by David Drake
“Do you come from the Mistress?” he called. He was trying to be threatening; his voice was powerful, but his appearance wasn't up to the job. “If you do, then go away now! We watch the Gate and want nothing to do with your false God!”
Alecto halted on the path and held up two flight feathers she'd saved from the wings of the grouse she'd charmed down for the past night's dinner. She muttered a spell. There was a gleam of blue wizardlight.
A complete image of the grouse flapped out of her hand and flew toward a giant chestnut growing among the houses. It was an impressive proof of her skill, though Alecto lost control before the image reached a branch. There was another flash, and the two feathers fluttered slowly down.
Alecto staggered. Ilna stepped around her, and said, “We don't worship any Mistress. Her priests were hunting for us. Our skills tell us we can find safety here.”
She gestured back to her companion. Alecto had recovered from the effort of her spell, but she didn't try to push Ilna out of the way again.
“Help us, and we can help you!” Ilna said.
The four leaders held a quick conclave, looking down at the strangers and back to their fellows. The priest tried to meet Ilna's eyes, but only for a moment.
More men had come out of the woods, though the whole population of the village couldn't have been as great as that of Barca's Hamlet. The younger children in the fields now stood close to their mothers; older ones had drifted into pairs and trios. All of them stared at Ilna and Alecto.
The priest turned to Ilna again. The bowman tucked the arrow he'd nocked through his sash, where he carried three others. The men beside him rested the heads of their tools, an axe and a maul, on the ground.
“Greetings, wizards!” the priest said. “We of the Gate are always glad to have visitors, so long as they behave as befits strangers in our land. We'll feast on kid in your honor tonight, and you'll sleep in the temple for as long as you stay with us.”
The man with the axe, a cadaverous fellow standing a head taller than anyone else in the village, frowned and muttered in the priest's ear. The priest frowned back and snapped, “This is my decision, Pletnav!”
Bowing apologetically to Ilna, he explained, “Mistress wizard, some of us here at the Gate don't believe in taking the life of any animal. I'm Arthlan or-Wassti, Gatekeeper and Priest of the God, though, and I decree that it's perfectly proper to kill and eat a kid for you.”
Arthlan's expression changed to something between concerned and hopeful. “Ah, that is—unless you wizard mistresses refrain from eating meat yourselves?”
“Refrain?” said Alecto with a delighted chortle. “You try me, Arthlan! And you'd better make it two kids if anybody else plans to get some. I've been hiking all day, and I'm not half-hungry!”
“Very well,” said Arthlan. “Oyra—”
He glanced over to the woman who'd come out of the house beside the temple. She was as plump as the priest but scarcely half his age.
“—take a kid from my own herd. One of the kids.”
The woman pursed her lips and spoke in a voice too low for Ilna to follow the words. The people here had a nasal accent quite different from the lilt of people in Barca's Hamlet and different also from the clipped tones of Donelle.
“Yes, woman!” the priest said. “The whole village will share!”
He glared around at his neighbors. “After our guests and ourselves have eaten, of course,” he added, his tone becoming less agitated with each syllable. By the end of the short sentence, Arthlan sounded as smoothly cheerful as he'd been before the question of expense arose.
“I'm Ilna os-Kenset,” Ilna said, “and I'd prefer you call me Ilna in the future. My companion Alecto—”
She wasn't sure whether Alecto's folk didn't use the father's name in their formal address or if the wild girl simply hadn't bothered ever to tell her.
“—and I were driven from Donelle, as I said, by the priests of this Mistress. You're offering to put us up in the temple?”
Maybe Alecto didn't know her father.
The villagers were beginning to shift, not dispersing but rather clumping together in groups which whispered with animation among themselves, all the time watching the strangers. Occasionally someone would leave one gathering and trot over to another a furlong away. The scattered nature of the community meant there was no common meeting place like the square in front of the inn in Barca's Hamlet.
“Why yes,” Arthlan said. “Would you like to see the building? It's very comfortable, I'm sure you'll find.”
