The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien)

by Martha Wells

  The door opened without even a creak.

  Florian paused on the threshold, examining the next room cautiously through the aether-glasses. Nothing here was warded, but the doorway to the next room was surrounded by white pulsing energy, invisible to the naked eye but clearly revealed by the enspelled lenses. Florian grimaced. That had to be the room with the vat that Niles had managed to briefly glimpse with his scrying. I’m not getting in there, not without letting Ixion know all about it. And I’d probably get turned into something awful into the bargain. Damn.

  She stepped into the room, slowly and carefully, her rubber-soled shoes quiet on the metal floor. This chamber isn’t warded, but that one is. Because this one is for show? It was all perfectly normal, for a sorcerer’s workroom. A wooden tool bench held an array of glass jars containing the usual herbal and alchemical materials, probably brought on board by the Capidarans, as Niles would no doubt have refused to share his store. The lead case that held the captured Gardier sorcerer crystal sat on the bench. Florian stared hard at it but couldn’t see a trace of etheric activity either. No books, but then according to Giliead, Syprian sorcerers didn’t use them, committing everything to memory. Which is a little scary in itself, she thought, her mouth twisted.

  The jars of herbs and minerals were all as they should be, but… She stepped to the worktable, looking closely, careful not to touch anything. Some of the jars had been messed about with, perhaps in an attempt to make them look used. But it didn’t bear any resemblance to the controlled chaos of the alchemical laboratories she had seen. And though Niles was scrupulously neat, even his work area wasn’t as clean as this. For show, she thought, nodding to herself. He doesn’t use these things, he doesn’t need them for whatever it is he’s doing in there.

  Florian took a deep breath, unsatisfied, but there seemed little she could do here, unless she wanted to risk death and expose her activities to Ixion, probably with no result except for Chandre ordering her arrest for treason or something.

  She turned to go but hesitated, looking at the silent metal box that held the crystal. She wondered if the woman inside was lonely; Giliead had been the only one able to communicate with her. Well, maybe Ixion really will make her a body, she thought, then sourly, Oh, please. Not even I’m naive enough to believe that. Not anymore, anyway.

  They spent the rest of the night with the Aelin. At one point Tremaine sat down to lean her tired back against the lacquered side of the airship, closed her eyes to rest them, and woke up sometime later slumped over on her side with her head pillowed on Ilias’s lap.

  Far from being reticent, Obelin and the others old enough to remember had talked eagerly about their lost home and their time here, and had led them on a grand tour of their living arrangements, including the little fountain where they did the laundry. They had also talked a great deal about Castines.

  Though they had basically fallen for what Tremaine would have considered a confidence trick, none of the Aelin were stupid. They knew they had been tricked, and with not much else to do with their time they had come up with every theory imaginable to explain why. The fact that their new Rienish friends could shed even a little light on this point was almost more valuable to them than the prospect of rescue.

  “I’m really not certain what Castines’s motive was,” Gerard explained, when they had taken a seat around the substantial cooking hearth the Aelin had built in the back of the room. “We know he must have already had possession of a crystal powerful enough to open a gate; otherwise, he couldn’t have reached your world to find you. The circle symbols he used must have opened a direct gate to the same location in the destination world. Unlike the point-to-point circles, the ones carved into the floor in the other large chamber, the mobile circle needs an air- or seacraft to operate, since it’s difficult to use safely on land.”

  Obelin nodded slowly. “Before we agreed to his plan, it occurred to us that he might be a bandit who would lead us to a place where his men could take our airship. This had happened before, to clans traveling in the wilderness.” He made a weary gesture. “That we were prepared for, or so we thought.”

  The oldest woman, whose name was Eliva, sighed, and Obelin threw her a reproachful look. Tremaine interpreted that to mean that there had been debate about this decision at the time, and the faction who had originally lost was still cherishing its vindication.

  Gerard hesitated a moment, then asked reluctantly, “Apparently your companions that he took with him …were able to use arcana?”

