The Limbreth Gate

by Megan Lindholm

  ‘They went back inside,’ Hollyika informed him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face sagging with weariness. For a Brurjan she was grotesquely gaunt; it gave her face a Human cast. She needs food and rest, Vandien thought. She’s running on a thin edge of endurance. The amount she had eaten when they had the wagon might carry her a day or so, but not well. He reached for the food bag without speaking. He parceled out dry fish for her, which she took silently, and a handful of dried fruit for himself. He would have liked the fish, but this would sustain him, whereas it would do nothing for Hollyika. He felt her eyes on him as he rolled and tied the bag shut again.

  ‘We’ve got enough to make it,’ he told her with more confidence than he felt. She nodded slowly and put a whole stick of fish into her mouth. Her jaws moved four times and she swallowed. Her dark eyes flashed suddenly to his like a battering ram. ‘Stop looking at me like you want to take care of me,’ she snarled. ‘It makes me more nauseous than this fish. You should never eat anything after the blood clots.’

  ‘I’ll remember that,’ Vandien told her meekly, and was rewarded with a savage grin.

  ‘On to the bridge,’ she told him, and kneed her black gently.

  Ki firmly compressed the living earth in her thin hands. She closed her eyes and with the enchanted awareness of the Limbreths, she felt the potential life in the organic matter she held. Egg of insect, seed, tiny life forms smaller than imagining lay there. And more. The more that the Limbreths had given her. It was like a tool in her mind’s hands. And she, who had never been a carver of wood or a painter of pictures, began to create. This was to be the first blossom in her garden.

  She had tilled the spot she had chosen by crawling over it on her knees, turning the soil with her hands. The area had taken her some time to select, for she had wished to complement the bridge while taking nothing from it. She had decided finally that the garden would be visible from the arch of the bridge, and the swell of the bridge would be glimpsed from the garden. But between the garden and the bridge itself would be a section of the road where one would walk and see but one or the other. Thus each could be viewed in its purity, or as a complementary whole. She had made the Limbreths aware of her desire and they had given their approval. They had marked out the necessary limits of it in her mind for her, and she had begun her toil.

  The softening and turning of the earth had been a long task. Dirt had become embedded beneath her nails, and then her fingernails had worn away from the constant grubbing. The lines of her hands were stained with the black soil and her fingers cracked now and bled sometimes, but the Limbreths kept the pain from distracting her. She had concentrated on the next task, the moving of earth a double handful at a time, to create a harmonious rise and fall. The softly sculpted earth was ready now and waiting for her.

  Ki closed her eyes and opened the new ones the Limbreths had given her, the ones that looked in. She chose memories of awesome beauty from her past; the Sisters revealed to her in the silver shining glory of the mountain pass; the light-speckled spaces of the void she had leaped with Dresh; the face of Dalvi, the oldest Romni man of the tribes, wisdom gleaming from his undimmed eyes; a scarlet Harpy stooping to its kill: these images, and dozens more of her sharpest impressions she chose, and then let melt together. She reached for that essence of them that had caught her breathless between terror and wonder, and the tool of the Limbreths found it for her, and in Ki’s mind it shone.

  It sprouted from the double handful of soil she held, it took shape and grew cupped in the warmth of her two hands. Ki saw it growing within her mind, held her breath as it came to fulfillment and perfection in her hands. She had a moment of disbelief. It could not be. Not from her could come so wondrous a thing; it was beyond the skills any mortal might possess. ‘Do not doubt,’ the Limbreths chided her. ‘To doubt is to freeze the creativity. Cast it from your soul, and be absorbed in doing.’ Delighted, Ki obeyed.

  The flower sparkled, the brilliance of it cutting into her soul. It renewed in her the awesome beauty she had sought to recall. She treasured the miracle in her hands, experiencing wave after wave of blissful astonishment.

  ‘Enough!’ the Limbreths whispered to her. Ki sighed. She knelt and lowered it gently into the soft cup of earth that waited to receive it.

  ‘Grow,’ she bid it. It obeyed, a scintillating streamer of life, uncoiling to fill the indicated curve of bed, no stray leaf overreaching, no glistening facet of petal drooping beyond the space Ki had visualized. That one was done.

