Exiles Gate com-4

by C. J. Cherryh

  After, Chei bent and rested his forehead on his knee, his braids covering his face, for a long time in which he met no one's eyes. Only Bron's hand rested on his back, until he wiped fiercely at his eyes.

  It was safety did that to a man. That was all. The lifting of some terrible burden. The knowledge of trial passed. As if this place, with the rain beating down and the wind whipping outside, offered what the secure camp had not.

  Freedom, perhaps. Or a brother's life.

  "I am all right," Chei declared, and wiped his eyes and drew a breath and clasped his hands on the back of his neck, taking his wind.

  Bron held him by the shoulder and rocked at him. There was a sheen on Bron's eyes too, as he rubbed Chei's back and wound his fingers in Chei's hair and tugged at it with a familiarity from which Vanye averted his eyes in embarrassment.

  But perhaps they felt they had found kin.

  "You did not know," Morgaine said, "that your brother was there. Truly."

  "No," Chei said, a small, quick breath. And looked up, as if he then understood that question. "I swear I did not."

  "But took us to land you knew—to friends' territory."

  A frightened shift of Chei's eyes mistrusted the listeners. But there was the waterfall to cover their voices. "Ichandren's. My own lord's."

  "Ah," Morgaine said, and did not glance at Eoghar herself; and Vanye dared not, putting it together, how Arunden who held a sick man in debt, had moved right gladly into a dead ally's lands.

  "This Arunden seems quick to gain," he muttered.

  "From everything," Chei said fiercely. "He is known for it."

  "I had wondered," Morgaine said in a low voice, "how we happened to find Bron. Coincidence is the most remote chance in all the world—good coincidence even rarer. I do not trust men who seem to have it all about them. And strokes of luck are worst of all."

  It was honesty. When Morgaine became obscure it was an offered confidence. Honesty with her was one thing and the other. It was Chei she meant, and Chei she looked at, and Chei looked confused as a man might. "I—do not think I have had luck, lady, except you brought it."

  "Any man might have been there, at the gate. Luckier for your friends if we had been a fortnight earlier. It is finding Bron I mean."

  "I had no hope of it," Chei said earnestly. "I only went home. I wanted no more mistakes. I thought—I thought—there was no way to get through without meeting ambush. When you told me—what you told me—I knew there was hope in talking. So I did not try to slip around the long way. I brought you up the short way, and took no pains to be quiet, you were right, lady. But we were dead, the other way. It was all I could do."

  "And did not tell me."

  There was long silence. Chei looked at her, only at her, and his face was pale in the firelight.

  "But you did not know," Morgaine said, "that Bron was there."

  "No, lady. On my soul, I did not know."

  "He could not have known," Bron said. The fire snapped, wet wood; and scattered sparks.

  "Arunden took you up," Morgaine said.

  "I fell in the fighting," Bron said. "Arunden's folk came down to collect the gear. To steal anything they could. That is what they are."

  "Gault's men leave their enemies' gear?" Vanye asked. "For others to take up?"

  "This time they did," Bron said, and drew a long and shaken breath. "I do not know why. Probably they had wind of Arunden's folk close by. They took up prisoners—I saw them. I fainted then. I thought they would gather up weapons and they would find me alive and finish me. When I woke up it was one of Arunden's men had found me, that is all I know. And Gault's men had taken none of my gear."

  "You were fortunate," Morgaine said. "Did I not just say how I abhor good fortune?"

  Bron looked anxiously at Chei, last at Vanye, a worried look, a pleading look.

  "It is truth," Bron said. "That is all I know."

  Vanye shifted position, having found his arm cold from the wind gusting through the woven-work. He found his heart beating uncomfortably hard. "Arunden was an ally of your lord's?"

  "We were ambushed on our way to join with him. The qhal may have known he was there—" The thought seemed to come to Bron then. His mouth stayed open a moment. His eyes darted and locked.

  "And withdrew," Morgaine said.

  Bron had nothing to say. He darted a look of his own Eoghar's way and back again. Chei's breath was rapid.