  “Yes, two of them had learned how to do the arcana that helped us guide the winds and protect the ship from storms,” Eliva told him. Gerard was trying to keep his expression blank, but Eliva wasn’t fooled. She told him simply, “We already know he must have killed them all. We’ve mourned them for dead.” It was her turn to hesitate, looking at the fire with her gray brows drawn together, the flickering light painting the seamed canvas of her face. “If you know how they may have died, you could tell us. It would be no worse than anything we have imagined.”

  Tremaine translated this quietly for Ilias and Giliead, wincing at the picture it conjured. The old woman’s words brought the Aelin’s loss and pain home to her in a particularly unpleasant way. How many people had she known well, whom she was unlikely ever to see alive again, whose fates she couldn’t even guess at? What if Gerard and one of the others tested a gate and never came back, and they were left to sit stranded somewhere and wonder? All in all, she thought she preferred to be the one who disappeared.

  Gerard cleared his throat. “This is something that we believe has happened to many of our people who are sorcerers—users of arcana. The Gardier use them to make the crystals work spells….”

  And Gerard explained who the Gardier were and what they had done.

  Now that morning had dawned and they were on their way back to the circle chamber, all the Aelin following, Tremaine still wasn’t certain it was a good idea. Obelin and Eliva and the others had been reluctant to believe it, insisting that their people did not go to war, that surely not every clan could have been persuaded to such a bizarre course of action, no matter what rewards they were given. That not every part of their land could be so changed from what they remembered.

  Tell me about it, Tremaine thought with a trace of bitterness, as they reached the circle chamber. Aras and Cletia were waiting for them in the archway, their expressions both worried and frustrated, though Giliead had walked back earlier to report that all was well. But much as Tremaine would like, she couldn’t blame these Aelin for the actions of the Gardier. It might be a characteristic of this particular family, like the way the Andrien family, saddled with a Chosen Vessel, were more open-minded about magic than other Syprians. But these people were open, candid, curious and gregarious, everything the Gardier were not.

  Tremaine glanced at Davret, who was walking along beside her and Ilias, and asked, “Do your people have a rule about not learning other languages?”

  Davret snorted in surprise. “No. How could we be traders if we couldn’t talk to other people?”

  “That’s a good question.” And Tremaine was willing to bet whoever had come up with that new rule had wanted to stop that open communication with anyone foreign. The Rienish had had some hints of this change from Calit’s memories of the stories his mother had told him. It was chilling, that it had taken only a generation to turn a society based on trade and exploration into a killing machine meant only for conquering. Benin, she thought, remembering the Gardier Scientist Nicholas had worked with while pretending to be a traitor. He was at least in his late forties, if not older. Old enough to remember the change. Did he actually think all this was a good idea? Many Aelin remained who were old enough to remember the change, yet they could—or would—do nothing to stop it.

  Watching Elon practically skip along, the older children dogging his heels and near frantic with excitement, Tremaine thought, They can’t go back to what they were. It made her cold and heartsick. Even if we win t
he war, stop whatever group of Gardier that make the crystals, they’ll never get back to what they were before. And neither will Ile-Rien. Her expression must have reflected her thoughts, because Ilias bumped his arm against hers, looking at her in concern. She shook her head slightly, telling him not to ask.

  Gerard paused to answer Aras’s impatient questions and the Aelin wandered past into the circle chamber.

  Obelin shaded his eyes against the shafts of bright morning light streaming through the louvers. “Yes, it was toward this end. It was morning when they left, you see,” he explained to Tremaine. “And I think we came through that door at the far end.”

  “Yes,” Eliva agreed, looking around with a thoughtful frown. “You’re right, we hadn’t explored as far as this room, and it was a great surprise to see it. I couldn’t think how they had kept the ceiling up without columns.”

  Tremaine managed not to launch into an explanation about buttresses just to relieve her own nervous tension. She didn’t want to distract them now. Obelin was moving toward the center of the room, where the high ceiling came down to a triangular point, highlighting the bands of symbols carved into the blue-white mottled wall. She noticed most of the Aelin crossed over the circles, stepping on the symbols, unlike the Rienish and the Syprians, who veered carefully around them.

