The Gatekeeper Trilogy

by Scott Ferrell

  “They would wreak havoc on the world,” Minotaur finished for her. “Penchant for war is apparently a hereditary trait in humans.”

  “Wait a minute!” Aoife protested.

  “You wish to argue that, girl?” A dark eyebrow lifted on his great forehead.

  “We’re not all bad,” she said.

  “Of course not.” The condescending tone was unmistakable in his deep voice.

  “We certainly have our…differences here,” Seanna said with a glance at Minotaur, “but war is a thing far and few between. We prefer to keep to ourselves. The only fighting that happens on a regular basis is between humans.”

  “Daresh and Lortmor?” I asked.

  Seanna nodded. “Land is plentiful on Alisundi, but the human population is increasing at a substantial rate.”

  “Breed like rabbits,” Minotaur commented under his breath.

  “Lortmor wishes to spread out the human population, take more land,” Seanna went on. “Daresh is opposed to it. He wants only for the natural spread of humans as their numbers grow. Not through force.”

  Minotaur rolled his eyes toward her. “I was under the impression both had similar goals.”

  “If Daresh was like Lortmor, would he stay in this city, content to let things run their course?” Seanna waved a hand in front of them, toward the rising city.

  The large beast merely shrugged his shoulders. I had the feeling he didn’t agree with her assessment at all but was disinclined to argue the point.

  “So, the humans blame the minotaurs for being stuck here?” Aoife brought the conversation back around to the original topic.

  “Humans are not welcoming to many other races, but can be particularly hostile toward my people,” he answered.

  “That’s just dumb,” Aoife huffed. “Minotaur Father saved their ancestors’ sorry butts!”

  “Agreed.” He pulled up short, his large, black eyes looking toward Delicia in the distance. “Another three hours’ walk should get you to the city,” he said. “I trust you can arrive there safely from here.”

  “You’re leaving?” I asked.

  “It will be better for you to not arrive on the side of a minotaur.” Again, he rolled his eyes toward Seanna. “Or any other nonhuman for that matter.”

  “That’s why I have kept this form,” Seanna said.

  “It does not deceive many.”

  “Humans aren’t nearly as perceptive.”

  “True.” He turned back the way we came. “I wish you luck on the rest of your journey, Gatekeeper.”

  “Wait,” Aoife said. “Will we see you again?”

  “It is doubtful,” he said with a shake of his head. “There are balataurs about, though, so I will be hunting these plains. The possibility is not so small.”

  Then something happened I would have never guess, not in a million years. Aoife stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. The image was quite comical. The top of her head came just to his chest and her arms barely circled around his waist. He looked just as shocked as I felt, his eyes widening until they were large, black disks.

  “Thank you for saving us back there,” she said.

  “I was merely killing balataur,” he muttered, his arms held out to the side. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to peel her off him, but something caused him to hesitate.

  “Still,” she said as she pushed away from the beast. “I’d be a gooey puddle out there somewhere if it weren’t for you.”

  “You are welcome,” he said. With a final glance at Seanna and me, he turned and lumbered away.

  We watched Minotaur push his way through the grass until Seanna cleared her throat. It was a not-so-subtle indication she thought we needed to hurry. We were only a few hours away with plenty of day left, so I stood a moment longer, watching Minotaur’s wide back, the X of his weapons shrinking as he moved away. I thought maybe I should have been relieved to see the beast go. He was a minotaur, after all. He was supposed to be a creature of Ancient Greek mythology, long faded into a story of lore. If his heritage was real, if the labyrinth was real, what did that mean for the rest of mythology? Were they real as well? I had evidence walking away from me that I shouldn’t dismiss that thought out of habit. I would have liked to just shrug it off and go about with my life. Why should I believe his story, anyway? He could have just made it up to impress us or to gain our trust. But Aoife believed him and even added to his story. She would have been able to spot a lie with her ability, wouldn’t she?

