The Glass Word Read Free Page B

and a drop of sweat appeared on his forehead, despite the icy cold.
    Merle held her breath. Suddenly Simphater noddedalmost imperceptibly and set Junipa down gently. She only realized what was happening to her when her feet touched the golden surface of the bark. Stumbling, she ran over to Merle. The two embraced each other, but Merle did not go below. She wanted to look the sphinx in the eye.
    Vermithrax had not moved. He and Simphater stared at each other.
    â€œYou are keeping your word?” asked the sphinx, sounding almost astonished.
    â€œCertainly. If you get us away from here.”
    â€œAnd do not try any magic tricks,” Merle added, but now it was the voice of the Queen who spoke out of her. “I know the sphinx magic, and I will know if you try to use it.”
    Simphater stared at Merle in surprise and seemed to be asking himself whether he’d underestimated the girl at the lion’s side.
    No one was more astonished at her words than Merle herself, but she made no attempt to deny the Queen the use of her tongue—even though she’d found out that she could do it.
    â€œNo magic,” said the Queen, once more through Merle’s mouth. And then she added some words to it, which belonged neither to Merle’s vocabulary nor to that of any other human being. They belonged to the language of the sphinxes, and their import seemed to impress Simphater deeply. Once more he eyed Merle suspiciously,then his expression changed to one of respect. He lowered his head and bowed humbly.
    â€œI will do what you desire,” he said.
    Junipa looked confused, but Vermithrax knew well who spoke from Merle. Better than any human he sensed the presence of the Queen, and Merle had asked herself more than once what constituted the bond between the spirit creature inside her and the obsidian lion.
    â€œYou get in first,” he said to Simphater, pointing to the hatch.
    The sphinx nodded. His paws left red impressions in the snow.
    A shrill cry resounded over the icy plain, so piercing that Merle and Junipa put their hands over their ears. The scream reverberated over the landscape, out to the scattered snow pyramids in the distance. The ice crust cracked, and at the edges of the steps above and below the bark, icicles broke off and bored six feet deeper into the snow.
    Merle knew that sound.
    The cry of a falcon.
    Simphater froze.
    Over the horizon appeared the outline of a gigantic raptor, many times higher than all the pyramids, feathered in gold and with wings so huge it looked as if he intended to embrace the world. When he spread them, they triggered a raging snowstorm.

    Merle watched as the icy masses of the plain were whipped and whirled up to them as a white cloud wall; just before they reached the pyramid they lost their strength and collapsed. The gigantic falcon opened his beak and again let out the high scream, still louder this time, and now all around them the snow was in motion, trembling and vibrating as if there were an earthquake. Junipa clung to Merle, and Merle instinctively clutched at Vermithrax’s long mane.
    Simphater lapsed into utter panic, shrank back with wide eyes, lost his balance on the smooth fuselage of the sunbark, and skittered over the edge into empty space, this time with much greater momentum than before. The next pyramid step did not stop him; he fell farther down, his long legs snapped, his head cracked several times on ice and stone, and the sphinx finally came to rest at the foot of the pyramid, many steps and yards below them, twisted so unnaturally that there could be no doubt that he was dead.
    The falcon screamed for a last time, then he closed the wings in front of his body the way a magician closes his cape after a successful magic trick, hid himself behind them, and dissolved.
    Moments later the horizon was empty and all was as before—with the exception of Simphater, who lay lifeless in the snow below them.
    â€œInto the bark,