  Cimarus and Balin had come out of the back, probably because Cimarus was dying of curiosity. Tremaine kept one eye on Balin but Cimarus was staying near her and the Gardier woman looked more baffled than angry. She hears them speaking Aelin, but they don’t look like her people. Balin wasn’t old enough to remember when Gardier were just Aelin, who preferred bright colors and traded for interesting gadgets and explored their world with avid curiosity. “Who are you?” Balin demanded, speaking to Elon, who happened to be closest.

  The young man smiled at her, puzzled. “We’re of the Lehirin line, of the clans of Etara. Who are you?”

  Lifting a brow, Tremaine didn’t think Elon realized Balin was Aelin; Tremaine and Gerard spoke the language just as well, and there was nothing particularly distinctive about Balin’s appearance. Balin didn’t answer him, retreating in confusion.

  “This is it.” Obelin waved to Gerard, and the sorcerer hurried over, the others following. Tremaine watched, only realizing she was biting a rough fingernail when she bit too hard and tasted blood. Ilias and Giliead had come to flank her, watching in silence while Aras demanded a translation and no one answered him. Obelin stopped at a circle at the further end of the room, directly under the point of the high roof, the louvers throwing half of it into warm daylight. At his side, Eliva nodded, her lined face dark with memory. He said, “I remember we walked to this end of the room, and Cherit told me they would return soon.” He shook his head, looking away.

  “Um…” Tremaine frowned at Gerard. If this is the one I think it is …

  Gerard knelt to examine the circle’s symbols, his face a study in confusion.

  “That’s the one we used to get here from the mountain,” Giliead said quietly.

  “Yes. That appears to be the case,” Tremaine told him in Syrnaic. She looked and found the break in the circle, the rough patch of stone where Gerard had used the sphere to melt a few symbols away, so the Gardier couldn’t follow them here.

  Gerard looked grim. “You’re correct. Well, this is a pretty problem.” He got to his feet, passing a hand over his face wearily.

  “So Castines used this circle to go to the mountain. That still leaves him here, in the staging world. How did he get to the Gardier world?” Tremaine demanded.

  Gerard shook his head. “He must have used the mobile circle. Or there was something in the mountain ruin that we missed.”

  Tremaine’s frustration bubbled over and she clapped a hand to her head, saying, “God, we’d have better luck playing roulette.” She turned helplessly to Obelin, asking in Aelin, “You’re certain? It was this one?”

  A boy who had worked his way close enough to stare with rapt interest at Giliead’s sword suddenly piped up, “That is the right one. It’s right next to the one with the button.”

  Tremaine stared at Gerard, then the boy. “Button?”

  He nodded, startled at suddenly being on the receiving end of so much concentrated attention by these strangers. He was small and thin, sharp-featured under a mop of dark hair, grubby and dressed in hand-me-down rags like all the others. Apparently he wasn’t old enough yet to be awarded a scrap of the brightly colored fabrics they were hoarding. “It was right here.” He pointed at the next circle over. It was only a few paces from the mountain circle, the morning light throwing it into shadow.

  “Wait, wait,” Gerard said, more to Tremaine, who had her mouth open. To the boy, he continued, “How did you know this was the circle Castines used to take the others away?”

  “My uncle showed it to me. We found the button together. He said the people who built this place must have left it.” The boy threw a reproachful look around. “Everyone else said it was one of our buttons, one of us must have lost it, but we knew the truth.”

  “Which one’s your uncle?” Tremaine demanded, glancing around at the older men and trying to stay calm. Her hands itched to grab the boy by the collar and shake him.

  “My brother,” Eliva explained, frowning dubiously at the boy. “He died two years ago. His daughter was one of those who went with Castines. He would have remembered this spot well. What is this button? Why is it important?”

  “What button?” Obelin demanded in exasperation, apparently of the entire group in general. “I don’t remember this at all.”

