Vandien set down the waterskin to jerk the door open. Then there were sounds, gasps of pain and a quickly smothered cry from Chess as they dove under the cloak covers again. Vandien entered hastily, dragging the door shut behind him. But the small shaft of sunlight still squeezed in the door, and neither Jace nor Chess emerged.
'Just for one moment,' Vandien promised as he took up the corner of Jace's cloak. She gasped in fear as he whisked it from her and stuffed it into the gap left by the faulty door. The portly man's cloak was a fine one, its weave heavy and costly. The bright fibers shut out the sun. Vandien had plunged himself into a hot and dusty darkness. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.
'That's so much better,' breathed Jace. Vandien heard her sit up in the darkness beside him.
'I can't see a thing,' he complained, but as his eyes adjusted, he found that was not strictly true. The pale green of Jace's gown almost glowed, and there was a sheen to her hair and eyes that even the darkness could not quench. Chess at last unrolled from the cloak and ventured out. Vandien distinguished his pale eyes and fine hair in the darkness. He proffered the waterskin to Jace and she seized it gratefully.
Chess drank first, taking in long gasping gulps. Vandien moved his tongue inside his mouth. He had drunk his fill of cold water at the public well when he filled the skin, but the fine dust and feathers sucked the moisture from his mouth. Sweat trickled down his back in the closeness and heat, but he said nothing.He watched Jace drink, more quietly than the unabashed boy, but with equal eagerness and relief. She then damped the corner of Vandien's cloak and soothed the blisters that had begun to break and run on Chess's face and arms.
'I never saw a people so affected by the sun,' Vandien observed.
Jace damped the corner again and began easing the sores on her own face. 'And I never saw a man so blind, and yet so easy in his movements. When the hot light came, neither you nor the folk of your city cried out or were burned.'
'Where does that Gate go?' Vandien asked the question that gnawed him, thinking of Ki who had gone ahead.
'To my home,' Jace replied with childish inadequacy. 'I wish I could tell you more. There is only this. When the worlds are in alignment, the Limbreth can make a Gate. The Gate can be used as a passage, as long as the balance is kept. Through the Gate the Limbreth calls folk to bring it new ideas and joys. Out of the Gate pass those discontented in our own world. Those who come in walk the road that leads to the Limbreth, to be blessed by the Jewels.'
'Your legends leave little hope for us to get through the Gate.'
'Legends do not always tell all there is to know.'
'The innmaster's cellar was cooler than this place.' Chess broke the conversation. 'I liked being down there during the day. Usually he left me alone down there for all the hot light time. I wish I were there now.'
'Hush!' Jace rebuked him. 'At least we're together now. And we have a friend.'
The silence that followed weighed awkwardly on Vandien. He fumbled in the darkness, found the loaves of bread and the dried fish. 'I brought food,' he announced in a falsely hearty voice. 'I thought you might be hungry.'
Chess immediately reached for a loaf and broke an end off. He was already nibbling at it while Jace took a piece of salt fish from Vandien's hand. He heard her sniff at it cautiously.
'What is this made from? I do not mean to seem ungrateful, but it smells spoiled.'
'Let me see it.' Vandien nibbled a piece off, swallowed it. Immediately his drink-soured stomach offered it back to him, but he managed to keep his throat closed. After a moment's struggle, 'It's fine,' he managed. 'Smoked a little heavily for my taste, but good river fish. This spring's catch, or so the monger claimed.'
'You ate a fish?' It was Chess's shocked voice coming in the brooding silence. ' You ate a moving, alive thing?' There was horror in the voice, and hurt.
'Such is our custom.' It sounded stiff, even to Vandien. But how could he have known that there were Humans who ate like Dene, refusing all food that didn't grow from a root? Vandien heard a scuffling as Chess crept to his mother's side.
'He's as horrid as the rest of them,' he whispered hoarsely. 'As bad as the innmaster ... who sometimesdid not leave me alone in the cellar.'
