Children of the Gates

by Andre Norton

  The flames of Karn were fierce flags whipping about her. From behind those there beat steady sounds, each of which struck her like a blow.

  And. . . .

  That which gathered in her, melded to speed forth, it was weakening, the flow was no longer steady, while the roasting heat of the Karn fire was something she had no strength to hold at bay.

  On the very edge of her vision there was movement. Elossa could not turn her head to see what chanced there—she must hold steady—if she could hold.

  Sound slashed as might a wood axe brought against a young tree. The sounds which had beat upon her. . . . Elossa steadied, somehow made a plea, and gave herself a last fraction more freely. The power arose in her—for the last time she knew.

  She held it, held it as long as she could, until she knew that her battered mind could contain it no longer. Then, as might a warrior in battle release a shout of utter defiance—tinged with despair—she loosed that final up-flowing of Yurth talent—hurled it outward. . . .

  The flames flared out and up. But this time she could see the spear of light out through them, break upon hands, hands which appeared in the heart of the flames.

  “Ahhhhhh—”

  Was that shriek of mingled pain and fear real, or part of a hallucination? Elossa wavered to her knees. She was empty! The power went out of her so suddenly that it was as if the very bones which supported her flesh had been withdrawn, leaving her no firmness of body at all. She braced herself with her hands upon the floor, her arms as tautly straight as she could hold them.

  The flames died, were utterly gone. She had failed! Karn stood there still erect, invincible. Behind him in a half crouch was Stans. The Raski’s face was set in a grimace, his lips were pulled a little away from his teeth, he looked at that moment as one rendered near as monstrous through torture as the misshapen creatures they had been captured by in the valley.

  His breath came in great gasps, as if he could not draw enough air into his lungs. But now he launched himself at Karn, his hands out, his fingers crooked as if they were claws to tear the undying king into bloody shreds.

  He moved jerkily as if he were in some manner crippled, yet was so will bound to what he would do that he could make even a maimed body obey in this last small attack.

  His strength came against Karn. The king had taken no notice of his kinsman, but had stood statue still in the same position in which Elossa had last seen him, erect, his hands before his face.

  Now those hands dropped, not as if he had lowered them, but as if there were no longer any strength left in the muscles which held them so. The flesh covering them appeared pallid, shriveled.

  As his arms hung limp at his sides Karn took a step forward, then stumbled, fell to his knees on the floor beneath the one-step dais which had held his second throne. He was within touching distance of Elossa now.

  But, seeing his face, she cringed away. Though his eyes were open, set, only white showed between the lids. There was a terrible, sickening change in his face, a writhing between Atturn and Karn, as if a last struggle between two personalities were in progress within him.

  He began to crawl and Elossa pulled her body out of his path, edging around herself to watch him. Though he seemed blind, yet he was led toward the screen, the mouth of Atturn.

  “No!” Stans sprawled down after the king. “He must not enter!”

  As the king, he crawled, seemingly with little strength left. His strained face was also turned to the waiting Mouth.

  “He must not . . . go . . . to . . . Atturn!” he gasped.

  Elossa strove to draw upon any remnants of energy still in her. She opened her mind, sent out a plea for that which had been hers. But there came no answer. Had the multi-voice been riven forever?

  Stans crawled on, and so did Karn blindly advance. Then the Raski launched himself once more in attack, sending his body before the path of the king as a barrier. When Karn reached him Stans grappled, holding the king by main force against struggles which, Elossa saw, Karn aimed not at his captor but rather to free himself.

  His blind-eyed face was ever toward the stone image, his neck strained until his head was at a strange stiff angle. But Stans kept his grip on the struggling body of the king. As much as the Raski tried to hinder him, still Karn pulled forward, winning the length of a finger, the width of a palm, with dogged push.

  Stans raised a fist, drove it full force into Karn’s face. Elossa heard the dull sound of that blow, saw the involuntary rock of the head when it landed. Yet the blankness of expression did not change, the eyes remained rolled up and blind.

  “No!” Stans’ voice shrilled. “Not . . . to . . . the Mouth!”

