Exiles Gate com-4

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Gate-force," Morgaine said in time. "We are very near. Vanye, is thee feeling it?"

  "Aye," he murmured. "Aye, liyo." It was inside the armor with him, was coiled about his nerves and his sinew, it crept within his skull and corrupted sight and reason. They must go near that thing. Perhaps ambush waited for them.

  We will lose everything we have done, he thought, everything she has suffered this far—lost, for a fool who mishandled the sword. I should have sheathed it when it went amiss. I should have ridden back. I should have—

  —should have—known what I struck—

  O God, it could as well have been her.

  "Vanye!"

  He caught himself before he pitched. He braced himself against the saddlehorn and felt Siptah's body hit his right leg, Morgaine holding him by the straps of his armor, though he was upright now without that.

  "Can thee stay the saddle? Shall I take the reins?"

  "I am well enough," he murmured, and took the reins in his left hand and let his numbed right rest braced between him and the saddlebow. If he could do one thing right this cursed night it was to dispose himself where he could not fall off and compound his liege's troubles.

  Siptah took to the lead then; and the mare lengthened her stride to match him, struggling now, on heart alone.

  Where are we going? he wondered. Is it enemies she fears? Or do we go toward the gate, to hold it?

  His very teeth ached now with the emanations, and he felt a pain like knives driven into every joint of his right arm, an ache that crept across his chest and into his vitals. He wished he had respite to faint away or to rest; and dutifully fought not to, for what use he was. The pain reached his spine and his skull, one with the pounding of the mare's gait, the jolts which threatened to take him from the saddle.

  Hold on, he told himself, slumped over the saddle when other thought had ceased, hold on, hold on.

  The roan horse came to a slow halt where the battle had been, and Gault clutched after its ties and its stirrup, letting himself down by painful degrees to stand amid the field. He did not know the weapon that had struck him, which had pierced through his left arm and burned across his back. But here he had fallen in the battle, here his ranks had broken in terror of the gate-weapon, and there were appallingly few corpses remaining.

  Here he had flung himself at the roan horse as the slaughter started and managed to get back astride—when the gate-force broke loose and sane men quit the field as quickly as they could.

  Such of them as survived had rallied again—qhal, and a scattering of terrified humans—most of all, that the squad he had sent wide before they came to Arunden's camp, had overtaken them now, having swept up the deserters; and had found him on the road.

  Now they walked as he did, probing among the dead that were thickest here, where only the red fire had come, where the woman had wielded what they had mistakenly thought the chiefest of weapons they faced.

  That was the fire that had touched him. He understood that much. He stumbled among cooling bodies and found one living, who hoarsely called his name—"Rythys!" Gault called out, "your cousin!"—and Rythys left his desperate searching and came in haste, one of the few fortunate.

  But Gault sought Jestryn on the field, and found him finally—Pyverrn the wit, Pyverrn the prankster, Pyverrn who had done an unhumorous thing at the last, and flung himself and his horse between Gault and the killing fire.

  "Pyverrn," Gault-Qhiverin said, feeling after a heartbeat, and finding none, finding Jestryn's face already cold in the night wind. "Pyverrn!" he cried, for that was the oldest name, the name by which they had been friends in Mante, and fought the Overlord's battles and intrigued in the Overlord's court through their last life. "Pyverrn!"

  He hugged the body to him, but it was only cooling human clay against his own borrowed flesh, a body Pyverrn had worn, but never truly mastered.

  This was the last death, the irrecoverable one: not Tejhos-gate nor any other could save a life, once the life was gone; and Gault would have murdered one of his own men to have hosted Pyverrn's self again—he would have taken one of his own kind; his other and dearest friends.

  He would have—such was the bond between them—accepted what only a few had dared to save a fading life: he would have gone into the gate with his friend and taken him into his own self, risking madness, or obliteration.

  That was his love for Pyverrn.

