Exiles Gate com-4

by C. J. Cherryh

  It was Chei whose eyes had shadows. It was Chei who offered him an overcooked porridge, with a hand that shook with exhaustion.

  He took it. He forced it down. It came at too much cost to refuse.

  Across the little distance, Siptah jerked his head up and snorted challenge to Rhanin's approach. Morgaine lifted her head abruptly, the weapon in her hand.

  But it was a bowl Rhanin brought, offering it to her. Rhanin came no closer, and Morgaine got quickly to her feet, Changeling in one hand, the black weapon in the other, and stopped, staring not at Rhanin, but toward him.

  He stared back at her, weak as he was, and got up on his arm, feeling the shock of cold air as the blanket fell.

  For a long moment she said nothing. Then: "How does thee fare this morning?"

  "Much better," he said. "Much better, liyo."

  "I had not meant to fall so far asleep—"

  He drew a breath, such as yesterday would have cost him pain. It amazed him it did not, overmuch. Only it would be very easy, just now, to weep, and he moved, suddenly, and shoved himself up with a sudden straightening of his arm so that a twinge took his mind off it. He was dizzy then. The whole world swung round.

  She came to him and swept Changeling, sheathed and crosswise, in curt dismissal of the others, who drew back a few paces. Then she knelt and spared a glance for him.

  "I think the porridge is safe," he murmured, "but I would not eat it."

  "Has thee?"

  "Aye," he said. "It is truly wretched."

  She slid the black weapon into place at her belt, touched him with that hand, brushed the hair off his unshaven cheek. She looked tired, tired and mortally worried. "We will ride at night," she said.

  "Liyo, we cannot wait!"

  "Now how are we arguing? I take your advice and you will none of it. We are safe here for the moment. The horses are resting. We can make up the time."

  "We cannot make up two days. I can ride." He sat upright and tucked his leg up; and she put her hand onto his knee.

  "Thee will lie down, thee will rest, that is what. Thee will not undo everything." She touched his ribs, where Hesiyyn had wound a tight bandage. "Broken, does thee think?"

  "No. Sore." He drew a breath, testing it as he had tested it again and again: if he kept his back straight it was much better. "I will manage."

  "Vanye." Her hand sought his wrist and closed on it, hard. "Do not give up. Hear me? I will tell thee a thing may comfort thee—"

  She hesitated, then. That reticence did not seem to herald anything that should comfort him; and ice settled into his stomach. "What?" he asked. "What would you tell me, liyo?"

  "Thee knows—how substance goes into a gate—It . . . disarranges itself . . and some similar arrangement comes together at the other side—"

  "You have told me." He did not like to talk of such things. He did not like to think of them oftener than he must—especially now, facing a gate which was not behaving as it should. He wished she would go straight to the point.

  "Thee will find—thy hurts—will not trouble thee the other side. Thee will not carry the scars of this beyond it. Thee will mend."

  She could lie with such simplicity. Or with webs of truth. Except that it was something kept from him, that he would not like. In such things she would not meet his eyes. It was that simple.

  "What are you saying?" he asked.

  "I chose a time," she said. "I made a pattern, for thee as for me … a rested pattern, a whole pattern, a pattern without flaw. Within its limits—and it has them—it will always restore it. Every gate, on every world—will recognize thee, and always restore it—restore thee, as thee was, so far as it has substance to work with. There will be no scars. Nothing to remind thee."

  It made no sense for a moment. He put his hand to his ribs, wondering could it mend more than the surface.

  Or what other things they had done to him.

  "There will always be the weakness in the knee," she said. "That happened before the pattern was made. Would I had done it before that. But there was never the leisure it needed."

  "Shathan," he said. "Azeroth-gate."

  "Aye. There. The gates will abhor any deviation from that moment. They will restore that moment, so far as they can, always. The thoughts go on. The memories. But the body—will not change."

  "Will not change? Ever?" A sense of panic took him. He thought that he should be grateful. He thought that it was a kind of gift.

