Children of the Gates

by Andre Norton

  Elossa dropped her head into her hands, forcing away the dream memory, reaching out for the compulsion tie which had brought her on the Pilgrimage. That was there, and it pointed her to the mountain gap! Gathering up her bag and staff, she descended to the ancient road and doggedly continued along that to the pass. She was farther than the length of her staff along that way before she swayed, set her teeth grimly upon her lip.

  Though she retreated behind a thought barrier, that was no safe refuge as far as emotion was concerned. It was as if she were now buffeted by unseen blows, all sent to force her into retreat. What lay here had no substance, but to approach was like forcing a way through a knee-high swift current designed to sweep her from her feet.

  More than wind flowed through the pass. Anger came, as deep and fierce as the mindless rage of the rog and the sargon, a cry for—for vengeance. Elossa was not aware that her progress became unsteady, that she reeled from one side of the way to the other.

  Pulled forward, pushed back—it would seem that the forces here were near evenly balanced and she was the plaything of them both. But she did win forward, even though it was but a step, a half step, length at a time. Breath filled her lungs only in painful gasps. The entire world had narrowed to the broken road, and on that only a few lengths ahead.

  Elossa fought. She was so enmeshed now in those two forces she could sense that she dared not even attempt to free herself. No, this she must see until the end.

  On and up. Her own breathing filled her ears. Pain looped around her ribs ever more tightly. She would plant her staff in some crack a little before her, and then, by main effort, drag herself to that spot, look ahead for another anchor.

  Time itself left her. This might have been morning, or hours near sunset, one day or the next. Beyond and around her now flowed life and time. She was near spent with every step.

  At last she stumbled into a pocket of absolute stillness. So quick was the cessation of those two forces which had used her as an arena that she collapsed against a rock, hardly able to keep on her feet.

  The girl was only aware of the heavy pounding of her heart, the rasping sound of her breathing. She felt as emptied of strength as she had after she had expended the talent to aid the Raski hunter.

  At length Elossa raised her head. Then that harsh, heavy breathing caught in her throat. She was not alone!

  Her efforts had brought her to the other end of the pass. As in her dream, mist curdled on the down slope, cutting out all view of the way below and beyond. But, stark against that mist, fronting her. . . .

  In spite of control Elossa uttered a cry of terror, fear welled in her. She clutched the staff which could be her only weapon. A length of wood to use against—that?

  In form it was roughly human. At least it stood erect on two limbs, held two more before it. One of those was half hidden behind the oval of a shield which covered it near throat to thighs. The other, a seared paw, still possessed enough charred bone of fingers to clasp a sword hilt. A skull, blackened by fire, to which strips of burnt flesh still clung here and there, was overshadowed by a helm.

  It—it had no eyes left—yet it saw! Its helmed head was turned in her direction. Nothing, no one of her species who had been so burned could live! Yet this, this thing stood erect, the teeth of that horrible skull bared in what seemed to Elossa to be a grin of mockery, born from recognition of her own fear and loathing.

  Nothing could live so! She drew several short breaths to steady her nerves. If this thing could not live (and reason came flooding back to her to make that assurance) then it was a thought form. . . .

  The thing had moved. To her eyes it was three dimensional, as solid as the hand she herself raised in a gesture of repudiation. Thought form—from whose brain—and why? The shield had swung up to a position of defense, so now only the hollows of the skull’s eye sockets appeared above its smoke-darkened rim. The sword was held steady. It was coming toward her. . . .

  A thought form—if it followed the pattern of such things—then what it fed upon, to give it more and more solid substance, was her own fear and sickness. It was not alive—save in as much as it could build itself life out of her own emotions.

  Elossa licked her lips. She had dealt with illusions all her life. But then she, or those of her kin, had built those. This was totally alien, born of a mind she could not understand. How then could she find the key to it?

  It was an illusion! She caught and held that thought to the fore of her mind. Yet it moved toward her, its stained sword raising slowly, ready to cut her down. Every instinct urged her to defend herself with her staff as best she could. But to yield to that demand would be her loss.

  Thought form . . . Beneath her first horror and revulsion another emotion stirred. Perhaps that had been born out of her dream. It was not the skeleton apparition before her which caused terror now. No, it was her memory of the destruction of the city which she had witnessed.

  Some guard or warrior who had died there. But in whose memory had such a thing lingered to be thrown against her now? And why?

  Guard, of course! A guard who had died at his post. Maybe not a thought form born of any living mind, but rather a lingering of pain and rage so great that it could be projected long after the brain which had given it birth was dead.

  “It is over.” Elossa spoke aloud. “Long over.” Words, what had words to do with this? They could not reach the dead.

  But this was only a projection, knowing that she was safe—safe. . . .

  Gathering assurance about her as she might the billows of her journey cloak she stood away from the rock against which she had sheltered. The guard was only the length of a sword thrust from her now. Elossa stiffened herself against any flinching, any belief that this might do her harm.

  She went forward, straight in the way the dead blocked. It was the most dreadful test she had ever faced. On, one step, two. She was up against the figure now. One more step. . . .

