Spirit Gate

by Kate Elliott

  It begins. Wind rips the mist into streamers that billow like cloth, like the white linen and silk banners strung up around Sorrowing Towers where the dead are laid to rest under the open sky. He begins to sweat, waiting for the apparition.

  Waiting to see her. Gods spare him this! But the gods never listen.

  A shadow moves along the hill. As though harnessed to his eagle, he swoops closer. There she is!

  A hand brushes his thigh, turns into a familiar caress.

  He shouts in surprise, for he has never before reached her, touched her.

  He sat up, startling awake. His forehead slammed into a jaw.

  She fell back, thumping onto the planks. “Eiya! The hells!”

  The pain in his forehead lanced deep.

  “Shit!” she added. It was Udit. “That’s cut my lip! I’m bleeding!”

  His stomach heaved. Barely in time, he flung himself to the corner and threw up all the cordial and that good venison and leek stew. The taste was vile.

  “Begging your pardon,” she said coldly, her humor turning fast into disgust. “You stink!”

  He gagged, retched, and coughed up the leavings.

  Scrabbling in the dark, she took her leave. Through his pounding headache, he heard her feet scrape on the ladder as she climbed down. He was shaking so hard he could not call after her. Nor did he want to. He groaned, shifting back to his cloak, but the hay poked and irritated him, and the smell of his vomit rose rankly in the closed space, and the throbbing in his temple would not let up enough to let him rest. At length he pulled on trousers and vest, then crept outside where he sat on a bench on the porch of the inn, sliding in and out of a light doze. The Lamp Moon, rising, had just ghosted above the palisade. River’s Bend was a prosperous town with six avenues and six cross-alleys to link them. It had a permanent covered market, unusual in a town this size, and an exceptionally fine temple dedicated to Sapanasu, the Lantern.

  The inn’s porch overlooked the square fronting the main gate. A Ladytree had rooted there; it was a good place for it, just inside the gates, although no one was sleeping there tonight. It was very quiet, not a touch of wind. If there were guards posted in the watchtower, he could not see them from the covered porch because although the palisade was a simple pole structure, the gate itself had a doubled entryway: You had to enter through the outer gate into a small, confined area, where you waited for the inner gate to be opened to admit you to the town. The watchtower spanned the outer gate, and his view of it was in any case half blocked by the lush crown of the Ladytree.

  A scuffling sound caught his ear. He banked from drowsy to woken without moving. He watched as a figure sneaked out of a dark street and up to the palisade, right at the edge of the open ground. The figure leaned against the palisade, as though listening, then turned around to scan the entire open area fronting the inner gate. It did not discern Joss in the shadows of the porch. A moment later, a second figure appeared at the top of the wall, heaved itself over, and dropped, landing with a soft thump. A third and fourth followed.

  Joss carefully pulled on the leather thong at his neck and got his fingers on the bone whistle. He set it to his lips as a fifth and sixth topped the wall, lowered until they hung by their fingers, then let go.

  The bone whistle had three notes: one that hurt human ears, one that the eagles responded to, and one other, that on occasion served reeves well without drawing attention to them. Tapping that highest range, he blew. No human could hear that sound. But, by the gods, the dogs in town surely could. They erupted in a frenzy of barking and howling, coming from all quarters.

  The figures at the palisade froze. Although it was too dark to see them as more than shadows against darkness, he saw by their movements that they were drawing weapons. He did not move except to blow a second time on the whistle, to keep those dogs howling. He had not even brought his knife. Shouts rose in reply. Lights flared on porches.

  Unexpectedly, the sally door set into the inner gate scraped open, and five of the figures raced out through it. The sixth faded back into the shadows of the nearby buildings just as the sally door was dragged shut, and the first townsmen appeared on the streets, sleepy, annoyed, and carrying lamps and spears and stout staffs. One man brandished a shovel. The innkeeper stumbled out onto the porch. His comic gasp, when the nimbus of light from the lantern he carried caught Joss’s still figure, was enough to make Joss chuckle, and then regret it.