  "No one would—" Bron said.

  "You say yourself, changelings are not uncommon. A man too close to qhalur lands, a scout, a hunter—"

  "We are not that careless!"

  Heaven save us, Vanye thought. And aloud: "Is your enemy without guile? Or luck?"

  Both the brothers were silent. At their own fire, Eoghar and his cousins talked among themselves, voices that did not carry over the water sound.

  "It would be easy, then," Morgaine said, "for messengers of all sorts to come and go. From the camp, for instance."

  "We do not know it is so!" Chei said.

  "No," Morgaine said. "It might be coincidence. Everything might be coincidence."

  Bron exhaled a long slow breath. "A treaty with Gault?"

  "Possibly," Morgaine said, "you were only fortunate. There is chance in the world. It is only very rare—where profit is concerned."

  Bron ran his fingers back through his hair and rested, his hands clenching his braids. Then he looked at Vanye and at Morgaine. "Are you, after all, from Mante? Is this something you know? Are you having games with us?"

  "We are strangers," Morgaine said. "We are not from Gault and not from Skarrin. We do not know this land. But of treachery and of greed we have seen altogether too much. Perhaps it has occurred to you—that there is profit to be had. We do not withhold it. Anything, you can gain from us, take. We will have no need of power in this world. Do you want Gault's place? Or any other—take it."

  Bron caught a breath. "Everything," he said in a faint voice, "that Chei has told me about you I believe. I never—in all my life—In all my life, I never—never knew I would—come to—to owe—"

  "A qhal?" Morgaine asked.

  Bron swallowed the rest of that speech. His face was bone-white, his pain-bruised eyes set on her as if he could not find a way to move. "But," he said after, "it is you I will follow. I do not think we will live long. I do not think we will live to see Mante. But for what you did for my brother I will go with you; for what you did for both of us, I will do everything I can for you. I do not deny I am afraid of you. There is a cost—to serving qhal—and I do not know what you would choose, between us and others. But what you say you will do—if you seal the Gates—is a chance for every man alive; and we never had one till this. It is worth a life. And mine is spun out longer than I expected, since Gyllin-brook. Chei's, too. Where else shall we find a place for us?"

  Morgaine looked at him long; and turned then and began to pack away their belongings. "I do not know. But I would you could find one." She looked up at them. "When we reach the road, turn back. Go somewhere far, and safe. Two more humans will be a hazard to me—only that much more likelihood that someone will know me for a stranger."

  Chei had opened his mouth to protest. He shut it as she spoke and he caught a breath. "But," he said then, "they would take us for the Changed, that is all. There is no reason not."

  "It is that common."

  "Half the qhal in Morund—have human shape."

  "So," she said softly, and her frown deepened and darkened. She put a last packet into the saddlebags and wrapped the ties tight. "They are using the gates that often."

  "I do not know," Bron said, looking as bewildered as his brother. "I do not know how often they come and go."

  "No one knows," Chei said. "None of us go south. When they want to come and go—they use Morund-gate. They do not need to ride through our land."

  "Frequently?"

  "Maybe—several times a year. I do not know. No one—"

  "So a message has already gone
to Mante."

  "I think that it would have," Chei said. "When the woods burned. I think they would send for that. Gault is not friendly with Mante. With his lord. So they say."

  "Rumor says," Bron amended. "Men who come and go off Gault's land. Some do, still."

  "Too much here is tangled," Morgaine said; and Vanye shifted his mailed and weary shoulders back against the rock and picked up the thongs that depended from his belt, beginning to braid three of them.

  "As to changelings," Vanye said, "we do not do that, with friend or enemy. You are safe with us, as safe, at least, as we are. And we intend to reach Mante, and go beyond it. But that—that, has no return. You should understand that. My lady advises you turn back. There is reason. You should listen to her."

  There was silence after, except a discordant muttering from Eoghar and his cousins, about their separate fire. A little laughter drifted from them, about their own business. Doubtless Chei and Bron were distressed. He did not look up.

  "Lady," Chei said.