  Ki had to pause. A little tongue of weariness brushed against her. She felt, for an instant, drained; some part of her had been emptied. But when her puzzled mind groped for it, she found only the warm reassurances of the Limbreths. She was fine, all was well, and the garden begun. She did not want to cease being without completing it, did she? Of course not. So she must go on at once, without resting. It was begun so well. What was her next choice?

  Ki took a few steps until she felt the rightness of the place. Stooping, she raised another double handful of earth. Again she felt all the potential that lurked within it, and she relaxed, knowing already what she would imprint on it. Warmth; her mother’s soft breast against her cheek, filling her mouth with sweet milk; a litter of kittens asleep in her skirts; fresh berries picked and devoured while still warm from the sun.

  ‘Ki!’

  She started at the call, the cupped soil slipping between her fingers, the vision lost. Slowly she turned, blinking her eyes as if awakened by a strong light. For long moments she saw no one; then her eyes picked up movement, and finally shape. They were so grotesquely dark. Names came to her with no feelings attached to them. It was Hollyika the Brurjan bestriding a horse, and Vandien riding another as he kept a third prisoner on a lead line. Ki felt dismay uncoil within her at the sight. They came on toward her, dragging their darkness closer. Vandien was smiling, teeth white as a dog’s snarl, as if he delighted in the discord he brought to her garden. The burdened animals’ hooves left deep pock marks in her dirt. Her nostrils caught the sweat smell of the weary beasts, and her heart went out to them.

  Pity. That was another one. ‘Show us,’ begged the Limbreths, and Ki took up more dirt. She composed herself over it, sorting her memories for ones that were pure and strong. There was the Romni woman who had lost seven children and her man to fever, untouched by it herself; and - it was no good. Her traitor eyes flickered open at the thudding hooves, darting to the intruders. ‘Go on,’ begged the Limbreths. ‘Don’t mind them. They won’t dare to disturb you. In a moment they will have to go; we have provided for them. Go on about pity.’

  There had been the fighting dogs in Kalnor, kept in tiny cages and teased until released to fight to the death in pits, and that tiny, frail baby with …

  ‘Ki? Ki ? talk to me. Gods, look at her, Hollyika. You can see the shape of the bones in her hands. Ki!’

  Her eyes fluttered but she kept them closed. She refocused her mind. She could feel the invaders standing close by, looking, but not daring to touch her. It was as the Limbreths had promised. She could not see Vandien’s arms folded tight against his chest and clutched to still their shaking. He stared about him at the garden, strangely repulsive in its beauty. It touched too many strings in his heart too sharply. He did not understand what he saw, and didn’t want to; he did want Ki to be aware of him. He needed to hold her tightly, and feel her arms go about him to hug him with her quick strength. He was afraid to touch this haggard woman; he feared he would break her brittle hones. Some terrible illness gnawed at her, he told himself. She would be all right when he got her safely through the Gate. She twitched as if pain spasmed her, and he stepped closer to catch her if she fell. But she kept her feet.

  From her cupped hands and the earth had sprung a wonder and a marvel that captured Vandien’s eyes. Awe gripped his heart painfully as he watched it unfold. It reminded him of something, stirring long-buried feeling; but it cut him too close and his heart denied it. He raised his eyes from the plant to Ki�
��s face and gave a bleat of horror. Lines of agony appeared and deepened in her face as the flower grew and blossomed; in seconds the flesh melted on her bones, leaving her face thinner yet, the bones of her wrists knobbing from her arms, her ribs stretching her skin like the ribs of a wagon under canvas. She stooped to set the thing in place. He watched numbly as she stepped to a new spot, her ravaged body staggering, and yet she picked up more earth with care and precision.

  Vandien turned anguished eyes to Hollyika who still sat on her horse. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked grimly. ‘Did you forget what you wanted, or change your mind?’

  ‘Damn you,’ he said evenly. He moved quickly to Ki, taking her wrist gently but firmly. With a shake he tumbled the soil from her hands; a questing tendril browned and died as it fell. Ki turned her face up to his and her eyes opened to him with a drowned gaze.