  “What’s this? What’s this?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” said Joss, rising. “I saw five figures come over the wall, and a sixth meet them.”

  The town arkhon strode up. She was a woman of middle years, with an expression on her face that would turn wine to vinegar in one breath. “So you say! Where’d they go then? We can’t have missed them, coming so quickly as we did. We knew somewhat was up with the dogs howling.”

  The dogs were still clamoring, but the noise had begun to die down.

  He walked them over to the spot. “See. Here it’s scuffed.”

  “Anyone could have done that,” said the arkhon with disgust. “You could have done it. Where’d they go, then?”

  “The gate was opened, and they ran out.”

  Folk muttered and cast him ugly looks.

  “Then why didn’t they just come in by the gate, if they could open it?” she demanded. “Here, Ahion, go take a look.”

  Everyone followed the innkeeper as he shuffled over, still half asleep and grumbling as well, like a man talking through his dreams. “Can’t trust damn reeves. Make such a fuss. Cursed troublemakers.”

  He held his lamp at the gate and studied the clasp with eyes half shut. At that moment the iron handle lifted, and the sally door was opened. A young man with tousled hair looked through. When he spoke, his words were slurred, and he seemed woozy.

  “Why are you all out here? What’s that clamor?”

  “Gods, Teki! Aren’t you on guard? Were you asleep again?”

  The youth lifted a chin, attempting defiance. Then his lips thinned, seeing those cold and angry faces. He hunched his shoulders defensively. Abruptly, he yelped as if he’d been kicked. A young woman pushed past him, her expression as stormy as the season of Flood Rains. She wore only a robe, loosely belted and ready to slip and reveal all. It already revealed plenty, and she knew it, and expected every man there to stare at her.

  “You promised me a quiet night!” She slapped the lad, turned—flashing a ripely rounded breast before she yanked tight the gaping robe—and strode off through the crowd, swearing at anyone who got in her way.

  “Sheh! For shame!” exclaimed Ahion. “That’s the last time that’ll happen, my lad.”

  “I know. I know. I promise. I won’t do it again.”

  “No,” said the arkhon. “That’s the last time it’ll happen, because you’re stripped of guard duty. For shame!”

  In a town like River’s Bend, everyone knew everyone, and all business was the town’s business. The folk gathered began to scold and berate the lad, for drinking, for being distracted, for being a cursed fool led by his cock and not what little straw he might have between his ears.

  Joss stepped in. “I beg pardon, but what of the men I saw come over the palisade?”

  The young man gaped at him, blinking fast. “What men? I saw nothing. I was awatch since sunset.”

  “You were atilt, more like,” said Ahion with a snort.

  “You were asleep, I’d wager,” said Joss.

  The boy’s breath stank of soured cordial, and in the lamplight, his eyes didn’t track properly. Joss pushed past the boy into the small enclosed court, but naturally no one was hiding there and the outer gate was locked tight with a chain drawn through its rings and bolt. Ahion accompanied him to the gatehouse atop the outer gate, but the narrow room was empty except for a lamp, an unrolled mat, and a spilled flask of cordial. Most of the folk hurried back to their beds, but the arkhon and the innkeeper followed him in, pushing the hapless guard before them.

 
; “Where’s your night raiders?” the arkhon demanded. “What in the hells did you think you were seeing, reeve? You rousted us for nothing.”

  “What do you think the dogs were barking at?” Joss peered out through the slatted window but naturally he saw no one on the road. “Folk came over the wall. I saw them!”

  “You drank heavy this night,” remarked the innkeeper. “Not unlike the lad, here. It wouldn’t be the first time that a man thought he saw shadows that were only the drink leading him places that don’t exist.”

  “I’ll stand gate watch the rest of the night,” said the arkhon, giving the lad a look that made him flinch and begin to blubber. “Oh, shut your mouth, you useless clod! Just go home. I can’t sleep anyway, now.” She turned a harsh look on Joss, shaking her head. “To think reeves have come to this!”

  Ahion grunted and, taking the light, forced Joss to follow after him to get down the stairs.

