The Gatekeeper Trilogy

by Scott Ferrell

  “Ah, here it is.” Dario waved at a tree.

  This travelway was a dirty hole under a root that looked like it was more likely to house a din of poisonous snakes than a magical method to travel miles in a few instants.

  Dario dipped his head once before turning away dismissively. He spoke with Seanna and Jae in Ashling. Jae nodded and walked off in the other direction.

  I thought about asking where he was going, but I didn’t really care. I was way past that. I had only one thing on my mind. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled into the hole. I didn’t care if it was full of poisonous snakes. If they got in my way, I’d deal with them just like I’d deal with anything else.

  As I pushed into the hole, darkness closed in around me. I’d only crawled a few feet when I felt it. The travelways pulled on me the closer I came to it until like a spider sacked up by a vacuum—it yanked me inside.

  9

  Dark. Cold. Dead.

  I remembered well the cold at the top of the Jo-Shar’s mountain. I was prepared for it. Well, I thought I was. It still took my breath away as I crawled out from underneath a rocky overhang. I dropped my backpack to the crusted snow and pulled the coat the Ashlings had given me on over my hoodie. It worked surprisingly well in cutting out most of the cold. I also grabbed a pair of sunglasses and put them on to block out most of the blinding sunlight reflecting off the snow.

  Seanna wiggled out of the travelway behind me and climbed to her feet. Just as before, she showed no sign the cold bothered her. She glanced around to get a lay of the land.

  “Which way?” I asked.

  “This way.” She pointed to a barely visible path of packed down snow that started between two stubborn evergreen trees with three-pronged barbs at the end of its needles.

  “Where did Jae go?”

  “He was needed elsewhere.” Seanna moved past and stepped onto the trail.

  “Where?” I asked from behind her.

  “Elsewhere.”

  “Seanna…”

  The Ashling sighed and stopped, turning to face me. “There is a lot more going on than you care about. Remember? Where he went has nothing to do with you finding Aoife. Do you even really care?”

  “I guess not,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if it was true. “I’m just not keen on being left out of the loop this time around. Remember where it landed me last time?”

  Seanna’s shoulders slumped a bit as she turned to continue up the trail. “No more lies, Gaige. No more betrayals. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Have you?” I asked.

  “Whether you choose to believe me or not is up to you. I can only do what I can to help.” She paused and shrugged. “To make it up to you.”

  “Pretty words.” I stuffed my hands in my pants pockets. Leave it to me to not have the forethought to bring gloves. Then again, with my gateway at the top of the mountain closed, I didn’t think I’d have any reason to come back up here.

  “True words,” Seanna commented. “I know I betrayed you, but I do care for you. I risked everything for you—to get you out of there.”

  “After you handed me over to a raving lunatic and put me there.”

  She shrugged as we walked. The landscape was pretty much the way I remembered it. Very few trees and lots of snow covering everything. The trail led us up and down and in between boulders. I wondered if it was an animal trail or man-made by people going through the travelway.

  “I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she said.

  “Good, because I’m not.”

  “Or trying to make excuses. You know why I did it. It was wrong, but I was scared.”

  I felt her hand touch the sleeve of my coat. I reflexively pulled my arm away. After spending several days under her magical influence, I wasn’t eager to have a repeat episode.

  She lowered her hand. “What happened back there in Gate City when you went back?”

  “That was a year ago. It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” I snapped.

  “Of course, it does,” she said.

  “Not to you.”

  “I’ve heard what happened,” she said, ignoring my comment. “There were rumors when the Getharey came back through the gateway and it closed. Mr. Minor gave me more details.”

  “I don’t see what that has to do—”

  “You risked everything. Aoife risked everything. For what? To save yourselves? You could have gone to Mr. Minor’s house and been protected until the Getharey got what they wanted and left. You didn’t. You and Aoife threw yourselves into danger to protect your city. Your planet.”

  “We risked our own necks, not some random stranger’s,” I bit off. “Big difference.”

  “I think you would have done anything to make sure your planet survived.”

  “You think? What do you know of me?”

  “More than you think,” she replied softly.

  “Is this the part where you tell me you know me better than I know myself?”

  “Yes, actually. In some ways, I think I do.” She tugged my sleeve to guide me down the right fork in the path. “I spent a lot of time studying you.”

  “And that makes you an expert?” I asked.

  “No, but I did figure you out enough to get you here. Twice.” She sounded a little too proud of that.

  I halted and grabbed her arm to stop her, too. “Let’s get this straight. You did not ‘get me here.’ I’ve been trying to figure out how to get here for the past year to find Aoife. You’re just a means to my end this time. I’ll be more than happy to ditch you as soon as I know I can get around without you.”

  “You wouldn’t get very far.” She visibly forced herself to relax her stance. “Look, let’s not do this, okay?”

  “Fine with me.” I dropped her arm and continued down the path.

  She hurried to catch up. “We needed your help, but you’re not willing—”

  “Damn right.”

  “But I owe it to you to help find Aoife if she’s alive. So, let’s just do that. No more arguing.”

  “Sure, whatever,” I muttered. “The less you say, the less lies fall out of your mouth.”