  But there was nothing left to love. There was only the cold flesh that Pyverrn had wrested from its previous owner, and no way to restore it.

  His men came round him where he knelt and wept. None ventured a word to him, until he himself let the body go and stood up.

  "Tejhos-gate," he said. "We are going after them!"

  Doubtless there were some few who would have fled, had they had a choice. He knew the cowardice of some of them, that had had to be herded back. But in the southern lands there was nothing to hide them should they fail him—and now they knew he was alive.

  "Two of you will go to Mante," he said when they were mounted again. "The rest of us will ride after these invaders. We will have them. I will have them, him and her,and they will wish they had been stillborn."

  "Better?" Morgaine asked; and Vanye, sitting with his back against a standing stone, leaned his head against that unforgiving surface and nodded with his eyes shut. He did not remember much of the ride that had brought them this far. He knew that he had been upright in the saddle, but so much of it had been that kind of pain which the mind would not believe could last so keenly, so long. All that time seemed compressed; yet he knew it was leagues beyond that place where he had almost fallen. Tejhos-gate was far behind them.

  And the cessation of that force left him drained, void, as if he had been gutted.

  Beside them the horses caught their breath and began to show a little interest in the grass under their feet, now they had drunk of the little creek and had their legs rubbed down. He had done that much for his horse, while Morgaine saw to the Baien gray. He was a horseman from his birth: he would have done that for the brave mare with his heart's blood, after the course she had run; and Morgaine—whatever she was—had no less care for the gray.

  Now she leaned against another such stone facing him—not stones of power, mere markers along the roadside. One knee propped the sword on which she leaned, the sight of which he could hardly bear and the weight of which he remembered in his bones: not balanced like an ordinary blade, the crystal length within that sheath rune-written with the secrets of the gates—for the sake of a successor, she had told him once. She had taught him writing and ciphering more than a lord's bastard needed—for what purpose he knew, and loathed, and thought about no more than he had to.

  But he could read those runes. They were burned into his soul like the light into his eyes.

  "Water?" she asked him.

  He drank from the flask she gave him, struggled with his left hand and his right to hold it without shaking. The pain was still there, but only a dull ache, against the memory of the living blade in his hand. He gave the flask back, drew a breath and looked about him at the rolling hills, the stones, the road pale in the starlight.

  "We should have gone over to Tejhos," he murmured.

  "Thee could not," she said.

  It was bitter truth. He would have left her to hold the place alone, would have fallen—Heaven knew where he would have fallen, or how long the fire would run in his bones if he lay within that influence.

  The drawing of the sword was a dice-throw, a power either felt in Mante, if they were wary; or was mistaken for ordinary—O Heaven—ordinary use of the gate, in which case Mante would do nothing, until their enemies reached it and passed it and told Mante otherwise—which they would, assuredly.

  Therefore they ran. Therefore they paced themselves to last now, with all the speed they could make, while they might make it.

  He had a cold lump of fear at his gut. Coward, he had heard from his brothers, and from his father, and most of
Morija—You think too much, his brother had told him. He had never been like them. In all too many respects.

  If a man thought—if a man let himself think—backward or forward—

  "It is not the first friend the sword has taken," she said finally. "Vanye, it was not your fault."

  "I know," he said, and saw in his mind the harper-lad of Ra-morij, who had thrown himself between that blade in her hand and his threatened kin—had flung himself there to be a hero, and discovered Hell in the unstoppable swing of Morgaine's hand.

  "They rode to your right," she said, "against all our warnings."

  The excuses she made for him were doubtless those which armored her, the only and best wisdom she had to give him. He sensed the pain it cost her to expose that. And there was nothing to say against those excuses that she did not, beneath those reasonings, know—

  —except the harper had known the report of the sword: who in Morija had not?

  But Bron had not known, had not guessed how far its danger extended. They had never told him.

  He shut his eyes, clenched them shut, as if it could banish the terrified face that was burned across his vision; or bring back the sun, and end this terrible night where visions were all too easy. The priest, he thought, had cursed him, cursed Bron, cursed Chei.