  “You’ll be leaving at dawn, then,” said the innkeeper as they closed the inner sally door and paused on the porch to catch their breath.

  “With the company.”

  The merchants and a few of the other guests had come out on the porch to inquire over the rumpus. Udit did not look at him. Her upper lip was swollen. As Ahion told the tale, Joss came over looking like a drunken troublemaker. Grumbling, the guests returned to their beds, all but the eldest of the merchants, the one called Kasti. He was a man with scars on his neck and a broken nose long since healed crooked; he’d seen brawls in his younger days. He lingered on the porch, with a lit taper in his hand.

  “Do you still claim you saw those figures? And the gate opened, by someone who gained access from the gatehouse, or outside?”

  “I do. Here.” Joss led him down the steps and over to the spot along the palisade where the figures had dropped to the ground. Kasti bent, grunting a little—he was also a portly man, well fed—and traced the ground with the light of the candle. The pressure of bare feet on dusty ground was plain, but it was perfectly true that in these last days of Furnace Sky, waiting for the rains, earth might get scuffed up and no wind or rain come for days to erase those traces.

  “Look, there,” said Joss quietly. A piece of flotsam had fetched up against the palisade, partly caught where dirt was tamped in between the curve of two logs. He got his fingers round a leather thong and tugged free a flimsy medallion of hammered tin, meant to resemble an oversized coin with the usual square hole through the middle but with an unusual eight-tanged starburst symbol crudely stamped onto the metal.

  Kasti whistled under his breath.

  “You recognize this?” asked Joss, handing it over.

  Kasti examined both sides. “I’ve seen this mark before. Just the one time. My house deals in skins and furs. I do a fair bit of traveling up-country, to the Cliffs, to trade with the folk living there. Good hunting in the wild lands, you know. There was a little hamlet, called Clear-river, where lived a family that was well skilled at getting the best-quality hammer-goat pelts off the plateau. Those bring a good price, I’m sure you know. Three years back—no, four years now, for it was the Year of the Brown Ox—I went up there just after the whispering rains did run their course to take my look at their catch. Cursed if the hamlet was burned to the ground and everyone gone. I suppose they must all have been kilt, for we never heard whisper nor shout of them after. I found such a medallion in the ruins of the clan house. Made me wonder, for it seemed to me that it had been dropped atop the cold ashes of what was left, not that it had been in the burning itself.”

  “Best we let the arkhon know.”

  The merchant nodded. “Let me do it. She’s taken a dislike to you.” He slipped the medallion in his sleeve. Without looking at Joss, he cleared his throat. “Udit is my cousin’s daughter. Nothing wrong with her, mind you, but she’s skittish, and can be troublesome.”

  Joss sighed. “Thanks for the words, ver. But I fear I’ve already chased off that ibex.”

  Kasti chortled. “Heh. That’s right. And she’s born in the Year of the Red Ibex, to add to the trouble of it. Nah, you’re well rid of her attentions. She’s quick to fall in that snare, and quick to leap out, if you do take my meaning.”

  Quick to leap out, indeed. At dawn, when their company assembled for the last leg of the journey, Udit greeted Joss curtly and then ignored him.

  Joss pulled Kasti aside before they moved out. “What did the arkhon say?”

  “I’ll tell you, she was curdled from the night’s mischief. Seems that lad who was on guard duty and caught with his trousers undone was her own son. Whew! Anyway, I gave her the medallion and told her my tale. That’s all I can do.”

  Sometimes you just had to go forward, because you’d done all you could do. In the first few years after Marit’s death, he had broken the boundaries again and again, seeking out every local tale and hint of Guardian altars, most of which could be reached only if you could fly in. He had eventually found ten, all abandoned, all empty, lost, dead, gone, before old Marshal Alard at Copper Hall had found out what he was doing and called him down so hard he thought he’d never stop falling. He’d been grounded for months, whipped three times, and finally transferred to Clan Hall, where the old hands had treated him with disdain and, even, contempt, for a time. Well, all but a few of the women. They’d come around first, and in time he had earned respect by sticking to his duty and working harder than anyone else. By serving justice, which was all he had to hold to. But it was so cursed hard to keep going when it all seemed to be slipping away no matter what you did.