To Vandien the stuffy little coop was suddenly as cold and dank as some evil well. 'I ...' he choked. 'Among our people, it is not a custom ... not acceptable to force ... never a child ...' He could find no words of defense and his own bile rose at what Chess had implied. Soured Alys and acid scorched the back of his throat. He wished he could be sick, alone somewhere. But he could not open the door and let light fall on them. He breathed deep, his lips and eyes tight. He heard Jace whispering words of comfort to her son, but for his own soul there was no comfort. He got up, paced two steps and flung himself into the far corner of the coop. 'I am sorry.' Empty words. 'There will always be those who prey on the defenseless. There will always be the occasional one who is twisted, a disgrace to the whole species.'
'Not in my world.' Jace's voice was firm now, but Vandien sensed the thinness of her control. 'Not in my land. I hunger so for its peace now. This is horror and evil beyond my wildest fears. My Chess will have much to forget. If he can. I know I cannot.'
Vandien sat silent in his corner, wondering where he had come in. He had been trying to find Ki. These two had shown up. He had helped them escape being stoned to death, found them shelter (such as it was), brought them water and food, and now he sat apart from them in their darkness, an object of disgust, a member of an immoral and unclean species.
And yet ... Damning his own empathy, Vandien followed the thought to its end. What betrayal Chess must be feeling, to find that his 'rescuer' was a beast who dined on the flesh of living creatures? What antipathy must Jace feel toward him and those others of this world so debased as to turn on their own young? The giddy circles of his own thoughts dizzied him as he took both sides against himself. He wished he had either drunk less Alys last night, or had more to dose himself with now. He was suffocating in this darkness and heat. He was on the point of figuring a polite way to leave when he felt a touch on his forearm, light as moonlight. He turned his head.
Jace knelt beside him. Her pale hair fell like a veil of silk. Her head was bowed, and the rippling hair sheltered him from her lambent eyes. Her long fingers were warm where they rested on his arm, but somehow they lessened the discomfort of the coop.
'Chess sleeps.'
'Oh.' He sensed her overture of peace.
'Have you ever gathered mushrooms, man of the hot light? Do they have them on this side?'
'When I was a boy, I did. I remember little of it, other than the peace of the very early morning in a dim forest, carrying a basket on my arm, and being, for the moment, an equal with the other boys in my family's holdings. Why? Did you want me to bring mushrooms? The sun is too high for them now, and the weather of this summer too hot and dry.'
'No,' sighed Jace, and Vandien heard a trace of humor and warmth. 'I was trying to find a basis for an understanding. That is what came to me. In my place, we gather the orange milk cap.'
'As we do here.' Vandien felt an unreasonable pleasure at recognizing the name from his childhood. 'If you scratch the gills, a milky liquid comes out. That is one way to know it.'
'Yes. An excellent food. Do you also have here the fool's deceiver?' Vandien shook his head in the darkness, but she picked up his response.
'Well, we do. It, too, will leak milky fluid from its gills if scratched. It, too, has the orange and green mottled cap, lacking only the orange circle inside the cut stem to be twin to the orange milk cap.'
Vandien's headache returned. The mycology lesson seemed moot to him at this time, other than an interesting comparison of what kindred worlds might share. He shifted under her touch; the pressure of her fingers increased lightly.
'I'm not good at putting thoughts into words. Chess and I live alone on the farm. For two as close as we are, words and explanations are not ofte
n needed. We are with each other so much that I can tell you the origin of every thought in his head. Or could, before.' Jace sighed, and Vandien expected her to fall silent and withdraw from him. But she cleared her throat and went on. 'In my world, we have the two kinds of mushrooms, so similar in form. One is a delight to the palate, a food to be found when others fail. The other is rarer, and likewise delights the tongue, until its slow poisons begin their insidious work. Yet I do not cease gathering the one for fear of the other. I just remember to be cautious. Nor do I think the less of the good mushroom, because the one that mimics it is harmful.'
'Your words take you to your meaning by a very roundabout path.'
'You are right. I will say it simply. I will not judge you by the evil of your fellows. But neither shall I shed the caution I feel need of here. That I will keep as a cloak to protect me until I am safely home.'
'That would be wise.' What manner of world had this grown woman come from, that she would phrase out to him so carefully a lesson known by the smallest street child? He thought of Ki in such a place and shook his head. How long before she realized she had been duped and came back to the Gate?