  Half a dozen others did, and all spoke up to remind him. “Quiet!” Tremaine shouted, waving her arms. It was just as well the Syprians and Aras couldn’t understand the conversation; they were all watching with various degrees of confusion and impatience. She turned to the boy, crouching to put herself at his eye level. “Kid. Yes, you. Did the button look like it was a kind of soft silver, with a flower etched on it?”

  He nodded in relief, perhaps at a question that he could readily answer, which seemed to signal that his button evidence was now being accepted as fact. “I remember the flower. I could draw it—”

  Tremaine motioned impatiently. “Where is it? Do you have it with you?”

  He shook his head emphatically. “When my uncle died I made it my grave-gift.”

  Tremaine took a deep breath, asking Gerard in Rienish, “I don’t think we need to talk them into digging up Uncle, do we?”

  “No, no, we don’t.” He eyed the unobtrusive circle thoughtfully. “I suspect we will be making an expedition this morning anyway.”

  It didn’t take them long to prepare to test the circle Arisilde had marked. By their previous arrangement it was Tremaine’s turn; Aras protested but Gerard gave the impression he would prefer to have Tremaine with him.

  The boy, whose name was Lomin, had been rewarded with a set of Syprian copper earrings ornamented with abstract stick figures spearing tentacled sea creatures, contributed by Cimarus. Tremaine had managed to head off the friendly offer to pierce the boy’s ears; having had a close look at Ilias’s during intimate moments, she suspected it involved something the size of a fruit knife and a lot of blood. Vervane had pinned the earrings to the boy’s shirt instead. Now Vervane was back watching over Meretrisa, and the younger Aelin were wandering around the chamber, the elders sitting with Aras to watch the gate spell.

  Ilias followed Tremaine to the edge of the circle, deeply worried. “Just… come back right away. If anything looks funny,” he told her.

  Gerard was already in the circle, paging through his notebook with an expression of concentrated frustration. She told Ilias, “It’ll be all right. We know Arisilde came here from there, wherever there is, so this circle doesn’t go to the place where whatever happened to him happened.”

  Ilias didn’t look comforted by this. “Just come back right away.”

  Gerard glanced up at her, took his pen out of his mouth and said, “Read
y?”

  Tremaine nodded and stepped over the edge. “Ready.”

  He touched the sphere, and suddenly they were in darkness. Tremaine took a startled breath, vividly recalling the gate Ilias and Gerard had found to the place with no air. But there was air here, it just smelled of rotten eggs. And there was no crushing heat like Ilias had described; it was warm and damp, but not much worse than the fortress.

  This is familiar. Tremaine blinked, trying to get her eyes used to the darkness. She could smell sea salt over the rotten egg odor, and that rushing sound wasn’t the blood pounding in her ears, it was the sea crashing against rock.

  Gerard, standing next to her, laughed suddenly. “Gerard—” she began uncertainly. This was a bad time for him to go mad. But gray light came from somewhere ahead, gradually illuminating rocky walls as her eyesight adjusted. And she knew this smell. “Oh, God. We’re on the island!”

  He grabbed her arm and shook it, jubilant. “Exactly! We’re only a few hours’ sail from Cineth.”

  Tremaine grabbed him too, bouncing excitedly, until she remembered this meant they were surrounded by a varied array of monsters created by Ixion’s sorcery, for his own sick amusement. Gerard must have recalled this at the same moment, because he detached himself from her and gestured a spell light into life above their heads.

  The pale white light lit up not a cave but a chamber constructed of the long black stone logs used by the builders of the abandoned city under the island. Drawing the pistol tucked into her belt and wishing she had brought the rifle, Tremaine pivoted, seeing the chamber was large and eight-sided, and the symbols of the circle were carved into the smooth floor.The spell light revealed that there was nothing hanging in wait from the ceiling. A large square doorway opened into a passage, but as Tremaine squinted suspiciously at it, Gerard gestured the light to move toward it. She saw it was blocked by a rockfall.