“I'll get bedding,” said the man with the axe. He shouldered it, and said to the bowman, “You too, Gorlan. You've got a coverlet extra since Magda moved in with Peese, haven't you?”
“Sure, show us this place,” Alecto said, eyeing the temple with hesitation. “But it may be I'll sleep in the woods again tonight. I don't...”
Her voice trailed off. “I don't like stone buildings,” might have been the way she'd planned to finish the sentence; though Ilna suspected that in truth the wild girl had never seen a building of dressed stone before she saw Donelle. “Anyway, maybe I'll sleep in the woods.”
“Oh, that won't be necessary,” the priest said, gesturing them to follow as he waddled to the temple. The trail was broad enough for two people to walk abreast. Most of the other tracks had room for only one set of feet, and those had to be placed carefully to the side of the still-narrower trench goat hooves had worn in the middle over the decades. “You'll see.”
“Who do you worship here?” Ilna asked. She didn't believe in the Great Gods, but there were forces with power over men whether or not they were Gods. She'd known that long before she saw the congregation in Donelle raise the Pack. If these folk had similar rites, then she wasn't going to stay to watch them.
“Who?” repeated Arthlan. “Well, God, mistress.”
The priest looked back over his shoulder at her with an expression of puzzlement. “God was placed here on Earth to guard the entrance to Hell, preventing the foul spirits of the Underworld from walking among mankind.”
The temple had a heavy wooden door with two outward-opening leaves. Both were swung back; they didn't appear to have been closed in years or decades. The porch floor and the threshold slab were worn by the use of ages.
Arthlan stepped inside. The doorway was low; the priest didn't duck, but Ilna—no taller than he but less familiar with the passage—did out of instinct. The only furnishings were the stone benches built into either sidewall. Instead of a back wall, a natural cave plunged into the depths of the hill. It narrowed swiftly, but Ilna couldn't see the end of it as she bent to look in.
“Where's your God?” she asked, doubtful and therefore suspicious. “Don't you have a statue in here?”
Arthlan drew himself up with more dignity than Ilna had thought the plump little man possessed. “Mistress,” he said, “we don't worship a statue. There's no place for images here at the Gate of Hell. Our God is real.”
“I'm sorry,” said Ilna, folding her hands behind her. “I misspoke. It won't happen again.”
She was sorry; furious with herself, in fact. She believed in very little, and most of that was negative, but she had no business discounting other people's faith simply because she had none of her own.
Alecto entered, scratching her ribs under the wolfskin cape. She ran her left hand over the back wall, smiling at the feel of the natural rock. “Why didn't you say it was a cave?” she said cheerfully. “I've slept in caves before.”
Like Ilna, she squatted to peer down the cave's throat. Frowning, she pinched up dust from the floor and released it. The dust fell straight; there were no air currents, in or out of the cave.
“Has anybody gone down that?” Alecto asked the priest as she stood. “It's big enough for a man back as far as I can see.”
“It's not a place for men, mistress,” Arthlan said with the same stiff dignity. “Only God and demons can go through the Gate.”
“There's water d
own there,” Ilna said, nodding toward the opening because she didn't care to point. “I can smell it in the air.”
“Perhaps there is, mistress,” Arthlan said, “but I wouldn't know that. We draw our water from the spring beside Taenan's house. We'll provide you with a bucket of it; more, if you'd like.”
Ilna stepped back onto the porch. A number of women were coming from both directions, struggling up the slope under loads of bedding and spruce branches.
Ilna frowned at the latter, then realized they must be meant for mattresses. People slept on feather beds in the palace, but what she'd expected here were leather cases stuffed with straw like those of Barca's Hamlet. Springy boughs should be comfortable so long as the blanket over them was thick enough that the needles didn't poke through.
Alecto kicked one of the side benches. The front of it was mortared stone, but the back was cut from the living rock. “Suits me,” she said. “Now, how about some of that food you were offering a bit ago?”