  She sighed but fell silent.

  I was glad for it. The way was difficult. I needed to concentrate on where to put my feet or I’d go sliding off a cliff or something. The more she spoke, the angrier I became—which was counter intuitive to concentration.

  No matter how little I wanted to do with Seanna, I had found myself in a position where I had to trust her. I had no clue where we were going and nothing looked familiar. Of course, I’d only been on this mountain for about half a day, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that all the snow, ice, boulders, and evergreens all looked the same to me. There was nothing for me to do but trust this path led at least in the general direction of the Jo-Shar village. It was almost more trust than I could manage for her.

  “How far is it?” I asked. The sun was dropping like a flaming rock towards the tops of the mountain peaks to our right.

  “Don’t start that or I’ll turn this car around.” Her face fell a bit at my humorless glance. “Not far. We should be able to make it there before night fall as long as we don’t slow down any more.”

  I didn’t miss the shot across the bow. It was an old one. One she used multiple times during our first trip across Alisundi. I purposely slowed my pace as we started up another snow-crusted rise. It might have been a childish move and I’d end up shivering as the sun took its warmth to the other side of the world, but I knew she’d pick up on the slower pace and it would irritate her to no end. Worth it.

  I wasn’t wrong, by the way. The sun dipped behind the peaks to the right not an hour after we last spoke and while the coat the Ashlings had given me worked well, it couldn’t keep the cold of night from seeping through. Not to mention it did nothing to protect my legs. I only had a pair of jeans as protective armor. It was woefully inadequate. At least my toes didn’t feel like they were about to fall off from frost bite. I had sense enough to
wear good, thick socks and boots.

  Seanna stopped and turned to let me catch up. Of course, she was unaffected by the cold. She wore jeans like me but nothing more than a t-shirt under a long sleeve, button up flannel shirt and a pair of tennis shoes.

  I balled my hands into tighter fists as I came to the top of the rise to stand beside her. My toes might be safe for now, but I wasn’t so sure about my fingers.

  “We’re about there.” She nodded her head to the dark outline of another rise. “I just wanted to reiterate what we may or may not find.”

  I swallowed hard. The last time I’d seen the Jo-Shar village, we were running from it while one of Daresh’s metal dragon attacked. The bright flash of light as the thing exploded the huts was an image still burned into my mind along with it hovering over Elder Narit as we raced to escape. What we found over that rise was something I had desperately tried to avoid thinking about in the past few hours we trekked over the mountain.

  “It was after me,” I said, referring to the metal dragon. “Didn’t it leave when we escaped? There were only a few destroyed buildings and most of the Jo-Shar made it out to hide in the mountains. Didn’t they?”

  Seanna shrugged one thin shoulder. “I don’t know. You’re assuming there was only one of them here.”

  I blew out a breath. It curled lazily around my face in the dark. It was getting too cold even for visible breath. I don’t know why I assumed there was only one of the things that night. I guess it was because I had no clue there could be more. Not until our mad escape from Delicia.

  “You said you saw it over Elder Narit but there’s no way of knowing it didn’t circle back around to the village after we made it into the travelway,” she said.

  I let my shoulders slump. I wasn’t ready to face it. I had been so focused on the guilt of losing Aoife that I hadn’t given the proper nurturing care to all the other guilt I had heaped on my head. The Jo-Shar and Elder Narit. Tias. The Ashling who died in the Balataur attack. Mr. Minor. Even the creature that called itself Brian. So much death in only a few weeks’ time. Most of it was my fault.

  Seanna put a hand on my shoulder. I saw the movement in the dark more than actually felt it.

  “I’m not trying to make you feel bad or relive what happened to you, Gaige. I just want you to be prepared for whatever we find.”

  I stepped out of her touch, masking it in a move to look toward the next rise. “Well, we’re not going to find out what’s over there standing around here freezing my giblets off.”

  The rise didn’t seem all that impressive, but it still took longer than I would have thought. The ice-crusted snow made finding footholds nearly impossible. It didn’t help that the stars didn’t provide nearly enough light for me to see properly.

  The night was pretty dark without a moon to light it in any way. Still, my eyes had long adjusted to the dark by the time we made it to the top of the rise. Enough for me to see down into the valley below us, anyways. What I saw made my heart sink like a stone.

  Well, what I didn’t see was the problem. The lack of the scent of smoke in the air should have been a huge clue, but it wasn’t one I had picked up as we neared. There was no smoke because there were no fires. Nothing lit the Jo-Shar village below. No hearth fires. It was dark. Cold. Dead.

  10

  Survivors

  I found it hard to look into the dark, abandoned buildings as we stood on the outskirts of the village. It felt like the ghost town refused to let me look at it—demanded I avert my eyes. Every time I tried, my eyes would water and pull away.

  I could still hear the sounds of the village, though. Echoes from long ago. Adults bustling about to finish the last of their day’s work before they lost daylight. Kids getting in every last moment of play they could before retreating to their homes. The soft pad of a large dog’s paws on the snow as it followed after its young owner.

  “Gaige, are you okay?” Seanna asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. I looked up to the sky, but an unexpected anger grew in me when I recognized a constellation. I cleared my throat and dropped my eyes to the ground in front of us. “This whole trip was for nothing, though.”