  But it was Gate-given. And every Gate-magic was flawed—

  "I shall grow older—"

  "Never. Not in body."

  "O my God," he murmured. For a moment the dizziness was back. Mortality was, reminding him with a sharp pain in his side and a twinge in the hip.

  He had always had an image of himself, older, grown to his mature strength—had begun to see it, in breadth of shoulder, strength of arm. A man looked forward to such a thing.

  It would never happen. His life was stopped. He thought of the dragon, frozen in snow, in mid-reach.

  "My God, my God." He crossed himself, gone cold, inside and out.

  "Injuries will never take their toll of thee. Age—will have no power over thee. Thee will grow wiser. But thee will always mend in a gate-passage, always shed the days and years."

  "Why such as Chei, then? Why Gault? Why Thiye, in Heaven's name?" He wanted to weep. He found himself lost again, lost at this end of his journey as at the beginning. "If it can be done like this, why did they choose to kill—?"

  "Because," she said, "they are qhal. And I know things they do not. Call it my father's legacy. And if they should know, Vanye, that secret, they would find others, that I will give no one, that are not written on the sword—that I will not permit anyone to know and live—" Again her hand brushed his cheek. "Forgive me. I had meant to tell thee—some better time. But best thee know, now—Forgive me. I need thee too much. And the road would grow too lonely."

  He took her hand, numb in shock. He pressed it. It was all he could think to do for answer.

  "Rest," she said. And rose and walked away from him, stopping for a moment to look at Chei and the rest—at Rhanin, who still had the bowl in his hands, beside the others. "I will make my own breakfast," she said; but to Chei she said nothing. She only looked at him, and then walked on. Changeling still in her left hand.

  Vanye sat numb and incapable, for the moment, of moving. He trembled, and did not know whether it was outrage or grief, or why, except he had always thought she would betray him in one way, and she had found one he had never anticipated.

  You might have ordered me, he raged at her in his mind. If you were going to do such a thing, liyo, God in Heaven, could you not have bidden me, could you not have laid it on my honor, given me at least the chance to go into it of my own will?

  But he could not say these things. He could not quarrel with her, in front of strangers. Or now, that he was fighting for his composure.

  It was his protection she had intended. It was for every good reason. It promised—O Heaven!—

  He could not imagine what it promised.

  It was, in any case, only the thought of a thought of himself she had stolen. And if she had thought him too foolish to choose for himself, that was so, sometimes. She was often right.

  He reached beside him, in the folds of his mail shirt, and felt after a small, paper packet. He found it, and unfolded it, and saw the very tiny beads that lay on the red paper—eight of them.

  He folded it up again, dragged his belt over and tucked the packet into the slit-pocket where he kept small flat things, where, lately, had been a small razor-edged blade. But Chei's men had taken that. He did not, given the circumstances of his losing it, look to have it back again.

  He lay back to rest, then, since he had no more likelihood of persuading Morgaine than Chei did. There was justification for the delay: beyond this point, he thought, rested horses and rested men might make the difference, and Chei and his men had gotten little enough sleep last night.
If the horses were rested—they might dare the fringe of the plain, and know that they had enough strength to run or to fight.

  It was a risk that made his flesh crawl.

  "She is staying here," Chei came to him to say, standing over him, a fair-haired shadow against the dawn. Chei was indignant. And came to him for alliance.

  He found some small irony in that. "Man," he said quietly, reasonably, "she will be thinking. Go to her. Be patient with her. As thoroughly, as exactly as you can, tell her everything you know about the way ahead: make her maps. Answer her questions. Then go away and let her think. Whatever you have held back—to bargain for your lives—this is the time to throw everything you have into her hands. She will not betray you. You say you will follow her. Prove it."

  It was not precisely the truth. But it was as good, he thought, as might save all their lives. Chei clearly doubted it.

  But Chei went away then, and presented himself where Morgaine was busy with her gear; and knelt down with his hands on his knees and talked to her and drew on the ground, answering her questions for some little time.

  Himself, he scanned the rough hills, the rocks and the scrub which rose like walls about them, watched the flight of a hawk, or something hawklike.