  ‘I came for you. Ki, I’m Vandien. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Vandien.’ She looked up at him long, hearing no guiding whisper from the Limbreths. Without their direction, she fumbled on alone. ‘Vandien. I cared for you so much. You were impetuous and quick, tempering my caution. Yes, you belong here.’ She looked down at the half a handful of dirt that remained in her hands. ‘Yes. I will take the way you smell when I put my face in the hollow of your shoulder, and the look of your eyes at night when the moonlight fills them, and the sudden brush of your lips and moustache across my eyes when we meet after long weeks apart on the road. I will take the soft invitation of your hands in the night.’

  Vandien followed her blinded gaze to her hands. In after times he could never recall to himself exactly what he saw sprouting there. The beauty of it made his eyes ache, but there was also the sense that things held dear to him had been snatched away and sold to a stranger. The secret trove that tempered his days with sweetness was being spilled out for all to see, and it was not for other eyes. ‘No!’ he roared in a sudden jealousy, and shook it from her hands and put his boot upon it.

  ‘Finally!’ Hollyika observed, and spurred the black horse forward. His scarlet hooves wreaked carnage in the beds, trampling them to a lush ruin of black soil and severed leaf. Ki shook like a palsied scarecrow, her mouth working but giving forth no sound.

  ‘Ki!’ Vandien began urgently, trying to catch her flying wrists. She struck him in the face, no slap, but the impact of a fist that smashed his lips against his teeth and bloodied her knuckles. He threw up an arm to guard against her furious onslaught, surprised at the strength she had left. He ducked away from her, flinching from blows that intended to do serious damage; but it was over in a flurry like an autumn wind. Vandien felt her stamina give out; this Ki was not in the physical condition of the woman he was accustomed to ride with. He lowered his arms from his face, taking her feeble blows on his chest and arms, scarcely feeling them. Her face crumpled like a child’s when punished; he knew she was close to collapse.

  Hollyika rode up beside them, felling Ki with a fist blow to the side of her neck that was savagely efficient. Ki sank down limp and didn’t even twitch. Vandien’s incredulous stare went from the frail woman on the dark soil to the Brurjan looking down at him slit-eyed.

  ‘No time for it. Talk her into it later. Right now, you load her up while I hold them off.’ She wheeled Black as she spoke, calling the last words over her shoulder.

  They had come silently, the fair-haired host from the farmer’s cottage. They came, stony-faced and lambenteyed, staffs and hoes and scythes swung to shoulders. But as Hollyika bore down on them, these clumsy weapons came to the ready and were swung with amazing skill. They cried out not at all, nor did they look particularly interested in what they did. They moved efficiently, their line fanning out to flank the lone Brurjan and her horse.

  Swift as a heartbeat, he saw it all. Stooping he lifted Ki, swinging her limp thinness easily over his shoulder. To get her on a horse was more difficult; Sigurd was not used to such burdens, and objected to this one. But as Hollyika had pointed out, there was no time for niceties. He flung her between the grain bag and the food sack, and swiftly and securely roped her into place. His mind and body raced with adrenaline. He scrabbled atop Sigmund, and looped the lead rope around Sigmund’s neck. Once settled on that broad back, he drew his rapier from its sheath and lifted it to the ready. He had never fought from horseback before and suspected that a staff would clear him from Sigmund’s back long before his rapier came within range of anything.

  Drumming his heels against Sigmund’s broad sides, he broke him into a shambling trot. Hollyika had already rearranged the battle to her liking; her black had broken through the line in two places, leaving squirming bodies on the dark turf. Black’s eyes shone, and Hollyika’s were red-rimmed with her excitement. The horse was a magnificent weapon in his own right as he wheeled, striking out in all directions with his scarlet hooves. The whacks of the staffs he ignored, though his dark coat shone wet in two places where scythes had scored him. Hollyika swayed in her saddle, moving with him as deftly as his hooves moved under him, rocking her balance to match his as she struck out with her heavy sword. Wherever it touched, flesh bared bone, but her victims gave no cry. They fell before her sword as silently as they writhed beneath Black’s hooves.