  “We knew this was a possibility. There has been no contact with the Jo-Shar since we fled here.” She hesitated a moment. When I didn’t say anything, she added, “We did try to warn you.”

  “Yeah, you did,” I sneered.

  “Look, this doesn’t change things for Aoife. Mother Tree only thought the Jo-Shar might be able to help you regain your abilities. We’re still going to try to find Aoife. This was just a small detour.”

  “‘Small detour’? We’re on top of a mountain, Seanna. Mother Tree said the travelways are failing. How are we supposed to get down from here?” I demanded. “Climb down? Repel? Jump? Fall? Unless you have magical pockets in those jeans and can pull some rope out of it, we’re screwed because I sure didn’t bring any. How long is it going to take us to pick our way down? Days? Weeks?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Seanna said, but her voice lacked the normal sureness. “The travelways are failing, but that doesn’t mean they have failed.”

  “Your optimism is inspiring,” I laughed mirthlessly.

  She sighed. “Come on. Let’s find a hut with some cut wood still in it so we can build a fire for the night.”

  “Wait. We’re staying in one of the Jo-Shar’s homes?”

  “You don’t want to spend the night out here, do you?” she asked. “You’ll freeze.”

  She had a point. With the minimal preparations I had taken, I had avoided frostbite and hypothermia, but that wouldn’t last long. It was only going to get colder.

  Still, it felt wrong to invade what used to be the Jo-Shar’s homes. It felt an awful lot like robbing a grave after being the one responsible for their deaths. I didn’t know what had happened to them. I hoped and prayed they weren’t dead. I told myself they weren’t. They had escaped and found a new place to put down their roots. Without my gateway to guard, there was no reason to stay in this place after it was discovered and attacked by Daresh’s dragon. Or dragons.

  So, I fought an internal war. Guilt versus survival. If the Jo-Shar were out there somewhere, what would they think of me setting up shop in their old homes after I was the reason they had to abandon them. Maybe freezing to death was what I needed.

  I shook my head. No. I couldn’t do that to myself.

  “Fine. Let’s go,” I told Seanna. I let her lead the way into the village. I kept my head down and followed her by watching the dark forms of her shoes moving.

  In the year since all that took place, I had learned something. It wasn’t something I ever admitted to my therapist, but all the talking he had forced me to do had been somewhat helpful. Oh, it wasn’t really something he had done, but a realization that hit me as I droned on about whatever came to mind. All the guilt. The self-pity. The anger at myself, Seanna, and the world. All that did nothing for the people I had hurt. As I sat in his office, telling him about my life while silently feeling sorry for myself was an insult to those people. My dad. Mom. Aoife. Tias. Elder Narit.

  The moment I had come to that realization, I abruptly ended the session because I felt his dank office walls closing in on me. From that day on, I vowed to not feel that way anymore. There was no doubt I still had issues to work through—a lot of them—but self-pity wouldn’t be one of them. I owed it to the people whose lives I ruined or ended to not feel sorry for myself because I caused it.

  “So, which one should we try?” Seanna asked.

  “I don’t see that it matters,” I mumbled.

  “I suppose not.”

  We walked past several buildings. I couldn’t tell how she decided which one to pick, but she finally paused, looking at one in particular.

  “This one is Elder Narit’s,” she said. “Remember?”

  “Not that one,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’m not staying in that one.”

  “Why not? We
know what’s in there. There’s wood and blankets, right? We don’t know what’s in the others.”

  “Come off it, Seanna. People lived in these. Of course, there should be the same kind of supplies or whatever in them.”

  “Not if the Jo-Shar took it with them when they left.”

  “How do you know they got a chance to leave?” I demanded. “That metal dragon didn’t come after us again after we escaped. Maybe it came back—” I cut off as I felt a lump form in my throat.

  “Do you see any bodies around?”

  “What?”

  “If that thing came back and killed them all, wouldn’t there be bodies around?” she asked.

  I glanced around. She might be right, but how would I spot bodies in the dark? “Maybe a few survived and buried them. Or...scavengers or something.”

  “We know what’s in here. Wood, a hearth, and blankets. You need that, Gaige. Come on, we’ll just look around. If you get all weird about being in there, we’ll find a different place to sleep for the night.”

  She stepped up to the door and grabbed the latch before I could reply. It clicked and the door opened silently. The black interior swallowed her already dark shape as she went inside.

  I took a deep breath. She was right. This was just a building. Nothing more. I stopped at the threshold and kicked the snow off my boots on the stump next to the door. I stepped in, blinking as I lost what little vision I had.

  The feeling was disorienting. Even though Elder Narit’s hut was surprisingly spacious, the walls closed in on me. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them shrinking. The darkness inside was absolute. I held out my hands, half expecting to bump into one of those walls.

  There was a hiss like a sharp intake of breath a few feet in front of me.

  “Seanna?” I said.

  “We’re not alone,” she said.

  “Indeed, you’re not being,” a voice said in the dark.

  My heart lurched. My first instinct was the run out the door, but something kept my feet grounded to the spot.