  These thoughts accompanied him as he flew sweeps into up-country Low Haldia, as the company labored along the track called the Thread through increasingly rugged country with ten wagons, their carters, guards, hirelings, and a few slaves to be sold in the up-country markets. It was a difficult region for reeves to patrol. Woodland blocked his view; ravines cut through the hills, all easy to hide in. Where folk had built their homes, handsome settlements spread out with the houses clustered in a central location and fields draped around. Every one of these villages and hamlets had a palisade, recently constructed or recently repaired and reinforced. The fields provided open ground in all directions, so the locals could see who was coming.

  Unlike some eagles, Scar was naturally reticent, not at all fond of attention, so the eagle minded not that Joss camped off by himself every evening and went into camp only to consult about the next day’s route. After three days, Alon split off. Two days later Darya reached home to great celebration. The road twisted north; to the east rose the Cliffs, the spectacular escarpment running on and off for a hundred mey where the land lifted pretty much straight up to become the northwestern plateau. In two days more they came to prosperous if isolated country, a haven full of fields, orchards, villages, hamlets. In the town of Green-river, along the banks of a stream tumbling down off the plateau, Kasti and Udit made their farewells.

  A job well done, Kasti told him.

  That was something Joss didn’t hear much anymore. He was grateful for the words, and for the sack of provisions Kasti’s clan house offered him for the return. He didn’t need much. A path on earth that ate twelve days of walking and riding might easily be traversed by a healthy eagle in two or three days at the most, depending on the winds and the weather. He and Scar sailed along parallel to the striking escarpment of the Cliffs, rising on thermals, gliding down, rising and gliding. This mode of travel was effortless for the raptor. At times such as this, Joss scanned the scenery below but counted on Scar to note any small movements out of his weak human range of sight. Scar was an old and experienced eagle. According to hall records, Joss was his fifth reeve. He had courage, combined with a reticent temper, and was intent on his task in a way few younger eagles could be.

  Thus, when Joss sensed Scar’s restlessness, a series of aborted stoops at some flash of movement in wood or clearing below that Joss could not discern, he thought it best to make an early night’s camp. The eagle sensed danger, was hungry, saw prey or so
me movement that caused him to react, yet Joss never saw a damned thing in the trees and the shadows and the rugged landscape, and he was not going to explore into an ambush without his eagle at his back.

  At length, he spotted a quiet village tucked into the shadow of the cliffs, about thirty structures including the distinctive “knotted walls” and astronomical tower of a small temple to Sapanasu, the Lantern. They skimmed low, then thumped down in the cleared space beyond the village’s earthwork, among the rubble of old straw in a field not yet prepared for planting. There was a single fish pond, a straggle of fruit trees, and several empty animal pens. This was a hardscrabble place, one just hanging on because of the presence of the temple, which could accept tithes from neighboring villages.

  He unhitched, sighed as he rubbed his joints, and turned to give a quick check to Scar’s harness and feathers before approaching the village. Scar lowered his huge head. His head feathers were smooth and flat, his eyes as big as plates with the brow ridge giving him a commanding gaze, and his beak massive. Folk would focus on that head, when it was the talons they ought to fear most.

  “You’ll need coping soon,” he said, examining the curved beak.

  Scar’s head went up. He spread his wings, flared his feathers, fanned his tail.

  Joss spun.

  A trio of armed men had emerged from the village. They strode halfway to their visitors, then halted just out of arrowshot. Scar called out a challenge. The eagle’s entire posture had shifted. He expected the worst. Joss caught up his staff and walked over to meet them, scanning the palisade walls, the surrounding fields, but he saw no threatening movements, no flash of hidden bows, no mass of men waiting to strike.

  “Greetings of the dusk to you,” he called when he got close enough.

  None smiled or offered greetings.

  “Go back!” said the spokesman. “Leave this place. We want no reeves here.”