  I felt a sudden and great need to get back home flood over me. I wanted to run after Minotaur and beg him to escort Aoife and me back to the gateway. We could trust him to do that. But would he? I thought he would. If all he cared about was killing balataur, we were in luck. I was a balataur magnet. They seemed to find me no matter where in this world I found myself. I was Alisundi’s Waldo and the beasts were finding experts. They couldn’t be better at it if I wore red-and-white-striped clothes.

  But I couldn’t turn back now. Delicia was only a few hours away. Would I be able to go back home empty-handed and look at my mom without being weighed down by a guilt carrying the crushing pressure of the Mariana Trench in the Atlantic? That was one thing I remembered from geology class, but only because of all the cool fish down there like the anglerfish. I wondered if I could work the Mariana Trench into a conversation with Aoife to show her I could retain some of the information we learned in school.

  “Gaige?” Seanna’s hand rested on my arm. “We are thankful for his help, but we must go.”

  The tone in her voice brought my head around. Beneath the normal confidence, there lurked a hint of sorrow. The way she breathed those last words reminded me of the weeks following my parents’ accident when Aunt Stacy would say something that was meant to have conviction, but only came out sounding like she was trying to convince herself more than me. When she told me everything would be all right. When she told me that Mom would pull through as she lay in the hospital bed with tubes and lines running from her body, pumping unpronounceable liquids into her like the inner workings of a soda machine. I hated that tone. The tone in her voice made my stomach lurch like my very own vomit-powered spidey sense.

  I sighed. What could I do? Seanna was nervous about something, but she was willing to push on for me. I couldn’t go back now. I had many chances to turn around and march my in-over-my-head butt back through the gateway, but I hadn’t and how could I when we were that close to our goal? All I wanted was to get to Daresh, get help for my mom, and get back home. I kept telling myself that over and over. It really was that simple. Daresh. Help. Home.

  I glanced at Aoife, knowing she had to be thinking the same thing. Her family must have been worried sick about her. Did the authorities think we had run away together? Kidnapped, maybe? Maybe they were thinking the worst—we had been in an accident or killed. For the first time, I thought about what I would tell people when we got home. I was pretty sure I’d end up in a mental ward if I tried to tell the truth. Maybe I’ll end up there, anyway, right alongside my mother.

  I shook my head, trying to free it from those thoughts. What good would come of thinking about it right at that moment? I’d worry about it later.

  I didn’t realize I was looking at Aoife until she looked at me. I tried to smile in a way I thought was reassuring, but I was sure it came across as pathetic. Maybe creepy. Maybe pathetic with a bit of creepy mixed in. Never one to let pathetic creepy get to her, she smiled back. Just a quick one before turning to Delicia in the distance.

  ***

  As it turned out, Minotaur was pretty spot-on in his estimation on reaching Delicia. The city kept growing as we neared until we were close enough for me to get a good look at it. I was blown away. The closer we got, the more massive it became. When we were about two hundred yards from the city, we stepped out from the tall grass. A wide swath of ground had been cleared of all debris around the city. There was no vegetation at all. Not one tree. The grass had been removed, leavin
g dry, dusty ground.

  The city itself was encircled by a massive wall, which ran for as far as I could see and stood about ten yards high. It was made of rough blocks three by five feet in size that looked like they were made of tan concrete. Square buildings of the same color poked out from over the top of the wall. From where we stood outside the walls, the city lacked any kind of color that wasn’t a shade of blah. The only variances I could make out were the different shades of tan swirled throughout the blocks.

  A single break in the wall held a huge wooden gate. It stood almost as tall as the walls on either side of it, and each of the double doors was about six feet wide. It was made up of wood planks strapped together by thick metal bands.

  Towering above the gate at every fifty yards or so in either direction was a turret, with some kind of metal machine in each. They reminded me of the gun torrents in old World War II bombers, and the metal barrels poking out of them looked uncomfortably like guns. Seanna had told me the humans here had developed technology similar to that of Earth, but did that include guns? Men peered over the torrents, watching our approach. I glanced at Seanna as the long barrels of the torrents moved, tracking our movements as we made our way to the gate. She showed no fear, walking purposefully as if she belonged.

