The Golden Bridge of Nevesus

by D. G. Ironside

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
parts: 1, 2, 3

conclusion

We meandered through a long and terrible tunnel, low, full of foul dust, leading up to the high heart of the mountain. For illumination, we had only the burning eyes of the spectral creature, that blazed with a preternatural glow. Jadus was in front while I cautiously pulled up the rear, listening to every scratch and driftless howl in the frightful shaft.

We followed the wraith, speechless for what seemed to be forever. Jadus only grunted, not afraid if I could tell, for his mouth and nose were wrapped in cloth, the same as mine. Perhaps it was just as he had told me, and nothing a spook might do could spook him. Thus, I bore deep fear alone, dreaming of ruin, coughing all the way.

As we stepped, I tried to think of something besides my mortal end. I brought myself to contemplate the Bridge of Nevesus, a morsel of fiction from my youth. The lovely Faye was the governess of my childhood, and she had told me many stories as I grew up within Karstone Castle. An imaginative creature, she loved all tales of grandeur and myth. Anything involving angels, resounding trumpets, and holy auras she adored, weaving such yarns of old for the pleasure of her wanton mind.

Faye taught me such parables, and many less allegorical things on the day I turned sixteen. I had been womanless before then and, in my time, had danced only rarely since. It was labour to set that moistened memory aside.

The legendary bridge had lore that spoke of a time before the young gods, when all men and kin were unfettered, nothing beholden to any other, all souls to scamper free. The arch was made of gold that was forever consumed by cool flames, an ever-burning pathway to countless heavens and hells, all points of destiny between. While the bridge and its predispositions were inscrutable, it was claimed that one could find entirely new parameters from atop it, a person reforged to match what veracity demanded.

Such tales were full of trickery and unseen twists. I remembered it was said that the bridge could cast a soul to far-flung spheres unbidden, most times honouring justice, but not always. Other times, a wily character could tantalize the bridge’s guardians with riddles, utilizing guile to cheat fate.

In the tunnel, we spied light ahead and my thoughts of the past bleached away, knowing most concoctions of legend never yielded utility. Then a rugged chamber opened before us, larger than I thought possible for our cramped climb. Above us was air, open to the dome of the sky from the very top of Tiltas, and before us on the skewed ground of the rough crater was a scorching mass of burning gold, thick smoke rising from it in a pillar.

“Behold the chunk!” said the spirit with a sweep. “Begone when you are finished here and return not to our tower on pain of endless coma, to last all your lives.” Then the ghost was gone as if it had never been. We blinked.

“What’s this here?” asked Jadus, not of me, but of the space itself. He was stunned to view the object I spied with awe. The broken part of a buttress, the spandrel wall, the abutments were there, along with a chunk of the parapet, the belt course with capstones and the roadway too. It burned without heat.

“By the constructs of the sky,” I exclaimed, “the ghost did not palter. Well, I’ll be dipped, if the gods would only lift me.”

“Not one lie,” breathed Jadus. “I’d dip you myself, but for a vat of liquid manure.”

The portion of the golden bridge was a broken span perhaps twenty feet in length, sitting right side up in the hole it had thundered into the mountaintop. Still, it was more gorgeous gold than anyone was meant to witness. It shone brilliantly, even for the fire that wreathed it, no part of it being honestly consumed.

“How can this be?” I asked. I looked over at Jadus to see his poor face only half as full of wonder as mine, the other half still dead. Which half of his countenance, side to side, top to bottom, I couldn’t tell. He appeared forlorn or lost, exuding some pained emotion, which only affirmed to me what had to come next.

“Is it an illusion?” Jadus asked, staring.

“I don’t know,” I said. But despite my misgivings on what was a fable and what could be true, I knew I meant to ascend it. I went to the edge and contemplated the climb.

“What? What are you doing?” asked Jadus, coming closer.

As I placed my hands in the living flame that surrounded the bridge, I detected no temperature or foulness, only the faint odor of metal to fill my nose. I made to clamber up, the rashest thing I could conjure.

“Wait!” yelled Jadus, apparently not wanting me to vanish or worse. “What do we know of fabled bridges of gold?”

My limbs paused. My muscles gave a twitch. “Certainly not much. Maybe just enough to plunge ourselves over the edge of reason.”

“Then why risk our skins?” he asked.

I sighed and said, “Jadus, you only have half a skin. Or maybe a whole skin that isn’t worth a half if you care to wrestle with the facts. But I love you. Which means I want to be with you. This is fate approaching faster than we can dream.”

“Please, Kalvus,” he implored, showing he still needed me. “I don’t know what love has to do with you throwing your life away.”

“Maybe less than what I think, but certainly more than what you think, and the sad truth is that I don’t even know. But we can’t exactly go back the way we came if we believe the ghost of the Dread-Cadge, and we can’t climb up out of this crater and down Tiltas without a hint of gear or food. The way I see it, this is it.”

“And for the love you attest, you’ll play with a toy of the gods and see what it gets you?” he asked, clearly daunted after all.

“Yeah. I guess I will. If I perish, don’t bring me back unless things smell promising.”

I should not have said that last thing, but I did, and with that I climbed. The broken bridge of gold bore ample handholds. In a moment, I was over the rail with my feet to the span, amid holy flames that put naught but an odd caress to my flesh. I was pretty sure I disappeared.