  His frenzy of struggle was enough to bring Elossa crawling toward them also. There must be a reason for Stans’ need to keep Karn from the representation of the “god”—if god the Mouth was. She reached forth a hand and caught at Karn’s arm, digging her fingers into the black and red fabric which covered it. But what she so held might well be made of metal, so unyielding was the substance of his tense flesh.

  However, her effort, small though it was, when added to Stans’, seemed enough to halt the crawl for an instant. Then, in their hold, Karn appeared to go mad. His struggles were the writhing of something totally divorced from reason. He flung his head around and down, snapping at Elossa’s hand with his teeth. The pain of that wound loosened her hold and he jerked free.

  With one great final effort he flung himself forward, beating Stans flat against the flooring with that lunge. One arm was thrown up and out. His hand curved around the edge of the lolling tongue. The girl saw the strength of the pull he exerted to use that to draw himself on and up into the Mouth.

  Stans got up to his knees. He joined his hands together into a single fist. Raising that above his head he brought it down in a hammer blow on the nape of Karn’s neck, even as the king had caught at the tongue with his other hand and was well on his way to drawing forward into the Mouth.

  Karn fell, his forehead hitting the tongue. There was a sound then which cut through Stans’ panting, a sound which seemed to Elossa to echo sickeningly through the whole room. The body, which a moment before had been taut, tense with effort, relaxed, slipped down, though the one hand still lay, fingers laced about the edge of the tongue.

  Stans lurched away. There was a dull horror in his eyes.

  “He . . . if he had gone through . . .” he said in a shaking voice. “He could have lived and lived and . . . lived. . . .” His voice scaled upward and his body was shaking so that he could not control his hands but held them out in front of him now, quivering, staring at them as if he had never seen them part of him before.

  There was another sound in that chamber, though it did not cancel out that of the blow which still echoed to Elossa. She looked up at the face and then cried out. Enough strength returned for her to clutch at Stans, dragging him back and away from the Mouth.

  For the representation of Atturn was crumbling, falling in great jagged pieces of stone. These thudded down on the head and shoulders of Karn, hiding near half of his body.

  Elossa pressed the back of her hand tightly across her mouth to stifle a scream. For behind that screen, as she thought the Face and Mouth had formed, there was. . . .

  Nothing! Rather a curtain of darkness which negated all normal light. It did not reach to either wall of the chamber, rather was like a section of utter black forming an inner structure of its own.

  The Face and Mouth had gone. Now the darkness itself was rifting apart from side to side. Objects within they could see dimly, without knowing what such might be. But as the darkness tore and vanished, so did that which it had held go with it. Now they could sight bare wall behind.

  The shadow dwindled, seeped into the rock on which they crouched. Then all that remained was the half-buried body. Elossa could not turn her gaze from that. The defense of the Yurth had been torn from her.

  Stans had crawled to her side. Now he pulled at her, thrusting his face
close to hers.

  “OUT!” He mouthed that order, jerking her toward the door through which she had been brought.

  Somehow his order carried weight enough to get her started. But she retreated on her hands and knees, his hand impatiently urging her along whenever she grew faint.

  Then they were out of the place of sickly scents, of death, and such illusions as she could no longer raise the strength to battle.

  “Free. . . .”

  No loud voice in her mind now, instead a whisper of near exhaustion.

  Stans turned his head from where he had collapsed against the wall, only that support keeping him from sliding directly prone.

  “Free. . . .” But he had said that aloud—and the other had been the multi-voice.

  They were free indeed—but Yurth could not have done it without Raski. It had been Stans’ actions back there in Karn’s chamber to which much of the triumph belonged.

  “Yurth,” she said slowly, “and Raski. . . .”

  He gave a sigh. “This. . . .” His glance went beyond her as if viewing all the length of the burrows underneath the earth. “Was evil of Raski—we did not stand guiltless after all. Raski and Yurth—perhaps something may now come of that thought we two shared in Kal-Hath-Tan after all.”

  She was so tired, so tired it was an effort to raise her hand from where it lay limp beside her knee. But this time she was the one to hold out palm and fingers in a gesture of union. Nor did she shrink, even in her mind, when his grasp closed about hers.

  “Raski and Yurth—and freedom for both.”

  “True.” The voice in her mind was stronger, a little eager, life was flowing back.