  Vandien made his ponderous charge, and hoped his rapier looked impressive as it danced in his hands. But before he fairly reached the battle, the great horse underneath him smelled the blood and reached his own decision. Snorting, he threw his great head and lunged in a wild shy that nearly unseated Vandien, and fought against the bridle when Vandien tried to make him obey.

  ‘The damn horse … is smarter … than you are!’ Hollyika’s words came in gasping shouts. ‘Get … the hell … out of here! You’re in my way!’ In a single warrior foray she proved her words, charging past him so closely that she nearly swept him from the saddle. The flying hooves of the black struck in their battle dance against two farmers who had come up behind him. The sharp copper smell of fresh blood under his nose was all the confirmation Sigmund needed. He lunged about, nearly colliding with Sigurd, and broke into a heavy gallop. ‘Get over the bridge!’ Hollyika called needlessly after them as the greys found and took the road.

  ‘As if I had any say in it,’ Vandien muttered, clinging to the grey mane and trying to grip the barrel body. The grey horses devoured the road, the shocks of Sigmund’s hooves jarring Vandien with every stride; the big greys could move when they wished to. The only sound of the battle had been Hollyika’s gasping Brurjan curses and the whack of sword meeting staff, and these faded behind Vandien quickly. There was a brief thunder as they crossed the magnificent bridge, then more road. Vandien was flying into the night down the smooth black road. Darkness cupped him under her hand and hid their passage from all eyes.

  EIGHTEEN

  Ki’s skin was cold beneath his hands as he eased her down from Sigurd’s back. ‘Ki?’ he asked of her staring eyes, but they focused on something past him. She was on her feet and standing, but when he took away his support, her body slowly folded. Catching her, he moved her away from the horses and eased her to the ground.

  Vandien shook his head over her as he chafed her icy hands and feet and glanced once more to where the road unwound like a dark ribbon. He didn’t want Hollyika to ride past his hiding place in the dark. He flattered himself that he had chosen this grove of trees well. Their silvery trunks camouflaged the grey hides of the team. They were safe here, for the moment.

  He crouched again over Ki, proffering the loose robe he had packed from the wagon for her. ‘Come on. Let’s get you into this and warm you up.’ She still made no reply. Her open eyes stared past him at the ever dark sky. He sighed, thinking of the stiff blow Hollyika had dealt her. Was she witless, or too angry to speak? But her body was limp beneath his touch, and she didn’t resist him as he bundled her into the robe; he found it harder to put hose and soft low boots onto feet that were equally limp. Dressed, she appeared a little more like the Ki he knew, though the looseness of the robe exaggerated
her emaciated condition.

  ‘How about some food?’ No answer. He went to the food sack anyway, taking out dried fruit and hard traveler’s bread. She didn’t move when he put it before her, but when in exasperation he waved it under her nose, she turned away with an exclamation of disgust.

  ‘Well, at least you’ve remembered how to talk,’ he commented sourly. He moved closer to her. ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Why did you bring me here?’ she demanded, low and savage.

  ‘I’m taking you back to the Gate. To our own world, where we belong, so that Jace and Chess can come back where they belong.’

  ‘This is my world now.’ Leashed fury in her voice. ‘This is where I belong. I have a task to do here, a creation to unfold. In this world, I can make my existence mean something. I have no desire to go back.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you do, right now.’ Vandien kept his voice reasonable. ‘You are not yourself at present; you are still under the Limbreth’s sway. After a time without their water, and some proper food in you, you’ll come back to your senses.’

  ‘You mean I’ll sink back to your level.’ Ki sat up, running skeletal hands through her disheveled hair. She hissed out a breath. ‘Look at me. Already you’ve brought me back to anger, one of the basest emotions of the Human race. I had managed to free myself of that, Vandien, before you came back. Why did you have to spoil it all? Can’t you see? You had your place in my life, and filled it sweetly. I am grateful to you for all that you were to me and all that we shared. But that time is past, and I have moved beyond you. Do not take it hard; I appreciate you now as I never did before. I have looked back at every memory I have of you, of every moment we have ever shared, and from each I have taken the gold and left the dross behind. I have purified your touch on my life. Now you would come back to soil it all again. I beg you not to. Leave me and go on, let me return to my work, and keep of you what was good.’