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Or was it only the ladder linking the spheres? She toiled upward, the current pushing her on from behind Beneath her feet the land dropped away into darkness Above, stars shone and yet began to fade into a new lureat, shining wall, the boundary that marked the li of plucked harp strings, she heard an eerieaway from the main strea upward On the currents of aether, insubstantial figures shaped in a vaguely humanlike form but coh which these rivulets ran The daimones of the lower sphere, those that lived below the Moon If they saw her, they gave no sign Their dance enraptured theht in the atewaywall that ht of a beloved kinsnized this place She had known it all along Da had trained her in its passages, in the spiraling path that led ever upward Although the way see very like that of hoate she kneell from the city of memory in whose architecture Da had trained her

Had he known that the city of e in a pond, the true structure of the universe? Or had he ht him, and by this enerations of i before him?

No ate was part of the crossroads that linked the worlds

As though her thought itself had the power of ht flowed into existence against the shining wall Before it stood a guardian, a dailittering spear as pale as ice

"To what place do you seek entrance?" Its voice was as soft as the floater through a grassy side channel

"I mean to cross into the sphere of the Moon," she replied, determined not to quail before this heavenly creature

"Who are you, to demand entrance?"

She kneell the power of naht One"

It stepped back froh the words had struck it like a blow, but kept its spear fixed across the gateway "Child of Flame," it whispered, "you have too much ive hten your load?"

Even as it spoke, she felt the truth of its words Her belongings dragged on her and, in another instant, she would plunge back to earth--or into the Abyss, falling forever She had no wings

Swiftly, she tugged off her boots and unpinned her cloak As they fell away, she rose A breath of aether picked her up bodily, and the guardian faded until she saw it only as a spire of ice sparkling by the gateway

The way lay open