  "For your sake and ours," Morgaine said firmly.

  Again there was silence, long silence, with only the noise from the other fire where, Vanye saw with a shift of his eye, the three clansmen had unstopped what he reckoned was not a waterskin, and began to pass it about. He did not like it. He did not want the quarrel now, either, with unhappiness enough in their camp. "Liyo," he said in a low voice and when he had her attention, shifted his eyes to indicate the matter.

  She frowned, but she said nothing. They were not boisterous at the other fire, only men taking their ease of the dark and the rain in a way as old as men on any earth.

  And finally: "I do not understand you," Chei said.

  Vanye jerked the braiding loose and looked up at him, frowning. "There is Hell between the gates, Chei, and we will ride through it. There is a new earth the other side, but fairer or fouler than this one, neither of us knows. Heaven knows how the worlds are ordered, but the gates bind them together in ways dangerous for all life. When we are gone it will not be the same sun that rises over us. That is all I understand of it. But that is where we will be—as if we were dead, Chei, and the other side of Hell, and you cannot go back or change your minds then, and nothing you knew will be true. That is what will become of you. This land is your home. And fair or foul, it is what you understand. Think on that. And you still will not know the extent of what will happen to you. Nothing you know will be true."

  "But you go. And you are a Man. Are you not?"

  Vanye shrugged. The question went deep, troubling him. "It will not matter," he said. "I cannot even reckon how old I am. The stars are not the same. I do not know where I am. I do not know how long ago my cousin died. And it was only a handful of days ago I left him. Now only my liege speaks my language. All the rest are gone." He looked up at two bewildered, sobered faces. "That is the plainest I know to tell you. There is nowhere we come from. There is nowhere we are going. We only go. Come with us if you will. Leave us, the other side of the gate. It may be you will find peace there. It may be we will fall straight into Hell, and die there. We have no way to know. If it is to glory you hope to follow us—or wealth—there is none to offer you. And whether we are right or wrong in anything we do, I do not know. I cannot offer you that either. My liege cannot. So you would be wisest to stay here. Truly you would."

  "I do not understand you," Chei said.

  "I know. But I am telling you the truth. Go with us as far as Tejhos, that is all. Then ride west. Lose yourselves in the hills, hide and wait. There will be wars. In that time—you will find a lord worth following. That is my advice to you."

  "Are you a witch?" Chei asked.

  "I suppose that I am."

  "But not qhal."

  "No. Not qhal."

  "You are my friend," Chei said, and reached and pressed his arm.

  He could not look at Chei. It hurt too much. He gave a sigh, and ripped out his braiding.

  From the men beyond there was a burst of laughter, muted; Bron turned himself about to see what they did and looked back again, frowning, as if he were thoroughly remiss not to forbid that.

  But he was not, at present, in any mind to fight with men who, whatever their lord was, brigands or no, were cheerful again, after sullenness all day.

  "They will sleep the better for it," Vanye said. "And if their heads ache in the morning, that is their misfortune."

  They neither one said more than that. How their thoughts ran now he could not say. They sat together, leaned together. Bron touched his brother's hair as no man would touch another, casually, even were they kinsmen, but he reckoned this was only affection, and foreign ways. They understood hospitality; their fire seemed sacred enough, and the passing of food and drink; and there were priests to confess them; and yet a lord could claim a wounded man who came to him for protection, and not let him go again. He had met men far more strange to him, whose customs troubled him less, because they were utterly strange.

  Yet he reckoned they might trust two watches tonight to these brothers, and know their throats would stay uncut, and their backs defended, if it came to that. If these two were not arrhendim and did not have Kurshin ways, still they were decent men, and he felt his supper uneasy at his stomach, somewhere between regret for having them along and the fear that they would go, and the sorrow that he had finally found a friend staunch enough to stay by them—

  —and it was not a man he could trust.

  That Chei could lie and never know he was lying—that was a flaw he did not know how to mend. Chei simply did not know what truth was.