  “Wait here,” she said when we were ten yards from the gate. She walked to the side of the gate and appeared to talk to the wall for a moment before she nodded and waved us over.

  Keeping an eye on those guns, Aoife and I walked the last few steps. As we did, a loud click echoed from the wall. The first made me jump. I half expected to be shot, but more clicks followed the first. They traveled down the massive gate. When my heart calmed a bit, I realized it was just the sound of it unlocking. A few moments later, the clicks stopped and the gate swung open only a couple feet before coming to a stop.

  Seanna led the way through. My head was on a swivel as we passed. Two things caught my attention. First was a small slit where Seanna had spoken at the wall. A pair of eyes watched us as we passed. The second was the how thick the wall was, at least five feet, but it wasn’t completely solid as made apparent by the owner of those eyes inside it. As we passed through the gate, I looked up at the wall overhead and saw the third thing, multiple slits with eyes peering down at us. They must not get too many visitors. I thought maybe I should give them a little show. Maybe do a dance. Use my power to push some stuff around. Ventriloquism. Too bad I left my puppet in my other pants a billion light-years away on Earth.

  Once we passed through the gates, I tried to take it all in. My mind buzzed with sensory overload. All false sense of humor fled. The gate closed behind us with a thump that cut through the noise of Delicia. I turned back to the gate where several armored and armed men stood watching us with what I thought to be a touch of too much suspicion or hostility. Or both.

  “Welcome to Delicia,” Seanna said, pulling my attention back. “Greatest of human cities on Alisundi.”

  29

  Fear, Pain, and Desperation

  People crowded the streets as we made our way through the city. They rushed by, giving us curious looks as we passed, but quickly turned away before making eye contact. It wasn’t like in the Jo-Shar village where people ignored us because they were too busy to spare more than a cursory glance. These people dipped their heads when they realized what they were doing and looked like they’d rather melt into the ground than draw our attention. It was an odd feeling that reminded me of when people refused to look directly at me after my parents’ accident.

  I knew we looked odd to them as outsiders. The three of us still wore jeans and shirts from Earth, which was as good as if we walked through with signs proclaiming Stranger Danger with arrows pointing down. The inhabitants of Delicia, both men and women, wore trousers and tunics made of a rough-looking, brown, and unadorned material. The only difference was the tops the women wore fell down below their knees while the men’s came just to the hip.

  The streets of Delicia were much like the outer walls in color. There was rarely a color that wasn’t a shade of brown. From their clothing, the buildings, and the awnings, there was a distinct lack of any other color of the rainbow.

  The streets themselves were dirty, crowded, and narrow. Although nobody seemed to talk with any exuberance, the sheer number of people made the streets loud with their combined voices. Through the drab lack of color and noise, one sense came under assault. Smell. The smells inside the city were amazing and not in a good way. Describing the stink with any word I had in my vocabulary would not even begin to do it justice. The body odor alone would have been enough to make my eyes water, but it mingled with bodily waste in a way that made my nose hairs curl. It overpowered even the lingering stench of swamp on us.

  Aoife coughed. It sounded like she was trying to not gag and throw up. She held a hand over her nose and mouth. “Ugh, it smells worse in here than you.”

  I knew I had grown a little funky over the past few days. I hadn’t had anything resembling a bath since my little swim in the river. I wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the smells that draped over the streets like a blanket of ick.

  “Not really surprising,” Seanna said. “When they enclose themselves behind walls like this, cleanliness not only isn’t a top priority, it becomes a near impossibility. That’s why Ashlings won’t let our city be confined to an area unable to deal with our population.” She glanced around, her lip curling a little at the edge. “I hear disease and illness have become such a problem with the overcrowding that they are devising ways to curb the growing filth, something like your plumbing systems on Earth.” Her nose twitched. “A couple hundred years too late if you ask me.”