* * *

We have not witnessed a mortal for an epoch. The voice was resonant, low, everywhere, vibrating my centre with a not unpleasant shake. I had a tingle in my jingle, which I tried to ignore.

“I, uh, well. I didn’t know you’d be here,” I said. To no one. All I saw was blinding light. I wasn’t sure I was genuinely there, wherever my eyes were located, some space beyond the temporal. It was as if I were standing inside a painting of clarion hues, or a living poem perhaps, accentuated with the sounds of tinkling. There were wind chimes, music. I felt the rush of warm air. My mouth was full of the taste of epiphany, which is a little like fish or a lot like the ocean. Pre-friggin’-posterous, all of it.

The voice gave a pause, full and untimed. Then: Why have you come?

That got me. I stopped everything and thought about virtue. I considered my historical aspirations to authenticity, nothing less than an audacious indictment of my soiled heart. Knowing the facts and being able to act cleanly on them were always for me, distinct things.

“Because I’m desperate.”

Desperation is complex emotion. Driven by circumstance, expectation and want. We have known such things, and others, both infinite and iota.

I didn’t know what to make of god-speak. I didn’t know to who or what I was talking to, but certainly, I wasn’t on Tiltas anymore. I was floating. I was ethereal, grounded yet vacuous, full of senses but entirely empty. It was a trippy-dippy ride, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to get off. Whatever the place was, it was absent of pain. The euphoria of relief washed over me as I promptly forgot every agonizing memory of my mother.

“There is want within me, if I can be candid,” I voiced. “My desire is for myself and my lover. But before I get to that, I should let you know that your bridge is not in one piece. It’s... it’s descended, I guess. Should it have fallen? From wherever it was? Should someone be trying to put it back together again?”

The Bridge of Nevesus has been damaged in a calamity. But mortals of your kind no longer care or concern yourself with such things.

Strangerous dangerous. I was going to put my foot in it, I knew. My mind turned left and down. There was the implication that we were shitty people, and yes, we were. In groups, we were always thoughtless and complacent, and someone knew it. Some godhead was keeping score, and people were about to get a divine boot to the bum cheek. I had known it for years, and I’d done nothing but stew in the foul juice of my existential dread.

I levitated in the light, tasted my acrid tongue, and predicted doom. I would have to lie. Immediately, I would have to invent the biggest falsehood ever crafted, to a celestial force that was leagues beyond my understanding. I conjectured what I could say to a god that would make up for the shortcomings of all humanity in twenty words or less.

Concern yourself not with this. It is not for you. Relinquish your fear.

I stopped. My heart pumped a little slower.

Why have you come?

I waited within a grievous moment of lockstep. Then I breathed, even though it wasn’t mandatory. I steeled myself and gave legitimacy the tiniest hope. “Because I need a second chance.”

Yes?

“I seek a small measure of liberty. My lover and I only require such renewal to be together again. We wish to be reborn, made whole, set free,” I offered. “He’s not good, the way he is and, to be blunt, my nose can’t take him. He feels clammy and unreal to the hand. Even worse to my lips. I want... I want to feel him again as I used to, holding him as a whole person, not semi-dead, not falling apart. What’s more, he’s indebted to the hilt, never to walk without restraint. He must be given hope, to make his own choices once again.”

It sounds as if it is he who needs the second chance, not you.

I welled with tears. My hopes were unclothed, a skinny-dip in optimism. “Yeah, I think you’re right,” I agreed.

There was a moment, a beat, the length of time it takes to second-guess your entire life.

This is reasonable, and to our judgement, generous. For a flawed mortal.

Of course, they had to add that little caveat there at the end. But there was a zap, a blip, an ending, the woosh of all the laundry in the world being done at once, and it was over.

* * *

Jadus handled the skittish pup, unsure as it was, always careful with the wounded ones. I had to confess he was talented. He extended a gentle hand, absent of all but care. There was goodness, and the animal knew it. The dog inched forward, smelling the clean, soft hands of my lover, my gentle man.

“You’re so good with him,” Señora Candella said.

“Thank you,” said Jadus. “Now we are going to affect some sedation, so we can repair him. You’ll have to let us do our work.”

Señora Candella gave a soft look and a sigh, hoping her little hound Chica would be alright. I tried to exude confidence in my clumsy way.

“Kalvus is my most excellent assistant,” Jadus said. “But right now, Chica needs us.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, reluctantly exiting. I closed the door with whispers of reassurance. Jadus nurtured the wounded dog and convinced it to lie down.

“This one is going to be alright,” Jadus murmured. The pup had been struck accidently by a heedless épée, the pooch an innocent casualty of an impetuous duel on the Candella estate.

“I’m always amazed we’ve had this run of luck,” Jadus said, mostly to himself. “The monarchy is progressive in thought, and charitable of purse. The queen is especially kind to allow us to serve her acquaintances.”

“Wistful today, Jadus?” I asked, starting to help.

“I suppose I am,” he said. “I’m just happy for our chance.”

“Our second chance,” I offered, passing him a cloth. The room became suffused with the sweet lemon odor of disinfectant.

“What’s that you say?” Jadus asked, not looking up.

“We bridged into this beautifully,” I claimed, breathing in with great satisfaction.