  It was. . . . She stumbled as that wave of raw emotion filled her, ate into her confidence, her sanity. Somehow she was through, one hand to her head which felt as if it were bursting with utter terror, terror which was all filling, which overwhelmed her thoughts, left only sensation.

  Elossa had walked through!

  Now she looked back. There was nothing. It was even as she had guessed. Both hands on her staff, leaning on that as her legs felt so weak that they might give way under her at any moment, the girl tottered on into the wet embrace of the mist which cloaked the descent from the pass.

  There were—sounds. Visual had been the first attack, audible was the second. Screams, faint as if from some distance, but not from any animal; rather the last cries of torment and overriding fear too great for any mind to face without breaking. Elossa wanted to cover her ears, to do anything which would shut out that clamor of the dying. But to do that was again to acknowledge that these projections had power over her. She. . . .

  Elossa saw a stir within the mist, movement near the ground. She halted as a figure crawled into clear sight. This one went on all fours, had no shield nor sword. Nor were the signs of fire anywhere on it.

  Though its progress was that of a stricken animal, slow, painful, yet, it, too, was human. One leg ended in a blob of crushed flesh from which seeped blood to leave a broad trail upon the rocks. The head was raised, forced back upon the shoulders as if the crawler sought ahead of her some goal which was the only hope of survival.

  For this thing coming out of the fog was a woman, the long hair, sweat plastered to temples, did not fall forward enough to hide what ripped clothing displayed, while that clothing bore no resemblance to the few scorched rags the guard had worn. Blood-stained and torn though it was, it had been a close-fitting body suit of a green shade, unlike any garment Elossa had ever seen.

  The crawling woman reached forward to draw herself on. Then her mouth opened in a soundless cry and she fell, still striving to hold up her head, looking at Elossa. In her eyes there was such a plea for aid th
at the girl wavered, almost losing control of her own determination not to be misled.

  The silent plea from the woman struck into Elossa’s mind. This was no figure out of nightmare, but rather one to pluck at her pity in a way as deeply demanding of action as the fear generated by the guard had been. There was a feeling of kinship between them. Though this stranger was not of Yurth, or not of the Yurth blood, Elossa knew.

  Help, help me! Unspoken, faint, those words in Elossa’s head vocalized out of the emotion rising swiftly to fill her. Help. Unconsciously she knelt, stretched out her hand. . . .

  No! She froze. Almost, this illusion had won!

  To be caught in an illusion, the primary fear of the Yurth choked her. She hid her eyes with her hand, swayed to and fro. She must not yield! To do so was to surrender all she was!

  But hiding her eyes was not the way. As she had done with the guard, she must face squarely this thing born from emotion, face it and treat it for what it was—nothing but a shadow of what once might have been. As the guard had been fed from her fear (and perhaps the terrors of others who had been drawn into this way before her) so would this other be fed by her pity and wish to aid. She must rein that in and not be moved.

  Elossa got to her feet. The woman on the ground had raised herself a little, levering her body up with one arm, one hand planted palm down against the stone. The other hand she held out to the girl beseechingly, her need open in her staring eyes, her mouth working vainly, as if she could not force out words, but needs must try.

  As she had done with the guard the girl gathered her force of will and determination. Staff in hand she walked deliberately forward. Nor did she look aside from the woman, for such an illusion must be faced in its entirety and without flinching.

  On . . . on. . . .

  Once more she was engulfed In a flood of feeling, pain, need, fear, above all the plea for aid, for comfort. . . .

  She was through, shaking, spent. Once more the mist closed about her as she pulled herself on, striving to shake from her that upheaval of emotion which had attempted to net her a second time and in another and, to her, more deadly fashion.

  It was well that Elossa had the road for a guide here as the mist was so blinding that otherwise she could have wandered from her path unknowingly. The badly broken way was sometimes hidden by slides of earth and rock, but ever, as she pushed ahead, she would find it again. Then the fog began to thin. She was coming out of that when again she halted, half turned to face up slope, toward the pass now hidden from her.

  That was not illusion! She had been only half consciously casting about with the mind-search to make sure that other things beside the illusions did not hide here. So she had touched another mind, instantly withdrew.

  Who?

  She must know, even if probing would reveal her to whatever lurked above.

  With the extreme caution she must use, Elossa stood on the moisture-slicked rock where the fog condensed some of its substance in drops, and reached out. . . .

  It was. . . . He! The Raski she had thought left far behind. Why had he followed her? In spite of the healing she had brought to his wound, he surely had not recovered enough to make such a journey easy. But there was no deception possible in the contact she made. This was the same mind she had touched before. He was here—above. . . .

  And. . . . She felt the wash of his fear. The guard—he must be confronting the guard. Without any defense against illusion (for he could not have that by his very nature) how was he going to fare?

  Elossa bit hard upon her lower lip. Before, she had been to blame in part for his hurt and therefore she was bound by her honor to come to his aid. This time the situation was different. He had chosen this path of his own free will, not through any control set by her. Therefore she was not responsible for what might issue from his folly.