Jace's cool fingers were still resting on his arm. He covered them for a moment with his own callused hand. She snatched them away, as if even this friendly pat were a thing to be wary of. Vandien could not blame her.
'Rest now,' he advised her. 'At nightfall, I want to try this Limbreth Gate again. Do you think any have ever forced a way through? Without another coming to change places, I mean.'
'I think not.' Jace hesitated. 'The Gate is hard to see when your world is white. And no one may pass unless the Keeper allows it. Then the way opens.'
'I didn't see it closed last night.'
'You felt it. Like a fine cloth barring the way, did you not?'
'More like the birth membrane on a calf.'
'I have never seen the birth of a calf. But doubtless you are right.'
'You've never seen a calf born?' Vandien was skeptical. 'You let your cattle birth alone, in the fields?'
'We keep no cattle.'
'You eat no meat.' 'How can a sentient being put the carcass of another living creature into its mouth? It is an abhorrent idea. It defies all righteousness, all sensibilities.'
Vandien ignored the insults. His mind went back to chew at the Gate. 'If the Gate is impassable when closed, why have a Gate Keeper at all?'
'Perhaps he is only a cruel man that loves hurt.'
'Perhaps, but not likely. Jace, any Gate that opens and closes may be forced. Or tricked. He let Ki's wagon pass. Did he look within it?'
'He would not need to. Nor need he search. One cannot evade his knowledge. Eyeless he knows.'
'Bunk!' Vandien leaned back against the rickety wall, unmindful of the shower of dust it loosed down his back. 'There's never yet been a city Gate that I couldn't pass when I found needful. This won't be the first.'
His dark eyes narrowed, and then closed completely. Jace stared across at him, her luminous eyes puzzled and faintly revolted. 'You have no respect for rules, for the rightness of things and the balances that must be kept.' She made the observation as if noting that he smelled peculiar.
'None at all,' Vandien admitted freely. 'A balance is an invitation to a finger on the scales. Tonight I'll be that finger. If you'll ever let me sleep long enough for the plan to hatch.'
He slumped a little deeper. Jace stared at him, and moving slowly as if she were caged with a beast, she lay her own body down between Vandien and her child.
FOUR
Ki was awakened by a whiffling near her ear. She pushed Sigmund's big muzzle away. Her eyes slid open and she lay still, staring up into a soft sky of deepest grey, one shade from black. Dawn's edge, perhaps? Yet she felt oddly rested and revived, as if she had slept for more than a night. Dreams tattered at the edges of her mind and she tried to knit them back together, but they unraveled before her waking eyes. There had been a castle at the foothills of the sky, trimmed in lace of light. She had known that Vandien was there, and not only him, but all her heart's desires. She had only to follow the road to the shimmering glow on the horizon. She tried to remember more detail, but could not. The dream eluded her conscious mind, seeping into deeper parts of her.
She sat up and stretched; hunger nibbled at her. Well , her last meal had been only berries and cold stream water. Before that, the Cinmeth at the tavern. That took it back to yesterday morning since she had really eaten. The only wonder was that she wasn't ravenous.
She mounted the seat of her wagon and slid open the cuddy door. The dark cuddy was full of the homey smell of Vandien, stored food and their possessions. She ducked past smoked sausages swinging from the rafters to climb down into her small home. She moved easily in this familiar clutter, drawing her belt knife and reaching for one of the dangling sausages. No. Not meat. Ki set her knife down on the shelf and stared at the sausages. Why had she never truly seen them as dead flesh before? She was filled with disgust. She ran her hand down the front of her long skirt to erase the smell of the oily meat. Some dried fruit and a wedge of cheese, she found, were all she wanted. Tea would be nice. She picked up her kettle. But the thought of building a fire by the side of that silvery stream, of roasting to death all the small plants and deep moss for the sake of a hot drink made her shrink. She thought, too, of bright orange flame stabbing the soft night, licking away the gentle darkness. She put the kettle back.
