Nether

4. Bridges (Part One)

I stop short. "We can't go this way. There's a bridge..."

He adjusts the duffle bag over his shoulder, brushes aside the thickness of the woods, and deviates from the path that U-shapes and leads back to town, a last ditch effort to keep any wanderers from veering off course and toward the bridge. "Exactly."

I blink. "You mean you want to go over a bridge? In case your many teachers didn't tell you, this is a magic town which makes that a troll bridge." Through the overgrowth, I see hints of the moonlit clearing he's leading us to. The bridge is there, and fear rattles within me, a paralyzing thing that runs cold to my fingertips. "We can't go there. There has to be another way."

"I know the layout of towns and bridges, and yes I know what kind of bridge that is, but do you have a better idea? We need to get out of this realm, fast. As soon as magicians get to your shop—if they're not there already, they'll trace my magic right to us. I killed two of them and set your store on fire. I don't think they'll be keen on talking as much as trying to kill me—kill us."

He's right. After a magician comes into their powers, they become part of a bigger network of magic, a traceable web. It's also the first time he's acknowledged he killed Lachlan and Perry, and there's not an ounce of remorse in his words. He's killed before, I know it. The ease with which he killed Lachlan and did God knows what to Perry tells me this. The lack of sentiment just now screams it. And while I know things are different when you're staring death in the face, it still unsettles me.

"I've already used enough magic," he says, pushing further through the trees, "and I need to take the trail far from here. The Nether will take care it, and I'll take care of whatever we meet on that bridge."

A part of me wants to laugh, but his surety is staggering, and I realize, "You've crossed a bridge before."

"Something like that." He pushes on, clears our way through the tangles of vines and shoots of wildwoods.

"How? No one's ever crossed and lived to tell about it."

"Yeah, well, I did," he replies, tense, my line of questioning seeming to strike a nerve.

I start to press him on the subject, but a strange heaviness settles in my chest. The air feels denser while at the same time lighter to where it gets a bit hard to breathe. A sense of unsteadiness makes my legs watery. This is the veil, the place where our world thins away, merges with the other realms. It isn't a clean break. There's no door you push aside to enter another realm, no set demarcation, but rather a seamless progression of place and existence.

Caleb told me once of a group of young magicians who wanted to see the Trolls. They thought the veil started once they set foot on the bridge. The trolls appeared from behind them as the Nether started some yards into the forest. They didn't stand a chance. The veil isn't something you see, rather something you feel and experience. We're taught to heed its warnings, the strange prickles on our skin, the tightness in our chest and our stomachs. While not all bridges are doorways to other realms, this one is and the thought coils tight to my feet. But fear will do me little good, and so I stay close to Roane as we reach the clearing and he pushes aside the bushes.