  And he himself was Nhi as well as Kurshin, wherefore a man who deceived and twisted and turned with the agility that seemed native to this land, set his teeth on edge, in an anger at once familiar and terrifying—and he remembered suddenly why.

  It was only his brothers had evoked that peculiar ambivalence in him.

  And he had killed one and all but killed the other: clan Myya was his legitimate half-brothers' clan—hill bandits turned noblemen, who did not know a straight way through any door, that was Nhi's proverb for them; and again: thicker than feuds in Myya.

  He opened his eyes again. It was only pale-haired Chei, and Bron, whose faces showed hurt and whose eyes sought some answer of Morgaine, since he had shut them out.

  "I will take first watch," Morgaine said, rescuing him from the chance that they would go on with him. "Go to sleep. We will be on our way before light; best you all take what you can."

  "Aye." He reached at his side and loosed his armor buckles, and found a place the rock fit his shoulders. He unhooked his sword from his side and laid it across his lap, considering Eoghar's company yonder. "Quiet," he shouted at those three, making a small shocked silence, astonishing himself profoundly that they looked so daunted. "Men are going to sleep here."

  The trouble was in himself, he thought in the quiet that continued, who invented worries and conjured up calamities—you think too much, his brother Erij had told him once upon a time, chiding him for cowardice.

  It was truth. He fell into old habits. It was fear which did that to him, fear not of enemies, but of friends. His brothers had taught him that lesson—beaten it into him, flesh and bone and nerve.

  He clasped his sword to him, nevertheless, in both arms, so that Eoghar and his cousins would go on understanding their situation, if there remained any doubt.

  The rain subsided to a light patter on the ground outside, an occasional gust carrying it into the shelter, but there was enough heat from the two fires and the presence of seven bodies to keep the chill away. It would have been a good night under other circumstances, Chei thought glumly, lying curled toward the fire warmth, back to back with Bron, but a different kind of cold had crept in among them, and Chei could not reason why, except somehow the lady, always cold and obscure, turned kind to them; while Vanye suddenly refused to look him in the eyes, for reasons which Chei did not, after thinking and thinking on the matter, understand. . . .

  Wh
at do you want of me? A prisoner, a slave, someone to be grateful for whatever crusts you will give me?

  Why could he not say once that he was glad for me, that Bron is alive?

  Could not he manage anything but that scowl for it?

  The thoughts turned over and over in him like pebbles in a current, one abrading the next; and one atop and then the other. He ached inside. It angered him that the man he admired turned away from him, and it mattered in a personal way—when he ought to worry only for the consequences of being cast out masterless, as a sane man ought.

  He might, he thought, appeal to the lady who sat there in the glow of the coals, beautiful and terrible in her fire-stained pallor, herself embodying every fear he had had from childhood; and every mercy he had found in extremity. She leaned on the sword that she bore, which had a fantastical beast for hilt and quillons. Her eyes gazed toward the glow of the coals, and her face was pensive, even gentle—it tempted a man to think she might listen to him.

  He was mad, perhaps: a man who began to hope against the general ebb of human fortunes in the world, and who began to believe in miracles—was he not mad?

  But he would not have believed at all, till he looked up from the wolf-pack snarling about him and saw first the swordsman bearing down on him and then the silver-haired woman—demons out of Hell he had thought them first, that the ordinary world had rent in twain and death had come for him. He thought of that in bleak moments of terror which intervened in his other thoughts: but he was not dead, his delirium had left him, and it was a familiar woods he rode, with Bron back from the dead and in company with these two who moved out of pattern with the world and promised him humankind need not, after all, perish.

  He had ridden a knife's-edge of hope and terror thus far; and that it all should unravel on the spite of a man he had begun to rely on in ways he had only relied on Bron—he could not accept that. He could not believe that Morgaine would in truth send them off to die. He could not believe, now he thought about it, that Vanye, who had dealt kindly with him when it had not been necessary—could turn so vindictive. He must, he thought, have done something or said something—or it was Arunden's offense against the lady; or things had not gone well between Vanye and the lady when he had walked in upon them—