Arthlan bowed low. “We'll eat at my house,” he said. He gestured the wild girl out of the temple ahead of him. “The goat won't have seethed yet, but we can begin with porridge.”
Ilna paused to examine the temple doors. The panels were thick, made of mortised boards. The hinges were hardwood. They hadn't been used in some time, but they were sturdy; so was the crossbar leaning against the interior wall.
She and Alecto should be able to sleep safely tonight, even if the villagers were more hostile than there was any reason to believe.
* * *
Garric rose from where he'd been sitting on the millipede's head. The driver had given no signal that it was aware of Garric's presence; neither did it show that it knew he'd left it to walk back past Metron to the second segment and the others waiting.
Thalemos would have joined him on the head, but Garric had wanted some time alone. He'd faced out over the creature's course, but he was looking into his own mind.
The driver had no more intruded on Garric's thoughts than the millipede itself had. The Archa's middle arms occasionally touched either the spike or the feather of its wand to the thin, flexible chitin connecting the millipede's head to its first body segment. Garric couldn't see any change in the creature's course, but presumably the driver knew its business. It knew better than Garric did, at any rate.
Metron was alert again, sitting cross-legged on the first segment. He looked up from his reading, this time a vellum scroll instead of the codex he'd had out before. His eyes met Garric's; then, with a deliberate lack of expression, he went back to the scroll.
The snub angered Garric more than he'd have expected. Instead of walking past with a nod as he'd expected to, he stopped, and said, “Master Metron. How long are we going to be on this creature's back?”
Metron looked up angrily. Fatigue and danger had taken their toll on the wizard's temper. “That depends on matters I can't be sure of without expending more effort than I choose to do,” he said. “I'll inform you when we arrive.”
“That's as may be,” Garric said, raising his voice slightly. “But since you're ignorant, then we need to stop now to get water and perhaps food. Will you inform the driver, or shall I find a way to communicate with him myself?”
“Are you—” Metron said. He caught himself when Garric shifted his stance. The sight motion, not quite a threat, drew the wizard's attention to the man he spoke to. A moment before he'd been taking everyone but himself as mere pawns to be moved at his will.
“That is...” Metron covered smoothly, letting the scroll slip closed in his lap. “Master Gar, I don't know precisely how far we must proceed, but we should reach it in a few hours at most. I hope you and your colleagues can do without water for that long.”
He gestured with both hands. “I assure you, time is of the essence,” he added. “Not only for the success of our endeavors, but for our very survival. We've escaped one set of dangers, but this place has many others. The sooner we're out of it, the better.”
Garric said nothing for a moment. Part of him wanted to hang the oily little worm upside down over empty air and listen to him beg for his life. That was pointless, though. It wouldn't remove Echeon from the throne of Laut, and it wouldn't bring back Tint... .
“I'll take it under advisement with my fellows and Lord Thalemos,” Garric said coldly, turning his back on the wizard. “We'll inform you of our decision.”
It was petty to leave Metron worrying about something Garric had no intention of carrying through on, but Garric needed some release for his anger. He walked across the quivering, chitinous joint, then up onto the next broad hoop of armor to rejoin the watching Brethren.
Ten of the bandits had made it this far. None of the survivors had wounds that they seemed to regard as serious; not even Hame's slashed arm was incapacitating. They watched Garric's approach with a mixture of fear and hope.
“So, lad,” Vascay said. “Any news for us?”
Garric shrugged. “A few hours,” he said. “Perhaps less. That one"—he twitched his head back toward Metron—“wasn't sure." He paused, then added, “I think Metron is telling the truth that far, at least.”
Thalemos grimaced unhappily. “I've just been telling your, your Brethren, Master Gar,” he said, “that I have no more idea than you do about what Metron intends. He told me that I'd wed a noblewoman from Tisamur, and that she and I between us would overcome the power of the Intercessors. This, though...”
Thalemos looked momentarily hopeful. “Her name is Lady Tilphosa bos-Pholial,” he said. “Perhaps you gentlemen have heard of her?”