  Morgaine was not utterly without calculation, he thought, in choosing this camp. The valley was wide and either end of it was in view. Nowhere were they in easy bowshot of the sides or cover a man could reach without crossing open ground.

  Until now Chei and his company, riding ahead of them through the hills, had run the risk of a gate-force ambush, two stones bridging their power from side to side of a narrow pass. Chei had surely known that. And doubtless Morgaine would put him and his company to the fore again when they rode out of this place. Chei would not like that.

  But there was small comfort having them all riding point, and surely neither of them would do it.

  There was better food at noon: Morgaine cooked it. Vanye stirred himself to sit up in the shade, and to put his breeches on and walk about, and to take a little exercise, a little sword-drill to work the legs, and the abused shoulder, which had a great dark bruise working its way out from the arrow-strike.

  It would go through several color-changes, he thought, and then thought that it might not, for one reason or the other; and put all of that to the back of his mind with a swing and flourish and extension that worked the ribs as far as he thought safe for the moment. Vanity, he chided himself, taking pleasure in Hesiyyn's respectful look, and was careful to stand very still for a moment after, before he called it enough and walked back to the shade and sat down.

  He went through the arrows Rhanin had collected then, and took his harness-knife—the loss of the little razor vexed him—and sighted down the shafts and saw to the fletchings, in both quivers finding only three shafts to fault and mark with a cautioning stain on their gray feathers, and one fletching that wanted repair.

  Then he gathered himself up again and went and saw to the horses, running his hands over their legs, looking for strain, looking over their feet, seeing whether there was any shoe needing resetting. The bending and lifting was hard. And Morgaine was watching him: he felt her stare on his back, and gentled the gray stud with particular care, lulling him with all his skill to keep him from his rougher tricks—"So, so, lad, you have no wish to make me a liar, do you?"

  The fine head turned, dark-eyed and thinking; the white-tipped tail lashed and switched with considerable force and he stamped once, thunderously. But: "Hai, hai, hai," Vanye chided him, and he surrendered the ticklish hind foot, with which, he thanked Heaven, there was no problem, nor with the others.

  He did all these things. He wanted, looking to certain eventualities, to do them particularly well, and the way he always did.

  "Sleep," he bade Morgaine, pausing to wash on his way back to the shade. "Sleep a while."

  She looked at him with a worry she did not trouble to hide. He could bear very little of that.

  "We have not that far to go," she said, "—Chei swears."

  "Perhaps he has even learned to reckon distances."

  Her eyes flickered, a grim amusement that went even to a grin and a fond look. "Aye. Perhaps. I do not think I will sleep. Go take what rest you can." She drew the chain of the pyx from over her head. "Here. Best you keep it now."

  He closed his fist about it. It was not something he wanted to wear openly.

  She sketched rapidly in the dirt at her feet. "This is where we are. Chei says. This is Mante. This is where we will ride. This hill, then skirting the plain and up again. There is a pass. A gatehouse, but not a Gate."

  "We are that close."

  "Under Skarrin's very eye, if there were a mistake with stone or sword. We will start at sundown. A single night to the pass, if we go direct." She let go her breath. "We will ask at his gate."

  "Ask!"

  "We will not come like enemies. It will be Chei's affair. He says he can pass us through. We will have the greatest difficulty beyond that. So Chei says." She sketched a pocket behind the line that represented the cliffs. "Neisyrrn Neith. Death's Gate. A well of stone, very wide. There are gate-stones within it—here, and here, and here."

  He sank down on his heels and onto his knees. His breath grew short.

  "Chei swears," Morgaine said, "there is—no other way in. In all their wars, in all their internal wars—no enemy can come at them, except by the highlands. And that, they rule utterly. Those lords are loyal."

