them jump, yet it instantly resolved their fears.
    Vermithrax was again perched on the fuselage. He had catapulted out of the hatch in one leap and was looking down at the girls with gentle lion eyes.
    â€œEmpty,” he said.
    â€œEmpty?”
    â€œNo human, no mummy, and no priests.”
    â€œThat is impossible,”
said the Queen in Merle’s thoughts.
“The Horus priests would not allow the sphinxes to go on patrol alone. Priests and sphinxes hate each other like poison.”
    You know a whole lot about them, Merle thought.
    â€œI have protected Venice from the Empire and its powers as long as I could. Do you really wonder that I learned at least a little about them from experience?”
    Vermithrax unfolded one wing and lifted first Merle, then, hesitantly, Junipa beside him on the golden fuselage of the bark. The lion pointed to the hatch. “Climb inside. It’s warmer inside there. At least you won’t freeze to death.”
    He had scarcely finished speaking when something gigantic, massive rose up from the emptiness beside the wreck and landed on the fuselage behind the girls with a wet, thumping sound. Before Merle realized it, Junipa’s hand was snatched from her own.
    She whirled around. Before her stood the wounded sphinx, holding Junipa in his huge hands. She looked even more fragile than before, like a toy in the claws of that beast.
    She didn’t scream, she only whispered Merle’s name, and then she was utterly silent.
    Vermithrax was about to shove Merle to one side to better get at the sphinx on the bark. But the creature shook his head, with effort, as if every movement cost himhideous pain. Blood dripped from his head wound onto Junipa’s hair and froze solid.
    â€œI’ll tear the child to