  Seanna led us through the streets, weaving around people. I could tell she was trying her hardest to avoid touching anybody at any cost even if it meant going out of our way to find a section of street that didn’t have as many bodies pressed together. We made it a couple blocks from the city’s gates before a man appeared in front of us, blocking the way.

  “Spare change?” He thrust a hand at her. Despite an oppressive heat that pushed down on the city, a product of the multitudes in the street, he wore a ratty cloak with the hood pulled over his head. Through the holes in it, I could make out soiled clothing underneath. Beneath all the dirt and grime, his face was worn and lined and he had a small open sore just above his right jawline.

  Seanna tried to go around him, but he sidestepped back in her way. “Anythin’ wi’ do,” he said in a hurried voice. He smiled, revealing several missing teeth.

  “We have nothing,” Seanna said with force.

  Again, she tried to go around, but he was undeterred. He moved to block her way. His hand, thrust out at her, never wavered. I stepped forward and placed a hand on his chest to back him away. I immediately regretted the move when I felt the greasiness of his clothing on my fingers and palm. I managed to not yank it back in disgust.

  “You heard her. We don’t have anything,” I said.

  He was skinny, very much so, and I felt sorry for him, but his insistence in blocking our path was a threat. I used my size, at least seventy pounds heavier and six inches taller, to intimidate him. At least I hoped so. I guess it worked. He stared into my eyes for a moment before dropping his to the ground, repeatedly bobbing his head.

  “So sorry, sir. Didn’ mean to be botherin’ you fine fo’ks.” He backed away, head bobbing, until he disappeared into the crowd.

  I turned to Seanna, feeling a little full of myself, but she looked less than impressed.

  “My hero,” she said.

  I shrugged and turned to Aoife thinking I might get more praise from her. “Where’s Aoife?”

  “She was right behind us,” Seanna said.

  “Well, she’s not.” I heard worry creep into my voice. I stood on my toes, looking over the heads of the people milling in the streets. “Aoife!” I called out, causing a few nearby heads to turn my way in alarm. I couldn’t see her anywhere. She was short enough that seeing
her over the crowd would have been difficult, so I started pushing my way back the way we came. “Aoife!”

  A few people halfheartedly protested as I pushed my way through the street, but I ignored them. My mind began to buzz with worry, my heart beating heavy against my chest. There was no way I’d gone that far just lose her now. If I did, I would never forgive myself. I pushed through a particular tight knot of people and felt something brush my waist. I instinctively reached out and grabbed the wrist of a girl who looked no more than ten years old. She had dirty red hair that stuck out all over the place, except one spot that was dirt-matted against her head. She looked up at me with sky blue eyes that filled with tears at being caught. I didn’t have time to deal with her. Besides, I had nothing for her to steal other than the dead, useless cellphone in my front pocket and jerky. I pushed her hand away and continued my search for Aoife.

  “Aoife!” My voice croaked with worry.

  A man, taking exception to being pushed out of the way, grabbed my arm around my bicep, but I snatched it away and continued down the street. Commotion down a side street attracted my attention. People hurried past, pointedly ignoring that street. I stopped and peered down to an in-set doorway where three ragged men stood.

  “Hey!” I yelled out and turned down the street. Before I reached the doorway, one of the men stepped in the way.

  “Dis dunnit concern you none.” He revealed his hand, or more specifically, the old, partially rusted knife he held in it.

  I glanced back to the doorway and saw the tips of a pair of sneakers sticking out from it. I recognized them immediately. They were the shoes Aoife had changed into before walking to school with me. Without a moment’s hesitation, I used the same move I had on Minotaur. I pushed on the fist clenching the knife to the side with my mind and swung a sweeping right punch. Surprisingly, it landed squarely on his jaw and he dropped to the cobbled street. I swore and grabbed my hand. I had never punched somebody before and I must have caught him with the knuckles on my ring finger and pinky. Pain throbbed in them. Just great! I took one guy out and broke my hand in the process, I was sure. I still had two others to deal with.