  He did not say that to Morgaine. But he feared it. Heaven had answered that creature, and he did not know why, except Heaven judged them worse—

  Harness jingled, the sudden lifting of Siptah's head, the clink of slipped bit and snaffle ring that his ears knew before his eyes lifted. The stallion stood with ears pricked, gazing toward the road.

  Morgaine rose instantly and moved to take the horses in hand and lead them inward of the stones for cover from the road.

  He rose shakily to his feet and held the reins, soothing them, stroking one nose and the other—"Quiet, quiet," he said to them in the Kurshin tongue, and Siptah strained at his grip and shivered, one long twitch up his foreleg.

  "One rider," Morgaine said, venturing a quick look from the edge of the stone.

  "One man makes no sense."

  "A good many have cause to follow us."

  "Past the gate at Tejhos? Alone?"

  She drew the black weapon. It was a dead man rode that track, and did not know it. He leaned his shoulders against the stone and looked out past it, as the stone was canted at an angle to the road.

  The rider came on a dark horse. Mail glinted about him in the starlight.

  Vanye's heart leapt and jolted against his ribs. For a moment he could not breathe. "Chei," he said, and reached for Morgaine's arm. "It is Chei."

  "Stay here!"

  He turned his head in dismay to look at her, at the weapon still in her hand. "Liyo, for the love of Heaven—"

  "We do not know that it is Chei. Stay here. Wait."

  He waited, leaning against the rock and breathing in shorter and shorter breaths as the faltering hoofbeats came closer.

  "Liyo," he whispered in horror, seeing her arm lift.

  She fired as the rider came past them, a red fire breaking out in the meadow-grass; and the exhausted horse shied and fought for balance as the rider reined up and about, facing them.

  Chei slid down, holding to the saddlehorn and clinging to the reins.

  "Chei," Vanye said, and left the horses, walking out from between the stones.

  "Stop," Morgaine said; and he stopped.

  Chei only stood there, as if he were numb.

  "Bring your horse in," Morgaine said. "Sit down."

  Chei staggered toward them and led the horse as far as the first stone. "Where is my brother?" he asked. "Where did Bron go?"

  It was not the question Vanye had expected. It took the breath out of him.

  "Bron is dead," Morgaine said.

  "Where did he go?"

  "Changeling's gate has no other side."

  Chei slid down the face of the stone and leaned against it, his head resting against the rock. Vanye sank down facing him.

  "Chei—I could not stop it. I did not know him—Chei?"

  Chei neither moved nor lifted his head. There was only silence, long and deep, in which Morgaine at last moved and retrieved her flask from Siptah's saddle.

  "Here," she said, offering it.

  Chei looked up and took it as if his hands and his mind were far separate. He fumbled after the stopper and drank, and slowly, as if it were a thoroughly unfamiliar task, stopped it again and gave it back.

  "I feared," Vanye said desperately, "that it was the both of you. I could not see, Chei."

  "Rest," Morgaine said, and came close and stood with Changeling folded in her arms. "So long as we rest. After that, go back to your own land."

  "No," Chei said with a shake of his head.

  "Then take my order. You will go no further with us."

  Vanye looked around at her in dismay, at a face implacable in the starlight, a figure that had as well be some warlike statue.

  "Liyo —"

  "He is a danger," she said in the Kurshin tongue. "There is a gate yonder. Has thee forgotten?"

  "There is not enough time!"

  "Tell me how long it takes. There were wounded aplenty back there."

  "It is Chei! Would a qhal come asking where his brother was? Is that the kind of question a qhal would ask first, who knows what the gates are?"

  "Barring other chances, there is the matter of bloodfeud. Of revenge."

  "Revenge? God in Heaven, has the man come seeking revenge on me? I wish he would—I wish he would say something—"

  "In time to come, at some point of crisis—yes. Being what he is, he may well think of revenge, when he wakes from the shock of it. I will not have him with us, at your back—or mine."