  "God save us." He drew breath after breath. "Liyo, —turn back. Turn back, give this more time. We can find a way—"

  "Those lords are loyal, Vanye. And the south cannot stand against them. I have thought of it. I have thought of pulling back to Morund and trying to take the south—but it could not hold. This whole southern region is a sink, Mante's midden-heap—it is where they send their exiles. It is where they breed their human replacements." She went on drawing. "Herot, Sethys, Stiyesse, Itheithe, Nenais—I forget the other names. Here, here, here—this is a vast land. And I do not doubt this Skarrin set the World-gate purposely on Morund. Perpetually on Morund, in the case any intruder, any rebel, any rival—should attempt him. Here, below these cliffs, this rift in the world—lie Men; and his exiles. Here above, across all this continent—lie the qhalur lands. There is irony in this. We knew our young guide was abysmally incapable of reckoning a day's ride—"

  "Or lied to us."

  "—had never traveled much in all his life, except the hills, except forest trails and winding roads. Straight distances bewildered him. He lived his life in so small a place. And he did not know anything beyond it. The distance between Morund and Herot, is less than he thought. Sethys and Stiyesse abut against marsh he did not know existed. These are little places. These are holds humans once had. Qhal have moved in, those exiled, those out of favor—like Qhiverin, who became Gault. The south has no resource against the north, not if the north realized its danger. And by now, since Tejhos—Skarrin does, though Chei does swear—for what it is worth—that he did not tell Skarrin our purpose here. That is the only grace we may have, if we can believe it."

  He leaned his hands on his knees and bowed his head a moment. "We should have gone to Morund, the way you wanted to. We would have learned this. We could have dealt with whatever we found there—whatever we found there. This is my fault, liyo, it is all my—"

  "It was my decision. It was my judgment. Do not be so cursed free with blame. It is still my decision, and all of this may be wrong. Chei has the notion we can come close before they will take alarm."

  "With our horses—"

  "Or his. That roan of his is no unremarkable beast, in itself. No, they will surely know us: they will have gotten the description from their watchers afield. It is a question of keeping them uncertain what we intend." She looked at the ground in front of her and seemed lost for a moment. "Chei says if they have thrown no great number of men into the field since yesterday, they are taking a cautious path. He talked at some length o
f his own difficulties with his Overlord—he was high-born, was a member of a martial order that lost its influence at court: disastrously for him, though more so for others. Connections saved his life and sent him to Morund, to redeem himself, if ever he could—The arrangement by which human lords were permitted to rule in the south was collapsing, on evidence of human Gault's complicity with the rebels in Mante—that was how they lured the original Gault into their trap: and sentenced him and Qhiverin to one conjoined existence—on that point Qhiverin's friends intervened virtually to kidnap Gault from his jailers and coerce the gate-wardens to join them, to forestall enemies who would have preferred not to have Qhiverin at Morund."

  "Where he served their interests well enough—" "So he has done. So he fully intended to come home, someday. Except—as thee says, possibly we could have persuaded him to go against his lord from the beginning. He says so. Certainly he is quick enough to commit treason. I do not know. At least—he has had some little credit with Skarrin for setting affairs in the south in order, if, as he says, they do not take that for too much success, and if his connections in Mante have not lost all influence. That we have arrived in the south without a force about us—that they have lost contact with him, whom they do not trust, under uncertain circumstances, after he has faithfully sent them a report from Tejhos and seemed, there, under the witness of the wardens there, to be fighting us—all of this, he thinks, might create some debate among Skarrin's advisers. The question is whether we should attempt stealth—or bewilder them further. Recall that there is one way in, that we must pass within that, that thing they call Seiyyin Neith, the Gate of Exiles, and within this league-wide pit of stone, that they call Death's-gate—they can kill us with a thought. As you did say: a man who thinks he is winning—will not flee."

  "No, he will send us straightway to Hell, liyo, and we will hardly see it coming!"

  "Chei will get us to Exile's Gate. There is where they will be vulnerable."

  "God in Heaven, are we leaning on this man's word?" She lifted her eyes to him. "This man—wants to live. So do the men with him. Did I not say I trusted him more than honest men? They have no cause, no cause for which they would give up their lives. Skarrin cannot promise them anything they would believe. Not as deeply as they have tangled themselves. They know that."