  5

  Go forward, commanded logic reinforced by all her training from birth. Still Elossa lingered, unable to break that tenuous contact with the other’s fear. Go forward! This is none of your concern. This you did not bring upon him. If he chose to come skulking behind, then he must face the result of his folly.

  She forced herself to take one step, two, resolutely closing her mind to any more emanation, even though a buried part of her fought that decision. The last tatters of the mist drifted away; now she could see the country below.

  And. . . .

  Against all logic Elossa had expected to see what her dream had shown her—a city—the thing from the sky which had brought ruin to it. There was indeed the plateau which stretched near as wide as part of the plains she had crossed. At a far distance she could distinguish shadow shapes of other mountains. This range must encircle as a wall on three sides, like arms curved out in protection.

  There was no city as such. But when she sighted certain hollows and rises in the plateau (all now cloaked in withering grass) the girl knew that there lay long lost and forgotten ruins. There even arose piles of stones which might be the last vestiges of walls. She turned her head a little to the north, to follow the winding of such a wall. What lay there was not in the city, rather farther away then her dream had shown it. Only a portion of it now arched above the surface, but a dome of top showed still. That was the thing which had descended from the heavens to wreck destruction here.

  It was toward that that the Pilgrimage compulsion clearly drew her. The force of that was stronger, urging her to complete her journey as swiftly as she might.

  Here the road angled along the wall of the mountain, taking a turn to the left. It was much broken, large portions of it shorn away by sideslips or avalanches. This path was not one for the unwary; one foot misplaced could send her sliding to destruction.

  Elossa concentrated all her attention on that descent, taking care, her staff often an anchor over a treacherous bit of path. The journey was longer than she had thought when she had viewed her goal from the heights.

  So the sun was well up and it was midday before she reached the level of the plateau. There she paused to eat and drink before she turned from those grass-matted stones toward the dome.

  Just as the trail had been longer than she had expected, so now did the ruins loom larger. In many places the mounds topped her head. While from their mass below a chill wind which made her wrap her cloak more tightly about her.

  As the ruins had grown taller so did the curve of the buried globe rise higher. In her dream the whole globe had been great enough to blot out a goodly portion of the city; now she could understand how. Judging by the dream, all which remained above the soil now was perhaps a quarter of its entire bulk. Still that stood as high as perhaps three of the Raski dwellings set one atop another to form a tower.

  It was uniformly gray in color, not the gray of a natural rock, but lighter, resembling the hue of the sky before the approach of a summer rainfall. As Elossa moved toward it a sighing of wind, blowing through the ruins, produced an odd wailing note. Dared she loose her fancy she could believe that filled with the far-off keening of voices lamenting the dead.

  No, she had had enough of illusion! Elossa paused long enough to tap one of the half-buried stones with the end of her staff. It was satisfyingly solid under that contact—no illusion. Wind often had its own voice when it blew around and through rock formations, whether those were natural or man-made.

  As she went the ruins grew yet higher, threw their own broken-edged shadows here and there. She found that she must alter her path and go farther in among those mounds in order to reach her goal. Doing so made every nerve shrink, protest.

  Death—this was the way of death.

  For a long minute the very air curdled, became a curtain, drew apart She saw shapes with more substance than the mountain mist, still they might have been born of that. One such shape fled, the others were hounds behind it, wisps of arms raised. . . . While the shape which fled dodged and turned. . . . There was that in her which answered to it, knew the fear and torment which possessed it.

  No! At once she
clamped down her mind barrier. The shapes were gone, but Elossa never doubted that once such a hunt had crossed the path she must now follow.

  Her energy had been drained, more than was normal, even though she had made that perilous descent of the mountain. She found she must lean more and more on her staff, even pause and rest, breathing fast to draw air into her lungs. She, too, might have been running at the desperate speed of that fog thing.

  Her head jerked. The sensation that had come out of the air might have an unexpected blow, pulling her to the left. Now she saw a path winding westward among the mounds. In spite of her efforts at control the ordering of her own body was mercilessly rift from her. She turned, not by her will, but by a compulsion strong enough to override that other she had followed so far and long.

  Elossa fought with every weapon of the Upper Sense she could summon. But there was no winning of this battle. She moved along that faint path, pulled by a cord she could not break. Still she also was very much aware that this was nothing of Yurth spinning—rather a contact totally alien to all she knew.

  On she went. Now she no longer struggled to break free. The caution in which she had been drilled suggested that both her will and strength might be put to a stronger test in the immediate future and it was well to conserve them now.

  The mounds of ruins grew ever larger, loomed over her, shutting out the view of the half-buried dome, sometimes closing off all but a ribbon of sky well over her head. It was in such circumstances that the path ended in a dark opening at the side of one of the mounds. Seeing that ahead and guessing full well that whatever (or whoever) drew her intended that she enter that threatening doorway, Elossa braced herself for a final struggle. So intent was she on marshalling her forces, that she was unaware of what crept behind her.

  There came a blow, landing to numb her shoulder so that she dropped her staff. Before she could turn or disengage thought power to defend herself, a light burst in her head and she fell forward into dark nothingness.