  "For the love of God, liyo! No! I refuse this. I will not have it."

  "We gave him what chance we could. Here is an end of it. He goes, Vanye."

  "And where is my voice in this?"

  "Thee is always free to choose."

  He stared at her in shock, numb. It was the old answer. It was forever true. It was real now, an ultimatum, from which there was, on this plain, near the gates—no return within her trust.

  "You will go," she said to Chei.

  "Lady—"

  "Life I have given you. Use it."

  "You have taken my brother's!"

  "Aye, and spared yours just now. Do not stay to rest. Take your horse and go. Now."

  "Vanye—" Chei said.

  "I cannot," he said, forcing the words. "I cannot, Chei."

  Chei said nothing for a moment. Then he struggled toward his feet. Vanye put out a hand to help him and he struck it away, fumbling after his horse's reins.

  "At least," Vanye said to Morgaine, "let him rest here!"

  "No."

  Chei did not look at him until he was in the saddle, and then he was all shadow, there between the menhirs.

  He rode away without a word, whipping the exhausted horse with blows Vanye felt in his own flesh.

  "Liyo," he said then to Morgaine, without looking at her, "I know your reasons. I know everything you would say. But, Mother of God, could we not have let him rest, could we not have tried him—?"

  "Pity," she said, "will be your undoing. I did this. I have spared you the necessity. For your sake—and mine. And I have given him cause to hate me. That is my best gift. Best he lose his zeal for us altogether—before it kills him. That is the pity I have for him. And best it come from me rather than you. That is all the mercy I have."

  He stared at her in the darkness, somewhere between numbness and outrage. Now it was temper from her. Now she was righteous. "Aye," he said, and sat down abruptly, deciding that numbness was better, for the night, perhaps for a good many days to come.

  There was a pain behind his eyes. He rested his head on his arm and tried to make it go away, or the pain in his heart to stop, or the fear in his gut; and none of them had remedy, except that Morgaine knew that pain, Morgaine was still with him, Morgaine wa
s sunk in her own silence and Morgaine was bearing unto herself—she had told the truth—all the cruelty of which he was not capable.

  The road stretched on and on in the starlight, unremitting nightmare, and Gault-Qhiverin clung to the course with what followers he had left to him. There was a wetness all down his side, the wound broken open again, though he had bound it, and the roan horse's gait did nothing to lessen the pain of his wounds.

  "Go back," his captain said to him. "My lord, let us continue. You go back. We dare not lose you—" Which was true: there were many in Gault's household who were there for reasons which had much to do with court and intrigue and the saving of their lives—lose him they dared not, for fear of who might replace him in Morund.

  But they were not mortal wounds, that bled down his side and across his back. He would live to deal with consequences, and he had said things and compromised himself in front of witnesses, in ways that required personal action to redeem him: no, my lord, treason was never my purpose. I only queried them to learn their business: my offers to them were a lie.

  Form meant a great deal in Mante, whatever the Overlord knew of true purposes.

  There was most of all, most of all—revenge. And the saving of his reputation: Gault was never without double purposes, even in something so precious to him as his best friend's life. There were ways and ways to accomplish anything; and revenge was always best if it accomplished more than its immediate aims.

  This was the common sense that had settled into Gault now the blood was cool and the purpose formed: alliance was not possible and therefore he would be virtuous, serve his own interests in the other way—and survive to deal with his and Pyverrn's enemies.

  The pair of them first for himself; and, failing that, for Mante and Skarrin's gentle inquiries. That was the object of his ride.

  But there was something before him on the road, a single moving darkness that advanced and gained detail at the combined speed of their horses.

  "What is that?" one of his company asked. "Who is that?"—for Tejhos was behind them on the road, where the two members of their own company had gone message-bearing and asking after troops. This could be no answer Mante had sent—from upland, from that direction.