“How could we hear about somebody from Tisamur, when nobody's been off Laut in the thousand years since the Intercessors took over?” Ademos said peevishly.
Vascay looked at Garric with a raised eyebrow.
“I've never heard of her,” Garric said, answering the unspoken question. “On any of the places I've been.”
“As it chances,” said Vascay carefully, “I may have heard the name. On Serpent's Isle, where we were looking for the ring our wizard friend has now.”
“There wasn't nobody on that place but us, chief,” Toster said. The big man furrowed his brow like a fresh-turned field. “And more snakes than the Sister's dungeon has!”
“Yes, but there were statue bases, Brother Toster,” Vascay said. “One of them read Thalemos, Earl of Laut”—he nodded to the youth in friendly fashion—“and Brother Gar found the rest of the statue with the ring. Eh?”
“Yes,” said Garric, trying vainly to dredge detail from Gar's fuddled memories. Garric or-Reise hadn't been present when the base was found; to Gar it must have been no more than another block of stone in a place that had too many of them already.
“A statue of me on Serpent's Isle?” Thalemos said in amazement. “But... I thought everything there was ancient and in ruins?”
“Aye, so it is,” Vascay agreed, “and the statue was of an age with the rest, judging by the way the marble was pitted. But that's neither here nor there.”
Which wasn't quite true, Garric thought, glancing in the direction of Metron. The wizard watched intently, obviously fearful that the bandits and his ward were planning to overturn his desires with brute strength. He gave Garric a broad, false smile when their eyes met.
Thalemos was genuinely surprised to hear what the ruins on Serpent's Isle really were. That meant that he was as innocent—as ignorant—of Metron's plans as he claimed to be. Knowing that didn't change the way Garric felt about the wizard, but it gave him reason to trust Thalemos.
Vascay went on, “Across the porch from where we found the one of you—”
He grinned at Thalemos. Garric had seen enough of the bandit chief to realize there really was humor in his expression. In another world, Vascay would have been an excellent schoolteacher. Of course, in another world Garric or-Reise would be managing the family inn in Barca's Hamlet.
“—was a second, the base and the legs besides; though the stone was rotted to a couple sticks. Enough
of the base had been protected by clay that I could read the first part of the legend: T-i-l-p-h-o.”
He shrugged. “I didn't bother worrying about the rest; it wasn't what Master Metron had sent us to find, that's all it meant to me. But it seems it might've meant something to you, eh, lad?”
Thalemos looked from Vascay to Metron, then beyond the wizard to take in the forest of giant grass and brambles through which the millipede paced.
“Yes,” the youth said, “it must. But may the Lady forsake my soul if I know what it is!”
“I don't understand any of this!” said Toster; and Garric smiled, because he was so perfectly in agreement with the big man.
Tilphosa's wrists were covered with a poultice of mashed comfrey, attached by dock leaves tied on with string twisted from a birch tree's inner bark. It'd given Cashel an extra degree of pleasure to use vegetation the way men were meant to use it, knowing that the Helpers'd be in screaming despair if they could watch him.
Cashel had nothing against plants, any more than he had against the sky or the sea lapping the beach back home. But he knew what a tree's place in the universe was, and he wasn't bragging when he figured that his own place was higher than that.
Tilphosa bent and swept a pebble from between her right foot and her sandal. Cashel had stopped to make bark footgear for her as soon as he figured they'd gotten beyond where the Helpers might be willing to follow them. He wasn't afraid of the little people any more than he was afraid of Meas or-Monklin's kicking ox. They both could be nasty if you weren't careful, though, so Cashel was careful in his dealings with either one.
“Want to hold up here for a while?” Cashel asked.
“No, no,” the girl said, skipping to put herself a half step in front to prove her ability to go on. “There's another house just ahead, I see.”
“Right,” said Cashel, wishing he could put more enthusiasm into his agreement. They'd seen half a dozen huts since they reached this road at midday. Seen the huts and walked onward, at the insistence of the people living there.