The silvery darkness outside the cuddy welcomed her back. It electrified her now as it had earlier soothed her. She nibbled alternate bites of fruit and cheese as she wandered around her wagon. The team was as restive as she. They came begging for a bit of the dried apple. Sigurd, rude as ever, nipped at Sigmund's face to try and claim more than his share. But she parceled it out evenly, with only a rebuking tap to Sigurd's velvety nose. She finished the last of the cheese and drank deeply from the stream.
An eagerness filled her. She wished Vandien had waited. Why had he gone on? The road ahead of her was silent and the sky just as grey as ever. The glimmer on the horizon was not dawn, but the same jewel-like glow she had noted the night before. A man on horseback could be far ahead by now. If she was going to catch up, she had to start now. At least there was no mistaking his route; she'd passed no crossroads. She wondered idly how the folk reached their cottages she had glimpsed earlier, and then shrugged it off. It wasn't her problem, though she could understand their reluctance to pound the sweet mosses into a hard-hearted road.
She whistled softly and the team came. They drifted into their places like great grey ghosts. As Ki reached and stretched for buckles and straps, she was unusually aware of their huge sleek bodies under her hands. Even the snappish Sigurd was unusually benign. The harnessing finished, Ki felt a surge of elation. She was on her way, to Vandien and whatever else awaited her. To those glorious beckoning gleams of mystery that fringed the horizon. Limbreth Jewels, her dream echoed softly. Ki smiled at the fancy. She was not sure what waited there, but it mattered less every moment. Vandien was only a part of it now.
Mounting her wagon she took up the reins. The team reached for the smooth and softly shining road before them. The wheels unrolled their journey upon it, the rumbling muted by the evenness of the surface. Ki felt the vibrations like music in her body. She leaned back against the door of the cuddy, the reins lax over her fingers. The hooves of the team neither rang nor clopped; there was only a thud, thud, thud of their easy pace. They passed gently swelling pasturelands, and then fields, obviously cultivated, but bearing no crop she recognized. The plants grew in even rows, bushes with a healthy bluish-green sheen to their leaves even in the darkness.
The placid grey twilight curled warm about her. It seemed to have no end; she no longer watched the sky for signs of dawn. The horses plodded steadily onward, seeming as dogged in their purpose as Ki herself. She lifted her eyes to the intermittent gleams at the base of the sky. A comparison occurred to her. She closed her eyes and pressed lightly on
her eyelids until she saw lights against them. When she opened her eyes again, she was both pleased and justified to find that the lights and patterns matched exactly. They were hers, those far lights, intended for Ki. It was unthinkable that she not go to them.
Then Sigurd balked, very slightly, and Sigmund was forced to echo him. The team carefully detoured around a heap of objects in the road. One tall wheel bit gently into deep moss as the team skirted the obstacle. Ki glanced down to see what they passed, expecting to see a basket of produce tumbled from some farmer's cart, or the like. Her involuntary start of surprise tugged the reins and brought the team to a halt. Ki stared down, leaning over the side of her wagon. Habit made her set the wheel brake and wrapthe reins about it before she dismounted. The shield of a Rouster stared up at her.
It was like a sprinkle of water on a dreamer's face. She found herself dragged unwillingly back to the edges of her normal world. Before her were all the accouterments for a warrior and horse. It was a riddle she didn't wish to consider. Yet here it was, too strange to be ignored.
Dubiously she lifted the padded chemise from the top of the pile. It unfolded from her hands and fell past her knees. A large warrior. Ki glanced about the empty night, expecting to hear someone cry out to leave the things alone. Nothing moved; no one spoke.
Beneath the creamy chemise was a light but finely wrought mail shirt, a sweet jingling ringing from it as it swung from her fingers. Here were heavily padded leather trousers and padded tubelike garments that Ki deduced to be arm protection. Spurred boots leaned against a saddle of black leather. The saddle's peculiar design made it look singularly uncomfortable. A bridle of matching design was looped over the cantle. Other strapped items and metal pieces beneath the saddle appeared to be light armor for a horse. The sword was a stiff and heavy affair, made in an unfamiliar style; its stained and worn scabbard of dark leather banded with metal testified to regular use. And the shield burned with the hated Rouster symbol.
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